The feeling of "living in the future" and the end of the spiral

[manpaint]

They say that knowledge is power. But what can you do when the knowledge show you only despair?

It's been nearly one year since I have started to search for a job. I complained to a friend about how little job opportunity there was in the local area.

He told me "Don't despair, I am sure I am going to find something for you". A few days later he realizes that I was actually right and that the situation was actually pretty bad as I told him.

Lately, I have been contemplating what I call the feeling of "living in the future". As someone who use the internet a lot, I often find myself in an "advanced position" where it seems that the rest of the world lag behind me. The text above is an example of this.

A similar thing happens with technology in general. Where I live there is this new fad about "new technology" that is just a device that display the meteo outside on a screen indoors.

From my perspective, this is simply caused by my ability to use the internet to it's fullest extent which gives me a lot of information. When searching for a job, it is easy for me to simply open up Google Maps and make a list of every local business. I can also browse job listing sites.

Since the internet is a giant respository of information, one could argue that given the right knowledge (i.e knowing about a website that could help me) could lead to great power and thus the ability to change my fate (find employement).

I believe that the internet - if used properly - can show a full picture of the current reality. It is after all a giant database that compile all of humanity knowledge. It is the closest thing to being omniscient.

But what do you do when the picture shown only creates despair?

While one could easily argue that things on the internet can be twisted and irreflective of reality - I believe that it's not the case for everything. For example I could hardly how a list of local business could be twisted. In the worst case scenario, it's probably slightly outdated.

As everyone here probably know, the generations that grew up with computers and tablets are more likely to be depressed. Unless they have other personal issues, they are likely to be totally impervious to this problem.

From what I have seen, for those people, going online is an event. They get excited when they get a bit of free time and can scroll their Facebook feed. This unlike us where we are in front of a screen for most of the time and going outside is an event.

They say that ignorance is bliss - if this is true, then surely knowledge is despair?

I would like to propose that those who are depressed and/or seriously concerned about the world around them are so because they have acess to the full picture. Everyone else is simply living in blissful ignorance.

So the question is what do ones do when he has acess to all the knowledge in the world and yet only find despair?

I have seen many solutions online regarding this problem, here's a few.

Option 1: Enjoy the ride. Some believes that the end is inevitable and so the best course of action is to do nothing and enjoy everything while you can.
Option 2: Trust in God. Some believes that all of this part of God's plan that to actively try to change your fate is heresy unless it is for something that you love.
Option 3: Escapism. Some believes that the one should try to find a way to escape our current reality through things like video games.
Option 4: Nihilism. Some believes that the only way out is through pure nihility.
Option 5: Pretend everything is OK. Some believes that the only way out of this is smile and pretend nothing is happening.
Option 6: Harbinger of the end. Some believes that things would be better if we were to accelerate things and bring the inevitable closer.
Option 7: March on. Some believes it is best to continue to follow your curent modus operandi and hope that an unforseen solution apperas in the future.
Option 8: Unacounted option. An option not listed here.

This is all assuming that the premise is not flawed and that the internet truly show up the greater picture. While it is obvious that some elents of the picture might not manifest immediately in your "local reality" but anyone paying attention could be mistaken as a prophet for those that lives in bliss.

I am currently at the darkest time in my life. While I wouldn't call myself depressed yet, I am certainly greatly concerned for my future as there I see no way out of my current situation despite actively trying to change it for months. I am at the bottom of a spiral and I see no way to climb out of it. I suspect that many are in the same boat as me.

So tell me, what do one should do when you can find the answer to your problem by talking to people or consulting a database that contains all of mankind's knowledge?

 

[handoferis]

It's not the best advice, but I manage to stay sane through everything from having hit rock bottom before. Lost job, lost home, would've been living under a bridge if this old guy didn't take me in while I got back on my feet.

Once you've actually been at the bottom, it's pretty hard to be sad about the state of your life cause it's almost always better than that.

 

[jaedaen]

I'm sorry you're having trouble finding work, that is rough. I hope that this gets better for you. It's inevitable to view the world from a dark lens when you have something significantly heavy impacting your life in a negative way like you have now. As for me, I try to look at things from a more objective viewpoint when I get in this headspace. It might be helpful to realize that what we see on the internet is curated by the Great Algorithm. The Great Algorithm does not care about your mental wellbeing, its only God is 'more engagement'. What's the most effective way to increase engagement? Make people worried, angry, scared, divided. Are you going to spend longer doom-scrolling, or watching videos of puppies playing?

I see that the Great Algorithm does this to so many people on the internet. I see it in here too. There are so many people that worry about 'Them'; whoever 'They' are isn't particularly relevant. The division creates engagement. Influencers portraying a life that is fake increases engagement, spurring jealousy or a weird parasocial vicarious kind of living through someone you don't know at all.

It's very helpful to go outside more. It's helpful to talk to a lot of different kind of people, particularly those who have vastly different viewpoints than you do. It's good to not completely shut things out of your reality because they have the shadow of a threat to your identity in them. Most importantly, I think, it's helpful to develop and nurture very deep and fulfilling relationships outside of the internet, the kind where you can open up with some difficult shit and feel acceptance and understanding.

It's quite ironic, isn't it? We live in the middle of a vast sea of information, more than the world has ever known, and yet we're all pulled by the Great Algorithm in to a very narrow current, far more narrow than I can remember it being before all of this. Fight this shit. It has to be a conscious effort, and it does take a lot of mental/emotional energy, but you will feel better for making the effort.

 

[manpaint]

I'm sorry you're having trouble finding work, that is rough. I hope that this gets better for you. It's inevitable to view the world from a dark lens when you have something significantly heavy impacting your life in a negative way like you have now. As for me, I try to look at things from a more objective viewpoint when I get in this headspace. It might be helpful to realize that what we see on the internet is curated by the Great Algorithm. The Great Algorithm does not care about your mental wellbeing, its only God is 'more engagement'. What's the most effective way to increase engagement? Make people worried, angry, scared, divided. Are you going to spend longer doom-scrolling, or watching videos of puppies playing?

I see that the Great Algorithm does this to so many people on the internet. I see it in here too. There are so many people that worry about 'Them'; whoever 'They' are isn't particularly relevant. The division creates engagement. Influencers portraying a life that is fake increases engagement, spurring jealousy or a weird parasocial vicarious kind of living through someone you don't know at all.

It's very helpful to go outside more. It's helpful to talk to a lot of different kind of people, particularly those who have vastly different viewpoints than you do. It's good to not completely shut things out of your reality because they have the shadow of a threat to your identity in them. Most importantly, I think, it's helpful to develop and nurture very deep and fulfilling relationships outside of the internet, the kind where you can open up with some difficult shit and feel acceptance and understanding.

It's quite ironic, isn't it? We live in the middle of a vast sea of information, more than the world has ever known, and yet we're all pulled by the Great Algorithm in to a very narrow current, far more narrow than I can remember it being before all of this. Fight this shit. It has to be a conscious effort, and it does take a lot of mental/emotional energy, but you will feel better for making the effort.

The thing is, it's been alreadty 1 month since I nuked all social media to evade the Great Algorithm (with the exception of Discord, but I am only in niche RuneScape datamining servers).

I doubt that things like Google Maps have an algorithm or are trying to to get me to "engage" - it's literally just a map.

I try to stay positive by making a list of problem I currently have in a mindmap and try to solve my problem in a cold, objective and calculated way but it lead just to more despair.

I guess one could argue that even if I escaped social media, the damage done is irreversible and has forever tainted my life...

 

[RisingThumb]

They say that knowledge is power. But what can you do when the knowledge show you only despair?

It's been nearly one year since I have started to search for a job. I complained to a friend about how little job opportunity there was in the local area.

He told me "Don't despair, I am sure I am going to find something for you". A few days later he realizes that I was actually right and that the situation was actually pretty bad as I told him.

Lately, I have been contemplating what I call the feeling of "living in the future". As someone who use the internet a lot, I often find myself in an "advanced position" where it seems that the rest of the world lag behind me. The text above is an example of this.

A similar thing happens with technology in general. Where I live there is this new fad about "new technology" that is just a device that display the meteo outside on a screen indoors.

From my perspective, this is simply caused by my ability to use the internet to it's fullest extent which gives me a lot of information. When searching for a job, it is easy for me to simply open up Google Maps and make a list of every local business. I can also browse job listing sites.

Since the internet is a giant respository of information, one could argue that given the right knowledge (i.e knowing about a website that could help me) could lead to great power and thus the ability to change my fate (find employement).

I believe that the internet - if used properly - can show a full picture of the current reality. It is after all a giant database that compile all of humanity knowledge. It is the closest thing to being omniscient.

But what do you do when the picture shown only creates despair?

While one could easily argue that things on the internet can be twisted and irreflective of reality - I believe that it's not the case for everything. For example I could hardly how a list of local business could be twisted. In the worst case scenario, it's probably slightly outdated.

As everyone here probably know, the generations that grew up with computers and tablets are more likely to be depressed. Unless they have other personal issues, they are likely to be totally impervious to this problem.

From what I have seen, for those people, going online is an event. They get excited when they get a bit of free time and can scroll their Facebook feed. This unlike us where we are in front of a screen for most of the time and going outside is an event.

They say that ignorance is bliss - if this is true, then surely knowledge is despair?

I would like to propose that those who are depressed and/or seriously concerned about the world around them are so because they have acess to the full picture. Everyone else is simply living in blissful ignorance.

So the question is what do ones do when he has acess to all the knowledge in the world and yet only find despair?

I have seen many solutions online regarding this problem, here's a few.

Option 1: Enjoy the ride. Some believes that the end is inevitable and so the best course of action is to do nothing and enjoy everything while you can.
Option 2: Trust in God. Some believes that all of this part of God's plan that to actively try to change your fate is heresy unless it is for something that you love.
Option 3: Escapism. Some believes that the one should try to find a way to escape our current reality through things like video games.
Option 4: Nihilism. Some believes that the only way out is through pure nihility.
Option 5: Pretend everything is OK. Some believes that the only way out of this is smile and pretend nothing is happening.
Option 6: Harbinger of the end. Some believes that things would be better if we were to accelerate things and bring the inevitable closer.
Option 7: March on. Some believes it is best to continue to follow your curent modus operandi and hope that an unforseen solution apperas in the future.
Option 8: Unacounted option. An option not listed here.

This is all assuming that the premise is not flawed and that the internet truly show up the greater picture. While it is obvious that some elents of the picture might not manifest immediately in your "local reality" but anyone paying attention could be mistaken as a prophet for those that lives in bliss.

I am currently at the darkest time in my life. While I wouldn't call myself depressed yet, I am certainly greatly concerned for my future as there I see no way out of my current situation despite actively trying to change it for months. I am at the bottom of a spiral and I see no way to climb out of it. I suspect that many are in the same boat as me.

So tell me, what do one should do when you can find the answer to your problem by talking to people or consulting a database that contains all of mankind's knowledge?

Sounds like you need philosophy.

I prescribe you with an experimental treatment of Stoicism(controlling yourself and accepting you can't control the world, rejecting your sense of injury), a healthy injection of Nietzsche(particularly regarding slave morality and master morality, and his idea of the ubermensch), and a bit of Diogenes(to understand the absurdity of our world) and a bit of Stirner(to understand that all things should be nothing to you).

Take this every day for a month, and you'll be in a better state of mind.

Note that what I have given you as far as philosophy is *prescriptive philosophy* about improving yourself and helping yourself live in our dogshit world, and not *descriptive philosophy* which is about looking at how shit our world is and whining about it(All forms of accelerationism, most forms of climate/eco philosophy, most leftist/rightist politics you see on twitter etc etc).

The list of philosophy above is not entirely incompatible with religions(though I hope you have the sense to realise a lot of religion is institutionalised and for-profit, ESPECIALLY CATHOLICISM). If you delve further into Nietzsche's work(particularly the Antichrist) you'll find he doesn't particularly like religions in general.

So tell me, what do one should do when you can find the answer to your problem by talking to people or consulting a database that contains all of mankind's knowledge?

This is unbelievably categorically FALSE. It doesn't contain all of mankind's knowledge, it only contains a bit. I'll let this CGP grey video show how the internet doesn't have all knowledge. Additionally, I've also helped in archiving bits and pieces of the internet that are very relevant to me, and some are now completely dead. In particular music and art pieces people upload.

 

[ignika98]

I think I understand what you mean by "living in the future". I feel the same way, although I wouldn't call it that. Usually I just say I'm always right lmao.

But that's not a curse, it's a gift. If you can learn to harness that intuition, you'll open up a lot of opportunities for yourself. And save yourself a lot of headaches.

 

[manpaint]

Sounds like you need philosophy.

I prescribe you with an experimental treatment of Stoicism(controlling yourself and accepting you can't control the world, rejecting your sense of injury), a healthy injection of Nietzsche(particularly regarding slave morality and master morality, and his idea of the ubermensch), and a bit of Diogenes(to understand the absurdity of our world) and a bit of Stirner(to understand that all things should be nothing to you).

Take this every day for a month, and you'll be in a better state of mind.

Note that what I have given you as far as philosophy is *prescriptive philosophy* about improving yourself and helping yourself live in our dogshit world, and not *descriptive philosophy* which is about looking at how shit our world is and whining about it(All forms of accelerationism, most forms of climate/eco philosophy, most leftist/rightist politics you see on twitter etc etc).

The list of philosophy above is not entirely incompatible with religions(though I hope you have the sense to realise a lot of religion is institutionalised and for-profit, ESPECIALLY CATHOLICISM). If you delve further into Nietzsche's work(particularly the Antichrist) you'll find he doesn't particularly like religions in general.

I will look into those philosophy reccomendations. Hopefully they will help my state of mind.

This is unbelievably categorically FALSE. It doesn't contain all of mankind's knowledge, it only contains a bit. I'll let this CGP grey video show how the internet doesn't have all knowledge. Additionally, I've also helped in archiving bits and pieces of the internet that are very relevant to me, and some are now completely dead. In particular music and art pieces people upload.

You are right. I should have written "most" and I am not sure why I wrote "all" - I was probably tired when I made this post as I am fully aware that the internet do not have a record of everything.

Still, I feel a sense of dread as I have exhausted every local business places. The internet may not contains all knowledge, but most (legal) business places are likely to be listed on there due to how interconnected the world is. From a business POV, not being listen on the internet would be a very unwise move.

Granted, there are probably other jobs that I could get - such as "under the table" ones, but the problem is that those type of job are unlikely to exists with the type white collar job I am seeking.

I think I understand what you mean by "living in the future". I feel the same way, although I wouldn't call it that. Usually I just say I'm always right lmao.

But that's not a curse, it's a gift. If you can learn to harness that intuition, you'll open up a lot of opportunities for yourself. And save yourself a lot of headaches.

I do try to make the best of it, but I would be lying if I were to say that I don't envy those who are ignorant. Knowledge of the likely events bring general FOMO, which can be somewhat though on my mental state.

 

[raccoon//aphrodisiac]

the conveniences and tools provided by the internet can certainly make you feel like "you're living in the future", especially when you have to go through bureaucratic shit and realise how outdated and deeply inconvenient a lot of it is
but, if anything, i'd say the internet highlights more how deeply stagnant the world is right now. partially this is because, like you said, having access to so much knowledge can make you feel worse than if you live in internet/news-deprived ignorance, but i think knowing how shit so much of society and the world is is really important, and much better than living in ignorance even if it makes you feel bad at times
but yeah it's not like i have a solution or a certified best way to cope with it either

 

[Some_porcupine]

like, if internet would solve things, it will be banned /half-joking
thats why you cant find solutions there. it is simple not profitable. sick
is it greed? selfishness? egoism? "moral" superiority...?

isnt it the longing for "internet will solve everything" sentiment of past? you see, *this* happened
- commercialization, sell-out of net. instead of decentralization, sites like r/tard, d/cult and g/iggle took hold.
instead of Win MS helping to unify world (which, upon seeing now, rather harms us), it is just cash-cow for people who want to not care, just "be there, on pulse"... you surely got me. - instead of individualism that net promote/d, what happened is: instead of treaing everyone with respect, now, we are more disconnected than ever. surely i am sentimental, but think about it - instead of being together, we are alone - egoistic. yet, this stupid hivemind where nearly each soc. system leads to its end...
i cant tell why. can you? it makes me sad. but doesnt that happen anyway, always? why-how-

 

[bnuungus]

I doubt that things like Google Maps have an algorithm or are trying to to get me to "engage" - it's literally just a map.

i know you're off the site for a while but I just wanted to point out that google maps does indeed have an algorithm, although very slight. it will only show you businesses that it thinks you're looking for based on your search criteria for whats in the area. even if you're just fucking around on the site with no real aim or input it will show more popular businesses first and only show you all of them when you zoom in so far that using it as a map is not feasible.

 

[Some_porcupine]

in 2000-2007, there was ough this feeling of internet to solve all our problems. or was just promoted to do so. promissed neverland, now.
after 2008-2013-so, those who were not around at first, were in hopes of this too.
as 2012/2013s approached, there was this feeling indeed. but it was "last breath". instead of "commie"- sex-drugs-rocknroll-wild.web.west, there was this "business as usual", mundane bs world - everything to be monetized, policed, politicized. next, XaaS. some things can be, but some - it just feels weird. wy to pay if you dont own, cant do as you wish, - with it?...

 

[Some_porcupine]

Lately, I have been contemplating what I call the feeling of "living in the future". As someone who use the internet a lot, I often find myself in an "advanced position" where it seems that the rest of the world lag behind me. The text above is an example of this.

heights and lows, even lolcows too - as soon as one option is open, another problem arises. - Murphys law.

also, aware you are not here and hopes you are alright, enjoying your offline experience! take care in the maintime!

***
this meme

edit - picrel:

"what we lost"

 

[Some_porcupine]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/generationology/comments/16ywtie/its_almost_2024_and_which_one_feels_weirdest_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

 

[Some_porcupine]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/generationology/comments/16ywtie/its_almost_2024_and_which_one_feels_weirdest_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3