going to preface this with, don’t worry about my immediate health or anything. i am not having a psychotic episode of anything like that, i am 100% sober…and…that’s honestly the scariest part for me.
there is a message that finally got through to me, woke me up (wait, motherfucker…is that where “woke” comes from???), something I’v been aware of for a long time now i think, but it got suppressed down for…10 goddamn years… for whatever reason, until now.
now that I’m aware of it, I see it damn near everywhere, almost every majorly acclaimed movie, song, book, poem, fucking everything…
and it’s not like this is some short-term problem either, it’s not going away when trump dies, it’s not even going away if trump dies and the establishment regains control (i have my doubts they can pull this off).
it’s the same goddamn cycle over and over (with slight variations), boom followed by completely deliberate bust, one privacy-overreach followed by another, the same playbook used over and over. and occasionally either end is some random organic act-of-god, which just works to obfuscate the intentional acts.
it’s so large and all encompassing you can’t even be sure which parts are apart of it and which are just…people still asleep just going about their lives.
and now, because this world seems to be ran by a bunch of fucking psychopaths, I’m even more paranoid sober than when I was having a actual mental breakdown
because how the fuck do I trust anyone now?
how do i seperate those that know from those that don’t?
psychopathic assholes from regular assholes?
friend from foe?
hell, how the hell do Ieven confirm that this is real, I know that everyone in my own immediate family is stuck in these little arithmetic bubbles too so i can’t bring it up with them, if i tried they would probably be worried I’m going crazy.
and because of past-me’s mistakes over the years I have no irl friends whatsoever to talk with either, so i guess all I have left is to send this out onto the internet and hope for the best?
I actually help train for combating disinformation and the such, I could forward you a few docs if you’re interested in the read.
i would be
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-to-combat-fake-news-and-disinformation/
https://www.un.org/en/countering-disinformation
Easy points to start with. Generally, keeping a neutral view on something new, and striving to maintain a trust but verify attitude is your absolute best bet. The more you understand global politics, especially current agendas of various nations, political groups, etc. can help to discern one bias or another. In general, giving yourself room and time to properly process any information you encounter, and especially destress yourself, makes a huge difference.
it’s the same goddamn cycle over and over
This is the key. The people you can trust are the people who are going against that cycle.
Bringing up the Bible on Lemmy is generally a no-no, but I love Ecclesiastes. It’s a book about meaninglessness. Everything is the same as it has always been and there is nothing of true value; everything is meaningless. It’s the same goddamn cycle. While when it was written is debatable, it’s comforting and horrible to know someone thousands of years ago saw things the same way I do. Comforting, because I’m not alone in how I feel. Horrible in that people still feel this way after thousands of years.
The writer’s conclusion is to fear God and keep his commandments. The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor as yourself means being kind and empathetic. Kindness and empathy solve nearly everything.
So, even though it may achieve nothing, be kind and empathetic. Cling to people who are kind and empathetic. Be an oasis amid the hate.
I’ve come across Against The Machine by Paul Kingsnorth. This is pretty much getting at the same. He’s a great writer, imo.
Trust is something that depends on repeat interactions - it’s earned and built, not freely given. Turn off the phone, the TV and the computer for a while each day and focus on the people around you. Your local community, your friends your family. The more you directly interact with somebody, the more potential is there for you to build up trust - maybe even mutual trust!
I love this game! So happy to see someone else linking it.
I love this game! So happy to see someone else linking it.
It’s a powerful didactic tool and I’m happy to reference it whenever I have the chance.
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Find a hobby that will get you out of the house and around people. Isolation is how they limit your thinking. Other people expose you to new ideas, experiences, and perspectives.
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Now that you’re “woke” you need to come to terms with the fact that people wake up at their own pace. Just because you’ve seen the light doesn’t mean you can pull the wool from other’s eyes.
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You need to curate a list of reliable sources. For me, I don’t really take any sensationalist science or astronomy news seriously until I hear established voices I’m familiar with talking about them. With politics its a little less straight forward, but the same principle applies.
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Educate yourself. Learn about the mechanisms that these cycles operate on top of. Learn methods of critical thinking. Learn the scientific method, learn the basics of money over time, learn how stocks/mortgages/bonds/real-estate functions. If you know nothing about how the world actually works than you’ll never be able to discern a liar from a valid source.
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Focus on building and contributing to your immediate community. It will help ground you in more ways than I can describe.
I might add, start good trouble. This follows from 5. above.
Hold your state and federal representatives’ feet to the fire. Protest injustice. Demand transparency and equity. Understand how your local community works. If it doesn’t work, build on that.
Definitely this. Right now americans are confused as to why their fat cat democrats have been unable to prevent a clearly incompetent gaggle of morons from burning the house down. Americans stopped holding democrats accountable and gave them too many free lunches. Now dems have no teeth and the only solution is to primary the vast majority of them asap.
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Welcome to the Internet. Hopefully, I read as a good person. I am not a bot.
I lived as a young adult through Bush II. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Halliburton, Blackwater, and loads of corruption. It was tough to trust anything then. The goal was pure profit.
Apparently, Dubya was the warm-up presidency for this shit.
First, let me share a clip from Margin Call, 2011.
As long as the prevailing mode has been capital, there has been speculation. As long as there has been speculation, there have been lying liars who exploit the system.
The last few pump and dump bubbles he mentioned (1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2008) are all market crashes I can remember. The market is a casino. Crashes since '08 include 2010 (Flash Crash), 2015 (sell-off), 2018 (cryptocrash), 2020 (Covid), 2022 (Ukraine War), and 2025 (tariffs).
These were once “once in a lifetime” events.
Second, everything in the world is designed to generate more:
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self-serving, self-centered, selfish
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short-term-focused
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extroverted, charismatic, vain
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action-oriented
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thoughtless
psychopaths and sociopaths. This ethos runs things because of profit motives, monopolies on the exercise of violence, and the development of contemporary morés rooted in exploitation, expropriation, and (deemed) externalities of colonialism. Identifying some humans as “the other” makes much more inhumanity possible.
So, I’m here to tell you, it’s real alright. What you’re feeling is real. What you’re feeling against is real. We are immersed in it. Algorithms are doing their best to lock it in.
Finally, what to do and who to trust.
Establish your own moral center. Decide what matters to you. Find those who are telling the most truth, especially when tested. Demogogues fall apart under examination. Lies fall apart when questioned. The unchallenged authority is no authority at all. Get the receipts; find primary sources as often as possible. Seek those who share at great personal cost.
For me, it started with Star Trek. Then, hip-hop. Then, journalists I could trust. Even films that challenge prevailing narratives. I read a lot of books from many perspectives.
20 years later, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Henry A. Giroux, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky have never wavered. Films like The Insider, Erin Brockovich, and The Corporation light a fire in me. I’m rewatched David Simon and Barry Levinson’s Homicide: Life on the Street and, hilariously, Murphy Brown.
Challenge the prevailing narratives. You’re not alone.
Noam Chomsky is an Epstein collaborator.
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It’s sometimes easier to focus on solutions that would rebalance this imbalance of power.
IMO, wealth redistribution is the single most important policy for limiting the influence of the rich. A UBI funded by perpetually redistributing all excess wealth over a certain point would prevent anyone from gaining enough money to break the systems we depend on.
From the political power angle, removing representatives at any level and replacing them with direct democracy or direct influence from the people removes the opportunity for our representatives to be corrupt.
UBI funded by wealth redistribution and direct democracy, these are the tools that will allow humanity to break the wheel.
So, here’s my worry. Eventually the fascists will be out of power, but the real power will continue to hold. We’ll be back where we started before my time is up.
The same clandestine/occult powers that have held us back since time immemorial. And to be clear, I’m not talking about anything so easy to target as some illuminati or anything. More like some sort of greedy zeitgeist that permiates generations, classes, culture, and region. For lack of a better term, I’ll call it the dark side of human nature.
It is self organizing, self supporting, greedy, and hungry for power.
Can’t really kill it because everyone has the potential. Can’t say that under (probably vastly) different circumstances, it couldn’t/wouldn’t happen to me.
I dunno the answer.
Honestly, in my opinion, follow the money. In any situation, try to figure out who will be making money. That’s where the truth is today.
Politicians --> money
Corporations --> money
News --> money
TV/Music/Movies --> money
Yes. This is exactly where the word “woke” comes from. Now that you are, there is no going back. You can either live with your rage, or do something to fix the problem. It’s up to you.
If you want to know who to trust, look for the ones that are trying to help others, and help them.
I can see you’re going through something really significant and distressing. While I understand you feel certain about what you’re experiencing, some of what you’re describing - the sudden overwhelming perception of hidden patterns everywhere, the intense paranoia about who to trust, and feeling like you can’t determine what’s real - are things that mental health professionals are trained to help people work through.
I’m not saying your observations about systems or power aren’t valid, but the level of distress and the way this realization hit you so suddenly after being ‘suppressed for 10 years’ suggests it would be worth talking to someone qualified to help you sort through what you’re experiencing. A therapist or counselor could help you process these feelings and thoughts in a safe space, regardless of whether this is a mental health concern or just a really overwhelming shift in perspective.
You mentioned feeling isolated and unable to talk to family or friends - that alone is reason enough to reach out to a professional who can provide that support.
i know, have started that process too recently. I’m just not used to feeling things so strongly i guess, and really don’t have anywhere else to turn to at this specific moment.
I’m glad you’re looking into seeing a therapist. It can’t be fun to feel like this. I also feel that some replies in this post are not helping your current state of mind at all.
I can tell you that I have had my own experience with an existential crisis and I found my way through it. I think most people go through some existential crisis at some point in their lives, and sometimes it can really help to have the right support and realize you aren’t alone. 🤗
I also hope you find a way to unplug from the news spiral and maybe even from the internet for awhile. Maybe go on a few walks in nature as well? I have found that it helped me a ton to just put on my shoes and a jacket and start walking when my mind became overwhelmed with the nonstop negativity online. Seeing the seasons change in front of your eyes has a profound healing effect on the mind. Everything slows down a bit and all the things that took up so much importance in your mind start to melt away. Seeing all the mushrooms currently sprouting up from the forest floor and hearing the chirp of a new bird i havent noticed before makes me so friggin excited to be alive. I want that for you as well.
We were never meant to carry the world on our shoulders, my friend. I wish you the absolute best and hope you find your way through. Hugs. ❤️
Are you perchance about 25 years old? A lot of people say they kind of awaken around that age when the frontal lobe has fully developed. Like it’s an overwhelming overnight epiphany of everything.
You can’t just say “perchance”
😆 I was kinda thinking someone would tell me that.
“the establishment regains control”? Bruh Trump is the establishment.
Anyway, figuring out what to trust can be tricky. That’s why I like to sometimes lean on rationalist practices. Learn what fallacies are, learn to how to spot them, and a lot of lies become apparent.
no, at this point Trump is a braindead puppet for whoever has his ear last.
The likes of Shumer and McConnel are the establishment.
Carter with Rockefeller’s congress, during the last (long) Dem super-majority…proceeded to tie the american pension system into the casino. acting as a regular wave of bagholding liquidity pumps.
Obama, during that short super-majority, passed Romneycare…a blank check for pharma and healthcare corporations to ratfuck public funds.
and of course while all that happens they’re all insider trading the whole time too, the greedy fucks
that is the establishment
obviously republicans are worse, but in a way they’re better…cause atleast you know they’re pieces of shit. meanwhile the dem side preaches Hope and Change to the public while reassuring their donors the status quo will be maintained
it’s fucking insidious
The establishment is people who are in power, which sure isn’t the Democrats right now. Not that they have anyone to blame but themselves.
If you really dish it back, both the Dems and repubs are the establishment.
Either way saying Trump isn’t the establishment I feel isn’t true, especially right now. He’s literally in charge of everything.
yes…obviously both are a part of cycle.
for me, establishment means they do atleast want keep this fucked up game of theirs somewhat sustainable. in that sense, trump and co. are not establishment.
trump was establishment, but now he’s a braindead parot repeating the last thing he’s heard
You don’t. Don’t trust this reply either, it’s biased and there’s a whole political agenda behind it. Goodnight.
I give trust relatively easy, but if anyone ever abuses it or breaks it, they lose it forever. Though there are things i wont trust to anyone unless I ABSOLUTELY have to and then i’ll be very wary and anxious unless its someone i would trust with life of a loved one.
But i’d say start with people who are critical with the bullshit that is going on (and seem okay people in general, not the moon is made of jewish prezels wackos obviously). Try making friends with someone who supports lqbt rights for example, or someone who is concerned about loss of privacy, or someone who understands how shitty corporations are.
Most dont seem to bother even entertaining the thought of thinking about such things, why bother when there is new iphone whatever to be bought and new episode of some crappy reality tv to be watched, and news tell you what to think anyway. So its very understandable how you feel about this, especially considering how you have just recently awoken to the realisation.
For me, i’m on the stage of trying to not care and kind of looking forward to end of the civilization while simultaneously wanting to live current somewhat okay life even though its slowly getting worse too. I want to care, but since there is nothing i can do nor have any community that cares which i could try supporting, there is not much else to be done than fall into involuntary apathy.
Volunteer work might also help you, that way you would almost definitely find decent people and could also do some good. Though there are some pitfalls even with that one, like red cross is okay and all but its so big organization i dont think it has only helping in mind anymore, not with people on top getting paid big money or them suing other helper organizations (i have just heard they have done this, no idea if it has been justified or not. It just feels wrong if those other groups have actually tried helping people).
So far it has been quite lonely road, not wanting to tolerate all the shit that is going on in the world and watching people not able to even understand the existence of patterns of the reasons for that shit, or just not caring so much its the same thing.
I hope you can get at least something out of this mess i wrote.
Touch grass… and make local friends. People you know in real life; know their families. Most people are not nearly as bad as the world makes it seem at the moment.
You said world, but I assume you meant internet. Social media is hate and fear factory. Main stream media went that way as well. Which in turn affected American politics, and is now doing the same elsewhere. Meanwhile, in the real world, everyone is just being normal. Having fun with friends, moaning about the weather, looking forward to holidays, or movies, or parties, or whatever. Its all very normal when you turn off the hate machine.
I think therefore I am. We can only known that we exist in some form, we can’t know if others are even real, but its still a good idea to trest them as if they are real, because otherwise you’ll run into problems with the reality you know, whether its real or false.
In general, my guide to the truth (lowest is most trustworthy, higher is less trustworthy):
- Internal Logics formed by your consciousness
- Your senses, what you see and witness, what you hear, your first-hand account
2a. If you wrote a journal, and if you can authenticate your handwriting or writing style, then you could use that to clarify any fuzzy memories
2b. Same with photos/videos, but be skeptical of potential modifications. We know image alteration tech already exists. - IRL First-hand account from people you know
3a. People you trust
3b. Stangers
3c. People you are skeptical of (if they have a history of lying or exaggerating, you can rank them even lower on their trustworthiness) - Stories from someone that know someone that you know (e.g: “friend of your friend”)
- Mainstream News Media, Mainstream Internet Sources, Official Reports.
- The Internet in general.
