Over the short term (in an historical sense), that's certainly the case.

I just mentioned on another post that I liken it to individual growth. Just as individuals can and often do mature to the point that they no longer need or desire a mommy and daddy, so too can our species as a whole mature. And I believe that, if we don't destroy ourselves along the way, we not only can but will.

But even if we don't destroy ourselves along the way, yes - that's still many, many, MANY generations away.

As is generally the case, only a relative few have enough power to actually do something meaningful, and as the winners of the countless battles that had to be fought as they crawled their way up whichever hierarchy to the top of which they now cling, they tend to be ruthless, self-serving, dishonest, amoral and entirely heartless, hiding behind a convincing-enough veneer of principles and integrity.

So as is generally the case, the world can be roughly divided into those who could do something but won't. those who would do something but can't, and those who aren't paying attention, for whatever reason.

Gurren Lagann

The one time I did that, I just switched my inbox from "Unread" to "All." Problem solved.

There's a line in Nicholas Roeg's movie Insignificance that has stayed with me for decades now.

There's an obvious Einstein expy just called "The Professor." At one point, he's asked why he's so cautious about his claims - why he habitually says things like, "I think that..." or "The theory is that..." or "One might argue that..."

His response is, "If I say 'I know,' I stop thinking."

That, IMO, points to the primary answer to your question - don't try to remove self-doubt. Nourish it. Revel in it. Because it's the thing that will keep you thinking, and the more you think, the more likely you are to get to actual truth.

3,000 - Oblivion

That's spread over 40 or so characters, and dating all the way back to 2006.

!manga@kbin.social

It's pretty much a lost cause, at least for now, but I keep posting anyway. And it's not like it's an imposition - I check in on Mangadex a few times a day anyway, to catch up on my follows and maybe browse the new updates, so I just post discussion threads for the stuff I like and would like to discuss.

Years ago, I used to post a lot on the Reddit manga sub. It was always much more active, but my tastes in manga are obscure enough that most of what I was following didn't get posted otherwise. But then the sub grew to the point that there were more enthusiastic posters even posting that, so I stopped.

That's made it sort of awkward on kbin though, since I'm still just posting the sort of obscure stuff I like. In order to grow the community, it would be better to post more popular series, but that just seems sort of dishonest to me. It seems to me that if I'm not even reading a series myself, I have no business posting it.

So it goes...

I don't really go out of my way. It's more like an ingrained habit.

Most notably, I've never bought a single thing from Amazon. I don't even have an account with them. That's not an ethical decision though - it sort of works out that way, but really it's just a gut-level reaction. The whole idea just repulses me - just looking at a page from their site is somehow gross and creepy.

By the same token, there's a long list of businesses I've either never gone to or at least haven't in the last twenty or so years - Walmart, McDonalds, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Olive Garden, Kroger, Subway, Jack in the Box, etc., etc. Basically, if they're big enough to run national level advertising, they are eliminated from my consideration. And again, it's not really a conscious choice - they just gross me out. It's like the instant I set foot in a place like that, I can feel it corroding my soul.

So when I'm looking for somewhere to shop or eat or whatever, just like anyone else does, there are specific places I don't consider at all. And all major corporations are on that list.

So what's left over - what I choose from - is local or regional, not because I go out of my way to choose them, but just because they're the only ones I'm willing to choose in the first place

And the sort of surprising thing, even to me sometimes, is that I'm by no means starved for choices. There's a world of alternatives out there.

I think it was a two-stage thing: first, he got off the leash, then second, he spiraled off into a fantasy world.

There's evidence that Musk has always been volatile and capricious and short-sighted, and that he's had handlers at his companies who specifically acted to limit the things he was told to try to keep him somewhat rational and to filter and recast the drivel that spilled out of his mouth anyway into policies that were at least not obviously harmful.

When he took over Twitter though, there were no handlers already in place, he didn't take any with him, snd they didn't have the opportunity to appoint any. So he was off the leash, and we got the first clear look at unfiltered Elon.

And it's just been in a self-reinforcing loop since then. He undoubtedly always believed that he was making nothing but sound decisions, but that was an easier belief to maintain when he was surrounded by handlers that filtered out his dumbassery. Now that he's off the leash, his dumbassery is front and center, but he still believes that he's making sound decisions. The disconnect between his fantasy and the reality is thus growing all the time, so he has a progressively poorer chance of making sound decisions, but grows ever more convinced that he is, and 'round and 'round it goes.

I expect that it's going to end in the complete collapse of his sanity.

Really.

You need to take your meds.

Yeah - I read that article yesterday.

While I agree that the panic is tiresome, I wouldn't call that a "grounded" article. It struck me as entirely predictable PR fluff from the "CEO" of Mastodon, which is to say, the specific person who stands to profit the most from any sort of deal with Meta.

The strength of the fediverse is its freedom, and specifically each individual's freedom to create an instance or join any instance they prefer. So my plan is to simply exercise my freedom as I see fit, and without submitting to the rhetoric either of people who are trying to convince me to panic or trying to convince me to welcome Meta with open arms.

I think he's a weak and pathetic piece of shit with a raging inferiority complex, and that it just so happens that the line of self-aggrandizing bullshit that he spins in his desperate attempts to compensate for his overwhelming sense of inferiority is attractive to other desperately insecure losers.