• @X51
    link
    12 years ago

    I am in the U.S. I don’t need to read an 80 year old fictional story to know the current state of affairs. My employer has a $3.5 billion back load of orders to fill. Too many people are vested in the success of America. Even if it were to collapse in <cough> 500 years, all of us will be dead and gone. Why would I be worried about that when there are thousand of unexpected ways for mayhem and destruction to plague the planet without the U.S. even being affected.

    I think there is a far bigger risk of the U.S. exploding rather than collapsing. We sit on top of the world’s largest super volcano. Canadians would likely die from that too if it happened. My point is that there are far bigger things to be concerned about.

    I was reading a social media site one day and a new blurb popped up about someone driving off the road in North Carolina and dying. The person wasn’t anyone noteworthy. It was just one sad event. One isolated loss of life. I went to the internet and looked up statistics on how many people die on any given day. I quickly did the math and realized that reading about every random death that happens in the day is an EXTREMELY poor use of my time. I would have no time to do anything actually constructive. I felt that the site was wasting my time with news that is inconsequential to my choices in life. It was needlessly depressing. It was completely useless news. Debating on whether the U.S. will collapse is an equal waste of my time. Even if inevitable mechanisms are in place, we will all be dead before it happens.

    My occupation gives me a sense of self-respect. I know that our (i.e. my employer’s) products have been pro-actively attempting to make the world a better place. We donated $2 million & medical equipment to New York City after 9/11. We provided equipment to desalinate water for Israel. We built Guinness World record breaking mining equipment for Belarus. Wind farms. Solar power generation. Hybrid buses. Covid detection kits. If I retire today, I know that my individual contribution to the world will have positively affected millions of people.

    For that reason, I’m taking my time to tell you, there are more important issues to discuss. This little pea soup of fear in which your brain is locked into is not a constructive use of anyone’s time. Too many people in the world are reactive rather than being proactive. Don’t be the flag flapping in the wind. The world is what we make it, and it is not just us waiting for some news story to react to. The best decision making in life is not done from the perspective of fear. That’s why Donald Trump was an idiot. He promoted fear. He made stupid choices out of fear. Be constructive.

    • @a_Ha
      link
      12 years ago

      i am getting quite old & struggle to contribute anything at the level at which many (&you) contribute here on Lemmy.

      For anyone else who would want to read that book series (Foundation), it was visionary at the time and i believe it is still so 😌