• ulkesh@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Odd, I seem to remember reading the exact same headline in 2020. Perhaps Americans just hate life in America because of 60 years of nonstop existential bullshit.

    The downward spiral of education, the constant fight or flight news cycle, and the rise of the unfettered oligarchy have vastly contributed to the current state of America.

    I’m reminded nearly every day of Carl Sagan’s “foreboding” quote from “The Demon-Haunted World”.

    • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Nothing will fundamentally change, things will get 10% worse every year and the weapons shipments to the genocidal frontier will continue. Same as it ever was.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            You just contradicted yourself…

            I believe things won’t get better in this world.

            and then:

            And if the opportunity exists to make the world better, I take it

            Or do you mean that such an opportunity will never exist?

            • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              Ah, sorry. I edited that away, after rereading the context. I didn’t want to inject personal philosophy into what was clearly not about my beliefs.

              But the second clause was given (or was intended to be given) in the context that I don’t believe hope is actionable. It’s just wasted emotional energy. If I can take an action that directly improves things, I do.

              The scale is also poorly defined - sorry. The first: world at large. The second: the world that is around me - my family, my local environment (radiating out from my house, into my community, etc - but I know I can’t impact the national level).

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          I mean I keep saying they should stop sending weapons to Israel but none of my democratic reps will give me the time of day

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              I said “nothing will fundamentally change” ironically paraphrasing Biden because quite a lot changed lol

              Also the statement that “the weapons shipments will continue” was more of an observation

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                That is not all that you said. This is what you said:

                Nothing will fundamentally change, things will get 10% worse every year and the weapons shipments to the genocidal frontier will continue. Same as it ever was.

                So that was all a joke? Things could fundamentally change and things might not get 10% worse every year?

                Otherwise, seems like we all might as well give up.

                • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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                  2 months ago

                  Look I’m just quoting the president, sorry if Biden makes you so hopeless, that’s why I’m voting PSL

        • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 months ago

          The MIC is a great career for kids who studied computers because they wanted to make video games. It’s the profitable side of the school-to-global-prison pipeline.

    • otp@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, 4 years ago was the pandemic. Either people can’t do math, can’t remember 4 years ago, or just think “worse” means “bad now”…

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Democrats (72%) are much more likely than independents (35%) or Republicans (7%) to view themselves as “better off.”

    So, it’s basically all political. I bet if exactly the same economic scenario played out over the past four years,but with Trump as the president, the numbers would be reversed with 72 percent of Republicans and 7 percent of Democrats viewing themselves as better off.

    • DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, I would mostly agree. The poll peaks in 2020 when there was COVID, a virus that was putting people in the hospital on ventilators and had a mortality rate we hadn’t experienced for over a century. Along with a healthcare system barely holding on, lockdowns, masking, social distancing, a major recession, people losing their jobs, kids going back to school with all that chaos, and in the middle of one of the most chaotic and stressful presidential elections in history. BUT 55% of people were better off in 2020. Hmm…

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        The poll is specific, my question is whether the issues underlying this poll are worldwide and not just affecting the US, meaning the US is just following a worldwide trend.

        Income inequality, the pandemic, the recovery from it, greedflation are issues that affect more than just the US.

    • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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      2 months ago

      Notice how it says four years? It’s trumputinist propaganda. And yes, you can see it worldwide.

      • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        A lot of countries have four year election cycles, but I think it’s just a general “are we doing better than a few years ago? no!” vibe.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    Funny, because four years ago I was afraid of dying if I got too close to a stranger. And I was massively depressed (I’m on an antidepressant now). There was no timeline on things getting better.

    I’m now vaxxed, boosted, in treatment. I’m cooly watching to see what develops and if the wrong one wins, I’m leaving. I badly hope that I get to stay where I am because I love the area, but I’m not sticking around if fascism wins.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      Thanks for leaving those of us who can’t afford to leave behind to suffer, instead standing by your fellow citizens.

      No a single US citizen has a real collectivist bone in their fucking bodies. Just “save my own ass and fuck everyone else” from top to bottom.

      • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 months ago

        I’m sure some Jews in Germany said the same thing when their compatriots got out. My politics make me a target. I’m not sticking around. It sucks that you don’t have the means to do the same and all I can say is that I’m sorry I don’t have the means to help you escape too.

      • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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        2 months ago

        Yet here you are complaining about them because your circumstances are different. You encompass exactly what you’re complaining about here.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
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    2 months ago

    Humans believe things they hear constantly repeated to them, and somehow every right-wing party on earth has money to run constant ads telling people things are shitty.

    Graph showing millennials have finally made more money than their parents at this age

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    People assume that covid was super miserable for everyone… But a global plague is preferable to pointless forced attendance at “employment” for many many people. I know lots of people who miss it. And much of that progress has been completely reversed.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Covid was super miserable because some operational ties have formed on top levels of bureaucracies and businesses, which weren’t there before it. And the covid tech bubble added to that. And the data collected by everyone using things like Zoom and Teams and other such, and probably accessible to governments, - owch.

      It’s a bit like neural connections in our brains, say, an ADHD person has severe lack of some of them, but if they take meds when they are still developing, some subset of those will actually form and make them more capable for various tasks.

      This consolidation has really accelerated our time’s remake of something like 30 years war.