Has the system finally cracked? Have the wealthy and powerful simply taken so much leaving the rest of us grasping at our very survival, easily manipulated into turning against other groups and even each other in an attempt to make sense of it all? Is society destined to destroy itself or descend into eternal servitude to our masters? How do we get out of this spiral of madness?
We’re humans. The end is always near, we’ve spent the last dozen eons or more basically failing upwards and constantly surviving the disasters we subject ourselves to. We’re the funniest act this side of the Milky Way, and it’s not going to stop just because we’re starting to notice what a mess we are.
All of history was a shitshow. There was not one century this side of the invention of agriculture where we didn’t commit war crimes. Hell, it took us thousands of years to come up with the idea of war crimes, the very idea that killing and enslaving everyone and salting their earth might not be super cool.
We suck, but it has worked out so far. Humanity is like cockroaches. We’ll manage. Badly, suffering, but we’ll manage.
Try to see humans the way elephants see us. We’re just these silly little fellas, you know?
So there’s no hope that we collectively decide that we need to get out of this together?
If you want the world to be some kind of way, your best hope is to be that kind of way and hope it catches on. Get yourself to a better place. If you’re keeping company with people who aren’t onboard with that, it will hold you back.
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Been rereading Vonnegut, a hero of mine, the last two weeks. Stunning to see him outline the exact same societal and environmental ills back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.
OTOH, we hadn’t drove our ecosystems off a cliff until recently.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the average size of monitored wildlife populations has declined by 73% since 1970.
Oligarchy is nothing compared what’s in store due to global warming. These are the good times…
We’ve been in this situation before. People lose their heads over it.
No. No. No. What?
I welcomed globalisation. But it seems to have been twisted by the right wing into ‘immigrants taking our limited jobs’ and now into ‘deport the migrants/ lock the borders’ rethoric. Would this have happened with more equitable distribution of wealth? I frankly don’t know.
This happens every once in a while in history. The wealthy grow very wealthy and the poor realize they’re being used and chop off a few heads or descend into lots of wars or whatever and then the cycle starts again. Don’t worry it’s not the end of humanity itself but it very often signals the end of an empire.
See: the feudal ages/french revolution or the end of the roman empire
It is more difficult to change course after you pass a turning point, but never impossible. Even if we have passed it, we need to keep working to improve the situation. The only certainty is that giving up will not make things better.
Google “The French Revolution”
I find it odd that there are a loud and large number of people who decry communism and socialism as failed theories – pointing to the ruins of various countries that have unsuccessfully implemented them – while pointedly ignoring the fact that capitalism is falling into the same problems: the ruling class (ie, ultra-rich) takes all, and the working class suffers from a rapidly widening wealth gap.
However, when you know that the media is owned by only a handful of billionaires to benefit from the system as it is, it starts making a lot more sense.
