wulbert
pfm Member
"Boris the Billionaire's Bitch" on Double Down News, YouTube
From my POV and apologies in advance for a bit of a scattergun contribution.
It's not the UK. It's the World. Or at least, it's what it seems like to me.
Well, when I state that, maybe the world isn't going to s**t. Maybe the reasons it seems that it is, is because:
I genuinely don't know. All I know is, like the OP, I've never felt so (and I struggle for the right word) 'unsettled' in my life. Life was supposed to get easier and happier as you grew up, but this doesn't seem to be the way it's going. Unlike may of you on here who are angry and have fight, good for you. Me? I'm too old, too tired and too knackered.
- I was born post-war to 'boomer' parents and have only known a very unusual period of global history; during the best time that the planet will ever have and its rebalancing. No wars, and improved healthcare / longer, better, healthier, more comfortable lives with enjoyed by each successive generation becoming the norm.
- We are bombarded by more information than ever before. Not just more of it but unfiltered, or in some cases just plain wrong, designed to cause upset and unsettle. Previously, a lot of how awful the world is would never have made it to my newspaper or the nine o'clock news. Oh, and the press likes to always peddle f**king misery.
- Many of us have lost our support networks. I am exposed to the mass of this stuff and limited means to discuss / rationalize / deal with it.
- We are genetically predisposed to pessimism. Our ancestors who expected the worst, lived longer.
- Maybe it's my age. I'm in my 50s and my world is disappearing / shrinking, childhood constants are going (including people, people keep dying), I can feel age creeping up on me (I hurt and ache a lot and I now finally see my dad in the mirror) and is already putting me in an unhappy place, scared for me and my partner and our future.
Welcome. I deleted my post because my point didn’t make any sense, reading it back. Essay link’s here in case anyone’s interested: it’s on the Home Office’s weaponisation of bureaucracy.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n09/william-davies/weaponising-paperwork
I genuinely don't know. All I know is, like the OP, I've never felt so (and I struggle for the right word) 'unsettled' in my life. Life was supposed to get easier and happier as you grew up, but this doesn't seem to be the way it's going. Unlike may of you on here who are angry and have fight, good for you. Me? I'm too old, too tired and too knackered.
I think there’s a lot in this and it’s why I think there’s also a lot in what Woodface says about not taking things too much to heart. Public life has become unusually toxic - I mean it’s been intentionally poisoned - at the same time as we’ve been granted an unusual degree of access to it. That would be disorientating enough, but we’re also obliged to deal with it in a very individualised way, without much support from institutions like unions or churches, or from public figures, most of whom seem to be implicated in the general toxicity. Under these circumstances you sort of have to improvise whatever means of dealing with it all that you can, because the culture at large hasn’t really equipped us with the tools to manage it in an optimal manner. Total withdrawal from any kind of public life isn’t an unreasonable response IMO, at least temporarily.From my POV and apologies in advance for a bit of a scattergun contribution.
It's not the UK. It's the World. Or at least, it's what it seems like to me.
Well, when I state that, maybe the world isn't going to s**t. Maybe the reasons it seems that it is, is because:
I genuinely don't know. All I know is, like the OP, I've never felt so (and I struggle for the right word) 'unsettled' in my life. Life was supposed to get easier and happier as you grew up, but this doesn't seem to be the way it's going. Unlike may of you on here who are angry and have fight, good for you. Me? I'm too old, too tired and too knackered.
- I was born post-war to 'boomer' parents and have only known a very unusual period of global history; during the best time that the planet will ever have and its rebalancing. No wars, and improved healthcare / longer, better, healthier, more comfortable lives with enjoyed by each successive generation becoming the norm.
- We are bombarded by more information than ever before. Not just more of it but unfiltered, or in some cases just plain wrong, designed to cause upset and unsettle. Previously, a lot of how awful the world is would never have made it to my newspaper or the nine o'clock news. Oh, and the press likes to always peddle f**king misery.
- Many of us have lost our support networks. I am exposed to the mass of this stuff and limited means to discuss / rationalize / deal with it.
- We are genetically predisposed to pessimism. Our ancestors who expected the worst, lived longer.
- Maybe it's my age. I'm in my 50s and my world is disappearing / shrinking, childhood constants are going (including people, people keep dying), I can feel age creeping up on me (I hurt and ache a lot and I now finally see my dad in the mirror) and is already putting me in an unhappy place, scared for me and my partner and our future.
From my POV and apologies in advance for a bit of a scattergun contribution.
It's not the UK. It's the World. Or at least, it's what it seems like to me.
Well, when I state that, maybe the world isn't going to s**t. Maybe the reasons it seems that it is, is because:
I genuinely don't know. All I know is, like the OP, I've never felt so (and I struggle for the right word) 'unsettled' in my life. Life was supposed to get easier and happier as you grew up, but this doesn't seem to be the way it's going. Unlike may of you on here who are angry and have fight, good for you. Me? I'm too old, too tired and too knackered.
- I was born post-war to 'boomer' parents and have only known a very unusual period of global history; during the best time that the planet will ever have and its rebalancing. No wars, and improved healthcare / longer, better, healthier, more comfortable lives with enjoyed by each successive generation becoming the norm.
- We are bombarded by more information than ever before. Not just more of it but unfiltered, or in some cases just plain wrong, designed to cause upset and unsettle. Previously, a lot of how awful the world is would never have made it to my newspaper or the nine o'clock news. Oh, and the press likes to always peddle f**king misery.
- Many of us have lost our support networks. I am exposed to the mass of this stuff and limited means to discuss / rationalize / deal with it.
- We are genetically predisposed to pessimism. Our ancestors who expected the worst, lived longer.
- Maybe it's my age. I'm in my 50s and my world is disappearing / shrinking, childhood constants are going (including people, people keep dying), I can feel age creeping up on me (I hurt and ache a lot and I now finally see my dad in the mirror) and is already putting me in an unhappy place, scared for me and my partner and our future.
I think there’s a lot in this and it’s why I think there’s also a lot in what Woodface says about not taking things too much to heart. Public life has become unusually toxic - I mean it’s been intentionally poisoned - at the same time as we’ve been granted an unusual degree of access to it.
Uh Oh....backed by the treasury apparently....this is going to be the s^&tstorm to end all of them...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61826209
I'm sure this is a factor in how people behave online and it reminds me of a book review headline in the FT a while back - 'When Did Everyone Become So Mean?'
Yes, although bear in mind people have been saying exactly this since the dawn of mass media. I do think that what’s special about the current moment is less the step change in the amount of information we’re exposed to than the fact that it coincides with a particularly awful moment in public life. The FT and other serious newspapers are not at all innocent in all this which is the main reason we see so many articles about how awful social media/the public/“we” all are. That’s a very convenient explanation for where we are, for journalists who’ve spent decades promoting austerity, xenophobia, right wing demagoguery etc., and working very hard to hobble any political alternatives.I spend rather a lot of time online and have come to realise that's not a necessarily good thing. As @Seeker_UK states, what would have once been a column inch in the paper about some poor sods thousands of miles away can be all over social media with dozens of clips of uncensored phone footage. Our caveman flight/fight brains haven't evolved to realise it's not about us and so we soak up the stress.
I'm sure this is a factor in how people behave online and it reminds me of a book review headline in the FT a while back - 'When Did Everyone Become So Mean?'
I try and remind myself to not be mean online. I find myself increasingly deleting PFM posts because I realise they're mean spirited.
Some excellent, thought provoking posts in this thread.
We are bombarded by more information than ever before. Not just more of it but unfiltered, or in some cases just plain wrong, designed to cause upset and unsettle.... Oh, and the press likes to always peddle f**king misery.
I spend rather a lot of time online and have come to realise that's not a necessarily good thing.
Total withdrawal from any kind of public life isn’t an unreasonable response IMO, at least temporarily.
I blame it on the printing press.Yes, although bear in mind people have been saying exactly this since the dawn of mass media. I do think that what’s special about the current moment is less the step change in the amount of information we’re exposed to than the fact that it coincides with a particularly awful moment in public life. The FT and other serious newspapers are not at all innocent in all this which is the main reason we see so many articles about how awful social media/the public/“we” all are. That’s a very convenient explanation for where we are, for journalists who’ve spent decades promoting austerity, xenophobia, right wing demagoguery etc., and working very hard to hobble any political alternatives.
Watch what happens in the two by-elections- substantial numbers of people, knowing what we all do now about Johnson and his cabal, will go out and actively vote for them.I think "unsettled" is a good word. I find it profoundly depressing to see a greedy, boorish, sociopathic clown like B.J. in charge of our country. It induces nausea and disbelief to see him in number 10.
Knowing that those at the top have absolutely no interest in our wellbeing and are simply helping themselves is profoundly unsettling. Untethered is how the country feels to me. I imagine it might be the way that children feel in a household where the parents are alcoholics or drug addicts.
Leaders who show utter disregard for their populations often end up swinging from lamp posts or being shot in small, concrete buildings. They don't seem to be able to self-regulate.
Watch what happens in the two by-elections- substantial numbers of people, knowing what we all do now about Johnson and his cabal, will go out and actively vote for them.
Why do you think they’ll do that? I mean, obviously there are going to be lots of reasons, but I wonder if you have a view on what the main reasons are. Do they know significantly less about Boris than you do, so their vote is uninformed? Or do they know enough but still think that the conservatives are the best for the job? And if so, how did they arrive at that valuation - what influenced them?
Sorry, this sounds like the Spanish Inquisition.
Anyone reading your contributions to this and other threads would think it’s impossible for rational free moral agents to vote Tory. But here we are, contemplating the possibility that they will on 23rd. So there’s a disconnect between them and you which it would be interesting to account for.