| > This "we are doomed" attitude is unhelpful towards positive change. What's unhelpful is the unceasing denial. It's not good for mental health and it creates increasingly hostile and aggressive people. Not being able to talk about the very likely fact that we are going to witness the collapse of everything we know and love in the coming decades is unhealthy. > It forces us towards selfishness and away from empathy and mutual-support. I've found the opposite to be true for me. Everyone I know who is "collapse aware" so to speak is much more empathetic towards others. It's the denial in my experience that makes people so hostile. They're scared and angry but aren't allowed to develop towards a state of acceptance. Constant cognitive dissonance leads slowly to derangement. > If you're worried about climate change ... If you don't really believe you can fix things, if you don't really believe that everything can be solved (which I an many other don't) doing these things is the textbook example of nihilism. The acknowledgement that "we are doomed" does not have to lead to a permanent state of depression, that's only the initial phase (once you get past the anger and denial). There is acceptance, there can be healing and there can be asking questions about "how do I want to life in a world in collapse?". The more people that are able to openly admit this and talk about it the less nihilism (and it's dangerous consequences) we'll see. |
I would be curious if this level of pessimism is a novel thing or has been around for a long time.
I don't see why you would believe something like this, it doesn't seem well supported by any evidence. Even the climate catastrophe is not something that will lead to a collapse in our lifetime, all of the evidence is that the impact will be greatest on our children's children.