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26, this feels so right. not sure what I'm supposed to be looking forward to. All the movements I could be happy about are regressing (trans rights, women's ri

26, this feels so right. not sure what I'm supposed to be looking forward to. All the movements I could be happy about are regressing (trans rights, women's rights, hell even gay rights which seemed incredibly solid). Climate change is going to ruin everything and we're not going to do anything about it. Gaza is a neverending parade of tragedies. It feels like all there is to do is sit around and feel bad and wait for things to get worse.

williamcotton 3y ago
I’ve got a career I like, a wife and kids I love, and a city I enjoy. I’m also sharing a planet full of a species that has endured and conquered plagues, slavery, centuries of war, and the threat of nuclear war, amongst other hardships. Things have been much worse and we will continue to improve. Check out the book Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know for a counter to your doomscrolling. So why do so many smart people wrongly believe that, all things considered, the world is getting worse? Way back in 1965, Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge, from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, observed, "There is a basic asymmetry in life between the positive, which is difficult and takes time, and the negative, which is much easier and takes less time—compare the amount of time needed to bring up and socialize an adult person and the amount of time needed to kill him in an accident, the amount of time needed to build a house and to destroy it in a fire, to make an airplane and to crash it, and so on."' News is bad news; steady progress is not news.
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tekla 3y ago
You are way too old to have such a childish outlook on this. The world continues to spin and most people continue to live their lives.
- trashface 3y ago
  49 and have the same outlook so I guess i'm childish too. Modern life seems to be mostly just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen, to me or someone else I know or maybe both. Wasn't like this in my 20s thats for sure, it does appear to be a new thing.
throwaway22032 3y ago
Trans rights are certainly not regressing. In the 90's, slurs about ladyboys, chicks with dicks, and so on and so forth were the norm in basically any social circle. The concept of an actual, real trans man or woman was completely alien to society. Homosexuality follows pretty much the same pattern with a head start. Women are achieving far better to the extent that some are starting to feel as if we've left young boys behind. Gaza sucks, but we've always had wars. Ask a survivor about WW2. Climate change is about the only thing on your list that is actually worth worrying about in an existential sense. We are worrying about it a LOT more as a society as we did back then, we just may not be doing enough about it. It basically sounds as if you've gotten stuck on, say, people having debates about trans women in sport, and catastrophised that into somehow the whole world is going to shit. Maybe if you're a gay trans woman who ties most of their happiness into being able to broadcast their sexuality and gender identity then a reason to be upset might be that society isn't 100% accepting. You have to admit that's a super rare position to be in, though, and it's a hell of a lot easier than it was hiding in the closet in the 70s.
- spencerflem 3y ago
  I agree it's better than the 70's , I didnt grow up then but it doesn't sound great. That's why I was saying that I could have been hopeful about this getting better since at least the 2000s to 2010s. But more recently, it seems to be going backwards. In my home state of Florida there's a ton of laws being passed, book bannings, etc. that are incredibly awful and depressing that undo a lot of progress. Gaza's closer to the Vietnam War, or the Global War on Terror - two tragedies that I at least hoped we could have learned from.

williamcotton 3y ago

I’ve got a career I like, a wife and kids I love, and a city I enjoy. I’m also sharing a planet full of a species that has endured and conquered plagues, slavery, centuries of war, and the threat of nuclear war, amongst other hardships. Things have been much worse and we will continue to improve. Check out the book Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know for a counter to your doomscrolling. So why do so many smart people wrongly believe that, all things considered, the world is getting worse? Way back in 1965, Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge, from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, observed, "There is a basic asymmetry in life between the positive, which is difficult and takes time, and the negative, which is much easier and takes less time—compare the amount of time needed to bring up and socialize an adult person and the amount of time needed to kill him in an accident, the amount of time needed to build a house and to destroy it in a fire, to make an airplane and to crash it, and so on."' News is bad news; steady progress is not news.

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tekla 3y ago

You are way too old to have such a childish outlook on this. The world continues to spin and most people continue to live their lives.

trashface 3y ago
49 and have the same outlook so I guess i'm childish too. Modern life seems to be mostly just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen, to me or someone else I know or maybe both. Wasn't like this in my 20s thats for sure, it does appear to be a new thing.

throwaway22032 3y ago

Trans rights are certainly not regressing. In the 90's, slurs about ladyboys, chicks with dicks, and so on and so forth were the norm in basically any social circle. The concept of an actual, real trans man or woman was completely alien to society. Homosexuality follows pretty much the same pattern with a head start. Women are achieving far better to the extent that some are starting to feel as if we've left young boys behind. Gaza sucks, but we've always had wars. Ask a survivor about WW2. Climate change is about the only thing on your list that is actually worth worrying about in an existential sense. We are worrying about it a LOT more as a society as we did back then, we just may not be doing enough about it. It basically sounds as if you've gotten stuck on, say, people having debates about trans women in sport, and catastrophised that into somehow the whole world is going to shit. Maybe if you're a gay trans woman who ties most of their happiness into being able to broadcast their sexuality and gender identity then a reason to be upset might be that society isn't 100% accepting. You have to admit that's a super rare position to be in, though, and it's a hell of a lot easier than it was hiding in the closet in the 70s.

spencerflem 3y ago
I agree it's better than the 70's , I didnt grow up then but it doesn't sound great. That's why I was saying that I could have been hopeful about this getting better since at least the 2000s to 2010s. But more recently, it seems to be going backwards. In my home state of Florida there's a ton of laws being passed, book bannings, etc. that are incredibly awful and depressing that undo a lot of progress. Gaza's closer to the Vietnam War, or the Global War on Terror - two tragedies that I at least hoped we could have learned from.