Doomer post - a discussion about wanting to murder society

[SmallTalk201]

Over in this thread the subject of collective despair came up

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/second-democratic-debates.59065/page-80#post-5103527

I'm going be editing this until I feel it good enough. I'm in a bad tablet and poor internet connection.

I said this in response to someone talking about the nihilism among black voters:

"There has been a sense of despair ever since the failure of occupy wall street and the bailouts without accountability towards those responsible for the recession. America currently has a desire to collectively self destruct and I have never seen that before. The lolcow behavior on both sides is a symptom of these urges. Its bizarre but it's happening. In short the America public subconsciously want society to collapse and die. The reasons for this dark mood of the masses is both off topic and far too many to list in this post and thread."

To which someone asked :
"Would you consider making a deep thoughts thread about this? This is something I have noticed as well and it seems like an interesting subject to talk about. "

Well when I say collective despair I don't mean personal depression but what the collective mood of society towards their civilization is. Do they feel proud of their society and feel they can have a future by keeping the society intact ? Or do they feel their society and the status quo is an obstacle for a better life. When the baby boomers where free up they had a lot to be a part of. TheIr parents won world war two. The space program was happening. The civil rights movement was taking off. There was a lot of achievements and a lot to be proud of. For them there was a reason to be invested in america. What about millennial? What they get? They seem bush jr. Erode civil rights. They seem the ghost hunt for weapons of mass destruction. They witnessed the great recession, seen those responsible get bailouts but not held accountable. The occupy wall street failed in pressuring the politicians to reform the financial sector and watched it get warped into a clown world identity politics based sh it show. The collective experience of millenals were one of failure and disappointment. The idea of rule of law and democracy become a burst illusion during the 2000s. This produced anger and a search for alterntives. Many folks I talk to online who went far left often mention the great recession was why they gave up on America democracy and became an adherent of Marxism to some degree.

the faith of America as it was is over and the urge to destroy and replace it to me seems.be becoming more and more the norm.


I'll talk about this later. I got laundry but feel free to discuss the collective insanity happening in the west.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Personally though, I'm not all concerned about our country's future nor the world itself, but I see where you're going from. A good bunch of us have those feelings, yet we been through the country's worse. The Great Depression being an example.

 

[SmallTalk201]

this despair isn't something that was caused by 9/11, bush, the late 2000s economic crisis or occupy wall street. this runs deeper, and goes back a lot further.

im too lazy to write it all down because im shit at writing lots of text without it becoming an unreadable mess.
tl;dr: it's the end result of long-term demoralization efforts. if you got a lot of time you can listen to these lectures for some more details.

I've heard them before. My current op edit is a place holder until I can think of something better. The reason this thread was made because of request and quit shittin up the other one. As for what you said about great depression no it not the same.

While it true America did face hard time before it was still an era when folks still believed in the idea of America and what it symbolised. Now folks have become completely disillusioned and and considered the system broken and beyond repair. Which is and leading to a collective attitude of despair and sinister glee whenever something gets smashed or an enthusiasm to smash things. Literally or otherwise

The narratives for this joker eqse burn it all attitude are many. Everything from technology making us isolated and alone, to Soviet agents subversion efforts left over from cold war, to wealth inequality gap. Supposed explanations galore

 

[Steelersfan22]

honestly don't know about other countries, but in the u.s. I see a trend where people will get "depression" for clout, and sometimes it elevates to actual depression. it gets to the point where normal people cut themselves to be "relatable" and psychotic people go to public buildings to commit mass shootings. the fact that most of it is glorified and normalized scares me.

 

[JosephStalin]

When I think of "collective despair", I think of those living in the former Soviet Union, the former Warsaw Pact countries, North Korea, and Cuba. These people know a better life is entirely possible, and those living that life aren't far away. But the system imposed upon them keeps them down.

Don't remember where I read it, many years ago, but remember an Albanian saying to a foreign writer, "We are poor, miserable bastards." Hoxha's Albania was real good for turning people into poor, miserable bastards. I think of Romania in 1989. Things were shit there. Ceaucescu and his wife finally got theirs.

As far as the USA being in a state of "collective despair", no. There are people who are in despair. But there are more who are not in despair. I might be geezing, but these times are nowhere as tumultuous as the late 1960's. Remember Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinated within about two months of each other. Remember the huge race riots. I was in Detroit for that riot. Anus-clenching adventure for a kid. Remember the antiwar demonstrations, riots, and bombings - saw some of the aftermath of Kent State on TV.

Think about the present political polarization. A lot of it is due to people on each end of the political spectrum utterly refusing to believe anyone on the other side might be right about anything. They have a case of the ass, maybe more like they have something stuck up their ass. Most people are in the middle, liberal in some areas, conservative in others. I know I am. And the more that people at either end of the political spectrum take things to extremes, the more people in the middle they turn off. Right now the Dems are in the lead in that area.

But one way or another, we'll work through this. For all our faults, the USA is still a place people will risk their lives to get into.

 

[LyapunovCriterion]

I don't live in the US, but my source of despair is the high levels of violence widespread in Latin America. I fear for myself whenever I have to stay late at work, and for my family whenever they leave after dusk. It's fucked up, but I can't change it. People here are inherently violent and it is completely demoralizing, as any hard work can go down the drain if a thug doesn't like how you look. There have been break-ins close to where I live, people were made hostage at their own homes. Fucking hate everything about this shithole, just wish I could leave and actually enjoy what's left of my youth somewhere decent. Sorry for the rant.

 

[SmallTalk201]

I don't live in the US, but my source of despair is the high levels of violence widespread in Latin America. I fear for myself whenever I have to stay late at work, and for my family whenever they leave after dusk. It's fucked up, but I can't change it. People here are inherently violent and it is completely demoralizing, as any hard work can go down the drain if a thug doesn't like how you look. There have been break-ins close to where I live, people were made hostage at their own homes. Fucking hate everything about this shithole, just wish I could leave and actually enjoy what's left of my youth somewhere decent. Sorry for the rant.

When I say collective despair what I mean by this is ask your self the following question. does the idea of your society collapsing fill you with glee or not? Basically would you be happy if a solar storm happened and turned the lights out for good? would a zombie apocalypse be an improvement if it happened tomorrow? Or you still think it still worth keeping things together?

New York city during the 1960s to the end of the 1980s was a shit hole but it was the time when new York was the center of great music and art. The place still had soul and folks kept going for a greater tomorrow. Collective despair is when that soul is gone and all people can think about how happy Detroit style devils night makes them when it comes around.

Id write to improve the op but I'm not really wanting to. I rather avoid chipman style political sperging

 

[LyapunovCriterion]

When I say collective despair what I mean by this is ask your self the following question. does the idea of your society collapsing fill you with glee or not? Basically would you be happy if a solar storm happened and turned the lights out for good? would a zombie apocalypse be an improvement if it happened tomorrow? Or you still think it still worth keeping things together?

New York city during the 1960s to the end of the 1980s was a shit hole but it was the time when new York was the center of great music and art. The place still had soul and folks kept going for a greater tomorrow. Collective despair is when that soul is gone and all people can think about how happy Detroit style devils night makes them when it comes around.

Id write to improve the op but I'm not really wanting to.

No, it would be awful if society collapsed at this point. Even with authorities violence is rampant, I'd rather not think of what would happen if the current power structure ceased to exist. I don't really think there's anyway to solve Latin America's problems in less than two or three generations, it is a cultural and economic problem far than what can be seen in the US. It's fucked and people know it, but they do nothing to change it as a collective, because it would imply in changing their most basic behaviors.

 

[tim cook official]

Technology is inextricably bound to collective despair. Millennials and Gen-Zoomers are both oversocialized and isolated. Who has not had the experience of looking at their smartphone in order to avoid contact in public, even with people who nominally share the same experiences and lifestyle? Co-workers, fellow shoppers at a mall, strangers at a party, etc.

Conversely, these same devices show us open electronic spaces that we can self-select and which then filter our reality. Specifically I think of the example of a WhatsApp group I believe I saw a poster on KF mention. Their Shia Muslim coworkers would share terror attacks taken out against their sect in order to communally decry them, but ignored or didn't react to other terror attacks against Sunnis, Christians, etc. As technology narrows our aperture of experience in reality, it widens a digital aperture through which we perform our identity.

I think if you grabbed one of the Shia Muslims who participated and asked, "Does the life of a Sunni or Christian matter less than a member of your group?" they would sincerely say no. But, nonetheless, through technology we can self-segregate towards the general tone we desire; we can choose to enter a positive feedback group where our performed identity is reiterated and reinforced in something akin to a digital Id. That is, we can reinforce a pathological view and give it the appearance of a real basis. Consider both the pathological racist who believes black people are inferior: they can and will choose to respond or expose themselves to news stories on gang violence, crime and economic statistics, to provide a basis for a belief that existed prior. And the opposite, a vehement Trump Derangement Syndrome person can hook themselves into a constant cycle of general outrage. Both, if you asked (and hypothetically if they gained self-awareness), would probably say something like, "Yes, my identity is underpinned by a central pathology, but look at how much evidence supports it!"

When I think of "collective despair", I think of those living in the former Soviet Union, the former Warsaw Pact countries, North Korea, and Cuba. These people know a better life is entirely possible, and those living that life aren't far away. But the system imposed upon them keeps them down.

Don't remember where I read it, many years ago, but remember an Albanian saying to a foreign writer, "We are poor, miserable bastards." Hoxha's Albania was real good for turning people into poor, miserable bastards. I think of Romania in 1989. Things were shit there. Ceaucescu and his wife finally got theirs.

As far as the USA being in a state of "collective despair", no. There are people who are in despair. But there are more who are not in despair. I might be geezing, but these times are nowhere as tumultuous as the late 1960's. Remember Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy assassinated within about two months of each other. Remember the huge race riots. I was in Detroit for that riot. Anus-clenching adventure for a kid. Remember the antiwar demonstrations, riots, and bombings - saw some of the aftermath of Kent State on TV.

Think about the present political polarization. A lot of it is due to people on each end of the political spectrum utterly refusing to believe anyone on the other side might be right about anything. They have a case of the ass, maybe more like they have something stuck up their ass. Most people are in the middle, liberal in some areas, conservative in others. I know I am. And the more that people at either end of the political spectrum take things to extremes, the more people in the middle they turn off. Right now the Dems are in the lead in that area.

But one way or another, we'll work through this. For all our faults, the USA is still a place people will risk their lives to get into.

I largely agree, but the medium through which we express despair has changed. Materially, the US and most of the world is in a much better place. But the overwhelming message from media-at-large is that SOMETHING IS WRONG. We are at a dangerous point where the pathologies of the individual and the constantly reiterated pain of Western society coincide and in addition may have some truth to it. We have entered the age of the Manifesto and the act of terror as a realization of identity. Being isolated in our communities allows the radical to support their radicalization. Being oversocialized gives the appearance of an overwhelming impetus to radical acts.

The Beast was given 42-months to utter blasphemies which ended in a massive shitshow per the Bible. The impact of a Beast you can select and blasphemies over the course of generations that reinforce whatever perverse direction a mass-shooter or a terrorist will take hasn't been considered enough.

Long story short, when the general news feed is outrage and misery and poverty and inhumanity it will breed generations who believe the world is full of the same and feel their very identity, the very most intimate/indefensible part of themselves, must react against it. Mass shootings and terrorism and despair will continue until morale improves.

 

[lurk_moar]

America is going to fall like the Roman Empire or become a third world shit hole like the Congo. Things are NOT getting better. MAGA? Yeah right. In order to MAGA, it’s up to all individual citizenry not to be shitty human beings. Get a good education, don’t do drugs, no fucking until marriage or use god damn condoms, read books, don’t commit crime, etc. The opioid crisis is compared to the Opium Wars of the Qing Dynasty. We are becoming the shitty Qing Dynasty of China especially the later part. Neoserfdom is a thing now. We live in the glorified Middle Ages with anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and mass ignorance. Read a god damn book some time.

It is wrong to bring a child into this world because babies cannot give consent to their existence. Use birth control. Thank you incels and homos for helping with first world overpopulation.

 

[Cryonic Haunted Bullets]

The commies and the terrorists (at least the ones who are different enough to dehumanize) are almost entirely gone. We've ushered in Fukuyama's "end of history" and, as it turns out, it's not all sunshine and roses. A new class of worldwide issues (climate change, overpopulation, environmental degradation, corrupt third-world governance) has cropped up and the current world order doesn't really have the insight, unity, or willpower to effectively fight against them. With no enemy and no easy way to get out of our problems, the drive to do something is being channeled inwards - against our fellow countrymen and society.

I think that the collective despair will end when global events force us to respond drastically to climate change. Technology is ever-improving, but eventually the physical limitations of reality will catch up to it and we're going to have to tighten our collective belts, unified in our desire to not reduce the world to a desert hellscape.

Or some entities (I'm looking at you, China) will just refuse to acknowledge the common good and destroy the world anyway. God, I hate this timeline.

 

[CheezzyMach]

Get off the internet.

I'm serious, things are nowhere near as bad as the web would lead you to believe.

As Joseph Stalin said the 60s were worse and we moved past that we'll move past this too.

 

[Maskull]

Get off the internet.

I'm serious, things are nowhere near as bad as the web would lead you to believe.

As Joseph Stalin said the 60s were worse and we moved past that we'll move past this too.

Were they worse or merely bad in a different way?

 

[Lemmingwise]

I really like this OP. It reminds me of reading Plato and such, where in between discussing important world events, and theorizing if children should belong to the state or their parents, you find time to comment on how you're walking down this hill and that you have to remember to sacrifice that chicken to the gods.

 

[JosephStalin]

Were they worse or merely bad in a different way?

Worse, believe me. Started with the U-2 incident, Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK's assassination, Vietnam tore the country apart. The anti-war and race riots were terrible. You wondered just what would happen next. Saving graces were the music and the space program.

 

[UQ 770]

The idea behind this thread is spot on but the title is wrong. I wouldn't use the word Despair at all, I'd use the word Apathy. The problem has to do with huge swathes of demographics who have just given up caring about stuff even though their lives aren't actually that horrible in the scheme of things. Its acually really hard to hold a long conversation with people that isn't composed of the other person going "Wow dude, that's interesting. But I don't actually know anything about that." This doesn't make you smart by the way, it just means you're one of the small contingent that still gives a shit. I've met plenty of fairly intelligent people who are committed to just getting high because they can't handle the world outside their doorstep.

Its hard to argue against apathy, because the alternative is also quite severe. Would you rather be disengaged and aloof, or would you rather be an SJW screaming and whining about microaggressions because you can't let anything go? That may sound like a false dichotomy, but that dynamic is reinforced by the fact that there is so much apathy that if you choose to care about something, you basically have to surround yourself with other spastics or your feeling will just never be reciprocated. See also, fandoms. Its like we've run aground against some kind of fundamental issue in human psychology where people just tune out if they can't handle reality. Its probably and issue that's been with us since the beginning of human civilization that's we're just now starting to notice.

 

[SmallTalk201]

I would love to post quotes from third forum and links to articles I found around the web On this thread but that just be thread shitting data dump. Not well written post.

Right now I'm looking for an article which explains trump being a murder weapon. As for those get off twitter? No I think what happening is the beginning of some nasty class conflict.


Ahh here it is:

Cold Anger

There’s a new meme being proclaimed from the executive suites of Park Row. Encapsulated it says: “Donald Trump’s supporters are angry”. Yeah, so? At this point, if you are…

theconservativetreehouse.com

 

[MrTickles]

Or some entities (I'm looking at you, China) will just refuse to acknowledge the common good and destroy the world anyway. God, I hate this timeline.

Ironic, considering it spends more than the US and Europe on renewables and cleaning up the environment combined...WHILE manufacturing all of europes and americas shit, WHILE recycling all of Americas and europes shit..WHILE planting more trees than the rest of the west combined.

China, India lead the way in making the Earth greener

/PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on the "greener" Earth: NASA happily reported earlier this month that the Earth is greener than it was 20 years...

www.prnewswire.com

This is why America is stuck in a cycle of desperation and insular bickering; lack of education about the world.

 

[nonvir_1984]

Your diagnosis, it seems to me is right. But the name wrong. "Despair" is individual, not collective. Feelings and emotions are like that. We do speak of groups feeling or thinking this or that, but we mean the members - each person does. In this case the claim - which is correct - is that many people feel despair and many apathy given the state of affairs you outline. And this is causing much individual anxiety, anomie, helplessness, moral and praxic paralysis and people looking to belief systems and ideologies that are violent, extreme and nasty. As Big Ruler [above] noted, it has been going on for years - the Soviets had it as a war doctrine; the Russians still do; and so do the Chinese. Democracies can be easily manipulated, particularly when people are financially and personally vulnerable and are looking for the causes of their woes. And in many cases, they are right (Big Corporations, mobilisation and manipulation of mass movements; unwillingness to face up to problems or concerns, such as immigration, falling birthrates and being told you are morally to blame....).
I hope the West will come through it, but it will get real ugly.
For me, the Stoics get me through the day. Their teaching helps me order my desires and passions and wants and cultivate, however poorly, imperfectly, apatheia. And I always remember Epictetus (the door is always open). It's the ultimate freedom.
You said you were on a bad tablet.
Might I suggest this?

 

[SmallTalk201]

Y. Democracies can be easily manipulated, particularly when people are financially and personally vulnerable and are looking for the causes of their woes. And in many cases, they are right (Big Corporations, mobilisation and manipulation of mass movements; unwillingness to face up to problems or concerns, such as immigration, falling birthrates and being told you are morally to blame....).
I hope the West will come through it, but it will get real ugly..
Might I suggest this?

No it can be when every thing is fine personally but the urge to murder your societ y and the idea of doing so makes them filled with glee is what I'm referring to. See pooh and piglet in following pic