I really wish my generation was a bit more optimistic. Yeah shit sucks, don't get me wrong. But have you guys seen all of history? This is par for the course. Yeah the challenges are different but every generation had their challenges. And yeah baby boomers definitely had it better than us, but that doesn't mean there's nothing but bad stuff to come. You have to take life with the good and the bad and make the most of it.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 99 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (22 children)

The bad is starting to look more and more like an impending global societal collapse with every passing day though

[–] Naatan@lemdro.id 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You need to give articles making predictions about the future a heavy amount of doubt. We may be relatively intelligent as a species, but I genuinely think we way over-estimate our abilities. Predicting the future is hard. The biggest problem is that predictions are based on past data, and cannot account for what might happen that hasn't happened before. Which when faced with a brand new problem tends to be a brand new response.

Look at our lives right now. While certainly not ideal (who could make that claim, in all history?) it's pretty damn nice if you look back in time. Yes lotsa awful stuff MIGHT happen, but that's always been true. And compared to the challenges of the past it's not on any scale we haven't been on before (I mean the Cold War literally could have resulted in the planet becoming uninhabitable due to nukes).

I'm not saying I disagree with you, I'm merely trying to give it a glass half full perspective. I agree some scale of societal collapse does seem like it is a real possibility, but it's by no means guaranteed or necessarily even likely. We don't know what we don't know. Embrace not knowing what the future holds and just enjoy life for what it is today.

[–] Taniwha420@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

This is what gave me some peace: it could all end horribly for me at any minute. Anything could happen. I could get hit by a bus. I could die painfully from some fucked up disease. A fat asteroid could hit the earth. It's all out of my control. Or things could turn out for the better, by some way I never foresaw. The best thing for us to do is to strive to be good people and care for what is in front of us.

I still find it a bit of a mindfuck that humanity is being such a deleterious effect on this beautiful world.

... and I do think that growing up under the threat of nuclear holocaust must have been similarly terrifying.

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