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by nonrandomstring 1410 days ago
Don't worry it's a sane reaction to an insane world. It's cultural. Prozac won't fix it. Universal basic income won't fix it. Renouncing post-colonial guilt and solving climate-change probably wouldn't fix it immediately. Hell, if extra-terrestrial life turned up tomorrow in a giant flying saucer and said:

"Hey Earthmen, there's a huge party happening at the centre of the galaxy, hop on in!"

We'd say:

"Sorry I'm busy with work".

We've collectively lost sight of what there is to love, the difference between Eros Thanatos. We have been, and for some time will continue to be, in a war by other means, presently expressed as in-fighting, inter-personal hostility and anti-intellectualism. And in war one must choose to live and love despite, not for the world as it is. Read the Greeks and you'll see this kind of thing happened for hundreds of years in a stretch and they were wise enough to know there's nothing you can do but keep yer chin up and keep pushing on.

I think William James had the best handle on the Thanatos struggle with the "Moral Equivalent of War", but most people dismiss this as some sort of case for "National Service". It is a much deeper text.

"There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." - Albert Camus

"To be, or not to be. That is the question" - William Shakespeare (Hamlet)