I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.

“Nothing new under the sun” I suppose!

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    I think that, no matter when you were born in history, there were trials and tribulations.

  • Bunbury@feddit.nl
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    7 days ago

    It’s the main reason I’m not having children. While there are other reasons the main one is a combination of global warming made worse by late stage capitalism and the resulting political instability that comes with that.

    While I refuse to make the choice to bring someone new into this world myself I do see it as my duty to help as many of the kids around me who were brought into this world regardless. The world they were bron into is not their fault and I appreciate being able to use my resources to help them and their parents.

  • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels were the only affordable energy sources that could meet the demand of industrialized countries. Until 5-10 years ago.

    We’re now in a situation where most people can still pretend that climate change isn’t serious, and the fossil fuel lobby is stronger than ever. And yet over 90% of new electricity generation is already renewable, because it has simply become cheaper than coal and gas power in the last years.

    As climate impacts worsen, the pressure to decarbonize will only get larger. The lobbies have been fighting tooth and nail against the energy transition for over 40 years, but they are rapidly loosing ground now in most countries.

    It’s right to be alarmed about climate change, there will be serious long-term impacts, but it seems irrational to be completely fatalistic. Just comparing the battery prices and solar panel prices and ev market with 10 years ago reveals a truly massive shift. And this is just the beginning of the energy transition.

  • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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    7 days ago

    Yeah, the world is overrun with dragons right now. It sucks.

    But I suppose it’s about one’s perspective as to the point of life: Is the ideal life one of ease and leisure or of purpose?

    We can choose to spite the dragons by voluntarily going extinct, or we can pass down the very best of ourselves and be good examples to raise dragon slayers to take up the mantle, whilst learning from our missteps.

    I choose a perspective of hope and responsibility to humanity.

    Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to overcome a difficult one. –Bruce Lee

    There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for. –Samwise Gamgee

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    9 days ago

    Climate change is the only true existential reason to feel that way.

    Everything else is just over focusing on a short term dip. On average things are getting better over the long term. The British Empire collapsed, and so will the American one, and the world will keep on turning and progressing.

    Hell kids born these days may have legitimate cures for most forms of cancer by the time they’re old. We won’t.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        9 days ago

        My grandma was born pre world war 2, she was literally born during the rise of fascism, then lived through her family getting conscripted and some killed, having to flee to the country side during the bombing raids, then through years of post war rationing.

        She then travelled around the world during the 50s, raised a family during the 60s and 70s, and enjoyed a long, happy, fruitful, and fulling retirement / art career from the 80s, through the 90s, and 00s, and just passed away this year.

        And there was zero chance she regretted being born.

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      is there anything substantial being done about climate change right now though?

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            8 days ago

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jOqyjcO4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUA1kFSJnYQ

            I was going to say more, but basically, watch those videos (or read their references).

            Good news sells bad, solar energy is being deployed really quickly and accelerating exponentially, solar has a higher return on investment than gas, coal or oil (about 8x as much in developed markets, according to the IEA), nowadays, green energy is the better one for the economy, and the billionaires just want money, so if it is the green energy that has higher returns, they will invest in that.

            Green energy has had 2x as much investment as fossil fuels, and about 80% of that investment is private.


            In september 2024 the UK shut down its last coal powerplant.

            And I forgot the most important! There have been days where energy has a NEGATIVE COST in some places in the world because of renewables, doesn’t that sound like a financial incentive to use renewables?

            you could go on for days, there is a lot being done, we just don’t know about most of it.

    • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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      8 days ago

      I’d argue that technology also, because it is consolidating wealth and power in the hands of fewer and fewer. This creates a positive feedback loop to further entrench their power. They have widened the divide and pulled up the ladder.

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Oh, only climate change. Well that’s alright then. /s

      Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.

      and the world will keep on turning and progressing.

      The world will keep on turning, but there is absolutely no factual basis for claiming it will keep on progressing. If anything that is one thing we can learn from history.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.

        Cite the numbers that make you pessimistic.

        If you don’t have numbers, then keep your crystal astrology bad vibes to yourself until you have something to back them.

        I’m fucking sick of leftists acting like being moody and pessimistic is a valid political stan stance that does anything.

        • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyz
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          What kind of numbers are you going after?

          I mean, probably you want numbers to prove that climate change is changing politics and economics, etc. for the worse, or maybe just numbers for proving that climate change is real.

          But both of these seem like such trivial information that I’m probably just guessing wrong. But because of that, I’d be curious to know: what kind of numbers did you mean?

          I can probably help digging up some for you, but not if you just meant “prove that climate change exists”. But, numbers proving that economy will suffer from climate change should be easy to find. (And I think you could just search for them yourself…)

  • LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz
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    9 days ago

    VERY specific people would have been better off born 20 years ago.

    The vast majority of people would be better off today.

    You can imagine in another 20 years that would be different, but almost everyone is better off today than they were 20 years ago, and they will be even better 20 years from now than today.

    Specific groups may have a harder time in one time period or another, but society at large is getting better at the world scale over the long term. Hope still exists.

    • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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      I was born over 40 years ago. I feel like there was a general consensus in the 80’s that kids being born then absolutely would be “better off” than their parents.

      Reality is sinking in and we’re seeing that wasn’t the case for a lot of people.

      The fact that questionability surrounding “if kids born today will be better off than their parents” even exists today seems to suggest that they will not.

    • Cousin Mose@lemmy.hogru.ch
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      9 days ago

      Maybe when it comes to social issues but when I read OP’s post I think of climate change and how it seems to be worsening at an increasing pace.

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        I’m in my mid thirties and I’ve had a tough time the last few summers. I’m too hot to eat, causing nausea and reducing the amount of water I can drink without vomiting. I’m sure it puts a strain on my vital organs. I wonder how much it’s taking off of my life expectancy already and how much worse it will get over the next decades.

        I don’t even live in a (historically) warm place.

    • PETE_OPSEC@piefed.social
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      I agree with almost all of this, but I think factoring in the imminent catastrophes we know are coming (and actively doing nothing about) will make a sizeable balance of this ‘better off vast majority’ of today.

      The heaps of plastic tell a different story and define ‘getting better’ in a daunting light for those just now being born

    • Canaconda@lemmy.ca
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      9 days ago

      VERY specific people would have been better off born 20 years ago.

      The people pining to repeat the mistakes of the past.

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      But the point is it is not about the situation today, it is about the situation in 20 years, heck just 10 years, of which these people will live into and experience very soon.

      but society at large is getting better at the world scale over the long term.

      That used to be true, it is no longer true. And it is not a natural law that this will happen, it is just something a lot of people who have lived in the golden period of the 1950s to early 2000s inferred, without actually considering a larger swath of history than that.

  • MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Windows 11 laptops requires a webcam. The internet now wants selfies to prove that you are a certain age.

    The kids now will grow up thinking that this is normal. That is what I am worried about.

  • Goldholz @lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    9 days ago

    Very. I already dont see a bright future. People born today dont know anything but a broken world. Me being born 2003 atleast saw a slight bit of it

    • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
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      I’m sorry, but you are wildly naive. You’ve seen 22 years of this planet. You have no idea how good you and your potential offspring actually have it.

      • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 days ago

        So how old must one be to not have you pull an ad-hominem instead of addressing the points being made?

        Have you maybe considered that it’s precisely the fact that you are older and have seen more of the world actually somewhat functioning that gives you this impression that on the whole things are fine, not to mention material advantages, and it is in fact - your credibility, that should be in question?

        • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
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          I’m old enough and have seen enough to know that I’ve got it better than a lot of people from the present and past. I can’t know for certain what this person has undergone in their 22 years, but because they use Lemmy I can assume they are a relatively stable, middle class person. I may be wrong about that. This person is privileged enough to even be able to type said comment here. To claim they know what a “broken world” looks like is naive in my opinion.

          • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            I’m old enough and have seen enough to know that I’ve got it better than a lot of people from the present and past.

            I agree. But I also am old enough and have also seen enough to know I have it a lot worse than a lot of people from the present and past. I have known this at 27, at 22, and at 20. These are actually not contradictory statements.

            but because they use Lemmy I can assume they are a relatively stable, middle class person

            This is a pretty odd assumption. A middle class person to me would be someone who doesn’t struggle to pay rent/bills, and is saving up for a property or is already paying a mortgage without extreme sacrifices. They own property, or in (nowadays) rare circumstances a productive business and at least some of their income thus isn’t generated from wage labour.

            This is of course a very conservative definition, but let’s go with that:

            An extremely lavish internet connection of half a gigabit down with no caps or limits here in the UK costs about £30 or less a month and a phone or basic PC costs less than £100 even for both, easily.

            The council tax alone, before things like electricity, water exceeds that. My rent is 11 times that and is extremely cheap compared to living in the city, which I can only do because I WFH - a rarity.

            A median downpayment on a house costs £75,000 for a 30 years long mortgage, this is approximately twice the median, pre-tax income for full-time employees in the UK of £37,430.

            Housing price rises, and even rent/bill/cost of living rises have also outpaced both wage growth and even in many cases inflation. Purchasing power is on the whole - down.

            Focusing on the only things that have gotten enormously cheap very much contrary to the general trend - like access to social media, internet and electronics is like looking at a really nice tree when the forest is on fire.

            • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
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              Housing prices? That’s your argument? That’s your bleak outlook? Dude, up until relatively recently you couldn’t have a baby without it dying or dying yourself. Common cold? Deceased. There are people alive today who are being murdered because their existence maddens someone and your argument is that your housing costs have gone up.

              Get some perspective. Your life isn’t that bad.

              • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                Housing prices are everything. We all die. Now or in 50 years barely makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. But imagine dying and your family can’t even grieve because your dead carcass fell behind on rent and was tossed out in the trash by your slumlord to get in an Indian family of 6 for twice the rent in your tiny attic. That’s life.

                I am trans and people have threatened to murder me for my existence before I started passing. In both my country of origin and my current country of residence there’s a concentrated institutional effort to effectively extinct people like me from public existence by various forms of lawfare and propagandistic fearmongering.

                Don’t get me wrong, the rightoids will come for me, and after that, they will come for you, too, that’s just conservatism for ya, but when they do come, I’d rather meet them in my owned house, filled with guns and ammo, and maybe a nice pet dog by my side that I’d look after and let escape before shit hits the fan, rather than a rented flat I can’t even hang a poster up in without incurring some fine or fee.

                And if they don’t come, a house is an asset, the asset, the only productive one in reach now that businesses aren’t viable anymore thanks to landlord and digital feudal lord wealth extraction - it’s retirement and it’s everything, pensions wont be a thing by when I retire, and trust me being a minority with money is much better than being a minority without.

              • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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                Housing prices? That’s your argument? That’s your bleak outlook?

                Can’t afford a home? That means you’re homeless. That’s a crime now. To the prison work camp you go, chop chop.

                Dude, up until relatively recently you couldn’t have a baby without it dying or dying yourself.

                Still can’t in a lot of places. Not to mention, in America, assuming you both survive you’re now $50k in medical debt for the privelege of reproducing.

                Common cold? Deceased.

                People still die from pneumonia daily.

                There are people alive today who are being murdered because their existence maddens someone and your argument is that your housing costs have gone up.

                Two problems can exist at once.

                Get some perspective. Your life isn’t that bad.

                My friends and family and coworkers are the ones being threatened with murder because their existence maddens someone. Get some perspective.

      • Goldholz @lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        9 days ago

        Age has nothing to do with how one is naive. Humanity will survive the climat crisis. That is sure…but at what cost…and that is what scares me

        • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world
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          I can agree with you on all of that. In this instance my argument is that it’s always been scary. We hide behind a false sense of security. It’s always been this scary. It will always be this scary. We were born to die. Humankind is just like a human life. At one point, whether we like it or not, it will all end.

          • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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            We are not born to die, just as a book does not start to finish

            Unfortunately, there are people in situations where they struggle to get much out of life, and I don’t think any large society without hierarchy and wealth divide has existed

            • uienia@lemmy.world
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              We are not born to die, just as a book does not start to finish

              Both of those things are true though. We are born to die, and a book does start with the intent of it finishing.

      • EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
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        I’ve got a few decades on the other commenter. We are making gains in some areas: medicine, entertainment, and convenience. It is definitely true that our lives are much better in certain ways.

        But then there’s shit that is also going very wrong. Runaway inflation (particularly on housing, healthcare, education, and childcare), loss of community / loneliness epidemic, increasing wealth inequality, increasing political polarization / extremism, climate change, and societal stratification caused by technology. The last 2 in particular are “big ticket” hazards that I don’t see reversing course and will only continue to get worse.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    No. I think that things have pretty steadily gotten better over time, and that a great deal of people being upset about now for any given now comes from a tendency to focus on negatives. Could be social media or news media tending to bring negatives to the surface because it drives engagement, political activists aiming to drive or leverage upset, or so forth.

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      That is completely ignoring the actual man made climate change crisis which is happening at this moment. A situation which is unprecedented in human history. Pretending everything has steadily gotten better over time is not only factually wrong, but deliberate ignorance. And no it is not “big climate change science” which is trying to con you into something.

      It will affect us all, whether you have your head stuck in the sand or not.

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    9 days ago

    Very much so. I honestly think it’s at least a little cruel and selfish to have a child in a dying world.

    That said, I remain supportive of the parents in my life and I try to keep that feeling to myself–unless the parent brings it up (my cousin has two very young children whom he adores, but he also worries for their futures due to climate change and political instability, and he’ll talk pretty openly with me about it).

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      Climate change is the number one thing. The past had fascism, tools, slavery - but it didn’t have an Extinction level event looming just cresting over the horizon. I’m not having any kids until there is actual meaningful progress towards fixing that… So it looks like I’m not having kids.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Not to mention that one of the easiest ways to combat climate change is to simply not bring more humans into the world.

      • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip
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        Of course it did.

        If not for the courage and conviction of Vasily Arkhipov, civilization, and potentially humanity, may have ended in 1964. People had kids for 30 years under the very real threat of nuclear extermination. In the end it turned out pretty well.

        People had kids during the black plague.

        While a climate crisis is more than just a threat, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We have ideas, and models, and educated guesses… But not knowledge.

        I wouldn’t tell anyone to have kids if they don’t want to. But no one should plan their life around sparing a hypothetical person from the hypothetical struggles of a slow moving crisis we don’t fully understand.

        • uienia@lemmy.world
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          The thing is that was the threat of nuclear extermination. It didn’t actually happen. Climate change is not a threat, it is happening, right now and is only going to get progressively worse in the near future.

          While a climate crisis is more than just a threat, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We have ideas, and models, and educated guesses… But not knowledge.

          So far all educated guesses have been overtaken by the speed of events. It is getting worse faster than even the experts had anticipated.

          • obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip
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            It’s getting worse sure. But we have no idea how bad it will get, or what the total effect will be. We have no idea what role technology will play in the future of this crisis, or if recovery would outpace models in the event we decided to take the problem seriously.

            Bear in mind that acid rain was a real crisis that was happening in the 80s and the hole in the Ozone was a real crisis that was happening in the 90s. When we made an honest effort to fix those problems… They got fixed.

            Also, we can guess at what species will or won’t fare well, but not how they’ll adapt or what else might thrive in a new environment.

            And yeah, it’s possible that temps will spike faster than we could ever imagine or deploy solutions and we’ll all bake to death in a sprawling global desert if we don’t all starve from the sweeping famine. I just have more faith in human ingenuity, and will than that.

        • ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          How about sparing them from a life of working constantly to have job insecurity, no social safety net, and a bullet for a retirement plan? Birth is cruelty.

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              7 days ago

              We’re all talking now. I don’t find that perspective to be one that equates uniquely to a depressed person. That perspective is relatively prevalent within this thread, but also somewhat prevalent within social circles that I find myself in.

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                “my life is so miserable that I would rather see the continuation of the species voluntarily end that risk someone else suffers like me” is depression. Maybe it’s not suicidal depression, but it probably requires intervention.

                Maybe it’s just immature edgelord BS, but if not that’s a serious problem.

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                  I really think you’re missing the target entirely.

                  There’s not a biological imperative for humans to reproduce. It’s pretty egotistical to assume that your species “deserves” to exist. Can you tell me what about our species is so special?

                  Calling something “a problem,” and failing to articulate on what specifically makes it a problem is MAGA level thinking.

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Politics, economics and war are all hard to predict for long term, but just on the count of climate change kids born today are screwed.

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    9 days ago

    You are born in the very very very best stretch the human race has ever known.

    We have solutions for almost every problem which exists today.

    Wars are at an historical low point.

    Chances are good you’ve never been even experienced war first hand.

    Housing is expensive, yes. But chances are you’re reading this on a couch or bed in a home, heated (or cooled), with a working stove, light at night and a fridge with edibles in it. And lets not talk about your immediate almost unrestricted access to all of human knowledge.

    That would be unbelievable, impossible even during 99.9% of human history. (Or somewhere near this figure)

    You should stop doomscrolling and start reading the real human history.

    All of human knowledge at your fingertips. And this is what you chose to distill from it.

    • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I think you’re missing the point.

      Dying of disease because there simply isn’t a cure is a tragedy, but dying of disease because the cure is too expensive, not because of material and resource limitations but because some shithead just wants to be rich, when in reality we could produce enough for everyone - is a farce beyond comprehension.

      We escaped the wolves and I sure am glad for it, but we have senselessly created new wolves just to throw people to them.

      Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making an appeal to nature, or using the noble savage fallacy, nor am I reactionary moron who thinks everyone went to Galas or that in the past I’d be admiring the decorative architecture rather than be the slave making it, I’m a huge simp for science and technology, but I also can see that the world is headed in a very dark direction compared to the 2010s.

      As a minority in both legislation and in practice my rights and safety have been actively eroded since the 90s and things were quite literally just better back then for basically everyone.

      I struggle to think what exactly would be worse for your average Westerner being born earlier in actual human scales of time, like e.g. the 1990s.

      The boomers around me don’t even understand that you don’t just “get” a job for existing, and my parents can’t imagine having a degree and worrying about making rent or skipping on heating or meals in a “first world country” like the UK, and they grew up in the fucking soviet union and not exactly during it’s heyday.

      Living in wartime is awful. Living while wishing for things to be fixed, or even for any kind of hope, even if it means death in war, isn’t that much better.

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      9 days ago

      I get what you are saying but everyone is ignoring the human condition. We feel things based on how they are around us in a relative sense.

      It doesn’t matter if it is statistically better. Modern times are getting worse for people. Health, privacy, freedom are all declining in America. That is what people see and feel. I’m tired of people acting like we have life horizons that can see centuries.

      Chronic health is a real current issue and it absolutely destroys quality of life too.

      So yeah, great, best time to be alive. But since I was a kid many things have gotten worse. From health (cost, accessibility) and education to privacy. Maybe we will be much farther ahead in 20 years, but the next 10 are looking grim.

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          9 days ago

          Are you living under a rock?

          You don’t need to google this shit…

          There is a large land war in Europe with combined casualties likeling going to hit 2 million within a year. north Korea entered the war on Russian side.

          Israel is exterminating Arabs in Gaza.

          There is a big war in sudan

          RWANDA invaded DRC.

          Europe is re arming. China has been re arming and rattling saber for Taiwan.

          India and Pakistan always doing their thing. Yemen is in chronic proxy war.

          There is a proxy war in burma

          Thailand is testing Cambonia

          You repeating propaganda from 15 years ago.

          Get educated.

          • shalafi@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Still an historical low point. Did you not check a single link I posted?

            You don’t need to google this shit…

            NM, you admitted it.

            ALL of that has been going on since WWII, and slowly dialing down. The Ukraine war is such a shock because it’s so damned unusual.

            I didn’t say the world was at peace, but war and death is at an all-time low. Look at the casualties reported in the news today. We’re stunned if 100 people get killed in a single attack. There were WWI and WWII battles you’ve never even heard of where 4,000 men were killed at once.

            As to my education: I have 2 years of Advanced European History under my belt and 4 college credits to show for it. Not to pull the age card, but at 54 I’ve lived a fair bit of modern history. I’m guessing you weren’t around when global thermonuclear war was hanging over our head as a day-to-day fact of life?

            • uienia@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              You posted a google link, so no, noone read it.

              I posted a non-google link which factually disproved your claim.

            • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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              9 days ago

              Ukraine war alone reserved the trend.

              The only thing that comapres is korean war.

              You larping old regime propaganda in earnest jfc

              Quit being a boomer and look at the numbers.

              • shalafi@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                This is such an odd conversation. I provided many charts, many numbers to look at, and you’re still arguing, what exactly?

                BTW, Boomers were my parents, and I still have no idea what propaganda you’re referring to. If anything, American propaganda has always been about how violent the world is and how we need more defense spending.

                Can you name any propaganda where the government has espoused how peaceful the world is?!

                • uienia@lemmy.world
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                  8 days ago

                  You have not provided any charts or numbers. I provided a link to an actual study on the subject disproving your claim.

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Your information is outdated by 5-10 years unfortunately.

      Wars are at an historical low point.

      Global conflict levels highest since end of Second World War.

      We have solutions for almost every problem which exists today.

      A very bold claim. We have lots of solutions, but not the will or resources to implement them. Climate change being the primary problem of which we have no real solution.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      reading real history is work though. just like working out and eating well.

      doomscrolling is like the equivalent of sitting you your ass and eating junk food/delivery and satiating that lizard brain to the exclusion of their higher functions and potentials.

      majority of people are going to choose the latter as much as they can.

    • lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      9 days ago

      What? Are you stupid? Realism with a tinge of optimism in this thread clearly designed to be a crying, woe-is-me circle-jerk? Get with it man! /s

      • uienia@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        It is not realism though, since it is based on factually incorrect statements.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      Word. Just because America is on a downward slide everyone acting like these are the worst times ever. LOL. The people need some history classes.

      When I was a kid, cancer was basically a death sentence. AIDS certainly was! Some of the tech I’ve experienced blows my mind. Wondering if my wife and I had finally caught COVID (we did 🤬), so I busted out the free laboratory kit I got in the mail. That was work for a hospital lab, and you were going to wait a few days. Sliced the side of my finger off, and they grew it back. I could go on forever.

      In the movie Armageddon (1998), talking about the age of the space station being 10-years old, “Most of us don’t drive cars that old.” A 10-yo car was trash, common knowledge. My truck is a 2004 and my wife’s car is a 2014. Both run great. And I could go on for ages as to how much safer vehicles are. None of the things we take for granted like ABS, air bags, crumple zones, none of that existed when I was a kid. Hell, some cars didn’t have safety glass!

      People will next tell me that global warming is a new threat that will kill us all. Friends and neighbors, we already survived an ice age.

      • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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        8 days ago

        Once you can’t feed yourself, your children are dying, and the authorities are actively trying to kill you, how much worse of a times do you want!? People are being sent to concentration camps. The middle class is disappearing. Everyone not a billionaire is suffering.

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    8 days ago

    I think we are in for a very hard 30-50 years politically and economically speaking.

    Current young people are already poorer than their parents, and that’s not getting solved. Next generation will be poorer and we will have to factor in a lot of tensions and unsolved problems that I think will derive in violence, a lot of violence. And very heavy societal collapses.

    Maybe I’m dramatic, but the other day I thought that’s not unlikely that a “western” country will experience a famine in the next 50 years. Many don’t produce enough food for themselves by far, the moment they don’t have the money or the possibility to buy it from other countries… Starvation it is. And with a growing population getting near the 10 billion humans, a few years of globally bad crops could devastate humankind.

    So, yep, I think kids today are in for really hard times.

    • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Yup, the fossil fuel foundation that enabled us to reach 10 billion is going away. Sunshine and puppies won’t sustain 10 billion eaters.

      The carrying capacity of a renewable energy system is not the same as a system that uses massive amounts of surplus energy coming from the ground.

      It’s lower. Far far lower. And getting there will be ugly, and your time frame is correct IMO.

        • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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          7 days ago

          Electrical, yes. Oil is a feedstock for pretty much anything you can see in your house.

          Please fertilize modern agri-business with electricity.

          I’ll wait.

          In the meantime, try the trick of flying across the Atlantic in 6 hours with batteries.

          No doubt we’ll have electricity for as long as we can, but… the underlying civilization that uses it will not look a thing like what we have now.

          Do you not already see housing supply issues, inflation, war everywhere?

          • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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            7 days ago

            War everywhere? See WW1 and WW2. Although there is certainly a risk with a large war across Europe it isn’t guaranteed and generally seems like most don’t really want one.