Ask Lemmy

Get off the internet and pay attention to real life. Is this what “touch grass” means? Even politics used to be about reality but we’re in an age of internet politics that’s entirely toxic. Yes the internet can be toxic and we’d all be more healthy with less of it

all of it could just go up in smoke tomorrow.

It always could. The only difference is now you have people shouting on the internet about it and politicians who seem intent on causing it.

But even in the places with the most toxic politics, it usually won’t. Even where the hatred spite and racism is the worse, the reality is your neighbors and commutative more impact.

Its weird in many way life is incomparably better than even fifty years ago. The air is cleaner, society is more tolerant and respectful of differences, material prosperity is much greater.

Yet at the same time things are falling apart as the relative decline of US and Europe encourages polarisation and the structural inequality of neoliberal ideology increases hardship especially on the young.

I'd say if you are able to maintain steady income, friends, interests, don't live in an active war zone or other disaster area, and have a few other lucky circumstances like that, you can (at least for now) have a reasonably happy existence. You don't have to ignore or deny the terrible stuff going on elsewhere. There have always been wars and poverty happening, but it's ok to respond more to your sense of your immediate surroundings (where things are going ok) than to your sense of bad stuff happening in remote times and places.

The internet and political news reminds us that bad times may be coming for everyone due to global warming, AI propaganda from encroaching dictatorships, and all that stuff. Don't ignore that. Oppose it if you can. But, don't let it overcome your hopefully-reasonably-good existence in the present.

Certainly, if spending all day on the internet makes you neurotic, then try to cut back on it. Some people choose to eliminate it completely from their lives, at least for a while. I haven't done that so don't know if it helps.

Ah man. Kind of sounds like my internal thoughts sometimes, also was in an abusive household, entire family is maga and insane (potential mental disorders)

I definitely feel for you being that age in this shitty timeline. I won't sugar coat it. Today's world is shit. Everything was demonstratably better in the US 20 years ago. Especially for anyone interested in tech.

Youre right. Everything could go to shit tomorrow. I think this daily, I could get cancer and have a week to live, or damage my brain and be unable to work or do anything I enjoy forever.

Keep reading, I'm not done!

However ive found that turning that negative thinking into "I dont give a fuck" has really turned shit around for me. I'm here, I can't choose my family, but beyond that, I can choose my friends and how I live my life and doing what I want without thinking about what others are doing or thinking.

Another huge help was reading The Power of Now (by Tolle. If you want a copy I'll send you the eBook just message me). Ive read it three times. Its a massively calming book that really helped me just be.

Another helper, stop reading news bullshit. On my Lemmy app I block specific keywords (trump, ai, llm, openai, etc. ). Our human brains aren't meant for this barrage of information and nothing you do is going to change all the evil people in the world. Uninstall Lemmy for a while and use wikwok to get your scroll fix and learn something while you're at it! Or another tip, on weekends I either shut my phone off or leave it on the bedroom table like a house phone and check it once or twice a day if needed. Its much more freeing. Or just unplug your router and pretend its 1999, I have weekends like that too. Just enjoying the here and now.

Another thing you can do is find others similar to you either IRL or online and build community or at least moderate aquantanceship (word?). Someone told me this once and I think its good: the only thing that really matters in all this, is people who care. Thats really it. Finding people with similar beliefs and interests is really going to help especially if you live in magaland(it gets depressing, I know)

Your question of "staying on the internet" I'd say yes, because its awesome, but you need to get off corpo net. Build your bookmarks folder with individual websites from the smolweb, try out gopher or the Gemini protocol, etc. There is so much awesome shit on the internet that unfortunately has been buried and shoved out of our sight (on purpose by corpos) .Especially at your age, you may not have gotten to experience how awesome it used to be before corporations destroyed half of it. But there is still a beautiful human side of the internet; you need to dig for it. Use kagi, ecosia, searxng to find these hidden gems. Or Lemmy smolweb, I have found a lot there too. Stay off the big 3 corpo sites they are just cancer.

Also it does seem like you may have the mentality of "if I have nothing I have nothing to lose" which isnt a totally bad thing per se, but I like to ask myself if in 10 or 15 years I should have done a thing and if the answer is yes I'll wish i would have, I'll do it (example, gym. I hated the gym but I make myself go and its really not bad at all, and I'm hopefully prolonging my healthy life).

Anyway, youre obviously aware of the issue which is very good, a lot of folks aren't and they turn to the manosphere or 4Chan trolling. Dont do that. You are already changing your thinking just by recognizing you want a change. Make small changes first.

No, it's not entirely awful. There are awful things in it for sure, but there are also amazing things, which is how it's always been.

People growing up today live under the threat of climate change, fascism, rampant inequality etc. These threats are real. But there's a lot of good stuff happening too - crime rates are falling constantly, and we're on the verge of some big medical breakthroughs such as being able to treat cancer with CRISPR and Oncolytic viruses to give a couple of examples. We might be about to double the lifespan of cats.

Every generation grows up under some sort of threat - nuclear annihilation in the 80s, WW2 before that, WW1 before that etc. Mad kings, dictators, plagues, wars... you're dealt the hand you're dealt. But everything is cyclical - fascism flares up and then gets squashed, the economy booms and busts, politics swings right, then left again. Because of that, sometimes the cycles line up so that a few things suck at once. But nothing is permanent.

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.

• Ursula Le Guin

That's not to say everything will be fine, or that we're doomed. Most likely some people who don't deserve it will suffer and die, some people who don't deserve it will live charmed and privileged lives and learn nothing, and some people will just be fine. As it has always been.

There's a lot of responses here already… But if it ever feels hopeless or overwhelming, I recommend just go to a nearby park, sit on a bench, and watch nature and life going by. Compare what you're seeing, with what you're feeling. Do they match up? Or is there a difference there?

There are many good people in the world coming up with good solutions to problems we have, who are being held back by the bad people in charge.

Yes and no.

Yes, in that it does and will affect you, and you do need to take an interest. You need to vote in every election you can, you need to stay involved, you need to make a stand. Without that we will lose everything we care about. Those in power have shown that they are happy to chip away at things, but as soon as any opposition is shown they start backing down.

No, in that your life is your own, and you can't let politics dictate your life. As someone with a ton of anxiety, I cannot read the news daily, I do not subscribe to the news communities, I have to stay away from it. I choose to live my life and make the most of it, living day to day. My family and friends are the most important to me, and I spend my time enjoying them. I came very close to crumpling into a deep depression due to the news, and then got help. It was a hard lesson in learning I cannot personally change everything, and I cannot hold myself responsible for everything that has happened.

Confused? Good. It's a personal journey, you have to pick and choose yourself, and draw your own lines and figure out where your responsibility is and when you've done your part. I stay educated, I know what's happening, I know who I'm voting for, I know when to stand up. That does not mean I need to stay glued to my computer and doomscroll. You'll have to draw your own line.

As people have stated, some things are good, some are bad.

The most important factor for anyone answering you is are they even aware of their privilege or lack thereof.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned, is the fact that based on the wealth and progress of the world, basically none of the issues that remain, should.

This is the absolutely unbelievably infuriating part, and it's made worse because people will come into forums like this, and say "bruh I have a mini computer that does everything and the 60s didn't even have civil rights". That's a complete false equivalence that means NOTHING.

Unfortunately, right now oligarchy is rampant, fascism is categorically and indisputably on the rise, and a few billionaires are actively deploying all the money and losers they can to keep shit shifting wealth, and power in their direction.

If we do not stop them soon, they will quite literally burn the world down for a fucking dollar.

It's great to take advice here and exist in a bubble, but society is not a bubble.

In other words "I don't care about politics" or "I can't look at it because of X reason" are really great thoughts, but politics absolutely gives a shit about you and it will decide your future with or without your input.

Get a hobby. Find people in your area that share that hobby. Form social groups around that.

You do realize that, as an adult, you can just start a club, right? Why do you think your high school had all those clubs and activities in it? The hope was that you could keep doing things like that as an adult. Every aspect of schooling is meant to serve as practice for adulthood.

Hell, you could start a "third places" club. Get a number of people together. Every Saturday afternoon, on a rotating basis, someone's home becomes a "coffee shop" that everyone goes and hangs out at. Don't even need to plan a lot of programming. You don't need to worry about any kind of business license, as you're not running a business. It's just a friend group that holds rotating social gatherings.

The Universe gave you an imagination for a reason. USE IT. Find something that interests you or some need in your community. Find others with that passion or interest. Find something that brings you joy and meaning, something within the limits of your talents and resources. If it doesn't exist, will it into being.

Build the world you want to see. The labor will buy your sanity.

I've read enough in my life to know that I'd rather be alive now than any other time in human history. I also acknowledge that I'd rather be living where I am than a pretty decent chunk of the rest of the world.

But I also acknowledge that with all the advancements in science and technology things should be a whole hell of a lot better/easier than they are, but they aren't because of the greed of a relatively small percentage of our species preventing us from accessing those advancements and preventing us from achieving further social progress. Things really don't need to be this much of a struggle in the 21st century.

There's no such thing as utopia, but we absolutely have the means to be lot closer to it than we are and that's supremely frustrating. Especially if you're like me and accept that you're not going anywhere other than the permanent void after you take your last breath.

It feels like we're 2 feet from the finish line but our feet have been nailed to the asphalt by assholes who've placed bets against us crossing it.

The bottom line is you have to do what's best for your mental health so you don't suffer every minute of every day. The strategy for that is different for everyone. For me it's keeping close tabs about what's going on in the country/world during the work week when I'm stressed/pissed about being at work anyway, then totally checking out completely on weekends. No social media. No news. Nada.

Personally, I don't think it's right to bury your head in the sand completely. The truth is that if you live in the U.S. we ARE going backwards. Our rights ARE being infringed. Our quality of life WILL decline if we remain on the path we are currently on. But everyone checking out will only accelerate the decline and push us past a point of no return.

Find your strategy. Force yourself to unplug on some sort of recurring schedule so you get the framework of the awful shit happening but maybe not the non-stop gory details. You don't necessarily need every detail in order to maintain your moral compass. And you certainly don't need every detail if you want to keep your sanity.

A lot of what you see online is people making the perfect the enemy of the good, intentionally divisive foreign propaganda, and extremists trying to get you mad about their thing. Houses really are a lot more expensive than they were in the middle of the 20th century but compared to the rest of human history that period was the outlier, now things are just returning to 'normal'.

Yes and no—depends on your proximity to the catalysts. If you're ridiculously privileged, like I am, the world has never been safer.
But, imo, it's important to hold two truths:

a. The US is as about as safe as it's ever been
b. Shit, on the whole, is absolutely fucked

We are all part of society and we owe it to each other to at least maintain awareness of the goings-on.
Find your personal balance—don't simply pretend everything is rainbows.

Im over 50. I generally been good at school after the early grades. I grew up at a time when someone could still get a job with a high school degree and at least do alright for themselves. Afford a place to live on their own and pay their bills and be able to get around. I thought if I did well in school I would be able to afford the middle class american dream. support a modest home, wife, and kids. Over time a single income became increasingly impossible to support a household on. I did relative well compared to my peers but my wife has medical issues so we have had to live a very lean lifestyle to get by on one income with higher than normal medical costs. I am not in my 50's and two years out of work living off shrinking savings that are supposed to help us get through retirement. We are kinda lucky we were saving to get some remodeling done to make it easier for my wife. Basically make it more handicap friendly. In addition we wanted to get some more energy efficient appliances especially the hvac system. That is pretty much what we are burning through along with doing some dangerous things like not getting the hvac a checked up and such. We are essentially as belt tightened as possible. So personally. From my experience. Life has gotten worse for people like me (americans). My father was able to own and pay off an admidately ramshackled house but looking at it from modern times it was a freaking mansion. 5 bedroom, 3 bathrooms, a full basement, sep living, dining, kitchen, breakfast nook. He never went to high school. Let me reiterate. Its not that he never graduated high school. He never graduated junior high. He never went to high school at all. We generally had two cars. Used sure but two. He payed for a household of 7 kids and a wife and himself and had plenty saved for retirement. I have a stem bachelors dual majored with a masters degree and worked extensively in the field. I am looking at eventually losing my two bedroom condo before retirement which also does not look good even if I got a job tommorrow unless I can make a ton in the next ten years. So anyway take that what you will but for my life and experience stuff has gotten worse as far as day to day life pretty much my whole life.

No, life is both. Within it is the most grandiose beauty you could ever imagine, alongside unspeakable horrors. Both heaven and hell take their inspiration from the mortal plane.

In 1960 the minimum wage was $1.00/hour and the average US home cost $11,000.00

Yeah, things are pretty bad right now

Depends. Is your family rich?

There are lots of things going on at once and all of them are valid. I struggle, too. My life is pretty good, from a global standard, while many, many others' lives are much worse. Happiness is wildly unevenly distributed.

All things end. It's the price of existing. But new good things come. There's danger, but there's also plenty good.

Go out, try to make some friends and when you fail try again until you succeed.

There's good in this world and it's worth fighting for.

There's some good advice here, one thing I'll say is that if you feel bad about the state of the country/world, the best way to get over that is by organizing. There's studies talking about people who get involved are more optimistic about the future. Being around people who are actively trying to make a better world can do wonders for combatting doomerism. Join a leftist cause or a mutual aid group (not a charity) and build something.

I'm a bit older and much of my life was lived before the Internet. Social media has changed us all for the worse and you'll do yourself well for staying off of it as much as you can. And yes, there is much more to life than what you're aware of right now in your life.

It sounds like you used the Internet to figure out that your home life sucked and life is better out there. But now the Internet is literally having the opposite effect. My advice at this point is literally spend less time on the Internet. Think of the Internet as the person who helped you to realize there are better things in life. But then that friend starts to drag you down. You get rid of the friend. That sounds harsh, but that’s just how life works.

I don’t know if you live in a big town or a small town, but I would say think of something or some things that you enjoy. Join clubs or groups that do those sorts of things. I saw this comment the other day on another post. It isn’t about quantity. It is an about quality.

One really good friend is The equivalent of 100 average friends or just acquaintances.

I’m not saying don’t have average friends or acquaintances, I’m saying look for the ones who are good friends.

A good friend is the one who you can call at two in the morning and say “ Shit, I just put my car in the ditch, I’m probably legally drunk, And if the cops find me, I am screwed” . That really good friend , he’ll be there.

A good friend is the one who you call when you find out your significant other is cheating on you, and understands the best course of action or at least can help you find the best course of action. Pro tip keying the cheaters car is not the best idea.

Acquaintances will simply say oh man I’m so sorry but then you don’t hear anything more from them.

Look for the good friends in those groups. And yes, I know what you’re saying , It’s hard to find people to hang out with. But that’s why I’m saying find clubs find organizations that do what you enjoy.

Here’s a really good example of what I mean by the Internet can bring you down. People in Scotland were afraid to come to the US because of what their media was saying about the US. What their media was saying how we treat other people. Go on YouTube and look at World Cup soccer fans from Scotland and you will see people who are amazed at how they got treated. How well they got treated.

And that’s going from Scotland to the US. I went from Minnesota to Washington DC a couple of years ago. As a tourist. I was concerned that everybody was gonna be cold and distant. Because that’s what I’ve always been told. That the people in DC are basically cold assholes. You couldn’t be more wrong about that statement. Everybody That I ran across was very nice. And it didn’t matter if it was in a restaurant if it was on the street if it was in a museum, it didn’t matter. People in general were and are quite pleasant.

The media loves to fear monger. And you see a lot of that on the Internet. But the reality is most people are actually very nice.

It seems like U.S. politics is about instability and collapse at this point,

The unfortunate reality is that Fascist regimes are inherently unstable, and fascist regimes run by drug fueled narcissist's are the worst of all (in terms of stability).

Since the Neo-Nazi party is in charge in America, the short answer is that its very likely that the US will collapse.

That said, the Roman Empire "collapsed" over the course of several generations (200 to 300 years).

Is this really what life is? Just watching every good thing disappear? Being born into a mostly-functioning society just to watch it fall apart? Being promised a stable life and career all throughout school only for the rug to be pulled at the last minute?

Kinda?

So there is a quote that I think is pertinent here. (Michael Parenti from his book Fascism in a Pinstriped Suit)

"The concentration camp was never the normal condition for the average gentile German. Unless one were Jewish, or poor and unemployed, or of active leftist persuasion or otherwise openly anti-Nazi, Germany from 1933 until well into the war was not a nightmarish place. All the “good Germans” had to do was obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, avoid any sign of political heterodoxy, and look the other way when unions were busted and troublesome people disappeared. Since many “middle Americans” already obey the law, pay their taxes, give their sons to the army, are themselves distrustful of political heterodoxy, and applaud when unions are broken and troublesome people are disposed of, they probably could live without too much personal torment in a fascist state — some of them certainly seem eager to do so."

Assuming there is not a massive change in the next election, it seems likely that Fascism will win in America. But as noted above, you can live under fascism for a decent amount of time as long as you keep your head down and dont complain too loudly.

As to this one

Knowing you’ll have to weather every struggle alone because people only care about themselves?

Republicans are only some 40% of the population.

There are people out there you can make friends with, who will genuinely care for you, and the manosphere has lowered the bar for men so far that just not being a raging asshole is enough to make you noticeable to women. You dont have to be wealthy to get a girlfriend, im moderately successful (I have a solo apartment, and my car is paid off, but im hardly rich), and I have managed a more or less steady string of girlfriends for the past 10 years or so.

If you can manage to avoid the manosphere, the mens rights people, the redpill idiots and the Christians, you can actually be a decent person, and that's honestly all it takes nowadays. You arent going to jump into bed with a supermodel just being a decent person (probably), but as long as your standards are reasonable, its not that hard to find a relationship (as long as you avoid advice from the above groups).

Column A and Column B. There are people out there where life is doing alright but could be better of all political persuasions. The issue is that the powers in charge are working to making it actively worse for everyone. As people have said form looking through here, organize.

This is a hard one and I think you're asking the wrong question. This post reads to me like you're trying to prevent getting into the same situation you were in as a child by thinking through everything.

Notice the underlying assumption that people will always act selfish ("capitalism makes everyone selfish", "a partner only wants to enjoy your stable life"), are unreliable ("people are only fair-weather friends", "people don't want to socialize") and are always out to get you ("going outside is dangerous, because people want to run me over and fascists will kill me", "someone wants to wipe out my progress").

And (apart from your parents) is that how people in your life have behaved? (Like e.g. People in school, early childhood friends, teachers or even strangers)

You wrote that your brain is "constantly thinking about everything and everyone that could kill me or take everything I have", but I think it's also what your assuming everyone WANTS to do.

So, is the internet useful? Well depends on how you use it.

You can choose to see the fascists in the streets and get confirmation. Or you can choose to notice the protestors, the actions people are taking against the fascists.

But, if left alone, the internet will reinforce what you already believe, be it true or not. You can use the internet to challenge your assumptions, but it takes as much questioning, soul-searching and conscious effort as doing that in the real world.

And changing a survival mechanism and belief that kept you alive during childhood is one of the toughest things one can do. It's not impossible, but it requires a lot of uncertainty and finding a lot of little assumptions that were only useful during childhood.

I'm something of an existentialist at heart, so I truly believe that life is what we make it. Nothing more and nothing less.

There are real problems and challenges in the world. Good and evil both exist. Some days you will be happy and at peace and other days you will be consumed by pain and sorrow.

All of these things are part of life, and the universe itself is ambivalent to us.

Figure out what your philosophy on life is and live.

I currently find some balance in having a few things that disconnect me. Each day I do something artistic to get away from the bs cycle. Even if it's just 15 minutes.

I would highly recommend it and that you approach this as something you do for yourself only. Don't set any goals to please others. This one's about what you want from it.

As you spend time on this project (whatever you pick) you'll find pride and healing in what you accomplish.

I feel much the same as you. I'm quite a bit older too. I've lost all faith in our systems and actively hate most of the people around me. The only thing keeping me sane is my small group of best friends. Without them, I'd have snapped a long time ago. Things definitely look bleak and if they don't change quickly and dramatically I doubt we'll make it. I wish I could help more, but I know misery loves company.

You would probably appreciate developing direct personal connections. Could be irl or on the internet, just not super anonymous text based stuff like Lemmy.

Humans are a product of their circumstances, they can change over time, there is diversity within a community. Overly broad brushing can lead to a despair like you're describing and it's good to remember it's not accurate. At the same time it is good to be aware of tendencies and patterns because the risks you mention are real in various pockets and subsets of society. The best protection against them is relationships with everyone else, and particularly those who are opposed to and organize against, for example, fascists.

More than ever before, life is truly what you make of it.

The very affluent can live among the very poor. The darkest skin tones with the lightest. The happiest among the depressed.

Beware of garbage in and garbage out.

Your thoughts will become your words, those words will become your actions, and those actions will become your world.

It is truly a blank piece of paper.

(Unless you wear certain tshirts, bring your children to school in the usa, etc)

The world is changing very rapidly, and the future will be a rough ride for many, but the art is to understand that there are things that you can change and things you must accept.

And it’s a rare show. We’ve never had environmental collapse overlap with the fall of an empire before on Earth. Only death is certain (yes, even for you Elon)

No.

Things ARE bad right now. We have a horrible wealth gap, we are deep into late stage capitalism, enshittification is rampant and climate change looms on our horizon

That said: do yourself a favour and learn more about terrible times in human history and the things people did to survive.

People have lived through horrible awful times and still found a way to continue on, find joy, survive, have small victories. I stopped spiraling out about how depressing the future looked when I learned more about the past... it shows you we are resilient. We are adaptible. We find a way. We WILL find a way. Just dont allow yourself to give into the despair--find the things you need to ground yourself, find your small victories, genuinely smell the roses and enjoy what you can. Look into taoism and concepts like finding inner peace among chaos. It helps a lot, trust.

Stay angry and stay vocal about our circumstances but dont let it steal the time you have on this earth, there is a lot here still to spark happiness and contentment.