Fellow Americans, how do you deal with the day to day knowing this capitalist hellhole system is absolutely rigged against us?
In EMS, there's a saying: if you drop the baby, pick it up.
Dropping the baby is like the worst thing you can ever do, but for Christ's sake, don't just leave it on the ground, do something about it. I've gotten involved in local government. Local government is great because you can still affect change there, and you can affect change that can snowball into something bigger with other people in other local governments making those changes. I'm on the city's bicycle commission, and I'm working with local organizations like the 'Council for Leadership and Justice' and 'Strong Towns' to try and make the world a better place than I found it. Is it futile? Sure feels like it sometimes, time will tell I guess, but the trying helps me feel better for a few reasons, not least of which because it puts me in contact with others who care enough to try too.
Exactly.
I'm probably generally more optimistic about the future than the average Lemmy users, but even if I were pessimistic about the broad big picture questions, I'd still have plenty of local bits of local optimism. I really enjoy the company of my friends and family. I'm excited about my kids growing into cool adults who will do good things, from the tiny and mundane (a piece of artwork, a joke that makes me laugh) to the medium (taking an interest in my interests) to the big stuff (making big moves to change the world for the better).
I can't end poverty or hunger. But I can support the food bank in my neighborhood and volunteer/give to organizations that are doing good work at alleviating hunger and homelessness. And maybe feeding someone a single meal doesn't change the systemic problem that made him rely on my charity, but you'd better believe that meal still makes a difference to him in that moment.
Same with getting local kids their school supplies, helping a neighbor raise funds to pay off some medical debt, getting someone work clothes so that they can go interview for a job, teaching people how to negotiate and organize for better pay, etc.
We have plenty of power, collectively. Let's not waste it being miserable and unproductive.
In what way are you working with Strong Towns? I've gotten involved with local government too, but haven't really connected with Strong Towns beyond espousing their principles.
A guy running a local chapter reached out to me because of a comment I left on a YouTube video. We're collaborating on how to organize more people and push the city council to take aggressive measures like zoning reform, repealing parking minimums, robust public transit, comfortable bike lanes, etc.
Cannabis and passive suicidal ideation
Edit: And if you're like me, make sure you call 988 and talk to someone. That's what I had to do earlier today, and this time it was actually kinda helpful.
I just like thinking about it, ya know?
The only freedom i have left in my life is deciding when I die, so i get to feel a little free whenever i decide that today isn't the day...
My stupid body took the cannabis away from me, now all I have is the passive suicidal ideation... It's also my retirement plan! Good ol' 409mm1k
First I realized that I was reading the news for entertainment, not to actually get informed in any meaningful actionable way.
Then I started to doubt any headline that confirmed my biases. “Trump says terrible thing” boils down to a 3 second sound bite with zero context. “Trump voters regret voting for him” is a summary of 8 tweets taken off a recent trump post. “New study” has 23 participants.
In other words read the damn article. Things are bad, but not quite as relentlessly bad as social media would have you believe.
Also, I vote, I donate, I march. There’s not much else I can do, so what does all this “being informed” do me? Me being miserable doesn’t help anybody.
Second: stop consuming rage bait. 50% of Reddit is just videos of people being insane in public. It’d have you believing that we live in a warzone. We don’t. There is nothing to be gained from watching that shit.
Outside of that, picked up some video games and even started reading books again. Trying to deprogram the brainrot that makes it hard to concentrate on anything for more than 10 seconds.
Oh, and alcohol.
I chose not to participate.
I joined the military as soon as I graduated high school, got a solid 20 years of free food, free shelter, free college education, free travel, and plenty of life skills/experiences, all while collecting a solid income. Then I retired at 38 years old, collected a pension and a 100% VA disability check for the rest of my life (which includes free medical/dental for life), and inherited my childhood home in the countryside when my father passed away this year.
I do what I can to help out my local community, but I'm not working and have no need to contribute to capitalism. I make my own schedule each day, do whatever hobbies/goals I have the energy for, then call it a day whenever and start again the next morning.
My wife gets the same VA benefits, although she didn't serve long enough to collect a pension; she was medically discharged. So we're both just enjoying a quiet life in the countryside, no jobs, just focused on whatever makes us happy each day.
This is the life everyone deserves to have, and I'm upset that capitalism is basically the opposite of this lifestyle. They preach that if you're not working, you're a drain on society. Because the fewer workers they have, the less money that's generated for the rich elites running the capitalist regime. That's why our retirement age keeps going up. The longer people live, the more time they have to be productive members of "society" (read: capitalism). No thanks; I retired at 38 and I'm happy enjoying my youth while I still have some semblance of it.
EDIT: I just want to point out that military life was basically democratic socialism, with all our needs met, the govt ensuring we had food and a home, education was free, most all work-related expenses paid for. (uniforms, travel, etc.) Our paycheck was basically just spending money for us. We didn't have to worry about covering bills because we received a separate "allowance" to cover rent/mortgage and utilities. Food was another allowance on top of our paycheck. If we were reassigned to another base somewhere in the world, the govt would foot the bill for movers and they packed your house for you. And you basically had to break the law to be kicked out of the military, so job security was excellent. We all got paid based on our rank and time in service, so it didn't matter if you were a geothermal physicist or just handing out towels at the gym; everyone got the same wage across the board. It was an ideal situation. You'll be hard pressed to find something similar in the rest of America.
Wish I joined the military, sometimes. But my heavy conscience got in the way.
Service guarantees citizenship!
But like, not actually a joke.
That’s not a shot at you, btw - more of a critique of the system that makes military service one of the only ways you can actually have a life like what you have.
Butt stuff
T H A N K Y O U
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Currently? Mostly making shitposts about chaining CEOs to boulders and casting them into the Sea, advocating to build big bronze statues of cold-blooded murderers, and openly wishing for certain people to be struck by lightning. Some real Biblical shit.
It's not a death threat if you just wish God does the dirty work!
US judicial system: Best I can do is 15 years jail with $100K bond.
Honestly, at this point, I think we need to admit the US cannot be fixed. It's time to peacefully dissolve the US federal government in its entirety. Grant all 50 states independence, turn the lights off, and move on.
I think the last straw for me is the recent vote for House committee leadership among the Dems. Even the nominally liberal party is so utterly corrupt, so utterly surrendered to vanity, that it is incapable of learning even the simplest of lessons. Both parties have been so completely corrupted from the inside out by money, that they cannot be saved. The only people who can come into power are those who are utterly corrupted by corporate money, and they have zero incentive to repair the damage money has done to the system.
It is possible for a thing to be so thoroughly broken that it cannot be repaired. And we have passed that point as a nation. We simply don't want to admit it.
The time has come to peacefully dissolve the US in its entirety. We need to grant all 50 states full independence. Then they can come together and form whatever new nation or nations they want.
This nation can no longer be saved. It is time to end the denial.
Remember that the world used to be filled with feudalistic absolute-monarchist nations where the Emerperor/King always got away with doing immoral shit, and most people who worked for the monarch can fuck up your life with zero repercussions.
Today, at least sometimes the leaders can get punished.
South Korea just Impeached their president. And the president will likely get convicted and removed from office and go to prison, just as with one of the presidents before.
Brazil is now investigating their former President for an attempted coup.
The US isn't there yet, but at least we tried. Eventually, the president will be held accountable, maybe not in 10 years, but eventually we'll evolve out of this shit. The US had slavery, and got rid of it (for the most part). We had Jim Crow and got rid of that. It used to be only white male landowners could vote, and eventually Black Men, then Women, also got the right to vote. Progress happens even if it looks very slow.
Back then there was also no modern medicine, a small flu can kill you. If a family had 2 children in any country that's even slightly developed, both children likely survive. But before modern medicine, you need like 8 children and maybe 2 of them will survive.
Back then there were no entertainment on demand, if you are bored, you are just bored. Now we can just go on Youtube, Netflix or whatever and have a billion things to watch.
Back then, you didn't have a 40 hour work week, you were on a farm and had to constantly work. Any bad weather and crops died you're starving. Or if it post industrial revolution, you could be at a factory with way longer hours and much worse conditions than today.
People think "this is so bad" but it was way worse before.
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Did I say something offensive? Sorry if I did.
Alcohol.
The understanding that death will eventually release me from this mortal coil.
And that all the assholes that work against the wellbeing of the average person are also going to die.
I organize and build relationships in my community. Everyone has something to offer and something they need. It isn't always immediately obvious what those things are, so it's nice to have an existing network when you figure it out. Get together. Have potlucks. Share your skills, knowledge, tips, tricks and resources.
I doubt you actually do any of that. Lovely vague community esque language. Oh have a potluck and effect great societal change! Give me a break. Hapy olidays!
I mean, I can't prove it to you so you can just believe it or not. I definitely didn't mean to imply that I'm making some "great societal change". That's not an attainable goal. The question was about how I deal with the state of the world. For me, my anxiety was peaking in the early days of the pandemic and the political situation in the US. I was just doomscrolling all day. Finally I decided that I just needed to do something/anything. I contacted a local mutual aid group in my area and started helping distribute hot meals around my area. I did that for about 2 years, twice a week. I have gone on to do more organizing (food, politics, skill shares) with some of the people I met there, and have expanded my network of like-minded friends. It has helped my mental health immensely.
Treats and escapism 🥰
Preparing myself for the world Titor predicted. Small communities.
Learning to homestead as best I can as a renter. Lots of raised beds and planter bags.
I only buy things to support my hobbies. Saving up for land and a prefab home so I can go completely independent.
I don't want to worry if critical food gets expensive again.
SERN will take over the world.
The Organization is on to me now.
El Psy Congroo
Tuturu!
Climate change is really fucking that idea up here in Scotland.
Our ecosystem relies on now non-existant snowy winters to reset the pest and fungus population every year, instead we get mild winters and summer that have no actual rain to water plants yet are so humid that everything is permamently damp, pests and fungi ramp up year on year and plants that used to grow fine here (Talking potatoes and even some native trees) are struggling. I'd say a full half of the non-confierous trees near my house have started dying in the last 2 years.
Now there is a name I haven’t heard in awhile.
I don't want to overstate this, but some liberation can come from within.
Yeah, we all have to play their game, but internalizing the values our sick society places on us is optional. Make peace with the things you alone cannot immediately change. Resist in the small ways you are able, find joy where you can, and do what you can for the people you care about. Free your mind and your ass will follow.
Underwork when I can, especially if I feel underpaid and under appreciated. Humanity is doomed to destroy itself, so I don’t worry all that much about things. Hell, at this point I would enjoy watching it end. But until then, I’m gonna chill, smoke weed, make music and spend time with the good folks around me.
Underwork when I can
Yes 🐸
That's one way to hurt the parasite's profit.
Another way is to be a discerning consumer.
Owner class exploits us on both sides, the fight has to be fought on both fronts as a wagie and as consoomer
I don't. I'm literally on suicide watch trying new psych meds and wondering if the emotion storms are triggered by news, or the new drugs. Whee.
When the entire country is tilting day by day over the precipice about to fall into the abyss of fascist, one-party autocracy, it feels like the night before the Martians emerge with their tripods and heat rays. I feel like Fiver seeing the notice board portending the disaster of Sandleford Warren. I feel cursed for slighting Apollo somehow.
People are carrying on as if there's nothing wrong or nothing we can do, and I can't understand how they continue to function.
Good luck in your journey fellow human. I don't have anything else to offer but that someone read your words and you created thoughts in my head. Truly hope you best of everything. Cheers.
Thank you.
So long as Federal shennanigans don't accelerate my situation (say by killing Social Security) then I should be okay.
But yeah, I'm super vulnerable like brain surgery during a hurricaine.
I go to asklemmy threads and try to sneak my message by their partisan hack, censorship/ban-happy mods by leaving subtle jabs like this one:
I look back over history and see that every system of social organization ever was rigged against the people at the bottom, and then I look further back into nature and see that nature is literally trying to kill you all day every day, and I just take it as par for the course.
Our current system is less rigged against me than would be literally any other system under which I might have lived at any point in the past. I’m more free and supported than almost any other human who has ever lived, and for that I’m grateful.
I guess you could say I deal with it via the deliberate choice to be grateful, and to ignore the people who think I’m foolish for being grateful.
My mental health is certainly better than it would be if I chose to be bitter and resentful of the facts of existence.
Being surrounded by hostile forces that want to exploit and eat me is just part of existence. I am also surrounded by forces that want to nurture and assist me. I focus on those.
The ideal is to be capable of fighting a war, and capable of laughing in easy joy at the same time. Why? Because existence is war, and war is dreary and miserable if it’s the only thing that exists.
Elie Wiesel wrote in Night about finding freedom while strapped down to a table being tortured by concentration camp guards. It’s hard to find a scenario in which a person is more fucked. But it was there that he discovered the freedom of his spirit. If he can be free in that situation, I can be free in this situation.
Quite frankly, a big part of managing the stress when looking at the macro-political situation and how that intertwines with the macro-econonics and fucks up the microeconomics of households, is to not dwell on it. Too much doomer content bringing you down? know when to stop consuming and do something else. There's a point where you cannot change it and making yourself depressed thinking about it too much is just going to make your own life shittier.
I also work hard to find the best path to survive, thrive and live my best life. Sometimes that means taking some time to learn the rules of the game that's set up so you don't dive head first into the pitfalls that are setup for those who don't pay attention to the rules. Learn more about the big scary words at play as you sign up for an insurance plan, and what they mean. Learn about interest (both on your debts and your funds) and how interest plays into your finances, how to budget and figure out what you can afford, and how to financially improve upon your previous choices that occurred either due to lack of knowledge or due to making the least bad decision available to you at a given point in time.
But also make sure to find joy and happiness in a bunch of different timescales to both be happier and improving yourself so that no matter how mundane your life is, you have sparks of joy to keep you always looking forwards to something:
TL;DR STOP DOOMSCROLLING AND GO POKE SOMETHING WITH A STICK...it might even be a little fun
I appreciate this comment.
I go to work, enjoy my hobbies, support my family, and drink a lot.
Username checks out
I act like this is not a drill. We've put together an emergency kit. We have a reverse osmosis water filter. I've been stockpiling seeds, personal care items, first aid supplies, and shelf stable food. I spend my time reading, playing board games and doing puzzles with my spouse. We're spoiling the heck out of our pets. Trying not to spend money unless absolutely necessary. Towing the line between staying informed and doom scrolling. Some days better than others.
I should probably be more active. I shouldn't drink at all, but I still do on occasion. I should be eating healthier and engaging in my community. But I only have so much energy and to be honest I'm barely holding on. Secretly praying for a Hail Mary because I can't believe this sham of an election is going to go through. I just can't.
Vintage non-internet connected devices, self hosting open source services, buying used clothes, while I slowly prepare my retirement as a hermit in the mountains of west virginia
Smoke a lot of weed
Compartmentalization. Prioritize dealing with the things I can control first. The rest is noise until I have extra time to worry about it.
Moved out to the country, gardened, raised animals, breathed clean air and listened to the wind.
I find peace in learning and doing things well that, even if the system disintegrates, need to be done to move forward.
I dream about moving out OF the country.
Reading history books for greater context. Shit always finds a new flavor of fucked, apparently.
And drinking a boatload.
This can also backfire. It's frustrating to see history repeating itself so clearly over and over again, while being utterly powerless to really change it.
Weed and booze
I've cut down dramatically on the booze, increased the weed and feel a lot better. You can smoke so much more if you don't drink, it's awesome
So I went through a very dark place a few years back. Anxiety, depression and PTSD led me to the conclusion that "life is hard and always will be and that in the whole of human history we are all insignificant".
But with the help of a great therapist (and some meds) I was able to append "so I might as well have fun".
So I try to find joy wherever I can. So yes to doing things, fight my cynical side, make friends, dress weird, dance, party, be my (weird fun happy) self, allocate zero fucks to the haters and all to love to the people that matter.
I still fight the system where I can, but mostly by trying to make other's lives happier. Let the billionaires be rich miserable assholes, we're too busy dancing slutty to care.
50% socially acceptable self destruction (eating too much of the wrong things) and 50% dissociating while exercising (in hopes the collapse happens soon enough to make my physical fitness relevant.)
I silently quit life. It's not going well.
can you elaborate on what that means?
I focus on what tasks I have to get done today and do them. Then I doomscroll.
Mostly, self-destructive coping skills, just not very well in general
Invest in people.
Barring that: move to somewhere that is better for investing in people.
Doing better with only a focus on money, within a capitalist framework, will absolutely challenge your morals and ethics from time to time. Investing time in people, and community in general, has no such downside. Also, you'll need both to ascend Maslow's Hierarchy and be a well-rounded and healthy person around here. Succeeding in this area will also shift your viewpoint away from purely financial matters, or worse yet, basing your self-worth on your financial value to the market.
It's kind of like trying to cope with the reality of death
Just here trying to create an emotional and practical safe zone for myself, family, and my friends, and fuck the rest of 'em
Spread awareness, break all the little rules you can, scatter seeds of all kinds across town, refuse to recognize the dollar, point high powered laser pointers at private jets taking off, make up your own gender unique to you and dont respond to bigots who dont use it to refer to you, shit in the driveway of the CEO of your company (especially if you are the CEO), become ungovernable. The social contract is shattered, you owe nothing to them.
I just want to say that invasive plants species are a thing, and if a jet crashes on actual real people because of this, you might as well just get a gun and start blasting away, given the random places it might end up.
It's like you people are unhinged or something
"Stop him! He bought local seeds and is spreading them across the city! He's an unhinged menace!"
Give me a fucken break.
Weed.
Eventually it stops working. I've been blowing through ounces faster than I ever have, feel like I barely get high anymore
Feel free to crosspost on !AskUSA@discuss.online
You deserve an explanation as to why your cross-post of this was removed from !AskUSA@Discuss.Online: that instance has higher standards (though not quite Beehaw level) and we try to keep things "welcoming", thus we made our top community rule #1 to "be nice". And I felt that coming out swinging calling the whole country a "hellhole" went against that rule. I see that that is the top rule in this community as well, but I suppose there are differences in interpretation as to what that means.
Options from here: You may appeal to the head mod @m_f@discuss.online if you wish, as it does not strictly violate the rules of Discuss.Online itself. And/or you could re-phrase the title. Or you could even make a post asking for clarification of the rules/expectations - although note that this was already done recently and by far people seemed to express distaste for all the politics stuff, so we try to direct that to !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world instead. I've posted there myself in the last week, almost made another post there yesterday as well, and I highly recommend that community for things such as this. In fact, their sidebar text says that they love such self-posts of commentary, as opposed to like "news", and even "discussion of and disagreement about issues is encouraged!"
So I get that you wanted to vent and discuss, and there absolutely are places to do that, I just wanted to protect the members of that community in particular from being constantly barraged with politics, bc as you seem to agree, dayum that shit gets old fast - it becomes overwhelming to so many of us to see all the BS that goes down almost daily now:-(. And maybe that's one way that we can deal, by placing limits on how often we have to think about it each day:-).
No problem! Thanks for the explanation.
Currently taking a sabbatical from giving a shit about anything.
Got assaulted, seriously injured, car got stolen, lost my job working at a non profit helping the homeless, became homeless, spent a year that way, racked up a whole bunch more injuries.
Managed to qualify for SSDI, got on a bus, rode halfway across the country in horrible agony to find a shithole I can afford to rent, with just the clothes I had on me.
Its been about a year now, doing my own physical therapy, slowly recovering.
Can't afford actual physical therapy, couldn't get to it anyway.
Maybe sometime next year I'll be able to get my glasses replaced.
Maybe if I get to the point I can walk or use my wrist for more than 10 minutes at a time I'll look into some kind of remote work... or just make a video game or something.
...
How do I deal with it?
Just keep living, one day at a time.
If you want to make a video game I'd be willing to help, I've started a few and have learned a lot of the ins and outs. I'm partial to godot myself
Maybe when I can actually use my wrist or sit in a chair for more than 30 minutes without extreme pain...
I basically stopped participating. I work in a government position that is stable and pandemic-proof. I will never be able to buy a house so I don't even consider that. I live where I don't need a car. Basically, my needs are met and capitalism didn't work for me, ever.
I refuse to have children in response to what I see with my own eyes. No thanks to my parents for making me exist.
Glad I'm not the only person who resents their parents for making them
I submit to it while kindling a fire inside. For the rest of the day escapism. Everyone is just doing escapism.
I don't. We don't. Best we'll ever be able to do is keep the future generations in mind as the ship continues sinking. Remember overgrowth got us here and degrowth is possible--Hope must stay everpresent on the horizon of possibilities
I feed and drug the dog, which reminds me to take my antidepressants and another pill which I have to take with food, and so I eat breakfast. I meme with my friends online. I compartmentalize the fuck out of life. I go to therapy. I give myself treats. I wrap the dog's pills in a hip-and-joint soft treat so he'll take them without me shoving them down his throat. I remind myself that I almost-own a condo, so I'm doing better that a lot of millennials.
I do what I can when I can. Hopelessness hinders the change I can make
Drugs, lots and lots of tender loving illigeal drugs
Lots of Minecraft
I don't let them win over my soul. I'll never believe that capitalism is good. I'll never let them that money is more important than people. And if someday enough people believe the same as me that things start to change I'll be there to help make that change happen.
Weed and trying to understand what I value and want in my life and how that can be made to happen outside of capitalist structures
Pretty easily.
I live my life and care about the people around me. I ignore things I can’t affect.
The sky is not falling. The ground is right here and things are generally OK for most people.
Every day is a step towards my plan leaving this country and going back to Korea
Try really hard to ignore all evidence against the afterlife.
I wish so hard that I could believe. Just lie to myself forever, When you die it's not like you find out...
In a universe where efverythingf is forever, energy and matter just take new forms never truly destroyed...
Why the fuck is conciousness the exception
Edit: That's a serious question, and the only answer I can think of is "It isn't, we just don't know how to find conciousness when it leaves the body. Much as ancient main did not know of radiation nor how to find it, so he believed radioactive springs were cursed or blessed."
Your lizard brain is wired to avoid death, but non-existence shouldn't be scary. You've already done it for possibly an infinite amount of time.
i cry a lot and smoke a lot of weed lol
I've been looking for a mutual aid organization to join and looking into what it takes to get a gun in my state. Bleak, I know lol
volunteer, support local, and play music