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Are you optimistic about the future?


Dottleshead

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I am not thinking it is going to get better and really didn't worry till a few months ago when some young kid swiped Gina's purse at the mall. That is when I started thinking, too many people don't give AF about one another. Gina had just lost her son about 2 months prior then something like that happens making you realize, the world ain't getting any better.

I think that is what pissed me off so much that I chased his ass for 1/8 of a mile till he started getting tired and toss the purse. I was on his heels so he didn't have time to go through it on the run. If I could have closed the gap by another step or two, he would have went flying with the foot swipe. :nodhead:

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Yes. The problems with the future at mostly due to the nattering nabobs of negativism to quote Spiro T. Agnew. Politicians and the news media all like crises as they gain power "fixing" the problems.

We are living in the best of times no matter how you slice it. Sure there's room for improvement but there always will be.

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I remember my grandfather saying there was gonna be a revolution in this country...that was probably mid 1960's..He was born in 1888, came to this country in something like 1906..lived through the flu, WWI, the great depression, WWIi ( including one  son going to war)..the death of JFK, the death of RFK, and a man landing on a moon..oh and the Riots of the 1960's...

It was the best of times..it was the worst of times...

It just keeps on swinging back and forth.

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6 minutes ago, petitepedal said:

I remember my grandfather saying there was gonna be a revolution in this country...that was probably mid 1960's..He was born in 1888, came to this country in something like 1906..lived through the flu, WWI, the great depression, WWIi ( including one  son going to war)..the death of JFK, the death of RFK, and a man landing on a moon..oh and the Riots of the 1960's...

It was the best of times..it was the worst of times...

It just keeps on swinging back and forth.

It's forth and back, not back and forth.  Get it right.  :default_sissy-fight-smiley:

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In a limited view of the world, within the bubble of my life, the futures bright. My wife is finally focusing on what actually makes her happy in work, my daughter is growing into a kind, intuitive and energetic young girl. For them the future is a shinning place. But with all the brightness there are deep shadows. 

It's funny, it took me until my mid 30s to kinda figure out what I was and what I wanted. I drank, smoked, did drugs, lied and was in general a shit of a person in my 20s. Now that I have an idea of the myself that I am proud of and want to be around, it's gonna end sooner rather than later. But if I ignore that elephant in the room; or actually just use black humor between myself and my wife, it's not something that effects us. It drives us instead. I've deepened my resolve to advance my career hard and fast. Every dollar earned that can go towards my families future when I am gone is fuel for my fire. They're going to be ok when I am gone; I'm gonna make sure of it.

As for the worlds outlook, I dunno. Political issues abound the world over, people have gone from being single-issue voters to militant followers of one side or the other. This isn't just here but further. Media and news knows this uncertainty creates value to them so they push narratives more inflammatory. I think things will settle, everything likes an equilibrium. I do think things will have to get worse first though. Usually something has to fundamentally break before it can be reset. We've, and I mean all over, have been allowing things to go on wrong for far too long that the slow claw back to normalcy might not be slow but sudden and violent. I do not relish being here for that. But I'd much rather be here when it does so that my daughter can have the betterment for it.

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1 hour ago, Dottles said:

but I used to always think the really bad chit was going to happen after I died.

I always thought I'd never get to retirement age because bad chit was going to happen and I'd die because of it.   I'm not sure I want to see what's coming.  And I'm generally optimistic about things.

17 minutes ago, petitepedal said:

I remember my grandfather saying there was gonna be a revolution in this country...

It was the best of times..it was the worst of times...

I'd suggest if your grandfather used a time machine and visited you today, he would say there was a revolution.   

So what part of the The Life Cycle of Empires and Nations are we in???   ( I think we are in stage 6.)

And then there is looming possibility of the next stock market 'correction' that is most likely going to happen sooner than later.

1 hour ago, Dottles said:

Now I'm not so sure.

Did I rain on your parade enough yet?  

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Aside from news, it would be better we could just let life flow a bit more normally than pandemic restrictions. It's harder to try new things or participate easily in new social groups/networks. After all, it's the latter, keeps us connected and rolling forward.

Covid has accentuated appreciation for loved ones whom we've had a reasonable/great relationships. While we wish they will always be with us, that's not possible so that's why our social networks need to expand naturally --without restrictions.

 

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One has to wonder how much of this shit is driven on social media by those who don't live here and would like nothing better than to see the country in trouble.  I wonder how many people have no idea that they are being pushed and shoved to do things by those same faceless folks.

Goebbels had the right ideas.  He just didn't have the technology to make propaganda work the way it does today.

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Honestly... my wife hates it because I live minute by minute. I never plan anything and if I do it just falls through, because I have such bad ADHD that I am constantly jumping topics or things I'm working on.... I can not stay on task to make plans for two hours from now more or less for the future. 
Lets say I have a 1/4 acer plot of land.. during mowing today, I changed oil in my truck, trimmed a tree, went for a walk, went shopping with the wife, and made a snack or three... Yah.. a simple project like mowing will take me 6-8 hours

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3 hours ago, BR46 said:

I feel that 99% of the stuff on the evening news is blown out of proportion including covid numbers. 

There's no money in positive news stories for the networks. 

There's good money in spreading stories like that too.  The internet has produced a back channel into everyone's lives for folks to spread rumors and memes, many of which are right out of the playbook.

First you separate the people from their sources of news and spread distrust.  After a while you control what they hear and think.

The fact is that the covid numbers are probably under reported.  Even here in this small group we get reminded by reports of the deaths of friends, co workers and family members.  It's hard to think that's all a lie too.

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I am reminded of the song with the lyrics “you went the wrong  way old king louie”.  I think we took a wrong turn back at the industrial revolution. Sure, it allowed for more than a century and a half of affluence for the western world, but at a huge cost to Mother Earth. And 150 years is but a flash in the pan. There is no easy answer to providing the creature comforts we enjoy without trashing the planet. Just changing over to electric cars is snot gonna duit. Yeah, we have a ton of political problems, but dealing with them is basically rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Like @Road Runner often says, we humans are a heck of an invasive species. We sort of suck. :(
 

I think we were getting close during the early pandemic when a lot of us stopped driving and the air and water cleared up.  I have always thought we need a way to live like this, to stop the insanity of driving so much and just sit tight. But now that has gone horribly wrong by increasing inequality and letting some fortunate silicon valley types live in nicer cheaper places, but in the process drive up home prices WAY oot of reach for a lot of people. And now traffic is also back around pre pandemic levels. So things now suck even worse for some people while they are much nicer for others.
 

So sad to say I basically agree with Debbie Downer, although things will be more or less ok in the short term for us lucky people, but it is unsustainable, IMO.  
 

I feel bad starting a nice Sunday oot with such a downer opinion.  Maybe we can fix it all, but it sure won’t be easy!  

 

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12 hours ago, ChrisL said:

@Dottles you gotta remember the news isn’t about presenting useful info, it’s about ratings and pushing a corporate agenda.  Drama, violence & sex gets clicks & eyeballs.  Please don’t fall for it. 

We’ll all be aight. And even when it ain’t it still is.  

It's not me I'm worried about.  It's my wife's family.  It's my former best friend.  It's my family.  I swear to God I'm surrounded by dunderheads that fall for all of it.

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6 minutes ago, Dottles said:

It's not me I'm worried about.  It's my wife's family.  It's my former best friend.  It's my family.  I swear to God I'm surrounded by dunderheads that fall for all of it.

Everybody falls for it and those who use propaganda to divide can tell the stories either way just to get you excited and more divided.  The internet does not bring us together.  

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The elephant in the room has been, and forever will be, population/reproduction control.  Until we realize we must control our ever-growing population pandemic and we are actually able to DO something to bring it under control, we are doomed.

If the human race isn't capable of controlling itself and continues to simply drown the earth in a veritable flood of human organisms, it will eventually reap its reward and will rightly deserve every one of the resulting and most terrible consequences brought on by its inability and/or unwillingness to act.

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15 hours ago, Dottles said:

Are you optimistic about the future?

My future? Heck yeah. Very optimistic.

Well, I will die at some point, and so will many of my loved ones, so that part will be tough, but that's what we all deal with.

The "general" future?  Not nearly as much positivity to go around for that future.  Not my problem, and likely something I will enjoy - personally - sucking the marrow from the bones of that carcass.  The "little people" of the world will suffer (continue to and then get worse) infinitely more and much earlier than the western & wealthy parts of the world.  Barring a nuclear disaster - ie war with a desperate China, Russia, or other nuclear power - things will simply be a very gradual build to a boil, so I'm insulated by several dozen layers of distance from the poorest of the poor.  

Of course, as we have seen a few times in US history and countless times in world history, political and financial catastrophes can happen that knock things down many pegs, and if that happens at late enough time in my life, it may be too short a period left to fully recover.  

I wouldn't wish tomorrow's problems onto anyone's grandkids, but sadly, most of their grandparents have already decided they are fine with dumping it all on them, so who am I to change those wishes?

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58 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

The internet does not bring us together.  

The internet has been a great thing in some ways, such as in access to knowledge and information, but it is destroying us in other ways.

I think we were better off when we just regularly talked to other people, face to face, instead of "communicating" with and getting affirmation for our crazy ideas from a bunch of other like-minded internet psychos.

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4 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

The internet has been a great thing in some ways, such as in access to knowledge and information, but it is destroying us in other ways.

I think we were better off when we just regularly talked to other people, face to face, instead of "communicating" with and getting psychological affirmation for our crazy ideas from a bunch of other like-minded internet psychos.

:word:

As a lazy and largely asocial person, I like it, but I can see the downside. 

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33 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

The elephant in the room has been, and forever will be, population/reproduction control.  Until we realize we must control our ever-growing population pandemic and we are actually able to DO something to bring it under control, we are doomed.

If the human race isn't capable of controlling itself and continues to simply drown the earth in a veritable flood of human organisms, it will eventually reap its reward and will rightly deserve every one of the resulting and most terrible consequences brought on by its inability and/or unwillingness to act.

What would you suggest?  I'm always amazed to meet a young family but rare, with 4-5 children. That is REALLY unusual these days, unless it's kids from 2 marriages.

For the developed countries and even for China, when they finally let go of the 1-child policy awhile ago (too many boys in that country, after getting rid of girls on the side), families show via the national census statistics in North American countries, many European and yes, even China  (plus Japan), the families are getting alot smaller in past few decades. In North America, I think it's under 2 children per family.

I think it's which countries people choose to live:  we should be strongly encouraging our national leaders and other country national leaders, to  continue  lifestyles, our economies not to leave a big carbon footprint, be more environmentally conscious and countries that run things by law.  Why do you think people want to run away from countries with bad air quality, unreliable food supply, corrupt govn'ts, unequal treatment of women, etc.?

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1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Everybody falls for it and those who use propaganda to divide can tell the stories either way just to get you excited and more divided.  The internet does not bring us together.  

Very true.  The bad part is internet behaviour is spilling into the streets. 

I had a discussion about oil pricing with my FO the other day that actually brought him to tears of anger.  He wanted to know why his dad keeps telling him it is because of government actions like closing pipeline projects.  I said, "Because it is"  His retort was "OK Boomer.  How does a pipeline that isn't finished contribute to lower gas prices?"  :)  "Because oil trades on futures, Junior. Affecting supply in the future sets todays prices".  :)  He simply didn't know that but accepted it because it didn't come from his father. 

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On 11/21/2021 at 8:52 AM, Road Runner said:

The elephant in the room has been, and forever will be, population/reproduction control.  Until we realize we must control our ever-growing population pandemic and we are actually able to DO something to bring it under control, we are doomed.

If the human race isn't capable of controlling itself and continues to simply drown the earth in a veritable flood of human organisms, it will eventually reap its reward and will rightly deserve every one of the resulting and most terrible consequences brought on by its inability and/or unwillingness to act.

Interesting, though, to see that much of the policy in the US is shifting to encouraging larger families and more children.  It seems like politicians can't jump high enough to actually throw money at people to reward having children.  If the elephant in the room is "population", we're creating a stampede in the wrong direction.

 

On 11/21/2021 at 9:33 AM, Wilbur said:

He wanted to know why his dad keeps telling him it is because of government actions like closing pipeline projects.  I said, "Because it is"  His retort was "OK Boomer.  How does a pipeline that isn't finished contribute to lower gas prices?"  :)  "Because oil trades on futures, Junior. Affecting supply in the future sets todays prices".  :)  He simply didn't know that but accepted it because it didn't come from his father. 

The answer would be more, "Because it does", not is.  Government action definitely plays a part.  But so does something like the OPEC cartel.  Your pipeline has an impact, but so does a more macro perspective.  OPEC doesn't sit by and aim to lose money, lose market share, or lose influence, and that immediately plays out across the world energy markets.  The oil market is undersupplying - not because of an inability to supply more, but because of the desire to keep supplies low (prices high).  OPEC and MANY other pieces play into gas pump prices. But blaming government or environmental policy is a good "boogieman" if we just want to stay on the surface.

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No.

After witnessing the lack of logic and head-in-the-sand behavior over the pandemic and the politicizing by the dim-witted of any possible reasonable ways to keep it at bay, I am certain that humanity will kill itself.  There are too many "all about me" people for humanity to tip the scales in our favor.  We simply can't be trusted as a group.

I think in an original series 'Star Trek' scenario where we are evaluated by aliens to see if we are a species worthy of preservation, it is gonna be an immediate thumbs-down situation.

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1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

There are too many "all about me" people

See, you have a kid!  You need to be in the "all about us" category.  Too bad, so sad :)  I get to stay firmly in the "all about me" category, and continue polluting like nobody's business!  Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.  

You might want to get RO into a good STEM program, so she can sort out the future herself.  God knows she's gonna need a miracle to sort out the situation.

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48 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Interesting, though, to see that much of the policy in the US is shifting to encouraging larger families and more children.  It seems like politicians can't jump high enough to actually throw money at people to reward having children.  If the elephant in the room is "population", we're creating a stampede in the wrong direction.

 

The answer would be more, "Because it does", not is.  Government action definitely plays a part.  But so does something like the OPEC cartel.  Your pipeline has an impact, but so does a more macro perspective.  OPEC doesn't sit by and aim to lose money, lose market share, or lose influence, and that immediately plays out across the world energy markets.  The oil market is undersupplying - not because of an inability to supply more, but because of the desire to keep supplies low (prices high).  OPEC and MANY other pieces play into gas pump prices. But blaming government or environmental policy is a good "boogieman" if we just want to stay on the surface.

Keeping supplies low and prices high is good for your future.  You want to be the last country to run out of oil, not the first.  Crying for lower oil prices is just "me""mine".

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3 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Keeping supplies low and prices high is good for your future.  You want to be the last country to run out of oil, not the first.  Crying for lower oil prices is just "me""mine".

Again, enough with this "looking out for future generations" nonsense. I'm here NOW and those other folks can sort it out for themselves, not step on my toes.

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