@LeDiva

Awwrite, babe. *cracks knuckles* Because you flatter me, I'm gonna take the risk of going Full Jeff From Community here. Be warned that I'm not even sure if I believe my own bullshit here, but here goes...

Everything *is* fucked and there's very little you can do to change it!

The encouraging part is that there has been NO PART OF HUMAN HISTORY where that was not true. Really good things and really bad things have always co-existed, and barring out and out nuclear war, things probably won't get terrible everywhere.

And even if something terrible happens to humanity, um, our species has made such a ludicrous overreach in the last 200 years, getting knocked back a few pegs might be the best thing that ever happened to us. So humanity will probably be fine. And nature's gonna be fine in the long run regardless.

More *directly* reassuring: every single thing you've ever liked or enjoyed has happened alongside terrible things happening in the world. Luckily, terrible things tend to be self-limiting, because they're terrible. Even really REALLY terrible things like World War 2 didn't affect absolutely everybody. Even if the shit is really about to hit the fan politically, most of us are probably still gonna have OK lives.

Also, speaking of WW2, I've been reading up on Hitler and his rise to power. We are not NEARLY THERE YET. There had been, like hundreds and hundreds of fatalities from out-and-out gun battles between commies and fash in the streets of Germany by the time Hitler got into charge.

Our authoritarians are *really bad* at it, and we are very fortunate about that. Remember that Red Queen's Race metaphor I was talking about recently, where the predators and prey have to constantly change forms in order to stay ahead of each other?

Well, it was inevitable that the predators were gonna get the advantage here for a while. Our society is trying to digest a HUGE, pivotal new set of communications technologies. We did NOT have our shit together societally nor philosophically going into it, and now we're getting our asses kicked for it. We were gonna have this provocation to get our shit together one way or the other. And now it's happening... but our enemies have already made some real bad mistakes.

When the pendulum swings and we start developing a collective memetic immune system to this bullshit, it's not gonna matter if you're "doing anything to change it." It's just gonna change, and you're just gonna be a part of it, and it'll happen so gradually you won't even notice.

I mean... when's the last time you really stopped and stretched your arms and looked up at the sun and thought, "GAY MARRIAGE, LEGAL WEED (some places), AND A (flawed, but still) PUBLIC HEALTHCARE EXCHANGE?" We were good and sure we were gonna lose those bad too... assuming the hole in the ozone layer wasn't gonna kill us.

In summary, we're not fine, and we're never going to be fine, but we were never fine, and that turned out fine, so it's fine.

(Man, this Jeff-channeling is some powerful stuff. I need to be careful.)