What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?
What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?
130 comments
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In 6 billion years the sun will swole up to engulf the earth and none of this will have ever mattered.
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Assuming humanity doesn't get our shit together enough to explore and settle the galax-heeheehee. I'm sorry. I used to hope for that.
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Even if we did, most of us will likely be born into slavery on some distant colony as the property of a deranged tech trillionaire.
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I've been working on a new kind of spaceship designed to act as both ark and engineering station for the construction of dyson spheres. So there's that, although I've not got very far with it yet.
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Renewable energy and battery storage are seeing an absolute collapse in prices such that it is inevitable in the near to mid term future that we will move away from fossil fuel extraction leaving much of it in the ground. This will happen no matter who is in charge politically or who tries to subsidize fossil fuels because money is king and a lot of free energy hits the earth every day.
This, combined with falling birthrates, means we will hit peak carbon emissions and begin to drop back to a new normal, a new economy built around labor rather than capital because of the shift in balance between resources and workers similar to what happened during the black death. It is my opinion that this will begin to happen in my lifetime and will fully come to pass in our children's lifetime.
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Having worked in energy for 10 years (particularly battery storage and solar) you are correct about the prices falling, and in my opinion you are also correct about this dooming fossils.
However, I do not agree with your second point around a new economy arising built around labor rather than capital. The mechanics of value creation can change (eg renewables vs fossils) but what the ruling class will not allow to change without intense prolonged struggle is their own position as the rulers.
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You might be right, but my idea on it is that productivity increases have leveled off and population will begin falling in our lifetime. The ruling class loses power historically when the supply of labor is impacted.
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Fascism doesn't actually last that long. At some point, policies have to have some kind of attachment to reality, and fascists are incapable of grappling with reality.
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Franco stuck around for quite awhile, but yeah its track record is usually short.
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Franco was the first one I thought of. However, his fascism didn't outlive him, and President Pedophile doesn't have 36 years to go.
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Historians debate just how fascist Franco really was. In fact, Orwell wasn't even that sure when he wrote Homage to Catalonia, and he was quite clear that he went to Spain expressly to kill a fascist.
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putin and kim have been going for quite some time.
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Man this is some fuckin excellent news
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We're actually doing pretty well, globally, at shifting to renewables. We're making more, more quickly and more cheaply than ever before.
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And the best part is that this is driven by economics, not even policy at this point. Renewables are cheaper.
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AFAIK, this one isn't true. CO2 emissions aren't going down. We're not getting a word with renewables instead of fossil fuels. We're getting a world with both of them used in abundance.
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When you die there is nothing. You go back to where you were before you were born.
No past, no future, no memory, nothing.
You will cease to be and the memory of you will fade from this universe nearly instantly.
There's a lovely peace to that...
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Death is before me today Like a sick man’s recovery, Like going outdoors after confinement. Death is before me today Like the fragrance of myrrh, Like sitting under sail on breeze day. Death is before me today Like the fragrance of lotus. Like sitting on the shore of drunkenness. Death is before me today Like a well-trodden way, Like a man’s coming home from warfare. Death is before me today Like the clearing of the sky. As when a man discovers what he ignored. Death is before me today Like a man’s longing to see his home When he has spent many years in captivity
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Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.- from Tao Te Ching, Chapter 16, Translation by Stephen Mitchell
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That might be the case. Or you could be part of something else. A collective consciousness, of which you are a transient node. Or maybe there is no time at all. What we call time could just be our current state on a progress bar as we process life. Or maybe we're part of a nervous system for some larger construct. Or perhaps we are just reluctantly self-aware iterations of bio computers with fleeting lives that appeared through the chance combination of carbon-based structures.
Who knows. That's the beauty of it, which I personally feel religion and a certain type of confident atheism tend to deny with their respective faith/certainty.
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Pizza. It's really good and I'm going to eat more of it
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Cost of living has gotten to me recently so I've been making my own pizzas and they taste better than dominoes plus they're cheaper. I'm stoked
Dice some garlic, mix it with passata and chopped spinach and that's your sauce. Cheese and sliced tomatoes on top, plus more spinach
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It's my HRT birthday today, two years now and it's really sunny and warm. It's a nice day :3
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Happy HRT-birthday! 🎉
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Happy HRT birthday! Love your name btw :)
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Free Open Source Software is pretty amazing imo
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Wallets are twice as likely to be returned as people expect. And the interesting thing is this holds true more or less globally.
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I dream of finding the wallet stuffed with enough cash to dig me out of this mess, but in reality, if there's any way at all to get it back to who dropped it, I will. Found a wallet a few months ago on a day trip, laying in the road. Ending up using the names on the credit cards to Facebook stalk a dude, found his company website, called him, and met him a half hour later to return it. Had like 800 dollars in cash it. I just... Can't be an asshole, even when it would benefit me
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You're good people, don't regret it. Incidentally, I'd probably grab a handful of the cash and just hand it to whoever returned the wallet to me like that. It was lost anyway.
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Back in the 80s, I was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, and a guy left his wallet in our booth, stuffed with money.
I took it back to my room, and only removed his Driver's License, so I could see where he lived. I found out the area code for his city, called Information, and asked for his phone number. His name wasn't there, but there was one woman's listing with the same last name, so I called it, and reached his mother.
She was immediately worried, but I quickly explained that her son was fine, "But he left his wallet in my booth, and he's probably in a full on panic by now. Please call him, and let him know that he can pick it up at our booth tomorrow."
We didn't have cell phones back then, so she would have had to contact his company, find out what hotel he was staying in, and then get the message to him, but she must have done all that, because he came blasting into our booth the next morning, still in a panic.
I handed him his wallet, and he took out a $50 bill and tried to give it to me. I refused it, happy to do a good deed, but he threw it at me and ran out of the booth!
I was in Vegas, what do you think I did with it? It was gone 5 minutes after leaving my booth.
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I would definitely make space for you in my lifeboat.
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Reminded of when someone opened their car window and yelled to me on the sidewalk that I had dropped some cash on the ground :)
Last time I ran out to a parking lot to find someone who dropped some cash in a store, they split some of it with me!
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Canada geese and white-tailed deer nearly went extinct. Now they're considered pests in some areas. It's possible for nature to bounce back, it just needs to be given a chance.
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cheese exists
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What's your favorite cheese?
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Monte Enebro, it's a goat cheese rith a volcanic ash rind
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Underrated reminder here.
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We will all die at some point.
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Praise lawd.
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There's a promising treatment for Huntington's disease in the works, and we might have vaccines for allergies and/or asthma at some point!
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Trump is pretty old, and I cannot think of an example where a movement based around a cult of personality has successfully survived long after their leader has gone. Nor are there any viable successors that are likely to dodge any infighting. JD Vance as a successor? Yeah, ain't happening.
To summarize, the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. And the worse the MAGA crowd pulls it in their direction now, the harder it will swing.
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I cannot think of an example where a movement based around a cult of personality has successfully survived long after their leader has gone.
Most religious cults especially Christianity lol, what a statement
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been waiting for that pendulum to swing almost 50 years now...
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what's "uplifting" depends a lot on what you want to see in the world ...
but i'd say that we live in very exceptional times in history, so what's currently happening is not the norm and will sooner or later pass...
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Here's one I like: despite the efforts of Big Oil and their orange-painted lackey, the amount of renewable energy generated in the first half of 2025 has surpassed energy generated by fossil means.
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Renewables surpassed coal, not all fossil fuels. Renewables were 34%. The good news is they are faster growing.
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I stand corrected.
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- The world is αwful.
- The world is much better thαn it once wαs.
- The world cαn be much better than it currently is.
All three stαtements αre true αt the sαme time. It's wrong to think these stαtements contrαdict eαch other.
You sαy there is doom in our current reαlity, and it feels true, but never discount the wonderful things either. While mαny in this threαd have focused on directly αnswering question, I suspect there mαy be αn underlying dissαtisfαction in your mentαlity.
This threαd cαn shαre wonderful things, but without α shift on mentαlity, it mαy be eαsy enough to brush off. I know becαuse I wαs and still αm like this. Prαcticing grαtitude or grαtitude journαling mαy help, it did for me.
• I'm grαteful becαuse vαccines hαve such α powerful αurα of protection, thαt we αs α society have forgotten the nαmes of the diseαses they protect αgαinst. The world can be better, because one day, we may even erαdicαte these diseαses which still plαgue our species.
• I'm grαteful I hαve opposαble thumbs, becαuse it mαkes it eαsy to be α potαto on the couch and doom scroll. The mere αct that I can see informαtion on α powerful device thαt cαn tell me the stories from αround the globe is quite incredible.
• I'm grαteful becαuse I don't comment very often, but I wαnted to this time. I usuαlly lurk quietly, but I too cαn be better thαn I currently αm αnd pαrticipαte sometimes.-
What a great comment from an infrequent commenter. Thank you! This was a lovely read, good points, and I shared with my wife.
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Wow you all suck at this. Okay I'm gonna do an actual one. The amount of wars had around the world has SIGNIFICANTLY decreased from just a century ago.
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billionaires are not immortal (yet)
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And they have physical bodies!
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them being immortal would probably speed up their removal, if change can only happen through violence then your hand is forced
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Im going to read through but I can't imagine anything that is uplifiting enough to counter the current weights attached to us.
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When I need my fix of good news I go to iea.org and look at some graphs. I'm always thinking it should be faster but then again there's hope for climate change and the world is transitioning despite how entrenched the fossil fuel industry is.
Here's one on the investments being made:
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I know it's not a big thing, but for everyone who owns Yooka-Laylee on Steam, Yooka-Replaylee just released and is temporarily giving a discount for those who bought the original. Any chance to save money and have fun is a plus. Especially if you need distraction and escapism from the world.
Bonus: the game is NOT following the trendnof being triple AAA slop $60 priced. I'm confused on how much the owner bundle discount thing is, but it's currently 10% off in general until October 16, in which it will go back to being $29.99USD for the game. For a collect-a-thon, I'd say that's a steal.
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Hoping Playtonic is able make a true sequel eventually. Looking forward to playing this reimagined version though.
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After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
I think that is really reassuring
What does that mean? This is one of the most logically true discussions of spirituality I am familiar with. It takes no position on what that condition might be, but addresses the issue in an almost circular reference.
Those who believe we come from nothing cannot argue that somehow, by having lived, we will go on to be something afterwards, per the First Law of Thermodynamics.
Those who believe we have a ‘soul’, something other than our physical bodies, that goes on after we die, admit that we had to have had a soul prior to birth.
And those that believe we are on a wheel, going through life again and again, understand that we are what we always have been, and will continue to be, when we’re not busy living our lives.
https://philosiblog.com/2011/12/05/after-your-death-you-will-be-what-you-were-before-your-birth/
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Maybe there's only one soul. Like in The Egg. It's just one soul reincarnating into one life after the next, jumping forwards and backwards in space and time. Eventually after passing through the lifetimes of every sentient being that is, was, or ever shall be, the path of reincarnation loops back upon itself. There is only one soul, only one consciousness in the cosmos. One infinite endless circling wheel of experience, all bound in a universe finite in both space and time.
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One of my favorite short stories and a really neat way to view the world. It's hard to be angry at others when you feel they are more like you than they seem or realize.
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Fun fact: we kill 1-3T animals a year for food/textiles! The more you know!
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poor T aminals 😢
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SPYxFAMILY Season 3 just started. :)
It's a spy anime with this kid who is as adorable as she is dumb. And we love it. It's more of a comedy than anything, I think. Kids like it because the adorable little four-year-old saves the day, adults love it because the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks four-year-old makes adorable faces. We all win.
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I like it because it's a good show that features capable adults (aside from one glaring detail) instead of dumbass teenagers. I just wish it was a little less episodic.
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A few somewhat recent ones of different magnitudes:
- Cancer, despite still being the leading cause of deaths worldwide, is seeing a downward trend in mortality rates across most subtypes
- The 2025 Nobel Prizes are currently being awarded
- The Greek Parthenon recently became scaffold free for the first time in 15 years, apparently restoration is using all original pieces as well
- EU has fairly recently revised the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive which will require new buildings to have zero-emission
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And let's not forget that cancer is the leading cause of death because medical science has made all the others much less fatal.
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In the grand scheme this is all fleeting. Humanity is fleeting. The earth will continue, it will heal, trees will eventually take over. The earth has patience, more than we can comprehend. Long after we're gone it will still be here, it will be green and lush and vibrant, life will be abundant again, and we will be little more than a few ancient scars on it.
That personally brings me peace. No matter how dark things get it's nothing on the immense scale that is out planets lifetime. 5 years? 10? 20? 100? 1000? It's nothing to the earth. Humanity's <10,000 years means nothing to the planet in the scale of millions of years. Even climate change, the effects to us will be horrendous, but to the earth it will keep happily spinning, and it will get over it and correct itself.
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Humanity’s <10,000 years
Not to nitpick over much, but humans are ~2M years old or more, with H. sapiens being about 300K years old.
The industrial age, however, is not even 300yrs old, so there's your flash in the pan extinction spiral, so to speak.
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!upliftingnews@lemmy.world and !wholesome@reddthat.com exist and I think that's beautiful.
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Subbed to both. Thank you for sharing.
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I’m having goulash this evening, and the next couple of weeks. The world could go up in flames and hell freeze over and I wouldn’t care.
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Two weeks of goulash sounds like too much.
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Yea I’m gonna freeze most of it. But it is one of those dishes that only makes sense to make in massive proportions and I was lucky to find a lean and tough cut of meat for a great price.
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Had a goulash today for lunch!
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Goulash is the perfect meal no matter what so long as the weather is cold and rainy.
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I've never tried making goulash because I had a goulash in Prague that was life-changing and mine could never compare.
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I don't live in the USA.
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The same bullshit is infiltrating all modern nations. That's the long game. Nations are just the chess pieces being used to gain ownership of human life worldwide.
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True.
But in the meantime, it's nice to be out of there and try to prevent it here.
The worry I have is people here don't know what it looks like when sliding in that direction and I do...
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That doesn't do much for those of us who do, but I'm still happy for you!
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Someday we will all be food for microbes and plants.
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I believe historically we are still at the most peaceful time in a global scale. Doesn’t mean things aren’t bad or getting worse, but I guess we’ve got that going for us?
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We're heading straight towards WW3, I'm not sure it's exactly peaceful.
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But I have Netflix, social media, and marketed manipulating mass media to escape from life with.
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The universe is extremely big and empty.
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Humans die eventually.
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The only way out is through, where there's a will, there is a way.
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My kids ask me why grown ups make the choice to be mean to other people. They understand they are kids and are still learning. Doesn’t compute that a grown up would choose to be mean. Gonna keep it that way as long as I can.
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Humans will go extinct someday and the universe will be better for it.
Edit: Oof. Ruffled a lot of narcissist's feathers who don't like accepting that humans are a net negative force on the universe (and especially on this planet). You'll probably be really upset to find out you're going to die one day and cease to exist, forever.
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Imagine thinking a small blip in time is in any way significant enough for the whole universe. You self-haters are a weird mix of hating humans yet wanting them to be extremely relevant.
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130 comments
Ebooks can be purchased as well, with a little skill (or reading a tutorial) you can make it undeletable and uneditable as well.
Source: My epub library growing day by day, synced between multiple devices by syncthing.
Why go through the trouble of purchasing them with DRM and supporting that garbage and doing all the work to make them your own?
Piracy is infinitely superior.
You're quite right (at least it used to be easy, I have not checked for some time how hard it is now to get rid of Apple's and/or Amazon's DRM... the two main DRM-locked ebook sellers), but keep in mind not everybody feels ok to not respect the rules and/or breach the contract they signed. Also there is no need to that at all with printed books.
the use of the term still actually makes this sorta ominous.
You mean it is worrisome (sorry, English is not my native language)? If so, it's the intend because I think there is already too many hints pointing out to a (slow?) vanishing of many of those 'options'.