Asklemmy

i was deeply depressed before i gained political awareness

I have a personal petty war against the corposlop extortions in my life, I know it won't stop them or bring about a revolution or smth, but at least I can be an example to others that they need us more than we need them and it makes me at least feel that I have some control, some things that I can take back from being corrupted.

So far I have:

• Stopped buying all fast fashion and buy far fewer clothes in general mostly off Etsy back in the day or indie online retailers
• Cancelled my subscription to Netflix for me and my gf, replaced with Jellyfin
• Cancelled Amazon Prime and stopped shopping at Amazon altogether alongside getting my friends off Wish, Temu etc.
• Stopped using all food delivery and ride-sharing apps
• Stopped eating fast food and at big chains
• Moved most my grocery shopping to Co-Op
• Eliminated all corporate and/or algorithm driven social media from my life (Insta, FB, Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn, YT (only via self-hosted proxies/ublock/sponsorblock/dearrow).
• Stopped using corpo LLMs, using only my homebrew refine of Mistral 7B sometimes
• Stopped using Chrome, cancelled Google one and my sub to GDrive
• Almost stopped using Windows
• Replaced almost all daily use software with FOSS alternatives
• Almost entirely stopped buying any tech that isn't used and/or refurbished and/or old/junkyard material

Next steps are:

• Replace ISP router with junkyard rescue gear with FOSS software, mite b getting some from work soon
• Cancel Spotify as my last remaining subscription service (I have personal playlists I need to backup)
• Get rid of Google accs and host my own email
• Ascend past smartphones (already use only old flagships for less than a hundred bucks)

I feel like it's still all just in the consumption framework and highly individualistic, but it helps me cope, it's an outlet for anger that has bettered me as a person in every way imaginable.

That's my secret, I'm always deeply depressed and cynical.

Just go to a poor country like Peru. You will start to appreciate what you have.

Do something about it. I run an LGBT center and help homeless trans people get housing. You will be surprised how you can get stuff like this going just by talking to people (a lot, like every day, zealously). You don't need to be rich.

I'm surrounded by people that give a shit every day. We've made a bubble that can't pop.

I literally don't understand people having kids in this "climate". That's how cynical and hopeless I feel about humanity's future.

I wouldn't want to inflict that... The heat, the natural disasters, the risk of nuclear wars. The genocides considering multiple were or are active at any point (Palestine, Syria...). The fall of journalism...

Many things I discuss with my friends but nobody could ever dream to fix. So all this shit stays with you. And seeing how our politics are reacting to climate change, this is lost. Because everything else is pointless if you don't have a place to live.

Heavily filter what you consume. Following all news is not the morally correct thing to do, and you can cut back on it.

I'm fighting against this by staying off all social media other than Lemmy. All my news comes from a small number of curated sources, and only in RSS feeds (so I get them in time order rather than bullshit news site headlines prioritisation). I use a lot of keyword filters on Lemmy and in my RSS news (Covid, Trump, Biden, most American news, anything that is meaningless to me is blocked before it can show up on my screen).

TLDR news is a particularly good YouTube channel. They have really well presented news and pick out a few important events to report on. I find that's more than enough for me for news consumption.

Simple: I'm just naturally deeply depressed and cynical, so there isn't a big difference

We are each just one person. We can't save the world, and it would be unreasonable to carry that burden.

But we each can save a small piece of it. A kind word here, a forgiving of slights there, and work in some patience & understanding for others.

Little things can make waves. And if Six Degrees of Separation remains true, your little deeds affect more people than you realize.

Not for everyone but political activism is a good outlet, be it protests or volunteering to help the election campaign of the opposition when it comes round again. Make sure everyone you know lays the blame in the correct place when shit inevitably hits the fan.

Other than that, get off corporate social media, rage bait is the most effective content for driving interaction, corporate social media algorithms are designed to maximise interaction. You will always be shown the worst of everything on social media.

Similarly identify where your news is coming from and if it's coming from somewhere with a tendency to sensationalise. Cut anything like that out too.

It's important to be informed yes, but it's not essential to be aware of absolutely everything for most people, and if that's better for your mental health, you should prioritise reduction in consumption.

Communism.

I get my news from here. If it is really important it will bleed into the periphery to places like this. My physical disability with social isolation makes this a best self health situation. The news is not real news any more, it does nothing to inform. It was changed to "news as entertainment" long ago.

Easy, I was depressed and cynical before the election

One thing I do — and it sounds like you may have tried a version of this — is take media breaks (social media included). Go camping, read fiction, play video games or whatever floats your boat. You’ll almost always find that nothing major has changed and you were just dwelling on things beyond your control.

I’m not saying stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing is wrong. I’m more saying you can keep just as informed without wallowing in the news slop.

I stopped using social media so much, the internet is moved by clicks and panic content gets them, but I find it overwhelming.