I recently found out about the Long Now Foundation, glad to see there's someone saying it out loud. We need to go back to thinking about our descendants in order to make a better humanity! We've tried the "more profit now" method for a while now, and I think most people will agree it has proven itself to not be a healthy, sustainable way to manage our lives and planet. I would really love to make a pilgrimage to the 10,000 year clock, seems like an amazing experience... if it wasn't in the US.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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I've noticed even with parents to children now there is no hope for them. I'm someone who grew up in poverty, and I expect nothing from my parents at all (they have nothing). However, even affluent parents are leaving less to their kids now. Which, I'm actually okay with individually (I worked hard, I'm not going to give you a free ride and spoil you).
What makes me sad is when I see parents holding inheritance as ransom over their children. If you want to live a different life than they approve? Inheritance revoked. You want a different major than they approve of, or don't have the same political views? No inheritance. Only had 1 grandchild instead of 3? No inheritance.
That's such selfish weird behavior in my book. It's not "I earned this, I want to use it for my retirement", it's not "I don't want to spoil you" or to give it to charity, so I don't want to give that impression. It's the "I want to dangle the ladder in front of you before pulling it up". I don't know if I'm describing my feelings well but it bothers me a lot, and I think it's 1000% selfish
And they call themselves Christians.
There appears to be major disagreement on what exactly a better world is.
better than whatever the fuck 2025 was.
You realize that's still incredibly fucking vague, right?
Different people have vastly different ideas about what "better" means. What's better for them might very well be worse for you.
Dan Olson's recent video on a silly meme that the white house posted and is being picked up by right wing crazies all over the world surfaced something that's been absolutely floating on the top of my mind ever since I saw it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WqVx9x89s
They show a clip from Encounters at the End of the World, where a little penguin starts inexplicably running away from the herd that's heading to the sea, and running towards some distant mountains instead.
The penguin isn't just like wandering off to see some sick mountains because it's never going to get there. There's no food. There's no shelter. There's no security.
The penguin is going to die.
Immediately before the clip in the full documentary, Herzog asks a penguin expert if penguins can go insane.
So, another thing that's implicit underneath this is the recognition that Trump and his cronies are on a suicide mission. They do not believe in the future. They cannot conceptualize the world surviving the present. And so, theirs is an embrace of pure id, pillaging what future does exist to live out a revenge fantasy for no other reason than because they can. Their only policy is chaos and hatred. Because where they're going, they don't need policies. The actual mountains, America the Great and its promised flourishing, don't matter. It can remain a hazy shape on the horizon because no one headed there will live to see it. Their only goal is to take everything else with them on the way out into the ice to die.
Now, maybe that's just cope on my part. I too am human and need to rationalize the world as it exists, grapple with the future. But it would go a long way to explaining why modern right-wing propaganda is so grim and nihilistic, reticent to depict any coherent ideal, even an unrealistic, unobtainable one.
Herzog intended for The Penguin to reflect on humanity. Encounters at the End of the World is unabashedly anthropomorphic film about the stories that people read into nature in order to say something about ourselves.
And to that end, the United States Department of Homeland Security has looked at this penguin and said, "Yep, that's us. We're doing this for no reason. We have no hope of success. There is no meaning to this. You don't need to ask us why because you've always known why."
Just like with most things wrong in North America, you can be right more often than not if you just blame Reagan.
It’s the result of hyper individualism fuelled by neoliberal policies that was spearheaded by Reagan, and I probably need to mention Thatcher as well.
Remember “greed is good”? Well this is the result.
Remember "greed is good"
Gordon Gecko is an asshole.
See if you make a ton of money, your kids will be better than the poor people, so you've left a better world for your children.
Actual logic and I've seen it play out.
Correct. To them "empathy" extending beyond friends and family is a rediculous concept. They also don't believe that anyone else could actually fall for caring about other people.
Good adult
Most don't even know how to behave like an adult. Majority of the government behave exactly like children, which makes this situation worse. They rather play pretend adult rather than actually try to be an adult.
If anyone on Lemmy wants a financial answer to this question, which essentially what it boils down to given the society we're in, I would recommend listening to the latest Weekly Show podcast episode with Jon Stewart interviewing the Nobel Prize winning economist Richard Thaler.
He breaks down this exact mentality in a way that makes a lot of sense.
My very short summary: We hate losing something way more than we enjoy gaining something. That's why governments prefer subsidies. They are perceived as gaining something, while taxes are perceived as losing something. They also talk about nudges versus shoves. Nudging people toward positive behavior works better, especially if you do it in a way that makes people feel like they have agency. But this makes it difficult to change behavior drastically (a shove), which Stewart argues is required with the challenges we're facing because of climate change. Thaler replies that with the kind of people we have in power, allowing for drastic change will not yield the kind of change we need nor want.
I think that's what the conversation boils down to, for all the people who hate watching a long video for what could've been some clean text.
The problem is not only that, but that those who want to leave the world better when they die can't seem to agree what "better" means...
Pick up trash you find on the ground. Hold the door open for the person behind you. Say thank you. Apologize and mean it.
It’s not that difficult.
In my opinion (and personal experience), I used to freeze up and not do anything because I felt I couldn’t make a big enough difference — so why bother? Then I had kids, and I realized that everything I do (and don’t do!) is scrutinized and repeated by my children.
My small actions have now been multiplied by 2. Pretty neat if you ask me.
They want to leave a world that only their children will control
They had lead in gasoline while they were growing up.
Yeah but think about this: more money me
Probably they haven't grown up.
*yeah, not yea or nay. It isn't a vote.
This is what got us into this mess in the first place
I got neglected by those before me and when I am old I will nbe taking care of those after me.
Being a Millennial rocks.
I'll count it as a win if I have such a luxury when I'm old.
The idea that ppl are good (especially summarily) is greatly exaggerated, just feel-good propaganda.
Looking at our history, and how nothing sustainable ever surfaced/lasted, how greed above everything else always prevailed, accumulates quite a bit of evidence.
The average person is actually good, but introduce severe trauma as well as game theory - prisoner's dilemma and bystander effect - and people (plural) are suddenly a huge problem.
Do you mean to say good until a time to show said goodness comes?
What do you base that the average person is good?
I would say the average person would kill another person for 100k monies (in case of no other consequences & ease, like press of a button).
I'm not seeing much else unfortunately, just goodwashing stories of philanthropy & such.
Eg Romans didn't have issues pillaging & then subjugating entire provinces to the empire, kill any opposition to the pillaging or trade. Except for scales, such this aspect of "goodness" before and after.
Do ppl really look at all the constant killing for power & think this has nothing to do with humanity, just a few bad apples?
I wonder how much of that is a result of what society imposes on the individual.
Some might come along and say capitalism forces this on us.
While others might then argue these similar influences and pressures existed before written language, and even in nature in protohumans, primates and other animals.
Idk, environment def has an affect - but then again "being good" should prob go for when it's easy & for when it's hard to do so. Otherwise it's the environment who decides, not the individual. And what has been the environment of humanity but the few who ruled it throughout the ages?
People hate it when you say this. But it's legit. If people actually were genuinely good and wanted to be good, then would we really have all the problems we do? If one person(sleezy billionaire) can completely wreck society, then was society that strong to begin with? People point out that there are more of us than them, yet the minority them manages to keep the rest of us in line pretty well.... Yet we have the power? Well what are we doing with it then?
The biggest flaw of humanity is we think we are way better than we actually are. But the sad truth is we all are affected by biases, unconscious beliefs, flaws in our reasoning, flaws in our character, flaws in our perception, flaws in our memory, etc. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. It's pretending like we're above all of that and that it doesn't affect us that leads to our downfall and is a bad thing.
Hubris, made popular in every societies storytelling going back millenia, is our greatest flaw. We think ourselves way better than we truly are.
People hate it when you say this. But it's legit.
Yeah, I knew that was gonna get downvotes.
You put it far more eloquently.
We all combine together to achieve/do what humanity does.
Additionally we also tend to romanticise horrible things (rich ppl, warmongering & wars, empires doing horrible things, even ~~lapdogs~~ ~~professional middleman~~ agents like CEOs and generals get fame during and long after their deaths). Which ofc tends to reward, or I should say, we reward ppl that behave as such.