I personally do not care that much about the survival of entire species (including ours); I care more about the lives of the individuals. To illustrate this, it saddens me when we cause extinctions, but a little more because of the animals that suffered in the process and a little less about the whole “loss” of a form of life. Yet, it all is sad.

How do I deal with this climate change sadness? I guess I don’t see it separately from other sad things from humanity (and existence, but let’s focus on humanity). I have accepted the fact that most human beings are morally questionable in my book, this causes the world to be worse for everyone in it, and no amount of reasoning with most of them (about the benefit for them and others of being more conscious about their lives) will change it for now.

At some point, some have felt that a better society is just a step ahead of us because it’s relatively easy in material terms, but now I feel it much farther as the social factors are not as easy. I guess I have surrendered to a certain idea of psychological determinism. If we imagine a person has an object we want at their reach, while it’s out of our reach, and we could get it if they only cooperate, we can feel frustrated when they don’t. “Why do they make it so difficult? It’s as simple as reaching for the object and grabbing it for us. Just do it! Why are they waiting for? Ugh!”. But if we start from the idea that there’s a chance they won’t help us because they simply can’t be bothered (different reasons as to why), and that’s probably not fixable, we won’t feel that level of frustration for their inaction and we will strategize differently how to get that object.

By the way, I don’t think selfishness or self-centeredness or whatever is individualism, nor that altruism is communitarianism. I’m inclined to individualism, but that’s what makes me think that just as my life and freedom are valuable, so are others’. I do not like societies that are communitarian because they drown the individual (in false responsibilities, in fear of ostracism, etc.), and I hate that. We have one life and only one and we should be as free as possible, even if that means being unattached, different, whatever. The only rule for that freedom and for everything is ethics. And that’s the difference for me, that’s how I see it. Not individualistic people versus communitarian people, but people that live without an interest in being ethical (whatever that ends up meaning) and people who do.

So… I think I see a lot of these people and I don’t get as frustrated as before. I sigh and continue my day. Reading this last part, it reads a little stoic (learning that I cannot change these parts of society and focusing on the ones we can change). Stoicism is like the ibuprofen of life; paracetamol is pyrrhic skepticism. I’m bad at analogies, lol, but you get the point (I hope).

Prioritizing my health (including my mental health) has helped a lot. Good levels of everything in my body do wonders for my energy, but also my resilience, my mood, etc. Emotional regulation skills, combating stress… I know these are just common recommendations, but I don’t have more.

I’m sorry that you’re feeling down. It’s been a hard time…

I suggest arrows to navigate main comments (I think they also call them “parent comments” or something). As an example, Sync for Lemmy and Now for Reddit have them.

I mean, it’s our fault as leftists that it is an echo chamber. We have forgotten how to talk about polemic issues among ourselves. I bet we lemmings have big differences (in the details) but we are afraid of bans or talking to walls, so…

I mean, the people still exist and the need for honest opinions is still there. We just need to find a new place where money isn’t such a big problem (although it will always be a problem to some degree). I really think a more stable and easy to use Lemmy could attract a large crowd.

No, they’re not fully developed, but they distinguish actions morally speaking (even older children do) and they can choose to do better.

We are already here.

I’ve heard of Goldfish and Vidzy.

https://lemm.ee/comment/11472049

I don’t want to fall into a slippery slope argument, but I really see this as the tip of a horrible iceberg. Seeing women as sexual objects starts with this kind of non consensual media, but also includes non consensual approaches (like a man that thinks he can subtly touch women in full public transport and excuse himself with the lack of space), sexual harassment, sexual abuse, forced prostitution (it’s hard to know for sure, but possibly the majority of prostitution), human trafficking (in which 75%-79% go into forced prostitution, which causes that human trafficking is mostly done to women), and even other forms of violence, torture, murder, etc.

Thus, women live their lives in fear (in varying degrees depending on their country and circumstances). They are restricted in many ways. All of this even in first world countries. For example, homeless women fearing going to shelters because of the situation with SA and trafficking that exists there; women retiring from or not entering jobs (military, scientific exploration, etc.) because of their hostile sexual environment; being alert and often scared when alone because they can be targets, etc. I hopefully don’t need to explain the situation in third world countries, just look at what’s legal and imagine from there…

This is a reality, one that is:

Putting hundreds of millions of people into a state of hopeless depression

Again, I want to be very clear, I’m not equating these tools to the horrible things I mentioned. I’m saying that it is part of the same problem in a lighter presentation. It is the tip of the iceberg. It is a symptom of a systemic and cultural problem. The AI by itself may be less catastrophic in consequences, rarely leading to permanent damage (I can only see it being the case if the victim develops chronic or pervasive health problems by the stress of the situation, like social anxiety, or commits suicide). It is still important to acknowledge the whole machinery so we can dimension what we are facing, and to really face it because something must change. The first steps might be against this “on the surface” “not very harmful” forms of sexual violence.

Wow! Pranks from 2004 are ads in 2024.

A recent comment of mine:

In an old interview, Mr. Narcissus [Elon Musk] said he may have bipolar disorder; he said he experiences “great highs, terrible lows, and unrelenting stress”.

He has doubts because his highs and lows follow events in his life, whereas episodes from bipolar disorder often appear without triggers. […]

We’d know if he went for an evaluation/possible diagnosis, but I cannot even imagine him doing it.

Kanye West is usually manic when he acts this way. I guess this supports Musk’s suspicion.

I partially agree with you, but also with the rest here. Yes, as people, we should be united fighting against the elites which don’t let us live the life we deserve (because we are receiving less than we should considering our productivity, and because many problems can be solved already). We are all on a planet that we need to save, even if only for selfish reasons. We should be together. But the elites have seized the opportunity to divide us with ideologies such as economics, identity politics, etc. If they need an unfair war against a country to exploit it and extract its resources, they’ll say it’s about patriotism or security or something like that, and many people will believe it and support it. Just look how divided we are about current affairs.

The left usually goes against these interests. Thus the red scare, the fake leftists that only makes us look bad, etc. They need to disband the left, and they have an army willing to do so for free. Here’s where these opinions enter. As long as an elite, yes, but also all their supporters go against us and against basic ethical principles, we cannot sit and say: “people, do not trivialize wars on social media, it is not nice”, “oil is cool, but saving the planet is cooler”, etc.

I believe in stronger actions, for example, the sabotage people are doing against the shipping of weapons that are meant to kill civilians in Palestine or the blockages against deep sea mining. These are actions that can save lives without actually hurting others as the economical damages are not going against individuals but big institutions that can manage the losses.

I also believe in dialogue. I actually dislike how we stop listening to each other as leftists: how moderate, often liberal-leaning leftists censor radical leftists such as marxist-leninists (“tankies”) or gender critical feminists (“TERFs”), without listening to them. No, they do not necessarily promote hate and they have valid points that may need further exploration. That said, I believe in the censorship of hate speech, explicit hate speech like the videos circulating about how others deserve to die or deserve to suffer. That’s unacceptable, no matter the group of people you are talking about. Indeed! If we say that we need to kill white supremacists, it is no better than them saying they need to cleanse the population. Still, we need to keep their hate and all hate out of the normal discourse and we need to defend ourselves in case others turn to violence.

In a nutshell, it’s about defending the wellbeing of beings in the most peaceful and civil way possible. It is about defending ourselves while doing that, because the people in power and their supporters won’t often like it.

Do you want a crude example? Read about the people defending the wild life in Mexico. Politicians and organized crime want to profit off those lands. They rob lands from people, often indigenous people; they get into illegal or non-sustainable logging; they enlarge the black markets, hurting and endangering populations; they transform regions, affecting the whole ecosystem. There are people, usually biologists, who warn against this and dedicate their lives to the protection of the forests, rain forests, etc. They end up dead. It is very dangerous to protect the monarch butterflies, the wolves, the big cats… Isn’t that ridiculous and terribly sad?

This is how it has been for a long time. Speak words of freedom in the kingdom and you might lose your head. Stop the machines and they’ll justify killing you. I mean, read Lord Byron’s defense of the luddites and then think about how they dismissed it…

Personally, I do not see rightists as my enemies, I see them as people tragically going against others’ and their own interests. The ones that are in power are blinded by it, and the ones that only follow are blinded by hope: “Someday I’ll be rich, if only I defend the status quo a little longer”.

My personal enemies are the horrid ideas, feelings, and values that accompany most of these acts I disapprove of. Selfishness, vanity, etc. Some people, many people (I am no exception), naturally tend to them in varying degrees, and I can only feel disappointment for the number of people that embrace them. That leads me to my secondary enemies, the things that make people do not defy them. Cowardice, apathy, dogmatism, etc.

Edit: And I do not have final answers. I do not know if we are in need of a revolution, a reform, an extinction, time… I know very little.

I am very sorry you got caught in one of my rambling, ranting comments. My point is that it is not a situation in which two sides are equally wrong, but a bunch of the population that sides with the tyrants you yourself allude to in your comment. People who still deserve our respect; that respect doesn’t mean passivity when they actively affect others.

You are absolutely right and we need to fight against corruption and many other things, and that’s why I consider myself a leftist: you name it whatever you like. These are my attempts at rationality and correctness, and, while I might be a minority in the details, I know I am in good company in the broader ideals. Many of us disagree in a very trivial way… Sorry, and thank you for reading this far.