Are we becoming more pessimistic and if yes why? - Solving the doomer question

[Chiang Kai-shek]

I wanted to ask why is the world going to shit, but it seems that question has been asked thousands of times with millions of different answers. Most of those answers seem to be variations of the world isn’t getting shitty just perceivably shitty. So I wanna ask, are we becoming more pessimistic about the future? If so why? This isn’t a why is the world getting shittier thread but a why do we think the world is getting shittier?

 

[break these cuffs]

Because the powers that be and their stooges in the MSM want to keep you worried, anxious, upset, etc because it makes you easier to control. Go outside and spend time with people who do as well. You will be happier.

 

[Some Manajerk]

because you can just go to a computer and with a few keystrokes find a different sort of tragedy ocurring every day. Its not that these have gotten more common, its that combined with the 24 hr news cycle, its just constantly in your face about "bad things are happening"

 

[Terrorist]

Because it's genuinely getting worse in the west, especially for straight white "doomer" men. Whig history believers are retards.

 

[kūhaku]

With more access to information you don’t just see more good information you see bad information too. Horrible things, tragedies, how the world actually is. I doubt people would doom as hard if not for the internet. Not that it’s a bad thing of course but it’s just what happens when you gain more knowledge.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I'd say a lot of it is cultural as well as the obvious factor of the MSM and constant online access.

The post-2008 era has been one that is culturally bleak and full of malaise. It's not edgy like the 90's or early 2000's were, quite the contrary, but it is a culture of malaise, both in terms of pop culture and in the social sense. Even the pop culture that is meant to be lighthearted is bland, sanitized, and corporate while simultaneously preachy and propagandizing.

While you always had bland corporate product culture and preachy media and you always will, it's most blatant and brazen in the 2010's because of how social media has integrated itself into the culture.

You've got doomers of various stripes, even on the dominant Left there is a sense of gloom and doom thanks to the hyper-politicization of environmentalism and the overall polarized culture.

You have these eras every so often in history. The 1930's had a similar feel because of the Great Depression, and Europe in the 1920's was similarly wrecked culturally because of how traumatic World War I was for both sides.

Hell, you even saw some of this going on in the 1970's because of the recessions and the oil crisis alongside the high crime rate at the time. The 1970's weren't quite as bleak as the 1930's and weren't quite as moralistic as the 2010's, but when you look back at a lot of the media, culture, commentaries, and writings from the time, there's a sense of malaise and doom in a lot of people's minds, partly because of the economic woes and the shock of losing Vietnam still being fresh in many American minds.

Then you have your stereotypical "feel good" eras like the 1950's, 1990's, and 1980's. These things often run in cycles and the 2020's have just started chronologically, and we're still culturally in the late 2010's "Current Year" mindset.

A lot can happen in the future. I don't know if things will get better or get worse, but I do know that we're not going to be stuck in the malaise of "Current Year" forever.

Whether or not it will be better than the 2010's or somehow exponentially worse is anyone's guess at this point. Don't go reaching for that bottle of black pills just yet...

 

[ToroidalBoat]

It can be hard to be optimistic in a cyberpunk dystopia.

Especially if one lives in a modern city.

 

[WhoBusTank69]

It can be hard to be optimistic in a cyberpunk dystopia.

The absolute shittiest cyberpunk dystopia.
Low-energy Cyberpunk Dystopia, where the oppressive megacorporations are depressingly dull and genesplicing is just unenthusiastic troons putting on tights and makeup.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The internet has shone a light on the ugly side of the world like never before.

But it's important to remember that that ugly side has always existed and the world has it's beautiful side too and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

 

[LazyLizard]

we're moving towards a dystopia where free thought isn't allowed, we're already seeing this being implemented online on all major sites as well as in national laws across the world. it's fucking scary and it's only going to get worse, add onto that the fucking plague that is now hitting us i ain't exactly optimistic about the future.

 

[soft kitty]

Yes, we are. Because our culture is getting shittier; simple as that.

 

[Robert James]

We are, there are several reasons but I think I can break a few of them down.


Information Overload :We are bombarded with information from around the world, only the awful stuff sticks with us and therefore paints our understanding of the world. You know people are murdered every day and some of the horrendous shit that goes on in the world but our minds are unable to grasp how large and populated our planet is so you treat it as if it is happening in your backyard.

Forced Isolation and forced contact: We are living in a world where we are expected to spend a significant amount of time online. An example of this is if you are applying for a job your facebook and your linked in better be up to date and constantly updated. Most people communicate through social media and often to contact people or speak to them you need to use social media where your language is controlled and to fit in you need to only show the best of your life. If you know the people you know they are lying and you are lying on social media so your mindset is everyone is lying. The other side of this coin is that face to face interaction is cut to a minimum and even though you need physical contact it's impossible to get it leaving you feeling isolated and on guard near people IRL.

God is Dead, We are just Monkeys: With the death of god and the concept of the sole in our culture we start to live and accept the mindset that we are mere beast. We stop striving for more and start seeing human interaction as if they were animal interaction. Nothing is for the common good, everything is to satiate some animalistic desire and we need not strive for anything better. With that understanding you start to lose your charity and your good will towards man since no animal with risk themselves to save another. You become pessimistic because you believe humans will act like an animal and that there can be no actions that are not selfish. Also religion offered a huge connection between people and churches used to be your easiest way to socialize and feel a sense of belonging.

Dehumanization: This one is slightly different from believing we are animals because you can still see animals as having value in their life. We live in a culture where the other is often considered non human, something to be exterminated. With mainstream media parroting beliefs that their are certain thoughts that can make you less than human. Media has endorsed beating and murdering those who think incorrectly and treat them as a plague that needs to be cured. Combine that with the medias propensity of knowing the thoughts of people and anyone with a brain realizes all it takes is a few words to be unperson ed.

Me Me Me Me Me: We live in a culture that glorifies the self, everything is based around your experience, your looks, your taste and people are bending over backwards to serve you. If you are in the right demographic that is. One of the reason so many people are suspicious of big companies is that they have seen their focus shift on who is the most important on who products should be sold to on who has the best future. That whiplash makes you realize that the years of you being the focus of the universe was a lie and you become suspicious of those that lied to you and those that kept that illusion alive.


I could go on and probably write a book about why we are so pesimistic because the reality is it is never just one thing it's usually thousands that form a trend. I'll save everyone from reading that though I know I can be long winded.

 

[Lemmingwise]

It's all bleak media messages to punish you for electing a god emperor.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

The internet has shone a light on the ugly side of the world like never before.

But it's important to remember that that ugly side has always existed and the world has it's beautiful side too and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

And trust me, it isn't just the MSM that's responsible. Social media's gotten far more accepting of the doomer culture, ranging from the crackpot comspiritards and religious fanatics who think that the aliens or God will take us out/up into the heavens over the most flimsy of reasons, to those who think that terrorism, climate change or natural disasters will kill us off one day. And that's before getting into how even the non doomer communities somehow manage to be just as bad by painting the idea that the internet is almost nothing but sosjus whining and degenerate behaviors.

Pessimism over the internet, its media and its cultures has been a long standing thing this decade and while I'd love for it to die out over the course of this coming decade. With how fast advances in tech are coming, and things like the increased amounts of terrorism, the 2020 elections, climate change, the Coronavirus, furries trying to garner the respect they do not deserve and countless other things, I definitely don't see it happening anytime soon. Hell it's probably going to get worse before it gets better (if it ever does).

 

[DrunkenDozing]

Among many, many things, it's that humans still havent actually adjusted mentally to the internet. The constant inundation of terrible news has only increased. Used to be that when something horrible happened half a world away, you would only hear about it on the TV or in the newspaper weeks or months after it happened and some response from the local officials had already been enacted. Unless of course it was a huge incident like a natural disaster or something.

Now, people instead focused on their local branches of news where you could hear about things that just happened yesterday or were still ongoing. All your energy for concern hadnt been blown on people you have and will never meet. You at very least could do something or try to for local issues.

Basically it's gone from:
"What? Theres a big new pothole on main street and its damaging tires? Honey! Grab my hand tools, I'll grab the gravel, cement and wheelbarrow! We gotta project to work on!"

Now its:
"Huh? Oh. Fifty people fell into a sinkhole in Chile and died yesterday. Oh look at all these photos of wailing family members. I really wish I could actually do something but I dont have money to send to the relief fund and they're thousands of miles away. Well I guess I'll just pour another drink and... oh look, something else horrible happened in China while I was reading about Chile. Make it two drinks."

We have not really devised a way to not react to this stuff without feeling bad over our inability to help. Let enough of these horrible incidents pile up and now you have someone entirely too consumed with negativity to even help their local community if they wanted. I reall do believe that Gen Z sticking to their own niches on the internet and becoming more zombie-esque to outside stimuli is a defense mechanism developing.

 

[Idiotron]

The internet.
It's messing up our brains.

We used to only be aware what's happening where we live + some major world events.
Now, we get info about EVERYTHING instantly.
Someone in Buttfuck, West Virginia says something stupid and 2 hours later, someone in Paris is arguing about it with someone in St Petersburg.
Negative things are more interesting to talk about so we end up ignoring stuff like new medical breakthroughs and talk endlessly about every little thing that pisses us off, whether it be some dumb comic book character being genderswapped or a video game company introducing some new way of draining money from gullible customers.

A new method of rebuilding the coral reef has been developed? FUCK THAT BORING SHIT!!!
We need to get angry at some woman who said "nigger" on TV.

If the internet went out for a year, I think that our outlook on life and the world would change for the better, simply because we wouldn't be assaulted with all this mostly useless information all the time.

 

[martin123]

No, most pessimistic people are just edgy teenagers on the internet who think it's cool to be negative. Only a few of them truly feel that way.

 

[xX_rAcE_wAr_420_Xx]

+1 for "the internet" as an answer.

Furthermore, I believe an added consequence of the whole 'read about horrible things you can't do anything to fix' paradigm is that one of the few things you can do to feel like you make a difference is... signal how much you care, and flame other people for "not caring enough". Maybe it's why we see so many people virtue signalling online about every perceived ill in society - it's the only impact they feel they can have. You love trannies, and you think the government is trying to gas all trannies? Well shit, you're not going to violently stand up to them, but you can at least call Trump a faggot on Twitter and talk about how trans rights are human rights. That's activism, right?

Plus, it's like everyone has to have a detailed opinion about fucking everything. If you try to sidestep a conversation by saying "I don't really know much about those transsexuals honestly" then congrats, you've just invited an hour long lecture on why that term is problematic and here is the spark notes for an entire year's worth of college courses on gender study and the nature of trans* discourse. Aren't really that politically knowledgeable? Nice fencesitting, you're the reason we live in HELLWORLD. Maybe if you educate yourself and develop very intricate opinions, though, someday you can have an impact on the world.

That old adage about changing the things you can and accepting those you can't might be the only way to stay sane, really. People are focusing on shit that's way out of their grasp, or anyone's grasp really. If you couldn't fix any of the problems in your life, of course you'd get depressed and pessimistic.

 

[???]

Pessimism is what defined human societies for most of our existence. Even the Greeks and Romans at the heights of their civilizations considered their societies as built on the ruins of an earlier, greater age. We're at the point where our best years are behind us.

Pessimism is good. It leads to cautious localism, distributed governance, and sober decision-making. Compare it to the deluded optimism of say Sweden, and all that has wrought.

 

[Hux]

We are because everything sucks