The SSM Bill in New York, the conflict in Libya, the war with Al Qaeda, Wikileaks, LulzSec, Senatorial scandals, Casey Anthony trial. Unemployment is through the roof. The world’s in wonderful shape. What do they have in common? BS. It’s all BS, we’re going to Hell in a handbasket, what’s the point of it all? I’m too young to be this cynical, I know, but I can’t help it. I know I should just go on and act like it’s not there in front of me, but it is. It’s stuff that once seen, cannot be unseen. How do the rest of you do it? How do you ignore all the crap in the world and go on living when you know it’s only going downhill? I’ll admit, sometimes I forget about it and laugh and enjoy myself and be normal and happy and all that, but then I’ll hear something on the news or read something on the Net that just brings me back to the horrible reality of it all. Call me what you will, be it “emo”, “suicidal”, or any other nasty thing you can think to call me. You know as well as I that we’re all wallowing and covered head to toe in bullshit.
But none of what you listed is new - wars, conflicts, corrupt or scandalous politicians… We’re no closer to “getting to Hell” than we’ve ever been, global warming aside.
The only new thing there is the increase in tolerance/acceptance of homosexuals as full people, which IMHO is quite an uplifting rather than a depressing thought.
I think it’s uplifting too, I support equal rights and all that, but there’s always some resistance to it. I think there’s always going to be resistance to new ideas and new ways of doing things, and that’s what upsets me, is all the bickering about it, why can’t they just vote yes and get it overwith?
You’re clearly watching too much TV. TV gives a very disproportionate view of reality because it focuses intentionally and often exaggeratedly on the bad stuff.
I’m a cynic too, but an optimistic cynic. People are mostly good, most of the time. I think to be a truly positive person you have to have been down that road of cynical depressive hell and come back (rather than just deluding yourself or ignoring it). It’s all part of the journey, buddy.
Missed the edit window, but to expand a little - just keep in mind that the headline is always “17 people killed brutally and senselessly in a suicide bombing today” and unless it’s The Onion, it’s never “50,000 people died peacefully in their sleep today after living rich, long, fulfilling lives. They had their ups and downs but very little horror/mayhem/violence” even though the latter also happened.
It makes me sick to think about journalism and what it was 30 years ago, then to look now and see all this sensationalism and political bias…
Well, the Marriage Equality Act just passed the NYS Senate, ensuring it will become law (because the Assembly passed previous versions, and the governor wants to sign it).
The just banged the gavel on it not 10 minutes ago.
Go outside.
Well, that’s good, at least now people can stop fussin and protesting and rioting in the streets.
Yeah about that, I think I’ll wait until the weather is more to my liking, meaning less rain and more sunshine.
Well my life has been absolutely sucking lately, but right now, for the first time in a while, I have a giant grin on my face, because same sex marriage equality has passed in New York.
robardin is right. I’ve been reading a book about life in 14th century England, and much of the crap in your OP was going on then (well, maybe not Wikileaks – oh wait, one of the big scandals is the posting of placards calling John of Gaunt a changeling – saying he was switched at birth. Maybe not so much Wikileaks as the birthers, but still…)
There is always resistance to change, but change does come. When I feel bad about the state of the world, I remember that the U.S. has an African-American president, that gay marriage is legal in [del]five[/del] six states, that the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union fell, that Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years in a South Africa ruled by apartheid, became that country’s president, that The Troubles in Northern Island came to an end, that Israel made peace with Egypt… These are all the things that I saw as sad evidence that the world situation was hopeless when I was young (an African-American president? Peace in Northern Ireland? Gay marriage? The fall of the Soviet Union? All unthinkable then)
Someday you will look back and marvel at the change that has come in your lifetime. Sure there will always be war and scandal and economic cycles. But there was a Great Depression once too, and the people who were children during that period turned out to be the most prosperous generation of the century. So you need to turn off the T.V., step away from the Net occasionally, and have a little hope.
Tee hee
What I’m hearing is that Billy Joel could probably tack a couple of new verses onto We Didn’t Start The Fire if he wanted to, but we’re not genuinely on the brink of global ruin. humanafterall, I want you to listen to that song a few times and think about whether there’s much of a difference between Cold War-era BS and present-day BS.
If it was a shining example 30 years ago, it was a mighty brief golden age. Yellow journalism has been the rule rather than the exception throughout most of the history of the field. The phrase itself was coined in the late 19th century ;).
I think when it comes to print journalism you have a point. Economics has definitely resulted in the decline of newspapers, which as an older guy I do regret. But there is still plenty of good stuff being done, particularly in new media. This seems to be something of a golden age for documentary film for example and nothing like FiveThirtyEight would have even been possible back in the day.
If shoddy journalism seems more prominent now I think it is down partially to the decline of print media and big network nightly news ( also declining in market share ), but a lot of it may just be more apparent then real and the result in the increasing bombardment of ALL sorts of media all the time.
But things are still much better than they were in the heyday of William Randolph Hearst.
Stop looking, then!
It’s just like driving a car; you don’t constantly stare out the windows at the scenery or gruesome accidents along the way, lest you run off the road. Pay attention to your life, do what you can to improve the quality of your life and the lives of your loved ones. Put your energy and concern into things that make a positive difference for people.
You didn’t create the world’s problems and you can’t fix them. Don’t let them overwhelm you, either. 
Dude, you really need a hobby. And stop watching the news. It all does really suck, but it’s always really sucked. But not everything really sucks all the time. You also sound a little depressed. You need to find some rose colored glasses. You are 20 years old. Your not supposed to give a rat’s ass about anything but yourself, so stop worrying about everybody else’s problems. If you can’t get out and party, go volunteer somewhere and at least be part of the solution.
Go on, get out there, it’ll make you grow - my grandmother used to say.
I’m something of a pessimist, but I also recognise we live in a very privileged place in history. I’m very lucky to have born in this time and place.
- Slavery has been abolished.
- Great progress in civil rights.
- Longer life expectancy and better medical treatment.
- Universal education in most countries.
- Access to cheap entertainment and recreation.
- Access to a huge variety of foodstuffs.
Of course, poverty and discrimination are still widespread, but average quality of life is far higher than it was in the past, by any quantitative measure.
The gap between what the world could be and what it is can be quite depressing, but we’ve generally been on an upward curve for the last couple of centuries. The big challenge of the next is to continue this in the face of an increasing population, climatic change and dwindling supplies of cheap energy.
You may be looking at the past with a hint of rose-tintededness. 19th century journalism was every bit as sensationalistic and biased.
Hey, sometimes I’m wearing those rose colored glasses, and those are the times I really enjoy. I’ll be going camping later this summer in Michigan, and there’ll be plenty of sun and water and good times. Then other times, the glasses are gone, and it’s all black and white.
The World is an Illusion.
Made up of all the things we say it is.
None of them are any more real than we think they are.
Any given thing only works that way because we say it does.
And tomorrow they will be different
Because we will say it will be different.
Conservatives and Liberals and Communists and Fascists are only people with different views of how they want the illusion to operate. Their visions are no more real than any other vision of how the world “should” be. Unfortunately, the visions of the idealists and the ideologues are often less real because they clash with Human Nature. But that won’t stop us from killing each other trying to fit that square idea peg in the round Human hole.