Often, people start to worry about ecological damage when they start to feel stress about their ability to thrive. Historically speaking this makes sense -- if the prey animals start to go away, if the plants we harvest aren't producing food, and as a result we don't feel comfortable breeding, then worrying about the planet is a rational thing to do, so much that it's possible this connection is built into us on a genetic level, having been hunter gatherers for a million years.
This likely continues to today, we feel ecological anxiety when we're feeling stressed about our ability to thrive, but like many of our biological responses, that's somewhat out of date. Today young people are worried about a place to live, they don't know if they'll be able to feed themselves, but paradoxically our local environments are in some of the best shape they've been in a long time due to the environmental movements of the past century forcing bad actors to shape up. As a result, the ecological anxiety needs to go somewhere so instead of worrying about our local environments which are fine we start worrying about an invisible crisis in our global ecology.
There is a crisis and everyone knows it. The only real question is "what crisis is it?" And I think the real answer is that young people are suffocating. They can't afford a place to live, they struggle to afford food to eat, they can't afford to become worthy of a mate, they can't afford to have kids, they have no friends and feel like there's no way to meet friends, they don't know how to meet the opposite sex even if they could afford to date, theyre struggling and they can feel it. The internet, video games, they're cold comfort when people can sense their extinction coming.
I think this is why people are also going along with obviously insane ideas about various things -- people, both men and women, feel like they're going to suffocate in their current societal role so they're desperately searching for a new role, whatever it is, that will let them not go extinct. I suspect that this too might be deeply held in our DNA, people desperately trying to switch roles to find something that'll help them thrive. It's like the last scene in terminator 2 where the T1000 is dying in the lava and changes to all the different forms he's taken throughout the movie hoping desperately that one of the might get him out of the situation. People are suffering with their traditional roles, so they're trying alternatives desperately hoping a new role might allow them to succeed while they're suffocating.
The world doesn't make any sense if you take it at face value, but it might make sense if you look a bit deeper. One commentator was laughing going "gen z is dealing with the total inability to get a place to live and they're most anxious about climate change!" But another commentator pointed out that people start to be concerned about the environment when they feel like there's nowhere to go and they're trapped in the environment they live in. I agree that ecological issues are important, but they aren't imminent threats, they're long term threats that will manifest as consequences a few generations from now. It's not a reason to be anxious, just a reason to make better choices for tomorrow. On the other hand, the fear of dying childless and struggling and metaphorically worrying about the environment makes a lot of sense.
When people feel like they can't do anything to fix themselves, they start to act as if they can change the entire world instead. I think it's a Defense mechanism because if you try to change your life and fail it's immediate and obvious, but if you try to change the world and fail the world is so big who's to say you actually failed? In that sense it's easier to try to save the world from an imminent threat that isn't actually imminent instead of dealing with the fact most people don't think they'll ever own a home.
Would young people feel so anxious about climate change if they were on track to owning a home in a nice neighborhood with a yard? If they could have one parent stay at home to watch the kids they could afford to feed and clothe? If they felt like they were part of a community they called home?
This likely continues to today, we feel ecological anxiety when we're feeling stressed about our ability to thrive, but like many of our biological responses, that's somewhat out of date. Today young people are worried about a place to live, they don't know if they'll be able to feed themselves, but paradoxically our local environments are in some of the best shape they've been in a long time due to the environmental movements of the past century forcing bad actors to shape up. As a result, the ecological anxiety needs to go somewhere so instead of worrying about our local environments which are fine we start worrying about an invisible crisis in our global ecology.
There is a crisis and everyone knows it. The only real question is "what crisis is it?" And I think the real answer is that young people are suffocating. They can't afford a place to live, they struggle to afford food to eat, they can't afford to become worthy of a mate, they can't afford to have kids, they have no friends and feel like there's no way to meet friends, they don't know how to meet the opposite sex even if they could afford to date, theyre struggling and they can feel it. The internet, video games, they're cold comfort when people can sense their extinction coming.
I think this is why people are also going along with obviously insane ideas about various things -- people, both men and women, feel like they're going to suffocate in their current societal role so they're desperately searching for a new role, whatever it is, that will let them not go extinct. I suspect that this too might be deeply held in our DNA, people desperately trying to switch roles to find something that'll help them thrive. It's like the last scene in terminator 2 where the T1000 is dying in the lava and changes to all the different forms he's taken throughout the movie hoping desperately that one of the might get him out of the situation. People are suffering with their traditional roles, so they're trying alternatives desperately hoping a new role might allow them to succeed while they're suffocating.
The world doesn't make any sense if you take it at face value, but it might make sense if you look a bit deeper. One commentator was laughing going "gen z is dealing with the total inability to get a place to live and they're most anxious about climate change!" But another commentator pointed out that people start to be concerned about the environment when they feel like there's nowhere to go and they're trapped in the environment they live in. I agree that ecological issues are important, but they aren't imminent threats, they're long term threats that will manifest as consequences a few generations from now. It's not a reason to be anxious, just a reason to make better choices for tomorrow. On the other hand, the fear of dying childless and struggling and metaphorically worrying about the environment makes a lot of sense.
When people feel like they can't do anything to fix themselves, they start to act as if they can change the entire world instead. I think it's a Defense mechanism because if you try to change your life and fail it's immediate and obvious, but if you try to change the world and fail the world is so big who's to say you actually failed? In that sense it's easier to try to save the world from an imminent threat that isn't actually imminent instead of dealing with the fact most people don't think they'll ever own a home.
Would young people feel so anxious about climate change if they were on track to owning a home in a nice neighborhood with a yard? If they could have one parent stay at home to watch the kids they could afford to feed and clothe? If they felt like they were part of a community they called home?
Yeah, or people who end up with pets as a surrogate for what they really want to do in life.
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