Big Brother is Watching

[AnimeSlayersFan]

How do you deal with your feelings about mass surveillance, decline of living standards, not owning anything, increased violence, the tendency we are having to authoritary regimes, and censorship?

I feel my life is becoming the plot of a pseudo Brave New World/1984.

I'm going to be given medication to supposedly make me "happy", but I am unhappy due to a very real condition of how things are, and trend towards. Is this what life is gonna turn out to be If I don't kill myself? Just take meds, be a good lil slave and don't talk about what's going on, loss all sense of your privacy and autonomy and become an NPC?

Anyone else feels suicidal due to this? And this is me being life fully logical, as I, at this specific moment do not feel suicidal, but so what? Survive for... What life now? I used to enjoy the internet, the social contract was not "good" in which you worked 9-5 and bought a house and retired, but hey, at least at first you could just work any regular job and make due, live month to month, now It's not even that, living conditions are getting worse, so no matter how many happy pills my psychiatrist gives me, the reality stays the same, the same SHIT. Why live? I question this more and more the more this measures are put into place. New laws, more inequality, more violence, more surveillence.

And the thing I'm afraid of the most is like "accepting it" and "going with it", just to become a mindless working ant with no free will, no right to express myself and always being watched, like I'm some... Resource.

And I get that you have an upper/lower class, but like, it wasn't like this a while back, when I was a kid it sucked, but now is way worse. I saw the UK surveillance/censorship update too.
How do you guys feel about this?

 

[Dejected 55]

The thing about the George Orwell story (1984) is that the government slowly took power and the people were oblivious to it until it was too late.

The reality is far more sinister.

In reality, the government didn't take power. People willingly gave it. And the government didn't have to surveil the people... People lined up to subscribe and share everything about themselves and the government just leveraged the information that people willingly give up about themselves.

It wasn't a slow takeover by power... it was a fast surrender by the people... and the government was just there to happily take the reigns they were handed.

 

[vira]

We haven't adapted to the current conditions. We used to think, "Shelter, food, water, and comfort", but now our priorities go past that type of simplicity, and we are being ignored by the systems that were DESIGNED to support us. Even if we reverted back to our primal minds, our basic needs in society (house, car, living wage, food, etc.) are STILL BEING NEGLECTED! The government thinks we can be satiated by medication, and after we are happy, we cease to think independently. I'm sure some people think like that, but I'd rather have autonomy.

We are the same species as the politicians that run the government. We can think like them, if not better. We're conscious and we can disagree and put up a fight.

 

[GhostInTheMachine]

How do you guys feel about this?

SSDD, I keep going until I can't anymore. I won't take any drugs I don't convince myself of, and the government can watch me all it wants, they just better not be shocked when it bites them. As for living conditions, that's always the biggest pain. Where am I gonna live, how am I gonna eat. The top knows people are to worried about that to care about all the rest.

 

[UtopianSoliloquies]

I also get the sense that society, even under supposed liberal democracies, have become bleak to an extent that is pretty unprecedented in centuries. However, the thing I hope you remember is that while there is an argument to be made that the material conditions we live under objectively suck and teeter on life-ruining for people who are not absurdly rich, there is no exact feeling that is the objectively correct response to these conditions. I don't know what medication you're being prescribed and I don't know if it's going to work for you, but if there's any part of you that wants to recover, I hope you realize that there are ways to be happier than you are now even if the world doesn't get any better in the meantime.

Another way I would frame taking your "happy" medication is that it's not intentionally designed to make you an obedient drone. In my experience taking sertraline, the medication doesn't magically make you happy. Rather, it somehow makes the steps that you need to take to be happier more manageable. It makes it easier to "just get out of bed" or "just go for a walk", and as platitudinous as those things sound, they seem as such because depression often prevents you from doing them in the first place, not because they don't help at all. In that sense, the medication can help you find the motivation to resist the backsliding of our institutions into authoritarianism and class oppression. It could give you the power to get organized, join political movements that you agree with, and help you find people who also despise the direction society is going in as much as you do. If anything, despair and hopelessness are exactly what the ruling class wants you to feel; keeping and expanding their power is a lot easier when all the people who hate what they're doing struggle to find it in them to get out of bed.

I know actively engaging in politics probably sounds like a completely insane proposition right now and you don't actually have to do that, ever. Hell, I don't know your situation and maybe that's literally physically impossible, and that's okay too. I just hope you remember that having hope and reasons to live can be an act of resistance and to get better despite the oppressive institutions you live under isn't the same as complying with them.

Hope this post wasn't too pro-lifey or chock full of platitudes, but this is the recovery section after all.

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

I also get the sense that society, even under supposed liberal democracies, have become bleak to an extent that is pretty unprecedented in centuries. However, the thing I hope you remember is that while there is an argument to be made that the material conditions we live under objectively suck and teeter on life-ruining for people who are not absurdly rich, there is no exact feeling that is the objectively correct response to these conditions. I don't know what medication you're being prescribed and I don't know if it's going to work for you, but if there's any part of you that wants to recover, I hope you realize that there are ways to be happier than you are now even if the world doesn't get any better in the meantime.

Another way I would frame taking your "happy" medication is that it's not intentionally designed to make you an obedient drone. In my experience taking sertraline, the medication doesn't magically make you happy. Rather, it somehow makes the steps that you need to take to be happier more manageable. It makes it easier to "just get out of bed" or "just go for a walk", and as platitudinous as those things sound, they seem as such because depression often prevents you from doing them in the first place, not because they don't help at all. In that sense, the medication can help you find the motivation to resist the backsliding of our institutions into authoritarianism and class oppression. It could give you the power to get organized, join political movements that you agree with, and help you find people who also despise the direction society is going in as much as you do. If anything, despair and hopelessness are exactly what the ruling class wants you to feel; keeping and expanding their power is a lot easier when all the people who hate what they're doing struggle to find it in them to get out of bed.

I know actively engaging in politics probably sounds like a completely insane proposition right now and you don't actually have to do that, ever. Hell, I don't know your situation and maybe that's literally physically impossible, and that's okay too. I just hope you remember that having hope and reasons to live can be an act of resistance and to get better despite the oppressive institutions you live under isn't the same as complying with them.

Hope this post wasn't too pro-lifey or chock full of platitudes, but this is the recovery section after all.

Tell me more about sertraline, what did it do for you? My aunt took it and feels better, but i don't have experience with those meds

 

[UtopianSoliloquies]

Tell me more about sertraline, what did it do for you? My aunt took it and feels better, but i don't have experience with those meds

It's a pretty standard SSRI I'd say. Statistically speaking, it's more effective than other SSRIs like fluxoetine and causes fewer side effects than, say, imipramine. My psychiatrist said he wanted me to try it initially because of said fewer side effects.

The experience of taking sertraline for me was that it made me feel a bit numb, which was not particularly pleasant but also helped me improve my mental health in the long run because those depressive symptoms that made it harder for me to do things like homework, excercise, getting up in the morning, or seeing friends started going away. The medication made the prospect of doing everyday tasks seem less insurmountable and more like "meh, making some toast for breakfast isn't that hard so I might as well". My family also mentioned it made me less irritable. I stopped taking my meds eventually when I felt like I was doing better, which is not something I would recommend you do. I did end up relapsing a year having just started university, but I've since been doing better, this time without medication.

Aside from maybe heroin or cocaine or something (which you are most definitely not being prescribed), there's not really such a thing as a drug that will literally just force you to be happy, and even those drugs obviously don't help long term. I was always quite into philosophy and the natural sciences and all that stuff so I also remember being afraid somewhat that medication might just turn me into a mindless drone who is content not to think about much in particular. Don't worry, that won't happen unless you're extremely extremely unlucky and something goes very wrong, but that chances are slim enough of that that I hope it doesn't dissuade you from trying.

I wish you luck in your recovery :)

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

It's a pretty standard SSRI I'd say. Statistically speaking, it's more effective than other SSRIs like fluxoetine and causes fewer side effects than, say, imipramine. My psychiatrist said he wanted me to try it initially because of said fewer side effects.

The experience of taking sertraline for me was that it made me feel a bit numb, which was not particularly pleasant but also helped me improve my mental health in the long run because those depressive symptoms that made it harder for me to do things like homework, excercise, getting up in the morning, or seeing friends started going away. The medication made the prospect of doing everyday tasks seem less insurmountable and more like "meh, making some toast for breakfast isn't that hard so I might as well". My family also mentioned it made me less irritable. I stopped taking my meds eventually when I felt like I was doing better, which is not something I would recommend you do. I did end up relapsing a year having just started university, but I've since been doing better, this time without medication.

Aside from maybe heroin or cocaine or something (which you are most definitely not being prescribed), there's not really such a thing as a drug that will literally just force you to be happy, and even those drugs obviously don't help long term. I was always quite into philosophy and the natural sciences and all that stuff so I also remember being afraid somewhat that medication might just turn me into a mindless drone who is content not to think about much in particular. Don't worry, that won't happen unless you're extremely extremely unlucky and something goes very wrong, but that chances are slim enough of that that I hope it doesn't dissuade you from trying.

I wish you luck in your recovery :)

You know what, I'll try and find one that doesn't affect libido, and maybe try that, then go wild, doing whatever tf I want, wait till the side effects catch up and kill myself. I think that would be a nice way to interact with the system

 

[Aloneandinpain]

I agree that things are generally becoming terrible in terms of freedom, free speech, the media, crime, invasions of people from violent and incompatible cultures/religions. Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and the western half if the EU are faring terribly and getting worse by the minute.

On the other hand, other countries are headed in the right direction, but the evil media won't tell you this.

Argentina is thriving and making huge progress. El Salvador's defeat of violent criminal gangs is a miracle (albeit stilll a little authoritarian), and things are looking great for the US now too. Eastern Europe also proves that things don't have to be like this, and so many places there are so much safer, free of terrorism (and all this without much mass surveillance or removing the rights of the people).

 

[Celerity]

Have you heard of Gabor Mate? I don't agree with everything he says, but he is right on point about how the degradation of our society breeds so-called mental illness.

It's an oldy but a goldy: "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society" - J. Krishnamurti.

As for what we do about it all, I don't know. I guess that is why I am drawn to this site. I feel so alienated with the vast majority of people. We have such hugely different perspectives on things that it's as if they see in color and I see black & white or vice versa. I'm tired of being told the sky is actually green and that I should ignore the truth of my eyes.

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

I agree that things are generally becoming terrible in terms of freedom, free speech, the media, crime, invasions of people from violent and incompatible cultures/religions. Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and the western half if the EU are faring terribly and getting worse by the minute.

On the other hand, other countries are headed in the right direction, but the evil media won't tell you this.

Argentina is thriving and making huge progress. El Salvador's defeat of violent criminal gangs is a miracle (albeit stilll a little authoritarian), and things are looking great for the US now too. Eastern Europe also proves that things don't have to be like this, and so many places there are so much safer, free of terrorism (and all this without much mass surveillance or removing the rights of the people).

AHHAHAHAHA, I'M FROM ARGENTINA
We are NOT thriving. AT ALL.
The elderly are being left to die and when they protest every week, are basically beat up with battons, the economy is not working at all, while the top 1% of society and then maybe like a 10/15% middle class are having a jolly good time, the rest?
Well, lots of them are dying, selling assets to pay for debt and that. The rising costs mean people have less choice, and because the goverment is pushing an economy policy based on selling assets from the country and then buying imported goods from china, there are no jobs here, even people that are university professors and high "value" professions are suffering.
In my family, 5 people are chipping in to support the cost of my grandma's elderly care home, oh, and she has a pension, so that makes 6 people, and she barely makes the payments.

Seems the media is doing a good job though, cause they push this bullshit all the time, that argentina is "doing good".

I agree that things are generally becoming terrible in terms of freedom, free speech, the media, crime, invasions of people from violent and incompatible cultures/religions. Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and the western half if the EU are faring terribly and getting worse by the minute.

On the other hand, other countries are headed in the right direction, but the evil media won't tell you this.

Argentina is thriving and making huge progress. El Salvador's defeat of violent criminal gangs is a miracle (albeit stilll a little authoritarian), and things are looking great for the US now too. Eastern Europe also proves that things don't have to be like this, and so many places there are so much safer, free of terrorism (and all this without much mass surveillance or removing the rights of the people).

AHHAHAHAHA, I'M FROM ARGENTINA
We are NOT thriving. AT ALL.
The elderly are being left to die and when they protest every week, are basically beat up with battons, the economy is not working at all, while the top 1% of society and then maybe like a 10/15% middle class are having a jolly good time, the rest?
Well, lots of them are dying, selling assets to pay for debt and that. The rising costs mean people have less choice, and because the goverment is pushing an economy policy based on selling assets from the country and then buying imported goods from china, there are no jobs here, even people that are university professors and high "value" professions are suffering.
In my family, 5 people are chipping in to support the cost of my grandma's elderly care home, oh, and she has a pension, so that makes 6 people, and she barely makes the payments.

Seems the media is doing a good job though, cause they push this bullshit all the time, that argentina is "doing good".

I agree that things are generally becoming terrible in terms of freedom, free speech, the media, crime, invasions of people from violent and incompatible cultures/religions. Canada, Australia, UK, Ireland and the western half if the EU are faring terribly and getting worse by the minute.

On the other hand, other countries are headed in the right direction, but the evil media won't tell you this.

Argentina is thriving and making huge progress. El Salvador's defeat of violent criminal gangs is a miracle (albeit stilll a little authoritarian), and things are looking great for the US now too. Eastern Europe also proves that things don't have to be like this, and so many places there are so much safer, free of terrorism (and all this without much mass surveillance or removing the rights of the people).

AHHAHAHAHA, I'M FROM ARGENTINA
We are NOT thriving. AT ALL.
The elderly are being left to die and when they protest every week, are basically beat up with battons, the economy is not working at all, while the top 1% of society and then maybe like a 10/15% middle class are having a jolly good time, the rest?
Well, lots of them are dying, selling assets to pay for debt and that. The rising costs mean people have less choice, and because the goverment is pushing an economy policy based on selling assets from the country and then buying imported goods from china, there are no jobs here, even people that are university professors and high "value" professions are suffering.
In my family, 5 people are chipping in to support the cost of my grandma's elderly care home, oh, and she has a pension, so that makes 6 people, and she barely makes the payments.

Seems the media is doing a good job though, cause they push this bullshit all the time, that argentina is "doing good".

 

[Obliviate]

I agree 1 billion percent. This is what it is when we say we are "awoken" "conscious" while others are NPCS. Everything we know about psychiatry and medicine is wrong. Hyper capitalism and male humans are the root of every problem we face. Psychiatry is filled with a bunch of creepy forced positive psycho robots. You went through trauma? Oh well here's a pill to make you more complacent a brainwashed robot, suck it up and get a job. Getting abused at your job? Here's a higher dosage. No one wants to actually face the root of the problem but just make you adhere to the dystopian societal values. They want slave workers not humans.

 

[Pluto]

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

I agree 1 billion percent. This is what it is when we say we are "awoken" "conscious" while others are NPCS. Everything we know about psychiatry and medicine is wrong. Hyper capitalism and male humans are the root of every problem we face. Psychiatry is filled with a bunch of creepy forced positive psycho robots. You went through trauma? Oh well here's a pill to make you more complacent a brainwashed robot, suck it up and get a job. Getting abused at your job? Here's a higher dosage. No one wants to actually face the root of the problem but just make you adhere to the dystopian societal values. They want slave workers not humans.

I'm a guy, so I have the instinct to like, protect my ego here, I do believe a lot of the stupid shit men do they do for women, not for like "love" but for like, yknow, sex.
I think capitalism is this strong due to the primitive ways it can affect relationships.
Are you socially awful? Are you ugly? Are you self conscious about the size of your dick? Doesn't matter, if you are a good enough slave, then you can buy sex and appreciation from women!
Are you a girl that feels inadequate, mentally ill, or discriminated and can't work? Feeling lazy? You can become a prostitute for there will be a lot of men willing to pay for access to your body!
Everybody wins! /s

Every answer is: Go find yourself a good owner, and sadly not in a kinky way...

Every time I played monopoly it ended up with 90% of the people pissed, and then like 2 people fighting it out while forcing everybody to stay.

 

[TBONTB]

How do you deal with your feelings about mass surveillance, decline of living standards, not owning anything, increased violence, the tendency we are having to authoritary regimes, and censorship?

I feel my life is becoming the plot of a pseudo Brave New World/1984.

I'm going to be given medication to supposedly make me "happy", but I am unhappy due to a very real condition of how things are, and trend towards. Is this what life is gonna turn out to be If I don't kill myself? Just take meds, be a good lil slave and don't talk about what's going on, loss all sense of your privacy and autonomy and become an NPC?

Anyone else feels suicidal due to this? And this is me being life fully logical, as I, at this specific moment do not feel suicidal, but so what? Survive for... What life now? I used to enjoy the internet, the social contract was not "good" in which you worked 9-5 and bought a house and retired, but hey, at least at first you could just work any regular job and make due, live month to month, now It's not even that, living conditions are getting worse, so no matter how many happy pills my psychiatrist gives me, the reality stays the same, the same SHIT. Why live? I question this more and more the more this measures are put into place. New laws, more inequality, more violence, more surveillence.

And the thing I'm afraid of the most is like "accepting it" and "going with it", just to become a mindless working ant with no free will, no right to express myself and always being watched, like I'm some... Resource.

And I get that you have an upper/lower class, but like, it wasn't like this a while back, when I was a kid it sucked, but now is way worse. I saw the UK surveillance/censorship update too.
How do you guys feel about this?

Yep. The world 30 years ago was an easier one to live in. Your description is spot on. It's definitely part of my desire to CTB. Every shooting, every mental ill person in a tent on the street, every loss of medical support, every security guard in a grocery store...they are more symptoms of the decaying society we live in. And more reason for me at least to call it quits...if I can make it.

 

[Ashu]

Tell me more about sertraline, what did it do for you? My aunt took it and feels better, but i don't have experience with those meds

It deadened my libido, so I stopped taking it, and it was the last drug I ever took. I'd rather be dead with an erection.

 

[Satori Komeiji]

How do you deal with your feelings about mass surveillance, decline of living standards, not owning anything, increased violence, the tendency we are having to authoritary regimes, and censorship?

My response is to resist these things as much as possible. I think I have done a pretty good job of that but obviously there are many things outside of my control and those are the things I am consistently depressed about. On top of that my ability to resist is quickly being taken away from me due to the authoritarian direction many governments are heading towards. There are already enough reasons to feel depressed about the future without these issues. It feels like things will get worse before they get better and frankly, I don't want to be around for it. There is nothing to be positive about looking ahead. A lot of me just wants to get out while I still can.

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

It deadened my libido, so I stopped taking it, and it was the last drug I ever took. I'd rather be dead with an erection.

Sameeee, today in a few hours I have my appointment, and I will do whatever it takes not to get prescribed an antidepressant, as I'm not "depressed" I will try to lean into my adhd and go for that, then maybe like a weird antidepressant like wellbutrin if need to, cause those don't have those effects.
It's gonna be a tough battle.I
(sorry i hit send by mistake)
I hope i win against my psychiatrist and mom, I feel like I have to solve a fallout skill check full of possible dialog options in order to just fucking get the meds I need to function in this shit society. But hey, fuck that, I will do my best with no guilt, to manipulate both into giving me the help that I need, without having to kill my dick. I have decided this is the play for today.

 

[gonesoon!]

Honestly the censorship and increased surveillance has made me really upset. Seeing what they are doing to people in the UK scares the shit out of me and I feel so bad for them. The internet should not be messed with like this. All it will lead to is more people being hurt. More citizens and good people being hurt. Because of an ignorant arrogant government. As per usual. Its so dystopian. Ive had fears of Orwellian shit for years. Seeing it materialize makes me nauseous. At the same time I know they cant lock the entire internet down. I have taken some joy in learning about privacy and circumventing censorship and surveillance. I dont really take it seriously now because what can I realistically do? But learn about proxies, vpns, tor, i2p, pgp and encryption in general, dns, brave browser or firefox with ublock origin, sites like kycnot.me, privacytools.io, etc. Things like that. Knowlege is power. They want to censor people and make things hard? I already see them blocking vpns and begging people to stop using them. Block vpns? Looks like proxies are back. Block tor? Looks like I turned on vpn and changed my dns. Or I think you can use a bridge. It will be cat and mouse all day. At the same time I do not claim to be good at privacy. It probably wouldnt be very hard to figure out who I even am (please dont. im no one lmao. I genuinly have nothing)

 

[A Dream of a Dream]

I think I saw a recent headline about how Palantir stock was doing well.
I will leave it to you to search "palantir mass surveillance".
Parasitic economic system, absurd levels of wealth for a tiny sliver, massive inequality for the rest. Massive surveillance, massive funding for police-tech and weapons. Yes, things are looking more and more dystopic.

Chat messages from back in 2004, what would become Facebook:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.

As @Dejected 55 said, we gave our privacy away to corporations, and governments.