Odds are, whoever you are reading this, you also have that feeling to some degree. We see it glaringly and absurdly when people cite Christian rapture fantasies or rich assholes spewing transhumanist bullshit, but there is a vast portion of moderate/progressive youth who have that stereotypical attitude of “I don’t plan on living past forty” when asked about their future plans and worries.
Ya’ll are contributing this. If you saw yourselves in that world of tomorrow realistically, you would be fighting harder for a better future instead of doomscrolling and bitterly replying to faceless notes on the internet calling that out. You know it’s right because it makes you pissed to read. Direct that anger where it belongs.
“What can one person do anyway?” Well that’s your problem, you don’t feel connected to others, no sense of community, large or small. Go out, socialize, make friends, get better at something you suck at, plan for tomorrow. Ask others their plans for tomorrow too, because you’re all going to be there without “us” and you won’t have anyone else to turn to.
At some point, you or your peers are going to be the ones holding the keys and making the decisions.
Can you please provide data that Gen Z doesn’t plan on living past forty? I can understand people saying they have nothing planned, but I’d need to see some information supporting that they all expect to be dead in a handful of years. That sounds like an exremely hyperbolic stretch.
You’re not wrong but as one of those post-nihilistic absurdist youths (relatively speaking) it can be difficult to envision life past your 30s when it’s not unlikely that by that time the world will be in am unfathomably different and more dystopic state. As someone who does genuinely believe in a brighter future and acknowledges I need to do more to see it happen, I see myself enjoying that tomorrow in my 60s or 70s not anytime soon. I believe that we can get there but things are going to continue to get a lot lot worse for a good while before they have a chance to get better. Ignoring the geopolitical and socioeconomic states of the world and focusing on the issue the meme presents, even if we cut off all greenhouse gas emissions now we have a couple more decades of warming as emissions from the past 40 years haven’t fully taken effect. We have already surpassed multiple key tipping points for systemic collapse of global systems and it is likely that the damage caused in the Anthropocene is irreversible. Even being optimistic, we are well past prevention and are blowing by mitigation. I am hopeful for a brighter future, but that brighter future will be based on how we recover from these slow, impending calamities and how much of the planet we’ll be able to save from ourselves.
But the only way to do that is organization and communiry building so we can stop living in dire excess and out of sync with our ecosystem. Finding a sustainable equilibrium with our planet and natural resources is key, which will require an overhaul of existinf systems of governance
In your lifetime you’re going to see the biggest changes to social systems that we’ve ever seen in our world, however, it bears remembering that we’ve been doing this for over 40,000 years (that we know of) and we continue to survive, we continue to find things worth living and fighting for. It’s part of the deal.
And you are right, that community is our way forward. It’s what’s helped us survive through climate changes before, it helped us survive plagues and wars and days of darkness and violence unlike anything we can imagine today. Our world is built on a mountain of skulls, but the long arc of history has only moved up and out of the tribulations and even if we see a lot of really bad shit in the next century, it’s still going to be an improvement from barbarism and suffering that our ancestors endured, and the chances of you being born now, in this time of miracles and wonders, is like winning the goddamn lottery. Do the absolute best you can with it, remember us, tell our stories to our granddroids.
Too many people don’t believe in tomorrow.
Odds are, whoever you are reading this, you also have that feeling to some degree. We see it glaringly and absurdly when people cite Christian rapture fantasies or rich assholes spewing transhumanist bullshit, but there is a vast portion of moderate/progressive youth who have that stereotypical attitude of “I don’t plan on living past forty” when asked about their future plans and worries.
Ya’ll are contributing this. If you saw yourselves in that world of tomorrow realistically, you would be fighting harder for a better future instead of doomscrolling and bitterly replying to faceless notes on the internet calling that out. You know it’s right because it makes you pissed to read. Direct that anger where it belongs.
“What can one person do anyway?” Well that’s your problem, you don’t feel connected to others, no sense of community, large or small. Go out, socialize, make friends, get better at something you suck at, plan for tomorrow. Ask others their plans for tomorrow too, because you’re all going to be there without “us” and you won’t have anyone else to turn to.
At some point, you or your peers are going to be the ones holding the keys and making the decisions.
Can you please provide data that Gen Z doesn’t plan on living past forty? I can understand people saying they have nothing planned, but I’d need to see some information supporting that they all expect to be dead in a handful of years. That sounds like an exremely hyperbolic stretch.
You’re not wrong but as one of those post-nihilistic absurdist youths (relatively speaking) it can be difficult to envision life past your 30s when it’s not unlikely that by that time the world will be in am unfathomably different and more dystopic state. As someone who does genuinely believe in a brighter future and acknowledges I need to do more to see it happen, I see myself enjoying that tomorrow in my 60s or 70s not anytime soon. I believe that we can get there but things are going to continue to get a lot lot worse for a good while before they have a chance to get better. Ignoring the geopolitical and socioeconomic states of the world and focusing on the issue the meme presents, even if we cut off all greenhouse gas emissions now we have a couple more decades of warming as emissions from the past 40 years haven’t fully taken effect. We have already surpassed multiple key tipping points for systemic collapse of global systems and it is likely that the damage caused in the Anthropocene is irreversible. Even being optimistic, we are well past prevention and are blowing by mitigation. I am hopeful for a brighter future, but that brighter future will be based on how we recover from these slow, impending calamities and how much of the planet we’ll be able to save from ourselves.
But the only way to do that is organization and communiry building so we can stop living in dire excess and out of sync with our ecosystem. Finding a sustainable equilibrium with our planet and natural resources is key, which will require an overhaul of existinf systems of governance
In your lifetime you’re going to see the biggest changes to social systems that we’ve ever seen in our world, however, it bears remembering that we’ve been doing this for over 40,000 years (that we know of) and we continue to survive, we continue to find things worth living and fighting for. It’s part of the deal.
And you are right, that community is our way forward. It’s what’s helped us survive through climate changes before, it helped us survive plagues and wars and days of darkness and violence unlike anything we can imagine today. Our world is built on a mountain of skulls, but the long arc of history has only moved up and out of the tribulations and even if we see a lot of really bad shit in the next century, it’s still going to be an improvement from barbarism and suffering that our ancestors endured, and the chances of you being born now, in this time of miracles and wonders, is like winning the goddamn lottery. Do the absolute best you can with it, remember us, tell our stories to our granddroids.