Yet weirdly enough many people still let the psychos decide what “success” means.
If the game is rigged against you, stop playing it. Live by your examined values and get your priorities in order. If you really want tons of money, and power, by all means play the game. But if you actually value something else than money, pursue that. Money is often a shortcut, not an obstacle. People have more options than they think but the capitalistic mindset doesn’t allow people to see them. Are you going to perhaps have to sacrifice luxuries that capitalism has granted us? Yeah. Is it just that easy? No. But how fucking ungovernable would you be if you you could settle for less?
Buddhist monks are doing pretty good. Not that you have to go that extreme but just to make the point: usually people reject modest living purely because they just gotta have more. And the system everyone is bemoaning in this thread is always ready to provide more and more and more - the price is just one’s body and soul.
Most people in this thread could take a good, long look at their wants and needs and figure out which are actually which. And then decide for themselves what they can do that’s actually worth doing as per their own values.
Sure it will. We aren’t the first creatures or even people to witness what we take to be the end of the world. You can grieve it and do your best to resist it if you so feel called. If you can do so out of love for whatever it is that you value. My gratitude and respect if so.
Just stop believing that it is “bad”. Which is NOT the same as saying it’s “good”. It’s just the natural consequence of everything that has happened so far. Or do you shake your fist at the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs? Have you given a good talking to at the volcanoes in Siberia for wiping out nearly all life in the Great Dying? Or any number of other events that led to mass extinctions. Human nature is also just a natural consequence and we’re a microscopic blip in Earth’s history. Cherish what is here now and do what you’re called to do out of love for what you want to protect but you’ll spare yourself a lot of meta-suffering if you can give up the idea that there’s some right or wrong way for history to go. There’s just what is advantageous for humanity and what isn’t. I’m aligned with the former but I don’t believe that humanity should or shouldn’t exist.