Lately I’ve had a really hard time finding pleasure in anything.
The world is such a depressing inhumane shit show at the moment. And I’m tired of being gaslit by every government from my local borough administration all the way to the federal government.
Capitalism and fascism had taken a hold on the world’s nations the likes of which we have never seen in the history of humankind.
And the worst part is I feel people have been indoctrinated to as point where we’re never gong to collectively get out of it. I don’t even think a violent revolution is possible because people are too fucking dumb to notice what’s wrong.
And the “fuck you, I got mine” attitude that capitalism has brought has ruined any chance of salvation. Empathy and solidarity are ridiculed as being some woke mind virus.
The world’s climate is beyond fucked. There’s wars and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the Epstein class in our name. We keep electing wolves in sheep’s clothing who win our votes on fake promises to help us then turn against us and double down on policies that make life more difficult and increase our level of misery. Unless you’re a billionaire CEO or a politician, your life is absolutely worthless. You’re nothing more than a low value resource. And you don’t have freedom. Neither of speech or otherwise. Not as long as what you say or do goes against what the elites want.
We’re fucked. I don’t foresee any future worth living in.
Dude it’s way worst than that.
The fact you think it was worst back then proves to me you’re not seeing the whole picture.
No, no. For those living there, then (70s NY, 90s Rus): urban poor, no food, irregular living situations, no representation, being used as pawns in politicking, or, worse being picked up, picked off, or trafficked in rival gangs — and, even then, I’m sure of how much worse it can get than that.
Could throw in crack cocaine, Krokodil, or methamphetamines. I’ll stipulate to the impacts of Fentanyl.
But, really, we’re not at urban decay or complete institutional failures. Not yet. Hospitals are open. Police are being paid. I’ve been a few places and seen instances where hospitals close and police go unpaid.
As for '01 or '08 wholesale corruption of governments globally, I’d stipulate to the scale of it in North America being greater. I’d also stipulate to the precipice of total collapse being more profound; the social safety net is more threadbare and society’s capacity for compassion, care, and camaraderie is abysmal.
What comes next, globally, is what I described for decaying 70s NY and post-Soviet 90s Rus. Urban decay.
Maybe you’re seeing Port-au-Prince or Kinshasa or Sanaa or the Af-Pak border region as your metric. Dangerous places.
Maybe Sadr City or Homs, open warfare.
Maybe Guatemala Ixil triangle in the early 80s or Srebrenica in the 90s, forgotten genocides.
See, Im not talking about things being that bad now. They’re just on that road.
We have time, inclination, and the freedom to speak openly. Maybe things will change if/when Bill C-22 passes. Hope not.
No. I disagree.
Just because New York was bought up nearly entirely by the multi-millionaire and billionaire class who gentrified it by building luxury condo skyrises doesn’t mean it’s better now.
The poor people have all been pushed out of the city. They’re still around just not in New York city. The decay you’re describing is all over the U.S. now. Especially in small towns, which used to be the backbone of the country. There’s never been this many homeless people across North America. Never have people struggled so much to buy food, pay for shelter and get medical help.
We’re essentially in a proto-cyberpunk era where mega corporations own the government and the media and are swaying politicians and people’s opinion like never before. On top of an Orwellian-like surveillance state where we now have to watch what we say because our mobile devices pick up on everything and we can get put on a terrorist watch list simply for saying fuck Israel.
90’s Russia wan’t as bad as it is today. Under Putin, the whole country suffered incredible decay, economic collapse due to sanctions, on top of violent suppression of free speech and freedom of sexual orientation. Never has it been that bad.
And the 00’s ? Don’t make me laugh. I was in college during the Bush years. I graduated and started my professional career smack in the economic collapse of 2008. Yeah times were tough, but nowhere near as difficult as they are now. I could afford a 1 bedroom apartment with my IT job then. In my neighbourhood in Montreal, rent was around 500-600, maybe 700 max for a 1 bedroom in 2011. The same apartment today goes for 1300 a month if not more. Meanwhile the starting salary for a software engineering graduate barely increased. I wouldn’t have been able to afford a home as an SOFTWARE ENGINEER!!! I have friends who hold full time jobs as professionals who live with roommates now. And also, never have there been SO MANY homeless peoeple in Montreal. It’s a full on crisis. People are dying in the cold in the winter or of heat exhaustion during the summer. Because…
Oh I forgot. WE HAVE UNPRECEDENTED CLIMATE RECORDS OF HEAT, DROUGHT AND A FIRE SEASON NOW because of GLOBAL WARMING! Where for a whole fucking month, we have the impression of living in fucking Mordor with brown skies and the constant smell of soot in the air during the month of June. I BET THEY DIDN’T HAVE THAT IN THE 70’S 90’S OR 00’S! I know they didn’t because I WAS THERE.
No. I’m sorry but you’re wrong.
Can we agree, this approach to the future seems to be designed to dig for new, and more horrible lows?
So, two things.
One. You make some good points. I agree with you.
Two. I never said it’s better now. I was there in the 80s, 90s, graduated in '01. Switched professions, failed to launch a career, started again, lived at home… left North America, came back to the hottest real estate market in the world, still failing to launch a career. I feel you. I’m neck deep with you.
Every thing you’ve described has been happening since then. It was very bad then. We can’t go metric for metric. That’s how we lose the forest by counting the trees. We do need to say it was always bad and still getting worse.
I said, above, then was very bad. Possibly, the worst way to end a century and start another. I also localized my comments specify discrete experiences. What you’re describing, what you feel now, in MTL; they felt it there, then.
To say the same is happening in more places is, clearly, a worse state of affairs. A spread of a cancer, if you will. I addressed the kernel issue, “another time since WWII where things were this bad.” If you’ve got a water-borne toxin spreading metastatic cancer, it’s origins are just as punctuate — and devastating on the affected — as its spread. Poverty, homelessness, conflict, oppression, extortion — these aren’t worse now because there’s more of it. They’ve always been bad.
In conclusion, can we agree, the future seems to be designed to dig for new, and more horrible lows? I worry that a focus shift to the new, more horrible lows runs the risk of excusing the upper bounds of this hellscape.
I can agree with that. high five 🙏