Socialism doesn’t just seem like a good idea, it’s pretty much the only possible future that doesn’t end up with 99% of humanity suffering horribly.

The idea of everyone being able to work to make the means to survive has a rapidly approaching shelf life, most companies won’t employ humans over whatever tech is on the horizon as soon as it’s cheaper. The areas that remain habitable due to climate change will shrink

I do not know why this isn’t treated as a more pressing issue

Literally? No. We’re all subject to the same laws of physics.

Perceptual reality? World view? Yes. I only know one person in real life and not online (my wife) who shares some of my views of reality. For instance, I am a doomer. I am convinced we are well into the sixth, and by all accounts the most devastating, mass extinction. Humans are clever, but we depend on a stable environment for our food. That stable environment is turning into a series of alternating droughts, floods, fires, blizzards, and other extreme weather events. TBH, I’d be surprised if our species lasts to the end of the century. Hanson figures that, after feedbacks, we are on track for 10c of warming. That’s apocalyptic. And every time scientists talk about it you hear words like ‘faster than expected’. We are doing exactly nothing to prevent it, and are, in fact, accelerating the collapse by increasing our consumption, population, pollution, and environmental destruction. COP has been talking about it for so long (almost 30 years) that we’ve missed the boat. We are well past the point where we could stop it. We’re in the ‘find out’ stage now.

Yet people keep having kids and planning for the future like everything is going to be just fine. Can you not see what’s happening? When’s the last time you scraped bugs off your car windshield? They’re all dying out. The biosphere is collapsing around us. But sure, keep contributing to your 401K. Keep talking about how the ‘fertility crisis’ is the big issue. Keep thinking that somehow windmills and recycling are going to save the planet. Tell me more about how voting is going to fix the problem. I feel like Kate Dibiasky saying we’re all going to die while everyone around me wants to talk about their PTA, the latest social issue, or which politician they like.

(deep breath)

Yes. I do feel like my perception of reality is different than most people I know. I don’t know most of humanity so I can’t really say, but it sure seems like it.

Being neurodivergent does that to you

I only recenlty learned I have had undiagnosed autism my whole life (in my thirties now), and being able to recontextualise that I literally did have an - on average - different way of experiencing reality, with some filters missing, some intuitive normalities just not developing, and my brain focusing in a different way, that’s helping me a whole lot. Finally I don’t have to gaslight myself into thinking I am just lacking will and strength of character to fit into this world, as that’s what my socialisation had been instilling into me.

With having been obsessed with history and philosophy from a young age, I am also often not able to understand that the vast majority of people actually lives in a world where those things are at best superficially engaged with. Personally, at least at this moment of time, I think that is genuinely dangerous, because, oh boy, looking at the current material situation of the world and taking historical situations to estimate the possible consequences, things are not looking good. I firmly believe we need a globalised, socialist/communist mode of production and more short term, an international political infrastructure to organise the challenges ahead, but I fear it will only come about after things will be getting worse for quite some time, still.

Often when I’m talking to give information, people get something completely different from it. I know how words work, but somehow it turns to garbage between my brain and their ears.

Only when I smoke crack…