How Is Everyone Feeling?

My feelings go up and down, as they have for all human beings throughout history.

However, they trend down especially when I spend a lot of time on social media or news sites, including HN.

To put it another way:

Emotional state without "the internet" = varying around a general background of contentment.

Emotional state with "the internet" = varying around a general background of discontentment.

This is unrelated to current political events, which I view as an overcorrection to the state of unhealthy and extreme political correctness that we were falling into a few years ago (wokeness).

Now the pendulum is swinging the other way, towards an unhealthy and extreme focus on race and social differences, glorifying in political incorrectness (anti-woke).

It'll swing back again in a few years. Just how far it will go before then is impossible to say, but it's not something I can control and therefore shouldn't affect whether I enjoy life, since I'm lucky enough to not be directly affected, for the most part.

But if I go on the internet for hours every day and focus on it, it surely will make me feel terrible!

Not great. I've been trying to get into a real "career" track software job for the best part of a decade. I study, work on side projects, got to events regularly. And now the job market is even worse. I'm starting to feel like I've missed the boat. I wonder what would've happened if I had managed to get a job with chances to progress, learn and improve 10 years ago. I dream of earning 6 figures, people make it sound like it is so easy. I'll pick up any tech stack, go into any industry, move around the world, whatever it takes.

Down. The end of the world is on the horizon and everyone is partying and having a great time. Isn't anyone concerned that we are going extinct soon?

Been reading reviews of IABIED (If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies). So, a bit pensive.

It's difficult even being someone not from United States. Even more concerning is how most of the social media has been hijacked to echo views that should have been unthinkable a few years ago. For some, it's great news of course. It's free speech—they think. But, I am not sure future generation needs to across opinions like feminism is bad, or women belong in the kitchen.

I do believe that this is a temporary phase, and things would return to a bit of normalcy in a few years. It's my hypothesis that political pendulum swings between two extremes. 2016-21 was a period of extreme leftist opinions and it was problematic too in many ways. The other extreme is a hundred times worse and most people have lost taste for that, too. Secondly, the support for these movements mostly stems from an aging demographic, a lot of which are just passing their last few years.

But I would say social media needs to be clamped down/regulated, free speech be damned. It has caused enough evil already. Can't let a few billionaires decide the direction of world politics.

I feel like I just failed my second startup, and it's going to be harder than usual to start again.

Personally I'm fine.

Communally I'm worried.

I'm worried the AI valuations bubble will collapse, pull the mag7 with it, that'll pull the us stock market with it considering they represent the vast majority of the value gain over the last years. That in turn will pull the dollar with it, even more than today. It'll make 2007 look like a picnic.

I'm worried about demographics vs retirement. I doubt retirement will be a thing for the children my generation has, I'm middle age now. I might get to retire because I've been lucky. Also related worries about the welfare state model overall.

I'm worried that Russia won't collapse quickly enough due to Chinese backing and pull us, northern europe, with it. They won't stop until someone makes them stop.

I'm worried about all the men struggling to find their place in society, the lack of constructive role models for young men and the right wing nazis happily channeling it.

I'm worried about climate change, it's basically gone of the agenda but that doesn't mean the problem has gone away. The chance of the gulf stream collapsing seems to increase for every new model they release.

This post sounds like an intentional, targeted probe to harvest sentiment and feed it as input somewhere.

Are you all right?

No, you are all left

Oddly, I’m doing okay in an Alan Watts sort of way. Global, local, everything feels like a dance. I should be panicked, but somehow I’m not.

P.S. My company (Yolo Group) just started layoffs. Is it weird that I’m calm?

I'm really confused with myself. I should feel horrible. Things are going downhill for me for years, but I don't seem to hit rock bottom. I wonder how much worse it has to get for me to ... idk what - break down, learn from it, realize or something. I've been diagnosed with depression a couple years back (had a couple therapy sessions too), but I don't feel as dark as back then. I'm somewhat numb and apathetic. Lots of self-pity, I guess, but I don't seem to learn anything from it and that is really weird.

We're entering a very dark, violent, and oppressive period. I'm focusing on trying to make sure that my children will be as OK as possible.

>There's so much going on politically that's set to change the world one way or another and I've been wondering what all the nerds of the world are doing in light of all the uncertainty.

I've been following politics for decades. Ive seen ups and downs but this time it's different. It's looking like the end of a political movement. Europe ended it. Shocking, I know. There's not a great deal of uncertainty about it. Maybe timelines? The people in that political movement sure arent taking it well and are becoming politically violent. They'll lash out at this defeat. It's not the first time people have had to escape this political movement.

I'm not apart of this political movement, I see politics as finally healing. Once it's over, the political violence will end. A ton of repairs needed once it's over.

Then the hard part, the people whose world view is the dead movement will escape. Which won't be to europe or north america. But many will stay and while their political violence will end, they will almost certainly need to become a new religion. Probably not TESCREAL?