Optimists of Lemmy, what gives you hope about the future?

The 2026 Midterms elections.

Perspective. We live in one of the best times in human history. The comforts and advantages we enjoy, 99.9 percent of humans could only dream about. Electricity, running water, modern transportation, indoor plumbing, three meals a day, and modern medicine are unimaginable luxuries for them.

If Twitch plays pokémon managed to beat the game then we can do this too, man

Thanks for the fresh wind OP and commenters, we need that from time to time.

All of this will pass. You won’t necessarily be able to control any of the variables outside of your own life, but living a virtuous life isn’t about becoming the leader of a country or amassing gigantic wealth. It’s about doing the right thing, for yourself and others, when it’s time to make decisions. I take solace in that. I may not always make the perfectly right decision, but as long as I’m generally guided by what’s right, especially when it’s a difficult path to take, I will have lived a good life.

Renewables keep taking off like a massive rocketship, with batteries following the same trajectory. There’s no stopping them at this point.

The future was never easy. But as long as there’s a cup of coffee, a piece of nature and a bit of love left, it’s ok.

Generally speaking, the world just keeps getting better in ways that matter.

Despite all the wars going on, this is probably the most peaceful time in human history; we just see every single conflict thanks to modern telecommunication.

There has always been terrible stuff going on in the world. Very little of the terrible things in the modern day are really new, it’s just a new form. And usually the new form is a bit friendlier than the last one.

Frankly, how bad the past was makes it hard to be anything but optimistic about the future. Overall, the best time to be alive in all of history is right now. There’s no reason to think that trend won’t continue.

We’ll defeat diseases, and get more efficient at producing the things we need, and develop technologies to solve problems. Sure, a lot of that will be expensive for a while if capitalism persists, but going into debt for cancer treatment beats dying of cancer.

And it’s never been easier to coordinate with such a huge number of people. We have the tools at our disposal to actively make the future better. We have to use them, but we do have them. And it really seems like people are starting to get interested in using those tools, and they’re only getting easier to use, which means with a little elbow grease we could progress from “better, year over year” to “actually good”.

The boomers are dying, the techbro bubble is almost ready to pop, the kids are organizing. I feel privileged to get to witness the next 50 years.

All of this push for global fascism and tightening of chains across the world is actually an extinction burst that’s happening precisely because the world is waking up. The oligarchs see one last chance to hold onto power before the common people flip the board.

Organising stuff! I’m pulling together a couple friends to a bar and holding a privacy workshop For anyone who feels like practicing privacy is boring and wants do it over a drink.

There’s one thing that’s happened this year that inspired actual hope in me. (I am generally a cynic, having read too many history books.)

I made a video about Flock buying out their employees and, in researching it, learned that Flock (as of a month ago) had lost nearly 400 contracts in 36 states. An independent outfit is tracking it because, obviously, major media outlets don’t want to talk about the unpopularity of fascism.

Thing is, this accelerated last summer, which means a lot of people who are otherwise apolitical are learning about Flock, going to city council meetings and doing boring, pedestrian and effective political organizing for a good cause.

That is objectively a good thing.

Got invited to do Halloween with some folks, excited for that.

Three Thoughts:

1. In the long run, things have steadily improved for the majority of the world’s population. That doesn’t mean there can’t be setbacks along the way in the form of dictatorship and mass murder… but viewed over the long term, we’ve all become wealthier, healthier, and lived longer. Of course, this isn’t a sure thing, but it gives us hope that things will eventually be even better than they are now.
2. Billionaires aren’t superhumans, even if they think they are. The fact is, capital doesn’t create anything. WE create value through the work of our hands and minds. Without us, these people are nothing, and even with the stochastic parrot currently being hailed as “AI,” they’re just fooling themselves. It follows that even the biggest narcissists don’t stand a chance when we work together… and if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s that.
3. People are much better than their reputation. If someone falls in a pedestrian zone, someone helps them up. If a traffic jam forms on the road, a rescue lane opens up. If you ask a stranger for help, you’re usually not let down. Far too many people believe that humans are “just animals with a thin veneer of civilization,” yet the vast majority are clearly more social and altruistic than is generally assumed. The narrative that “all people are bad” is, in my opinion, merely a self-serving narrative propagated by the ruling egoists to justify their own authority, and it’s passed on based on the assumption that we’re all just as selfish as our leaders.

Are these points open to criticism? Sure. Still, there’s at least a spark of truth in them, and that gives me hope.

Anthony Scaramoochi (or however he spells his name… yes, that guy) said it best. To paraphrase:

“Young people. The boomer generation (my generation), and all the losers associated with it wasted all their power and political capital in ruinous ways, and only emboldened the next generations in their political convictions and you already see a lot of them pointing correctly at where the faults lie, and how the geritocracy serves nobody”

Of all people to give an interesting interview lately, I really did not expect it to be him. You can find it pretty easily on youtube. It was called “38 minutes with…” or something like that. Maybe it was 28 minutes.

In other words, below a certain age, there is overwhelming support in working together for a better future for everyone. The current political class will die out with no heritage beyond everyone knowing how badly they fucked up.

EDIT: Found the interview. Also, it’s Scaramucci.

There’s a quote from HBO’s Chernobyl series:

To be a scientist is to be naive. We are so focused on our search for the truth we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants, it doesn’t care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: What is the cost of lies?

All these fucking guys who’ve made monsters of themselves to pretend they’re our masters - they’ll all fail. Their lies are a patchwork of tapestries meant to hide from reality. The bigger it gets, the more it wants to fall. Pull a thread, watch it unravel.

I think Gen X and younger are, overall, better at dealing with emotional issues than their parents and grandparents. Granted, there’s definitely still room for improvement.

But it’s no longer considered socially acceptable (much less preferable) to use your kids as a piñata to vent your anger on instead of seeking therapy. It’s also far more common for parents to show physical and verbal affection toward their kids. Something my (boomer) parents virtually never did. Probably because that’s the dynamic they were taught.

I dont have any firm evidence to back this claim up, but conversations with parents that are relatively close to me in age has shown that I’m not the only one who has observed this trend.