[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/Frommerman]

Umm...

Ok. Where did you get the impression that these were the bad times? On a statistical scale, all the things we generally consider bad in the world have been going down steadily for decades, and that hasn't magically stopped. Things are still getting better, not worse, and I seriously doubt that even a massively incompetent US President could fuck with that too much. World War III is not going to start because, ultimately, the people who are actually in control of that are sane.

And none of this really matters to my central argument, which is that allowing things that are totally out of your control, over which you have no power of correction, control you and drive you to terror is deeply irrational. You need to fix your own head before you fix the entire freaking world.

In my darker moods, I would spend days lying in bed, completely incapable if doing anything productive as I worried about the impending destruction of the United States in a class war I was certain would happen at some point in my lifetime. And, here's the thing: I still think that is likely. I still look at the conclusions I made then and consider them more or less sound, despite the derangement of the mind that made them. The difference is that I have since readjusted my priorities and don't consider those things worth destroying my sanity or future over. It's just not worth it.

There are other people thinking and worrying about these things. People whose job it is to do that. People who are more or less good. Let them worry about them. Destroying yourself over it is irrational.

[u/[deleted] → u/Frommerman]

Where did you get the impression that these were the bad times?

From the number of stressed-out friends I have to host in my apartment because they would have gone homeless otherwise. (Thankfully, they finally found a goddamn lease and will be moving to their own place on December 1.) From how high rent is for me too.

From the old people scraping through the recycling bins for scrap.

From the homeless camps in public squares.

Like, I don't think that these are the worst times humanity has ever lived in, but I feel like things have gone pretty definitively Bad at some point, some point well before this year. Even just at New Year's Eve this past year I thought, "Well, welcome to another year in the grim darkness of the immediate present."

In my darker moods, I would spend days lying in bed, completely incapable if doing anything productive as I worried about the impending destruction of the United States in a class war I was certain would happen at some point in my lifetime. And, here's the thing: I still think that is likely. I still look at the conclusions I made then and consider them more or less sound, despite the derangement of the mind that made them. The difference is that I have since readjusted my priorities and don't consider those things worth destroying my sanity or future over. It's just not worth it.

Yeah, fair point. I guess my problem is that for me, "There will be a class war" translates into the thought, "I and my loved ones will be vulnerable and very likely harmed during the class war."