Doomscrolling news headlines can make me feel depressed.
I’ve added a community to my subscriptions to counteract the negativity. Check it out !upliftingnews@lemmy.world
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I used to read the headlines on Slashdot during downtime at work, but then I noticed my mental health starting to suffer. Had to stop. Also had to stop watching the Daily Show or anything about politics.
Open source projects as proof that universally collaborative work can strive.
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Do you mean thrive?
Yeah, that. My bad lol
Despite the drama, Lemmy, and despite the continued dominance of proprietary software, the FOSS movement in general. I’ve been absolutely blown away with my reintroduction to Linux. And I’ve finally started getting job interviews. I’m starting to feel okay for the first time in a long time.
Lately? There has been negative news since forever. That’s what people interested in and that what’s generates clicks.
It’s in my hands how I react to my environment. And I can’t change other people. Knowing this and considering where the humanity is now, I’m pretty hopeful for the future.
It’s a slim hope for humanity but a real one. We’re approaching 80 years without a nuclear war.
In 1945, we dropped atomic bombs on two cities in the closing of a big fat war. Since then, countless states decided they too needed nukes, because on the international stage it’s still about power and not ethics.
But nukes have been in the hands of idiots, genuses, cold calculators and red hot fanatics. And yet not a one launched in aggression.
The Trump administration revealed a thing, that its the underlings, the deep state that has made sure that every close call only got close, but the last switches never got connected. It’s the rest of us, on whom war hawks and capitalist plutocrats depend who can delay, obstruct or sabotage the self destructive tendencies of our masters.
It’s no guarantee we’ll survive the climate crisis, the plastic crisis or the rising takeover of the transnational white power movement. But that’s where the good guys have power to change the course of history.
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Have you ever read Command and Control by Eric Schlosser? I’ve never read anything that made feel so terrified and hopeful at the same time. The number of close calls (that we know about) that we’ve had but, cooler heads (or random chance) saved us at the last moment is both horrifying and grounds for having a fair amount of faith in most people to do the right thing with these things. Of course, the amount of times we were saved by random ass chance is absolutely terrifying.
Prozac helped tremendously. Seriously though, without it I wouldn’t be here. So I’m thankful for doctors and drugs that actually work and which can make you feel better about merely existing for the time being, and enable you to enjoy what little pleasures you may be lucky enough to have.
I rejoice in the fact that my kids still want to give me hugs.
I have faith in my childrens’ ability for compassion, and am proud of how they and their fellow kids at school demonstrate that compassion for each other. Their generation is infinitely better than ours was. They’re just nicer people. And that’s what truly gives me hope.
Perspective, really.
I’ve no hopes for humanity or our collective future. I don’t believe I’ll retire, or even live to the point where I’ll be able to retire. I’m kind of 50/50 on society even still being around by the time I retire.
But, I’m moving next week. I’m very excited for that. The new area is lovely. There’ll be a dog park pretty much right outside the door, and we’ll be able to go for walkies next to a lovely lake. There’s also a huge forest area nearby. So I tend to think of the immediate future and “live in the moment” so to speak because the future is going to be rubbish, and hopefully I won’t be around to see it.
This here is the light of my life.
I found Lemmy when Reddit went to pot. That’s a small good thing.
Finding Lemmy, in turn, made me more aware of online privacy and got me to read a lot of tech news. Considering the age we’re in, that can’t be bad at all.
They fact that there’s always been a lot of negative news and world ending crisises throughout history. Everyone always feels were in the end times but we keep making it through. Not only that, we consistently get through it and make things better in the process.
There are broken parts to the world but we are objectively better off now than at any other time in history.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by bad news, it’s time to adjust your news intake.
“we are objectively better off now than at any other time in history.”
Is that true? Not here in the UK… It’s almost impossible to get an NHS dentist now so people are living in pain. My parent’s generation were the last to easily be able to buy a house. The climate has changed very rapidly (I experienced 40°C heat in my city last year which is unheard of. It was 32°C yesterday which used to be unheard of but is now quite normal). I couldn’t afford to heat my home last winter, even though I earn a decent wage. We have asylum seekers crossing the channel in thousands because their homes are unlivable. This isn’t like any other time in history, we already peaked.
I guess the world really is ending then. No one in history has had it as bad as you, I’m so sorry.
That isn’t what I said - I’m disputing your point that this is the best it’s ever been.
Right, you’re disputing it with your own personal experience. I can’t argue with that so I concede the point, no one has ever had it as bad as you. 30 years ago everyone could afford to heat their homes and go to the dentist and there were no migrants. This era is the dark recessed pit of humanity, woe to us who shall only ever see the shadow cast by the peaceful, prosperous generations who came before us!
Nope, re-read my comment and you’ll see I haven’t said that at all.
This is a bit of a faulty reasoning though. Just because something happened in history doesn’t mean it has to happen again. Especially if we wouldn’t have been here if the worst happened. If nuclear war happened and destroyed human civilization, with most, if not all, humans dying off in the aftermath, then we wouldn’t have been born and here talking about it.
And there have been very bad parts to history. For example, being a Jew or other minority in Germany during the second World War (or most of anyone really, it was a world war). That might as well have been the end of the world for many. And we also didn’t just get through tough times by itself, people worked hard to change things.
The part about the broken things, they may destroy the objectively good progress that has been made if they are not handled. And things won’t get fixed by themselves.
The worst part about this trend of doomerism is how it feeds on it itself, denying all hope despite evidence to the contrary.
One day I will die
I focus on the good news, like a lot of medical breakthrough stuff. I just heard researchers think they’re close to a cancer treatment pill that will target only the cancer cells.
And the recent breakthrough in an artificial kidney! Only a very small fraction of kidney failure patients get transplants each year and this would be a game changer for the thousands who don’t. Plus no immunosuppressants and a much more normal life? Amazing!
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For me personally the momentum of the neurodiversity movement makes me hopeful that society can change to be more inclusive and accepting of neurodivergent people. I’m also hopeful that a lot of the normative structures that have hurt so many groups of people will continue to be challenged and society becomes more accepting of all forms of diversity.
Wait, what movement? The only thing I see is that there’s slightly more awareness that neurodiverse is a thing. But I don’t see that leading to more inclusivity.
I would recommend looking up the work of Nick Walker. Neuroqueer Heresies is an amazing book and addresses all of your questions.
The preponderance of evidence is that humans are generally, good, kind and helpful (most of the time). Our evolutionary superpower is fucking cooperation!
I genuinely believe that - in spite of the if-it-bleeds-it-leads news cycle - humanity is rising to the challenges of our time.
Our time is hard, but there are so many people working to improve the world. They don’t get into the news cycle, but they’re out there.
Mr Rogers related a story about his mother, who told him that when he saw disasters on TV, to remember to “look for the Helpers.” They’re always there. No matter how bad things get, the Helpers seem to come out of the woodwork whenever aid is needed. Look for them.
Extremophilic prokaryotes. Stargazing. Organisms that digest plastic.
Fewer people in abject poverty every decade, fewer people malnourished every decade, fewer deaths from preventable disease every decade, more access to information for more people every decade- to name a few.
Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106026)
- The common notion that extreme poverty is the “natural” condition of humanity and only declined with the rise of capitalism rests on income data that do not adequately capture access to essential goods.
- Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
- The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
- In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered.
- Where progress has occurred, significant improvements in human welfare began only around the 20th century. These gains coincide with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements.
Keeping people just healthy enough to not die usually works fine. Big diseases like the COVID19 pandemic disrupt the gobal economy and supply chains, which slims profits. In this mode of just healthy enough to expand profits “fewer deaths from preventable disease every decade” is a given. But true prevention of health issues through rigorous environmental conservation and enforced protection and offering free, extensive and immediate healthcare to all citizens just will not happen.
To your last point: “more access to information for more people every decade” - true, but that doesn’t mean anything if people having access to this vast amount of information do not have had lessons (and need to be constantly reminded of them) in critical thinking towards media consumpion. This tabula rasa approach to letting people use the internet is just ripe to be exploited by phsychological manipulators, as we can observe on a daily basis.
Sorry to be the pedantic one, given then topic of this thread, but the points you named coincide with the talking points of status quo advocates and can all be proven to be untrue or misdirecting at the least.
