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You don't need to go to the moon to feel this way these days, although I'm sure the vantage point helps. With the euphoria of the 60's now merely a tiny dot in

You don't need to go to the moon to feel this way these days, although I'm sure the vantage point helps. With the euphoria of the 60's now merely a tiny dot in our societal rear view mirror, crowded out by decades of bad news, I think people are on a certain level aware of this. We distract ourselves to avoid contemplating it too deeply. With an abundance of such distractions, people don't take time to think about the future of our species and planet as we know it, decades and centuries from now. It's less painful to live in the moment and worry about small, human problems. when I looked into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death. Increasingly I feel this way too. I, as a human, was built for this earth, of it. There's nothing good out there for me. This is my home.

ethanbond 4y ago
Euphoria of the 60s? In the US at least, I’d suggest that too was a distraction from the horror of what was going on at that time. You know, your friends getting taken to a jungle halfway across the world to come back with no legs, broken psyches, and a society that had turned its back on them.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... dead kids from all over US and europe losing their lives for some rich people to get richer. Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it.
  - nequo 4y ago
    > It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... Conscription is a huge difference. Hundreds of thousands were sent to Vietnam against their will. > Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it. Ugh this both sideism.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I see it as less “both sideism” and more “maybe we can be the baddies too”.
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        We are the baddies. I live in a small EU country, and have soldiers in syria now. We could atleast have pulled them back home, before pointing a finger at putin, but we didn't even do that (and they'd all fit in a minibus). We're currently destroying our own economies because someone else is doing something that we've been doing for years now. Technically we deserve being cold and maybe some kind of a revolution, because we've deserved it for destroying countries all around the world, but I'd prefer things to stop and normalize before we all freeze to death here.
        nequo 4y ago
        Especially as someone from a small EU country, this seems completely different to me, unless living in a Putin puppet state is an acceptable alternative to you. Invading other countries is bad (including when the EU does it). Invading and massacring Ukraine is bad. Both can be true at the same time. And only because we haven’t eliminated the first doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight the second.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        But we don't even plan to eliminate the first. How can we point the finger at putin, if we're doing the same as him? We're literally standing on a pile of middle-eastern bodies (let's not forget why the middle eastern crisis even started), and screaming "...but putin!". Look at the french for example... they have literally their embassies burning now, because people want their army out of their sovereign country, and the media sits quiet, mentioning maybe "some protests". The EU is threathening Hungary for wanting to buy russian gas, while sitting quiet about France. Why should putin have to stop, if we don't? And if we care for peoples lives and sovereign countries, why don't we care about the ones we're destroying right now?
  - RestlessMind 4y ago
    > a bad thing only when putin does it. Here is a key difference between Russia and the US/Europe. When Iraq war is bad, thousands of people can march across American/European cities without a fear of getting jailed. People can run for elections hammering their opponents on voting for a monstrous war (Obama trounced Hillary and others) and win. And that makes a difference (Syria - US/Europe didn't go there; in fact, the world afterwards wished that the US had gone to fight against Assad to prevent further tragedies). Vs what is happening in Russia? I heard demonstrators and political opponents are jailed. Even an old lady, who survived the siege of Leningrad and dared protest against Putin, was taken away by the police. That is what makes US regime much much better than Putin's.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      Yes, protestng when it's irrelevant for the government... closing peoples bank accounts when it's not (canadian truckers).
      - RestlessMind 4y ago
        Closing bank accounts is bad. Jailing an old woman in her 80's? That's whole another level. No government is perfect but there are shades of bad and you can see for yourself where a government falls on that spectrum.
- i386 4y ago
  The American Way.
- moomin 4y ago
  This is the correct take. Hippies, Flower Power, Love-Ins and so on cannot be properly understood without the context of the Vietnam War and the draft.
  - specialist 4y ago
    Yes and: The counter culture was a fraction of the population. The outsized attention given to "hippies" is that era's version of nutpicking. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nutpicking https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nutpicking The dominate culture's reaction to "hippies" (pro civil rights, antiwar, nonconformism, antimaterialism) beget a hard turn to the right. One cogent example is Reagan's meteoric political rise by demonizing a bunch of kids daring to exercise their right to free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966–1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966–1970 As with all protests, "hippie" culture was coopted and commercialized. Enabling another generation of conformists to LARP as rebels, for a price. This time via appropriated totems like blue jeans and stadium rock. Another predictable backlash, where the agitators are mocked and while their cultural stylings are assimilated. Lather, rinse, repeat.

ethanbond 4y ago

Euphoria of the 60s? In the US at least, I’d suggest that too was a distraction from the horror of what was going on at that time. You know, your friends getting taken to a jungle halfway across the world to come back with no legs, broken psyches, and a society that had turned its back on them.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... dead kids from all over US and europe losing their lives for some rich people to get richer. Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it.
- nequo 4y ago
  > It's not like things changed after... iraq, iraq 2, afghanistan, syria and many others... Conscription is a huge difference. Hundreds of thousands were sent to Vietnam against their will. > Somehow occupying sovereign countries and killing kids is a bad thing only when putin does it. Ugh this both sideism.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I see it as less “both sideism” and more “maybe we can be the baddies too”.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      We are the baddies. I live in a small EU country, and have soldiers in syria now. We could atleast have pulled them back home, before pointing a finger at putin, but we didn't even do that (and they'd all fit in a minibus). We're currently destroying our own economies because someone else is doing something that we've been doing for years now. Technically we deserve being cold and maybe some kind of a revolution, because we've deserved it for destroying countries all around the world, but I'd prefer things to stop and normalize before we all freeze to death here.
      - nequo 4y ago
        Especially as someone from a small EU country, this seems completely different to me, unless living in a Putin puppet state is an acceptable alternative to you. Invading other countries is bad (including when the EU does it). Invading and massacring Ukraine is bad. Both can be true at the same time. And only because we haven’t eliminated the first doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight the second.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        But we don't even plan to eliminate the first. How can we point the finger at putin, if we're doing the same as him? We're literally standing on a pile of middle-eastern bodies (let's not forget why the middle eastern crisis even started), and screaming "...but putin!". Look at the french for example... they have literally their embassies burning now, because people want their army out of their sovereign country, and the media sits quiet, mentioning maybe "some protests". The EU is threathening Hungary for wanting to buy russian gas, while sitting quiet about France. Why should putin have to stop, if we don't? And if we care for peoples lives and sovereign countries, why don't we care about the ones we're destroying right now?
- RestlessMind 4y ago
  > a bad thing only when putin does it. Here is a key difference between Russia and the US/Europe. When Iraq war is bad, thousands of people can march across American/European cities without a fear of getting jailed. People can run for elections hammering their opponents on voting for a monstrous war (Obama trounced Hillary and others) and win. And that makes a difference (Syria - US/Europe didn't go there; in fact, the world afterwards wished that the US had gone to fight against Assad to prevent further tragedies). Vs what is happening in Russia? I heard demonstrators and political opponents are jailed. Even an old lady, who survived the siege of Leningrad and dared protest against Putin, was taken away by the police. That is what makes US regime much much better than Putin's.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    Yes, protestng when it's irrelevant for the government... closing peoples bank accounts when it's not (canadian truckers).
    - RestlessMind 4y ago
      Closing bank accounts is bad. Jailing an old woman in her 80's? That's whole another level. No government is perfect but there are shades of bad and you can see for yourself where a government falls on that spectrum.
i386 4y ago
The American Way.
moomin 4y ago
This is the correct take. Hippies, Flower Power, Love-Ins and so on cannot be properly understood without the context of the Vietnam War and the draft.
- specialist 4y ago
  Yes and: The counter culture was a fraction of the population. The outsized attention given to "hippies" is that era's version of nutpicking. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nutpicking https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nutpicking The dominate culture's reaction to "hippies" (pro civil rights, antiwar, nonconformism, antimaterialism) beget a hard turn to the right. One cogent example is Reagan's meteoric political rise by demonizing a bunch of kids daring to exercise their right to free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966–1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement#1966–1970 As with all protests, "hippie" culture was coopted and commercialized. Enabling another generation of conformists to LARP as rebels, for a price. This time via appropriated totems like blue jeans and stadium rock. Another predictable backlash, where the agitators are mocked and while their cultural stylings are assimilated. Lather, rinse, repeat.