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I feel like we're living in a Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire song ~~2.0~~ (Fall Out Boy did a 2.0 version of the song where they used more recent events.) 3.0 and the events in the song are happening at 1.25 times the speed of the original.

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[-] Saleh@feddit.org 87 points 1 year ago

This will probably be the calmest year of the years to come.

Russia, the US and EU are failing slowly, with Russia and the US kicking around in the process. The EU doesn't really know what to do except follow suit to the US, no matter the stupidity.

Aside from these three China seems to be emerging for now, but is running into huge demographic issues that the others already have.

Neoliberal Capitalism is destroying the very foundations of society and leading to a new rise of Fascism as it is ideologically way too deeply entrenched to overcome itself and the mantra of eternal growth and eternal capital accumulation at the top.

On top of all this the climate catastrophe is picking up intensity every year and the effects will cause more and more disruption.

Meanwhile any attempts at spearheading a better world, one of sustainable economies and basic human rights are disrupted by the forces of old, who employ ever more gruesome weapons and tools of mass surveillance while refusing any social innovation.

To answer your question: Yes it is overwhelming and it will probably get a lot worse.

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 1 year ago

Some days I really deeply contemplate just getting a canister of helium and an exit bag.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Today's tumultuous reality will be the "good old days" of tomorrow.

[-] anon6789@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

Yes, so I am overwhelming myself with good stuff so I don't have as much time to let that stuff bother me.

I joined an animal rescue that I work at every Sunday and busy my butt there. I also started participating in community events with other people through my music teacher, so I've always got new songs to work on. These national protests also have a more uplifting vibe than I'd expected, so I'd like to participate in more of those too.

So I'm feeling better about my own actions, developing more skills, helping my environment, giving entertainment back to my community, and seeing hundreds of other people that also want this place to be a bit better.

Sure the news is still a total buzzkill, but I can only dwell on it so long. I put off doing these things for so long saying I didn't have time or energy, but now they are wonderful healthy distractions, and even if we do pull out of this tailspin, I'd love to keep doing all these things anyway.

Don't let jerks keep you down. We can't stop all of it, but we can all find some way to be useful and successful, and other people seeing you carry on will keep them motivated too!

[-] fluxion@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I'm just doing my small part by raising kids who will act like adults when they grow up

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 26 points 1 year ago

No.

The world is run by capitalism, and you have to remember that unhappy, anxious people spend more, while dead people don't spend anything.

Turn off the news. Turn off the social media. Go for a walk. It's nice outside. None of this shit has manifested there.

Well, unless you're in America and you look vaguely foreign. Maybe don't go for a walk in that case.

[-] Tomassci@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago

I don't know if just choosing to ignore this all is the correct response. I mean, it's not overencumbering, but it feels like it also is a way for capital to reign free.

Maybe I'm just reading badly into it.

The correct way to fight against capitalism is to get together with your neighbours and start building communities that aren't reliant on the Big Market.

[-] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

The idea that we all need to disconnect from reality to stay sane is absolutely making reality worse.

This advice is from Boomer generations that hope to coast by before the world they neglected is no longer livable, while newer generations are forcing themselves to engage with reality because society is quickly becoming unlivable.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We essentially have an oligarchy, or at least a growing list of authoritarian leaders. Kings in many ways except by name. Kings have been perfectly willing to destroy countries in furtherance of their egos, profits or other. Wellbeing of their citizens be damned.

[-] ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 year ago

No, not really. I’m more overwhelmed by the fact I knew very little about the past. I deep dived into couple of things and now wonder the sanity of humanity.

Also the fact that people just do not learn from the past. People rather ignore all the things and repeat it again, again and again.

I have even become more pessimistic about humanity than, I already was. Because of this, I tend to avoid the news a bit more to at least keep my mental health in check.

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 1 year ago

It seems like most humans honestly are not that interested at all in things like history, the value of community, involvement with others, social and emotional support, and are generally just selfish living-perpetually-in-the-moment idiots that willfully ignore the implications of anything they do and endlessly play the victim.

It's honestly a drag to realize how many of our species continue to be backwards knuckle dragging slack-jawed yokels who get positively furious when anyone calls them out on how absolutely fucking stupid they are. How dare you call them stupid and hurt their feelings! It's their right to be a an absolute fucking idiot and you're the one out of line for calling attention to it! They couldn't possibly try to not be a mendacious fucking moron! You're the person who is wrong for noticing!

[-] theneverfox@pawb.social 7 points 1 year ago

Well... Yeah, that's just how empires collapse. Anti intellectualism isn't normal, but it comes up historically

[-] classic@fedia.io 6 points 1 year ago

I think the capacity is there to function at a higher, pro-social level; but it is severely compromised by societal systems that at some point were shaped by scarcity and real world dangers but have just become obsolete and out of control. We're living a traumatic legacy that we can't shake and just keep dumping on successive generations

I'd like to believe that, but some people I have met who are not struggling for resources and had kind and loving families are still somehow just some selfish motherfuckers. I don't know where they got that trauma from that made them want to hurt others so badly.

[-] classic@fedia.io 4 points 1 year ago

Of course we are all individually somewhere on a continuum of capacity. But I think that the overall system in which we live accounts for much of what you describe (see: messaging in our entertainment, commercials, social media, how they shape people). And also, perhaps that a kind environment like these people had is not a sufficient condition for pro social behavior, if it doesn't teach them perspective building for instance; or exposure to, and legitimization of, alternate lifestyles and realities.

idk. All this coexists with the inherent flaws of the human organism. Selfishness is one of our qualities. It's biologically built it in. Ideally our environment nurtures the executive functions to override and temper it. But, again, a capacity being there is not a sufficient condition for it to emerge

[-] RedPostItNote@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Capitalism is inherently violent and hurtful. You don’t have to look past the system in which they live.

[-] TheTimeKnife@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Im just curious, would you be willing to share what topics sparked your interest?

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[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Nope.

There's nothing I can do to change it apart from trying to do good in my own little neighborhood, so that's what I do.

[-] LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Honestly? I think if you had access to social media for any time in the last 100 years you would feel overwhelmed. The nature of the beast is there is ALWAYS something happening. There's ALWAYS something to be angry about.

[-] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Of course. It’s not the path you want to take. But I’m old enough to remember similar times and the future isn’t written yet.

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

You have many parallel selves that didn't make it. Wonder how many more selves you have left

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 3 points 1 year ago

As many as I have days to live.

(Not the OP but an old dude myself ;))

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

May your quantum eraser never run dry

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 1 year ago

Fingers crossed & thx :)

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

If you really believe in Everett's many worlds, infinity.

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Listen here you lemniscate, I don't want any more analemma's out of you!

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

I feel overwhelmed by how the world apparently went today

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean as a Canadian, I knew that was coming since early last year if Trump would win. I couldn't know where we would land on the spectrum between nothing changed and Armageddon. What I did know was that, without fail, I would hear what stupid thing Trump did just about every day in the news, and it would be overwhelmingly exhausting.

I have three pieces of advice. First, connect with the people around you offline, reinforce your ground truth. Second is keep your eyes on the ball of what you want to be better in the world so that you can keep going after it. Lastly, don't let right or left wing online propaganda, or the despair from crises the US, Israel, Russia, China or North Korea stir up paralyze you from taking action on those two things.

[-] Bronzie@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Honestly: no.

There are only so many things I can focus on at once and I’m quite good at not letting the others affect me.

Work, kids and friends take most of my time. My «crisis» of choice to stay updated on is Ukraine. Everything else I read on now and then, when I feel like it.

I quite enjoy just touching grass and being in the moment instead of stressing about things I have no control over.

[-] Bebopalouie@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was brought up by my parents who were both in WWII. I was told on the daily all about fascism until I was a teen. I saw countless media about the war that has not been seen since the 90’s.

I had first hand reports from my mom about when she was at the docks with the soldiers who had returned from Normandy. When she went to help them off the boat their skin would slide off. Who in the world wants fascism again. Sadly quite a few it seems. Most I do not think can comprehend what they are rooting for.

My brain is so fucked up right now. I feel like I am in a fever dream or I got zapped to a different world in the multiverse.

[-] fluxion@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

All i know is i didn't start this fire

[-] arin@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

It's not about how we feel but what we do about it

[-] MashedHobbits@lemy.lol 5 points 1 year ago

America invading the Middle East and Israel committing genocide has been the staple my entire life.

World’s going to shit due to climate inaction.

The only change here is Russia and Ukraine, and that’s been ongoing for years now.

I don’t feel overwhelmed, this all feels normal to me.

The only change here is Russia and Ukraine, and that’s been ongoing for years now.

I dunno, the Russian invasion of Georgia was in 2008 (Russia has actually been involved with warfare on Georgia going back to 1993). They haven't always aimed at the exact same areas and while they didn't invade Belarus, they seem to have a good relationship with the country in a vassal state type of way. It certainly seems that Russia has been trying to regain lost territory for most of the same time period as the wars in the middle east.

A lot of people also don't seem to remember the whole reason that the USA originally sided with and funded bin Laden and his Mujahideen was to kick Russia out of Afghanistan. It's part of what eventually bred bin Laden's distrust and hatred of the US for essentially being used as a tool and then thrown away.

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Hoping to get into numismatics professionally. That or teaching. My SO is a teacher and there's a shortage hereabouts, has been for years.

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 1 year ago
[-] OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago
[-] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm upset by many things going on in the world but I'm not overwhelmed because there are no relevant decisions for me to make. Look at it this way: what's the difference between reading a book that says Genghis Khan killed a hundred more people than you thought he did centuries ago and reading a newspaper that says a hundred people died in some catastrophe yesterday? In both cases, you've learned that total strangers died in the past, there was nothing you could have done, and there will be no direct effect on your own life. It's natural to be more upset by the more recent deaths (and I admit that I would be) but I think it isn't logical.

The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I'll need to be able to do one of them.

(I suppose "Do I flee the country?" is another decision I technically need to consider, but the answer is "No unless things get dramatically worse." Thus there isn't much to think about on a daily basis.)

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

The exception to that is AI. I think I do need to change my own life in order to increase my chance of thriving in an AI-dominated future, at least because if some jobs will still exist then I’ll need to be able to do one of them.

I work in IT and have for the past 20 years, and I have 20 more to go. I'm preparing my exit and setting my sights elsewhere since it's obvious this little tower is going to crumble in a fairly short amount of time.

[-] d7sdx@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

What are you going to do instead?

[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

We will be busy entertaining ourselves, dulling our senses and denying what's happening right until the very point of collapse. "No one" will see it coming.

Since there's fuck all you can do about it, might as well join in the festivities.

[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

3.0 will be done by the Fallout boys

My fav is the mailman ❤️

[-] Aksamit@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah but I feel this way every year.

[-] Orcus@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

I mean this is the year I finally started looking into building a diy NAS, so much more preferable to study guides rather than open the news and witness the despair filled shitshow.

[-] Pirate@feddit.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel like we're living in a [Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire]

I don't understand why you'd say this. The US 100% did start all these fires. Not only did they start them, they keep adding wood to the fire. It's so blatant even a blind person could see.

Billy Joel has great song and I appreciate him as an artist, but I'll he damned if he isn't an imperialist justifier.

[-] habitualcynic@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Is that how the song should be taken?

I always understood it as him or the speaker singing the lyrics as if the audience was innocent in the events, and the leaders /villains/whoever are not “us” and they did it.

[-] Skydancer@pawb.social 2 points 1 year ago

More specifically, singing as the younger generation about trying to live in the world their parents and grandparents seem intent on burning to the ground. And that's not just my perception. You can hear him tell it in his own words (starting at 1:52).

this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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