Does the world just feel weird and wrong/different to anyone else recently?

Felt you on the girls bro…

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following

Yes, completely. For me there has been a constant anxiousness and waiting for something but not knowing what it is. It has felt like I am just going through the motions but that deep down I sense everything will be for naught but I can't exactly explain why.

Yes, vibe feels way off now. Antisocial behavior seems much more common. This is especially salient in major urban centers. 

Yes. Absolutely overwhelmed with dread, despair, and restlessness. Feels like nothing to look forward to, even hot girls don't give a good kick like it used to.

Anonymous Monkey

I'm not sure how to really explain this, but everything has felt really weird and kinda meaningless for the last like year or so. Society feels like a sham, girls don't feel trustworthy at all, consistent social culture doesn't exist, everyone is just on their own, etc. It feels like lord of the flies, I constantly feel like everyone is out to get me and nobody really cares. What are we doing? What does money even get you? Is there anything to look forward to? Are societal trends fucking me or am I just a pussy? I have heard this feeling reciprocated by other kids in my demographic (20-25 year old guys), but idk if that's selection bias or what.

I assure you the world is filled with beauty and love. The trick is to do your best to be around that. For example, my hobbies include getting away from all the noise and closer to nature. Reduce my level of exposure to negative people etc.

I think some of you just need to get off the computer more and spend time with friends and family. I've done weekends in NYC, Chicago, my main beach in the SE, and out west within the past 4 weeks and it's still a nice world out there

Sounds like ya'll are stuck in the convenience trap. We've automated & digitized so many tasks and points of friction that we're starting to realize the inconvenient journey itself is what made the end results interesting & colorful. 

An example of this is as simple as asking a person a question vs just Google searching it. Sure you can get every answer possible out of Google but the person can provide emotional/personal context behind their answer which leads to an interesting discussion

I'm not sure how to really explain this, but everything has felt really weird and kinda meaningless for the last like year or so.

- life has no inherent meaning, you need to create meaning

Society feels like a sham

- it is

girls don't feel trustworthy at all

- girls aren't, women can be

consistent social culture doesn't exist

- you're looking in the wrong places or hanging out with the wrong people

everyone is just on their own

- duh

It feels like lord of the flies, I constantly feel like everyone is out to get me and nobody really cares

- don't flatter yourself, no one's out to get you

What are we doing?

- waiting to die

What does money even get you?

- opportunities

Is there anything to look forward to?

- friends, food, sex, a really good shit, drugs, happiness, sadness, pain, the future

Are societal trends fucking me or am I just a pussy?

- I think you know the answer chief, you choose to allow yourself to be "fucked by societal trends," though maybe you could elaborate on what those trends are

I have heard this feeling reciprocated by other kids in my demographic (20-25 year old guys), but idk if that's selection bias or what.

- every young man goes through a little of this at that time of their lives. I sound like a broken record but a good trip (literal), a good trip (psychedelic), and a good nut usually gave me the reset I needed until I stopped giving a fuck about others' opinions

If you're actually an intern then you have nothing to complain about lol it's literally downhill from here

Yeah. Like im scared that one of these girls will one day be the mother of my child. Honestly I am just having faith in God that he gives me a wonderful woman to be my wife and the mother of my child. I don't want a thot or hoe who would encourage my child to go hoe around for the "experience". 

Agree, I also feel that. In my view the problem is social media in general.

If you do the following I promise this feeling will diminish and you will feel much more fulfilled. Lift heavy shit, go hard in recreational sports (basketball, ultimate frisbee, sand volleyball, softball, etc.), eat red meat, drink tons of water, read quality literature (can be anything from Monkey Business to Marcus Aurelius), watch quality movies (check out the underrated or best movies threads on here), interact with animals, find solid friends, delete social media (except for maybe sports and business), listen to podcasts in something that actually interests you (not just so you can say you listened to a podcast), stop watching the news so frequently, get a shit ton of sun, find a quality partner (one that is ambitious, fun, etc. I promise you you will be more fulfilled with a person you truly love than trying to hookup with random people), find things that make you laugh, learn an instrument and both learn to play your favorite songs and write your own, go on vacations to nature hotspots (national parks, Caribbean islands, etc.) if you can afford it (if you can't, you can definitely go hiking, camping, etc.), cut out porn, drugs, alcohol and processed/fast foods (notice how I didn't say sugar or carbs), do charity work that actually means something to you, listen to real music (not today's garbage, IMO, 1970-1985 as the absolute golden age of music, you had Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Queen, ELO, Tom Petty, Boston, Elton John, Rush, Billy Joel, Supertramp, AC/DC, Genesis, Van Halen, Journey, Eagles, Meat Loaf, Fleetwood Mac, all in their prime, and the list goes on. If you look it's crazy the amount of killer albums that came out from 1976-1981 alone, also look into metal like Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Delain, Avantasia, Seventh Wonder, Disturbed, Ayreon, Kamelot, etc.), meditate (this one is huge) and just generally work on improving your life. Basically, if it isn't something you could have done 40+ years ago, it's probably not good for you. If you do even several of these things (would recommend starting with your physical health, but my top ones would be meditate, go hard as hell in lifting or sports or both, sun, water, meat, and friends/quality partner, the rest like music and movies are more minor and easier to implement), you will find that you can be happy irrespective of society, and it will get to the point where you actually feel bad for other people because they don't know how rewarding these habits are. I'm not going to go all Tyler Durden and say society is 100% evil, but it has definitely been on a decline. I mean look at the recent Tesla bot. We're really too fucking lazy to go out and get our own groceries now? You'd be surprised how many people feel the same way but just don't know how to address how this issue negatively impacts them personally. At some point you will realize that you are pretty much powerless to change society as a whole so it gives you the freedom to focus on yourself and your own happiness and purpose, which you will soon realize is what you should have been doing all along. Holy shit I used a lot of parentheses.

You feel this way because it is true.

The history of all hitherto existing society is, an Hegelian sense, a dialectical one between two opposing philosophies on man’s place in the universe. One is the individual, the thesis, the proposal that man exists independent of his environment in a materialist way; he can work, build, create, speak, meet, own, trade and share on equal terms with other sovereigns. 

The second, the antithesis, is a view of people as parts of a complex system, almost like cells in a body, each playing their part but existing solely in furtherance of the leviathan which they constitute. The antithesis believes humans are fungible, disposable where needed for the greater good and are best organised de haut en bas. One could argue the synthesis of these views exists in strong nationalist or fascist movements, where individual rights are encouraged and strong whilst these further the aims of the race/nation.

Throughout history, I’d argue the antithesis has generally prevailed, but has been unable to stamp out the thesis outright. With the Enlightenment, and the discovery of the New World, American exceptionalism, the triumph of free markets over the Soviet system, the thesis has been in the ascendancy for close to two centuries, as the philosophy of the Western world. 

However, as this strength has been corrupted and decayed, we see the fortunes of the thesis match those of the West in general. This strange, historical anomaly of individual sovereign rights is flickering and dying out. We are, perhaps, the last generation; maybe there will exist one or two after us, in the more remote holdouts, but the customs, morals and beliefs which link new citizens to the generations which came before have been utterly severed. 

There was, almost by historical accident, a brief period of time where your liberty as an individual was greater than ever before or since. Older millennials caught the very end of it; I am sure you remember it. You could disagree, even offend, and still be treated equally in the eyes of the law. In this time you could own something real, a car, and it was yours. The government could not switch it off remotely. You could buy a cd, dvd or a book, and Apple or Amazon couldn’t retroactively censor it, removing things you thought you owned. You could send a message and it would be received unmolested; not blocked by Facebook as if you’d had too much to think. Your health was your responsibility, your body sacrosanct; you could not be forced to undergo treatment to help the collective, or be fired from your job for refusing. You could run your business as you saw fit, not be cut off by your payments provider for ‘giving a platform’ to people the government disliked. Those days are over.

Now, as the antithesis ascends, collectivism continues to encroach on those who inhabit the tails of the distribution. Soon, you will be trusted to do less and less. To pick a simple example, self-driving cars will be sold without steering wheels, and you won’t be able to drive at all. Any suspicious route will be tracked; forbidden routes will simply be impossible to get to, or scrubbed from maps like is already done in China. Acquiring enough land to live off will be prohibitively expensive. Innocuous books, even speeches, will be labelled seditious materials and used to justify detainment under anti-terrorism legislation. Already you are not permitted to ‘do your own research’; this is too dangerous and you might fall prey to misinformation. Better that you listen only to approved sources.

It is also likely that, in time, it will be seen as abhorrent and unconscionable that humans once killed animals for food, burnt trees for warmth, and buried waste in the ground. Instead, the antithesis demands a cyclical economy; everything will be borrowed temporarily from, and returned to, the central apparatus of the state. People raised in this society will think it crazy that any couple could create a new human, unlicensed, unvetted, and have rights over them through their formative years. Instead this privilege will be reserved to he state, or else meted out by the government only to approved parent candidates. This may correspond to members of the ruling caste: the party apparatchiks. In either case, children will be exclusively educated by the state, following a curriculum approved by the state, until human labour is barely needed at all. Then the number of permits will decrease year on year, to a trickle.

This is, effectively, a sort of extinction event, just another in a long history of slow genocides. The future of western peoples may look much like that of the classical civilisations: Carthaginians, Phoenicians, even Romans. Humans will still inhabit the lands, they may even claim the titles like the Holy Roman Emperor, but he was no Caesar and those nations will no longer exist. The language will fall into disuse; the histories will be mocked, as myths turn to legends. Architectural, linguistic even genetic relics will persist, as that which distinguished these peoples from others are eroded or dissolved. 

To answer your question, I ask you, what would you do as a Roman in 400AD? What could you do, except foresee the river Tiber flowing red. You might choose to face down Visigoths but surely it would be hopeless. I think you’d resolve to obey the new system, acquire enough denarii to buy a villa away from the city, write books and raise a family. And hope that in a thousand years, there might yet be a renaissance.

I think a lot of it has to do with globalization and once largely homogenous countries being flooded with foreigners and anyone who speaks against it being labeled "racist".

Used to be you had your community of people like you. They looked like you, talked like you, acted like you, etc. Nowadays you walk down the street of any major city and it's probably more people not from that city or even country than actually are from. What do I as a conservative white, Christian, male born in the US speaking English have in common with an Indian person, is Hindu and speaks English as a second language with a heavy accent and is a liberal? What do I have in common with an Asian person who doesn't speak English and is Buddhist and votes Democrat? What do I have in common with an African-American who secretly hates all white people? Absolutely nothing, and if I say ANYTHING about it I can risk getting "canceled". 

Why would you ever want to mingle with people in society now when society is just a melting pot and you're not allowed to not like anything? I'd rather just stay inside. Globalization, social media, BLM, 3rd wave feminism and liberal policies are destroying our societies in the name of "equality" and no one is allowed to say or do anything about it. 

OP discovers how unnatural and atomizing urban living is.

this is u growing up and becoming progressively more right leaning

I felt this way.  You're becoming an adult.  Figure out your escapes, find new goals and work towards them, consume less news, don't ever doom scroll, delete instagram app from your phone (use a web-browser so you don't have to delete your account, the lack of interface will make it harder to scroll endlessly), delete facebook (if your actually 20-25 you should have done this years ago), avoid generalizations, gain perspective, and realize that no one has it figured out.

At your age its really hard to figure out if problems you're dealing with are exclusive to you (and you need to address them) or if they're just problems everyone has (and you're being a pussy).  It could always be worse. 

Looks like every Jordan Peterson watcher has decided to write a mildly philosophical wall of text on why people of other ethnic groups, or companies banning hate speech makes them depressed.  Maybe stop being so bitter and angry all the time, reading through 4chan and red pill forums?