Learning more about history and the hideous tentacles of empire is...depressing. Seeing the state of the world is...depressing. My family pleading with me to vote Biden is...depressing. Being an environmental science student is...you get the gist. The only sources of positivity I see are moderately-propagandistic videos from CGTN and from PRC simps about some of the great things China is doing, but I can't completely internalize those because I am still stuck in the western/american regime of 'Positive news about China/Socialist Countries is always wrong or exaggerated' (which I'm trying to work thru) so yeah.
Is there anything to be optimistic about in the world?
My comrade, 2008 turned an entire generation pro-socialist. The living standards of Millennials/Zoomers have fallen so precipitously from Boomers that there's no way to look at society as currently constructed and think "It's working!"
Does that mean change is inevitable and we all won't die under the heel of eco fascists? Of course not, but there are massive ideological shifts taking place. Huge events radicalize generations - 2008 is going to look like a blip compared to Covid Depression.
My family moralizes about Biden all the time, I just say 'If Joe Biden is the head of the Democratic Party then I'm glad to call myself an independent'. You don't owe Biden or your family shit, especially when he's immiserated so many people.
Believe it or not, on some local levels, center-left parties are regaining control from centrists in europe. Climate change pushed a lot of young people to left. It isn't 1968, but is something.
I guess I'm just doomer-venting, and I'm sorry to put this on the only person to respond, but 1968 didn't even lead to much material change and we're not even there right now.
I think the difference is pace. 1968 was like a huge spark, now it's more like a rope very slowly burning away.
Because the pendulum is swinging.
Do you not see it all around us? Everywhere in the world today, the neoliberal empire shows cracks, in its core a rumbling can be felt as dust falls from the walls and in its peripheries a quake is raging.
Since the fall of the USSR we've seen a period of empire building unlike any other the world has ever seen and that empire is literally crumbling to pieces now. It can not hold. It is going to fall.
Yes, there is much depressing about the state of this empire and the state of the world it has created. But look at it in the positive -- its terrible state is a guarantor of its inevitable collapse. Look to this positive, that the whole world is entering a state of complete and utter turmoil, as a sign of change to come. What do you think the people will want to build out of this failure? More of the same thing that brought about this horrible situation and its complete and utter collapse? No. Of course not. Nobody will want to rebuild that which caused the situation.
Enjoy the shaking of the pillars. Socialism will win.
I don't know the exact number, but young people get more disillusioned and around 50% of people under 18 think socialism is a good thing. It's a long way to go but uncle Karl said capitalism will crumble and I trust this fellow.
You're alive. That's a gift. Food and water comes to you every day, and the earth gives so that can happen. You are mentally enough to post here.
Optimism is its own end. And the world's circumstances can't, really, convince us one way or the other. It's, ultimately, a choice. Which I think you recognize on some level because you've come to ask this.
If you can find optimism, you are healthier, and you are more capable of generating the change we need. So you should be optimistic, for basic instrumental reasons. Which means all you can really do is try to practice being optimistic.
I find it helps to, every once in a while, find some space by myself and verbalize out loud the things I'm grateful for. I'm not a very optimistic person, but I find that practice helps a lot. :heart-sickle:
We are here and draw strength from knowing that you are out there still surviving
On the bright side, the average college student in 2020 has a fair chance at witnessing the collapse of those same systems. They literally cannot keep going for another 50 years , the Earth can't support it. Question is really just what replaces it.
I recently graduated in geophysics with an emphasis on climate science, so trust me, I'm painfully aware of the fucked state of the climate. A recent paper constrained the margins of climate change predictions, making an increase of 3 degrees to be the most probable future. That's still terrible, but in my personal low cynical expectations, the thought that a 4 degree future is unlikely makes me feel a bit better.
Personally, I see straight-up optimism over how much I've converted lib friends and family. Furthermore, the hold outs are deeply convinced that if Trump is voted out, then everything gets better. I suspect that Biden getting elected and things continuing to get worse will be the final straw for most of the hold outs.
I don't know where you're living, but I see solidarity having a greater impact than division and xenophobia.
Yeah, my local DSA has had a tenfold increase in membership over the past 6 months. Some newer folks were asking if there's any hope and I'm just sitting there like "fuck dude, people are finally starting to look for something different".
We're in the beginning stages of a massive shift. The right is shrinking in size while growing in state control, but the people are coming to us in droves. It's only a matter of time before legitimacy of the American government starts to fade, and we got the people.
Western hegemony is waning and he world seems to be moving towards more instability, this will mean more political revolutions, and renewed competition for the future of humanity.
So upfront it will seem scary but in the long term this was inevitable (neoliberalism would never go quietly, too many people are invested) and the future will have to be very different.
There is always hope to be found, especially in times of chaos. It proves that the system can fail, falter, and otherwise be overcome. It proves our theories correct about the unsustainability and inevitable collapse of Capitalism as it hollows out every institution in the name of profit.
