News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
drugs and/or guillotines
I like you.
This is why I shut down reddit once and for all. It was all ragebait, sad news, doom and gloom. They posted a very, very, very horrifying, very sad news on the frontend that affected me for weeks. You know when people post "That's enough reddit for me for today"? I said "that's enough reddit for me for good!"
Reddit used to be a fun place. I legitimately went there knowing that, five minutes in, I'd be laughing my ass off.
I can only imagine Twitter must be much, much worse.
Lemmy.... hm, Lemmy is going down that path. I try to stick to my tech community subs, but every now and then I check the frontpage and, if it's not a bunch of deadhorse memes, then it's stuff like this "nobody is ok" post.
I'm almost convinced that an AI (or "dem illuminaccies") are trying to bring the mood down on everyone on the internet, so it's easier to harvest their organs or something.
I'd have to say I'm doing alright myself. I don't make a lot of money. I'm not happy with politics and other things in the world but I'm thankful for what I have and that I am okay. I actively work to make my life better in whatever ways I can. I've met tons of people who don't and are unhappy.
I think people are unhappy are more likely to say something in response to something like the Elmo tweet rather than say "I'm doing great/good/alright."
Many people don't feel in control of their futures. In general, people in the "global South" have way fewer opportunities to start with. It doesn't matter how hard you work if you live in a dictatorship. Or if you never had a good breakfast before math in primary school. Of if half of your waking hours are spent commuting in dilapidated busses packed with people.
These are in reality the hardest working people; every waking hour can be challenge if you are poor.
Tbh I just want to work a job that can pay the bills and support a potential retirement. For so many of us this is all we want. We are willing to work, just not to some abhorrent degree or in wholly unreasonable, inhumane conditions. Many of us aren't asking to become filthy rich, just rich enough that things like bills and a scraped knee don't extend our retirement age another 20 years.
I think asking is good, and this may be worth getting into for other reasons - but know that this is a one way trip.
I'd suggest starting with the things that helped me unfuck my shit (partially, anyway!). First, if you haven't already, check out Kurzgesagt's Optimistic Nihilism video. If you find that interesting, continue on to absurdist philosophy, especially Camus (Sisyphus, Stranger) and Sartre (Nausea). After that, existentialism - I think I'd probably start with Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
Once you begin to get a feel for these ideas, I think a high-level reevaluation of deeply held beliefs and how you perceive the world around you becomes inevitable.
In terms of your question and what you are seeing, I believe these trends represent a larger collective awakening. Not a miracle, but something borne out of necessity: for anyone brave enough to take their head out of the sand for thirty seconds, environmental concerns alone are completely fucking overwhelming, and obviously that's just a start.
I do take solace in this development, though. Somehow, even without actively studying philosophy, teens today (and even younger!) appear to have, to a degree, an intuitive understanding of these concepts. That's wild! When I was in high school in the late 90s, genuinely thinking for yourself wasn't tolerated the way it is today. Sure, there were punks and goths and whatever, but for anyone who dared to question the paradox of asserting one’s uniqueness through group affiliation, the road was much bumpier than it seems to be today.
I actually had to remind one of my children at around 10 years of age that she should be careful telling her peers things like "god isn't real and nothing really matters" ... admittedly she was raised in a "we always respect people with different beliefs even if we find it difficult to respect their beliefs" home, so the "god isn't real" part wasn't a surprise, but she found existentialism on her own.
Consider the complexity of the humour in memes today - I think a lot of older folks dismiss it as vapid and banal, and while some definitely lands there, the baseline tends to include a lot more irony, sarcasm, and even elements of these more abstract philosophical ideas in ways that older generations tend to struggle with. At first glance it appears completely nonsensical, but upon superficial understanding it quickly becomes "antisocial" and offensive: how dare you find camaraderie in joking about suicide, and do you really think the collapse of civilization would be a good thing? This is more than gallows humour.
And perhaps your comment was more flippant than my initial interpretation and this will just come across as obtuse and condescending - I hope not, as that is definitely not my intent. If it was sincere and you are just beginning down this path, I hope my perspective makes a difference for you. I suspect it is obvious, but my own experience with this was not pleasant; it took me many years to find my way through and feel ok about continuing, in the broadest sense. With a bit of discipline and thoughtfulness, I think you should be able to mitigate the psychological risks inherent in exploring some of the more fundamentally challenging implications of nihilism.
This is how I felt in 2020-most of 2022, while everyone seemed to have their worlds crumbling around them I felt wonderful. Then my best friend lost his battle with alcoholism and depression, and things have not gotten better, it has been just one kick in the nuts after the next. But I am persisting.