Thinking about slow-moving effects, I have a theory that exposure to fiction is one reason people feel inadequate and depressed. For most of human history our idea of what it meant to be normal came from real people around us. We didn't know any fictional characters except for a handful of stories told around the fire. After radio was invented we got to know a lot more fictional characters, a lot faster and more intimately than we get to know most real people. Then television made it more vivid because we could see them. We think of many of these unreal people as our friends. Some of them have more impact on us than real people do. It's a lot easier to feel boring and inadequate than it was when we didn't feel like we knew people whose lives are so much more dramatic and interesting than ours. I think this is a large part of why it feels like failure to have an unremarkable job or date average people. It's a very slow-moving social change nobody would have seen coming.
Showerthoughts
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- If you feel strongly that you want politics back, please volunteer as a mod.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report the message goes away and you never worry about it.
Lobsters
It's still not warm enough for population over a tipping point, you are just more aware of the boiling apparatus. I believe humanity will jump once it gets warm enough, much like a frog does, even in a slowly boiling pot of water. I trust humanity, after all we've survived so far, our ancestors overcoming much much worse. Can you imagine living in feudalism? Or sword fighting in medieval times? Or when we had to hunt?
We'll definitely jump when it gets hot enough, the question is if we'll jump before the logistics and mechanics of solving the problem take longer than it takes the world to become uninhabitable.
ok. ok. ok. this is a bit of a stretch. I mean its really not all that slow.
“The guy trying to help me out of a pot is a different type of left than me, so i don’t want his help, and that other guy below me is also a different type of left so fuck him. Anyone who is slightly right or left of me is a fascist and I’m gonna enjoy watching them boil”
-the American left in 2024
Its such a shit situation. If you want out, you generally need to get a job in another country. A job in a different country generally pays significantly less than the cost of living in most of the USA, so you need to already have a significant amount of money already saved to even consider it an option.
Most of us are just fucking trapped.
And in the case of the EU you probably aren't getting in unless you're highly credentialed. For all their shit talking they sure hate large-scale immigration.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but COL in other countries is also only a fraction of the US's. We don't live in hunger and squalor over here, you know. Plus, to move, you won't need significant savings.
No, the real issue, as with all migration from high- to low-wage countries, is that you cannot easily return for retirement because you're not going to be able to save enough for the US's housings prices or rents.
Well, duh. A slowly boiling pot of water is just a fucking hot tub for 90% of the time you're in it.
Called my mom last night, told her to renew her passport asap.
Most people are like “the waters warm, this is nice, what are you going on about???” And I’m like “hi yes this water is scalding hot and about to boil we need to get out!”
Renewed mine online in October. Received in 12 days.
That was under the previous administration… musk is hollowing out federal jobs so I bet the wait will be tough. Especially as more frogs realize that the pot is boiling…
Also the only animal whose greed and hoarding behavior outdoes it's conspecific altruism.
Billionaires are keeping us in the pot, using levers of power that we don't access from the pot.
Don't forget the millions of us chained to the bottom because we have no choice
latin america africa and many parts of east asia sending its regards
Oh hello my friend, you fully drowned yet? I'm getting there.
Having no choice people think we can just jump ship (or I guess the pot) when they don't realize the people who can't do it at all because there chained to it
For instance trans people can't get passports or renew them meaning they have absolutely no way to leave.
We need to stay and help the disenfranchised instead of jumping ship
Inside the pot: slowly boiling water
Outside the pot: raging inferno that is heating the pot
When given the option to slowly boil, or jump into a raging inferno, I think most people would think twice about jumping out of the pot.
Pot boiling and the raging inferno are both in America. Go and explore, the world is more peaceful then you think
I understand, but like lots of people in America I was born here and have have had my wages suppressed because of multiple “once in a lifetime” financial crises to the point I can’t afford to travel, and therefore I can’t afford to immigrate.
I genuinely so sorry and wish the good Americans could move over easier. One word of advice you don't have to take at all. If you wanna travel look into placements like teaching or volunteering. Having a more global perspective rather than America focus will help a lot, seeing a world outside the bougie third world nation of America. But I'm rooting for you bud
As an American who just emigrated, I guess I jumped. I can still vote from overseas, but I'm pessimistic about the future.
Yea.....
Post UK Brexit was when I thought the same thing.
This would imply that they're not surrounded by other pots filled with water which is (varying degrees of) boiling. We don't really have a Socialist Utopia meeting spot, let's say.
Beyond that, eloping requires a not insignificant amount of money (as a Romanian, I can say that homes/apartments aren't cheap here, either, and we're not exactly L.A.)
And at the other end of the line, immigration's not exactly thought of with fondness, even in Europe. Don't forget, we're stewing in our own pot even if the heat's still relatively tolerable.
This is a problem I'm having now with my boyfriend. I want to get out of the US and he says, "Where? Everywhere's falling to fascism right now. And it's hard and expensive to emigrate." It doesn't help that he also thinks it's not worth it to think about leaving until the water's actually boiling and he has verified it.
Yeah most people were like "I'm moving to Canada!" Ignoring the fact that the person most likely to be PM in a couple months is also fully a Musk shill. Europe is pushing right-wing and the UK's been down bad for a while. Maybe Australia or New Zealand?
The Scandanavian countries currently look the safest to me. I think Iceland would be nearly ideal, in a lot of ways. but I worry that they may be annexed by one of the larger powers as things get uglier.
Your boyfriend is right. Unless one of you has an in-demand technical degree or a lot of money, immigration to Western countries is going to be out of reach. That leaves you with weakened economies which are either already authoritarian, or trending authoritarian. Even if you could get to a place like Europe, far-right parties emboldened by their new U.S. support are rising in popularity and receiving centrist support in places like France and Germany.
There is no green field to relax in while the rest of the world collapses. You'll have to fight to prevent the slide to fascism wherever you go.
True - it's the rising tide right now and probably for humanity's future since we're on a sinking ship globally. I do have the benefit of working for a global company and a boss who's already told me I can transfer to whichever country I pick that they operate in. But he's not as optimistic for his own job needs, and it's still about choosing a country that could possibly just let us die in peace before it also goes to shit.
he's not wrong..