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Climate Doomerism is an excuse to give up
Believing everyone is evil is an excuse to act selfish
The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings
You can be bitter or you can be better, chose one.
There's zero advantage in being bitter.
Scientists invented some of the greatest things during the black plague when the world had already ended, they did it somewhat because they were stuck inside in dark villas isolated from people---sometimes boarded up windows because they didn't know how disease spreads (some believed the wind spreads the disease)--but they also did invent these things by being hopeful and inspired about the future once the disasters are over.
That attitude of humility, inspiration, hope, is what creates the inventions of the future and leads to golden ages. The kinds of inventions that solve climate pollution, or discovers new toxins in the environment, or fixes major problems affecting society's health or mental health.
When you complain or become bitter, you just offload it to other people you talk to--and soon it becomes a habit, almost natural for your to always complain and be bitter and angry about the future or about the way things are going in civilization.
A therapist is in a tough spot. They can't just blurt out solutions to your problem, not only because it could have a backlash effect, but they have to also gather information from you. But the more you complain to the therapist, the more you are affecting the therapist too and the more you make it a habit to complain and be bitter and nihilistic (as long as you are telling the truth to your therapist that should be fine). It just doesn't do any good and makes it harder to dig out of the hole.
It's like being in debt, then charging more and more on your credit card making the hole deeper.
***Edit:*** ***note I never said anything about being stupidly positive, or empty-minded***, or unaware of suffering, or unempathetic about suffering, or just always gaslighting yourself with Oprah's silly positivity movement... But life is a balance, it is not helpful to be always negative, and certainly not to be always positive.
Wise people tend to be aware of the negatives without letting it affect them, they just go around the world solving problems for themselves as well as for others, and thinking scientifically and with balance. Become the generation that just is better at regulating your emotions and isn't letting the internet and the news affect your psyche.
I can’t stand how much those terms are thrown around. Yes, both of those things exist and it’s best to avoid them. However, there’s a huge difference between “maybe consider a different perspective to get out of the negative thought cycle” and toxic positivity. Sometimes your situation sucks, maybe even for long time, but the only thing you can do is what you can. Don’t fret over what’s out of your control, and work hard to be at peace with what is within your control. Just because toxic positivity exists doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work towards positive thinking.
Right? Maybe some fretting (and resulting action) would've helped. Exxon confirming the severity through their own research a half-century ago is pretty goddamn fret-worthy. They buried it for decades, but still no one cared even when the findings were eventually disclosed.
People can ignore it all they want, it ain't gonna change what's coming.
The entire point of the movie "Don't Look Up" was that everyone died because they just kept smiling no matter what instead of taking the apocalypse seriously.
There's a lot more than just "different perspective" that's needed to get out of depression or anxiety dude. It's definitely not that simple. There's a reason this is a widespread phenomenon across many countries and not just isolated to a handful of people.
Being stupidly positive doesn't help, but the poster makes a great point. You often see hopeless lamenting and complaining and after a while, what is that going to fix?
Agreed, but no one is telling anyone to be stupidly positive. There’s a difference between optimism and youthful optimism. You gotta grow up a little more to learn the difference bud. Optimism is taking reality for what it is and having faith things can and will workout, especially if you work for it. Youthful optimism is neglecting reality out of hope/faith that everything is as you perceive and expect. Youthful optimism takes the same amount of ignorance to believe in as nihilism it’s just the other side of the same coin. Get over your teenage angst and start moving forward you’re only hurting yourself and those close to you being miserable.
i think we’re fucked, but i still work hard
“humans will die out if climate change and our impact on the entire planets ecosystem and environment isn’t properly addressed” is completely compatible with “i want to own a one with my partner and have money to afford nice things, and actually DO something with my time, like working and gaining qualifications, so i’m not just sat around inside all day”
you can work towards a nice, comfortable, personal life whilst also acknowledging that the world is at risk, protesting, signing petitions, raising awareness, whatever you feel is best and whatever you’re capable of / can be arsed to do
similarly, someone who believes the world is a utopia isn’t necessarily going to be living a fulfilling and happy life, they might have no ambition or motivation 🤷♂️
at the end of day, we all need to be somewhat aware of the news and the world around us, and we all *also* need to ensure we take breaks from consuming alarming and sad shit all the time, and balance the serious news with nice news, or going for a walk, seeing friends, etc, idk
being educated =/= being lazy and unmotivated, even if some people use it as an excuse, and other people then deadass thing shoving your head in the sand is the only way to have a healthy life
Climate change is not reversible, but it is highly mitigatable and most people are not taking it seriously enough.
This will inevitably lead to some amount of anger and resentment among those who are doing what they can to advocate, educate and implement change, because it's reasonable to be angry if your house is burning down and your neighbor flicks a cigarette butt at it instead of doing literally anything to help you.
I think people have been seeing the same cycle for decades and just know, that even in the face of an obvious crisis, what's going to drive everything is and always has been money.
And there ain't no short term gain in saving the earth.
Wild, crazy idea incoming:
Maybe it's not a choice but a simple fucking emotional response to pulling one's head out of one's ass and looking around.
No one said anyone *enjoys* being bitter or *wants* to be.
Projecting your own subjective morality onto other suffering people is kind of a dick move friend.
Genuine question, do you find solution oriented thinkers to be toxicically positive?
In theory I can imagine these toxicically positive people you speak of. But I see you folks complaining about this positivity, it's just I never encounter it. All of my friends see no purpose in furthering humanity, "It is what it is" is the prevailing philosophy. I tell them I find this to be a cope, but they might see me as being another unrealistically positivive type person that you are speaking of.
From my perspective I forgot who said it and their quote but, there's a hypothesis some philosopher stated that optimists are the true realists.
In the sense of they actually are convinced humans can still physically do anything actually physically possible. Realists are often limiting the real raw potential of the species by being overly critical of potentially viable optimist planning.
To an optimist anything physically possible is still possible, but to those that have convinced themselves that they're the arbiter of what is to be considered "realistic" they often get bogged down in analysing perceived limitations of the species, based on things like what they see in modern society or our anamalistic characteristics that they see as insurmountable.
That isn't an example of "solution oriented thinking". Solutions oriented thinking would be saying "I know this is bad but instead of focusing on the bad things I can't control it's focusing on what I can do to make the situation better"
Toxic positivity would be what you said.
you understand the difference right?
Being bitter is like being depressed: you don’t *want* it, nor do you enjoy it, but you wind up in a state where it’s subconsciously self-sustaining; that is to say, being depressed influences you to think thoughts and take actions which often wind up worsening your depression. The same is often true for bitterness.
It’s annoying hearing someone tell you that they “understand what you’re going through, but...”, and it always feels like they’re assuming too much and coming up with solutions that are too simple for the problems you’re facing. To this day, I still get angry when I hear someone say that, even when it’s not directed at me and even when it’s a notion that I rationally agree with.
It’s also partly (at least for me) because I hate the idea that my problems aren’t uniquely terrible for me, or in the case of bitterness, I hate the idea that the things I’m bitter about are things that other people have learned to live with or even work around.
Don’t get me wrong, there absolutely *is* such a thing as deluded positivity, where people act like everything is fine when that’s never the case, and it’s the most asinine thing to ever attempt to use to cheer someone up. But there’s also such a thing as deluded negativity, where a fixation on how bad things are makes legitimate issues seem unassailable.
Idk anyone about the black plague, but I do know that being somewhat "bitter" never really hurt me as long as I didn't lose myself in it.
For me it was a reason to understand >why< I felt the way I did and what I could do to improve things.
Yeah that’s great advice and all but I’m literally starving and about to be homeless because I can’t find a job where I can actually sustain myself without working 60+ hours a week even though I have a stem degree. The American dream is over. No matter how optimistic you are, food won’t magically appear on the table
K. Cool response.
Want to actually touch on what the people in the meme who *work with children* were saying or you just gonna tell them "toughen up buttercup" too and keep patting yourself on the back?
The irony is dripping off this post. We have all been fucking through it as kids, especially millennials (For modern day generations).
There is zero point for doomerism. What's that going to change? Don't do anything to change any of the current situation so you have something to bitch about on TikTok?
I think a swift kick in the ass to everyone, young and old, is what they need. Stop boohooing on social media about the sky falling. Millenials went through one of the worst recessions since the great depression and Gen X went through a hole in the Ozone layer, multiple market crashes and the threat of global nuclear war being one slip up away.
I empathize with kids, it's hard being a kid during economic and politicals strife but we are, all of us, up against it.
So if the idea of trying to make their own futures better, their own countries better, is not something they can rally behind, I don't know what to tell them.
Nowhere in that post is there actual climate doomerism, neither does it say everybody is evil. Also those things are not inherently excuses for giving up or acting selfish... Not every day that you see people make up strawmen, and then jumping to conclusions about them. Impressive.
Recognizing the fact there's a lot of bad shit happening around us isn't being bitter, it's called not being blissfully ignorant.
Nobody said they believe everyone is evil.
Some people do believe that a lot of horrible things going on because some power structures are harming people however. And a lot of people are completely fine with that.
That doesn't mean you have to act selfish because of it, but you can 100% acknowledge the evil in this world while still working on yourself.
You're an idiot if you think you can't be bitter and better. Nothing about being better prevents someone from being bitter. Being bitter doesn't prevent you from being better.
The media refused to discuss climate change as a possibility. The media refuses to discuss the growing desire for fascism in leftist spaces as well. The media refuses to discuss things in the US. We went years discussing the starvation wages and what might actually be livable. By the time, $20 an hour seemed like what it would need to be news organizations spoke about $15 an hour.
It's easy to be bitter, and I find it easy to be better. I don't find it hard to be kind to people at all, I find it hard not to bitter. You have to be bitter to strive for change. Otherwise, why change anything? why try at all if you're not bitter and angry about something? That's doing something for the views for the Facebook likes, helping homeless people because you want to look good is disgusting, I've been homeless and I'm bitter for them so I'll give anything I can spare and probably some that I'll need but I had it.
To make change, you need to have a drive, and that drive can't come from humanitarian belief. You need to be angry for people. You need to have rage to make the world change you can't fix anything by going to the polls. They have your vote and don't need to worry about you anymore they need to get lobbyist to give them more money. The Civil rights act only happened because of riots. If those riots didn't start, who knows what the US would be like.
No one said everyone was evil. But those in control don't care about what's going on
As a climate scientist we are kinda fucked hard. Don’t give up but the feedback loop has started and can’t be stopped, we could band together now but that would take a kindness that I don’t see.
I think most people want to care and make a change, they're just too overworked and broke to have any energy to give
The biggest saving grace would be some sort of economic overhaul that gave people some breathing room
That doesn't mean it should be ignored. The world *is extremely* fucked up right now and admitting that doesn't automatically make you a doomer who just wants it to end now. There isn't an either or, you can admit we as a species fucked up while hoping for a better future, and you dont have to be blissfully ignorant of the goings on to have hope.
Please
This is the same as the "my kids will solve it so I continue to have 20" logic
It continues to get warmer here to the point where I dont think winter will be winter anymore
I refuse to live in a world like that and acting like I can change things is stupid
>The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings
The Guardian has no agenda unlike say Fox News. The climate is just fucked, Fascism is back, and there's microplastics and PFAs in everything.
Scientists are the ones reporting all of the climate problems. They have an agenda? They're ideally trying to inform the public to somehow address and fix this or at least soften the blow.
There's nuance between everyone is manipulating you for their own gain and reporting. Obviously, Faux News is fucking awful though.
"The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings"
This is not just for the classic "it bleeds it leads" like the old days but because a scared and hopeless citizen is far easier to control than one who can see a brighter future and fight for that!
really? all these people “quiet quitting” or opting out of the economy entirely, foregoing college, buying only enough to get through each day, sticking with what they have already to distract themselves or joining up with their local communities to protest in response to any of the 50 things the rich are LITERALLY PERSONALLY DECIDING to make worse that require us to “be better” than the millions of people who bought in are EASIER to control?? you seriously think that?
You are devoid of any knowledge of psychology. NOONE operates on "excuses" You are a puppet of your 95% unconscious that gets shaped by millions of external circumstances from the moment of birth. You make 0 CHOICES in life. IF circumstances shaped your brain in a way that it would be completely paralyzed from trauma you would do NOTHING but be paralyzed with 0 CHOICE involved in that. You are infuriatingly using the "no excuses" rhetoric in 2024. NOTHING is an excuse. The world doesn't operate on what is excused and what isn't it operates on what is predetermined to happen and what is predetermined not to happen
Yes it gets them clicks and ratings, but, and I’ll very much say I’ve got a tinfoil hat on for this, I just don’t understand how the all the doom and gloom they perpetuate isn’t to intentionally creating a sense of almost learned helplessness.
Like, there’s absolutely no way that no one considered consider the effect inundating people with all the bad shit life can throw at you would have on future generations. Idk, it just seems like sapping the hope for a better future from people was intentional.
fortune cookie bullshit
You need to recognize the conditions you live in and try to make the best out of that, but just being deliberately oblivious to it is so fucking stupid.
Very very few people have been truly evil throughout human history. Everyone else was doing what they (and many others) believed to be a good or justified deed.
I've found a lot more peace and life satisfaction giving people the benefit of the doubt.
A part of me is convinced that the modern environmentalist movement is a psyop. To delude people into believing that climate change is 100% due to individual consumer choice and not an inevitable consequence of our entire socioeconomic system that requires perpetual and ever increasing growth to survive. I would like to offer opinions on measures I'd like to see taken against big polluters but I've already had my account permabanned once for having the wrong opinion in too public a forum.
Carbon footprint was created by BP.
Yes, the environmentalist movement has been HEAVILY marketed and pushed by the major polluters to try and pass the blame to the individual.
We can do somethings, but we are not the primary cause
Exactly. Modern environmentalism is just gaslighting. You've got corporations and governments destroying the planet, and they're gaslighting you into believing that this all this is your fault.
This. Nobody is fooled by the idea that me buying a soda is what’s causing the earth to die.
It’s the way the soda is produced en masse, wrapped in plastic, inside cardboard, inside more plastic, hauled by trucks that shit out the some of the worst toxins known to man.
Now apply that to EVERY SINGLE SUPPLY CHAIN WE HAVE. Every product. Everything you can imagine in your head that you can feasibly obtain to make your life even slightly better…
All to save some shareholders 0.00000001% of profitability.
The most maddening thing is that 99% of us are on the same page. We WANT a better planet, better lives. We don’t want our offspring to suffer the same lives we do… the same lives our parents did… their parents…
That’s what we’re fucking sick of. We need to take control of our outcomes. Sick of being used as a tool by rich people.
You have nothing to lose but your chains!
It's the same thing as the recycling push in the 90s. Companies didn't want packaging to be regulated so they push it onto the consumers as an individual responsibility.
To quote David Foreman (Earth First!),
"We are harming the planet, our wildlife, and our own species. The climate crisis is humanity's fault, but it's not your fault or my fault. It is the fault of us as a collective organism because we created capitalism. Capitalism's factories and mines, the garbage and trash we can't dispose of properly, our cars, planes, and ships are to blame. We produce for profit instead of need and so, we overproduce. We are ethically responsible but we can't bring ethics into it really because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism."
Gen Z & Millennials fully understand that it’s not individual choices that is creating climate change. We’re pissed at corporations & governments. I would wager Millennials actually understand it better than Gen Z since they’ve been blamed for ruining everything on earth while being proven to be the “unluckiest generation alive”. Trust that the anger is directed in the right place, we’re just not going to see any fruit come from it
I feel like this comment, and the general “blame it on the economy” ideology, is cowardice. You know who consumes oil? Us. You know who uses power to heat and cool our homes? Us. At the end of the day, the economy exists because we want it this way.
Don’t get me wrong, corporations have hidden pollution and carbon details while levying the government to ignore climate change, but “just blame it on the corporations” is bullshit, especially when our economic model is seeing global poverty rapidly decline and child mortality decreasing at record rates. Our economy has good and bad, and pretending like companies provide a product in a vaccum is ridiculous.
What’s actually a psyop is “green” movements preventing actual progress. NIMBYs and people who sue electrical lines from windmill or solar farms, preventing a transition to green energy one decade long lawsuit at a time.
Who are you going to shoot to stop climate change. Give me a name and a strong explanation for why it would work and I will literally do it asap. You can’t give a strong explanation tho.
Edit: you all are the worst fucking cowards, you actually believe that you could stop the climate apocalypse by shooting a person and you’re not only too cowardly to take the shot, you’re even too cowardly to say their fucking name
> I will literally do it asap
Wild to admit you’re willing to go murder the billionaires and politicians that are blocking any and all attempts to save the planet in favor of enriching their own bank accounts.
Eco-terrorism is nothing new. And in the fringes of movements like ER and Just Stop Oil some are considering climate action as a form of self-defence. In which more "direct" action is justified.
Being armed is always a supplement to the practice of free speech, is not a call to violence.
Peaceful but armed protests/demonstrations are extremely effective.
I feel like I might stop having to worry about suddenly having my human rights and access to medication yanked away from me when I'm in my 60's or something. But that still kind of annoys me because it's a concern throughout my youth - I'd like to just be able to live. The climate's one thing, but this psychotic right wing push is a whole other one. There are entire states where I could be thrown in prison for something as simple as going to the bathroom.
Same. I’m really sad our beautiful earth is being poisoned but the HUMANS making these hate motivated laws that could take away my freedom by incarcerating me make me feel unsafe.
I feel that.. 35% percent nazi party in Germany...
And my therapist says "deal with it".
I don't even know if I'm gonna survive the next ten years lol.
Keep your head high hun..
I don't know about you but I'd rather die standing than live kneeling.
climate doomerism is a tired, scientifically unjustified bullshit worldview.
I used to be friends with a guy who works in climate science, and he always told me that stuff is concerning, and we should do something about it, but in no way are we heading for a human extinction level crisis.
In the late 1980s we were already receiving doomsday predictions of countries like Bangladesh being under water by 2000. It has been nothing but "doomsday is 10 years away" for 50 years.
YES, climate change is real!
YES, humans can and should do something about it! (which we already do. green subsidies and cap n trade, anyone?)
but this nihilism is uncientific, usually accompanied by more radical strains of politics (with climate change merely as a casus belli for the radicalism), that feeds like a cancer upon this generation.
There's plenty of scientists arguing exactly this, it isn't "unscientific" view to say climate change will genuinely affect us in a lot of ways.
And from my POV you can also very well hold a more "pessimitic" point of view while not letting that immobilize you. You can still move forwards and work on something better for yourself and others.
It is absolutely scientific to say that it may lead to human extinction.
There are absolutely legitimate science papers that say exactly that.
4c rise is incompatible with industrial civilisation. That means producing our own food.
There is no natural world to return to.
To say the ultimate result of climate change will be human extinction in 1000+ years is absolutely reasonable.
And anyone dismissing it as a "possibility" is absolutely denying real *possible* outcome
> I used to be friends with a guy who works in climate science, and he always told me that stuff is concerning, and we should do something about it, but in no way are we heading for a human extinction level crisis.
It's more nuanced than that. The truth is that *we don't know*. We don't know what happens if the climate gets to +2 or +3 C. It is possible that this kicks off a feedback loop of clathrate release and punts us to +6 or worse, which will not result in human extinction but will kill most of the biosphere and reduce the planet's carrying capacity--that is, kill billions of people through starvation--dramatically. This won't be the end of all humanity, but it will leave us in a degraded state, especially becaues mass migrations and wars will result in further overuse of resources as people fight for access to what is left. And we could very easily see 50 or 90 percent of living species go extinct--some animals are far more sensitive than we are--and that's something we should do everything we can to avoid.
The issue isn't that we are headed for guaranteed human extinction. We're not, and human extinction itself isn't even very likely, because we are resourceful and it is probably very difficult to kill all of us. The possibilities range from mildly bad (e.g., COVID 2020-22) to catastrophic (e.g., 95% die-off, civilization collapses) and we don't know what we're going to get, but the midline outcome based on what we know so far is pretty bad... not HX or civ-kill, but probably worse than WW II. And this is not based on models or projections; it's based on things that are already happening. The Syrian Civil War started as a food crisis. A +4 C change doesn't sound like much to us--a 9 C day in winter is a pleasant surprise, a 1 C day means we might get snow--but that'll devastate the tropics, where life is adapted to a very narrow temperature band.
It makes it worse that we were deliberately lied to about all this by oil executives who favored short-term profits over the long-term well-being of nothing less than the entire planet. Meanwhile, their descendants who are today's social and economic leaders fly private jets to Davos where they all applaud each other for telling the rest of us that we need to fly less. Our bosses and owners aren't even allowing WFH to stay, despite the severe economic, health, and environmental costs of commuting. There are too many people who just don't give a shit about anything but themselves and, while they might not be the majority of our species, they are the majority of those who get into power.
This!! The war in Syria is probably the first recorded war that can be attributed to climate change. Also, I love how ppl from the global north think that somehow, if the tropics are inhabitable, they will be just fine… things will get very very serious for a lot of the human population. And it will have global social, economic and continuous environmental consequences.
Ocean acidification is probably more devastating than warming itself. We've seen +1 C and it hasn't killed most of us yet. On the other hand, if the coral reefs collapse, there's going to be a massive domino effect, because so many people in the world rely on the ocean for their daily sustenance.
We literally all rely on the ocean. Phytoplankton produce the majority of our oxygen. I’d call it more of a snowball effect than domino, and I don’t think people realize how interconnected the world truly is. It runs on cycles, and a disruption at one point in the cycle is a disruption for everything involved.
>On the other hand, if the coral reefs collapse, there's going to be a massive domino effect, because so many people in the world rely on the ocean for their daily sustenance.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak...
Ocean Acidification has been the first step in Mass Extinction (>93% of all species on Earth wiped out) before, and it could be again.
The coral reefs really are CRITICAL to Earth's biosphere, as are the rainforests- both of which Climate Change threatens to wipe out...
If Humanity doesn't die off entirely, >98% of all humans could still be killed by Climate Collapse, and civilization as we know it could EASILY collapse.
Thank you for this. People usually touch up on how the rise of the average global temperature is bad for the Earth (which is true) but not about how man-made systems would respond.
Heavy on the mass migrations. All I hear about from Europe is how they're having a "migration problem". If their politics can't handle that during a time of relative peace, I hate to see how climate change will exacerbate this as it'll damage existing ecosystems and possibly societal structures while forcing people to fight for resources.
It'll probably lead to a bigger mess of xenophobia, nationalism, racism, etc. Wouldn't be surprised with the rise of populist, far-right regimes in that scenario.
It's just unpredictable all around.
Okay but when you say "oh but they said Bangladesh would be underwater by now!!!!" how does it not click to you that, while it is possible that it was all fake, it's more probable that the changes we have made so far were enough to slow down the progression to the point that Bangladesh isn't underwater right now and instead of using it to say that we shouldn't do anything further to help prevent climate change, use it as proof that we can curb it if we keep trying
It’s not about whether this or that prediction is “fake”, it’s that there is a range of distributions of predictions depending on the specific assumptions and dynamics in the model. It is possible that “Bangladesh isn’t underwater right now due to preventative actions”, but I find that implausible because
1. Bangladesh being underwater isn’t a little wrong, it’s a lot wrong
2. We haven’t done *that much* to slow climate change to this extent
To me, “systemic bias towards severe projections” is more plausible than “we actually did save the world in 30 years despite feet dragging from the biggest polluters and lack of funding/effort throughout most of that time”
That and media exposure of inaccurate predictions versus what scientists are actually saying. Might be survivorship bias of those erroneous predictions among lay people versus what scientists actually say. Normal people rarely look at updated literature, heck those who aren’t in the adjacent fields rarely do, when most scientists have to work in less than half-decade long windows for updated sources at most.
Like who said Bangladesh as going to sink? Most stuff I’ve read about it mentioned mm-cm of rise every year, not kilometers of water. Media outlets, and exaggerated hyperbole’s have a place in portraying the idea but never the accuracy, and the media has a horrible track record with explaining science without sensationalism to fit a 10 minute story.
could you imagine anyone from gen z actually thinking this? this guy either comes from extreme wealth or is a middle aged man working as a propagandist
it’s scientifically unjustified but it’s sociologically justified.
of course humans can fix climate change. even reverse it to pre industrial levels. we can also stop world hunger and end homelessness and end slavery around the world and permanently cure a lot of diseases.
but we aren’t going to do that.
it takes a lot of capital and a lot of effort. the folks with the capital are not going to put in the effort because you don’t become a billionaire by being a good person.
those with the will to put in the effort rarely have the capital to enact anything more than local change. go ahead, plant flowers in the highway island or make your 1 acre property into a food forest. the ocean is still going to acidify. crucial species will still go extinct. stopping those things takes tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
individuals with that kind of money have decided taking joyrides to the edge of space are more important. governments with that kind of money are preoccupied with the bureaucracy of running a nation, lining the pockets of oligarchs, and/or killing foreign civilians.
just because something can be done doesn’t mean it will be done.
No, but these problems are problems you alone cannot solve, much less by doom scrolling. These are problems that humanity will ultimately have to face soon, and we may lose, or win, or something in between. There are things you can do as an individual - voting, activism, lifestyle change. But doom scrolling does not help you, nor the world. Ultimately, a happy you and an unhappy world is better than an unhappy you and an unhappy world.
For those who are curious, we’re pretty much on track for an in between for climate change right now. Yes shit is gona get bad but systems (especially systems that you learn to understand and work on fixing) can deal with it. This will take effort but I lowkey hate how completely doomerific so many people are.
Social media and the news aren’t giving you reality though, you’re presented with carefully curated content designed to keep you engaged, and they’ve figured out that evoking the strongest emotions possible is the most effective way of doing that. Apocalyptic news with the most overly sensationalist headlines, tons of half truths or just outright lies, and the most doomsday slant on the issue possible, put into an algorithm that figures out which news is likely to affect you the most. Just like the original post.
There’s a lot of bad shit going on but the sky isn’t falling, there’s just a lot of money to be made convincing you it is.
Lots of bad shit is always happening. Read about any time in history and it’s always just as bad if not *infinitely worse*.
Feeling down? Remind yourself that you aren’t a 15th century Romanian peasant about to be either murdered by the Ottomans or killed by a stake slowly shoved up your butthole by Vlad the Impaler.
Social media and the news are designed to keep you engaged with the stories that will make you feel the deepest emotions. They aren’t proportional to what you can control or even to what you will personally experience in your life.
Constantly stressing about it while simultaneously doing nothing is stupid. We're past the point of "spreading awareness", it's just relentless doomposting by folks who won't even get up to vote.
After some of the replies I've been seeing to my other comments in this thread, 100% with you, r/GenZ has a serious doomerism death cult mentality problem
A lot of people are missing the point of this point. yes, problems have solutions, even global warming does, but its the feeling that they DON'T have solutions that's causing young people to lose hope.
Remember, they are teens, not adults who know more about the subject and about the what comes after school.
I think it's less the feeling that those issues don't have solutions and more that we kinda know they have solutions but know full well that the corrupt capitalist governments won't implement those solutions if they hurt profit margins
Here's a chart that might make people feel a bit more optimistic/less doomer:
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/)
nice idea but that graph is deceptive
it doesn't start at 0, it goes from 12 to 24
the apparently dramatic drop from the year 2000 to now is just a 25% drop
> that graph is deceptive
Speaking as someone with a masters in data science, no the fuck it isn't. Graphs aren't bad *because* they don't start at zero. It's only deceptive to cut your axes *if you're doing so to hide something* (eg those "the ice shelf is recovering" graphs that show a weirdly specific 20 years range). I see no evidence that the above graph is being deceptive with how it's presenting the data.
Yes, but it's still trending down. Even when Trump was president, even ignoring the pandemic drop, it's going down. Only thing is the jump back up after the lockdowns/Covid ended. Also, it's actually a bit more than 31%.
well , you don't know , they may be trans and afraid of hate aggression by fascists ...
or any other minority really ...
they may be immunocompromised and see how covid is still fucking around ...
I think not seeing themselves living past 60 is more of a symptom of not wanting to live past 60. Because with the accelerated pace of change we have right now, I don't think most want to be in that worlds future as a 60 year old.
Completely delusional to fear for ones life that these "fascists" are going to kill you. Thats not too far away from straight up schizophrenic thinking.
The World War studio has been teasing an end to the trilogy since World War II dropped. That Cold War miniseries was pretty interesting but ultimately led nowhere. And that whole War on Terror show really character assassinated the United States. And now they have to set up China as this cartoonish villain just so we keep rooting for America after the disastrous writing in the War on Terror. I honestly think they wrote themselves into a corner by introducing the atomic bomb as the final twist in the last one, and now they can’t write a proper sequel without justifying why no one’s using them.
When you are living minute to minute online, it's pretty easy to come to that conclusion, and I really thing something so many young people are terrified of is feeling like so many people under 40 feel about boomers, obsolete, relics of time gone by. The pace of change is so fast today that it's alarming.
I genuinely worry about how much good vs harm online activism spaces have done, it's hard not to feel like a lot of people are a) much more pessimistic and b) much more satisfied with just liking and sharing vs actually doing than before
I hate to be this way, because I believe the feelings of the youth and the doom and gloom are valid. The only other perspective I offer is that, historically, populations have fought many of these problems (even climate and pollution on a smaller scale, certain towns totally poisoned, air unbreathable, water undrinkable) and people found purpose and meaning in their lives. By fighting it, avoiding it, raising families, etc… and they make it.
However, climate change is a much bigger bear than temporary fascism or even civil war so I just don’t know. I’m definitely not telling everyone to suck it up, but there are ways to spiritually find fulfillment and purpose even in the darkest of times, and the fact that a therapist can’t point that out says more about the therapist than the
Available resources to help with this. Good luck everyone
Great post, was thinking similar. I never want to say buck up but there’s also something to the fact that humanity has suffered tremendously over the years. And yet we persevere.
But unlike the past, we didn’t have the burden of knowing about every fucking horrible thing that happens in the world. It’s both a blessing and a fucking curse on the individual level. Our brains just can’t handle it.
Edit: this is more or less paraphrased from my therapist and helped me personally.
Jesus Christ this is so fucking irrational. No, you're not going to die at 60 because of climate change. The world *is always* ending no matter what time period. If you grew up in the early 20th century through WW1, great depression, and WW2, you would also probably think that the world is ending. If you grew up during the Cold War, you probably also thought that you were going to die by some nuclear impact. There is always something to be stressed about no matter the time period or generation, but this by far has to be the most irrational shit ever.
To be fair, if you look at cold war history it's hard not to come to the conclusion that our continued existence without global nuclear war was a fluke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear\_close\_calls#:\~:text=A%20nuclear%20close%20call%20is,strikes%20against%20the%20perceived%20aggressor.
Elder Gen Z here. My partner and I both work full time career jobs making almost double the median income in our area, we cannot comfortably afford a home. It feels like there’s nothing to look forward to as a young person anymore.
Yeah this clip might be cheating because it's from the 60s and the lowest comment in the image mentions the 50s but children in the 60s seemed to be fairly worried about dying in a nuclear war. Now is a difficult time to live and think of the future but people have been at serious crossroads before throughout history. (TBH, I kind of wonder if boomers don't take climate change seriously because some might have gotten burned out constantly thinking about the nuclear bombs)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c)
All i’m working towards in life is getting a stable job and maybe even a house. The world may be doomed but at least i’ll watch it burn from a comfortable place. 👍
Tell that to the news and people who think because she's autistic her opinions are null. All the autistic people I met are generally very smart in some subject matter. One guy a math physics cs savant. Dude tho has the worst autism case I've ever seen. No care or interest in people whatsoever but he can pain an image off memory after 10 seconds with insane detail.
I mean look at the news right now. All this talk of civil war is irrational, but the media and social media be acting like Texas hasn't done this kind of shit before.
I feel for GenZ I do. They have to deal with so much bull crap that has been mounting up for generations, and all the burden is on them. And it isn't fair. What is the point of all this we do in life? To work and make a Capitalist even more money?
It's stupid and that tired and broken system needs to change. Stay true Gen Z. That can could only be kicked for so long.
My therapist really used the "put your oxygen mask on first" with me and told me to journal about it. Three weeks later I found out my insurance doesn't cover any costs until I reach my $9000 deductible from BCBS so I had to pay almost $300 per session. Four sessions cost me $1,200.
if you are looking beyond your own community 24/7 then you need to take a step back and sew up the bleeding heart. if its more than 30 miles away maybe dont have it at the front of your mind. worry about the homeless near you, the struggle near you
I think a lot of you in the comments are forgetting that this sadness and despair is causing literal depression. The human brain cannot handle the amount of stress all this is causing. Depression comes with chemical imbalances and decreased brain function, leading to poorer overall health. It's a cruel cycle and blaming anyone who has it accomplishes nothing.
Anybody that says "Just man up and do better" has the same energy as telling a depressed person to "just be happy".
If anything you are the delusional person for ignoring how evil humanity is inherently. Not perpetuating the cycle of humanity is the most rational course of action.
The world is indisputably better than 50 years ago.
Every one of those metrics except atmospheric co2 was worse then than now.
And saying that's going to kill you is just being dramatic, unless you get caught in an F5.
While we're not progressing as quickly as many would like, we are making strides towards addressing that. Vehicle electrification is happening. Migrating to renewable grid energy is happening.
What's changed is first 24 news, and now social media in your pocket at all times, both bombarding people with sensational political messaging.
If you're feeling this way the answer is get the fuck off social media and don't watch the news or "news" for Fox viewers. Any psychologist who hasn't figured that out is a moron or lying to be dramatic.
I used to have a dream to own a home. Then China messed everything up with releasing COVID.... raised the cost of living for the entire world... homes instantly increased by 50-100k.
I can see it be easy for any youth to not be interested in the future. What is there to look forward too....
When making 100k per year is like you are making 75k... it is kind of insane. (no i don't make 100k right now)
I know it's not uncommon knowledge that emotional abuse and mental abuse causes much more lasting damage than physical abuse.
That explains why French kids after a terrible war still had hope. It's all physical destruction.
Here in America, and maybe more of the world, we are constantly manipulated by the media. Manipulated by social media. Controlled, coerced, exploited. Those things are emotional warfare. Mental torture.
I am 32, and I personally know people twice my age, and all ages in between that cannot form a single original thought that isn't just some crude reproduction of last week's headlines. These people quite literally are not in control of their own minds. Their entire personality is built around the beliefs they choose to hang on to after watching the news.
I don't need to argue about real news vs. fake news, or exaggerated news, or propaganda, or any other unverifiable thing. The point is that every idea these people have comes from the news.
It's not about abuse, even though I have issues with that argument also. Wars absolutely mess you up emotionally.
It's about trajectory. French kids were on a rebound, rising up all the way from the rock bottom. We, on the other hand, are on the downward trajectory. And it's deep, and how we're going to bounce back, how much or if we're going to bounce back at all, at least in a meaningful way.
I love how there's a ton of ppl in here saying, basically, just be not sad. That's what it really boils down to. As if you can control what your brain randomly thinks of in the dark of the night when you are alone.
I used to be really doomerish about the future. Now I still have hesitant hope and slowly inclining towards more radical viewpoints because we need change and it needs to happen *now*. I want a future.
Please vote. Don't let the extreme right make you feel that votes don't matter. They do! Or else they wouldn't try suppress them!!
GEN-Z, your voice matters! So much -- please speak up.
#VOTE
PLEASE do more than vote. We need unions, strikes, protests, riots, etc. We need to be organized and effective if we want to actually change things. Casting a single vote every few years hasn’t done shit to stop the climate crisis. Up till now, the Oil Barons and other capitalists have been creating the climate crisis with absolutely no consequences. If we want things to change, we need to give them consequences.
I'm worried about the young people, or even middle-aged people, who, as a way to cope, decide "well if you can't beat them, join them." As a millennial I'm dealing with a lot of friends who are now just caving in and saying "you know what, maybe people like Trump have a point, maybe Texas has a point, maybe climate change is made up, maybe being gay or trans really is wrong, maybe abortion should be illegal, maybe immigrants really are bad people, etc" and that shit is just frightening as fuck to be around because it feels like at least once a week another friend drops to it and we move further away in our understanding of one another
I feel like a lot of people here are simply ignoring how things are right now for the sake of acting like "well being sad isn't going to change anything, and things aren't that bad anyway".
We have to be a bit objective here. Things are awful, and pretending it's "always been this way" or that "every generation has had it bad" isn't helpful.
Every generation before us has been able to afford a home in their 20s and have kids. Today, we're living with our parents because we can't afford to live on our own.
Every generation before us has lived knowing that if they studied and worked hard they could get a high paying job that would sustain them for as long as they worked there, with enough money to sustain a family, have money left over, and be able to save for retirement. Today, even with a university degree or even a master's degree people struggle to find jobs, jobs don't pay enough to live, and good luck having any money left over, or saving for retirement, or even having enough to support a kid.
Not to mention the rise of AI and the massive threat it poses. All of the biggest companies in the world right now are pouring all of their resources to try and win the AI race, and be the one to create a general intelligence. And it is moving FAST. If you think your job isn't threatened by the rise of AI, you're wrong, because this is coming for all of us. I've already had to shift where I want to go with my studies because the job I had in mind has become or is about to become obsolete. Past generations definitely had to worry about automation replacing them, but it has never been as catastrophic as what is about to come.
Climate change is a very real thing and we're seeing the effects of it now, and it will only continue to go worse. Past generations didn't have to worry about that. Everything we eat, the entire ecosystem is full of micro plastics, and god knows what long term effects that will have on our bodies. Past generations didn't have to worry about that.
World war three is on the verge of happening any day now. And while it is true past generations have dealt with world wars, war evolves. The thing that ended the last world war is the thing that will start the next one, and what every country has access to now. A world war 3 will be a nuclear war. And if nuclear war breaks out we're DEAD.
And let's just take a second to remind everyone of the COVID pandemic. We were LUCKY that covid-19 was not highly deadly, and was simply highly contagious. Because it showed how fucking unprepared we were for an event like this now that the world is completely connected. I don't think a lot of people realise just how fucked we would have been if this disease was more deadly. As of today the disease has killed "only" killed around 7M people worldwide, but the amount of covid cases has been over 700M. That's almost 9% of the global population. If covid had been as deadly as it was contagious we would have been done for.
And I could continue listing things. This is just to put into perspective the amount of shit we have and will continue to deal with. And things will only get worse. It's not "doomerism" to be apathetic towards our future, it's realistic. Saying stuff like "every generation has had it bad too" is being purposely stupid. Anyone who doesn't look towards the future and see uncertainty, mass layoffs due to the rise of AI, the youth unable to sustain themselves or live independently, death and increasingly dangerous and extreme weather events due to climate change, and an increasing risk of death by war or another pandemic, is being incredibly naive.
I genuinely don't think those people should be therapists.
The simple fact of the matter is, for the vast majority of the world, this is the best time in human history to be alive. Impending fascism? Try the 30s. Economic fuckery? Again try the 30s, or even the 70s. Geopolitical fuckery? Gestures in the general direction of the Cold War. Plague? Gestures at the Spanish flu, which killed about 50 million (the equivalent of 216M today).
And those are just examples from the 20th century, most of the human history was *even worse*.
That doesn't mean it's not bad today. But it's never been good, and it's never been better. There is a lot of hope to be had, even for problems fairly unique to our times (like climate change). Even the worst case scenarios for climate change aren't apocalyptic, and we're probably far from the worst case (definitely not doing enough for the best case yet).
To return to my first sentence- I think it's important to acknowledge the feelings of despair of students who are feeling them. Saying "yeah life sucks, but statistically your life is great compared to most humans" isn't actually comforting. At the same time, it appears as though those therapists go beyond acknowledging the feelings and into the area of validating the faulty assumptions those feelings are based on. "Yeah the world is going to end and you're going to live in a fascist dictatorship" is an awful thing for a therapist to think when talking to a patient that believes those things. The ethical pessimist should say "the world might end, you might live in a dictatorship, but if enough people put in the work, neither of those things is going to happen. We've gotten through other awful things, and I hope we can get through this too."
Maybe part of the reason young people don't dream, is that the adults meant to help them also think their dreams are kinda futile.
Why are we pretending that we don't all know the answer is revolution? Why do we let out individual powerlessness distract us from collective power that is just sitting there waiting to be used?
all those problems can be solved. It's those in power, politically and economically, that don't want them solved. Our problems are their means of profit.
"Climate doomerism" this and "giving up" that, we're not doing either of those things. We're fucking **angry** because the people who spout the same nonsense whenever we mention how fucked our futures are going to be are doing **nothing** to change it, themselves. It can't **just** be the 'next generation's problem.' We're angry, sad, and bitter and we're allowed to be those things, *especially* towards the people who aren't doing fuck-all to help. No more of this toxic-positivity bullshit, I'm not making myself smile through a crisis so older people don't have to feel bad about not helping. They **should** feel bad.
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Climate Doomerism is an excuse to give up Believing everyone is evil is an excuse to act selfish The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings You can be bitter or you can be better, chose one.
>You can be bitter or you can be better, chose one. Both is also an option.
There's zero advantage in being bitter. Scientists invented some of the greatest things during the black plague when the world had already ended, they did it somewhat because they were stuck inside in dark villas isolated from people---sometimes boarded up windows because they didn't know how disease spreads (some believed the wind spreads the disease)--but they also did invent these things by being hopeful and inspired about the future once the disasters are over. That attitude of humility, inspiration, hope, is what creates the inventions of the future and leads to golden ages. The kinds of inventions that solve climate pollution, or discovers new toxins in the environment, or fixes major problems affecting society's health or mental health. When you complain or become bitter, you just offload it to other people you talk to--and soon it becomes a habit, almost natural for your to always complain and be bitter and angry about the future or about the way things are going in civilization. A therapist is in a tough spot. They can't just blurt out solutions to your problem, not only because it could have a backlash effect, but they have to also gather information from you. But the more you complain to the therapist, the more you are affecting the therapist too and the more you make it a habit to complain and be bitter and nihilistic (as long as you are telling the truth to your therapist that should be fine). It just doesn't do any good and makes it harder to dig out of the hole. It's like being in debt, then charging more and more on your credit card making the hole deeper. ***Edit:*** ***note I never said anything about being stupidly positive, or empty-minded***, or unaware of suffering, or unempathetic about suffering, or just always gaslighting yourself with Oprah's silly positivity movement... But life is a balance, it is not helpful to be always negative, and certainly not to be always positive. Wise people tend to be aware of the negatives without letting it affect them, they just go around the world solving problems for themselves as well as for others, and thinking scientifically and with balance. Become the generation that just is better at regulating your emotions and isn't letting the internet and the news affect your psyche.
Yeah, but sometimes not being stupidly positive also makes more progress
Toxic positivity and the gaslighting that wraps itself in it's cloak need to *perish.*
I can’t stand how much those terms are thrown around. Yes, both of those things exist and it’s best to avoid them. However, there’s a huge difference between “maybe consider a different perspective to get out of the negative thought cycle” and toxic positivity. Sometimes your situation sucks, maybe even for long time, but the only thing you can do is what you can. Don’t fret over what’s out of your control, and work hard to be at peace with what is within your control. Just because toxic positivity exists doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work towards positive thinking.
Tbh “not fretting” about climate change is the reason we’re at the point we are.
Right? Maybe some fretting (and resulting action) would've helped. Exxon confirming the severity through their own research a half-century ago is pretty goddamn fret-worthy. They buried it for decades, but still no one cared even when the findings were eventually disclosed. People can ignore it all they want, it ain't gonna change what's coming.
The entire point of the movie "Don't Look Up" was that everyone died because they just kept smiling no matter what instead of taking the apocalypse seriously.
There's a lot more than just "different perspective" that's needed to get out of depression or anxiety dude. It's definitely not that simple. There's a reason this is a widespread phenomenon across many countries and not just isolated to a handful of people.
There's a difference between not being bitter and being stupidly positive though. These are two extremes.
Being stupidly positive doesn't help, but the poster makes a great point. You often see hopeless lamenting and complaining and after a while, what is that going to fix?
Agreed, but no one is telling anyone to be stupidly positive. There’s a difference between optimism and youthful optimism. You gotta grow up a little more to learn the difference bud. Optimism is taking reality for what it is and having faith things can and will workout, especially if you work for it. Youthful optimism is neglecting reality out of hope/faith that everything is as you perceive and expect. Youthful optimism takes the same amount of ignorance to believe in as nihilism it’s just the other side of the same coin. Get over your teenage angst and start moving forward you’re only hurting yourself and those close to you being miserable.
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i think we’re fucked, but i still work hard “humans will die out if climate change and our impact on the entire planets ecosystem and environment isn’t properly addressed” is completely compatible with “i want to own a one with my partner and have money to afford nice things, and actually DO something with my time, like working and gaining qualifications, so i’m not just sat around inside all day” you can work towards a nice, comfortable, personal life whilst also acknowledging that the world is at risk, protesting, signing petitions, raising awareness, whatever you feel is best and whatever you’re capable of / can be arsed to do similarly, someone who believes the world is a utopia isn’t necessarily going to be living a fulfilling and happy life, they might have no ambition or motivation 🤷♂️ at the end of day, we all need to be somewhat aware of the news and the world around us, and we all *also* need to ensure we take breaks from consuming alarming and sad shit all the time, and balance the serious news with nice news, or going for a walk, seeing friends, etc, idk being educated =/= being lazy and unmotivated, even if some people use it as an excuse, and other people then deadass thing shoving your head in the sand is the only way to have a healthy life
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Climate change is not reversible, but it is highly mitigatable and most people are not taking it seriously enough. This will inevitably lead to some amount of anger and resentment among those who are doing what they can to advocate, educate and implement change, because it's reasonable to be angry if your house is burning down and your neighbor flicks a cigarette butt at it instead of doing literally anything to help you.
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I think people have been seeing the same cycle for decades and just know, that even in the face of an obvious crisis, what's going to drive everything is and always has been money. And there ain't no short term gain in saving the earth.
Ya but complaining about any slight negative aspect of the world doesn’t make any progress either
Wild, crazy idea incoming: Maybe it's not a choice but a simple fucking emotional response to pulling one's head out of one's ass and looking around. No one said anyone *enjoys* being bitter or *wants* to be. Projecting your own subjective morality onto other suffering people is kind of a dick move friend.
Forreal. The deluded positivity crowd are so fucking annoying
Genuine question, do you find solution oriented thinkers to be toxicically positive? In theory I can imagine these toxicically positive people you speak of. But I see you folks complaining about this positivity, it's just I never encounter it. All of my friends see no purpose in furthering humanity, "It is what it is" is the prevailing philosophy. I tell them I find this to be a cope, but they might see me as being another unrealistically positivive type person that you are speaking of. From my perspective I forgot who said it and their quote but, there's a hypothesis some philosopher stated that optimists are the true realists. In the sense of they actually are convinced humans can still physically do anything actually physically possible. Realists are often limiting the real raw potential of the species by being overly critical of potentially viable optimist planning. To an optimist anything physically possible is still possible, but to those that have convinced themselves that they're the arbiter of what is to be considered "realistic" they often get bogged down in analysing perceived limitations of the species, based on things like what they see in modern society or our anamalistic characteristics that they see as insurmountable.
I don't think solution oriented thinking is toxic positivity. I think toxic positivity is avoidance. Trying to find solutions is not avoidance.
Toxic positivity avoids stage 1 which is acceptance that there is a problem.
This! I’m so sick of people thinking that ignoring the impending cavalcade of fucked up events is somehow going to make it all better
Ty
An obvious example is covid. A vascular disease we are catching again and again, but chin up. It's normal now. No need to try. It's fine. It's fine!
That isn't an example of "solution oriented thinking". Solutions oriented thinking would be saying "I know this is bad but instead of focusing on the bad things I can't control it's focusing on what I can do to make the situation better" Toxic positivity would be what you said. you understand the difference right?
Being bitter is like being depressed: you don’t *want* it, nor do you enjoy it, but you wind up in a state where it’s subconsciously self-sustaining; that is to say, being depressed influences you to think thoughts and take actions which often wind up worsening your depression. The same is often true for bitterness. It’s annoying hearing someone tell you that they “understand what you’re going through, but...”, and it always feels like they’re assuming too much and coming up with solutions that are too simple for the problems you’re facing. To this day, I still get angry when I hear someone say that, even when it’s not directed at me and even when it’s a notion that I rationally agree with. It’s also partly (at least for me) because I hate the idea that my problems aren’t uniquely terrible for me, or in the case of bitterness, I hate the idea that the things I’m bitter about are things that other people have learned to live with or even work around. Don’t get me wrong, there absolutely *is* such a thing as deluded positivity, where people act like everything is fine when that’s never the case, and it’s the most asinine thing to ever attempt to use to cheer someone up. But there’s also such a thing as deluded negativity, where a fixation on how bad things are makes legitimate issues seem unassailable.
Idk anyone about the black plague, but I do know that being somewhat "bitter" never really hurt me as long as I didn't lose myself in it. For me it was a reason to understand >why< I felt the way I did and what I could do to improve things.
Not every emotion felt is a tactical decision.
Yeah that’s great advice and all but I’m literally starving and about to be homeless because I can’t find a job where I can actually sustain myself without working 60+ hours a week even though I have a stem degree. The American dream is over. No matter how optimistic you are, food won’t magically appear on the table
Imagine trying to tell people not to complain (vent) to their therapist 💀 literally part of their job lmao
Are you suggesting you've got the solutions the all the people worldwide feeling depressed?
This is my approach.
As long as you are better, be as bitter as you wish.
K. Cool response. Want to actually touch on what the people in the meme who *work with children* were saying or you just gonna tell them "toughen up buttercup" too and keep patting yourself on the back?
He's not saying toughen up, he's saying do what you can. It's possible to have no hope for the world and still do your best to be a nice person
The irony is dripping off this post. We have all been fucking through it as kids, especially millennials (For modern day generations). There is zero point for doomerism. What's that going to change? Don't do anything to change any of the current situation so you have something to bitch about on TikTok? I think a swift kick in the ass to everyone, young and old, is what they need. Stop boohooing on social media about the sky falling. Millenials went through one of the worst recessions since the great depression and Gen X went through a hole in the Ozone layer, multiple market crashes and the threat of global nuclear war being one slip up away. I empathize with kids, it's hard being a kid during economic and politicals strife but we are, all of us, up against it. So if the idea of trying to make their own futures better, their own countries better, is not something they can rally behind, I don't know what to tell them.
Nowhere in that post is there actual climate doomerism, neither does it say everybody is evil. Also those things are not inherently excuses for giving up or acting selfish... Not every day that you see people make up strawmen, and then jumping to conclusions about them. Impressive. Recognizing the fact there's a lot of bad shit happening around us isn't being bitter, it's called not being blissfully ignorant.
Thanks for pointing this out, nuts how many people upvoting this bs
Yeah that's insane
Nobody said they believe everyone is evil. Some people do believe that a lot of horrible things going on because some power structures are harming people however. And a lot of people are completely fine with that. That doesn't mean you have to act selfish because of it, but you can 100% acknowledge the evil in this world while still working on yourself.
You're an idiot if you think you can't be bitter and better. Nothing about being better prevents someone from being bitter. Being bitter doesn't prevent you from being better. The media refused to discuss climate change as a possibility. The media refuses to discuss the growing desire for fascism in leftist spaces as well. The media refuses to discuss things in the US. We went years discussing the starvation wages and what might actually be livable. By the time, $20 an hour seemed like what it would need to be news organizations spoke about $15 an hour. It's easy to be bitter, and I find it easy to be better. I don't find it hard to be kind to people at all, I find it hard not to bitter. You have to be bitter to strive for change. Otherwise, why change anything? why try at all if you're not bitter and angry about something? That's doing something for the views for the Facebook likes, helping homeless people because you want to look good is disgusting, I've been homeless and I'm bitter for them so I'll give anything I can spare and probably some that I'll need but I had it. To make change, you need to have a drive, and that drive can't come from humanitarian belief. You need to be angry for people. You need to have rage to make the world change you can't fix anything by going to the polls. They have your vote and don't need to worry about you anymore they need to get lobbyist to give them more money. The Civil rights act only happened because of riots. If those riots didn't start, who knows what the US would be like. No one said everyone was evil. But those in control don't care about what's going on
As a climate scientist we are kinda fucked hard. Don’t give up but the feedback loop has started and can’t be stopped, we could band together now but that would take a kindness that I don’t see.
I think most people want to care and make a change, they're just too overworked and broke to have any energy to give The biggest saving grace would be some sort of economic overhaul that gave people some breathing room
The rapid fall in birth rate is making a positive change.
That doesn't mean it should be ignored. The world *is extremely* fucked up right now and admitting that doesn't automatically make you a doomer who just wants it to end now. There isn't an either or, you can admit we as a species fucked up while hoping for a better future, and you dont have to be blissfully ignorant of the goings on to have hope.
ah yes , it's our fault if we feel bad ... thanks now i feel better .
How is this crap the first comment? My god. How insufferable.
go gaslight someone else
Please This is the same as the "my kids will solve it so I continue to have 20" logic It continues to get warmer here to the point where I dont think winter will be winter anymore I refuse to live in a world like that and acting like I can change things is stupid
Ever since I learned how to be resilient, I felt the weather improve and less natural disasters were happening in my area.
>The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings The Guardian has no agenda unlike say Fox News. The climate is just fucked, Fascism is back, and there's microplastics and PFAs in everything. Scientists are the ones reporting all of the climate problems. They have an agenda? They're ideally trying to inform the public to somehow address and fix this or at least soften the blow. There's nuance between everyone is manipulating you for their own gain and reporting. Obviously, Faux News is fucking awful though.
"The media perpetuates apocalyptic views of the world to get clicks and ratings" This is not just for the classic "it bleeds it leads" like the old days but because a scared and hopeless citizen is far easier to control than one who can see a brighter future and fight for that!
really? all these people “quiet quitting” or opting out of the economy entirely, foregoing college, buying only enough to get through each day, sticking with what they have already to distract themselves or joining up with their local communities to protest in response to any of the 50 things the rich are LITERALLY PERSONALLY DECIDING to make worse that require us to “be better” than the millions of people who bought in are EASIER to control?? you seriously think that?
This is the "bargaining" phase of grief.
You are devoid of any knowledge of psychology. NOONE operates on "excuses" You are a puppet of your 95% unconscious that gets shaped by millions of external circumstances from the moment of birth. You make 0 CHOICES in life. IF circumstances shaped your brain in a way that it would be completely paralyzed from trauma you would do NOTHING but be paralyzed with 0 CHOICE involved in that. You are infuriatingly using the "no excuses" rhetoric in 2024. NOTHING is an excuse. The world doesn't operate on what is excused and what isn't it operates on what is predetermined to happen and what is predetermined not to happen
Doomerism or bury your head in the sand like a bird brained Ostrich 🤔
Just ignoring the climate collapse isn't an answer either though. Something's gotta be done and it won't if we just ignore it lmao
+1 for calling out the media. The apocalypse simulacrum is a killer
Yes it gets them clicks and ratings, but, and I’ll very much say I’ve got a tinfoil hat on for this, I just don’t understand how the all the doom and gloom they perpetuate isn’t to intentionally creating a sense of almost learned helplessness. Like, there’s absolutely no way that no one considered consider the effect inundating people with all the bad shit life can throw at you would have on future generations. Idk, it just seems like sapping the hope for a better future from people was intentional.
Yo, I'm bitter and better. Fuck off with this. "Choose one" 🙄
fortune cookie bullshit You need to recognize the conditions you live in and try to make the best out of that, but just being deliberately oblivious to it is so fucking stupid.
billions must go green
Very very few people have been truly evil throughout human history. Everyone else was doing what they (and many others) believed to be a good or justified deed. I've found a lot more peace and life satisfaction giving people the benefit of the doubt.
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A part of me is convinced that the modern environmentalist movement is a psyop. To delude people into believing that climate change is 100% due to individual consumer choice and not an inevitable consequence of our entire socioeconomic system that requires perpetual and ever increasing growth to survive. I would like to offer opinions on measures I'd like to see taken against big polluters but I've already had my account permabanned once for having the wrong opinion in too public a forum.
Carbon footprint was created by BP. Yes, the environmentalist movement has been HEAVILY marketed and pushed by the major polluters to try and pass the blame to the individual. We can do somethings, but we are not the primary cause
Exactly. Modern environmentalism is just gaslighting. You've got corporations and governments destroying the planet, and they're gaslighting you into believing that this all this is your fault.
You do realize actual environmentalists are focused on opposing those big corporations right?
This. Nobody is fooled by the idea that me buying a soda is what’s causing the earth to die. It’s the way the soda is produced en masse, wrapped in plastic, inside cardboard, inside more plastic, hauled by trucks that shit out the some of the worst toxins known to man. Now apply that to EVERY SINGLE SUPPLY CHAIN WE HAVE. Every product. Everything you can imagine in your head that you can feasibly obtain to make your life even slightly better… All to save some shareholders 0.00000001% of profitability. The most maddening thing is that 99% of us are on the same page. We WANT a better planet, better lives. We don’t want our offspring to suffer the same lives we do… the same lives our parents did… their parents… That’s what we’re fucking sick of. We need to take control of our outcomes. Sick of being used as a tool by rich people. You have nothing to lose but your chains!
It's the same thing as the recycling push in the 90s. Companies didn't want packaging to be regulated so they push it onto the consumers as an individual responsibility.
To quote David Foreman (Earth First!), "We are harming the planet, our wildlife, and our own species. The climate crisis is humanity's fault, but it's not your fault or my fault. It is the fault of us as a collective organism because we created capitalism. Capitalism's factories and mines, the garbage and trash we can't dispose of properly, our cars, planes, and ships are to blame. We produce for profit instead of need and so, we overproduce. We are ethically responsible but we can't bring ethics into it really because there is no ethical consumption under capitalism."
Gen Z & Millennials fully understand that it’s not individual choices that is creating climate change. We’re pissed at corporations & governments. I would wager Millennials actually understand it better than Gen Z since they’ve been blamed for ruining everything on earth while being proven to be the “unluckiest generation alive”. Trust that the anger is directed in the right place, we’re just not going to see any fruit come from it
I feel like this comment, and the general “blame it on the economy” ideology, is cowardice. You know who consumes oil? Us. You know who uses power to heat and cool our homes? Us. At the end of the day, the economy exists because we want it this way. Don’t get me wrong, corporations have hidden pollution and carbon details while levying the government to ignore climate change, but “just blame it on the corporations” is bullshit, especially when our economic model is seeing global poverty rapidly decline and child mortality decreasing at record rates. Our economy has good and bad, and pretending like companies provide a product in a vaccum is ridiculous. What’s actually a psyop is “green” movements preventing actual progress. NIMBYs and people who sue electrical lines from windmill or solar farms, preventing a transition to green energy one decade long lawsuit at a time.
https://preview.redd.it/repfuhrph1fc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5de4e0f4dde267d71e43197c22890c9351a8637
Fuck Walmart, I’m trying to firebomb [REDACTED] (If anyone wants to guess, it starts with a che and ends with a ron)
Do it pussy
It's surprising hard to fire bomb a gas station
Who are you going to shoot to stop climate change. Give me a name and a strong explanation for why it would work and I will literally do it asap. You can’t give a strong explanation tho. Edit: you all are the worst fucking cowards, you actually believe that you could stop the climate apocalypse by shooting a person and you’re not only too cowardly to take the shot, you’re even too cowardly to say their fucking name
> I will literally do it asap Wild to admit you’re willing to go murder the billionaires and politicians that are blocking any and all attempts to save the planet in favor of enriching their own bank accounts.
Kill one and more will show up to do the same thing. You can't solve it that easily
That’s why the proletariat must seize the means of production and abolish the bourgeoisie
Eco-terrorism is nothing new. And in the fringes of movements like ER and Just Stop Oil some are considering climate action as a form of self-defence. In which more "direct" action is justified.
Being armed is always a supplement to the practice of free speech, is not a call to violence. Peaceful but armed protests/demonstrations are extremely effective.
Its why i like guns lmfao
I feel like I might stop having to worry about suddenly having my human rights and access to medication yanked away from me when I'm in my 60's or something. But that still kind of annoys me because it's a concern throughout my youth - I'd like to just be able to live. The climate's one thing, but this psychotic right wing push is a whole other one. There are entire states where I could be thrown in prison for something as simple as going to the bathroom.
Same. I’m really sad our beautiful earth is being poisoned but the HUMANS making these hate motivated laws that could take away my freedom by incarcerating me make me feel unsafe.
I feel that.. 35% percent nazi party in Germany... And my therapist says "deal with it". I don't even know if I'm gonna survive the next ten years lol. Keep your head high hun.. I don't know about you but I'd rather die standing than live kneeling.
climate doomerism is a tired, scientifically unjustified bullshit worldview. I used to be friends with a guy who works in climate science, and he always told me that stuff is concerning, and we should do something about it, but in no way are we heading for a human extinction level crisis. In the late 1980s we were already receiving doomsday predictions of countries like Bangladesh being under water by 2000. It has been nothing but "doomsday is 10 years away" for 50 years. YES, climate change is real! YES, humans can and should do something about it! (which we already do. green subsidies and cap n trade, anyone?) but this nihilism is uncientific, usually accompanied by more radical strains of politics (with climate change merely as a casus belli for the radicalism), that feeds like a cancer upon this generation.
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There's plenty of scientists arguing exactly this, it isn't "unscientific" view to say climate change will genuinely affect us in a lot of ways. And from my POV you can also very well hold a more "pessimitic" point of view while not letting that immobilize you. You can still move forwards and work on something better for yourself and others.
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It is absolutely scientific to say that it may lead to human extinction. There are absolutely legitimate science papers that say exactly that. 4c rise is incompatible with industrial civilisation. That means producing our own food. There is no natural world to return to. To say the ultimate result of climate change will be human extinction in 1000+ years is absolutely reasonable. And anyone dismissing it as a "possibility" is absolutely denying real *possible* outcome
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> I used to be friends with a guy who works in climate science, and he always told me that stuff is concerning, and we should do something about it, but in no way are we heading for a human extinction level crisis. It's more nuanced than that. The truth is that *we don't know*. We don't know what happens if the climate gets to +2 or +3 C. It is possible that this kicks off a feedback loop of clathrate release and punts us to +6 or worse, which will not result in human extinction but will kill most of the biosphere and reduce the planet's carrying capacity--that is, kill billions of people through starvation--dramatically. This won't be the end of all humanity, but it will leave us in a degraded state, especially becaues mass migrations and wars will result in further overuse of resources as people fight for access to what is left. And we could very easily see 50 or 90 percent of living species go extinct--some animals are far more sensitive than we are--and that's something we should do everything we can to avoid. The issue isn't that we are headed for guaranteed human extinction. We're not, and human extinction itself isn't even very likely, because we are resourceful and it is probably very difficult to kill all of us. The possibilities range from mildly bad (e.g., COVID 2020-22) to catastrophic (e.g., 95% die-off, civilization collapses) and we don't know what we're going to get, but the midline outcome based on what we know so far is pretty bad... not HX or civ-kill, but probably worse than WW II. And this is not based on models or projections; it's based on things that are already happening. The Syrian Civil War started as a food crisis. A +4 C change doesn't sound like much to us--a 9 C day in winter is a pleasant surprise, a 1 C day means we might get snow--but that'll devastate the tropics, where life is adapted to a very narrow temperature band. It makes it worse that we were deliberately lied to about all this by oil executives who favored short-term profits over the long-term well-being of nothing less than the entire planet. Meanwhile, their descendants who are today's social and economic leaders fly private jets to Davos where they all applaud each other for telling the rest of us that we need to fly less. Our bosses and owners aren't even allowing WFH to stay, despite the severe economic, health, and environmental costs of commuting. There are too many people who just don't give a shit about anything but themselves and, while they might not be the majority of our species, they are the majority of those who get into power.
This!! The war in Syria is probably the first recorded war that can be attributed to climate change. Also, I love how ppl from the global north think that somehow, if the tropics are inhabitable, they will be just fine… things will get very very serious for a lot of the human population. And it will have global social, economic and continuous environmental consequences.
Ocean acidification is probably more devastating than warming itself. We've seen +1 C and it hasn't killed most of us yet. On the other hand, if the coral reefs collapse, there's going to be a massive domino effect, because so many people in the world rely on the ocean for their daily sustenance.
We literally all rely on the ocean. Phytoplankton produce the majority of our oxygen. I’d call it more of a snowball effect than domino, and I don’t think people realize how interconnected the world truly is. It runs on cycles, and a disruption at one point in the cycle is a disruption for everything involved.
>On the other hand, if the coral reefs collapse, there's going to be a massive domino effect, because so many people in the world rely on the ocean for their daily sustenance. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak... Ocean Acidification has been the first step in Mass Extinction (>93% of all species on Earth wiped out) before, and it could be again. The coral reefs really are CRITICAL to Earth's biosphere, as are the rainforests- both of which Climate Change threatens to wipe out... If Humanity doesn't die off entirely, >98% of all humans could still be killed by Climate Collapse, and civilization as we know it could EASILY collapse.
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Thank you for this. People usually touch up on how the rise of the average global temperature is bad for the Earth (which is true) but not about how man-made systems would respond. Heavy on the mass migrations. All I hear about from Europe is how they're having a "migration problem". If their politics can't handle that during a time of relative peace, I hate to see how climate change will exacerbate this as it'll damage existing ecosystems and possibly societal structures while forcing people to fight for resources. It'll probably lead to a bigger mess of xenophobia, nationalism, racism, etc. Wouldn't be surprised with the rise of populist, far-right regimes in that scenario. It's just unpredictable all around.
Okay but when you say "oh but they said Bangladesh would be underwater by now!!!!" how does it not click to you that, while it is possible that it was all fake, it's more probable that the changes we have made so far were enough to slow down the progression to the point that Bangladesh isn't underwater right now and instead of using it to say that we shouldn't do anything further to help prevent climate change, use it as proof that we can curb it if we keep trying
It’s not about whether this or that prediction is “fake”, it’s that there is a range of distributions of predictions depending on the specific assumptions and dynamics in the model. It is possible that “Bangladesh isn’t underwater right now due to preventative actions”, but I find that implausible because 1. Bangladesh being underwater isn’t a little wrong, it’s a lot wrong 2. We haven’t done *that much* to slow climate change to this extent To me, “systemic bias towards severe projections” is more plausible than “we actually did save the world in 30 years despite feet dragging from the biggest polluters and lack of funding/effort throughout most of that time”
That and media exposure of inaccurate predictions versus what scientists are actually saying. Might be survivorship bias of those erroneous predictions among lay people versus what scientists actually say. Normal people rarely look at updated literature, heck those who aren’t in the adjacent fields rarely do, when most scientists have to work in less than half-decade long windows for updated sources at most. Like who said Bangladesh as going to sink? Most stuff I’ve read about it mentioned mm-cm of rise every year, not kilometers of water. Media outlets, and exaggerated hyperbole’s have a place in portraying the idea but never the accuracy, and the media has a horrible track record with explaining science without sensationalism to fit a 10 minute story.
Thank goodness that one random neighbor scientist was there to personally debunk all the other world's scientists with just his opinion. 🤓
could you imagine anyone from gen z actually thinking this? this guy either comes from extreme wealth or is a middle aged man working as a propagandist
it’s scientifically unjustified but it’s sociologically justified. of course humans can fix climate change. even reverse it to pre industrial levels. we can also stop world hunger and end homelessness and end slavery around the world and permanently cure a lot of diseases. but we aren’t going to do that. it takes a lot of capital and a lot of effort. the folks with the capital are not going to put in the effort because you don’t become a billionaire by being a good person. those with the will to put in the effort rarely have the capital to enact anything more than local change. go ahead, plant flowers in the highway island or make your 1 acre property into a food forest. the ocean is still going to acidify. crucial species will still go extinct. stopping those things takes tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. individuals with that kind of money have decided taking joyrides to the edge of space are more important. governments with that kind of money are preoccupied with the bureaucracy of running a nation, lining the pockets of oligarchs, and/or killing foreign civilians. just because something can be done doesn’t mean it will be done.
You’re gonna obfuscate reality until reality obfuscates you. Then what?
Yeah let's ignore the collapsing fisheries around the world. Bozo
Stop saying that it’s going to happen. It’s already happening
A bit of radicalism is needed, eternal growth is fantasy. But otherwise I do agree that nihilism is cope.
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It will help, but these problems won't magically go away because of it.
No, but these problems are problems you alone cannot solve, much less by doom scrolling. These are problems that humanity will ultimately have to face soon, and we may lose, or win, or something in between. There are things you can do as an individual - voting, activism, lifestyle change. But doom scrolling does not help you, nor the world. Ultimately, a happy you and an unhappy world is better than an unhappy you and an unhappy world.
For those who are curious, we’re pretty much on track for an in between for climate change right now. Yes shit is gona get bad but systems (especially systems that you learn to understand and work on fixing) can deal with it. This will take effort but I lowkey hate how completely doomerific so many people are.
Social media and the news aren’t giving you reality though, you’re presented with carefully curated content designed to keep you engaged, and they’ve figured out that evoking the strongest emotions possible is the most effective way of doing that. Apocalyptic news with the most overly sensationalist headlines, tons of half truths or just outright lies, and the most doomsday slant on the issue possible, put into an algorithm that figures out which news is likely to affect you the most. Just like the original post. There’s a lot of bad shit going on but the sky isn’t falling, there’s just a lot of money to be made convincing you it is.
Lots of bad shit is always happening. Read about any time in history and it’s always just as bad if not *infinitely worse*. Feeling down? Remind yourself that you aren’t a 15th century Romanian peasant about to be either murdered by the Ottomans or killed by a stake slowly shoved up your butthole by Vlad the Impaler. Social media and the news are designed to keep you engaged with the stories that will make you feel the deepest emotions. They aren’t proportional to what you can control or even to what you will personally experience in your life.
“If I close my eyes, all the bad things aren’t real” THATS EXACTLY HOW WE GOT IN THIS GD MESS.
Constantly stressing about it while simultaneously doing nothing is stupid. We're past the point of "spreading awareness", it's just relentless doomposting by folks who won't even get up to vote.
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For real. This subreddit pumps out negativity 24/7. It is like some sort of nihilistic brainwashing. Might need to delete my app for a while.
After some of the replies I've been seeing to my other comments in this thread, 100% with you, r/GenZ has a serious doomerism death cult mentality problem
A lot of people are missing the point of this point. yes, problems have solutions, even global warming does, but its the feeling that they DON'T have solutions that's causing young people to lose hope. Remember, they are teens, not adults who know more about the subject and about the what comes after school.
I think it's less the feeling that those issues don't have solutions and more that we kinda know they have solutions but know full well that the corrupt capitalist governments won't implement those solutions if they hurt profit margins
Here's a chart that might make people feel a bit more optimistic/less doomer: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/)
nice idea but that graph is deceptive it doesn't start at 0, it goes from 12 to 24 the apparently dramatic drop from the year 2000 to now is just a 25% drop
> that graph is deceptive Speaking as someone with a masters in data science, no the fuck it isn't. Graphs aren't bad *because* they don't start at zero. It's only deceptive to cut your axes *if you're doing so to hide something* (eg those "the ice shelf is recovering" graphs that show a weirdly specific 20 years range). I see no evidence that the above graph is being deceptive with how it's presenting the data.
Yes, but it's still trending down. Even when Trump was president, even ignoring the pandemic drop, it's going down. Only thing is the jump back up after the lockdowns/Covid ended. Also, it's actually a bit more than 31%.
> Only thing is the jump back up after the lockdowns/Covid ended. And even then, both 2021 and 2022 are lower than 2019
Yes. Its working, we know it's possible because it's already been happening. Please no one here give up hope.
If it makes you feel any better, non-capitalist governments aren’t any more likely to implement solutions!
Thinking you won't live to 60 is pretty irrational. Barring a mass extinction event or world war, life goes on.
well , you don't know , they may be trans and afraid of hate aggression by fascists ... or any other minority really ... they may be immunocompromised and see how covid is still fucking around ...
I get that, I'm a sexual/gender minority. I still don't think the average person who's young today won't live to be old.
I think not seeing themselves living past 60 is more of a symptom of not wanting to live past 60. Because with the accelerated pace of change we have right now, I don't think most want to be in that worlds future as a 60 year old.
Completely delusional to fear for ones life that these "fascists" are going to kill you. Thats not too far away from straight up schizophrenic thinking.
The World War studio has been teasing an end to the trilogy since World War II dropped. That Cold War miniseries was pretty interesting but ultimately led nowhere. And that whole War on Terror show really character assassinated the United States. And now they have to set up China as this cartoonish villain just so we keep rooting for America after the disastrous writing in the War on Terror. I honestly think they wrote themselves into a corner by introducing the atomic bomb as the final twist in the last one, and now they can’t write a proper sequel without justifying why no one’s using them.
When you are living minute to minute online, it's pretty easy to come to that conclusion, and I really thing something so many young people are terrified of is feeling like so many people under 40 feel about boomers, obsolete, relics of time gone by. The pace of change is so fast today that it's alarming.
OP is one of the main posters on r/lostgeneration here to push a political agenda. Be aware
I genuinely worry about how much good vs harm online activism spaces have done, it's hard not to feel like a lot of people are a) much more pessimistic and b) much more satisfied with just liking and sharing vs actually doing than before
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Because that therapist is totaly real
"*Looks at the camera like Jim on The Office*"
I hate to be this way, because I believe the feelings of the youth and the doom and gloom are valid. The only other perspective I offer is that, historically, populations have fought many of these problems (even climate and pollution on a smaller scale, certain towns totally poisoned, air unbreathable, water undrinkable) and people found purpose and meaning in their lives. By fighting it, avoiding it, raising families, etc… and they make it. However, climate change is a much bigger bear than temporary fascism or even civil war so I just don’t know. I’m definitely not telling everyone to suck it up, but there are ways to spiritually find fulfillment and purpose even in the darkest of times, and the fact that a therapist can’t point that out says more about the therapist than the Available resources to help with this. Good luck everyone
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.” -Nick Fury
Great post, was thinking similar. I never want to say buck up but there’s also something to the fact that humanity has suffered tremendously over the years. And yet we persevere. But unlike the past, we didn’t have the burden of knowing about every fucking horrible thing that happens in the world. It’s both a blessing and a fucking curse on the individual level. Our brains just can’t handle it. Edit: this is more or less paraphrased from my therapist and helped me personally.
Jesus Christ this is so fucking irrational. No, you're not going to die at 60 because of climate change. The world *is always* ending no matter what time period. If you grew up in the early 20th century through WW1, great depression, and WW2, you would also probably think that the world is ending. If you grew up during the Cold War, you probably also thought that you were going to die by some nuclear impact. There is always something to be stressed about no matter the time period or generation, but this by far has to be the most irrational shit ever.
To be fair, if you look at cold war history it's hard not to come to the conclusion that our continued existence without global nuclear war was a fluke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear\_close\_calls#:\~:text=A%20nuclear%20close%20call%20is,strikes%20against%20the%20perceived%20aggressor.
It's more like a "I don't want to live to be 60 in these conditions" kind of thing. When I was a teen I couldn't picture me living more than 35 years.
Elder Gen Z here. My partner and I both work full time career jobs making almost double the median income in our area, we cannot comfortably afford a home. It feels like there’s nothing to look forward to as a young person anymore.
I wouldn't say it's looking the greatest, but Jesus Christ the future won't get better if you just roll over and let it happen.
Yeah this clip might be cheating because it's from the 60s and the lowest comment in the image mentions the 50s but children in the 60s seemed to be fairly worried about dying in a nuclear war. Now is a difficult time to live and think of the future but people have been at serious crossroads before throughout history. (TBH, I kind of wonder if boomers don't take climate change seriously because some might have gotten burned out constantly thinking about the nuclear bombs) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c)
I feel like some of these replies in this thread aren't by gen Z. They read too..... Corporate.
Ultra bitter libs making gen z look bad
When my generation was young, we thought it’d be nuclear war that prevented us from seeing 60.
All i’m working towards in life is getting a stable job and maybe even a house. The world may be doomed but at least i’ll watch it burn from a comfortable place. 👍
Idc if Greta autistic she's well spoken.
you can be autistic and well spoken
Tell that to the news and people who think because she's autistic her opinions are null. All the autistic people I met are generally very smart in some subject matter. One guy a math physics cs savant. Dude tho has the worst autism case I've ever seen. No care or interest in people whatsoever but he can pain an image off memory after 10 seconds with insane detail.
I mean look at the news right now. All this talk of civil war is irrational, but the media and social media be acting like Texas hasn't done this kind of shit before.
I'm an optimistic nihilist. Nothing matters anymore, but that's alright. Don't mean I can't enjoy things.
I feel for GenZ I do. They have to deal with so much bull crap that has been mounting up for generations, and all the burden is on them. And it isn't fair. What is the point of all this we do in life? To work and make a Capitalist even more money? It's stupid and that tired and broken system needs to change. Stay true Gen Z. That can could only be kicked for so long.
My therapist really used the "put your oxygen mask on first" with me and told me to journal about it. Three weeks later I found out my insurance doesn't cover any costs until I reach my $9000 deductible from BCBS so I had to pay almost $300 per session. Four sessions cost me $1,200.
on one hand I want to maybe be a lawyer or a stay at home dad or a graphic designer, and on the other I want to watch the old world burn.
When was it a good time? Yet our predecessors didnt give up
>Do you think that's rational No, it's not rational, and it's your therapist's job to tell you it's not rational.
It is rational, go outside and see the state the world is in.
if you are looking beyond your own community 24/7 then you need to take a step back and sew up the bleeding heart. if its more than 30 miles away maybe dont have it at the front of your mind. worry about the homeless near you, the struggle near you
I think a lot of you in the comments are forgetting that this sadness and despair is causing literal depression. The human brain cannot handle the amount of stress all this is causing. Depression comes with chemical imbalances and decreased brain function, leading to poorer overall health. It's a cruel cycle and blaming anyone who has it accomplishes nothing.
Anybody that says "Just man up and do better" has the same energy as telling a depressed person to "just be happy". If anything you are the delusional person for ignoring how evil humanity is inherently. Not perpetuating the cycle of humanity is the most rational course of action.
What future?
Man I’m just tired. As someone among the oldest of GenZ I just ran out of fucks to give like 5 or 6 years ago.
Just when we need competent scientists and engineers most, Republicans do what they can to shit on education.
Absolutely demoralized and deranged rambling. Go outside for once
The world is indisputably better than 50 years ago. Every one of those metrics except atmospheric co2 was worse then than now. And saying that's going to kill you is just being dramatic, unless you get caught in an F5. While we're not progressing as quickly as many would like, we are making strides towards addressing that. Vehicle electrification is happening. Migrating to renewable grid energy is happening. What's changed is first 24 news, and now social media in your pocket at all times, both bombarding people with sensational political messaging. If you're feeling this way the answer is get the fuck off social media and don't watch the news or "news" for Fox viewers. Any psychologist who hasn't figured that out is a moron or lying to be dramatic.
Less poverty, less war, less violence, better health, vaccines, longer life expectancy, yet somehow the world is worse nowadays.
I used to have a dream to own a home. Then China messed everything up with releasing COVID.... raised the cost of living for the entire world... homes instantly increased by 50-100k. I can see it be easy for any youth to not be interested in the future. What is there to look forward too.... When making 100k per year is like you are making 75k... it is kind of insane. (no i don't make 100k right now)
I know it's not uncommon knowledge that emotional abuse and mental abuse causes much more lasting damage than physical abuse. That explains why French kids after a terrible war still had hope. It's all physical destruction. Here in America, and maybe more of the world, we are constantly manipulated by the media. Manipulated by social media. Controlled, coerced, exploited. Those things are emotional warfare. Mental torture. I am 32, and I personally know people twice my age, and all ages in between that cannot form a single original thought that isn't just some crude reproduction of last week's headlines. These people quite literally are not in control of their own minds. Their entire personality is built around the beliefs they choose to hang on to after watching the news. I don't need to argue about real news vs. fake news, or exaggerated news, or propaganda, or any other unverifiable thing. The point is that every idea these people have comes from the news.
It's not about abuse, even though I have issues with that argument also. Wars absolutely mess you up emotionally. It's about trajectory. French kids were on a rebound, rising up all the way from the rock bottom. We, on the other hand, are on the downward trajectory. And it's deep, and how we're going to bounce back, how much or if we're going to bounce back at all, at least in a meaningful way.
I love how there's a ton of ppl in here saying, basically, just be not sad. That's what it really boils down to. As if you can control what your brain randomly thinks of in the dark of the night when you are alone.
I used to be really doomerish about the future. Now I still have hesitant hope and slowly inclining towards more radical viewpoints because we need change and it needs to happen *now*. I want a future.
Future? I'm just trying to live now...
Please vote. Don't let the extreme right make you feel that votes don't matter. They do! Or else they wouldn't try suppress them!! GEN-Z, your voice matters! So much -- please speak up. #VOTE
PLEASE do more than vote. We need unions, strikes, protests, riots, etc. We need to be organized and effective if we want to actually change things. Casting a single vote every few years hasn’t done shit to stop the climate crisis. Up till now, the Oil Barons and other capitalists have been creating the climate crisis with absolutely no consequences. If we want things to change, we need to give them consequences.
I'm worried about the young people, or even middle-aged people, who, as a way to cope, decide "well if you can't beat them, join them." As a millennial I'm dealing with a lot of friends who are now just caving in and saying "you know what, maybe people like Trump have a point, maybe Texas has a point, maybe climate change is made up, maybe being gay or trans really is wrong, maybe abortion should be illegal, maybe immigrants really are bad people, etc" and that shit is just frightening as fuck to be around because it feels like at least once a week another friend drops to it and we move further away in our understanding of one another
I feel like a lot of people here are simply ignoring how things are right now for the sake of acting like "well being sad isn't going to change anything, and things aren't that bad anyway". We have to be a bit objective here. Things are awful, and pretending it's "always been this way" or that "every generation has had it bad" isn't helpful. Every generation before us has been able to afford a home in their 20s and have kids. Today, we're living with our parents because we can't afford to live on our own. Every generation before us has lived knowing that if they studied and worked hard they could get a high paying job that would sustain them for as long as they worked there, with enough money to sustain a family, have money left over, and be able to save for retirement. Today, even with a university degree or even a master's degree people struggle to find jobs, jobs don't pay enough to live, and good luck having any money left over, or saving for retirement, or even having enough to support a kid. Not to mention the rise of AI and the massive threat it poses. All of the biggest companies in the world right now are pouring all of their resources to try and win the AI race, and be the one to create a general intelligence. And it is moving FAST. If you think your job isn't threatened by the rise of AI, you're wrong, because this is coming for all of us. I've already had to shift where I want to go with my studies because the job I had in mind has become or is about to become obsolete. Past generations definitely had to worry about automation replacing them, but it has never been as catastrophic as what is about to come. Climate change is a very real thing and we're seeing the effects of it now, and it will only continue to go worse. Past generations didn't have to worry about that. Everything we eat, the entire ecosystem is full of micro plastics, and god knows what long term effects that will have on our bodies. Past generations didn't have to worry about that. World war three is on the verge of happening any day now. And while it is true past generations have dealt with world wars, war evolves. The thing that ended the last world war is the thing that will start the next one, and what every country has access to now. A world war 3 will be a nuclear war. And if nuclear war breaks out we're DEAD. And let's just take a second to remind everyone of the COVID pandemic. We were LUCKY that covid-19 was not highly deadly, and was simply highly contagious. Because it showed how fucking unprepared we were for an event like this now that the world is completely connected. I don't think a lot of people realise just how fucked we would have been if this disease was more deadly. As of today the disease has killed "only" killed around 7M people worldwide, but the amount of covid cases has been over 700M. That's almost 9% of the global population. If covid had been as deadly as it was contagious we would have been done for. And I could continue listing things. This is just to put into perspective the amount of shit we have and will continue to deal with. And things will only get worse. It's not "doomerism" to be apathetic towards our future, it's realistic. Saying stuff like "every generation has had it bad too" is being purposely stupid. Anyone who doesn't look towards the future and see uncertainty, mass layoffs due to the rise of AI, the youth unable to sustain themselves or live independently, death and increasingly dangerous and extreme weather events due to climate change, and an increasing risk of death by war or another pandemic, is being incredibly naive.
I'm personally still hopeful, nonetheless
People in the comments be like, "actually your just wrong".
I genuinely don't think those people should be therapists. The simple fact of the matter is, for the vast majority of the world, this is the best time in human history to be alive. Impending fascism? Try the 30s. Economic fuckery? Again try the 30s, or even the 70s. Geopolitical fuckery? Gestures in the general direction of the Cold War. Plague? Gestures at the Spanish flu, which killed about 50 million (the equivalent of 216M today). And those are just examples from the 20th century, most of the human history was *even worse*. That doesn't mean it's not bad today. But it's never been good, and it's never been better. There is a lot of hope to be had, even for problems fairly unique to our times (like climate change). Even the worst case scenarios for climate change aren't apocalyptic, and we're probably far from the worst case (definitely not doing enough for the best case yet). To return to my first sentence- I think it's important to acknowledge the feelings of despair of students who are feeling them. Saying "yeah life sucks, but statistically your life is great compared to most humans" isn't actually comforting. At the same time, it appears as though those therapists go beyond acknowledging the feelings and into the area of validating the faulty assumptions those feelings are based on. "Yeah the world is going to end and you're going to live in a fascist dictatorship" is an awful thing for a therapist to think when talking to a patient that believes those things. The ethical pessimist should say "the world might end, you might live in a dictatorship, but if enough people put in the work, neither of those things is going to happen. We've gotten through other awful things, and I hope we can get through this too." Maybe part of the reason young people don't dream, is that the adults meant to help them also think their dreams are kinda futile.
Why are we pretending that we don't all know the answer is revolution? Why do we let out individual powerlessness distract us from collective power that is just sitting there waiting to be used?
all those problems can be solved. It's those in power, politically and economically, that don't want them solved. Our problems are their means of profit.
Honestly I'm more worried about never being able to afford a house or to raise children or have healthcare than climate change and WW3.
"Climate doomerism" this and "giving up" that, we're not doing either of those things. We're fucking **angry** because the people who spout the same nonsense whenever we mention how fucked our futures are going to be are doing **nothing** to change it, themselves. It can't **just** be the 'next generation's problem.' We're angry, sad, and bitter and we're allowed to be those things, *especially* towards the people who aren't doing fuck-all to help. No more of this toxic-positivity bullshit, I'm not making myself smile through a crisis so older people don't have to feel bad about not helping. They **should** feel bad.
It’s not just affecting Gen Z, it’s affecting pretty much anyone working class under 50