If so they been doing it for three generations.

This is a “what if we treated our mental states with the same level of normalized priority that we do going to the bathroom” joke.

The misspellings between the meme and OP’s title is making my head hurt.

I here they do do

Yep, that was just one example. As adults we can objectively understand how some of that stuff portrays things that aren’t good in reality, and the idea of a wealthy… duck, diving around in a money bin hits a little different when you have a lifetime of struggling already, but by taking it so seriously and trying to tell people to stop cherishing their childhood memories you are pushing people away from progressivism.

That’s just it, there isn’t one.

The right has a few different branches of the same kind of base: groups with actual political capital, the most basic, orcish kind, but it works and progressives broadly have not found a way to unify with any kind of alternative group identity.

Seriously, I am not sure what the left/progressives really think is going to happen here doing the same things over and over, expecting different results. They are still tone-policing, lecturing, and purity-testing as a fucking culture, meanwhile the right is forming war-bands of people who embrace the American flag, carry weapons and will march in lock-step with their leaders.

Groups like that are the power that has formed nations and held up empires. Why is it so hard to imagine having the same kind of force and political capital but without the hate and xenophobia and anti-science rhetoric?

Meanwhile I will spend hours arguing with people on Lemmy trying to convince other people who loved Duck Tales that the show is problematic. Everyone has their own little branch-off faction where they argue with other progressives about the pettiest, performative lines-in-the-sand to virtue signal how incredibly progressive they are while letting the country erode to dust.

The only other alternative just barely left of center is fucking liberals and I don’t even want to start on them.

I’m pretty sure out of the 340,000,000+ Americans, there are probably SOME who aren’t ICE agents.

Yeah so you do have a point though that it seems more challenging to make friends, as a strange new form of mass-hysteria has enveloped the younger population in particular that makes everyone not want to hang out with everyone else and withdraw into their own heads, overthinking everything.

But it’s not the entirety of the nation. Not yet anyway. It just seems that way from what we see and read, but the people who do want friends and connection are still out there doing things. So our challenge if we want to nurture our social lives is be out doing things. Have interests, passions, have energy. If you’re tired and groggy and achy from staying inside, then that’s your cue to stop staying inside.

1. Do things until you find something that ignites a spark of some kind of feeling or emotion.

2. Pursue that thing until that spark turns into a passion. Or even a healthy interest that holds your attention. You might need to force it a little to break your habits.

3. The passion is shared. There are enough people to guarantee this. It will happen naturally if you’re not deliberately trying to avoid people. The internet and discord-type groups should be your “staging area” not your substitute. It doesn’t matter if it’s Warhammer miniature gaming or rock climbing or reading books, there is someone out there somewhere who wants to share the enjoyment with someone else.

Thank you for this, this is actually a fantastic story for me, I have spent the last few years (since Covid actually) trying to learn about cognitive dissonance in people and it turned into a deep, dark rabbit hole that shed a lot of light on heady ideas like free-will and how the brain actually works. (2/10, would not recommend this journey. Caused a small breakdown.)

But the short of it is, as a species logic and consistency is not only not that important to us, it’s not even natural to us.

Our brains are not the things we think they are, even time itself is not what we think. We just have these crazy machines in our heads that write storylines and narratives to explain how we feel and to tie events together to form a coherent story for how time is unfolding. But none of that is anything more than how a large language model “predicts” what should take place via odds and probability.

No part of our minds defaults to logic and sensibility, it defaults to “yeah, that makes sense I guess.” and for the vast majority of people, this is enough to get through the day, but we each are just absolutely swimming in logical inconsistency. Granted, some more than others, but it’s a hard-wired, built-in feature of being alive… your mind tells you stories to explain your experiences and feelings, and this story need not follow any rules of logic.

This is why we have flat-earther scientists and climate-change denying climatologists and doctors who don’t believe in vaccines. Those are extreme examples but if you search, you will find you also likely have dozens of smaller-scale contradictions in your thoughts, your life narratives, your reasoning for anything and everything you do.

BREAKING! THING YOU ALREADY KNEW IS STILL A THING, PLEASE CLICK ANYWAY, PLEASE BRO JUST ONE MORE CLICK

If this is your only option for socialization… then something is wrong with your life, please do something before settling on this den of shut-ins and literal children.

What. You are overthinking this. I’m sorry to tell you politics in this country is far stupider and more evil than you have been led to believe.

We could have had not only healthcare subsidies but actual single-payer healthcare if the Dems had any balls or actual principles at all in the last decade and a half.

There is nothing smart about this, it’s just greed winning out. Schumer was pressured with either promises of payouts or threats of discontinued payouts, so he did what he’s fucking done before, he organized the vote, secured the individual votes, then backed out at the last second and voted against his own proposal so the accountability doesn’t land on him.

Trying to rationalize that ACA was “doomed from the start” is capitulating with the vile fucks who want to take all our money and hard work and then let us die in the goddamn street. Fuck off with this 4Dchess coping. Fuck the democrats, fuck the republicans, fuck anyone who tries to tell people that there’s anything good or smart happening in our leadership.

People are going to die while the donors dine in Gatsby-themed ballrooms.

He organized the vote, he secured the votes, he set the schedule and did everything to make it happen.

Don’t be fooled because he voted against it at the last second. He’s the goddamn senate minority leader, none of this happens without his oversight. They are treating the American people the same exact way Trump treats his base: like you’re an idiot and can be fooled easily by pageantry and performatism.

They really want to start introducing the idea of burning the homeless for fuel but are unsure how to broach it so they’re working up to it.

The being a shitbag part came first and it’s what led to all the wealth (along with wealthy shitbag parents.)

See, the reason you’re not going to make a trillion dollars is because you would be happy with some level of wealth, you’re normal, you’re probably also the kind of person who would feel bad about stealing the hard work and benefits from millions of people.

The wealthy are effectively “outside” all norms and standards and sense of consistency. This is why they both get away with so much shit and why they’re often utterly fucking insane.

A lot of people missing the timing and current context of this idea.

Our representatives are now spinning you a story about how they had to cave on the government shuttdown because they wanted you to have your SNAP benefits for the holidays. And that they’ll “later” work out what they’re going to do about the healthcare premiums that are rising as high as 1000% in some cases.

Fuckers, we LOANED you all that money, you’re giving us back a fraction of what we expect from our government. We didn’t ask for war with Venezuela, we didn’t ask for tariffs and mass deportations, we didn’t ask for anyone to bail out tech companies and criminals and we certainly didn’t ask for a goddamn ballroom.

They throw this back at us like we should be grateful that they’re willing to give us $300 for food when we fall down, instead of treating that like an inalienable right in the wealthiest country on earth. To say nothing of the healthcare debacle.

We’re one of the only nations on earth who charge you as much as a new car just to walk in and get care for minor problems. Every other nation who wants an actual healthy population who can work and generate their GDP actually want their people healthy and educated.

But our “representatives” come up with deals to make it look like the crumbs they throw you are somehow a sacrifice they’re willing to make for you. IT’S YOUR MONEY TO BEGIN WITH.

I know how my comment makes you feel, maybe better than you.

I want you to ruminate on that one thing, that it’s your responsibility. Whatever challenges are in your way, those are what you need to organize and figure how many of those challenges are surmountable and how many are products of your brain seeking safety. If you’re not reaching out for help and spending every waking moment reading and watching how to change your thoughts and feelings so you can accomplish that ONE goal, you are not owning up to your responsibility.

Your breakthrough may feel far off but it will arrive if you start shifting your view to seeing your own thoughts as a challenge or even an enemy to overcome.

In every single case of mental illness, the door is right in front of you but it can take YEARS to turn the knob. If you’re not trying constantly to get there though, you will never turn it. If you’re not tackling like an actual fucking challenge set against you and letting your mind tell you stories for why “nobody understands your problem” and why you’re stuck, you are throwing away something you will regret throwing away later. I promise you will resent every fucking moment you argued with strangers on the internet about if you deserve to feel this way or think these things.

I hope my comments make you mad and you think about them. I won’t see your reply.

That’s not the point of the comic.

It’s also kind of a joke about false attribution and how superstition, and eventually religion is formed.

I am well aware of how mental illness works. I am saying don’t leave it on people, nothing more and nothing less. Your mental illness may not be your fault but it is your responsibility.