It is getting better though. We are all just facing the issues of our era's.

Tech keeps going up, we are slowly making progress on climate change, the space race is back on, and superpowers don't directly fight eachother anymore. Hell, we've proven to beat once in a century pandemics in a few years with relatively speaking barely any deaths. Life's good

Yes, we have squabbles in the middle east and Africa, but that's par for the course and not an indicator for human development. The only thing that has really gone backwards is that war has been brought back to europe

I just stopped caring. I just want a meal a day and do stuff to not be bored.

I take comfort in getting older and getting closer to being dead.

I can barely wait. The comfort of nothingness is a great help.

I‘d highly recommend the follwoing book:

The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker https://books.apple.com/ch/book/the-better-angels-of-our-nature/id457552067?l=en-GB

While it might seem that the world is getting worse and worse, it’s actually quite the opposite. We have less war deaths than any centuries before, social justice is on the rise almost everywhere, poverty is at an all time low. For the last 50 or so years, almost every metric of human wellbeing increased, some significantly.

Doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems and we still have a lot of work to layed out for us. But to say that the world is getting worse and worse is just factually incorrect.

I just hope no wars will be started over here (western Europe) in the next ten years, so my sons won't get drafted.

I've put an ocean between myself and the US.

Just trying to be a lamp in the darkness.

Sadly, I have taken moves to grow as much as I can, tend to chickens for eggs, and start just pulling back from my community because they are really terrible. Really, I should be building the community and mutual aid but the amount of people that care about nobody but themselves around here is just too high.

Personally I am not really worried. Maybe I am in denial but I think a lot of the negative stuff is way over exposed with 24/7 news cycle and crazy social media.

Bad news and anger drive engagement metrics the best so that is all you will hear about.

So everything I hear I just automatically assume it is way over blown and I should lower the worry factor.

If it is getting overwhelming I would recommend you unplug yourself for a little while and do something you enjoy.

2023 has some amazing games come out maybe pick on of those up and give it a try?

I chose to leave after Trump got in office—& it took like two years of planning/saving. It’s had real ups & downs but overall the best major life decision I’ve made.

I just try to enjoy each day as I can without making the world any worse than I can help.

Nihilism and cannabis

We are now in the "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" stage of humanity. So, roughly around step 5 to 6.

But to answer your question at the moment, nihilism. The sad reality is we’re an animal that thinks itself as the divinely chosen species on the planet, thus absolving us from any sense of responsibility for destroying others and setting it on fire.

By reminding myself that unless some space rock suddenly hits us or the sun decides to explode super early, we're fine. And if you look at our history as a species, we'll continue to be fine. We've endured far worse things than this before and we'll do it again and again. We're good at that. Stupidly good. Whatever rough spots we're facing now is going to pass. It's always passed. Can't be bad all the time, after all. As for global warming causing a potential extinction event? It...more than likely won't happen in our life time, so, worry, but don't, like, believe it'll happen tomorrow or that we're already actually facing The Great Dying 2.0. We're maybe at the crossroads, but not there yet.

Other than that? I do as a few have already mentioned here and try and make the world just a slightly better place. Helping others in my community out, being kind and considerate to the people around me, trying to not get frustrated at drivers out on the road (this is tough NGL), that kinda thing.

Well I eat quite unhealthy, so I'm thinking I'll probably die earlier then most. Sooo I guess I got that going for me.

First, it’s getting better, not worse. We just see and hear about things immediately before any context is added, which makes it seem 10x worse.

Second, I try to make an impact on my local world. I try to be a good leader and impact those lives around me. If everyone made a difference we’d truly be much better off altogether.

The world is getting better in a lot of ways but the uplifting headlines don’t garner clicks and views. A lot of people only post the doom-and-gloom headlines.

Lemmy hasn’t been any better than Reddit in this regard.

How do I cope? Poorly

Pretty well. The resistance lives. We are all part of it.

Not getting better?

What are you basing that belief on?

Many good things have been said. I would add that what give me comfort is that in the present moment, it is really, really hard to tell signal from noise. You often don't know the impact of people or events until many years out. We often said in grad school that you can't write history until at least 30 years have passed from the event. So, it seems chaotic and confusing because it is hard to for us to understand what it important and what is not.

The other thing is that every generation often sees the sky as falling in. An ancient Greek philosophy lamented about his parents had it all figured out and his children where going to ruin everything. That same sense of doom is pretty pervasive.

That is not to dismiss any of the real terrible things out there. Climate change is the big problem on the horizon. Nuclear waste is another. But I think on the balance, we are going to muddle through fine. The great blessing of humanity is that we are adaptable. The curse of humanity is that we are adaptable.

Understanding the historical circumstances I find myself in and devoting the majority of my effort in to things I can control.

I try my best to understand it better and change the little things I can. I know that won't change the world much so it isn't very fulfilling. Anyways I often think "at least it wasn't my fault and I tried".

In the same position as you, I'm quite privileged living here in Europe, if it all goes to shit I will be fine. I hope I can make the world more fair for everyone anyways.

Like so:

We can’t capitalism our way out of what we capitalismed ourselves into. It’s socialism or barbarism.

Got news for you, if you're working class, being white or male will not let you "coast right through" the inevitable boom/bust cycles that will befall the economies. You'll be under the boot like everyone else.

I'm not in a position to affect change in a powerful way. So I try to stay educated and informed, I vote at the ballot box, I vote with my wallet, I donate what I reasonably can to places where I think it will help, and I speak out when it's appropriate to do so.

Have a read of Factfulness. It'll provide, amongst other things, lovely visualizations to demonstrate that's not actually true.