I wish. News is just so addicting and entertaining. Like I can read endless articles on NYT about Ukraine, catastrophe of the week, and it's more captivating than HBO. I literally can't focus on TV programs now because I'm on my phone doomscrolling. I wish I could stop.
I’ve booked a psychologist appointment for my TikTok addiction. I spend 1 to 4hrs a day on it, and about half that on various other news like HN.
I’m in a double sandwich: Since Covid, I have utter disdain for real-life people, who would miss no opportunity to destroy our lives, such as borrowing a trillion and endebt us for generations just to fuel a stay-at-home policy that destroys social links and physical health, and more generally play the class warfare game (I live in France); and at the same time, if I stop scrolling on TikTok to keep my mind occupied, I immediately have dark thoughts because I’m unoccupied at home.
That’s it. I’m in the post-virtual world. Connections with other humans not necessary. Nor pleasant. Youtube tells me stories before I go to sleep. HN wakes me up with news. My main goal in life is to move the needle on the dashboard of my revenue at work. I’m a caricature.
> I have utter disdain for real-life people, who would miss no opportunity to destroy our lives, such as borrowing a trillion and endebt us for generations just to fuel a stay-at-home policy that destroys social links and physical health, and more generally play the class warfare game (I live in France)
A practice that’s been good for my psychological health is to imagine how a good person would come to hold the ideas I disagree with. I’ve never failed, unless the subject is someone really beyond the pale like a mass murderer.
You can come up with multiple explanations, that range from “they are ignorant” to “they know something I don’t” and everything in between.
To try to engage with the example you gave, I’d imagine this about the people who support the lockdown:
1. They believe covid is extremely dangerous, and they want to protect people from dying. They don’t like that the lockdown is an inhibition of personal freedom, but they believe it’s justified due to the extreme circumstances (kind of like how it’s OK for the government to force people to evacuate their homes if the area is about to be flooded). Probably if covid had a 5% death rate, you’d support lockdown too. A poll found that over 35% of US adults believe covid has a death rate of 5% or more! [1]
2. They may think that the economy can just go back to the way it was before when lockdown ends, the government makes the money, and it can just pay people enough to buy what they need for now.
3. They may understand the economic cost of the lockdown, and they know it will make life more difficult in the future, but they believe the sacrifice is worth it (kind of like how the government went into debt in WWII).
I’m not saying these people are right about the facts - I’m just saying their motivations are not evil. You and them both want the world to be a good place, you are just working from different premises that lead to you different ways of achieving that.
Now, if you want to be some kind of political activist, you can go through life trying to convince people they are wrong about things. That could be noble.
But if you are just trying to enjoy life, it’s good to be able to walk around and look at the people you meet and have positive feelings about them. It will make you happier, and it sounds like that is something you want.
> 3. They may understand the economic cost of the lockdown, and they know it will make life more difficult in the future, but they believe the sacrifice is worth it (kind of like how the government went into debt in WWII).
> I’m not saying these people are right about the facts - I’m just saying their motivations are not evil.
Well, you’ve summarized the possible explanations clearly. It’s fairly probable they don’t mind sacrificing people for their fight against Covid. Concluding they are not evil is quite a bold stretch.
Moreover, it’s not them, but it’s the media. But they choose to believe it, however astonishing it may sound, and they either don’t see the BS or they choose to ignore it.
But that’s the story of living in a society, at one point you have to admit that you are defeated and some crazy people have control, and that they are literally watching what escapes of happiness you have and closing them one by one, because you’re white, male, have a company, may want to date, may want to travel, all of this is under threat, they’ll demonize all those attributes while valuing people who believe in astrology or in carpe diem.
They’re not acting random. They’re after me, as an archetype. There is no path to happiness.
