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.
Jinxed it!
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.
One day I will die
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.
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.
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.
“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.
The worst part about this trend of doomerism is how it feeds on it itself, denying all hope despite evidence to the contrary.
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.
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.
– cycles. Not that kind. Today’s swerve toward conservatives, isolations, hatred, is just backlash to too much change. It’ll come around again. Progress is inevitable
– technology. To the extent technology can help reduce climate change, it’s finally happening. I do expect to see all electric vehicles on the road in my lifetime. I do expect to see mostly renewable energy generation. It may be too little too late to escape negative effects, but we finally have technology working with us and adoption is sjkyrocketing. Even in the US
— walkable cities are desirable again. I live in one. Yes, in the US
Hey there. Was just curious on your opinion on this…
How do you think EVs can become more accessible to people living in apartments at the like? I’d seriously consider an EV if I could charge it at night, but I can’t feasibly do that where I live. I’d have to drive over to a charging station and pay to charge my car for a few hours (unless you’re lucky enough to have a fast charging station nearby, but even then it takes orders of magnitude longer than filling up at the pump). I think it’s probably one of the bigger barriers to more widespread EV adoption imo and I don’t know of a great solution to it.
I live in semi-rural Quebec. I can either drive to a place about 5 minutes from my home and charge for a few dollars, takes about 5 hours. Park and rides also have charging stations so going to Montreal means I can charge during the work day. I only use my car like twice a week when I need to visit family or go to the office, so your mileage may vary.
The real solution for about 75% of people isn’t EV, it’s public transportation and proper bike infrastructure/bike shares/mixed use neighborhoods/density. That is especially true for people living in places dense enough to have apartments. An EV is nice, but it is a patch, not a fix. Not needing a car is the fix. Cities just can’t afford to have one car per 2-3 person.
Not needing a car would be ideal, but less likely for rural or semi-rural areas.
However
— if you have off street parking, we need to incent the owner/association to add chargers. Some of that will happen naturally as EV become more common, but that takes time
— the park-n-ride charger is a great start, but what if you could also top off at work, at groceries, at the shopping center, at theme parks: plug in everywhere you go? It could be slow charging, inexpensive, scalable, and not taking extra time beyond the primary reason you’re there: the goal could be to simply replace the charge used to get there
Oh some groceries have them. One even has a free setup. Just park there and recover like 5km worth of charge while doing groceries, but I forgot they exist because I don’t do my groceries in a car. Funny enough, the bicycle shop has a plug too. Government is paying part of the cost for home chargers but I just temporarily live in a friend’s basement so that’s not ideal for me.
So that’s a great start but they need to be everywhere. It will never be enough to charge an EV, but if it’s ubiquitous enough, you can change your goal from charging to simply replacing that used by the errand
I’d say investments for public transportation infrastructure is needed, especially for high density areas. But you do make good points. We really need to move away from car-centric thinking.
Realistically most people don’t need to charge often, most of the time. I have a friend living in a townhouse where there are no chargers, who recently got a Tesla. During a normal week, with normal commuting and errands, he goes to a supercharger about once a week to top off. Yes, it’s not convenient or as cheap as home charging and he’s there for 30-60 minutes but it is doable
In the case of apartment or condo complexes, where there is off-street parking, they can have chargers. The question is how you incent them to. I think that requires two parts: government incentives to help reduce the costs, and demand. Once there is a sufficient number of BEVs on the road and they see more requests, they see they lose money without chargers, they will add them. While BEVs are rare, or they dint risk losing money, why would they spend their money?
I’m not sure how to handle places with street parking, but there are several possibilities. It‘s probably a matter of pursuing all of them, including transit alternatives , since none will be ideal
Actually nothing.
I don’t let external events impact my personal life. Only stress about things you can control. If the world blows up in nuclear war, so be it. Until then, I’m chugging along, enjoying the ride.
I’m hopeful that with the advance of technology there comes significant societal and political changes that will result in a more equitable society. It might get better before it gets worse, if history is any teacher, but there’s potential for great things.
This is a healthy mindset. Focusing on things you cannot change will lead to distress. I imagine the kava may help too. 😉
It certainly doesn’t hurt! lol I’m headed to the kava bar soon
Generic vyvanse that I can afford.
Humankind will disappear and hearth will evolve to better. This is not pessimistic not optimistic, I just believe life is a continuous evolution. Hard to believe humans are the last step or we’re so important to last forever.
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The growing hate for billionaires by the people, the growing manifestations of desire for equality from minorities in the west, South Korea and Japan starting to make peace because they can agree on the China problem. Also I can see how things changed in 30 years and can tell that within 5 years we have the ability to completely upend the world if we need to. Humans are so adaptable that we don’t even notice how fast we’re changing our world and ourselves.
While the world is a broken, unfair place, it’s my hope that it doesn’t have to stay that way.
We are all human, nothing lasts forever, but it also means that the world is capable of change. it makes me hopeful that by acknowledging that things doesn’t have to be the way it is, we will finally make an effort to change for the better during our short time on this Earth.
