How can young people be optimistic about the future?

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

No.

Minority voting rights are as good today as they have ever been.

- - - -

I suggest you be much more careful about the skewed worldview you are imbibing from progressive and leftist channels. Their constant whining is slowly corrupting your mind with negativity.

Well, I know that red states like Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Florida already passed a bunch of voting laws a couple years ago in each of their states that made it harder for black and brown people to vote. There's also the racial gerrymandering that's been going in the red states over the past 10 years and SCOTUS said that such matters should be left to the states to decide.

[BlueOak]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@BlueOak You can't even imagine how much harder life used to be. Especially for all minorities. Today's minorities live in paradise.

@Leo Gura
I certainly can imagine it leo I lived through part of it, i'm middle-aged. Especially as I was close to that reality of 60's 70's and a child of the 80's, interacting with people from that time period growing up. We can do social issues if you like but you know that it'd 50 social issues one side that are better, and 50 that are worse. 

Isolation. Purely Cerebral communication leads to increasing divergence rather than a coming together. If we were in the same room our conversation would be mitigated by a lot more than the intellectual or logical part of our minds. Declining masculinity. Family breakdown continued not abated. Religious fundamentalism on the rise. Pure fantasy and conspiracy are being used as the basis of policy or social change. The objectivation of men and women coming back from the 80s leads to unrealistic expectations from partners. People don't see what others actually look like or behave, its all fake unrealistic standards. Public transportation is worse. Medical services are worse. Social movements for change are diminished or relegated to how they make someone feel over substantive change. Climate change and all the resulting effects such as food/water price and migration is getting worse. Protests are vilified or suppressed. Colonialism from eastern powers was reborn. Journalism is now completely unobjective, it's entirely owned by political interests and widens social divides as a way to earn income. Etc etc.

If we want to be balanced I can do the positives.

Racial integration is much more harmonious, we don't vilify skin tone or religion nearly as much. Gay rights have improved significantly. Free Movement in Europe existed for a time (but is likely to be significantly challenged by rightwing governments), travel is generally easier but is predicted to change globally. Physical crime is down, but scams are up. Corruption is down in England at least. The police are no longer hated but supported for the most part. Overly biased Anarchism was reversed (but seems to be coming back). Companies can no longer just dump waste on populations, for example, meaning bureaucracy was strengthened across the board but that looks under threat.  The tools we have at our disposal to shape our own lives are 100 times greater, but again these are being corporatized gradually to reverse some of that. The amount of treatments we have for diseases increased even if the ability to obtain them decreased for many. Homelessness and general poverty levels I've already covered increasing, but at least we don't hate homeless people and drug users as much as we used to. People are more aware of their own actions, and of mental health issues even if conspiracy theories are threatening to reverse it. Education is being threatened now by political and religious ideology but overall the standards are higher in those institutions that are still free of it. Generally, divorce is down, even if it doesn't feel like it, because people are more capable of working through their own problems, understanding each other, and relating to their partners more.

That's off the top of my head and I won't drag it out but we could both add 50 things into these columns.

Sticking with economic issues, because that's how most people think. We are worse off. And we are worse off for many factors, not least of which is because socialism is suppressed. Liberalism will be suppressed in the coming decade or two if the overall patterns I see, and widespread social dissatisfaction with the status quo is anything to go by.

Edited November 24, 2023 by BlueOak

[zazen]

Maybe another angle to view past vs present problems is that problems still persist and always will, but are the quality of the problems better.

I'm simplifying but you could say that the past had more problems related to physical survival, the present has more problems related to psychological survival. Past problems were due to scarcity, present problems are due to abundance.

What allowed us to buffer our suffering in the past which had much tougher conditions related to physical survival were things like religion, community, physical activity and connection to the earth. Those have eroded at the expense of urbanization, secularism and materialism - things which have provided us more material comforts (though even those are now in decline) but have cut our spiritual umbilical cords off from what sustains us psychologically. 

Even the systems such as capitalism which provided a lot more economic growth over the decades are now in their later stages with increasing inequality and decreasing purchasing power and standard of living. So now we not only don't have the deeper aspects of life to fulfill us or the institutions to sustain us but we also no longer have the material wealth and comfort either. Physical, psychological and spiritual downturn. 

Sure, the outliers can definitely live almost better than ever but isn't that the problem - that only for the few can win and not the most. This is whats given rise to the hustle culture biohacking alpha male culture, because if your less than that you almost put yourself at a severe disadvantage being average in todays world. We were raised in a world of comfort, into a time approaching discomfort - and a lot of younger generations just aren't ready for it.

[bebotalk]

this is catastrophising. 

All people living today have never had it better in all of history. 

Compared to 100 or 200 years ago, what was there to live for? 200 years ago in America, most blacks were slaves and literally property. Women couldn't vote and misogyny and socially acceptable. Society in the West generally was very class-oriented, and many people died of disease in childhood. 

 

[Starlight321]

I agree on there are things in late state orange which make live more stressful and expensive. But I think this exactly has to be because the limitations of stage orange become slowly so obvious that they have to be adressed to improve and move on.

However even 70 years ago there was race segragation in the us and where I live until the late 80ies politicians who went to the hitler jugend run the country. If you watch television shows from the 80s or 90s there are often situations depicted or jokes which now seem highly inappropriate. Just watch al bundy...

Nowadays we can get stuff almost without effort from online shops and listen to all sorts of music we can choose from youtube and find great documentaries for free. We can even communicate with each other for free and have smart phone to navigate us through foreign countries. I remember when I was 17 and there were still no smart phones and I had to deliver the newspapers to adresses scattered in 3 destricts on my list and I had to figure out for myself which order and had to memorize hundred streets on the map.

Another example is computers and the internet which can be such a powerful tool if used wisely.  You can get all kinds of info, connect here with people and learb about spirituality and learn to heal which wasn't really an option in the 90s.

Also minorities and disabled people get far more included and not as much institunalized as used to be and police can get away with arbitrainess far less than it used to be.

Even psychology has evolved tremendously and it can help people far nore than 20 or 30 years ago.

 

I'm asking myself right now if we don't want to make a mega thread with things that have improved and are better these days to appreciate our world.

What do you think?

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Starlight321