When I was a child I had a neighbor who was a mentally challenged adult woman. I learned how cruel life can be. I didn't understand why some have it worst than others. But I also learn to appreciate and be grateful for what I have.

Covid, and specifically the response, lack of response, and rollback of response, to covid, worldwide. So much unnecessary death for treats.

2020 george floyd protests

even during protests about police brutality they did even more police brutality

it's never going to stop. the system has too many meaningless pressure valves that they've convinced people are actually valuable [writing a letter to a local official, voting (depending what state), clever chants during protests, etc]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine made me realize the fundamental wisdom of the saying "Speak softly and carry a big stick".

9/11.

I didn’t think much about the dangers of religion and “faith” in general until then.

I already knew we'd collapse before COVID, but seeing the reaction to COVID made me realize how absurdly stupid the average person is

Like at least with racism, you could tentatively argue that a mayo indirectly benefits from it. But the COVID brainworms is reminiscent of AI bots. Calling them cattle would be generous

The coup in Bolivia shook me of any demsoc liberalism I still had in me and made me understand that a worker’s movement can only be defended with force

Finally seeing sense and not believing religion anymore changed everything.

And oddly enough, it all started because of an X-Men movie.

The war in Iraq. It was bullshit and everyone knew it was bullshit, but it happened because politicians forced it through. 9/11 was a horrific disaster but the war in Iraq that followed left me completely jaded.

I can't pin it down to just one, but holy shit school shootings and the way we've responded to them completely broke whatever part of me thought that our society was still capable of doing things. They keep upping the ante with how horrifying they are too - the high water mark currently is Uvalde, and I think that the next one that shocks the nation will involve the cops (or a "good guy with a gun") gunning down multiple kids or parents while trying to "help" and our collective response will still be to do nothing.

Finding out in primary school that other kids weren't poor and had all the shit they wanted while we sometimes had issues getting food.

The damn toilet paper crisis

The Obama presidency and how all flavors of western media acted like it was taking the US down a radical leftist path.

The run up to the start of the war in Iraq. Anyone who was paying attention knew that Afghanistan was already a disaster, a complete failure for everyone but arms dealers, and everyone also knew that the gwb regime was completely full of shit. Massive rallies worldwide saying no, yet they did it anyway. Fucking murderous assholes.

That week recently when there were floods in every country except where there were fires in every country. That was wild.

I stopped watching the 24/7 need channels. It cut out so much fear and paranoia that those channels thrive on.

The state murdering Fred Hampton.

Probably being on welfare for an extended period of time. It kinda beat the techno-libertarian out of me.

Most of my big internal changes were done through years of struggling in communities and therapy though

When two friends and me got punched on the street by robbers, i look in all directions now.

Unironically since I live in the imperial core and am from an ex-socialist country, but not old enough to have experienced it. It was the Trump v. Clinton elections where I saw what lib brain does to people.

Going through spine surgery at a relatively very young age, and all the suffering beforehand. Revealed just how fake the world is and just how superficial a lot of things are.