It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire. All of the wealth is going straight to the top. All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled. All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet. We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.
Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.
I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job. The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.
Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it? If so, what snapped you out of it?
Log out of social media, go outside, interact with real people. Life is not remotely as bad as all that, it just seems that way because social media has told you to be scared. Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.
Frankly, in my experience the social media has been unreasonably optimistic
Most of the struggles and worries come from real-life expriences
This needs to be an auto comment on every post in Lemmy.
Meanwhile real people: oh you are disabled? Fuck off, and die alone!
Like, are you describing heaven or something?
Like, are you describing heaven or something?
No, just sane parts of the world.
Humans are extremely adaptable, we will overcome whatever the problems are.
Many die so others get to live. I am sure the dead ones are happy for you🤡
It still gets cold outside. If you don’t work you’ll live there
Many people do work and live out there.
I agree with others that this reads as a person who’s chronically online. Perhaps bluntly saying “go outside” is insensitive, but it would not hurt to organically expose yourself to real people in real life instead of mentally ill people on the internet these days.
You mentioned getting a job - working is a great option, but truthfully nobody likes work, everyone who says so is coping.
However, putting yourself through challenges is what builds your character. You seem lost to me, so I think you should do these mundane boring little detours in life, because that’s where you’ll find what you actually want to do.
Wow that’s a super sad pov. I’d agree it’s likely everyone dislikes parts of their work but there’s lots of industries where people are generally excited about what they do. I make devices operate remotely over the internet, that’s pretty cool. Daily stand up is the shit part.
I’m pretty sure if someone was given the choice, they wouldn’t want to work and instead do what they want. Financial reasons aside, of course.
The only place I can accomplish the tasks I’d like to accomplish are at my work. Some tasks are so large that they not only require many many people who wouldn’t normally choose to work together, but a regular flow of resources from others.
People are so lost in capitalism they tie it ALL work to just being money. Even if you remove capitalism, even if you remove money, people still need to work together and resources still need to channel from place to place. Your job wouldn’t go away if money went away. If you look at some of the largest most successful open source free programs in the world, most of the top contributors are all from companies that paid that person a salary for contributing to that code.
OP mentioned getting a job, why would you think I meant anything but that in this context? Nobody sane would choose to work their job vs doing an activity they actually want to do.
I am saying yes they would, yes I would. You entirely can find a job that is something you want to do and also not your hobby. Most things folks want to do are someone’s job.
You and I both know this is an overwhelming minority and that is not how most jobs are at all for vast majority of the population.
I get it, and I agree that most people are not in the right job. This is a big part of why folks want things like a higher minimum wage and socialized healthcare. People often are stuck in jobs because they NEED something from that job and are unable to look around. Then on the other side, sometimes folks find their calling but it pays $9 an hour and they feel a need to try to do better.
I work with a lot of folks for example that got into management because they think that is what you do. They hate the job, they miss writing code, they are awful managers. It’s a very backwards way of living your life.
I am just trying to talk to an ideal and real scenario here. The idea that all jobs suck and that is life is exactly what keeps people down. That is the lie folks believe that keeps them from seeking peace and contentment. We gotta fight that even if we also know that it isn’t easy to find a spot and when you do it might not be viable with the rest of your life.
Work is a fuck, but you gotta eat.
And the shared suffering builds camaraderie with your coworkers and some may develop into friends, which can provide meaning and excitement.People who glorify hustle culture are fucked up. Don’t listen to them.
I enjoy eating and air conditioning. Gotta work for it.
Yeah, I mean it all really depends on how you define work… people don’t usually quantify their free time properly
Guillotine Party!
Universal healthcare, securities tax, punitive top-tier income tax. We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons, or we can do it like the French got rid of their first and second estate.
We can get rid of these parasites like we got rid of the robber barons,
Narrator’s voice: they actually never did get rid of them
There were times between the robber baron era and Reagan when families lived comfortably on the income of a single blue collar worker. That fact tells me that we were once able to effectively suppress the robber barons.
MVW… Minimal Viable Work. Companies think only they can deliver shit? Just deliver the bare minimum… as they
don’tdo with their customers.Companies don’t care us, why should we care about them.
Use them to meet your ends as best you can. If you are truly working your hardest you should be able to get something you need. Hopefully you can have things you want. We’re born into this and have little control over humanity.
You know what’s better than the bare minimum? Give your work more than they expect, but keep some of your potential to yourself. Only give work 70% and keep that other 30% of yourself for yourself. You get all of the benefits of being an overachiever with none of the drawbacks.
You know your job is as safe as it can be because you’re exceeding expectations, and you can reap the bonuses and pride that brings but you still have remaining capacity to do more in your personal time. Plus if you’re not completely applying yourself every day you can hit the grindstone on a really bad day when SHTF and really come out looking like a hero
I feel you, but you need to remember that the world is generally a pretty chaotic place and predicting the future when complex systems pass tipping points and transition to new equilibria (as they are at the moment) is pretty difficult.
Invest in yourself, your ability to cope with new and unfamiliar things, and build resilience. Resilience being the ability to bounce forward when you hit rocky patches. Don’t expect to bounce back and end up where you left off, but learn to adjust to the chaos where you need to.
Develop your capabilities until you have a sense of being a competent, worthwhile and dependable person outside of the circus going on around us. Someone that isn’t quite so dependent on the big bad system we are often forced to be part of.
Don’t do a
bluewhite collar job. Go into a trade school and do that instead. Drive a truck, be an electrician, plumber, whatever. These are still good jobs and you actually might be happier doing something like this when compared to working in an office. At least you feel like you are doing something and you can see what you accomplish right away.I’m much older than you and have been working in an office since I can remember. I have been really thinking about doing or at least learning a trade even though that would mean a huge pay cut for me.
Blue collar generally refers to tradesmen, white collar is office work
Oh yes, thanks. I just had blue collar jobs on my mind. Brain fart.
cue shower thought post in a few days: “blue collar jobs refer to jobs that generally had people wearing denim or other tough fabrics where white collar jobs refer to people wearing fancier silks and less prone to physical labor.” or something similarly braindead.
“toss me into a torture facility”
What? Step away from the internet for a while.
I continue to live because the goal of the system you described is to kill us. As long as we still breathe, they haven’t yet won completely, and we still have an opportunity to chuck spanners into the gears to try and slow the enshittification. The bastards in power are the smuggest, shittiest, most vile excuses for human life on this planet, and any drop of satisfaction we can deny them is a victory.
You’ve gotten a lot of good suggestions, and this comment might get buried but I wanted to let you know that I was there 20 years ago. The future looked bleak, I had a shitty job that was sucking my life force away… one day as I was walking into work through an alley I saw someone had left a shopping cart there. I had the thought that I could just grab that cart and keep walking… turn my back on my former life and just live my way. I passed that cart for 3 weeks… then I realized that I either need to grab the cart or find a different plan for my life. I then looked at my options, found a career path, and then started working toward that plan. It was about 3 years of very hard work, with very little social life. But I stuck with my plan, got a better job and stayed on that career path. There have been setbacks, but looking back those were just blips.
I don’t know what the true answer is but if you are indeed an American, and vote, never vote for a republican candidate, EVER. I am not saying democratic candidates are always better but Republicans are 100% of the time out to fuck over the young, the old, the different and poor. Unless you’re a deranged scumbag hell bent on making the world a worse place for the dispossessed, you have nothing to gain by electing a republican candidate. Also, unless it’s a local election, do not vote for 3rd party candidates in federal elections until their political machines show they are capable of fielding a coherent campaign and message.
As for working—find something with your local state government. It pays less but it is steady most of the time and the basic jobs do not require much of an education or knowledge-base.
But to the main point—keep going. Keep living your life as best you can. These ghouls who have all the wealth will die at some point, and fun fact… money really isn’t anything but an agreed upon hallucination so we could just kill and eat all those fuckers.
do not vote for 3rd party candidates in federal elections until their political machines show they are capable of fielding a coherent campaign and message.
Damn… Why are you giving DNC such a break?
These ghouls who have all the wealth will die at some point
And nepo babies will continue to rule the peasants!
I will never consider voting for a 3rd party candidate until their parties get someone elected to a local school board, a city council, a state legislative body, or the US congress. This is the foundational necessity of how our body politic functions. Running random asshole foreign assets for the Presidency on occasion is not how you operate a political party in this country and not how you affect any change (except making things worse, so… uh, good job Russia).
3rd party candidates literally only ever run for the Presidency in the US. (source: I live here)
They also generally purport to be far left leaning candidates (although this year’s crop leaves much to question). But really, they just take people’s money, complain about the status quo, and do literally nothing to help move things toward their (supposedly desired end) the political left.
Instead they (at best) steal some votes from young morons that would’ve likely gone to more liberal tickets (Democrats) and (at worst) enable the centrist and right wing machine to further dismantle any validity of the notion of “people should be allowed to not be taken advantage of by billionaires.”
Please tell me where any effort by the green or socialist parties successfully got a down ballot candidate elected in the past 10, 15, 20 years. Please tell me.
They are charlatans.
Yes, rich people will continue to win down ballot elections, because everyone ignores off year and local elections, because running a campaign is an expensive affair beyond the basic need of being a fucking extroverted lunatic in the first place.
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll definitely consider it.
Yeah, I’m never going to vote for any Republicans or spoiler candidates. I will say though, the complex labyrinthine mess of lies and ideologies that only exist to entrench the power of those at the top at everyone else’s peril is impressive.
I was raised by emotionally abusive right-wingers and had to spend my entire childhood fighting antisocial bullshit theories about how I shouldn’t be allowed to show emotions or kindness and I should treat the opposite gender like trash.
I literally hated myself for years until someone sincerely complimented me for said kindness, as much as I tried to hide it. It was so surprising to me that I opened up to her about my insecurities. She shattered my entire worldview and gently told me to stop listening to the dummies who convinced me to hate myself, because they themselves were miserable people who would only drag me down with them.
The level of stupidity from the GOP kept rising (the COVID conspiracies were among the dumbest things I had ever seen) and I realized that she was right. These people were promoting utter nonsense, and I had been conned. There was no reason for any of these norms; they were just carried by generational inertia and promoted by grifters.
In the years following, I developed strong left-wing values and learned that all of the dumb social hierarchy stuff just serves those in power. They promote hatred and bigotry for their own gain. They are the reason for my childhood being shitty. Their entire movement is one big scam.
I aspire to be a total sweetheart and a supportive, loving friend, because that’s what I truly want. Billionaires HATE it when you help people for free. Giving people things to fulfill their needs, doing favors out of love and compassion, being there in times of emotional need…
I mean, could you imagine how terrible it would be for billionaires if those ideas became widespread? They wouldn’t like that. Nooo! Don’t work together! Keep fighting each other! Uh, here, read this news article based on a single ragebait Twitter post that PROVES your neighbors hate you! And look, here’s a tweet from billionaire genius Elon Musk saying your attitude is destroying the country! We NEED artificial scarcity! Don’t you want to go to Mars? STOP HELPING EACH OTHER!!
Whatever I end up doing, I hope I can touch a lot of hearts and minds while doing so. After all, it only took one person’s kindness to literally change my life.
So, as someone that was homeless 3 times already and went from that to doing ok for myself enough to at least have some vacation and self autonomy.
Find something that only you, can do.
That was the advice that worked for me. Don’t try for the specific jobs that make money or even make you happy doing it but something that you knew if people thought about it, they think of your name to get it done.
It’s stressful and a shitty life sometimes but I know people rely on me. And it’s ok to take time to figure it out and make bold decisions to get there. Stuff you wouldn’t expect to do can be a great starting place.
I couldn’t afford my existence in America ( got bullied out of my STEM field because it made other stressed people feel better) so I looked for jobs that would pay for it for me. That’s how I discovered the circus and cruise lines. Food and lodging and people trying to get by. From there I found something they needed fixed and learned how to do it.
You need to be willing to change. And probably willing to go your own path in a way that will mean a life different than you ever knew. Nothing that worked for anyone else will absolutely work for you, we are all too individual and different.
But that’s why you can do something. Maybe you can work with leather and make aprons that no one else can. Maybe you can operate a remote station alone better than others cause you like the quiet. Maybe you can land planes in Boise Idaho cause you don’t mind living there and like planes. Maybe you can run a cult of personality where people think you are their mother God…
I dunno it’s worked for others but it’s up to find what you can do and how far from the norm you are willing to go.
Normal is a myth of America anyways. Go do you.
you can work to live or you can become dependent on others to support you, but somehow you’re gonna need to eat.
