Zompist Bboard Again

I don't understand what difference therapy would make. My feelings are the result of objective verifiable problems with the world that would still exist regardless of what therapists told me. Furthermore I question whether making peace with those problems would even be a good thing. It seems horribly disrespectful to harden my heart to all the suffering to come.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:01 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 11:57 am Are you suggesting that all the news reports and such regarding the rise of reaction and its dire threat are simply wrong or exaggerated?

No, please read what I wrote:

Therapy is not a matter of someone telling you that there's nothing to worry about. It is a matter of discovering why you catastrophize,

Well, I've got the impression that one of malloc's central problems is an inability to see any intermediate steps between "thinking that there's nothing to worry about" and "catastrophizing".

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:19 pm I don't understand what difference therapy would make. My feelings are the result of objective verifiable problems with the world that would still exist regardless of what therapists told me. Furthermore I question whether making peace with those problems would even be a good thing. It seems horribly disrespectful to harden my heart to all the suffering to come.

Jeez, malloc, don't dress up your dysfunctional despair as some kind of moral stand. Your bright idea, so far, is do nothing about other people's suffering and indeed remove yourself from the pool of helpers.

And really, therapy is obviously something you know zero about. You don't go in order to have a political discussion. You go in order to have a healthier response to life.

malloc, therapy helped me when I needed it—when I was suicidal in college, when I despaired of the job search, when I was downtrodden at my previous employer, when I blindingly flared out in the course of my bipolar diagnosis…a good therapist listens to you and addresses what ails you as it comes. There is a point to it; you will find out through the doing of it.

A while back, in this very thread, I brought up my near-suicidal state from my job and job search. A therapist helped me through it, and I am still here today to tell you of it. A therapist is not a panacea, but is nonetheless a valuable and critical resource.

Also malloc, it doesn't matter how soft or hard your heart is if you won't do anything to help. It is functionally the same if you harden your heart and do nothing or if you feel bad the entire time. And I'm not talking fixing the entire US government, you could literally just make and share some food with a neighbor on hard times. Or start a mini library. Or volunteer literally anywhere that aligns with your politics even remotely. It would help you just to do things to help others, even just small steps.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:19 pmMy feelings are the result of objective verifiable problems with the world that would still exist regardless of what therapists told me.

No; they are the results of your reactions to these problems, not of the problems themselves. Therapy will help you develop healthier and less self-destructive reactions; I can personally verify that it did for me in comparable circumstances.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:19 pmFurthermore I question whether making peace with those problems would even be a good thing. It seems horribly disrespectful to harden my heart to all the suffering to come.

To quote a certain John Michael Stipe: "Not everyone can carry the weight of the world". And, whether you're a believer or not, the beginning of this is well worth paying attention to.

Yes, there are potentially horrible times ahead, but you will do yourself a lot of good by talking to a trained professional about how you can deal with them - certainly a lot more good than just sitting around moaning. And you'll probably feel more at ease within yourself too.

malloc wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 9:14 pm https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/01/02 ... -terminal/

Note that this article ends with a long list of things which people can do to help improve the situation.

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:01 pm

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 11:57 am Are you suggesting that all the news reports and such regarding the rise of reaction and its dire threat are simply wrong or exaggerated?

No, please read what I wrote:

Therapy is not a matter of someone telling you that there's nothing to worry about. It is a matter of discovering why you catastrophize, why you freak out reading the news, why you have such trouble forming helpful and useful responses instead.

We do care about you, as much as long-time Internet acquaintances can, but we're not going to give you permission to spiral into despair. For once, listen to what other humans have to say to you, and get help.

Don't respond with more "oh but things are so bad" stuff; that is not helping you and I will delete it. Start looking for therapists. And if doing a search is too hard for you, take WeepingElf's excellent advice and stop doomscrolling.

I would even say "We do care about you, as much as long-time Internet acquaintances can, SO we're not going to give you permission to spiral into despair." Caring about someone does not mean letting do whatever they like. Sometimes it means preventing them from doing what they feel like because another option is clearly better.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jan 03, 2025 3:19 pm I don't understand what difference therapy would make. My feelings are the result of objective verifiable problems with the world that would still exist regardless of what therapists told me. Furthermore I question whether making peace with those problems would even be a good thing. It seems horribly disrespectful to harden my heart to all the suffering to come.

The problems are surely real but our reactions to them may differ without worrying. We can decide to do something. Here are a few relevant questions to ask and answer but not necessarily share if it is too private: Who is your nearest therapist? Where is your nearest Democratic Party office? What is your local newspaper?

I reiterate the encouragements to get therapy. A second best might be to consult therapist material e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMBJfBHV42g.

Everyone says I'm catastrophizing but nobody has presented any good reason to believe we are not facing catastrophe. All the evidence I have seen suggests that the US is plunging into fascist dictatorship with all avenues of escape closed off. Realistically how should one react to such horrible news?

If you're on a plane which crashes, that is catastrophic, but hopefully you can put on your oxygen mask and then help your fellow passengers.

malloc wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:51 pm Everyone says I'm catastrophizing but nobody has presented any good reason to believe we are not facing catastrophe.

Because the issue is not whether things may get bad. The issue is what people will do about that. You have no solutions; other people do.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 8:47 am Who is your nearest therapist?

Something to note here: teletherapy is increasingly common these days. I use it myself. (The OCD specialist whom I consult lives in Adelaide.) I know that malloc has said it’s difficult to find resources in his state, so that might be a solution he’d like to consider.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 5:47 pm

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 8:47 am Who is your nearest therapist?

Something to note here: teletherapy is increasingly common these days. I use it myself. (The OCD specialist whom I consult lives in Adelaide.) I know that malloc has said it’s difficult to find resources in his state, so that might be a solution he’d like to consider.

Seconding telemedicine. I’ve been using it since the pandemic started.

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 5:47 pmBecause the issue is not whether things may get bad. The issue is what people will do about that. You have no solutions; other people do.

What solutions exist for this problem? The last time it arose, it took three superpowers a decade and tens of millions of lives to solve. Nobody has indicated we have any such solution currently.

malloc wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 6:34 pm Nobody has indicated we have any such solution currently.

We have. Many times. The fact that you refuse to listen is a different problem.

(Our suggestions aren’t complete solutions, of course. But you’re still able to improve what you can. As Rabbi Tarfon once said: ‘It is not your duty to perfect the world, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.’)

As for Trump, nobody knows whether he will be the next Hitler. But I consider that unlikely. He has been president before, and while he certainly was the worst president in recent history by a wide margin, he neither started a world war nor set up concentration camps. Which of course doesn't mean he won't in his second term, though. Also, regimes of that kind tend to defeat themselves by alienating such people as scientists (let's not forget that Trump and his cronies are science denialists, so many scientists, especially those who have come from abroad, will pack up their things and leave the country because they don't want to live in a country where the official doctrine is that the Earth was 6,000 years old and freak weather had nothing to do with CO2 from burning fossil fuels) or business people (who don't want tariffs and trade wars, and in a modern high-tech economy, what is bad for science is of course bad for the economy as well). So four years from now, the US will be plagued by a massive shortage of R&D personnel and by high inflation due to trade wars, and fall behind China and the EU in terms of economic power, and the Republicans will have to steal the elections to stay in power, which would make everything even worse - or massively backfire. And finally, the United States are not the world government, even if they are the most powerful nation of the world. So the game is not over yet.

malloc: why don't you give us a few specific examples of things you're worried will happen? (For example "Trump will mandate automation of all physical labour by the end of 2025".) That way we can reassure you that, realistically, they aren't actually very likely to happen.

alice wrote: ↑Mon Jan 06, 2025 2:26 pm malloc: why don't you give us a few specific examples of things you're worried will happen? (For example "Trump will mandate automation of all physical labour by the end of 2025".) That way we can reassure you that, realistically, they aren't actually very likely to happen.

This literally never works. I'm going to declare that this particular round of Eddying has gone on long enough and politely request that members stop trying to argue him out of his catastrophic perceptions. Eddy, get help.

By all means though, if others would like to continue the conversation about what some likely bad scenarios are and how we might prepare ourselves to deal with them, they absolutely should.

ObVent: The WaPo had an article today titled "The tech trends you'll have to live with in 2025" and if there's a better summation of the current state of public enthusiasm toward emerging technology, I haven't seen it. I remember being excited technological innovation. Now we're all like, "What is Silicon Valley going to try to cram down our throats this time?"

I agree with linguoboy; the Eddying is hijacking the venting thread. We have politics threads for politics.