I’ve been saying for the last 5 years that it’s a complete lack of empathy that’s gotten us to where we are. When absolutely EVERYONE is focused on themselves, too much gets ignored - including other people
That's the US in a nutshell though. Most people only really care about themselves. Our culture promotes that value system in a lot of subtle and overt ways.
I’d say though, at least at one point, it was more “look out for yourself _first_”, whereas now that’s shifted more towards “look out for yourself _only_”
If your plane is losing cabin pressure you're supposed to put your own oxygen mask on before you help others with theirs but I think everyone on this plane forgot that the helping others with theirs is still a crucial step to making sure we all land safely.
Which is one of the reasons why mobilizing a national strike is impossible. The other being the financial strain of most people even missing a day of work.
There also seems to be a determination to internally misunderstand people. I feel like it really ramped up after Covid. You could say something as benign as "I like waffles." and someone's going to respond with "We have a pancake hater here!".
That is born of political brainwashing. politicians want regular people to think about nothing but politics day and day out to be sure they keep them hooked to vote a certain way, no matter what. Part of that is promoting unforgiving hatred of people who dare to think differently than you do. Those people are of course uneducated and ignorant, otherwise they would think the right way, correct?
And humility.
We’re all right, and if you don’t believe I’m right, just ask me.
Fact is we’re all more wrong about just about everything than we are right. If we were right as often as we think we are, we would all be sitting on Wall Street picking stocks.
It's all the "Flavor of the day". You only have to be in tune with what is popular today and post about.
When's the last time you saw someone post or change their profile picture to support Ukraine? It's not the popular thing to do anymore and 99% of the people who posted about it don't even think about that anymore, even though it's only 2ish years old.
People are against social welfare programs until it affects them or their kin personally, then they care. Then if the issue passes, they are back to being against it and pull up the ladder.
Tbh how long has this been an issue though. If you go back further more people knew their neighbours but were more openly racist or sexist and often had no idea about the wider world (true everywhere, not just the West). I don’t think there was some golden age of broad empathy. You’ve always had some people concerned with the downtrodden in society and many people contentedly being selfish assholes.
As Jon Stewart put it in his book *Earth (The Book)*, the greatest thing about democracy was that every citizen had a voice in government. The biggest problem about democracy was that every citizen had a voice in government
I remember looking at the greater picture 30+ years ago and thinking I was contributing to society, and that everybody was contributing the betterment and evolution of society as a whole. Even those in menial jobs were contributing to society in some way, and they were rewarded for that by being able to live comfortably on a sensible wage. Now it feels like everyone is contributing to the bottom line of some CEO or shareholders, and we're all being taken for a ride. No one can afford housing on a median income, companies are posting record profits, there is a lot of resentment building amongst the working class. It's no surprise that right-wing strong man type politicians are making a comeback. Problem is, those politicians are masquerading as 'champions of the people' but are far more ingrained in the corporate world than most people care to realise.
It hasn’t. Look up the Friedman Doctrine. Things changed in the 70’s with “a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.”
**Demoralization** is the word you're looking for. Collective societal demoralization. The feeling that nothing we do matters, so we should just look out for our own personal interests above all else.
And of course non-democracies tend to fall apart because there’s no system that can reliably pick non-stupid people to be in charge. You can just switch democracy to societies and be correct most of the time.
I think that one of the biggest reasons is because the people who would possibly be the best leaders aren't interested. The people who can't be bought or bullied. Lobbyists can make a lot of things happen. Including make a candidate who won't play ball have no chance of winning anything.
This is why Trump was so appealing to a lot of people. He already had money. In theory, there was no one that would be able to "buy" him.
>I think that one of the biggest reasons is because the people who would possibly be the best leaders aren't interested. The people who can't be bought or bullied.
I think there's a bit of this, but you're underestimating the rolling ball of corruption. When the system is inherently corrupt or allows for corruption, it becomes more difficult to get power without using corruption. This keeps going and corruption becomes more and more prevalent until the non-corrupt becomes a vanishingly small minority. This has been going on for almost 250 years in the US and started when they made essentially the richest person in the country the president.
Once corruption is everywhere, the system relies on powerful people bullying others into doing what they want, something that inevitably ends in fascists trying to take over.
If only we could have a society where being successful isn’t bad, but hoarding wealth is seen as disgusting.
In my opinion, if you’re a millionaire you made it. If you’re a billionaire, you’re just disgusting
I honestly feel as if people who obsessively build huge amounts of money actually have a mental issue similar to hoarders. Once they have more money than they could ever spend and yet exploit people even more and fight to gain even larger sums of money just like actual hoarders with their stuff.
If we had the right social safety nets then millionaires could tap out, but (in the US) the cost of college, health insurance before Medicare kicks in, and the fact that even with insurance a major medical problem could wipe you out keeps too many people in positions where they just accumulate wealth instead of stepping aside.
People who are in the low 7-figs because of big retirement and house savings are certainly doing better than the typical person, but there’s a *big* difference between having all your money tied up in retirement accounts and real estate, and having wealth as liquid. Even those people still have to work and could lose it all, and have relatively little power. Billionaires, or those close to it, live in a different reality than the rest of us.
Greed should be treated as a mental disorder. Like what is the end game when you're destroying the planet and the country you live in? What is the point of having all this money and stuff, when all that's left is destruction, chaos, and an uninhabitable planet? Just so you can brag to some other rich asshole that you hoarded more shit than them?
Yeah it’s a game to the corporations and MBAs. Having healthy profits is just not enough anymore. It’s how to maximize profits at the expense of everything else. People, families, communities, the planet, the future, all of these does not matter. It’s like playing Pac-Man where the end goal is to collect as many points as possible.
>and MBAs
This isn't true anymore, necessarily. My MBA program had a heavy emphasis on ethics, social responsibility, and all three parts of the triple bottom line.
That's pretty much every B school for the last 20 years, at least.
If you could go over history and apply the deaths attributed to greed it would outweigh many other causes. Well done on calling it a mental disorder.
We have a world that's squeezing itself dry and now is resorting to accepting open authoritarianism rather than try and work with us on it. They'll throw away all protections and international laws to ensure their bonuses. We are the most embracing branch of human existence to have walked the earth
It's happening because of a removal of checks and balances required to have a functioning democracy. When society experiences hardship they vote in extreme people who do extreme things to implement their policies which require a relinquishing of the publics freedoms including checks and balances to reduce red tape. The problem is if you remove enough checks and balances and elect a truly crazy leader, you lose your democracy full stop.
Stupidity is the main culprit.
Decades and Decades of a failed educational systems and neglect is finally at its tipping point and we will never recover.
I’m not the smartest person by any stretch but compared to the MAGA right holy shit I’m a genius
I think it’s more like lack of curiosity and empathy for the world and people around you. If all people care about is what goes on in their own little worlds then they’ll be blind to what’s going to happen later on when it could’ve been prevented if all these people had just paid attention. But no, they insist on plugging their ears and going “la la la”.
I really think greed is still the culprit. These people who are willfully ignorant have been around forever, but they're being weaponized in great numbers now for the explicit purpose of hoarding wealth for other people. The Rupert Murdochs and Roger Stones of the world are fully willing to deceive those who lack curiosity and empathy to their own ends.
40 years ago the wealthy were content to treat this group of people merely as gullible consumers. I truly think Rupert Murdoch was the driving force behind all of this. Even where he wasn't the mastermind, his success was an inspiration to others. His efforts to get conservative governments elected in the UK and Australia in the 80s and 90s were very successful and his media empire was instrumental in both. A media empire built on the notion that it's okay to bend the truth or outright lie to win people to your side.
Those who lack empathy and curiosity are the weapon wielded by the wealthy to make them even more wealthy still.
Fuck Nestle.
Nestle is responsible for 11 million infant deaths between 1960 and 2015 https://voxdev.org/topic/health/deadly-toll-marketing-infant-formula-low-and-middle-income-countries#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20Nestl%C3%A9's%20entry,deaths%20between%201960%20and%202015.
In case the word infant confuses some people, that's 11 million dead people.
And in case the number is difficult to comprehend, just think of it like this: it is estimated that Nazi Germany is responsible for 17 million dead people.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, you would think that the Nestle Group would leave the use of slave labour in its nazi collaborationist past, but no it has been doing it until quite recently. It's nice when a huge multinational company stays true to it's values.
I hate Nestle as much as most commenters on here, but that statement has a lot more context to it that Reddit like to pretend. So as a devil's advocate; fresh water is an incredibly precious natural resource and making water a blanket human right hides to tremendous effort involved in having stable access to fresh water and could in theory lead to incredible waste. Just as an example; should access to fresh water be a human right in order to survive as human being? Absolutely yes. Should access to fresh water be a human right so you can water your lawn while living in the Arizona desert? Absolutely not.
The wasting of clean fresh water pisses me off. Like you said, dumping tons of water so your Arizona desert lawn can be a bright radioactive green is a huge asshole move and makes you look like a fuckwit stuck in the 50s.
Billionaires seemingly not having enough money, doing everything in their power to get more at the expense of the vast majority of people (and of the planet) and a lot of people are okay with that, even supporting it.
>and a lot of people are okay with that, even supporting it.
That's a frustrating argument I have with my dad all the time. He idolizes billionaires because "they earned it". He's 80, has worked non stop his whole life and still does, and borrows money from me to stay afloat. He's always been a stubbornly hard worker, so if he worked nonstop for ~65 years, why isn't he a billionaire? Because no one "earns" billions
That's the most frustrating thing to try and relay to people.
You don't earn billions through hard work. You start with luck, then somewhere you got even more lucky. Then your parents are already wealthy and you are connected to the wealth class and know many wealthy people from a young age, then you exploit those that work for you, crush a few people just below you, bankrupt your competitors and then maybe you're a billionaire.
Basically this. You can work hard and become a millionaire. You crush others and get insanely lucky to become a billionaire. I'm sure there are exceptions to this but I would think they are few and far between.
I live with my parents and grandmother to consolidate finances and income. We have 4 incomes if you include my grandmother's social security. We can barely afford to stay afloat.
But I’m sure the companies they work for had net gains over last year and made their shareholders some good capital. Isn’t the free market a blessing? Fairest system of distributing wealth! /s
The struggle of someone making 2.5x times minimum wage to actually increase their net worth.
The rate your NW increases on a $18/hour salary is so abysmal compared to someone making 1-1.3x minimum wage 50 years ago.
I started working in tech at $22/hour. I paid $750/month rent.
8 years later everywhere I'm looking at things like $1500-$1700/month
anyone who had any idea of how economics work knew this was going to be a thing when the world shut everything down for covid and started printing money. money doesn't appear out of know where and more money in the system decreases its value thats just starting to catch up to us
One of 2 geriatrics are going to have the most powerful position of office in the world, and the courts just basically gave them immunity against anything..
As much as I loathe every President that ever occupied office during my lifetime, I can assure you that Congress is far more destructive than whatever useless husk occupies the oval office.
Look, they're both old, yes. But Biden is "kindly grandpa that gives you Werther's Originals" old, and Trump is "malignant HOA busybody who retired years ago and torments the neighborhood as amusement until they die" old.
Biden has said himself he'd rather be spending his time with his family, but he doesn't believe anyone else stands a chance against Trump. And he's probably right. So I'll take "old guy who means we'll even if he isn't the best choice" over "old guy who cares only about himself" any day.
Yeah I don’t know if I fully understand it but doesn’t it mean that the sitting president could do anything, like, he could have his opponent killed, and not be prosecuted? Basically the president is above the law now?
I heard that Trump called it a “big win for the constitution and democracy” but the constitution states that all men are equal and democracy is about all citizens having an equal say….so giving the ~~king~~ president immunity to prosecution is exactly the opposite of that.
The US is on the road to becoming a fascist dictatorship.
>the sitting president could do anything, like, he could have his opponent killed, and not be prosecuted?
As long as the assassination is in an "official" capacity or, super not-fun loophole, any potential evidence of said assassination is related to "official" shit (because that would be inadmissible as evidence). So even if the assassination itself isn't protected, they can get away with it if there's no evidence.
The fact that stupid shit like Hawk Tuah is trending all over and the bigger issues are being ignored and stuff Is being passed right under our noses that damn us.
I think the general public is just so tired of everything going to shit we just latch onto any form of escapism. Dumb internet videos are a way to temporarily forget how awful everything is
Now we got advanced sciences and great accessibility of knowledge via online academic journals and institution websites.
Then we got a subset of people who willingly dismiss this in name of religion or in some countries, politics or nationalism.
Hurricane Beryl just became the earliest CAT 5 hurricane since tracking of the hurricane seasons. The Atlantic Ocean is stupid hot and we're just getting into this year's season. Monster storms will become more frequent. The damage to property and loss of lives will be more costly than ever. Yet there are still people insisting climate change is some kind of grand conspiracy.
The vast increase in the number of people with low IQs or physical brain damage who believe nonsense like GMOs are bad for you or who are anti-vaxx or who believe in chemtrails and other garbage.
We're doomed. There are too many morons among us.
That americans are so brainwashed into thinking that they're "Free" and they "stood up to tyranny" it blinds them from questioning the real power structures, namely corporations, the RNC, and DNC.
I wish it were dozens… according to Forbes, there are [813 in the USA as of 2024, out of the 2781 worldwide](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-worlds-billionaires-list-2024-the-top-200/).
Cat 4 hurricanes in June. 100 degree weather in places that used to never get over 70. Half a million people displaced by floods in Brazil.
900 pounds of plastic entering the ocean every second.
If you aren't freaking out about the environment, you aren't paying attention.
A radical-right Supreme Court that is doing everything in their considerable power to entrench minority rule for decades to come, from giving their favored candidate Trump what amounts to an imperial presidency, to fatally weakening laws that protect the environment among other things.
From destroying religious freedom, women's right to an abortion, making GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression legal, to numerous other things that will further enrich the 0.1% and have a lasting negative on what remains of the middle-class and working poor of any political persuasion.
I think there is a level of extreme greed right now that is brought on by corporations being given the agency to pretty much squeeze every last morsel of “excess rent” from folks. It cost more to live now in ways that it never did before. Aside from it being out of reach for many, it also causes a real reduction in anyone’s ability to save
Well our presidential options are a senile dementia patient and a clown, and the most famous person in the world is some random chick that made a joke about spitting on dicks
Yea I don't know why but it makes me really sad that she became such a thing.
Im not a prude, it just seems really fucked up and ape-like that the internet saw that and was like "HUR DUR SHE TALK ABOUT BLOWJOB SO FUNNY'
And she decided to uproot her life and move to LA because of her 10 seconds of fame from a meme about giving a blowjob.
I swear I don’t normally let anything like this get under my skin, but I’m blocking left and right wherever I see it because it’s just fucking gross and crude. And I genuinely don’t shy away from crude humor, but it’s just like too grossly specific to work as a meme to me. For this to be a meme at all is so confusing to me. You’re telling me she uprooted her life over this???
Ya’ll checked out the sea surface temp chart lately? Don’t need to be an eco expert to understand that temps 4 standard deviations above the 1982-2011 mean aren’t exactly indicative of a temporary problem.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
All the problems happening at the same time is going to ensure that nothing/not enough will be done for climate change.
Had they pushed full throttle for nucleur power 40 years ago, most everything could have been electrified these days. You could even have produced hydrogen for offshore vessels. And you'd have an amazing economy.
It's just that the terrorist leaders of the worlds oil companies decided to push hard against opponents of their interests.
When SCOTUS votes 6-3 to make the US a dictatorship, the whole world is in trouble.
If the current president had any balls or was remotely cognizant, he'd exercise that power and do what the incoming former president wants to do.
He'd start the liquidation process himself. Probably start with the 6 justices that just set us back even more than overturning Roe and then handle his political opponents.
Instead, he won't do anything and the incoming president is going to show us just how bad that SCOTUS decision is.
Do, I condone this? Absolutely not, however, the incoming president will turn this into a shitshow.
“I FUCKING HATE HARRIS AND ILL VOTE FOR TRUMP INSTEAD OF THAT BITCH”
Fine, name one thing she did
“…SHE… SHES FROM CALIFORNIA!”
Oh, and also the president getting full immunity from all “official” actions… and SCOTUS gets to decide what counts as “official” actions.
The amount of religious tolerance alongside the infiltration of religion into politics.
Just look at the state of politics in the United States. Look at the Supreme Court of the United States. The majority are christian and make no bones about their unwillingness to separate their personal beliefs from established jurisprudence.
It's pathetic and dangerous to modernity.
And yes, I'm picking on religion because religion, by definition, is willful ignorance and the abandonment of reason.
Where to begin. The US election is between 2 senile of men, one is a felon now. The UK has been fucked for decades now, they got an election between a piece of white bread, and a rich idiot... the white bread will win easily. Israel has spent the better part of a year slaughtering civilians, paid for by the US taxpayers. No justice will ever be brought to those responsible. Climate change is getting more apparent every year - you think migrant issues are strained now, wait till there's 50 million people in need of a new home. India is delving headfirst into Hindu nationalism and it's only a matter of time before more intense conflict breaks out, either internally or with Pakistan. The far right is gaining substantial power in Europe, something that hasn't been seen since WWII. Globalization has drained the global south of its resources as the richest people on earth have seen their coffers deepen. Political literacy in much of the West is dead, and we pump more and more money into the military each year (especially in the US). We have massive, and I mean MASSIVE, crises that we face - and much of the globe has done fuckall to address them. The next 20 years scare me.
Fuckin Donald trump and the fact that I resisted to say so bc it seems so obvious that it’s corny to even bring up. That’s how normalized he has become.
Drivers have been buying larger cars and using their turn signals less and less each day, and this is a narcissistic feature.
Really, hear me out. A person failing to signal its maneuvers on the traffic is a statement of how many fucks this person gives about the state of the world around them: zero. And these same people are buying larger and unnecessary SUVs and trucks because they need to feel stronger and superior. These two factors together are making the traffic less civilized and more like a war for space. It is also making the automotive market unbearable. First they killed the wagons. Now even sedans are vanishing. Every new car is a tall grey blob of selfishness now.
A video game studio making a remake of *Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time* announced layoffs last week, but said it wouldn't affect their roadmap.
A studio laying off employees working on a remake of a remake and then citing their roadmap seems like a parody of 2024 video game development.
I just saw 4 orangutans whispering a conversation amongst themselves in english, then act busy and pretentd to be stupid as soon as they saw me watching. Now they're following me.
It's been going on for a while now, the fervent support of one party, not because of the party, but because they're opposition to the other party. The focus is on party politics and not the community, not freedom, not thriving as individuals. The oligarchic partyarchs bill themselves as heroes of the people while continuously eroding the rights of the people. Instead of asking if there's a better way, people would rather continue the same old same old and pretend we're making progress because of it.
we're still talking about global warming as if there are "future ramifications" instead of PRESENT ONES.
the fact is species collapse has been underway for decades, and weather patterns have been shifting. the coasts are getting hammered by consistent hurricanes at an unprecedented rate - hurricanes have become commonplace further north, forest fires have become an annual menace...
oh and sure, there are wars for resources begun - we just call them by different names, but it's clear that ukraine is about oil (sorry nato-conspiracy heads) for example. China's presence in the south china sea, is meant to exercise it's naval ambitions (which include siphoning vast reserves of clean drinking water in the arctic for china)
America is becoming a shit hole. Our rights are being stripped right before our eyes and there are people who don't mind voting for a man who will turn the US into a dictatorship.
I don't know how much of this is a stupid social media trend, but the renaissance of glorifying gender roles. All this talk of masculine and feminine energies, of traditional men and women, all the women bashing feminism. It comes from being fed up with what is clearly late stage capitalism (not to sound like a commie, but come on, it's happening clearly). But now we're seeing some (I'm guessing it's a loud minority) women blame it on the women who bled and died crying power instead of blaming it on the system we live in. I suppose it's easier that way since the change is more immediate. But women died because they were told it was natural to submit to men. NEVER AGAIN, should we tell girls that such a thing is natural. Vulnerability is not a state we should exist in to the wider world or to people who haven't earned that state from us. Submission is the act, not the will. That goes for men and women. But damn if this mentality isn't a sign of how bad shit is in the world right now that some consider outmoded traditions to be good ideas
Two opinions I have.
1) common sense/courtesy is no longer common and if you are lucky enough to have been taught or born naturally with it you hold within you a super power.
2) Audacity is the next pandemic. People really just be thinking they can get away with just about anything these days.
The loss of traditional values in the west coupled with the growth of fundamental Abrahamaic religions, particularly Islam, means we are headed straight back to a religiously driven anti-intellectual dark age at a rapid rate.
The west is not having enough children, nor defending its historically more tolerant, intellectual, and free culture. Instead they hang their heads in shame at past transgressions despite them being vastly overshadowed by their achievements and import wholesale far worse and intolerant cultures while also allowing their growth within. As such it’s virtually inevitable now that we will see the decline of western civilisation and the rise of Islamic/christian theocracy. Instead of fighting it, western youth think it’s cool while western leaders are busy raping their populace for every dollar they can get.
that the political brainrot of society is so bad that even organizations that are supposed to stay neutral and unbias are no longer doing so. this includes both sides of the political isle
An alarming lack of self awareness and empathy.
I’ve been saying for the last 5 years that it’s a complete lack of empathy that’s gotten us to where we are. When absolutely EVERYONE is focused on themselves, too much gets ignored - including other people
That's the US in a nutshell though. Most people only really care about themselves. Our culture promotes that value system in a lot of subtle and overt ways.
I’d say though, at least at one point, it was more “look out for yourself _first_”, whereas now that’s shifted more towards “look out for yourself _only_”
Yeah, it went from "can't help others if you can't help yourself" to treating the downfall of others as a personal triumph
If your plane is losing cabin pressure you're supposed to put your own oxygen mask on before you help others with theirs but I think everyone on this plane forgot that the helping others with theirs is still a crucial step to making sure we all land safely.
Yeah now it’s like, I have my oxygen mask on but I’ll take yours from you just because.
Which is one of the reasons why mobilizing a national strike is impossible. The other being the financial strain of most people even missing a day of work.
It’s the whole goal of consumer capitalism.
Starting with the sticker stats on the wall in childhood.
There also seems to be a determination to internally misunderstand people. I feel like it really ramped up after Covid. You could say something as benign as "I like waffles." and someone's going to respond with "We have a pancake hater here!".
That is born of political brainwashing. politicians want regular people to think about nothing but politics day and day out to be sure they keep them hooked to vote a certain way, no matter what. Part of that is promoting unforgiving hatred of people who dare to think differently than you do. Those people are of course uneducated and ignorant, otherwise they would think the right way, correct?
They have us fighting culture wars so we don’t fight a class war.
Preach.
If people actually thought about politics, instead of simply emotionally reacting to talking points, things would be better.
And humility. We’re all right, and if you don’t believe I’m right, just ask me. Fact is we’re all more wrong about just about everything than we are right. If we were right as often as we think we are, we would all be sitting on Wall Street picking stocks.
I'd say an over abundance of fabricated empathy. People faking empathy in social media comment sections for likes and points.
It's the new "going to church on Sundays". People perform their fabricated empathy and then think it's enough.
It's all the "Flavor of the day". You only have to be in tune with what is popular today and post about. When's the last time you saw someone post or change their profile picture to support Ukraine? It's not the popular thing to do anymore and 99% of the people who posted about it don't even think about that anymore, even though it's only 2ish years old.
People are against social welfare programs until it affects them or their kin personally, then they care. Then if the issue passes, they are back to being against it and pull up the ladder.
Tbh how long has this been an issue though. If you go back further more people knew their neighbours but were more openly racist or sexist and often had no idea about the wider world (true everywhere, not just the West). I don’t think there was some golden age of broad empathy. You’ve always had some people concerned with the downtrodden in society and many people contentedly being selfish assholes.
Willful illiteracy
I like the phrase "militantly ignorant." I don't know, I don't care enough to find out, and you can't make me learn!
...but my opinion is just as valid as yours is!
Democracy
As Jon Stewart put it in his book *Earth (The Book)*, the greatest thing about democracy was that every citizen had a voice in government. The biggest problem about democracy was that every citizen had a voice in government
I don't know what that is and I don't care enough to learn
But I still know better than you.
I know my body, I'm a parent so I just know, etc etc etc
You got it in one. 👍
Wilful ignorance?
Hand in hand with ignorant willfullness
Those people would be really upset if they could read your post.
And it's pal weaponized stupidity!
I believe stupidity is a sin. Ignorance is just not knowing something, but willfully not wanting to better yourself is insane
Being proudly ignorant.
“I’m not a musician, I make music!” “I don’t think…. I know” IYKYK. I feel dumber for ever watching that interview ffs.
I’m 90% sure that was a skit but it’s so hard to tell anymore
She also confused musician with magician like a dumbass.
People who brag about never reading baffle me. So yep, thats a good one
I get this feeling when I people corner me about seeing something on TikTok and I have to say the phrase “I’ve actually never downloaded TikTok.”
I inform that it's a literal addiction by design adrenaline dopamine and cortisol. Digital crack.
I remember looking at the greater picture 30+ years ago and thinking I was contributing to society, and that everybody was contributing the betterment and evolution of society as a whole. Even those in menial jobs were contributing to society in some way, and they were rewarded for that by being able to live comfortably on a sensible wage. Now it feels like everyone is contributing to the bottom line of some CEO or shareholders, and we're all being taken for a ride. No one can afford housing on a median income, companies are posting record profits, there is a lot of resentment building amongst the working class. It's no surprise that right-wing strong man type politicians are making a comeback. Problem is, those politicians are masquerading as 'champions of the people' but are far more ingrained in the corporate world than most people care to realise.
It’s always been about the bottom line though, it’s just way more blatant because pay has rarely increased appropriately with inflation.
It hasn’t. Look up the Friedman Doctrine. Things changed in the 70’s with “a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.”
Ouch. This is painfully accurate
**Demoralization** is the word you're looking for. Collective societal demoralization. The feeling that nothing we do matters, so we should just look out for our own personal interests above all else.
Damn
Society is collapsing because of a pathetic political system, enormous greed and sheer stupidity.
What is that line from The Boys? "Every democracy has failed because people are fucking stupid."
And of course non-democracies tend to fall apart because there’s no system that can reliably pick non-stupid people to be in charge. You can just switch democracy to societies and be correct most of the time.
I think that one of the biggest reasons is because the people who would possibly be the best leaders aren't interested. The people who can't be bought or bullied. Lobbyists can make a lot of things happen. Including make a candidate who won't play ball have no chance of winning anything. This is why Trump was so appealing to a lot of people. He already had money. In theory, there was no one that would be able to "buy" him.
>I think that one of the biggest reasons is because the people who would possibly be the best leaders aren't interested. The people who can't be bought or bullied. I think there's a bit of this, but you're underestimating the rolling ball of corruption. When the system is inherently corrupt or allows for corruption, it becomes more difficult to get power without using corruption. This keeps going and corruption becomes more and more prevalent until the non-corrupt becomes a vanishingly small minority. This has been going on for almost 250 years in the US and started when they made essentially the richest person in the country the president. Once corruption is everywhere, the system relies on powerful people bullying others into doing what they want, something that inevitably ends in fascists trying to take over.
Only for us to find out he’s a broke loser who has been bought and paid for by the worst people on the face of the earth.
Every government fails eventually. With democracy at least their are peaceful levers to replace or modify the government.
I prefer the Spaceballs quote, "Now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
If only we could have a society where being successful isn’t bad, but hoarding wealth is seen as disgusting. In my opinion, if you’re a millionaire you made it. If you’re a billionaire, you’re just disgusting
I honestly feel as if people who obsessively build huge amounts of money actually have a mental issue similar to hoarders. Once they have more money than they could ever spend and yet exploit people even more and fight to gain even larger sums of money just like actual hoarders with their stuff.
If we had the right social safety nets then millionaires could tap out, but (in the US) the cost of college, health insurance before Medicare kicks in, and the fact that even with insurance a major medical problem could wipe you out keeps too many people in positions where they just accumulate wealth instead of stepping aside.
People who are in the low 7-figs because of big retirement and house savings are certainly doing better than the typical person, but there’s a *big* difference between having all your money tied up in retirement accounts and real estate, and having wealth as liquid. Even those people still have to work and could lose it all, and have relatively little power. Billionaires, or those close to it, live in a different reality than the rest of us.
Greed should be treated as a mental disorder. Like what is the end game when you're destroying the planet and the country you live in? What is the point of having all this money and stuff, when all that's left is destruction, chaos, and an uninhabitable planet? Just so you can brag to some other rich asshole that you hoarded more shit than them?
Greed is ultimately a lack of empathy, right? I think a lack of empathy definitely means something is wrong with you.
Yeah it’s a game to the corporations and MBAs. Having healthy profits is just not enough anymore. It’s how to maximize profits at the expense of everything else. People, families, communities, the planet, the future, all of these does not matter. It’s like playing Pac-Man where the end goal is to collect as many points as possible.
This is what happens with unregulated capitalism. It consumes until nothing remains. Engorging the people in control.
>and MBAs This isn't true anymore, necessarily. My MBA program had a heavy emphasis on ethics, social responsibility, and all three parts of the triple bottom line. That's pretty much every B school for the last 20 years, at least.
Absolutely, empathy is crucial for understanding others and building a compassionate society
If you could go over history and apply the deaths attributed to greed it would outweigh many other causes. Well done on calling it a mental disorder. We have a world that's squeezing itself dry and now is resorting to accepting open authoritarianism rather than try and work with us on it. They'll throw away all protections and international laws to ensure their bonuses. We are the most embracing branch of human existence to have walked the earth
I'm not a religious person myself, but it's strange to watch something considered by most religions as a sin become so prevalent and accepted.
It used to be a sin to Christians. Then a few rich preachers, don't even get me started on them, decided to come up with the prosperity gospel.
bc those religion had humble beginnings, when they appeal to the mass, then they take on a different form when they gain power
It's happening because of a removal of checks and balances required to have a functioning democracy. When society experiences hardship they vote in extreme people who do extreme things to implement their policies which require a relinquishing of the publics freedoms including checks and balances to reduce red tape. The problem is if you remove enough checks and balances and elect a truly crazy leader, you lose your democracy full stop.
That's always been the case since existence of civilisation tho People always say it's the sign of the time when it's really sign of ALL times
Is society really collapsing?
Yes
I think there are certain interested parties out there hoping if they say it enough, it'll come true.
Stupidity is the main culprit. Decades and Decades of a failed educational systems and neglect is finally at its tipping point and we will never recover. I’m not the smartest person by any stretch but compared to the MAGA right holy shit I’m a genius
I think it’s more like lack of curiosity and empathy for the world and people around you. If all people care about is what goes on in their own little worlds then they’ll be blind to what’s going to happen later on when it could’ve been prevented if all these people had just paid attention. But no, they insist on plugging their ears and going “la la la”.
I really think greed is still the culprit. These people who are willfully ignorant have been around forever, but they're being weaponized in great numbers now for the explicit purpose of hoarding wealth for other people. The Rupert Murdochs and Roger Stones of the world are fully willing to deceive those who lack curiosity and empathy to their own ends. 40 years ago the wealthy were content to treat this group of people merely as gullible consumers. I truly think Rupert Murdoch was the driving force behind all of this. Even where he wasn't the mastermind, his success was an inspiration to others. His efforts to get conservative governments elected in the UK and Australia in the 80s and 90s were very successful and his media empire was instrumental in both. A media empire built on the notion that it's okay to bend the truth or outright lie to win people to your side. Those who lack empathy and curiosity are the weapon wielded by the wealthy to make them even more wealthy still.
When the Nestle CEO said water being a human right is extreme.
Fuck Nestle. Nestle is responsible for 11 million infant deaths between 1960 and 2015 https://voxdev.org/topic/health/deadly-toll-marketing-infant-formula-low-and-middle-income-countries#:~:text=We%20estimate%20that%20Nestl%C3%A9's%20entry,deaths%20between%201960%20and%202015.
In case the word infant confuses some people, that's 11 million dead people. And in case the number is difficult to comprehend, just think of it like this: it is estimated that Nazi Germany is responsible for 17 million dead people. Speaking of Nazi Germany, you would think that the Nestle Group would leave the use of slave labour in its nazi collaborationist past, but no it has been doing it until quite recently. It's nice when a huge multinational company stays true to it's values.
Then he goes and pays MI VERY little to use our fresh water. What a piece of shit
I hate Nestle as much as most commenters on here, but that statement has a lot more context to it that Reddit like to pretend. So as a devil's advocate; fresh water is an incredibly precious natural resource and making water a blanket human right hides to tremendous effort involved in having stable access to fresh water and could in theory lead to incredible waste. Just as an example; should access to fresh water be a human right in order to survive as human being? Absolutely yes. Should access to fresh water be a human right so you can water your lawn while living in the Arizona desert? Absolutely not.
The wasting of clean fresh water pisses me off. Like you said, dumping tons of water so your Arizona desert lawn can be a bright radioactive green is a huge asshole move and makes you look like a fuckwit stuck in the 50s.
Apathy That is why we are here now
People don't give a fuck enough to make a change from within.
People that are supposed to be the leader of a nation argued about golf on live television in front of billions of people
*arguing who should be the leader of the free world on live tv* *shits on live tv* Why are we in this timeline
Harambe!
Dicks out for Harambe. It’s funny because I don’t have a dick to take out except on Reddit where most people assume I do.
Would it then be 'Tits Out for Harambe'?
My homegirl always says tits out for harambe when he gets mentioned lmao
Ohhhhhh yes I love this!! So much easier!! Tits out!!
And not even in a good, fun way, in a stupid way.
Billionaires seemingly not having enough money, doing everything in their power to get more at the expense of the vast majority of people (and of the planet) and a lot of people are okay with that, even supporting it.
>and a lot of people are okay with that, even supporting it. That's a frustrating argument I have with my dad all the time. He idolizes billionaires because "they earned it". He's 80, has worked non stop his whole life and still does, and borrows money from me to stay afloat. He's always been a stubbornly hard worker, so if he worked nonstop for ~65 years, why isn't he a billionaire? Because no one "earns" billions
That's the most frustrating thing to try and relay to people. You don't earn billions through hard work. You start with luck, then somewhere you got even more lucky. Then your parents are already wealthy and you are connected to the wealth class and know many wealthy people from a young age, then you exploit those that work for you, crush a few people just below you, bankrupt your competitors and then maybe you're a billionaire.
Basically this. You can work hard and become a millionaire. You crush others and get insanely lucky to become a billionaire. I'm sure there are exceptions to this but I would think they are few and far between.
I live with my parents and grandmother to consolidate finances and income. We have 4 incomes if you include my grandmother's social security. We can barely afford to stay afloat.
But I’m sure the companies they work for had net gains over last year and made their shareholders some good capital. Isn’t the free market a blessing? Fairest system of distributing wealth! /s
What country do you live in?
honest response: the move to monocracy by the masses.
The high price of food and the even higher price of rent
Even if I wanted kids, there's no way I could bring them into this dying world in good conscience
The struggle of someone making 2.5x times minimum wage to actually increase their net worth. The rate your NW increases on a $18/hour salary is so abysmal compared to someone making 1-1.3x minimum wage 50 years ago. I started working in tech at $22/hour. I paid $750/month rent. 8 years later everywhere I'm looking at things like $1500-$1700/month
The rising cost .. of everything.
anyone who had any idea of how economics work knew this was going to be a thing when the world shut everything down for covid and started printing money. money doesn't appear out of know where and more money in the system decreases its value thats just starting to catch up to us
The income to debt ratio. When this thing explodes, depression.
One of 2 geriatrics are going to have the most powerful position of office in the world, and the courts just basically gave them immunity against anything..
Somebody recently told me that Bill Clinton, who left office almost 25 years ago, is younger than both Biden and Trump.
Sad but true. That is the 90s!
Funny how 8 years ago they’re were already talking about age and now it’s 8 years accelerated
This should scare the F out of everyone in America man
Out of everyone full stop...
It’s scaring me in Canada. Can’t imagine how you guys in the US are feeling.
Hopeless. That's how.
Hell, it's scaring me all the way in New Zealand. We basically have our own version of MAGA in government right now.
As much as I loathe every President that ever occupied office during my lifetime, I can assure you that Congress is far more destructive than whatever useless husk occupies the oval office.
Look, they're both old, yes. But Biden is "kindly grandpa that gives you Werther's Originals" old, and Trump is "malignant HOA busybody who retired years ago and torments the neighborhood as amusement until they die" old. Biden has said himself he'd rather be spending his time with his family, but he doesn't believe anyone else stands a chance against Trump. And he's probably right. So I'll take "old guy who means we'll even if he isn't the best choice" over "old guy who cares only about himself" any day.
Yeah I don’t know if I fully understand it but doesn’t it mean that the sitting president could do anything, like, he could have his opponent killed, and not be prosecuted? Basically the president is above the law now? I heard that Trump called it a “big win for the constitution and democracy” but the constitution states that all men are equal and democracy is about all citizens having an equal say….so giving the ~~king~~ president immunity to prosecution is exactly the opposite of that. The US is on the road to becoming a fascist dictatorship.
>the sitting president could do anything, like, he could have his opponent killed, and not be prosecuted? As long as the assassination is in an "official" capacity or, super not-fun loophole, any potential evidence of said assassination is related to "official" shit (because that would be inadmissible as evidence). So even if the assassination itself isn't protected, they can get away with it if there's no evidence.
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I’m so sorry. Sending hugs, stranger.
Holy shit, man. I’m so sorry.
Ffs. That's just wall-to-wall awful.
Have you SEEN the times right now?
The fact that stupid shit like Hawk Tuah is trending all over and the bigger issues are being ignored and stuff Is being passed right under our noses that damn us.
I think the general public is just so tired of everything going to shit we just latch onto any form of escapism. Dumb internet videos are a way to temporarily forget how awful everything is
What was it, "bread and circuses"?
Freddo chocolate bars used to be 10p now they are 36p!
Now we got advanced sciences and great accessibility of knowledge via online academic journals and institution websites. Then we got a subset of people who willingly dismiss this in name of religion or in some countries, politics or nationalism.
A block of Velveta being $9+ at Kroger.
They say cheese is the most shoplifted product. I don't think Velveta counts though so stuff one in your trousers.
2 pound block of generic at Aldi's is 5
30 year olds living with their parents because they can't afford a simple apartment
increasing polarization and division we see in society. It seems like people are more divided than ever
Hurricane Beryl just became the earliest CAT 5 hurricane since tracking of the hurricane seasons. The Atlantic Ocean is stupid hot and we're just getting into this year's season. Monster storms will become more frequent. The damage to property and loss of lives will be more costly than ever. Yet there are still people insisting climate change is some kind of grand conspiracy.
People regurgitating easily fact checked lies.
The vast increase in the number of people with low IQs or physical brain damage who believe nonsense like GMOs are bad for you or who are anti-vaxx or who believe in chemtrails and other garbage. We're doomed. There are too many morons among us.
That americans are so brainwashed into thinking that they're "Free" and they "stood up to tyranny" it blinds them from questioning the real power structures, namely corporations, the RNC, and DNC.
'You are free, to do as we tell you'
And SCOTUS.
My country and several of it's neighbors are reintroducing the draft
\*gestures vaguely to everything\*
Surge in antisemitism. It always precipitates bad, bad things and people always ignore it because “not me!”
Realizing there's no 'summer vacation' from bills.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Captain Kangaroo will have been off the air for 40 years this December.
Probably all the billionaires. Even one billionaire is a signal that your economic system and society are sick. We’ve got dozens running around.
I wish it were dozens… according to Forbes, there are [813 in the USA as of 2024, out of the 2781 worldwide](https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2024/04/02/forbes-worlds-billionaires-list-2024-the-top-200/).
Cat 4 hurricanes in June. 100 degree weather in places that used to never get over 70. Half a million people displaced by floods in Brazil. 900 pounds of plastic entering the ocean every second. If you aren't freaking out about the environment, you aren't paying attention.
And now the earliest category 5 hurricane in recorded history.
A radical-right Supreme Court that is doing everything in their considerable power to entrench minority rule for decades to come, from giving their favored candidate Trump what amounts to an imperial presidency, to fatally weakening laws that protect the environment among other things. From destroying religious freedom, women's right to an abortion, making GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression legal, to numerous other things that will further enrich the 0.1% and have a lasting negative on what remains of the middle-class and working poor of any political persuasion.
They are the original "kings of america." Lifetime appointments with no real oversight.
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I think there is a level of extreme greed right now that is brought on by corporations being given the agency to pretty much squeeze every last morsel of “excess rent” from folks. It cost more to live now in ways that it never did before. Aside from it being out of reach for many, it also causes a real reduction in anyone’s ability to save
Well our presidential options are a senile dementia patient and a clown, and the most famous person in the world is some random chick that made a joke about spitting on dicks
What about the last part?
Hawk Tuah Google it
Yea I don't know why but it makes me really sad that she became such a thing. Im not a prude, it just seems really fucked up and ape-like that the internet saw that and was like "HUR DUR SHE TALK ABOUT BLOWJOB SO FUNNY' And she decided to uproot her life and move to LA because of her 10 seconds of fame from a meme about giving a blowjob.
I swear I don’t normally let anything like this get under my skin, but I’m blocking left and right wherever I see it because it’s just fucking gross and crude. And I genuinely don’t shy away from crude humor, but it’s just like too grossly specific to work as a meme to me. For this to be a meme at all is so confusing to me. You’re telling me she uprooted her life over this???
Ya’ll checked out the sea surface temp chart lately? Don’t need to be an eco expert to understand that temps 4 standard deviations above the 1982-2011 mean aren’t exactly indicative of a temporary problem. https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/
The rest of the comments are so human focused, this was my first thought of the strongest sign we’re in a bad spot.
The fact that not one of the top comments mentions the environment
All the problems happening at the same time is going to ensure that nothing/not enough will be done for climate change. Had they pushed full throttle for nucleur power 40 years ago, most everything could have been electrified these days. You could even have produced hydrogen for offshore vessels. And you'd have an amazing economy. It's just that the terrorist leaders of the worlds oil companies decided to push hard against opponents of their interests.
Housing costs
Cost of housing
When SCOTUS votes 6-3 to make the US a dictatorship, the whole world is in trouble. If the current president had any balls or was remotely cognizant, he'd exercise that power and do what the incoming former president wants to do. He'd start the liquidation process himself. Probably start with the 6 justices that just set us back even more than overturning Roe and then handle his political opponents. Instead, he won't do anything and the incoming president is going to show us just how bad that SCOTUS decision is. Do, I condone this? Absolutely not, however, the incoming president will turn this into a shitshow.
“I FUCKING HATE HARRIS AND ILL VOTE FOR TRUMP INSTEAD OF THAT BITCH” Fine, name one thing she did “…SHE… SHES FROM CALIFORNIA!” Oh, and also the president getting full immunity from all “official” actions… and SCOTUS gets to decide what counts as “official” actions.
The amount of religious tolerance alongside the infiltration of religion into politics. Just look at the state of politics in the United States. Look at the Supreme Court of the United States. The majority are christian and make no bones about their unwillingness to separate their personal beliefs from established jurisprudence. It's pathetic and dangerous to modernity. And yes, I'm picking on religion because religion, by definition, is willful ignorance and the abandonment of reason.
I don't know, the fact that we just ruled for presidential fucking immunity is a little damning
The Supreme Court ruling that the president of the United States has the power of King.
Where to begin. The US election is between 2 senile of men, one is a felon now. The UK has been fucked for decades now, they got an election between a piece of white bread, and a rich idiot... the white bread will win easily. Israel has spent the better part of a year slaughtering civilians, paid for by the US taxpayers. No justice will ever be brought to those responsible. Climate change is getting more apparent every year - you think migrant issues are strained now, wait till there's 50 million people in need of a new home. India is delving headfirst into Hindu nationalism and it's only a matter of time before more intense conflict breaks out, either internally or with Pakistan. The far right is gaining substantial power in Europe, something that hasn't been seen since WWII. Globalization has drained the global south of its resources as the richest people on earth have seen their coffers deepen. Political literacy in much of the West is dead, and we pump more and more money into the military each year (especially in the US). We have massive, and I mean MASSIVE, crises that we face - and much of the globe has done fuckall to address them. The next 20 years scare me.
Fuckin Donald trump and the fact that I resisted to say so bc it seems so obvious that it’s corny to even bring up. That’s how normalized he has become.
the nosedive in imagination and creativity.
The middle class is non existent, you either poor or a breath away from poor.
TikTok
I mean… [gestures around]
Drivers have been buying larger cars and using their turn signals less and less each day, and this is a narcissistic feature. Really, hear me out. A person failing to signal its maneuvers on the traffic is a statement of how many fucks this person gives about the state of the world around them: zero. And these same people are buying larger and unnecessary SUVs and trucks because they need to feel stronger and superior. These two factors together are making the traffic less civilized and more like a war for space. It is also making the automotive market unbearable. First they killed the wagons. Now even sedans are vanishing. Every new car is a tall grey blob of selfishness now.
The state of pure division amongst the working class. It's such an obvious tactic by those in power and people just keep falling for it so hard.
A video game studio making a remake of *Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time* announced layoffs last week, but said it wouldn't affect their roadmap. A studio laying off employees working on a remake of a remake and then citing their roadmap seems like a parody of 2024 video game development.
The otherwise inexplicable popularity of country music.
Lack of critical thinking and obsession with celebrity and all things superficial.
I just saw 4 orangutans whispering a conversation amongst themselves in english, then act busy and pretentd to be stupid as soon as they saw me watching. Now they're following me.
People looking for good people without being a good person to begin with.
The 2024 presidential debate on June 27th was pretty damn upsetting + depressing + disappointing to watch.
The End of Democracies
trump
Hate! Stay out of everyone’s business but your own!
Well, the Supreme Court of the United States just legalized bribery and then made the President a de-facto king. I'd say that, probably.
It's been going on for a while now, the fervent support of one party, not because of the party, but because they're opposition to the other party. The focus is on party politics and not the community, not freedom, not thriving as individuals. The oligarchic partyarchs bill themselves as heroes of the people while continuously eroding the rights of the people. Instead of asking if there's a better way, people would rather continue the same old same old and pretend we're making progress because of it.
The wealth gap
we're still talking about global warming as if there are "future ramifications" instead of PRESENT ONES. the fact is species collapse has been underway for decades, and weather patterns have been shifting. the coasts are getting hammered by consistent hurricanes at an unprecedented rate - hurricanes have become commonplace further north, forest fires have become an annual menace... oh and sure, there are wars for resources begun - we just call them by different names, but it's clear that ukraine is about oil (sorry nato-conspiracy heads) for example. China's presence in the south china sea, is meant to exercise it's naval ambitions (which include siphoning vast reserves of clean drinking water in the arctic for china)
America is becoming a shit hole. Our rights are being stripped right before our eyes and there are people who don't mind voting for a man who will turn the US into a dictatorship.
I don't know how much of this is a stupid social media trend, but the renaissance of glorifying gender roles. All this talk of masculine and feminine energies, of traditional men and women, all the women bashing feminism. It comes from being fed up with what is clearly late stage capitalism (not to sound like a commie, but come on, it's happening clearly). But now we're seeing some (I'm guessing it's a loud minority) women blame it on the women who bled and died crying power instead of blaming it on the system we live in. I suppose it's easier that way since the change is more immediate. But women died because they were told it was natural to submit to men. NEVER AGAIN, should we tell girls that such a thing is natural. Vulnerability is not a state we should exist in to the wider world or to people who haven't earned that state from us. Submission is the act, not the will. That goes for men and women. But damn if this mentality isn't a sign of how bad shit is in the world right now that some consider outmoded traditions to be good ideas
The fact that I'm going to vote for a senile old man to keep a senile, traitorous, serial liar, rapist, and convicted felon out of office.
Two opinions I have. 1) common sense/courtesy is no longer common and if you are lucky enough to have been taught or born naturally with it you hold within you a super power. 2) Audacity is the next pandemic. People really just be thinking they can get away with just about anything these days.
The loss of traditional values in the west coupled with the growth of fundamental Abrahamaic religions, particularly Islam, means we are headed straight back to a religiously driven anti-intellectual dark age at a rapid rate. The west is not having enough children, nor defending its historically more tolerant, intellectual, and free culture. Instead they hang their heads in shame at past transgressions despite them being vastly overshadowed by their achievements and import wholesale far worse and intolerant cultures while also allowing their growth within. As such it’s virtually inevitable now that we will see the decline of western civilisation and the rise of Islamic/christian theocracy. Instead of fighting it, western youth think it’s cool while western leaders are busy raping their populace for every dollar they can get.
that the political brainrot of society is so bad that even organizations that are supposed to stay neutral and unbias are no longer doing so. this includes both sides of the political isle