Despair is the absence of hope. People have been given an unrealistic view of what life should be and when it is so much worse than their expectations they fall into despair.
The media hurts because we are exposed to the "lifestyles of the rich and famous". Im gen X which seems to have the suicide problem. Gen X was raised with "greed is good" and glamorized miami vice. That is a hollow empty promise even when fulfilled.
I think another of the key problems is a lack of life philosophy (spirituality?) where people can find meaning in their lives outside of material goods. This is partially due to the death of religion. There also is a lack of understanding that life is fundamentally unfair and there somehow is the expectation that it should be fair. Without religion people are missing a clear moral compass that guides their life to find meaning. There needs to be a new modern philosophy that has moral underpinnings, but incorporates science, without necessarily having a deity.
Finally, children (including my generation) have been sheltered from lifes daily challenges by being given too much. I suspect when they become adults they simply can't handle what their lives actually are.
I think the current generation of kids are being raised to try to change the world and to seek meaning in helping other people. However they are also being raised to think that life should be fair and they are going to be bitterly disappointed.
The material conditions of life have been annihilated in the areas that have been ravaged by the opioid epidemic. My brother died of a drug overdose on one of them, and it wasn't because of a lack of moral underpinning. It was because almost nobody who is born and grows up in one will ever have a chance of a stable life. No steady access to income, healthcare or a chance of escaping the working class. Hoping for the chance to lead a stable middle class life isn't a moral failing.
I never said it was a moral failing. What I did say is that people lack a values system to find meaning in their life. Even if you are poor, you can find meaning in your life, yet our society is completely geared around material goods= meaning. Religion used to fill that role.
That hole is often times filled with meaningless partying that can include experimentation with drugs. Of course many people get addicted via actual prescriptions. I havent done much research, but the article below suggests that few people are getting addicted via prescriptions.
why do people start using opioids in the first place?
<<The research actually shows that people who developed new addictions in recent years were overwhelmingly not pain patients. Instead, they were mainly friends, relatives, and others to whom those pills were diverted—typically young people. Among the older patients, many who appeared to be newly addicted had actually relapsed or never recovered from prior addictions: some faked pain to get pills from well-meaning doctors; others got them from pill mills where shady physicians wrote prescriptions for cash.>>
I'm just not sure that all of this is down to material prosperity?
Blacks and hispanics have been much more poor, with far fewer prospects, for much longer, and yet this suicide and opioid overdose issue seems to affect whites disproportionately. That suggests maybe two things, either blacks and hispanics have been poor for so long that they are accustomed to it, or the suicide rate doesn't have as much to do with material prosperity as you seem to suggest.
It could have to do with material prosperity, I'm not saying you're definitely wrong. I'm just pointing out the fact that there is evidence, in black and hispanic poverty rates, that agitates against that explanation.
None of those things should have any impact on your daily life. If you didnt plug into the internet (your choice) you wouldnt know about any of those things and they simply wouldnt matter.
I live in the same country and I have a great life based on the actual people around me, not based on news media that pulls the worst things from around the country to try to generate more clicks.
You think it's possible to unplug from the internet? All you have to do is to talk to one living person in America to feel the cultural impact of social media and the internet. There is no unplugging. Unless you go start a commune in the middle of no where. You can't just turn this off, it's in every aspect of our society. I agree putting yourself on a media diet is a good thing, but my diet isn't going to get my friends in shape.
Today I worked from home. Had a nice cup of tea. Listened to classical music and spend a number of hours getting aws cli to play nicely with org more. I used the internet without touching social media for 18 hours and this is not unusual. Get off the outrage machine and do something with your life. The only people who benefit from you constantly being outraged are the ones selling you the outrage.
I'm doing great. I'm very disconnected from most outrage media. Haven't used social media in forever. Have plenty of close friends, and family. Successful career. Also working from home today.
I'm just saying the outrage machine is unavoidable. I've had friends and family that are deeply effected by it even if they don't openly admit it. Friends that are in rehab for opioids. Friends and co-workers that do nothing but smoke pot so they don't have to worry about their lives. Family members that became fox news addicts and blatant racists. I'd even argue that you're effected by it. You have to actively avoid it right? You understand the outrage machine and have actively decided to disconnect yourself from that world. Not saying that you're doing the wrong thing, just saying the outrage machine effects everyone. People that aren't particularly smart, financially successful, strong or mentally stable get hit by it much worse.
Sure, it’s possible and plenty of people do turn it off or minimize use. Internet use is voluntary, and one can choose their level of use/interaction with it. Try it for a week! Unplug and just live your life.
I’ve always thought one of the few real extraordinary strengths of the USA culturally is the extent to which “going off grid” is acceptable. If you want to, you can live a fine life without social media, Netflix, and cable TV. If you want, you can move to the middle of nowhere, dig a well and put up solar panels. You can homeschool your kids. You can hunt your own food. Not all of these things require lots of money. Compared to many places in the developed world, by and large you have an extraordinary ability to choose your own level of societal interdependence.
Yea I agree. You can definitely disconnect completely from society. I've been off social media for a while and don't really follow much outrage media. But you can't tell your friends and family what to do. They can still have an unhealthy fixation on the latest media/culture war and unless you disconnect from those people it will become a part of your life. Technically you can always be a hermit. I just don't find that a very appealing choice.
All of those things are "lots of money" if you are living paycheck to paycheck. They are even lots of money if you make six figures and save 25% of your income.
I havent read much about stoicism. But if I had to guess, being serene all the time is not being stoic. You should experience all the emotions, yet simultaneously realize you can be angry and still have peace. Because you can accept the feelings as natural. The question then becomes will you act on the anger or not act. Either way you then have peace with your decision.
Im not a buddhist or a stoic, but from what little I have read I somewhat live that way.
My parents once told me that one of my biggest problems is that I was too happy. I have always had the mantra "the path to true happiness is to want for nothing". This means you can either have the things you wanted or choose not to want the things you dont have. If I want something badly enough I work to get/achieve it. If I'm not willing to work to get it, then I am at peace with my decision because apparently I didn't want it that badly.
I have a lot of material possessions and I enjoy them, yet if I were to lose them all it would be ok. There was a time in my life where I had to dig change out of the couch to buy enough to eat and I reveled in the moment, that I was a person that had to live that way. There was a certain thrill to finding a dollar so I could go to the farmers market to buy a basket of the veggies of the day which could be an entire basket of green peppers (yuck). I enjoyed learning a variety of recipes to make do with green peppers.
Im happy to be able to travel, help others, raise kids, do hobbies etc. I enjoy them, but the loss of all of that, especially as I get older, I think I can accept. Every phase of life brings something new to enjoy, even pain.
I often think about all the things I will lose, especially people, even to the point where it brings me to tears. I work to accept that loss today and to enjoy the having right now. One day I will lose my parents, I might lose my spouse, a child, a friend. When they are gone, I'll have the sadness, but I'll still have the joy of having had them in my life.
Someday I might not be able to walk, see, or get out of bed. But I will appreciate and treasure the time I did have.
As a concrete example I look at people who are so angry at trump, most of them are simply angry. The anger itself is pointless. In my world view you either act to create the change you want or accept that you dont care enough to act. Each person is motivated differently and people aren't bad because they don't care as much as you.
Even if you act, you might fail. If you recognize that failure is possible, even feel anguish over the failure, yet try to see the pleasure in the attempt and the failure, then you can have peace.
This means not being afraid of failure, because there is still joy in failure, the journey as well as the learning.
If you want peace, you can have it. Many people simply dont want peace.
This seems to be one of the most common logical fallacies, especially in politics. I dont know if it has a name, but I call it "qualification without quantification".
It creates a logic chain that could happen, without any discussion of actual probabilities or costs.
For example banning of assault rifles, discusses how it could save lives. People are surprised to learn that there are less than 200 deaths per year from any type of rifle.
that is the opposite of how science is supposed to work. Using the method described you will statistically always find false correlations in data sets. This is because you can find patterns in any set of data.
You have to start with a hypothesis and then come up with the measures and expected outcomes based on it. Then you design the experiment to determine if the hypothesis is false.
there is an infinite amount of work to be done. There are needs unfulfilled today because there arent enough people and therefore the price is too high.
Examples? Especially, an infinite series of examples?
The point of life is to keep entropy forces at bay for long enough to raise the next generation. As living beings, the core point of humans is to gather enough food and build a good enough shelter to survive through the next winter.
Society will succumb to nihilism, depression and lack of meaning long before those 'infinite' amount of work will ever be tapped.
The media hurts because we are exposed to the "lifestyles of the rich and famous". Im gen X which seems to have the suicide problem. Gen X was raised with "greed is good" and glamorized miami vice. That is a hollow empty promise even when fulfilled.
I think another of the key problems is a lack of life philosophy (spirituality?) where people can find meaning in their lives outside of material goods. This is partially due to the death of religion. There also is a lack of understanding that life is fundamentally unfair and there somehow is the expectation that it should be fair. Without religion people are missing a clear moral compass that guides their life to find meaning. There needs to be a new modern philosophy that has moral underpinnings, but incorporates science, without necessarily having a deity.
Finally, children (including my generation) have been sheltered from lifes daily challenges by being given too much. I suspect when they become adults they simply can't handle what their lives actually are.
I think the current generation of kids are being raised to try to change the world and to seek meaning in helping other people. However they are also being raised to think that life should be fair and they are going to be bitterly disappointed.