I've long advocated for a doomer content tag because I come here for light-hearted memes and dunking on libs, not reminders that there is no future :agony-deep:
The future is coming anyway :scared:
But really, people are going to be a constant through whatever tumultuous period that happens. Organizing and mutual aid groups would be just as valuable then as now.
I feel like everyone else out there in normal society is living in denial and it exacerbates my dooming because I'm like "STOP PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT, YOUR CHILDREN WILL INHERIT NOTHING BUT ASHES"
The issue is, it cultivates not constructive emotions like anger, but passive acceptance (I.e. whatever we do, we fucked). Which is why it’s cia psyop 👁
Matt talks in the cushvlogs about the false certainty that underpins doomerism and I can't remember how he puts it but he makes a good case for "you still have to live"
We are all going to die, but we can choose whether it’s on the front lines of the fight to build a better world, or just in the fires at the end of a life of self indulgence.
:this:
A life of self indulgence is a shitty way to say to say a life of dealing with mental health issues. Not everyone is going to be able to get to fighting on the front lines and that's okay. Those of us who can will fight for them.
I fall in the doomer camp, but I don't see why that should preclude anyone from doing positive work. Even if climate collapse wasn't imminent, people still deal with the drudgery of life regardless and existential issues abound. You still have to go out there and find some meaning to life that works for you
I played mechwarrior 3 on msn gaming zone. we had to shoot several meters ahead of our targets with lasers to accommodate for lag.
I Remember being able to “BUZZ” someone on yahoo messenger and it would make the whole chat window shake lol
i've said this before. I talked to an actual climate scientist on /r/chapotraphouse and they were far less doomer about climate change than people here.
If you don't mind, do you recall what they said? I mostly see climate experts and headlines calling for doom, so I'm surprised that someone in the field is more optimistic than the laymen amongst us
I said that they must be depressed being in that field and they said not really and that human kind will adapt.
It's more the ecologists who are super depressed, the climate scientists deal with the abstract rather than the concrete and that gives them a bit of mental space. Which is both a good and a bad thing.
Humankind might well adapt, and even reverse the worst of the changes, the biosphere certainly will recover in 1000=10000 years regardless, but the actual material wetlands you've spent 40 years trying to save, or that village in the Bay of Bengal won't.
I think this is the take. It’s not that humanity will die out. It’s the tragedy of the human and natural cost of it all.
It's summer and there's been a suite of terrible consequences of climate change again plus two oil rig disasters. Once we get past northern hemisphere wildfire, extreme heat, and flooding season and hurricane season it'll calm down until disastrous blizzard and cold season.
At the moment, there isn't much "good" going on to rally around so, yeah, more posts of any depth are tending towards the negative round these parts.
Would be cool to take Terkrockerfeller's suggestion and start warning our fellow hexbears when out posts turn out overtly doomery. :squirtle-jam:
We absolutely need it. We can bury our heads in the sand or commit philosophical suicide to avoid dealing with collapse, but it's the dominant theme of our lives regardless of our preferences. Climate change is the metabolic rift at its breaking point. It's the principal contradiction of human society. It's the material conditions you have to organise in and against and most importantly it's the thing driving the social conditions from here on out. Whatever socialist arguments we can formulate about it and doomerism, a headspace that any rational person should and will find themselves in with increasing frequency, those translate to r/collapse's non-socialist audience. They'll be things we can coherently express to non-socialist friends, family, and coworkers because we're engaging with them like we do national politics. Fascists love collapse because it fuels their power fantasies and the most convenient answer to it is "do nothing and the government will solve things". The only things r/collapse readers will hear without our well-organised input are lifeboat theory, techno cults, carbon taxation, renewable energy fetishisation, and Elizabeth Warren's plan for that. It's an extremely potent driver to any of those narratives but ours is the only one understanding and addressing it at its roots. As far as I know there isn't a space online or even a good podcast where I can get that regular ideological perspective on these issues. It's a footnote or people jumping on discussions about it as fueling reactionaries like they do anti-natalism, not simultaneously understanding that a massive chunk of people are dealing with questions of deep material/social deprivation which we can agitate around as architects just as readily as fascists will as arsonists. We just write off the dominant themes and psychological pressures of our time because it sucks to confront them. Even if someone in r/collapse is radicalised today, where are they going to go to better understand the ideas they initially agree with? Certainly not here if they're feeling the doom hopefully all of us at least understand viscerally but reject as Debbie Downer shit.
This seems like a shitty way to treat people who are struggling rn :cringe:
Eh, sometimes tough love is the only way to snap yah out of depression
Holy shit that is such a stupid and harmful mindset. "If I'm mean and curt with this person they'll realize how silly depression is and simply stop being depressed." That's not how it works... at all
I’m just saying it worked for me several times. There’s a reason Jordan Peterson types are popular, someone telling you to stop feeing sorry for yourself and take some damn responsibility can be quite the wake up call.
If that's all it takes to give you a "wake up call" then I don't think what you're describing is depression
I mean for me the “wake up call” was “yeah I do need fucking help don’t I”
Tough love only works if you're ready for it, conscious or not and it happening in the way you need.
Cue the latest :citations-needed:
I mean, yeah totally. I wasn't suggesting it is ALWAYS the solution, or even a good one most of the time. Just saying my last nasty depressive episode I had someone who's opinion I highly value tell me in no minced words that I was really close to alienating everyone and had to get my shit together or I wouldn't have much if any support next time I got in a rut. Convinced me to finally give seeing a therapist a second try after being burned by the first one and make a bunch of other positive life changes. Still struggle but I'm a lot happier now.
Dude I nearly drank myself to death two year ago. You don’t know Jack about me.
Honestly for me it's the summer heat. Just fucking terrifying to think this will be an absolutely luxurious summer very very soon....
ADHD coming in clutch with the total disconnect from the future and the consequences coming with it :meow-bounce:
honestly I think this site overall just kinda reflects all the doomerism inwards and concentrates it. I wish !bloomer@hexbear.net was more active but I always forget to share the bloomer stuff I come across but overall I dont really blame people for feeling hopeless for their futures, the only thing I can suggest is to just focus on short term happiness I guess, I dont know if thats really something most people can do and I dont wanna come across as the "JSUT BE HAPPYY!!!1!!" type people thats just how it works for me.
