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R U OK?

ruok.org.au

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Re: R U OK?

#151

Post by eulers_secret »

ericmcer wrote: post #96

Something I am struggling with recently is less am I ok, but more do we as humans deserve to be ok? When I look at the freeways full of cars, streets lined with overflowing garbage cans, homeless encampments, grocery stores with row after row of cheap meat under fluorescent light. Am I supposed to feel ok? It many times feels as though we are a virus decimating our host environment. The constant flood of bad news com…

I feel the same way. Humanity is going to reap what it has sown. I think we do not deserve to be OK. Warning, my very cynical viewpoint below.

We've destroyed or are destroying (not exhaustive by any means): flying insect populations by 75%, wild animal populations, coral reefs, numerous fisheries, both poles of the Earth, rain forests...

Climate change is not going to stop or be stopped. Check page 8 of this PDF for a 2050 scenario of climate change: https://52a87f3e-7945-4bb1-abbf-9aa66cd4e93e.filesusr.com/ug... Climate change will probably be a causative factor in future wildfires and pandemics. Get used to this lifestyle.

Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases right now, the earth would still warm: https://theconversation.com/if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhous...

I personally think this is due to overpopulation (This is a VERY controversial viewpoint, I know). Take it with a massive grain of salt, but here's someone's take: https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/iprn0y/natural_w...

It has been pretty well known the best thing an individual can do to help the climate is to have fewer children: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-...

However, the biological imperative to reproduce is too strong. We will not stop until we have consumed all resources and some external factor limits our population. Could be famine (due to climate change), could be disease (due to climate change), could be war (due to climate change). It won't be because people decide to.

What I've personally decided to do is to not have children and try to enjoy watching the world be destroyed from a front-row seat. What we are seeing and will see is unprecedented. I cannot stop it, and neither can you. I believe it cannot be stopped. I take comfort knowing I won't continue the cycle of suffering by raising the next generation of wage slaves.

I haven't even touched on politics, class inequality, race inequality, sex inequality, whatever the hell Trump represents about the USA, the potential rise of fascism, alt-right propaganda machines, antifa bogymen, wealth inequality, business conglomeration, excessive executive pay, stale working wages, US health insurance, many without any sick leave, very high housing prices, homelessness, poor mental health care... it just keeps going.

Like I said, I'm very cynical and quite bearish on humanity as a whole. :)

Re: R U OK?

#152

Post by ericmcer »

parliament32 wrote: post #148
ericmcer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite example of this comes from my ~10 years working at grocery stores before I made it into the tech industry. An older lady would come in and just clean us out of our cheap ground beef. This was at trader joe's, we sold 1 pound plastic wrapped cubes for $2.99. She would come in and buy ~20 every week. I finally asked her what she was doing with all this ground beef and she explained how it was for her two bi…

I don't want this to sound like an attack but what's the issue? Heaven forbid someone feeds their pets the food they're supposed to eat instead of some hyper-processed and unregulated sawdust pellets.

Well if you assume that beef is bad and cheap beef is especially terrible for both the environment and the cattle themselves then it isn't a huge stretch to see why someone pouring 20X the amount a human would eat into 2 dogs every week could be viewed as immoral.

It's like more people driving hybrid/electric cars cause gas prices to go down, in response to this other people can now buy bigger gas guzzling cars. Economics rewards immoral behavior.

Re: R U OK?

#153

Post by mauvehaus »

josuepeq wrote: post #54

The U.S. needs this day, especially this year. With the unmitigated disaster of 2020, I’m “probably not ok,” but I am not in any danger to myself or others. Quite the opposite - I’m optimistic that things are moving in the right direction. I mean, it can’t get worse: - Shutdown my consulting Business in February because I didn’t feel comfortable with being around new people constantly with a t-cell deficient immune s…

I’m so sorry. I’ve known two people who’ve committed suicide, but neither anywhere near as close as this. I wish you solace in whatever form you find it and I’m sorry that you’re having to navigate this in a world largely without hugs.

Re: R U OK?

#154

Post by nkrisc »

ericmcer wrote: post #96

Something I am struggling with recently is less am I ok, but more do we as humans deserve to be ok? When I look at the freeways full of cars, streets lined with overflowing garbage cans, homeless encampments, grocery stores with row after row of cheap meat under fluorescent light. Am I supposed to feel ok? It many times feels as though we are a virus decimating our host environment. The constant flood of bad news com…

I would just leave morality out of it. The universe exists, with or without us, just as Earth has and will. All you can do is live your life in the world you find yourself in and make the most of it before you, and the rest of us, are eventually gone.

For me that means living my life, doing what I can to be kind and make others happy because that's what I enjoy doing. Nothing I do will really matter though, in the long run. But that's OK. Why does it have to matter?

Re: R U OK?

#155

Post by tmpz22 »

troydavis wrote: post #140
tmpz22 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably worth mentioning that if the police are involved during a mental health crisis there is a strong likelihood of physical violence even if you are not a minority.

Could you cite a source? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6295210/ is one study of outcomes of Chicago police dispatches for mental health incidents. The outcomes are in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6295210/#S6titl... . Officers mostly transported people to hospitals (44% of calls) or resolved the call on the scene with no next step (35%). Arrests occurred but were rare: > The call resolut…

Appreciate your push for more concrete sources, I don't have any. There are four points that led to my comment:

[1]: Police violence in the news in the United States. How common it is is very debatable, the worst news bubbles to the top and catches the media's attention. For every police shooting there are probably 100+ stops with no shooting. Hopefully the increased media attention has led to concrete studies that will either prove or invalidate my point.

[2]: The very recent shooting of a 13 year old with autism whose mother called the police (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/08/linden-camer...). This is one event, its my opinion that it is representative of many police encounters with the mentally disabled.

[3]: Living in two cities (Eugene OR, and San Francisco) with high rates of homelessness, vagrants, and transients, and observing the success of non-police based services versus police-based services interacting with the homeless.

[4]: Internet comments from people who I believe are EMTs, crisis counselors, and teachers, on stories like [2], sharing similar experiences, sharing their own de-escalation training, and calling out terrible process and active escalation by police in mental health situations.

EDIT:

[5]: For your own source is this violence/non-violence rate based on police reporting, or do they interview other non-police participants?

Re: R U OK?

#156

Post by Kalium »

tmpz22 wrote: post #155
troydavis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you cite a source? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6295210/ is one study of outcomes of Chicago police dispatches for mental health incidents. The outcomes are in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6295210/#S6titl... . Officers mostly transported people to hospitals (44% of calls) or resolved the call on the scene with no next step (35%). Arrests occurred but were rare: > The call resolut…

Appreciate your push for more concrete sources, I don't have any. There are four points that led to my comment: [1]: Police violence in the news in the United States. How common it is is very debatable, the worst news bubbles to the top and catches the media's attention. For every police shooting there are probably 100+ stops with no shooting. Hopefully the increased media attention has led to concrete studies that w…

> [1]: Police violence in the news in the United States. How common it is is very debatable, the worst news bubbles to the top and catches the media's attention. For every police shooting there are probably 100+ stops with no shooting. Hopefully the increased media attention has led to concrete studies that will either prove or invalidate my point.

The federal government seems to have been quietly collecting and publishing relevant statistics for some time now: https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=70

Without diving deeply into the data, I know that such collections efforts are occasionally prone to issues where different departments record similar events in drastically different ways. So there are known shortcomings in the data set, but there is data. I'm reasonably sure researchers have worked with this data.

> [3]: Living in two cities (Eugene OR, and San Francisco) with high rates of homelessness, vagrants, and transients, and observing the success of non-police based services versus police-based services interacting with the homeless.

I have no doubts whatsoever about the success of kind, compassionate, and humanitarian services in Eugene. However it seems to me to be contra-factual to describe SF's services to community members experiencing being unsheltered as at all a success except by the metric of quantity of money spent. Police-based or no seems minimally impactful.

Re: R U OK?

#157

Post by ericmcer »

olau wrote: post #128
ericmcer wrote: post #96

Something I am struggling with recently is less am I ok, but more do we as humans deserve to be ok? When I look at the freeways full of cars, streets lined with overflowing garbage cans, homeless encampments, grocery stores with row after row of cheap meat under fluorescent light. Am I supposed to feel ok? It many times feels as though we are a virus decimating our host environment. The constant flood of bad news com…

Do something about it. If you work on it, it's likely you'll inspire other people. If you don't know how to start, look to others for inspiration. If we all do something to make the world a better place, it WILL be a better place. Also, say no to bad stuff as much as you can muster. You'll probably get better at it over time.

I am cynical about this because I view our current society as a kind of giant prisoners dilemma. If you sacrifice to make things better it is just allowing for others to behave worse for longer. If I take short showers to conserve water, it just opens the road for other people to use more. Until we hit a giant drought that forces people to confront the consequences they will continue watering giant lawns. Apply that to whatever area of life you want.

Re: R U OK?

#158

Post by progman32 »

parliament32 wrote: post #148
ericmcer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite example of this comes from my ~10 years working at grocery stores before I made it into the tech industry. An older lady would come in and just clean us out of our cheap ground beef. This was at trader joe's, we sold 1 pound plastic wrapped cubes for $2.99. She would come in and buy ~20 every week. I finally asked her what she was doing with all this ground beef and she explained how it was for her two bi…

I don't want this to sound like an attack but what's the issue? Heaven forbid someone feeds their pets the food they're supposed to eat instead of some hyper-processed and unregulated sawdust pellets.

I'm not OP so my answer may differ from theirs, but beef is one of the most environmentally-expensive forms of protein to produce. I.e., https://www.ewg.org/meateatersguide/a-meat-eaters-guide-to-c... and http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/carbon-footprint-factsheet

Re: R U OK?

#159

Post by abnercoimbre »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #150
hrktb wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing that The Onion headlines are becomming more and more milder version of reality. There was a skit a while ago about wounded people fleeing ambulances to escape debt hell, what we have here is arguably worse.

I had an ambulance called for me years ago when I passed out in public (nothing serious) and it was fairly difficult to convince the EMT's that I didn't want to nor needed to go to the hospital.

If it's okay to ask, was not wanting to go related to financial concerns too?

Re: R U OK?

#160

Post by londons_explore »

smnrchrds wrote: post #137
anm89 wrote: post #119

Remember, if you are in the US at least, and someone tells you they aren't ok, and you recommend a crisis line, and they mention anything regarding suicide, they are very likely going to be extracted from their living situation by force and end up incarcerated at very high expense to themselves. If their life was going poorly before that, it sure won't be better after. edit: as another poster mentioned, the record of…

Also having your name officially recorded for this cause in a database can have negative impacts on the rest of your life, as this Canadian woman found: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canadian-woman-refuse...

That particular woman wrote a book about her experience with depression, then wondered how the US border agent knew about it...

I mean, I'm all for privacy, but if you publish something in a book I don't think you can expect it to stay a secret...

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