What's the point in anything now?

[GettingPoorer]

Life just feels so shit and with all the talk of disaster looming in the future ie running out of energy, war in 1000 days, that AI could wipe out humanity in 6 months, things are predicted to get much much worse not better.

I can deal with hardship if there's hope things will improve but right now what we're constantly being told is things are going to only get worse.

I just don't see the point in making plans for the future. Why should my 11 year old daughter even bother to go to school if there wont be any jobs in the future thanks to AI?

What kind of future are we supposed to be planning for when we're constantly warned about the threats of war with Russia, civil unrest within the UK and Europe as a whole.(which is happening right now in Paris and Italy), cyberattacks, the dangers of AI, climate change and so many other potential disasters?

I'm just so fucking depressed by it all. It feels as though we're constantly being told to brace ourselves for one catastrophe after another, with very little reason to believe that a better future is possible. It started with covid and now it just seems the norm that we're kept in a constant state of fear and unease.

Where is the hope? Where is the reassurance that our children will have a future worth looking forward to? I'm tired of feeling as though all we have to look forward to is things getting progressively worse.

Honestly, what's the point in anything anymore when the future feels so bleak?

I don't get why so many people on Mumsnet are wallowing about it all.

You'll have more hope in your life if you stop concentrating so hard on it all.

Foreign entities trying to scare us and disrupt society?

Why have you started two threads about this?

Honestly, limit your social media and news consumption. Doom and gloom gets clicks and engagement. That is what the news outlets want.

Two identical threads...... really?

Don't worry about it, sounds like you are doom scrolling too much.

I didn't intend to create 2 threads so my apologies. The first thread contained a typo in the title. I thought I had removed the thread successfully and I created a new thread with the correct title but obviously the first thread didn't get removed! It looks like it has been removed now.

Jesus, how many more of these doom and gloom threads are we going to see? It almost feels like a concerted effort to undermine morale, almost as if the Russian bot farms which were damaged by Ukraine drone strikes a while ago are back on line and redoubling their efforts… Or am I just old and cynical?

Either way, it’s getting bloody tiresome.

Honestly, I only see all the stress on here, possibly on other social media but I’m not into that. All around me I see people just getting on with their lives. I look at my new baby granddaughter and see joy and hope as she grows. Yes , I see prices going up, potholes in the road - although our council have actually been working on them recently- but mainly I see the beauty of the natural world around me, my lovely family. Stay off the news and social media is my advice.

The doom is being spread by right wing bots; it is very literally designed to beat society down.

My advice would be to go outside. Feel the wind; look at the sky; look at the beauty.

Don’t let it take your joy.

Half term? Get yourselves out.

Do NOT let your DD hear that negativity. People will always be more important than AI- there is already a growing movement against it. Soon we will have internet search engines which block it.

You can choose to wallow in this despair, or you can choose to live a normal life with your DD- I recommend the latter.

Lots of love 💐.

This. We’ve been here before, and all got over it. 👍

How did parents in the 18th century convince their kids to learn a trade when it would just be a few years of toil then probably dead by 40

Things ain't so bad!

Mm. Yet another thread. There are just too many of these atm.

Any post like this just puts me in mind of medieval cries about the end of the world being nigh... and while there's been umpteen plagues, wars, global threats since then it's still going. No reason to down tools and give into despair until the mushroom cloud/aliens/tidal wave or whatever is literally upon us, and even then human nature tends to keep us fighting on for whatever hope might be left. Helps to look around and see the world going on around you rather than the apocalyptic news though. Go for a walk, have a bath, put your screens away. There's as much point as there ever was and ever will be. Keep calm etc etc.

Indeed! I lived through years and years of the very real threat of imminent nuclear war. It was vastly more scary - ALL the time - than the vague gloom being spread far and wide simply because the jnternet exists now.

I agree with the PPs. The news, advertising, and social media are all slanted towards the negatives. Since the news became 24 hour a day broadcast, it has degenerated in my view. Always the bad news stories. Advertising has always been slanted towards the negative (if you don't buy our amazing product something bad happens), and social media is just full of shit.

AI can't even spell check anything properly, so while it will definitely affect some things, it isn't any different to the birth of the Internet in the 90s when people were saying similar things.

Admittedly, there are several exacerbating factors currently with war, political and economic instability, and climate change, but the most serious of those is climate change.

In any of those elements, we have two choices, we can either walk around wringing our hands saying 'woe is me', or we can keep going, knuckle down and do the best we can. One of those approaches is going to make a person a lot more depressed than the other.

I think the economy is going to take a while, but I am old enough to remember income tax on investments at 98%, and mortgage rates of 17%. We got through that, so we will get through this.

I just hope that the electorate have learned the lesson of the Brexit referendum and actually do a bit of fact checking in advance of putting a cross in the box in future elections.

Just think how much anguish you have given yourself... how you have avoided planning for any sort of future.. if nothing happens.

Thank you all for your replies and I apologise for how negative my post is. I'll reflect on what your replies as there's some really good advice. I have been spending far too much time online and all the doom and gloom in the media has affected me quite badly. I'll need to come off it for my own sanity.