I’m over 40 and struggling not to conclude life on this planet peaked 30 years ago
Hell, I’m 46 and it’s really hard to not be cynical these days. I want to believe there’s still good people out there but I run into so many assholes.
Uhh, ok hmm…so I learned in life if everyone you see is an asshole, you’re the asshole.
Think about it this way: there are countless good people in your life but as a society we get taught to get fixated on the worst to complain about. Maybe it’s more entertaining. Maybe we sync to it cuz maybe we have similar features in ourselves we don’t like … which ever the reason it’s personal why we do this. But in doing so It’s easy to discount the good people by ignoring them and what they do. We notice every mistake and bad person out there.
And how do you think that makes good people around you feel?
Well they stop coming around. They get drained from being ignored. They put up boundaries where they don’t want to be around assholes fixated on the negative and don’t spend their time on assholes.
And that’s how we become assholes telling on ourselves by admitting everyone is assholes.
It’s the shoe smells like shit every where you go analogy.
Well, interestingly, gen z men are the Trumpiest demographic:
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/11/american-gen-z-podcasts-trump-harris
I guess the meme still holds true, but their concerns about the future are very different. TBH I can totally understand them becoming disillusioned with other old politicians following old voters who will just “do nothing at let it all happen.”
This is the saddiest shit ever. Young men being angry at the « Men » will vote for the men that will sold them to the bone mill in a heart beat.
There’s a Turkish proverb : and the forest vote for the axe because they were made of the same wood
It’s really sad that many young people are so pessimistic about the future. Despite some setbacks the last years, in many ways the world is still in a better place than it has ever been in human history.
Child mortality is still lower than ever, (extreme) poverty is still on a declining trend, we’re actually on track to stop the worst climate change (thanks to massive Chinese investments), AI could vastly improve our lives in the future…
That said we do live in uncertain times, fascism is on the rise again, a nuclear war could still kill us all, fighting climate change is not done,l and AI could ruine all our lives; but pessimism is not the right mindset.
I do joke a lol, but things in many areas are so much better than 30-50 years ago and considering Brits in WW II had to turn out all their lights to hinder German bombings - most of us are being peddled fear by the media and it’s not THAT bad.
Where did you get the climate hope bit? last articles I glazed over were ‘we missed 1.5 deg target and instead put the foot on the pedal to make it faster’ and ‘climate migrations coming and mass famine’.
Sounder doomerism to me but I don’t really have a good source to be optimistic at all.
Not to mention each message to chatGPT burns the equivalent of a water bottle worth of water.
In short, solar prices are declining exponentially and deployment is growing exponentially. There are even companies claiming to be able to make efuels from air using solar cheaper than fossil fuels by the end of the decade.
Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie is a good book if you want to read something optimistic.