To think we are doomed and there's no way back now?

[StellaGibson118]

We have constructed a society that doesn't work for people. People are burnt out from overworking, many are getting poorer year on year, services cant meet the demands of the population, we are becoming nastier due to these stressors and the influence of social media/the media, and well the planet is fucked too.

We have moved so far away from simplicity that we have descended into chaos and it isn't just the UK, it's all around the world. I'm worried for my children's future but I can only allow myself to think about it for a minute or two or I'd go mad.

In general may be not but I keep seeing threats here of benefits for three and more kids. They are starving and so and so. I know I am ok because I did not add thousands a year by having more kids. If you do not think it affects your possibilities you are wrong.

But you need to look beyond threads & statistical evidence! There are not millions of 3 plus dc families in the UK.

who are all on benefits 🙄

YANBU

You will get a lot of people on here saying that everything is fine though as we are not at war, have children working in workhouses and still doing public executions. Which isn't really a valid point anymore as thing have indeed got worse again from being a lot better than those times (the first people to say that sort of thing are often the people that benefitted the most from these times too). There is no explanation for going backwards other than the greed of certain priviliged, wealthy people, who would happily let kids starve so they could live in opulence and compete with each other materially in their own cliques.

Times have always been hard in every generation, and some more than others, but right now it feels like the rule book is being thrown out of the window completely for wealthy people and they can do what the wish at the expense of everybody else. It is so brazen the level of corruption in the world. Every decision is about protecting their lifestyle first without a public revolt ensuing, then what is best for society. It's no wonder things are a mess. It makes no sense.

I'm glad I'm not experiencing what my grandparents went through, but I'm sad that I haven't got much of a future and neither have my kids. DP and I work hard and earn pretty well, but right now you need to be earning high to have what could be achieved on a much lower household income (for less hours worked) 20 years ago. I don't have much hope for the future as the value of money is diminishing so much and nobody seems to care.

OP, check out the fourth turning. It's an interesting theory. Helpful to remember the cyclical nature of things.

@boltz

I always surprised how so many people think the UKs woes will be fixed if people reduce the amount of kids they have. People aren't having lots of kids!

They also don't realise that without people having kids there will be no pension or people to care for them in old age.

YANBU. There are too many people and they’re all hooked on single use plastic and fast fashion. The solution is to ban unsustainable tat and legislate to reduce the population, but that won’t be popular and no capitalist government will dare to implement it. So we are all doomed.

Yep & the alternative is immigration which isn't popular either 🤦🏻‍♀️

"LoL, no we don't, the NHS is wrecked, 4m in poverty, shite housing and yes climate change and plastic in the oceans means things are not great at all. BUT its all fixable, we should be focusing on this, not comparing ourselves to people living during the Black Death and saying how great things are."

The NHS isn't wrecked, stop lying. Lots of people are seen and cured every week. Yes there are problems but stop exaggerating. As I said before the majority of people don't live in shite housing. Doesn't mean there aren't some problems for some people but everything isn't bad

Agree, yes in many ways we are better off in that we have better healthcare, education etc, but in recent years have found that people seem to be more and more self-obsessed, feeling they are 'entitled' to things that we used to have to work or save for, more selfish. Increasingly I feel glad I was born when I was, and lived in a world without internet/mobiles/social media for so long.

I agree OP, with all that you say. I do, however, try to remind myself that there are so many good people out there - including yourself - and even if we don't have the power to make huge changes to better this world we can still try to do our own small bit. If all good and well meaning people do their bit then as a whole we all make the world a better place by being here.

The only way to combat the culture of individualism and self-obsession is to look outwardly and focus on other people. The endless obsession with who has what, and how they got it, and who is getting what benefits. It leads to constant misery.
One of the central principles of Buddhism is to focus on other people and feel only compassion towards them (a central theme in Christianity too). You should try it.

From the thread title, there’s no way back now?, wondering how many of the problems and crises can be fixed:

Is social media here forever – or will it go back in its box? Is housing just going to continue to get cripplingly expensive? Because a massive crash won’t help anyone either. Is net zero achievable?

I can see some solutions – we need a circular economy, an end to planned obsolescence, a move away from the consume, consume, consume model.

One thing I read recently about easing the crushing anxiety about ::gestures at binfire:: all this, is to pick one thing to be your thing. Be it the climate crisis, or housing, or women’s rights, or refugees, etc. And focus your attention, energies, efforts, lobbying, small personal changes and calls for large-scale action, on that one thing. It helps you feel like you’re having impact, it actually does have more impact to focus rather than wildly throw money and bits of attention everywhere, you’ll get more educated about your cause and thus more hopeful about the solutions, and you can trust to close your ears to the noise of everything else, because someone else will take up the other causes.

I do focus on others and worry about their well-being , the problem is many couldn't care less about me and then I start thinking ' why bother ?' It's been a tough lesson , now I just worry about my family and the friends who I know are worth it!
People are pretty self absorbed on the whole.

I get what you mean. But it's not really true. When I feel like this, I go for a walk in the Victorian cemetery down the road and see all the graves of children who died when they were tiny, sometimes multiple siblings and a parent who died in the same year, presumably of typhoid, scarlet fever etc.

Or I think of how women used to become effectively the chattel of their husbands on marriage, couldn't go to uni, couldn't work after marriage etc.

Or I watch an old 70s film - racism, sexism, making fun of the disabled - a lot has changed for the better. People used to be so violent! They punched each other at the drop of the hat. They whacked their children regularly.

I think things need to change, but a huge amount has got better.

In some ways it’s worse, in some ways it’s better. We are going through a tough patch at the moment for sure. Social media doesn’t help. I also think it’s really important to be positive about the future for our children and young people. It’s so disheartening and downright cruel in my opinion to tell children how awful the world is, how much worse it is now etc. we need to offer them positivity and how to identify what is wrong and what they can do to help fix it.

When I look at the situation in Afghanistan, I'm truly grateful for whatever quirk of fate resulted in me being born in a western country towards the end of the 20th century. In Scotland as well there is an increasing cautious optimism that it's a question of when independence will be achieved not if.

For me, the pandemic showed me who I can and cannot rely on and this is where I am directing my energy now. My NY Resolution is to set this in stone, hard.

I have had Covid, twice. Both times the only people who offered to help out are a few family members on my side and friends I have made through my children. In between my local GP surgery spends all their time defending themselves in the paper, rather than helping anyone. I have had first hand experience of this.

I work for a large company whose reputation is built on how they treat people. I never received one message from them/ my management team when my whole family were sick with covid. I could be in hospital right now, and they wouldn't know. When I go back I don't think I will be making as massive effort as I usually do after realising this.

So, the government, my local GP, a lot of my own family and in-laws and my work have shown that they don't really give a sh!t about me or my family. I have had no bread or milk and none of them even offered to get something for us. I have had to rely on friends...........so moving forward, why should I waste my energy on any of them, as I have enough on my own plate?

Come 01 Jan I will be pulling up the drawbridge.

Other eras had their problems, but there can be no doubt that today life is a great deal more complex, even with all its advantages in other ways. I struggle with it, and I'm in a better position than many, and people who are less capable with or cannot afford stuff like computers and mobile phones are getting excluded.

Carve out your own bit of simplicity. Do you have access to a garden? We have an allotment and I find the rhythm of the seasons really roots me.

DH buys old unwanted furniture and turns it into new furniture which we sell.

Neither of these things are going to change the world but they add a practicality and simplicity to our lives. There is no instant gratification, things take the time they take.

I agree with Gnome. Try and strip back your life as much as possible and take pleasure in simple things.

YANBU. I feel this more and more. The difference between now and previous awful times in history is that we have the technology to turn our nastiness and greed into something which destroys our planet - climate change, resource depletion, filling oceans with plastic junk, weapons of mass destruction, etc.

I think you can get perspective from history to some extent, and probably human life will survive, but I don't think we can kid ourselves that in 100 years time our descendents will be living comfortably in suburban homes with cars, modern conveniences, foreign holidays, pension plans and everything else we take for granted.

All you can do is carve out an existence for yourself that's more in keeping with how you want to be.

SM, excessive consumption, working long hours, these things aren't compulsory. Figure out what you want in life and make it happen.

I work in a school for a few hours a day and only a few people asked me how I was after ten days off with covid ! My manager and others ignored it.
People do not care , so that's how I treat them now !! 😂

I think you have to consciously filter what news and social media you expose yourself to & take responsibility for protecting your own headspace

I worry about a lot, there is a lot going on but no real change can happen until there is big, worldwide acceptance and change. We can make local and personal changes that will make a difference, if everyone started acting in the global interest then big companies would be forced to change to meet demand and stay in business for example. Some should be shamed into being better, jeff Bezos setting up a homeless shelter for Amazon EMPLOYEES should have been a trigger for change but that's just flown under the radar.

Yes, it was worse at other times in history, serfdom with no way out, the Black Death, slavery, wars and all the other awful events. Those people didn't see a way out either but things changed. The big difference now is that the planet is under threat, it's becoming more of a concern eg. COP26, net zero targets etc which is mildly reassuring.

And then there's human rights, womens rights (Texas anyone?), billionaires exploiting everything and openly refusing to use their disgusting wealth to help (looking at you Musk). And that's the tip of the iceberg.

You can make changes to make your life and footprint better, choose a cause to support and get involved in if you can and influence your circle to be better. If we all did that we'd see a shift.

It is not beyond humankind to find solutions so I do not feel it is a lost cause, but I do feel we will soon need to change direction as we can not carry on as we are with this rate of consumption.

I have always feel coronavirus is intended as a reset, not by the conspiracy theorists but by mother nature. We need to slow down, we need to reassess, we need to return to our roots and to the kind of natural life that brings contentment. Society caring for each other, taking care of the planet, raising children that are safe and free - we have strayed to far from what makes life worthwhile.

A socialist country is not what I see as a solution, but something new.