No I’m not catastrophising.
The world is slowly lurching towards a fully fascist led America, India, Hungary, Russia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Argentina.
Instead people are either ignorant or blaming “wokeism”* for their problems.
I have no clue what to do and this is literally a car crash in slow motion.
I’m despondent because I’m going to be crushed under the boot when the time comes and my morals get in the way of my survival instinct.
Humans are repeating the mistakes of the past. It’s just so anxiety inducing.
*Woke is a useless term promulgated by fascists to dog whistle the things they really want to hate - feminism, socialism, LGBTQIA+, immigration, brown/black people, equality and diversity.
Just to give you a bit of a morale boost: every generation thinks they're the last ans that everything is about to go to shit. In the end that never really happens.
Yes, a lot of right wing politicians have beek elected, also all previous ones have failed and got kicked out. For the Netherlands I predict the government will fall within a year as it typically tends to do when the leaders fuck up and this guy will likely fuck up soon enough.
Basically, this too shall pass.
Climate change is indeed a big cloud mainly because it will take centuries to fix even if we're going to fully dedicate ourselves to fixing it, which right now we are not. On the other end I finally hear about actual progress with fusion which, if true, may be the key to solving climate change within a century, solving it to acceptable levels within decades, if the will is there.
Point is: things look bleak, but they always do. Back during the cold war it literally was same shit, different day. Yet, the world moved forward and things slowly improved.
Things will be fine, you will be fine.
Your take on climate change makes me more worried. Sure, I will probably be fine, but how many innocent people around the world will die until we've done enough to see the climate improving?
How horrible is the world going to be to inhabit if the Gulf Stream collapses? Or other major climate disruptions occur?
I don't doubt the human race will survive, but why do we have to experience the pain before committing to fixing the problem?
For your last comment, I think it's because pain is one of the only things that motivates us
The wealthiest live right next to the beach.
While I'd like to think the wealthiest would do something that would benefit everyone, they can just build walls, or move to higher ground.
The poor tropics are especially screwed. Also all the cities on the coast
And there's optimism in climate change, zeroing our carbon burn is straight forward. It wouldn't take a decade if we could agree on the sane path
But we have pushed so much CO2 into the air, and so much heat into the sea we need to do better than zero. I'm pretty pessimistic
Thanks, I guess part of being an adult is just being more and more indifferent to the gradual decline of the world so that the crippling dread does not consume you.
Explains why my parents are still asking for grandkids.
Not at all
doubt.
Well not with that attitude.
We should be more concerned about the attitude of the billionaires and the politicians they own.
Things often get a whole lot worse before they get better. People thought things were on the brink of turning to shit in the 1930s, and then we had a world war for 6 years. Tens of millions of people died, countless more were displaced, cities were leveled, and history was lost.
I admire your optimism, but I can't ignore that the world and even my country specifically look more and more like a powder keg with every passing day. I'm terrified that we can't get to "fine" again without first suffering through an extremely dangerous period of time, and there's no guarantee that any of us will be "fine" during that time.
We haven't had a world war since WW2. We haven't got two likely sides now. China owns too much of the West, Russia is no longer credible
About 3.76% of the worlds population died due to WWII, or about 300MM people if scaled to today. For those people, the end really did happen.
With NATO being threatened by a malicious US presidential candidate, along with Putin getting express approval to go ape by the same, I'm actually quite worried WWIII is more possible than ever in my adult life (I was only a child during the cold war).
Nuclear war is no closer now than it was during the cold war. Everything then was on a hair trigger. Now it'll just take a psychopath in charge, and no one willing to ignore the order in the command structure
No things wont be fine. At least for me and many others anyway.
I’m sorry you can’t see that yet.
There is an underclass of angry, often white, men who are frustrated at their life and instead of directing their rage at the capitalist system, which is responsible for the position they are in, they’ve been told immigrants, socialism, feminism, LGBTQIA+ and brown people are the problem.
They are now organising to make their fictional narrative reality and I will be crushed when this happens along with millions of others, like you, who thought this could never happen again.
The tragedy is that those same men who think they’ll be empowered by fascists will be swept aside the moment they are no longer useful. They are victims to an extent too, just that they will have enacted violence and terror while being wrong.
Be careful of the slippery slope fallacy.
If they ever secure power my fate is basically sealed. I’ve accepted that.
It’s not slippery slope to be clear eyed about reality.
The most likely way I can see the fall of America is through a breakup of the federation. If you're in a bad state it could be bad
That's not certain and them getting absolute power also isn't.
So to me it sounds a bit like the arguments that they like to use. Like:
Technically maybe that could happen, but there are many other things that could also happen and that you are failing to consider.
If Modi, Trump, La Pen, Orban aren’t elected/reelected perhaps I’d change my view but I don’t have good reasons for thinking those things won’t happen.
If you believe that if those people are elected and it won’t lead to more fascism then I’m not sure what to say.
Well, I'm not sure which out-group you're a part of to conclude this. I don't think things are that bleak. For most of the out-groups being targeted, a coalition exists in the urban areas where they'll at least be tolerated. A bastion of progressives or people with common identities to rally around. It's hard to imagine places like NYC, LA, etc. otherwise.
But this is why I hate politics. Everyone who organizes, screws around with power. I don't believe there's any "side" that will stand with me in a time of need, or any group to rally around. The only people who will stand for my interests is myself and the few people I can persuade. If you're this alone, the only thing you can really do is try not draw attention. Don't even bother voting.