Asklemmy

There are a lot of good news all the time. For example: I'm pro veganism and always heard that vegans make up about 2% of the population. Recently I heard that specifically in my city about 8% are vegans. That's amazing!

Just trying to be a lamp in the darkness.

Life's pretty good here in Australia. No neighbours on the border causing problems, weather is generally good, lots of wide open empty nature to get out of the city, average salary is $93k and unemployment is low, crime is low. Inequality is a problem although our Gini coefficient has actually lowered recently. There's a lot of life to enjoy, and really the endless stream of negativity is only experienced through the media, not in real life, so I switched off the TV and just focus on what's going on around me, enjoying the people, places and activities that I like, and things feel quite positive.

Turn off the news, it's bad for the psyche.

Sadly, I have taken moves to grow as much as I can, tend to chickens for eggs, and start just pulling back from my community because they are really terrible. Really, I should be building the community and mutual aid but the amount of people that care about nobody but themselves around here is just too high.

I've put an ocean between myself and the US.

Nihilism and cannabis

I chose to leave after Trump got in office—& it took like two years of planning/saving. It’s had real ups & downs but overall the best major life decision I’ve made.

Well I eat quite unhealthy, so I'm thinking I'll probably die earlier then most. Sooo I guess I got that going for me.

Understanding the historical circumstances I find myself in and devoting the majority of my effort in to things I can control.

I don't actually think it's that bad, once you shut out all the noise.

I try my best to understand it better and change the little things I can. I know that won't change the world much so it isn't very fulfilling. Anyways I often think "at least it wasn't my fault and I tried".

In the same position as you, I'm quite privileged living here in Europe, if it all goes to shit I will be fine. I hope I can make the world more fair for everyone anyways.

Personally I am not really worried. Maybe I am in denial but I think a lot of the negative stuff is way over exposed with 24/7 news cycle and crazy social media.

Bad news and anger drive engagement metrics the best so that is all you will hear about.

So everything I hear I just automatically assume it is way over blown and I should lower the worry factor.

If it is getting overwhelming I would recommend you unplug yourself for a little while and do something you enjoy.

2023 has some amazing games come out maybe pick on of those up and give it a try?

That in the grand scheme of things none of this really matters. In 100 or 1000 or 10,000 year’s time there will have been just as much horrible stuff happening in the world whether I fret about it or not. Just as much rape, mutilation, disease, and killing either way. Historically things have been trending towards better, so I have to assume that trend will hold (despite what the news or the internet makes it seem like).

The only thing I can control is what I personally do or don’t do, so I can at least reduce it by that small infinitesimal amount by not doing bad things. I can also try to make the world slightly more bearable by trying to make people laugh, or at least help them enjoy themselves some, that’s a little bit more help. I also have three kids I hope I can raise well enough that they too try to not do bad things and also try to help those around them. Or maybe one of us will stumble upon something that just completely changes everything and all our problems go away, or it wipes out humanity, or we’re just waiting for Godot.

And while in the grand scheme of things nothing matters too much, we can at least make life a bit more bearable to those around us in the here and now. Because for us, the here and now is what matters the most, that’s all we can really know, this eternal moment until we die.

I'm getting a vasectomy and I drink, cheers m8

I'm not in a position to affect change in a powerful way. So I try to stay educated and informed, I vote at the ballot box, I vote with my wallet, I donate what I reasonably can to places where I think it will help, and I speak out when it's appropriate to do so.

I don't agree with the premise. The world on average is better than it has ever been and it just keeps getting better every year. It's understandable that heavy consumption of news might make it seem otherwise but virtually every metric you'd use to track this shows that things have been improving and keeps doing so.

Many good things have been said. I would add that what give me comfort is that in the present moment, it is really, really hard to tell signal from noise. You often don't know the impact of people or events until many years out. We often said in grad school that you can't write history until at least 30 years have passed from the event. So, it seems chaotic and confusing because it is hard to for us to understand what it important and what is not.

The other thing is that every generation often sees the sky as falling in. An ancient Greek philosophy lamented about his parents had it all figured out and his children where going to ruin everything. That same sense of doom is pretty pervasive.

That is not to dismiss any of the real terrible things out there. Climate change is the big problem on the horizon. Nuclear waste is another. But I think on the balance, we are going to muddle through fine. The great blessing of humanity is that we are adaptable. The curse of humanity is that we are adaptable.

How do I cope? Poorly

The world is getting better in a lot of ways but the uplifting headlines don’t garner clicks and views. A lot of people only post the doom-and-gloom headlines.

Lemmy hasn’t been any better than Reddit in this regard.

Pretty well. The resistance lives. We are all part of it.

I moved to Arizona, where I can drive 0.2 miles to the weed store.

Going fishing.

Can't change it, don't care about it.

You are tuning in to the Tragedy of the Week Show. Next week they'll have another to show you.

life is temporary.

im hangin on to the ride until i get thrown off. its my only shot, even if it sucks donkey balls

i guess my answer would be 'dont sweat the small stuff. its all small stuff'

I focus on the areas I can impact. So far that's going OK. As for the state of the world I tell myself that it's probably not as crazy as the media makes it out to be and most of the time that's true. I'm not American so it makes it easier to dismiss American issues.

There's tons of evidence that the world is getting better. Life expectancies are the highest they've ever been, disease is the lowest it's ever been, globalization is distributing opportunities for relative prosperity to previously ignored or neglected regions. The only thing that's not getting better right now is climate change but the youth care about that more than ever so it seems like we'll make headway on that once the old guard ends their watch. The youth are aldo much more progressive so with their ascent to power, I expect more power to return to the people and more scrutiny to befall the rich and powerful as it once was.

What sort of critical life and death issues are getting worse in your perspective?