i personally doubt that "things are hopeless" messaging helps motivate people, at least in my experience it does the opposite. but i don't think that's your intention which is why i'm trying to tease out two distinct essences/ideas behind the signifier, and maybe help modify the signifier so that it isn't communicating such hopelessness to people. this is where/why semantics can be important: understanding what you intend to communicate as compared to what people interpret. also exploring how indistinct signifiers can make it harder to for a person to conceptualize/communicate reality.

so when you communicate // someone interprets the essence that things are hopeless, that essence implies that there's no reason to engage with reality because we're all doomed anyway. this is different from the essence: "things are not fine, stop grillpilling, shit's fucked and we need to get to work". which is true and imo a requirement to leftist praxis. so that's where i'll push back on your semantics, because enough people are interpreting hopelessness even if it's not your intention.

but the semantic problem also suggests a problem with conceptualization, where the two distinct essences themselves are conflated. this is why i try to draw a distinction between a vibe and a truth in my mind: "things are hopeless" is a vibe. "climate change will make things harder in specific ways" is a truth. the latter can be engaged with and used to modify my praxis. the former doesn't do anything for me or anyone around me. vibes can certainly be motivating or demotivating factors (and should be utilized as tools when interacting with non-radicalized people) but we have to be careful not to let them encroach on truth in our minds.

gotta go to work so don't have a chance to proofread this for coherence lol