me_irl

There's also people who are absolutely going to get fucked but are still living in a comfortable dream-world where they think someone is going to come make everything normal again.

Some of us know its fucked and are just trying to get by.

There are whole swathes of us who are still foolishly optimistic enough to think we can pull ourselves out of this nose dive too.

I'm also 40 something. Oh for the dizzy optimism of the 90s...

Same age-ish, and I feel the same.

The hard part is trying to figure out what part of that comes from societal collapse, and how much of that comes from just getting older and seeing more and more of how the world works... or doesn't work.

Despite all we see and hear, objectively the world is better than it's ever been. We are at a shocking low level of international conflict, starvation, disease, crime, famine, even teen pregnancy has fallen to the lowest rates we've ever seen.

But all of these gains have been made by people forming communities of various kinds, of linking up, sharing ideals and compiling resources. This "downturn" we're feeling is a localized result of a lot of people turning their backs on community.

We are incredibly communal animals, we need social identities to survive. This has been studied. When community abandons you, or when it feels like they have, people broadly stop caring about things and themselves and become selfish, bitter, cynical and hateful. We're feeling this all around us, and inside us. And I don't think it's a natural phenomenon, there are active groups working to cause this, they want to undo all that progress and bypass war and pillaging and destruction and just rot out the world's wealthiest countries from the inside out.

I don't know if these objective, global gains will continue for everyone. But I fully believe that the USA at least is in a nose-dive it won't pull out of. Things are breaking as we speak, in ways we can't repair.

The 90s were seriously such a bop.

Unfortunately Musk didn't get bullied out of politics, his office was always meant to expire at the beginning of May. He achieved what he set out to do: dismantling federal government completely to make deruglation, tax avoidance and corruption much easier.

This is just him doing the typical right wing martyrdom whining whenever somebody criticises them.

I am well over 40 and I agree with OP. Then again, I didn't give up my empathy at the door to adulthood.

Whereas the reality is that things are so fucked because these idiots get their news from Facebook. The Trump administration admitted to making a mistake deporting Kilmer Garcia - they’ll never find out because they’re too busy sharing OAN articles about that trans women they bullied out of fencing.

This is the saddiest shit ever. Young men being angry at the « Men » will vote for the men that will sold them to the bone mill in a heart beat.

There’s a Turkish proverb : and the forest vote for the axe because they where made of the same wood

I know a surprisingly large amount of MAGA/Trump adjacent fans because of my type of work.

• They're all single dudes. Maybe divorced. Maybe never went on a date.
• There's Joe Rogan involved.
• After a few beers, they all will unprompted share their views on Jews, blacks, trans, lesbians, or some other racist shit then back off and pretend it's just a joke.
• Tell them anything involving empathy "Sorry your dog died" is met with silence or coldness.
• They all don't give a shit about anybody else besides themselves. And often see themselves as the victim. "Oh Trans person was brutally beaten? Yeah it's a violent world like one time some guy threatened me gotta stay strapped."
• They may not like Trump's antics. But to them, the Democrats aren't helping THEM. Remember that lack of empathy?

I'm a public librarian. Just dreading the day we are defunded. They’ve already attacked our national orgs.