No Stupid Questions

I actually help train for combating disinformation and the such, I could forward you a few docs if you're interested in the read.

it's the same goddamn cycle over and over

This is the key. The people you can trust are the people who are going against that cycle.

Bringing up the Bible on Lemmy is generally a no-no, but I love Ecclesiastes. It's a book about meaninglessness. Everything is the same as it has always been and there is nothing of true value; everything is meaningless. It's the same goddamn cycle. While when it was written is debatable, it's comforting and horrible to know someone thousands of years ago saw things the same way I do. Comforting, because I'm not alone in how I feel. Horrible in that people still feel this way after thousands of years.

The writer's conclusion is to fear God and keep his commandments. The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor as yourself means being kind and empathetic. Kindness and empathy solve nearly everything.

So, even though it may achieve nothing, be kind and empathetic. Cling to people who are kind and empathetic. Be an oasis amid the hate.

I've come across Against The Machine by Paul Kingsnorth. This is pretty much getting at the same. He's a great writer, imo.

1. Find a hobby that will get you out of the house and around people. Isolation is how they limit your thinking. Other people expose you to new ideas, experiences, and perspectives.

2. Now that you're "woke" you need to come to terms with the fact that people wake up at their own pace. Just because you've seen the light doesn't mean you can pull the wool from other's eyes.

3. You need to curate a list of reliable sources. For me, I don't really take any sensationalist science or astronomy news seriously until I hear established voices I'm familiar with talking about them. With politics its a little less straight forward, but the same principle applies.

4. Educate yourself. Learn about the mechanisms that these cycles operate on top of. Learn methods of critical thinking. Learn the scientific method, learn the basics of money over time, learn how stocks/mortgages/bonds/real-estate functions. If you know nothing about how the world actually works than you'll never be able to discern a liar from a valid source.

5. Focus on building and contributing to your immediate community. It will help ground you in more ways than I can describe.

Trust is something that depends on repeat interactions - it's earned and built, not freely given. Turn off the phone, the TV and the computer for a while each day and focus on the people around you. Your local community, your friends your family. The more you directly interact with somebody, the more potential is there for you to build up trust - maybe even mutual trust!

Welcome to the Internet. Hopefully, I read as a good person. I am not a bot.

I lived as a young adult through Bush II. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Halliburton, Blackwater, and loads of corruption. It was tough to trust anything then. The goal was pure profit.

Apparently, Dubya was the warm-up presidency for this shit.

First, let me share a clip from Margin Call, 2011.

As long as the prevailing mode has been capital, there has been speculation. As long as there has been speculation, there have been lying liars who exploit the system.

The last few pump and dump bubbles he mentioned (1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2008) are all market crashes I can remember. The market is a casino. Crashes since '08 include 2010 (Flash Crash), 2015 (sell-off), 2018 (cryptocrash), 2020 (Covid), 2022 (Ukraine War), and 2025 (tariffs).

These were once "once in a lifetime" events.

Second, everything in the world is designed to generate more:

• self-serving, self-centered, selfish

• short-term-focused

• extroverted, charismatic, vain

• action-oriented

• thoughtless

psychopaths and sociopaths. This ethos runs things because of profit motives, monopolies on the exercise of violence, and the development of contemporary morés rooted in exploitation, expropriation, and (deemed) externalities of colonialism. Identifying some humans as "the other" makes much more inhumanity possible.

So, I'm here to tell you, it's real alright. What you're feeling is real. What you're feeling against is real. We are immersed in it. Algorithms are doing their best to lock it in.

Finally, what to do and who to trust.

Establish your own moral center. Decide what matters to you. Find those who are telling the most truth, especially when tested. Demogogues fall apart under examination. Lies fall apart when questioned. The unchallenged authority is no authority at all. Get the receipts; find primary sources as often as possible. Seek those who share at great personal cost.

For me, it started with Star Trek. Then, hip-hop. Then, journalists I could trust. Even films that challenge prevailing narratives. I read a lot of books from many perspectives.

20 years later, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Henry A. Giroux, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky have never wavered. Films like The Insider, Erin Brockovich, and The Corporation light a fire in me. I'm rewatched David Simon and Barry Levinson's Homicide: Life on the Street and, hilariously, Murphy Brown.

Challenge the prevailing narratives. You're not alone.

It's sometimes easier to focus on solutions that would rebalance this imbalance of power.

IMO, wealth redistribution is the single most important policy for limiting the influence of the rich. A UBI funded by perpetually redistributing all excess wealth over a certain point would prevent anyone from gaining enough money to break the systems we depend on.

From the political power angle, removing representatives at any level and replacing them with direct democracy or direct influence from the people removes the opportunity for our representatives to be corrupt.

UBI funded by wealth redistribution and direct democracy, these are the tools that will allow humanity to break the wheel.

Honestly, in my opinion, follow the money. In any situation, try to figure out who will be making money. That's where the truth is today.

Politicians --> money

Corporations --> money

News --> money

TV/Music/Movies --> money

Yes. This is exactly where the word "woke" comes from. Now that you are, there is no going back. You can either live with your rage, or do something to fix the problem. It's up to you.

If you want to know who to trust, look for the ones that are trying to help others, and help them.

I can see you're going through something really significant and distressing. While I understand you feel certain about what you're experiencing, some of what you're describing - the sudden overwhelming perception of hidden patterns everywhere, the intense paranoia about who to trust, and feeling like you can't determine what's real - are things that mental health professionals are trained to help people work through.

I'm not saying your observations about systems or power aren't valid, but the level of distress and the way this realization hit you so suddenly after being 'suppressed for 10 years' suggests it would be worth talking to someone qualified to help you sort through what you're experiencing. A therapist or counselor could help you process these feelings and thoughts in a safe space, regardless of whether this is a mental health concern or just a really overwhelming shift in perspective.

You mentioned feeling isolated and unable to talk to family or friends - that alone is reason enough to reach out to a professional who can provide that support.

"the establishment regains control"? Bruh Trump is the establishment.

Anyway, figuring out what to trust can be tricky. That's why I like to sometimes lean on rationalist practices. Learn what fallacies are, learn to how to spot them, and a lot of lies become apparent.

You don't. Don't trust this reply either, it's biased and there's a whole political agenda behind it. Goodnight.

Touch grass... and make local friends. People you know in real life; know their families. Most people are not nearly as bad as the world makes it seem at the moment.

I'm unsure weather to recommend it because it sometimes seems like a kill-or-cure solution, but maybe read into philosophical nihilism. (Not the popular notion of nihilism, which is as connected to philosophical nihilism as popular conceptions of anarchy are to philosophical concepts of anarchy, which is to say almost not at all. Also, read the books, don't try to watch youtuber attempts to interpret them.) Nietzsche and Henri Bergson are, for the most part, said to be approachable reading for a competent reader.

I give trust relatively easy, but if anyone ever abuses it or breaks it, they lose it forever. Though there are things i wont trust to anyone unless I ABSOLUTELY have to and then i'll be very wary and anxious unless its someone i would trust with life of a loved one.

But i'd say start with people who are critical with the bullshit that is going on (and seem okay people in general, not the moon is made of jewish prezels wackos obviously). Try making friends with someone who supports lqbt rights for example, or someone who is concerned about loss of privacy, or someone who understands how shitty corporations are.

Most dont seem to bother even entertaining the thought of thinking about such things, why bother when there is new iphone whatever to be bought and new episode of some crappy reality tv to be watched, and news tell you what to think anyway. So its very understandable how you feel about this, especially considering how you have just recently awoken to the realisation.

For me, i'm on the stage of trying to not care and kind of looking forward to end of the civilization while simultaneously wanting to live current somewhat okay life even though its slowly getting worse too. I want to care, but since there is nothing i can do nor have any community that cares which i could try supporting, there is not much else to be done than fall into involuntary apathy.

Volunteer work might also help you, that way you would almost definitely find decent people and could also do some good. Though there are some pitfalls even with that one, like red cross is okay and all but its so big organization i dont think it has only helping in mind anymore, not with people on top getting paid big money or them suing other helper organizations (i have just heard they have done this, no idea if it has been justified or not. It just feels wrong if those other groups have actually tried helping people).

So far it has been quite lonely road, not wanting to tolerate all the shit that is going on in the world and watching people not able to even understand the existence of patterns of the reasons for that shit, or just not caring so much its the same thing.

I hope you can get at least something out of this mess i wrote.

I think therefore I am. We can only known that we exist in some form, we can't know if others are even real, but its still a good idea to trest them as if they are real, because otherwise you'll run into problems with the reality you know, whether its real or false.

In general, my guide to the truth (lowest is most trustworthy, higher is less trustworthy):

1. Internal Logics formed by your consciousness
2. Your senses, what you see and witness, what you hear, your first-hand account
   2a. If you wrote a journal, and if you can authenticate your handwriting or writing style, then you could use that to clarify any fuzzy memories
   2b. Same with photos/videos, but be skeptical of potential modifications. We know image alteration tech already exists.
3. IRL First-hand account from people you know
   3a. People you trust
   3b. Stangers
   3c. People you are skeptical of (if they have a history of lying or exaggerating, you can rank them even lower on their trustworthiness)
4. Stories from someone that know someone that you know (e.g: "friend of your friend")
5. Mainstream News Media, Mainstream Internet Sources, Official Reports.
6. The Internet in general.

I view interpersonal trust like a ladder. You trust a little, if someone trusts you back or validates your trust, then you can progress to trusting more. If not, don’t!

As far as institutional trust, you’ll have to decide for yourself IMO. Do you agree with the messaging from the institution? Do you generally trust the people within it? If so, progress, otherwise don’t.

If you have a different question let me know. Hope this helps.

You're touching on the idea of a "truth baseline" as I call it. How do you know what's real vs bullshit?

My truth baseline is that maintaining the habitability of Earth is good. From that, I can deduce the following:

• excessive carbon dioxide in atmosphere is bad
• reliance on fossil fuels is bad
• clean renewable energy is good
• people who rail against renewables are bad
• political part(ies) that do the same are bad
• news figures that normalize that are bad

Etc. See where this is headed?

The ambiguity of whether someone is good or not is due to goodness being a subjective quality. There is no such thing as objective good. The closest thing to objective good we can attain is sustainability.

The same can be said about truth. If you want something objective, that's called fact. Truth is a subjective perception of facts. Thus... there is no one correct truth. Just an openness to adjust to new information while dismissing those who are opposed to your truth baseline.

You should take all the things that stress you out that you have no control over, and just toss them out window. You can’t control them, so why worry about them?

There’s plenty of things worthy of your time that you can control. So focus on them.

Live your life because people are functionally stupid and love to repeat historic mistakes again and again. Find a hobby.

Helps.

Read the book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Or better yet, listen to Carey Elwes (Westley from The Princess Bride) read it on audiobook. It tells all about charlatans and conmen, and how to be skeptical and detect their bullshit. It's the kind of book you can skip around in too, so it's an easy read, not too weighty, but with lots of great info and stories.

Carl Sagan was amazing.

Spend some time figuring out what your core principles are. Once you have identified those, use them as your "guiding light" when you encounter news or points of view, and constantly refer back to those principles to keep yourself centered.

I went through the same exact thing somewhat ""recently"" after realizing reforms aren't gonna do jack shit, media creating narratives obfuscating reality and this obfuscation of reality being heavily bought into by people both online and irl.

You're likely getting radicalized leftward, and this emotion and panic is a temporary part of it. It has happened to me and to others in the past, but this intense feeling eventually passes.

What helped me personally in the later stages was getting a coherent worldview, reading and studying some political theory so you can actually spot what doesn't fit in the news and in the comments, know what's actually in your interest to support rather than falling for some general moralizations, etc.

I'm down to talk more about it if you need it, this can really be hard to go through alone (speaking from experience).

I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're even talking about tbh. Just.......gestures to everything? The only real things you mentioned are "one privacy-overreach followed by another", and "some random organic act-of-god".

Can you be more specific about what exactly you're talking about?

The way I go about trust is that if there's a big name within 500 yards of something, don't trust it.

Look at everything, never limit your information diet to things that back up your opinion. Challenge everything. If its true, it will hold up to scrutiny. If its bullshit, you'll find a fuck load of people calling you an asshole, but never explaining why.

I don't know if you're involved in activism at all, but I heard some advice from an old Food Not Bombs head. Don't trust the person that is always available, always has a car, or is down for anything. This is especially true if they are new or always wear bland or name brand clothing.

I guess more generally, don't trust people that seem like they really want to be trusted.

Regarding surveillance online, yeah, there's absolutely no privacy anywhere and there's nothing you can do, so just be boring.

Hey I'll play hundreds of hours of overwatch and minecraft with you if you want. Then at least you'll know I'm real.

i am 100% sober...and...that's honestly the scariest part for me.

There's your problem, I only drink stuff which declares its authenticity in terms of a % of 'proof'. It doesn't help at all in any real sense, but it takes your mind off it.

I would recommend considering that you are currently going through a mental breakdown, just one that is different from others you have experienced.

I also suggest focusing on making friends, rather than getting caught up in global conspiracies. Maybe they're happening, maybe not, who knows? But either way, what are you, personally going to do about it? Post on Lemmy? Odds are, you can't do anything about it, so you might as well just make friends and be happy. And if you are gonna do something about it - overthrow the evil shadow regime or whatever - then you will need friends to do it. So go make friends!