Ask Lemmy

Money and greed.

But you can help. Grab a grocery bag, go out side and pick up some trash. Talk to your neighbors. Go put change in parking meters that are about to expire. Go through a parking lot and put shopping parts in the corral. Get a bag of frozen peas and feed some ducks (not bread). Get some cheap paper plates and a marker or two from a dollar store, make happy faces and staple them up on telephone poles.

The more we act hyper-locally, the better we can make it. Maybe it will inspire othdrs to do the same. But even if they don't, you're still making the world a better place.

The root source of things being shit nowadays is capitalism. Capitalism only nows one direction: upwards. Each quarter profits have to exceed the preceding quarter. The result is that products and services get worse over time, because in order to make more profit than the last time, corners have to be cut.

The new iteration of a product gets more flimsy, because they use cheaper materials, or they alter the design to save on material. Or products have a built-in life span (e.g. batteries that cannot be replaced or limited software updates or intentional software incompatibility).

When it comes to digital services, features will be stripped over time or the customer has to pay additionally for a feature that was once included. Or they arbitrarily limit the number of devices one can use the service on. They can do it, because most customers are not prone to change a specific online service, beacuse it either is a hassle or existing alternatives do not offer the same content diversity.

The same goes for operating systems, albeit they are rather not stripped of functions, but new bullshit features that no one asked for get implemented (best example is the implementation of AI features into the operating system (Windows - Copilot or Apple - Apple intelligence) that - in case of both - forces users to even replace their hardware). Tech companies know they can pull shit like this off, because (and this mostly applies to professional users) some users need to run specific niche software on their computers that is programmed for a specific OS exclusively.
The whole AI craze is just to make money (selling data) off of the user and also forcing them to buy the new thing, because tech companies took care of deliberately designing everything in a way that it is incompatible with older hardware.

One major problem with this is that, although capitalism is the cause of it all, we all grew up with capitalism and are stuck inside the system up to a point where we profit off of it in certain parts. Having the new shiny thing availiable at any time is the nice part of it. Having to work more for less compensation (because company already builds everything cheaper and now comes for your wages/ salary in order to make profit) is the disadvantage of it. There theoretically is a solution for it: Socialism. Theoretically, because it doesn't account for the desire of people to gain power over stuff and/ or other people.

Because of the collapse of the USSR. It was the only thing scaring capitalists into giving something to the people.

Because the economic conditions of the modern world allow for tyranny and the people haven’t figured out that we need to unite and overthrow the tyrants to build a better society.

I went back in time and farted on a puppy. Sorry. You really should have seen the original timeline. We had blimps, universal healthcare, and six seasons of Firefly

We forgot to perform maintenance on everything.

Not everything is shit, we're just in a massive downturn, so all the things that suck are growing while all the things that rule are being downplayed.

There is still beauty in the world, and there is still hope. We just have to work together to make sure it isn't buried under all the shit we see day in and day out.

Because greed allows us to ignore the fact we aren't accounting for the limits of this planet. We get to use greed to justify complete moral abandon, which in today's world can be really damaging. A few people are getting rich atm by tearing the world apart, it won't lead to good things.

But our system isn't designed to communicate the good around you to you, it's the opposite pretty much. The good is there it just doesn't brag, or shout or mock. It's quiet but it spreads. But you know when is is gone. It is conspicuous in its absence

Because humans.

"As a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery." - Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)

You might have depression

It was always shit. Now we just have technology that lets us see all of it.

There was always a genocide going on somewhere in the world. Cops always brutalized and killed people. The wealthy always exploited the poor. New diseases are always popping up and spreading. Politicians were always corrupt.

The internet tells us about all of it. We no longer have the bliss of ignorance.

Late-stage capitalism and a mix of grossly undereducated people in at least one major country and apathy.

The short answer is our legal system was not designed to withstand the stress the ultra rich can put on it as a result a lot of laws were over turned.

Im on mobile so it's hard to type and explain in more depth.

And that's only one facet.

But there are good things in the world too. And there are people fighting for what's right. It's easy to slip into despair but as mr rogers use to say

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping

You see what you want to see.

Things aren’t great but not “everything is shit.”

Greed and self interest.

Unchecked capitalism

This dude explains(in a couple minutes) why boomers are how they are and why they are breaking down society

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=343V0eRmMak

Why do you delete your posts? Or is an admin/mod deleting them?

It isn't. Yes there's lots of bad stuff, but there's also lots of good stuff too

The second law of thermodynamics.

because your eyes are covered in them

Not everything is shit. It's just not as good as it used to be

Either greed or hate, depends on the thing that is shit.

It's designed that way so that your work goes to others. That's the base of all of the world's problems.

Capitalism/greed, religion/racism & hate, selfishness/shortsightedness

We had a huge population of genuinely evil people who were locked away in the rural south so they could only abuse black people around them.

Then social media gave these people a voice and politicians realized they could pander to the trash with funding from the billionaires and that's enough to keep them in power indefinitely.

The United States Supreme Court decided everything should go to shit on December 12, 2000.

If everything I see in the news all the time makes me feel like the world is shit, well that's just unhealthy.

So I've subscribed to some good news channels on YouTube, and I try to limit the amount of bad news that I digest.

Staying informed of what's going on in the world is great, but not if it comes at the price of your sanity.

So read some good news, write a list of things you're grateful for, take a walk in a park, meditate in the sun a bit, and remember that overall people are kind (free open source software exists, volunteering exists, food banks exist, etc).