I think it's mass anxiety caused by uncertainty across the board.

Political uncertainty as far right and authoritarian movements pick up speed in various democracies.

Labor market uncertainties due to companies tightening their belts in the face of economic uncertainty, and trying to replace workers with AI.

Economic uncertainty due to wars disrupting energy and supply chains and the looming specter of recession/depression.

Geopolitical uncertainty due to several ongoing wars and several tense situations that could devolve into actual conflicts, not to mention the major paradigm shift happening where the US is actively ceding its position as a global leader to China.

Climate uncertainty as we refuse to address climate change and burn mountains of coal to power plagiarized chat bots.

The weirdest part is everybody is for the most part pretending everything is normal while silently being anxious on their own.

It's been off since covid for me. 2020 is where I lost a lot of faith in humanity. Masks off (literally) on selfishness, greed, fascism, and anti-intellectualism. Corruption blatantly on display. Decorum and civility have taken a massive hit. It's been downhill since.

The largest empire in the history of the world is in the middle stages of Mad King Disease, that sort of thing has ripple effects.

We're on the very edge of a new age of feudalism which, as we speak, is being ushered in by murderous fascists and their axiomatic drive to start civil wars.
A small cabal of billionaires totally stopped caring, or at least pretending to do so, about the common folks. They really want all the money and all the power in the world, and it's now within their reach.
The "opposition" is either complacent or terrified.

Feels like everyone I know, myself included, has had some kind of mental breakdown in the past few months. Life has become fucking crazy.

Yeah, since 2014 when they turned the algorithms on.

It is off. The US empire is falling, and falling fast. They are lashing out in all directions, and hurting almost everyone. People credit Trump too much for the chaos, that is really frustrating. Yes, he has a lot of power to do idiotic things, but there is an armada of people controlling things and contributing here. Trump is mostly the facade. Never forget that Americans wanted this. They knew what he was, but they still voted for the republican fascists.

The same authoritarian development is happening in a lot of democracies at the moment. It's honestly very worrying. I also feel quite powerless.

another virus is going around, people around me are getting sore throat, mildly painful, because people arnt vaccinating or isolating when they are sick, but not sick like flu, covid, or the cold. i do not want another covid infection, like i did last sept.

are you noticing the enshitifaction of everything ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmnQD3QHeY

I feel okay, personally (other than being horrified by the polycrisis taking place in the world), but share your sense that we're in the middle of a tectonic shift. Multiple friends, usually talkative, usually stable, have gone silent, and I know several people who seem to be having low level mental health crises.

It's not just you. In my area people are driving worse, people are being less patient, and folks seem to be getting weirder. Hell, I just had to delete an article about skinning a cat from a vegan discord group. I have no idea what's going on, but I'd guess it's stress, weather, and endless conflict weighing on people.

I’ve been vegan since 2019 and it’s hitting me lately that in those days things were looking bright for veganism. Now a lot of vegan restaurants are turning their backs on animals by serving meat then closing up shop a few months later after alienating their customers. It’s getting more difficult to find vegan options and it just breaks my heart.

(There’s also like 10,000 other problems I’m going through too.)

At least in the US, a big factor is wondering just how fucked up things are going to be on November 4. Or if the puppet masters will conspire to cancel the general election entirely. Makes it hard to plan for the future, wondering if an actual revolution is unfolding.

Oh yeah. Not sure how much is a us in particular thing. I think the last thing I complained about here is paper towels but I really feel like everything. Absolutely everything is just not working as well as it used to. I blame worker reductions and things just not being maintained as well. I think they are requiring folk to do more such that they can't do it as well and they have lost knowledge on how things work but penny pinching on maintenance. Combined with little to no real oversight and by and large inspection is done internally and that is a good place to pinch pennies. I sorta feel like the country is going like the soviet union. Its like we talked about how inefficiently they ran but they still had cities and people working their jobs and going about life. Similarly we do and people are like see its fine because things are still happening. Its such a slow degredation.

Everyone seems scared to talk about what they’re scared of even though we all know. Even around the like-minded. It’s like saying it out loud makes it real and worse.

Time freakin moves, buddy. Like MOVES. Like HAS motion. It’s crazy how quick the days/weeks/months freaking fly by.

Things fall apart more. Everything is breaking down and nobody gives a shit because there's soo many things breaking at the same time.

In the chase for efficiency offered by computers and internet, everything from physical products to services are now depending on some broken code that only works when conditions are optimal. The systemic dependency between seemingly unrelated events is insane.

Gravity seems extra strong some mornings.

And yellow coloured things seem to whine at a slightly higher octave than normal.

It is a downward spiral. Worry, loss, wory, loss, worry andvmore loss.

Loss of future perspectives, worry over basic needs, losd of health, worry over future of kids, loss of mental health, worry over wars, etc.

I noticed that most articles have this strange AI feeling to them, I can't say what specificaly, but I kust know.

Usually the balance of dark and light carry the day. Lately, it's been more dark and the balance seems out of whack. I feel that too (I was going to say "in my bones").