Ask Lemmy

Define “necessary” progress?

This lack of concern for our neighbors was crafted by the elites so that we won't organize against them.

When we're hurt, angry, scared, broke, stressed out, we become selfish, like animals backed into a corner.

The elites have studied this and they know exactly how far they can push us before we fight back. They are keeping us hurt and angry so that we won't work together and they stay in power forever.

Apathy? maybe.

Selfishness? Focus on my issues and only my issues or I'm out? Yeah.

In the scope of human history, we have addressed a shitload of issues and bettered the lives of billions in a very short period of time.

Yes, there is more to do and more can be done. But let's not act like there's no good done. It is incredible how better most everything about life as a human is today relative to most of our history.

The problem with answering that, is that there's no set standard for the appropriate amount of apathy so really however much there is, that's how much there should be and not too little or too much, that's just how apathetic humans are and there's nothing to compare against for judging appropriate levels. Why are we as apathetic as we are? In my opinion it's pretty similar to why climate change is so difficult to address, which makes sense as apathy is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to addressing it. In general, it's more difficult to energise, co-ordinate and sustain collective human effort on a large scale for issues that don't seem immediate, tangible, easily attributable, physically visible and where the solution and action to be taken isn't simple to understand, or the improvement simple to observe and also reasonably short term (or at least promises to be). Long term, society wide projects usually require more than just an appeal to better nature. People caring, people wanting to help each other, people wanting fairness or kindness or just treatment, as innate desires does work to motivate, but I think tends to work on mostly on the smaller scale, when it's for small in-groups, preferably people we've actually met and with immediate social pressures to reinforce these pro-social desires.

Human beings are capable of complex, difficult, awe-inspiring projects for "good" or "bad" but those tend to involve more diffuse motivations and more immediate rewards/incentives where those motivations are their most removed from the original instigators. Some few people involved might be motivated by altruism or something esoteric like an interest in science or a religious belief, but if their goals involve the masses it's usually going to mean filtering their motivation down through stakeholders, to careerists, money makers and then on down to people looking for subsistence and in many cases down to people who are enslaved and don't want to be killed or harmed and so work.

To top all that off there's the more obvious problem of the difficulty in keeping more and more people in bigger and bigger projects all on the same page about what to do, how to do it, or if we even want to do it. If the important issue you're thinking of is for example inequality, it's going to be very hard to get agreement on what that actually is, if that's even a good or bad thing, how we should deal with it or even if we should deal with it and many of the people in this debate will probably be passionate in their position. Complex "important" issues also tend to involve beneficiaries who would somewhat understandably not want to work against their own interests and so shape their environment to the best of their ability such that the easier thing to do is tolerate the issue making the near impossible mountain of getting human beings together for the greater good harder still by design. This theory maybe has some flaws, depending on how you frame the important issue. If for example the important issue were crime, you could argue that for the most part for most people it's fairly easy to get them not to just murder strangers on a whim or for some petty gain, even racists probably walk through an average day surrounded by people of many ethnicities and cultures but don't generally (with notable exceptions) need to be convinced or induced not to physically harm everyone they walk past and this tends to hold true on a larger scale not just the in-groups as I described, but as a rule of thumb, in my view I think this is basically how we operate. How much we care, how much we can muster courage, how much personal risk or resources or energy we can spare for manifesting ideals is usually proportional to the degree of direct impact they have upon us personally, how close we are to the people affected by an issue and how easy it is to identify and rectify the issue and also how long it will take and how often you'll have to act. I think you could probably draw direct, inversely proportional lines on a scale of how much apathy is shown and a declining slope on any of those measures. I suspect this is from our nature and biological origins, but this is not an assertion I can back up rigorously.

Finally, depending on the issue, sometimes it really is rationally better to tolerate an issue where all the solutions are bad and could make things worse. Tends to be difficult to reach consensus on when we're in such a situation.

most people are caught up in their own day to day lives. it's just the nature of things.

you have to go to work to pay your bills. your girlfriend wants to go out to dinner every once in a while. you have to go have dinner at your parents. you have to walk your dog. you have to brush your teeth, do your laundry. you have to figure out what you're gonna eat for dinner. should probably schedule that dentist appointment soon. need to do my taxes.

etc

really doesn't leave you that much time or energy to worry about the big problems of the world.

Apathy is a coping mechanism

I mean when I try to educate folks

Maybe that's one of the reasons they don't listen? I'm really sorry if what follows sounds a bit agressive, it's absolutely not what I wish, I just don't know how to say it more formally in English.

Sure, many people are very much not interested by anything that goes out of their usual ways but I would not be so certain it's the main issue at play, here.

I mean, why do you try to educate them? Are you their parents, or their teacher? Are you some kind of (moral/scientific) authority they (and we all) should listen to?

Personally, as one of those 'people' you're referring to, I tend to steer away from any person thinking they should educate others. Not that I refuse to educate myself and certainly not that I know all there is to know, far from it. It's just that in my experience, way too often, all what those self-proclaimed teachers teach is how great/admirable their little person is and, incidentally, more often than not why we should then rush to buy their latest book, or their whatever it is they're selling. Imho, there is little value in that kind of teaching and most people would be right to ignore it. I would even say that I wish more people would stop listening to those snake-oil vendors.

Once again, I'm not saying, you're such a person — how would I know, I don't know you — just that it's too frequent to not express some serious reserves when faced with it.

As tor the reason why people refuse to listen? Beside what I just said, I think most people already have enough things to deal with in their day to day lives, a lot of real shitty things, to not be willing to spend their free time listening to some 'teaching'.

Instead, you may want to show by example, by doing things and not by speech? Let them be surprised or intrigued by your very own actions and then, maybe, let them start a conversation by asking you question. They should be much more receptive if they do the first step, and you may get more positive results. Hopefully.

First a large enough group has to agree that something is a problem. Then they have to agree there is a solution. Let’s look at the problem of labor abuse in China. First, does everyone agree that it’s a problem? There are a significant number of people that think it’s fine or even a good thing. Some people think that everyone should be willing to sacrifice or be sacrificed for the greater good of the economy.

Okay so we manage to convince the shitheads that humans, even humans in China stuck assembling iPhones, have rights. What’s the solution? Not buy iPhones? Pay more? All out war against an oppressive regime? Countless other solutions exist, and until there’s agreement there, unlikely any of them will take hold.

The apathy is engineered, and can be easily furthered by injecting more disagreement on possible solutions by the people that were never really convinced slavery is bad.

Gaza is all I need to know about humanity...

Never again until Israelis do a genocide then it is america, fuck yeah! Kill 'em all!

Yes, in every and all aspects.
Wars? Ukraine or Gaza.
Production? Chinas slavery
Sickness? 4 years ago.
Gaming? Triple a studios

Its everywhere to the point in hitting apathy against apathy myself

The French - Would you like me to burn your fucking car?

I think that this problem is similar to the monkeysphere: there are too many issues and problems for us to worry about, so we typically pick the problems that are closest to us and most solvable.

This is basically the same idea that someone else mentioned in this thread.

It's a disgrace! Somebody should do something!

It's a cross between our innate limitations, a societal system which works against us but continues from sheer momentum, and then by design by those who benefit. I don't think most people woke up and decided to live apathetic lives. We are chronically cognitively tasked

pfft. what do I care. /s honestly I think its more the stress of survival because at least in the us even if you are doing pretty well its setup so a few bumps can have you completely fall into poverty. You pretty much have to be independently wealthy for it not to and even then medical things could take you out if your on the low end.

It really makes me understand why we don’t see any advanced space faring civilizations as we look to the stars. Life just isn’t good at cooperation.

Yes. Me included.

Either too much or too little depending on who we're talking about. You have the people who will amass a protest in the thousands because one person was mistreated and sometimes only a single person who will react at all when a thousand are mistreated. And people wonder why sociopathy exists.

I did, but I don't care anymore.

...I'll see myself out. :P

In all seriousness I just don't know if I have it in me to keep paying attention to a trainwreck that I have no control over. I can only help my local community in some limited manner, anything outside of that all I can do is vote and yell at a "representative" that is bribed to not listen.

It's from experience. Older people know this world well. Doesn't matter what you vote for, power stays with corporations.

Young people tend to believe you can change things by voting, which is naive and a bit cute.

I used to feel apathy until I realized there is one thing I can control - me. I can choose to do fun things, replace bad friends with new ones, learn new skills, grow as a person. I can put my phone down and read books and stop watching social media and porn. I can change who I am right now. And I will feel good from doing so.

The society will stay the same, but my perception of my life will be enjoyable, which is all I can actually do. You don't have power over anything except yourself. Once you get that through your head, you understand how to not feel apathy anymore.

Oh, certainly. Don't forget the equal parts of hatred!