There is something about the fascination with negative fantasy that would be good to get to the bottom of. You, Argo, might be the most connected person I know, because I have never heard of most of these adventures, and if I have heard-tell of them, I certainly have never visited nor listened to one of them. My definition of them is that they are repellent.
Do you suppose if you are in Gaza, you check your smart phone to see the latest episode of The Walking Dead? How about if you live in the Ukraine and bombs are raining down every night? If it is winter and you just escaped from a Turkish refugee camp and are running across a snowy field with a three-year-old on you shoulders, climbing a barbed wire fence and trying to get to Europe, do you pause to wonder about the latest episode of your favorite American show?
Probably you despise Americans for making fun of your true horrid circumstances with their lurid fantasies. They may want to burn everything down, but for you life has already been incinerated, (maybe in only one day.) Who is there to rebuild those ashes? It will surely be worse by orders of magnitude.
There is a tremendous inertia of society, but the supply chains that urbanization depends on are much more fragile that we can imagine. Take Japan's loss of WWII as an example. They had all the supplies, food, fuel and ammunition they needed for a two year ground assault by America. In the two week delay of signing off on their defeat, and the entering of the occupying forces, all that food and fuel disappeared, and reappeared in the black market at 400% of the former price. America did nothing about it for 4 or 5 years until it dissipated.
When will Ukraine get back to anything "normal"? Even before the war their GDP/capita was $10 per day. Yet Russia has a stronger economy than ever, and its strongest employment.
_____________
That's an interesting statement: that the pessimism comes from betrayal of the (pre)existing optimism. (While some still hold up positive expectation). What is the role of "hope"? I think without hope, all that is left is cynicism. This cynicism must be the fascination with the negative. How to construct a scenario of hope out of the dismal trajectory of today? That may be our challenge.
For ease of understanding, I divide the world into two camps. Those that are life positive and those that are life negative. There is a long history to it. It means the people who try to build something, and those that want to destroy everything, while grabbing their share on the way down. A big part of the Internet appeals to the destroyers.
Take your choice, and support what feels right to you. And the blackpill is surely a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I've actually only heard of most of this apocalypse stuff rather than actually consumed it. About the only one I watched much of (not particularly apocalypsey) is Black Mirror - a British dark humor show I watched years ago.
I'd call myself more cynical and pessimistic than most, which is probably how I picked up on this theme. Getting into cynical ruts of just waiting what I'm going to do wrong next is pretty common for me, but I get by. At the very least, I won't get in the way of the hopefuls.
I suppose I too am cynical, about certain things. I can share how I look at it. I divide the world into three realms, Self, Other and the World.
"Self" means my abilities, my confidence, my emotions, my re-activeness, my personality, skills and interests. This realm I have learned how to build on, which is to increase my confidence and abilities, and to decrease my feeling of a victim. I am pretty successful at it and I have high optimism. (And a lot of good luck.)
The "Other", means daily relationships, and I have learned a lot about how to get along with people, not have any blame or hurt feelings, and not hold any grudges. I feel very optimistic about this realm also. People are not all like me, and they can't be other than they are, (for today).
These two topics are very practical, because you can propose things, (to yourself) try them out, and learn what works and what doesn't. Advancement and growth come quickly. These learnings are what I like to talk about on Why Not Think. Will these optimistic improvements spill over into the third realm? It can't hurt, right?
The third realm is the "World" and it is very puzzling. I believe that I can see what is going on, a power struggle, and a huge amount of bluff, which could easily get out of control. I am interested, sure, but I don't talk about it (on my site), because it seems like you sink deeper and deeper into the blackpill prophecy. It is here where optimism dies and pessimism thrives.
With this I don't feel capable to create much of a scenario of hope. Or all the scenarios of hope seem to be built on false premises and ignoring what is happening. That is a set-up for being blindsided, and getting clobbered. I still can talk about these things on other sites, but I can't be that emotionally attached to the next "atrocity".
There is something about the fascination with negative fantasy that would be good to get to the bottom of. You, Argo, might be the most connected person I know, because I have never heard of most of these adventures, and if I have heard-tell of them, I certainly have never visited nor listened to one of them. My definition of them is that they are repellent.
Do you suppose if you are in Gaza, you check your smart phone to see the latest episode of The Walking Dead? How about if you live in the Ukraine and bombs are raining down every night? If it is winter and you just escaped from a Turkish refugee camp and are running across a snowy field with a three-year-old on you shoulders, climbing a barbed wire fence and trying to get to Europe, do you pause to wonder about the latest episode of your favorite American show?
Probably you despise Americans for making fun of your true horrid circumstances with their lurid fantasies. They may want to burn everything down, but for you life has already been incinerated, (maybe in only one day.) Who is there to rebuild those ashes? It will surely be worse by orders of magnitude.
There is a tremendous inertia of society, but the supply chains that urbanization depends on are much more fragile that we can imagine. Take Japan's loss of WWII as an example. They had all the supplies, food, fuel and ammunition they needed for a two year ground assault by America. In the two week delay of signing off on their defeat, and the entering of the occupying forces, all that food and fuel disappeared, and reappeared in the black market at 400% of the former price. America did nothing about it for 4 or 5 years until it dissipated.
When will Ukraine get back to anything "normal"? Even before the war their GDP/capita was $10 per day. Yet Russia has a stronger economy than ever, and its strongest employment.
_____________
That's an interesting statement: that the pessimism comes from betrayal of the (pre)existing optimism. (While some still hold up positive expectation). What is the role of "hope"? I think without hope, all that is left is cynicism. This cynicism must be the fascination with the negative. How to construct a scenario of hope out of the dismal trajectory of today? That may be our challenge.
For ease of understanding, I divide the world into two camps. Those that are life positive and those that are life negative. There is a long history to it. It means the people who try to build something, and those that want to destroy everything, while grabbing their share on the way down. A big part of the Internet appeals to the destroyers.
Take your choice, and support what feels right to you. And the blackpill is surely a self-fulfilling prophecy.
.
I've actually only heard of most of this apocalypse stuff rather than actually consumed it. About the only one I watched much of (not particularly apocalypsey) is Black Mirror - a British dark humor show I watched years ago.
I'd call myself more cynical and pessimistic than most, which is probably how I picked up on this theme. Getting into cynical ruts of just waiting what I'm going to do wrong next is pretty common for me, but I get by. At the very least, I won't get in the way of the hopefuls.
I suppose I too am cynical, about certain things. I can share how I look at it. I divide the world into three realms, Self, Other and the World.
"Self" means my abilities, my confidence, my emotions, my re-activeness, my personality, skills and interests. This realm I have learned how to build on, which is to increase my confidence and abilities, and to decrease my feeling of a victim. I am pretty successful at it and I have high optimism. (And a lot of good luck.)
The "Other", means daily relationships, and I have learned a lot about how to get along with people, not have any blame or hurt feelings, and not hold any grudges. I feel very optimistic about this realm also. People are not all like me, and they can't be other than they are, (for today).
These two topics are very practical, because you can propose things, (to yourself) try them out, and learn what works and what doesn't. Advancement and growth come quickly. These learnings are what I like to talk about on Why Not Think. Will these optimistic improvements spill over into the third realm? It can't hurt, right?
The third realm is the "World" and it is very puzzling. I believe that I can see what is going on, a power struggle, and a huge amount of bluff, which could easily get out of control. I am interested, sure, but I don't talk about it (on my site), because it seems like you sink deeper and deeper into the blackpill prophecy. It is here where optimism dies and pessimism thrives.
With this I don't feel capable to create much of a scenario of hope. Or all the scenarios of hope seem to be built on false premises and ignoring what is happening. That is a set-up for being blindsided, and getting clobbered. I still can talk about these things on other sites, but I can't be that emotionally attached to the next "atrocity".
.