Thank you for your post. I had nothing but bad experiences with Meetups; the connections were so shallow and most of the time people showed up with people they were already friends with and were only looking for a superficial way to pass the time. I'm well aware that you have to go through the superficial small talk stuff to be able to make those deeper connections, but what are you supposed to do when no one else is interested in any meaningful connection with a new person? It would be good if forums like this could lead to some irl connections, but I'm sure the site is worried about liability issues. Meetup.com seems to be geared for social-butterfly type extroverts who favor quantity over quality of relationships. And yes, while I hate to generalize about people, they do often seem pretty flaky.


Material prosperity is better now than at any other time in history for some parts of the world, though of course not all. But despite material and medical advances, people are physically, psychologically, and spiritually sick. And our material prosperity has come at a heavy environmental cost. It's going to take many generations to repair the damage. We have the means, but though the majority of the world's citizens have the will, few leaders do. They're too beholden to the power and wealth of those who benefit form the status quo. And it isn't only environmental problems that are ignored for this reason.

In 1920 there was coal heating and a few cars on the roads. There was some indoor plumbing. And there are a lot of parallels between that time and our own. Old ideas had broken down with nothing yet to replace them. WW1 had shattered the idealistic illusions of the Enlightenment that had shaped the cultural outlook of people for several centuries. People often speak of the Roaring Twenties as if it were a time of great happiness and general prosperity. But it was a thin veneer, and of course not everyone shared in that prosperity. It was a time of very high income inequality; those who were economically comfortable put themselves into debt to live a lavish lifestyle; extreme cultural conservatism and racism dominated politics. Terrorist hate groups committed acts of individual and mass violence. In Europe it was even worse; almost any history book refers to this time as "The Turbulent Interwar Years" or something similar. Currently, our old ideas are falling apart and everyone constantly feels as if we're standing on quicksand. War is brewing. We overreact to small things and underreact to big things. Democracy and so many other institutions are under attack. We live in a culture of narcissism, shallow materialism, and alienation.

Changes in methods of communication certainly do add to these tensions until we can figure out how to handle them. The increase in books and pamphlets and newsletters after the spread of the Gutenburg press was a factor in the Reformation, which in turn led to centuries of war in Europe. We now get flooded with so much information, much of it geared to make us feel outrage, fear, or despair, that these feelings are almost inevitable. And that's the point, especially with intentional misinformation. Some of it is selling more papers or air time, some for click bait, but some of it is for more sinister purposes. I try to avoid political talk here but I'm sure you know what I mean.

I don't feel that the world is hopeless or that there's no good at all in humanity. I wouldn't bother being on here or getting involved in the things I care about if I had no hope. There are times I have to step away from the news cycle. I have seen people perform selfless acts of kindness for someone they don't know and in some cases will never even meet. I've seen others join together to stand up against violence, hatred, and inequality, and felt the power and unity of these events. I've taken part in those things and that adds to my hope. There is so much good in humanity, but so much that is not good. Much of the time it feels like people are nurturing the wrong seeds in their hearts. I'm guilty of that too.

You're certainly right that there is beauty and kindness in the world. But it will only last so long as we maintain it. And too many people have the mentality of "screw everybody else; it's everyone for themselves." That's the seed of worldsuck.