In some ways you're describing the Community Resilience movement which is a communitarian approach to prepping. I work in policy and I think that most systems of belief get in the way of innovation and problem solving. Environmentalism, democracy, socialism, republican government, liberalism, capitalism and religion all have good ideas from which we can learn but inasmuch as they require strict adherence to doctrine they become more of a problem than a solution. Capitalism is a great way to develop self driving cars and a terrible way to manage a healthcare system for example. I see people like you coming to the same conclusion I have and I think we might all be on to something.
When I was a suicidal teen, the end of the world was a tempting idea in the same way an end to life was. When escaping your current situation seems hopeless, sometimes the only escapist fantasy you can conjure up is a total end to it all.
Well, I know I'm just a stranger on the internet but I want you to know you matter - and I'm glad it sounds like you've begun to heal from those most difficult times.
In life, nothing lasts forever and when you are young, a hopeless situation might seem like that is the way it will always be. The truth is, some time in the future you will wonder why you ever felt that way. Still, at my age, I realize how short life really is. The end always comes and it comes too soon and it comes just as you think you are starting to get it. Most of my life, I lived life backwards, focused on what my life had already been, nursing ancient hurts. If you can turn around and see life coming at you and leave the past behind, you will begin to see the magic. Death is always there, waiting to take you away and someday, will step forward and tap you on the shoulder and it will be time to go. Live life to it’s fullest, be afraid of nothing and realize we are travelers, not occupants and enjoy the trip knowing that the hurt you encounter will not last.
My entire town of 88,000 people in Alberta, Canada was evacuated due to a wildfire in 2016. During that major trauma, we had people from not just our community but from all over the world volunteer their time and resources to help. It was incredible. Not a single life lost in the fire, even though there was only one route to leave town.
For the reasons Zoe listed, I'd love to see more disaster movies accurately depict most people as cooperative and compassionate, and hyper-competitive or ruthless people as dangerous, aberrant outliers.
sorry I'm late, but I just finished listening to "the strange case of starship Iris" and this has that kinda vibe. There's loads of stories made by not Hollywood that bring out the good of humanity, I hope you find more good stuff :3
Even with the ruthless and hyper competitive, those things alone are not indicative of selfishness. Take for example the classic revenge story. Someone’s loved one is killed in cold blood, and they ruthlessly hunt down the killer. There is a degree to which societies closer to the “knifes edge” in terms of survival will be stricter, more conformist, and more brutal.
I feel like Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Talos Principle, and SOMA had elements of this in their end of the world scenarios, and that's why those stayed with me like they have. Also, Roland Emmerich does this in ID4 and 2012, too.
i think differently; i suspect humanity would descend into violence given half a chance. It would take time for the post critical psychology to emerge. During the critical stuff, amid the crisis, survival instincts are running and morality takes a seat right down the back and shuts up. People get killed at a distance, because it is too risky to meet and have a chat to see if your value systems are the same. I cite "Threads' as the most accurate depiction of human nature post crisis.
My zombie apocalypse fantasy was always setting up a community of survivors to work together for the good of us all. It was always a no man left behind ideology based on caring about others and protecting one another in a dangerous situation.
deep down you want to form a community, which has a shorter name. In modern society; you can't. It is not allowed, and whatever way in which it is, it's unaffordable; and even if you succeed through these barriers, a toxic narcissist will find their way in like a fox among your chickens. You crave a world in which just solving problems efficiently can be the dominant idea, and for that to happen..
This made me realize that the reactionary people maintaining the status quo do not simply 'lack imagination' as an absolute. To the contrary, they constantly imagine reasons why a better world is impossible, and why establishment is necessary. While we might consider this a limited imagination, it's still imagination so powerful that it defines what is possible culturally
I had a phrase I started using while writing "it seems like you have more investment than creativity." Basically: 'you're latching onto this thing because you like it, not because it's the best way that you can come up with to continue the story'
This is absolutely a thing that can happen in human psychology. It happens when the emotional part of our minds and our instinct for self-preservation hijack the logical, cognitive part of our brain and uses it to come up with all sorts of reasons as to why you shouldn’t even try. They’ll even sound like rational thoughts, and often times they really are but are based on some flawed assumptions, but your brain won’t recognize that unless your conscious mind learned to catch it. Though for me this only really affects my ability to go make new friends or take a chance on a career change, not large scale stuff.
Zoe, it was not a downer. In fact, you made me cry about the beauty of humanity. It is hard for many people to realize that humans are social creatures that want to rely on one another. Thank you for the reminder and I sincerely hope this changed someone's mind about the nature of people.
This video got me very close to tears too. As someone who lives in Stockholm Sweden, a city where it’s very easy to feel lonely in a crowd due to how reserved we all are, the local and community aspect of this essay really struck a chord with me. I want to be part of something meaningful, get involved with people and make something better, but I’m so scared of being let down that I don’t dare to look
I was watching this last night and finished it listening at the start of work today and the message at the end, and the poem, broke me into joyful tears at my desk.
Hi! I'm inkskinned :) thank you for using my poem in such a hopeful and beautiful way! This is such a lovely and important video and I'm so grateful and honored to have been any small part of it. Keep bringing joy to others! How wonderful to live in a world where our lives have crossed in such a beautiful and wonderful way!!!
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much - this means a lot to me. Your poem was so beautiful, and I'm so glad you liked how I used it in the video. Sending lots of love your way 💜💜💜
Older people never understood why I found comfort in apocalyptic stories. I never wanted to live in a world where I could kill with impunity and carve out power. I just wanted to live in a world where trees were allowed to grow.
Unfortunately, if we found ourselves in a post urban world, it would take less than a decade to wipe the continent clear of hardwoods. Without modernity, we’d have to burn wood to cook and keep warm. And there’s millions of us. But yes, I have a similar fantasy. Maybe we can create that world without catastrophe.
@@irenafarm There's all KINDS of stuff you can do to bring trees and other nature into urban spaces. And if we build denser instead of building miles upon miles of suburbs, then you can have cities where you can take a train to a forest instead of the lawns that we use as public parks in most cities. (nothing against those types of parks, we could just use some more variety). Could you imagine that, instead of lawns, it was still forest? We can have a world where the trees are allowed to just grow. It's all about land use policy, which is something that is decided on the city level, which means you, personally, can change it.
@@irenafarmpopulation decline is ongoing and population declines after the apocalypse are certain and trees thrive on carbon dioxide plus fuel depots and alternative sources of heating would absolutely survive. Trees wouldn’t be wiped out in ten years they’d take hundreds to recover but they absolutely would. Even now the earth is statistically greener in some places than it was half a century ago.
Excellent video. It got me thinking about how Japan has a "cozy apocalypse" subgenre I haven't seen in Western media -- manga and light novels set in a world where civilization is ending gradually; generally the main characters are traveling a relatively calm post-apocalyptic world, reflecting on the nature of humanity in its decline. (Ex.: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Girls' Last Tour, "Tabi ni Deyou, Horobiyuku Sekai no Hate made", Shuumatsu Touring.) I hadn't considered the way one's religious and cultural background would inform how they tend to think about the end of the world.
For a Japanese viewer, it's not too difficult to imagine something like that because of Japan's culture of collectivist conformity and entrench Shinto-Buddhist morality. For a American (those in rural areas especially) however is almost impossible to even imagine considering the culture of rugged individualism, consumerism, gender conformity, toxic masculinity, and strict Christian Evangelical morality has been ingrained into the American psyche.
The history of Japan is full of "world-ending" events. It has constantly been bareaged by devastaging earthquakes and tsunamis, fires, and ultimately the atom bomb. Japan's national character is largely about rebuilding after such events.
Yes, I love this genre. It’s essentially my fantasy lifestyle 😂 ETA I’m not Japanese. My best friend was though, so her library shaped my early fantasy life.
I have primarily been a bookseller for my professional life, and I clearly remember the December morning when I spent an hour putting 50% off stickers on the 2012 Apocalypse books the day after the world didn’t end.
Ahh, I remember that December 21st. I spent it on Lake Mead in my kayak. I think Las Vegas was holding their collective breath because I saw nary a boat on that lake other than mine. I didn't believe the world was going to end, but if it did, I was in a place I most wanted to be.
For me, I find myself wanting large-scale disasters when I'm overwhelmed by anxiety because of a sense that it would strip away all the mundane day-to-day things that I am struggling with. In reality, I know I'd be completely unprepared for an actual end of the world scenario, but the fantasy is appealing.
I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I entertain the idea that it would be beneficial to our relationships with each other. We would most likely group up with family/friends and actually be able to spend time with them without our modern distractions and people would be forced to talk to each other, regressing to the days before smart phones. But really there's no guaruntee I'd be able to locate and group all the people I care about together. Also some, many or all could die depending on whatever happens. Just makes me depressed that whenever i see friends or family now it's just for a few minutes/couple hours and usually were on our phones for most of it. Then we don't see each other for months, sometimes years.
I do consider myself a "prepper" but it's about community building and mutual aid. Your characterization of the prepping community was spot on. There's always 5% of any group that are insane.
@@dinosaysrawr That essay used Doomsday Preppers, sounds like a good distinction from just sensible survival preppers who focus on prepping for blackouts, tornadoes, pandemics, flooding, and so on.
Phenomenal video- I wanted to add to the part about human nature and panic: There’s a show called “Station Eleven,” which is based off of a novel, and I think it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve ever watched to date. SPOILERS AHEAD: In the story, there’s a character called Miranda Carol, and she of course dies of the fictional Georgia Flu along with 99% of humanity- but as she is dying, she and her coworker (who is dying with her in a hotel) save a whole airport of people by calling a pilot who’s just landed with a plane full of sick people. She does not panic and shut down or become reckless. This is actually the whole point of the book- all of the characters are incredibly complex, but one thing all of the survivors and main characters who die at the beginning have in common is hope. Miranda had hope for the people who would live, even if she couldn’t. The Traveling Symphony, though complicated and flawed as people, go around putting on plays to entertain people. Community still exists, and humanity is not inherently evil like you said. It is in fact quite the opposite. Station Eleven actually changed my life, so I highly recommend watching and/or reading. It is unlike any other apocalyptic fiction I’ve ever seen.
in 2021, i entered in a depressive episode because of the fear i had of the end of the world. there was this never ending anxiety about how everything was wrong, and how every single good thing the past generation has had in matters of public policies, education, financial aid, and housing access were being destroyed by people in power that seemed to want to kill us on purpose. i'm from brazil, so the context is different in a lot of ways, but very similar in others. so at some point, i lost hope and started to become obssessed with being prepared for the big end - even knowing that there would not be a big single event, the feeling of having to watch the world die slowly e helpless freaked me out. so i learned how to plant my own food, make my own clothes, learn about natural medicines, make my own paper so i could register everything and maybe leave it to posterity. eventually, i came out of it, don't know when. it took me a while to process that period in my life (sometimes it's still hard), but what i realized is that all of that was just me being afraid of losing the people i loved and not being able to do anything about it, to protect them, feed them, make sure they have good clothes for winter and are safe from the summer floods that get worse every year. what i really wanted was just to take care of them, at the same time, i didn't trust them enough to take care of me, so i decided i had to do everything alone. this video hit me hard, and i'm so thankful. having hope became a really hard thing for me, this was a good reminder that being alive is worth it! thank you
I’m curious what your perspective on the end of the world looks like coming from Brazil? And what you think now that you’re not living in a depressed state
@@EarthgirlinthesunI’m also from Brazil and honestly I don’t think our experiences are much different if you’re american even though the US have a better purchasing power, everything is expensive, the never ending political problems, the younger generation struggling to buy their own home, working a lot and not gaining a fair salary…it’s hard to have hope here.
Zoe's channel when I subscribed: This is why we should encourage everyone to write! Let's be compassionate and happy and express ourselves Zoe's channel today: The world is a pit of despair and the tearful reflections we see of ourselves in a muddy puddle tells us that we have nobody to blame but ourselves (but like, lets write about it and chat about it!)
The world *is* a pit of despair, but if we do something about it, and actively try to make it a better place for ourselves and everyone else, that's a good thing. And the first step in solving any problem is admitting that there is one.
Did you even watch up to the first myth? Also I kinda like the evolution from writing as a means of expression to what we express and how we express it means a out us as people
Honestly, I see this video as far more hopeful than "a downer." Something in my depression needed to be reminded of the inherit goodness of humanity, so obscured as it is by modern media. Thank you, Zoe.
It’s natural to feel depressed in a world that isn’t meeting our basic needs. It gives me hope knowing that I’m not alone in this disparity nor am I alone in wanting a better world for us all.✊🏻🫶
I don’t know if this was intended, but this video actually helped my self esteem. Reminders that humans don’t generally treat each other badly serve to help me combat my own shame and guilt for when I’ve fallen short. Empathy for all the humans in the room except myself is not real empathy. I deserve self compassion, dignity, and to fight for my survival as much as I fight for the people around me. And to do that, I need to meet people, be excited, and allow myself to experience and change this world with the people around me.
6:29 - as a trans person living in the US, I often get invested in more political apocalypse scenarios (like, y’know, the one happening right now in real life), and this made me realize that this isn’t just some special interest, but that this is also motivated by what is happening right now where I live
As another trans person (though living in Indonesia), I second this. Also kinda why I like when the main protagonists are just normal people fighting against more powerful antagonists.
I appreciate the empathetic approach to preppers. Reality tv and media is way too good at finding the weirdos, or just the weird soundbites from otherwise relatively "normal" folks. Building and making things yourself is incredibly empowering and i guess some people focus that energy towards self-sustaining crafts.
I'm so glad you covered the flaws in the original Stanford Prison Experiment. I grew up hearing that it proved humans were evil, but that was never true.
I was an aspiring social psych grad student in 1971 (might have been '73) when Dr. Zimbardo was making the rounds about his "experiment", so I eagerly took in that lecture. It wasn't an experiment at all--it was theater, or perhaps an adolescent playing with a chemistry set (do they still make those?). His telling statement--and I still remember this clearly--when asked by a colleague: "So what exactly is your dependent measure?" was: "No time for that now, I have a prison break on my hands." (Or words to that effect--it was half a century ago.) The lecture never mentioned coaching his prison guards, but Zimbardo did note that he had his prisoners dressed in fairly short orange tunics and no underwear explicitly to make them feel vulnerable and humiliated. Obviously nothing like that could even remotely be sanctioned these days, mercifully. After all, he was responsible for what can only be called torture and learned absolutely nothing.
The experiment is methodologically bad, but the point was never that humans were evil, but whether humans could be made evil by putting them into certain roles and situations, whether "power corrupts" or in other words "is your boss a dick because he was always a dick, or is he a dick because he's the boss and if you were the boss you'd be a dick too". While this can be interpreted as everyone being abusers just held back by not having power over someone to abuse, it can also be interpreted as people wanting to make things right according to their own view of what right is, and, given power, being tempted to use that power to "make things right" the fast and easy way. I think everyone agrees role and situation impact morals to some degree. Think of what the alternative is, if it's not situations that make people evil, then it's just that evil people are evil. Ironically, that's a right-wing axiom, that people are inherently better or worse no matter the situation and therefore they deserve better or worse lives. The left position is that people act wrong because of unfortunate situations, the system they are in, and that by changing the system we can mitigate people acting evil by removing those unfortunate situations (reducing crime with social programs, reducing abuse of workers by reducing economic inequality).
@@Jorge-np3tq What Zimbardo showed was that if you create a prison situation, people will act like they're in a prison situation. Well, duh. Happens every day in real life with real prisoners and guards. And he never really measured anything, so you can't even call it an experiment. He caused real psychological harm (enough that he had to shut it down early) apparently for little more than his own amusement. At least Milgram's coersion experiment--another that could not be sanctioned today--had actual measurements and controls.
@@KR-ll4dj While I agree, as I said before, that the methodology was shit, I don't agree with the "duh". It's important to know whether people that behave like that do so because of inherent reasons or if anyone would behave like that when put in a certain situation.
It’s actually really cool to see someone putting this together in a whole connected essay. I stumbled into a lot of the parts of what was mentioned here: leaning into cyclical thinking and mirroring it in my life habits, disconnecting from the 24hr news cycle, focusing on my own hobby creativity rather than getting meaning from work, and intentionally planting my rear end into a community space with people who not only dream of a better future with me, but find ways that we can make small improvements for both local community needs and certain major international crises. It’s certainly a change, but I don’t want the world to end anymore. Im too busy caring about and trying to help people around me through the cycles of change in their own lives to care. And Im happier. Little changes can go a long way.
Hope you’re doing ok and that suicidal was a bit of hyperbole. The future is full of unknowns and let’s hope humanity will rise to the challenges as well as creating new screw-ups.
@@LiteratureEastandWestActually, when it comes to all the other life forms we share the planet with and ultimately even ourselves, humans continuing our current growth industrial based form of civilization, would be the absolute worst thing that could happen.
Frankly, being suicidal due to Climate Change is pretty dumb. It will happen over the course of generations. The effects will be slow, thus you will have time to adapt. It is not like we wake up tomorrow and everything has changed for the worse.
Not sad or a downer-- this video essay felt like it took my wide spectrum of feelings (from cynicism all the way through to elation) and gave it a very comforting, gentle hug. Made me tear up. Thank you for making all the heart and hard work you put into this, Zoe 🙏 What a wonderful thing to come upon.
I worked at Walmart when covid started and it was literally chaos. Customers fighter in isles, taking products from other people's carts, yelling, screaming, punches being thrown.. People thought it was the end of the world. That's how they behaved.
Capitalism makes people anxious. A lot of us fear that there won’t be enough, to feed us. If you ever worked at a resturant, you know how much food they can throw away. All while starving people are right at the corner. Or even the workers themselves, like I was, being the working hungry. We have enough, food to feed the word. But if capitalism says ‘make a scarcity, and increase price’ It can cause people to have a, “if you don’t get it first, won’t you starve?” mentality. If you know prices are going to be regulated, and you are not going to be price gouged, why would anyone need to act like that?
Those people were manipulated into a great fear of scarcity thanks to the economy of the situation but make no mistake the vast majority of us were people like you at Wal mart working or calmly waiting at home for news. While a very small minority panicked over the scarcity and another more predatory group tried to profit off of it but the VAST majority was reasonable people going on about their lives. Don't let the confirmation bias overwhelm you.
true I lived in a big city and during covid most people were calm with the exception of a few people. But overall, I never saw huge amounts of people in panic. @@josephmatthews7698
I always had the opinion that the average person was pretty much considerate and socially conscious. 2020 utterly shattered that lie. People are aśshats at the core. Sorry Zoe, you’re wrong on this one imo. In the case of a slow moving catastrophe, people come up with clever ways to put down others to salvage even the slightest inconvenience. This is different from a reaction in this moment (when indeed most people are decent). The people most able to enact their panic, are also the ones most likely to blame and attack marginalized groups. In my experience anyway. 9/11 isn’t a good example as it’s a community used to behaving calmly in crowds, and trained with frequent drills on how to evacuate. Plus of course they had absolute heroes who stood in the stairwells to get people out calmly. It’s not monstrous actions that would make a post urban world intolerable. It’s slow burn selfishness and prejudice. The USA has no hope if our modernity were torn away. We’re too divided, too invested in our tribes, to cooperate.
zoe for most of the video: people are good! we can fix any problem we put our minds to! togetherness and happiness will prevail over all of humanity’s issues! zoe at 52:25: burn it down and drag the bastards to the gallows. the blood of the rich and powerful will flow over the land in a great cleansing flood, and our new society will be birthed from the righteous ruination
People are good, people are beautiful, wonderful, kind creatures who alone are able to perceive of the world and themselves in all their majesty. People make art, people save lives, people build and improve the world. Those who spend their days robbing people less fortunate than themselves so that they can continue living in a world defined by excess... they are not people. They are not beautiful, and they make nothing. They only take what others make.
@@mallory-maeBased? This person just found a way to no-true scotsman that beautiful reflection while simultaneously dehumanizing and missing the point of systemic critique. I could not conjure up a worse take if I tried.
@@DivideByZerr0they’re still people. Corrupted by a system that’s robbed their humanity. They’re victims too. Truly. We must extend our humanity even to those that harm us because it is only through compassion and love that we come out the other side of this. Violence will lead to more violence. To change systems, you have to change minds. Preferably not through fear.
@@EroticInferno Yeah, systemic problems can only be fixed by systemic change. But you can't fix a broken system by using the same system. I admit that my original comment was more emotional than it maybe should've been. I'm just exhausted by ineffective peaceful protests. I want to fix the problem before the world burns down. We're on a timer here, but nobody with enough power to change it seems to care. I just struggle to see people who profit off of human misery as the same as the people they're profiting from. Again it's a problem with the system we all live in, not a problem with people. When someone is given an early advantage they're effectively punished for not taking advantage of it, and to be fair, we're all punished when we don't take advantage of each other. It's how the system was built, and it's designed to perpetuate itself for as long as possible.
This *gestures to the entire video* is why I love the concept of Spiderman so much. Sure, he has powers, but Spiderman is also (in most universes) a random teenager who, thousands of times in thousands of universes, almost always chooses to do good in his community. And most Spiderman narratives also have a point where a group of random, ordinary people in his community protect him and/or his identity. The whole point of Spiderman is that most ordinary people, when they see the chance to help others around them, will do it.
I still remember the scene where the citizens help Spider-Man against Green Goblin while shouting "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!" at Goblin.
I was talking to an elderly Christian man and he told me that he genuinely believed we were at the end times. there is a lot of fear mongering going on and it has everyone on edge. I refuse to live in the end times without a fight. I am going to fight with all of my kindness, hope and love to make a brighter future.
When I was a kid my family purchased a house from a family who sold everything because the world was ending in 1980, these endtimers are as old as Christianity.
@deathbycognitivedissonance5036 So, what's the alternative? To just roll over and perish? I might not be able to do much? But even a little good is better than just doing nothing.
I had a house in the 9th ward and evacuated with my 3 month old baby the day before Katrina hit. I only experienced help and support from everyone I interacted with. Some fellow evacuees at the campground told me the two dogs I had to leave behind had probably been killed by my neighbors who stayed behind. The truth is, those unfortunate neighbors, who had no cars, fed my dogs. After watching this 100% right-on vídeo (thank you Zoe) it hit me: those unfortunate people on foot trying to cross the bridge to Gretna to escape the disaster and were blocked by rifles, in the language of zombie movies are the zombies and the racist sheriff who stopped them are the good guys.
I was worried because this video was the longest on my to watch list, but it was worth it. I used to depress a lot on climate anxiety and doomerism, but it slowly has been getting better because I been trying to reach beyond that and I have found a lot. A lot of people who also feel sad, a lot of people who care, a lot of people who feel lonely. And those three lots...make most of the planet. It's all connected. From work, to school, to library, to gardening, to hanging out, to feeling happy, to dreaming, to eating, to hoping. Thanks a lot for this video.
Zoe: "Turns out people are good, actually.... well not rich people, but.." 100% spot on. It's wild how few people think that other people are generally good and instead think everyone is out to steal their shit.... everyone except the specific people they know; their acquaintances happen to be the planetary exception. Even if there wasn't plenty of research to suggest otherwise, it still says a lot more about you than about other people if you think everyone is horrible.
This is so true. I grew up with a road rager parent, and it always seemed so hypocritical and ironic how it would work. They would get all worked up about this car going too slow or not knowing where they’re going because it slightly inconveniences them, but there’s time when i’m in the car with them or other drivers who are in a new place or got lost, so they go slow and do all the things that my parent would rage about. But I know those people who are lost or “acting insane and can’t make up their mind” as a road rager might put it, but i know those people and they aren’t bad people, they’re just people trying to drive like everyone else. And the road rage and cynicism of “everyone on the road is a bad driver” also speaks to society and the idea that everyone else is bad but not the people you know because you know WHY they act like they do. Just my personal experience, and this was way longer than I thought, but thought it was relevant to what you were saying.
@@PasticheUnleashed Nah you're absolutely spot on, that's 100% what I was getting after. It's the same place racism tends to come from. Sometimes it's a violent reaction, but most of the time it's just simple lack of exposure. Easy to believe anything about people you've never met, tbh. It's one of the reasons I want to ride my bike across the country... cause I have ideas about people in other parts of the country, but they're vague and while I try to be generous in my expectations, I'm certain there's a lot I'm missing. The breadth of humanity is far too vast to live within our concepts, and I'd like to experience as much humanity as I can.
I'm a new subscriber who is also a middle aged misanthropic anarchist who clicked on this video because I need to vary my media feed and I wrongly pigeonholed this video as liberal nonsense by the thumbnail. An hour later in sobbing while I do the dishes. Great work and a great reminder that I need to be more active in building community.
@@CrazyGamer1541Often times any 'popular' media has a liberal slant in which nothing can be imagined without the thought of a profit driven market upholding everything
I haven't finished the video yet, but OMG this is so true. I have always been anxious about not being seen as "valued" during an apocalypse since I am disabled (invisibly) and neurodivergent. So, while I do also enjoy these hobbies I am about to list, I have also taken the following up in hopes of being seen as valuable: Foraging, herbal first aid and medicine, metalworking, friendship and body language research with various animals in my neighborhood, fishing, cooking, and tracking. I have also collected: Renaissance weaponry and armour (aka silent weapons), reusable and easily packable period supplies, camping supplies that is easy to carry around on foot, and toiletries that will last me ages and are natural. (Though I have played with making my own a bit, and have not been very successful.) I have many other hobbies, such as making my own clothes, climbing, hiking, and so on--along with having sensory sensitivities (which can be disabling in our LOUD & SMELLY world full of car-centric cities) but they can help me a lot in the wild to stay safe. Such as keeping track of the smells of various animals, identifying plants through smell, hypervigilance of surroundings to avoid predators or people, etc. I have always wanted a community and don't really want to live in the apocalypse--so a lot of this has also been because I might end up alone or homeless as a disabled person because of ableism and the economic situation of capitalism that forces disabled people to become financial burdens in many cases. I hope it doesn't have to pass and I can actually have a nice life though.
Yeah, you'd be the one being defended by scary armed mugs with that skill set... Your trouble would be going anywhere without someone watching your ass constantly!
I'm late to this one, but oh my god, *thank you.* If we were inclined toward selfishness and competition, we wouldn't be where we are, we would have destroyed ourselves. I often feel that we're currently at a crossroads; people who benefit from the narrative of selfishness are trying to steer us in that direction, and it's what we'll become if we listen to them. Choosing the correct path, choosing cooperation, means knowing the truth about humanity and recognizing that we have the power to make this choice in the first place.
We grew up in an anxious mess. Were watching it come to fruition. Edit: you've put in to words what I've been trying to understand for so long. Reading, researching, philosophizing, catastrophising, resenting, bargaining, and accepting. Ive been able to think differently as I've begun to understand more of what I'm seeing and understanding. Cycles. Ancient cultures and ring patterns, communal living and our villages have been lost to linear thinking, scrambling toward an end time that we've been pushed to believe for our entire lives. We've lost our villages and we continue our maladaptive behavior behind closed doors, complacent with our pseudoconnections online. We are social creatures and we are so very alone. Thank you for shifting my perspective. This world is not sustainable. We're essentially yearning to be let out of our cages. It feels hopeless. We've allowed this to happen. I want the world to end because i don't have a will to live when there's nothing to live for. Lets bring back our villages. Revolution.
There wouldn't be billions of individuals of our species if a majority of us were as predatory-natured and individualistic as some folks want to believe. There are examples, but they tend to be the bullies corrupting our industry and government. Great essay, thanks ZB. Keep on comrades:)
I was a kid in the nineties and the supposed 2k apocalypse was everywhere in the media for several years before we actually hit 2k. Didn't help that my family was into astrology and such and there was a cable network where the end of the world in 2k was being presented as a fact. I was legit scared, like sitting on my bed and listening for the whistle of bombs falling or maybe a shockwave approaching.
I heard from my parents that the same end of the world narrative was also exploding during the 70's energy shortage, over population and global cooling. Among other scares. Not to mention the cold war and nuclear annihilation.
@@andkar72 the 2k bug wasn't the only thing, plenty of previsions about space objects falling and Nostradamus and several others "prophets" too being interpreted as damning. It even made its way into the lyrics of the main song of a popular musical that was everywhere. All the TV fortune tellers and whatnot were adamant that there would be *some* kind of catastrophe of biblical proportions, the news on TV would have reports every now and then if not about the predictions themselves then the fears it caused and the adults around me lapped it all up. Nowadays I wouldn't care but for me as a kid it was rather terrifying.
I haven't found anyone's trancription of that poem at the end of the video, so here mine: - Isn't it beautiful - Acutally life is beautiful because the sound I make while trying to breathe around hot food sounds like my dog trying to eat an apple. When I yawn, my cat tries to put his face in my mouth like a little dentist man and, when he yawns, I put my finger in his obligate-carnivore trapzone and we both know he won't hurt me. When I do not fold my clothes, they do not hold it against me. I am demonstrably sad, and lonely, and full of fear. But there are other people who will hold my hand, who will point out the hawk overhead, who will give you That look in a public space. The other day at the coffee shop, a child said "look! it's snowing" so all of us strangers went to look out the window. It wasn't the first snow and it won't be the last, but wasn't it lovely like that? How wonderful to live in a world where both birds and frogs both say "beep"! How wonderful to have an ocean of beautiful sharks with their dinosaur theeth! How wonderful toe moon and her changing face, how wonderful the bees and their dancing to communicate, how wonderful shrimp and their forbidden layers of vision! How wonderful you, and what you will give to the world! The way we love things enough to spend entire blogs devoted to them? How people will let me explain my pokemon team to them? How we will both jump at the scare in a movie, how we laugh so loudly, how it feels to give someone your baking? How wonderful to be alive. I am sorry for forgetting. This is the process of getting better. With wonderful people, wonderful strangers and wonderful friends: I am getting better, slowly. Thank you whoever you are. In some way you've been wonderful, and left a wonderful place in the world to ripple out to me. In some small way - isn't it beautiful - I promise, you've been helping. - Inkskinned, Tumblr user
Zoe, A bunch of years ago at the height of the ‘Walking Dead’ era I had this moment of realization about how many of our stories revolved around apocalypses and I had the recurring thought: And so I started writing a utopian novel, and researching the ones that came before. I learned ‘utopian fiction’ hadn’t really been a category since the end of the 19th century, when there were a bunch of optimistic, largely socialist/communist, best sellers published. I have a chronic pain condition and so my own novel is taking years, but by far the hardest part of learning to write fiction from square one, and then doing it, has been staying hopeful the whole time. (I wonder why?, lol) Your video and some of the resources you’ve offered have been really helpful to kickstart me again when I had hit a bit of a pessimism wall. The themes in my book, about hope and human nature, mirror many of the themes in your video, and again, I thank you for reminding me of my initial mission. If we can’t even imagine a better world, how will we ever hope to build one? I’m going to try to help the world imagine a better world. You’ve done that too. Thanks
I remember after hurricane harvey, I wanted the world to end because things were so crazy. I would watch this channel called "Mr. Doom" every day that would cover all the bad news that supposedly shows that we're in the end times. For me, the end of the world would've been an escape from everything.
Were you affected by Harvey personally? I would like to understand the situation and mindset you were in at that time. What were you trying to get away from - the aftermath of the hurricane?
Zoe, I hope you understand how beautiful this video is. I don't know how to explain it, but this video has done something to me. I feel like I finally have hope and purpose in the world. That conclusion never fails to make me cry. I feel alive again. I have genuinely never felt this happy in my life. I don't know how you did it, but thank you. 💛
I definitely only started to feel genuinely more stable and happier once I started engaging in creation that I was directly producing. Over the past years I was becoming more and more distressed with the things I was consuming, because even if they were fun and interesting and amazing (Tekken 7, FF14, Arcane), there was still that void that I was just consuming someone else made, usually a corporation, consuming their thoughts and values that, while I could examine them critically, still left a void. I would talk to people about the things other people were doing, what other people were making and the impact they left on me. It was only when I finally made the leap to working on the long, arduous process of learning to draw for myself that I felt that void finally closing. I had always loved drawing, in fact I literally made it my career since I got into construction drawing technical drawings, and the drawing was always one of the few things I really enjoyed about my work. But making something for yourself, assured that what you are making is something that reflects your perspective of the world at the time is something so amazing, it is healing, and frustrating and so real. I want so badly to make beautiful things I don't see in the world yet, that express every step in my journey, that give new life to the people and places and times I miss. I don't want to be lost in a desert of nostalgia when the things I love change for the sake of profitability, or are cancelled or become unrecognizable. If there are things I love and that I want to see last I know now that I will have to pick up the torch, the axe, the hammer and support them with my own two hands. And I will, and I have. I was depressed and apocalyptic for most of my life, 30 years, but fostering my imagination has given me hope.
I think this is something my dad might need to see. He's a believer in the "innate terribleness" of human beings, and I think this might help him get out of that. Thanks, Zoe.
I don't believe humans are evil by nature, but we have so many evil people around due to various circumstances that a further degradation of society will be a complete catastrophe. I'm active in a community garden in a socially difficult neighbourhood and the children and youth of a specific group of people are always breaking into the garden, stealing fruit, trampling the plots and damaging the trees. They have now taken to breaking entire branches off our small apple trees. It's just total senseless destruction. If the situation became even worse, for example with crop failures, we can stop trying to grow anything in that garden, because this horde will steal and destroy all of it. They are already raiding our trees to an extend that we often don't have anything left to ourselves. Even pumpkins have been stolen. They are also frequently damaging a newly erected vertical flower wall and have torn out many bulbs from a newly renovated flower plot with tulips and narcissuses in addition to just breaking off the flowers. There is no point trying to build something when you have people like that in your vicinity that will tear it down again. That's why I'm generally pessimistic. Even if you find people willing to work together, you just need a couple of half-feral kids to ruin it for everybody. And that's not even taking into account the armed Nazi marauders we can expect when the shit hits the fan.
Thank you so much for posting this. I was literally in the middle of one of my existentialist crying sessions when I opened TH-cam and your video was the first thing I saw. It’s such a relief to hear for once that humans aren’t inherently evil; this is one of my worst fears and I appreciate all of your evidence and the very clear and comprehensive ways you put it together. Again, thank you. ❤️
I have been experiencing a relapse in my depression, after previously feeling I was in a well enough state to wean off of my medication in the beginning of 2023. I have been positively consumed by feelings of dread, inconsolable grief, and inpending doom. I am much too afraid of death to do anything drastic but that has somehow made it worse. Instead, it feels like I'm waiting for a painful future that is uncertain but, for some reason, irrefutably terrible. I cannot tell you the comfort this video has given me. I am sadly too tired to fully detail my thoughts, but I needed to express my gratitude. Despite it all, I want to live, and it's nice to be told through academic research about human nature that what we see and consume isn't what really happens day to day, person to person. Thank you
It's both fascinating and frustrating that cynical narratives about human nature are more likely to become solidified in the popular imagination and get propagated in media. It takes a lot of work to believe in ourselves and in our collective power, rooted in hope and action! I think about adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy, where she says, "I would call our work to change the world ‘science fictional behavior’ - being concerned with the way our actions and beliefs now, today, will shape the future, tomorrow, the next generations. We are excited by what we can create, we believe it is possible to create the next world. We believe...We are in an imagination battle"! Simply imagining that the world could be different and better is a radical act of hopefulness that is a threat to the status quo!
This is genuinely one of the best video essays I've ever watched, and a refreshing, inspiring, and hopeful take in an environment of doom scrolling, mass media hysterics, and overall defeatism. You've yet again left me with a fresh perspective and a sense of direction. Thank you.
I was born six months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. During those weeks my parents didn’t expect me to live to see my first birthday so I’m happy I’m still here sixty one years later
I just got to watching this one after a long vacation, and after watching Sophie from Mars' rough cut of "The World Is Not Ending," and these two pair amazingly in conversation with each other. I'm delighted to see such loving optimism from y'all, and really appreciate the perspective at a time that is very, very scary, in the middle of a massive neverending heat wave in Texas, having just two weeks ago been in Tennessee where the air was virtually unbreathable from smoke. It's *needed*. Thank you so much.
Also, I have a long-running joke with another exvangelical friend about how we were raised in what amounted to an apocalyptic death cult, obsessed with Left Behind and Revelation and all things Rapture-related, and how hard it makes it for us to live our lives now as if they exist for their own sake. I still expect the end (whether it is death or an apocalypse or whatever) in some part of my lizard brain, and it's a funny joke until I stop to consider how many other evangelical children were and are damaged in this way. This makes messages like this particularly important to me. I also deeply apprecaite the discussion of cyclical time, as someone whose first *chosen* religion was Wicca. Thinking of time as cyclical has been immensely healing when I remember to do so. "This too shall pass, and we know roughly what will come next, even if those expectations slowly modify over time as factors in the cycle change" has been absolutely crucial to my mental health. Cyclical time is sacred, and such an important and necessary part of maintaining sanity.
Half way through I think I realised that this is one of the best, most inspiring video essays I have ever listened to. Makes me want to go and write some post-apocalyptic fiction focused on the goodness of human nature. Kind post-apocalyptic fiction. Dare I say feminine post-apocalyptic fiction. Perhaps not even post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic; a slow devolution of society as we knew it into something better, more altruistic, grass-roots and unmanaged.
I've generally taken myself out of existence because of my hopelessness about this world (among other difficulties). But the idea to place oneself in public as a way to build community struck something in me. So here is me existing. And I hope that I can take this message and build on it. No one deserves to feel like they have to hide at home just to make it through the day.
Elite panic should be shouted from rooftops, I first heard it in the "Elite Panic" episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards (which I highly recommend). I am very very happy that Zoe Bee is talking about this. It is the most important concept I know about politics and society.
It reminds me of how Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom depicts its post apocalypse society. Sure, there is a lot of ruins from the previous civilization, but the surviving people are kind, co-exist and do their own thing, enjoying life and help Link defeating Ganon / Ganondorf. It's also uplifting to see new towns or facilities on Tears of the Kingdom. That means the fight Link and the other characters did on Breath of the Wild was worth it. I also tend to see the depictions of post-apocalypse in Japanese media to be more hopeful, relatively speaking. Zombies? Find a shelter and keep things sustainable. Simple. Communications cut off due to the apocalypse? Let's reconnect with the other survivors, new monsters be damned. Monster gods ravaged the world? Make them your weapons! There was an apocalypse before? Oh boy, new ruins of old, superior tech to ravage and let's learn if it will happen again or not and if it can be prevented or not.
Unfortunately, the end of the world irl isn't as glamorous. there's no hope of rebuilding and coming back from everyone burning to death. The end of the world IS going to be final because it'll kill us all.
It's probably because Japan has a high frequency of natural disasters, so apocalyptic events aren't that far-removed from their reality. I also like to think works in the kaiju genre, like Godzilla and Ultraman, really influenced Japanese pop culture with their themes of humanity struggling against impossible odds
It actually gave me a lot of relief for my anxieties about the end of the world. It made me feel hopeful, and it reminded me how much I love certain people and certain things. Thanks you. I've been dealing with massive anxiety since accidentally coming across a group of people talking about misery, and cruelty, and the world collapsing horribly because of climate change. It scarred me. It gave me nightmares about not being able to achieve my dreams, about being unable to be happy with the people I love. I knew they were wrong, but their words were stronger in my head. Now I have more faith in people, and in a better world. I'll try to help. I want to love and be loved. Thanks. Really
As a sci-fi fan, I love that one of the remedies was "let's write speculative fiction," and to provide lots of detail to make the imagined worlds feel lived in -- and *livable* in - it doesn't all have to be dystopian fiction
"Basing your beliefs about something on media about that thing is bound to be flawed", is honestly a quote that i didn't know i need to hear until now. A great video as always thank you zoe🙏🏻🙏🏻
In the past few months i have fantasized about a nuclear war breaking out and somehow found comfort in the idea that the world as i know it would change. It stroke me as odd that i would like the thought of this happenening as it's clearly irrational. I think a lot about scenarios like this and other similiar to it. I'm glad you talk about it as i have not seen anyone talk about this topic. Kinda makes me feel less alone if that makes sense. Thank you :)
I moved to Baton Rouge to attend LSU in fall of ‘03, and 2 years later I got to live through Hurricane Katrina, family members died and others ended up living with me and at my mom’s house. It was a crazy, traumatizing mess. A disaster. I got to experience a semi-apocalypse first-hand and to this day, neither I nor my family or former cities have fully recovered. I had some pretty serious anxiety before that and it only cemented itself in me. I know how it feels to obsess with the end of the world. The appeal seems to be a desire to have all the structures around us dismantled in an instant, and to see what life would be like in its wake. It’s not pretty or glamorous. But sometimes society can seem equally as horrifying.
First, im sorry you went through that. im glad you still made it through. What i will say, i dont think the problem is simply the uprooting of structures: the problem is the people in charge of these structures. Louisiana is notorious for being corrupt & having poor infrastructure, and even though they have the resources to invest in better disaster-relief, they just choose not to do the best they could. Things didnt have to be as bad as they were; so much of that stuff, they *let* happen. Im pro-society IF that society does the work to continuously improve and look after its people to the best of its ability. But if its a society that is crumbling & leaving its people to die, then it needs to be uprooted and replaced with something better.
As a contrast, fellow LSU attendee here, I went in fall of '11 and went through Isaac in 2012. I know Katrina was far worse, but with none of my family being in south Louisiana it was kind of fun. We called it Hurrication and the entire floor of our dorm partied through it, as did the rest of the campus I'm sure. I remember the trees outside being sideways and tons of flooding, especially on Highland. They locked down the campus for it, we weren't allowed to leave the building after a certain time, so it was crazy, but fun.
christ, man. i just finished this video and i’m ugly sobbing. life is so incredible. i’ve been suicidal for a long time, and a large part of that was because of the terror of an impending “end of the world.” it feels like everything is out of my hands. but it’s not. it never is. we always have power, and life is always amazing. thank you for this. i need to go blow my nose
I've got a couple thoughts on this video 1. I am part of a beautiful community with my neighbors. We all live in a town home and our backyards are shared. We have get togethers, pot lucks, and celebrate all the kids birthdays together (and currently theres about 10 of them). I love it and it feels so good being a part of it and contributing and bettering everyone's lives. We help each other and celebrate together. It makes me sad to think about moving and leaving those people behind. Thats where I wish for the end of the world so that we can make a homestead together, not worrying about leases and moving out or doing something the managment doesnt like. But I will continue to savor every event we have together and make every one of them special. 2. I am so glad you got to show the true side of preppers. I have ADHD and feel completely useless in the world today. Being able to work with ny hands and provide for my loved ones brings me great joy. It's not about shooting people up and being a mad individual. It's about providing for the people I love, protecting them, and like you stated, to feel like I matter. I'm a young woman who dreams of living off grid and getting to appreciate everything I have through my own hands. :) Honestly a great video. When I started listening I was sceptical, but you did a great job. I hopeang people can see this video.
I am a huge fan of the Fallout Franchise and I ponder this question on a daily basis. This video just connects the dots on many of the ideas I've found for myself. Modern society alienates people from the fruits of their labor. Thats why we crave that need to be connected with what we create.
It truly boggles my mind whenever I express (whether online or in my everyday life) how tired I am of capitalism, and its effects on the world, and people get all defensive, and do all these mental gymnastics to justify why we need this system or straight up say that capitalism is good actually. It’s like they’re blind to all the obvious negative aspects of this very destructive, racist, and exploitative economic system.
It's because capitalism is the best bad thing we got. There's a reason why capitalism is the most popular system for countries. Because most countries have tried other forms and absolutely hated it. Capitalism isn't perfect...it can be downright evil even. But other forms of governance is much much worse.
Like socialism? Americans view social ideas on a very skewed way. I loved Zoe Bee putting emphasis on human cooperation which is the basic tenet of socialistic societies.
@@ambientlightofdarknesss4245happens when you resolve the evil parts, and keep the good parts? Call it whatever you want, but don't act like capitalism can't be evolved into something better. Would you justify the system of slavery in the US? Capitalism is more egalitarian than slavery, you somehow all moralistic and commie all of a sudden because you care about human beings? Your intentions to end slavery will actually result in mass famine and the end of all structure society. The truth is we need slavery because if we evolve beyond the bad parts of slavery than society won't work anymore! Did we end slavery because it was immoral? What do you think? Does the pain caused by the abuses of slavery really matter? You say capitalism is painful, but it doesn't matter if it's painful. Where does your logic stop? Why can't we just do slavery and then there would be a bunch of productivity? Really, I'm just trying to draw out of you, your rational argument for ending slavery, made to a group of people who think slavery is the only way forward. What do you say to them? Lots of farmers lost productivity when they lost their slaves. It wasn't easy to readjust. Do you believe that resteuctural period was worth it, or do you think the pain of the restructuring shouldn't have been felt by slave owners? I just don't see how your logic progresses us beyond slavery? How does your logic progress us beyond fuedalism? What is your logic that takes you beyond these systems and chooses capitalism? What has been resolved from slavery and fuedalism that made capitalism viable? Do you think the forces that led to the ending of slavery and the ending of feudalism are no longer active - the natural human desire to see less suffering in the world? I can put all of humanity really simply. Humans suffer and we don't like watching each other suffer. As long as what you offer is suffering, humans will reject it. Now, go out and make a better system and don't get lost in the semantics. When you succeed, less humans will suffer. If you get lost in the semantics, you fail to use suffering as a metric for correctness of a system, and you fall back to desperate mindsets that cause exploitation. Here's something else to think about. At the pace of human development, in another 100 years every person will probably be able to have a factory and mass produce commodities. Each human being will be productive beyond comprehension, because the development of capitalism is to increase the rate of production. What other species in the planet must first produce a factory for every human being in order to survive? None. Survival is consuming food , staying alive. Capitalism is literally not about survival, it's about productivity for people who control means of survival. Humanity does not first need a factory for every human being in order to survive, but the way capitalism operates you would think that if humanity doesn't barrel towards this goal then we will all starve to death. If we can't produce exponentially, we starve to death? Capitalism only exists because there is surplus and extra. To let it define survival is in actuality the inverse of the truth. Capitalism is like a survival meta game ontop of actual survival. We recreate predator vs prey, after spending millenia overcoming these base animalistic modes of survival. A business owners only loss is a loss of excess, not loss of survival, but they treat it like it's real survival so they turn their workers into the desperate people. So you have excess built on the backs of people who literally are trying to survive, when none of it needs to be this way. It reproduces these relationships, maintains wealth disparities, continues to place burden of survival on some and extreme excess on others. If you think life has to be this way, the suffering masses will prove you wrong and will attempt to fight for something better. That is the essence of revolution, which our founding fathers thought would need to happen every few decades. Nowadays when I hear people defend capitalism, I hear them reading the script provided by billionaires. It's not based in capitalism being good, it's based in fears of the unknown, fears in fighting for revolution. This is a revolutionary nation, we should have the culture of pushing for the masses to fight for their lives! If your response to people fighting for a better world is, "x ideology has been tried so I'm not inboard with this", then you are really missing the forrest through the trees. Capitalism will be overthrown eventually, but it will be a longer process than the systems that came before. If you think you are winning and convincing people to like capitalism, you're wrong. You're not convincing at all.
I struggle a lot with misanthropy. From a combination of just seeing humans constantly get things wrong for the sake of capitalism or their worldviews. As well as my own struggle to understand the humans around me and the acceptance that I'll never truly feel like one of you. I love this world, I love the life living on it, and I want to protect it.
I was just directed to your page by another group that I belong to, and just wanted to say that I love this topic, the time, research and energy that you put into it shows your dedication to your craft. You found a new fan and I'm looking forward to hearing more of your ideas in the future.
Not only did I just drop my own Apocalypse themed project on SM, but I've been waiting for yours for weeks. You just said "eschatology", and my eyes lit up.
Zoe, this video wasn't a downer at all, it really was inspriational, and a huge relief. The link between prepper and wanting to have self control has always resonated for me? My winning the lottery fantasy was always to just go out in the country, raise animals, build sheds, tend a garden - because I want that hands on control. But I do feel insprised in a new way to "be the change you want to see in the world", in less strong words. I've felt like a huge peice of garbage in the past for having those same doom and apocolypse fantasies - imagining myself alone without friends or family, imagining a mad max scenario. Its a relief to know I'm not alone, and to know why its resonated so much. I don't want the world to end, but I do want change, and I want everyone around me to be less miserable. If I can think of ways for that to happen, that are under my control, and within my capabilities, I know I can make that change.
For me as someone who also was obsessed with the world ending as a child and has trouble envisioning future, this video was incredibly touching and if I don't forget about it by then, I will definitely seek out "we survived the apocalypse". Thank you so much for your work, I felt seen here.
The sci Fi channel ran a hopeful reality show for a few seasons called The Colony. It was a simulation of the apocalypse with a bunch of scientists trying to figure out survival methods, and all the conflict came from raiders working for the show who would test their defenses.
I have a quick tip for you, actually 2. 1.The climate has and always will change regardless human activity. Did you know a lot believe all the continents used to be joined together? That's some epic climate change to get to where we are currently! Oh and by the way whatever broke them apart hasn't and will never stop so eventually they'll join back up! Human ignorance is only matched by human arrogance. I really like the damage done to earth to create and implement "renewables" Turbine blades that get buried. Solar panels that get buried. All the mining to make solar panels and batteries. All the land clearing to put up wind turbines.... 2. No one have ever made it out of life alive. Everyone is going to die. So the secret isn't secret. Everyone's world will end.
@FreeXenon, I hope you read this. I find it comforting to realize that our current ACC predicament could be or likely is the Great Filter that solves the Fermi Paradox. That is to reach space to colonize other planets all aliens would need fossil fuels as a stepping stone to reach better sustainable sources of concentrated energy to get out of their gravity well. However, fossil fuels are so addictive that none of them realize that in the last doubling time one half of all the fossil fuel energy in their ground will be consumed. So, they all wait too long to do anything to avoid overheating their world which ends their civilization. This leaves any survivors (if there are any) with a looted world that can't sustain a high energy civilization. I'm a doomer also, I find this comforting.
The wildest thing about becoming a political zealot is the massive detriment it actualy has on your personal individual mental health. I’ve never understood it really, we have almost zero power in the grand scheme of things.
I actually do not want the world to end and never have. I might be an outlier in that respect, but I want the better world that we will build if we can let ourselves.
I never would have imagined a poem written by a stranger, read by another stranger not even in my own native language could feel so personal and charming, i dont remember the last time droped a tear out of joy, thank you
Zoe, not only was this video NOT a downer at all, but for me it was the exact opposite. I can't thank you enough for this video and it would be impossible to overstate just how badly I needed to see it. I have been consciously trying to loosen my grip on the imagined apocalypse for a very long time, but it's more difficult than I can fully explain to muster enough trust in other people, enough belief in my own agency, and enough hope for a future worth having to take each tiny, shaky step. Your video supplied more of these things in an hour than I can usually come up with in a span of months, and taught me several new ways I might be able to generate that healing mind-fuel for myself and others. It's a cliche that knowledge is power, but truly, the more a person knows about how to shape their own beliefs and worldview, how to heal from emotional injuries and how to foster useful collaboration with others, the more agency that person has. By teaching and by pointing the way to where we can learn more, YOU HAVE GIVEN ME SOME OF MY AGENCY BACK. Please do not ever doubt the positive impact of your work. No topic is too heavy when there are listeners/viewers/etc who already carry it inside, and a frightening but hopeful truth does more to help us hold our heads high than a million tactful attempts to soften reality ever could.
I didn't find this video to be a downer at all, quite the opposite in fact! The last 20 minutes or so were incredibly optimistic and left me feeling like real change is not only possible, but attainable, even within my lifetime. Thank you Zoe!
My best friend from elementary school told me the world was ending in 2012. I had so much anxiety leading up to that day, I don't think I've let go of it since then. Thanks Martin!
One thing that you commented on during the setup section (Defining the Apocalypse) that I think is also worth commenting on is the idea that all this apocalyptic media has a Western focus. While I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there were some slant there, I think it's worth pointing out that our friends in the East can also make some darn good apocalypse or post-apocalypse media. On the anime/manga side, you have things like Akira, Evangelion, Princess Mononoke (rebirth style apocalypse, imo), Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and Attack on Titan, to name a few. For video games, I'm pretty sure I could get a half-dozen apocalypses out of just the Final Fantasy series, never mind the Tales, SMT, Persona, DQ, Drakengard/NieR, and Star Ocean series. Or Zelda and Resident Evil, now that I've tabbed away from the RPG-specific list.
Japan is an especially interesting example given that it has experienced a lot of those single-event type of apocalypses (tsunamis, big earthquakes, both regular and nuclear bombs). But obviously the country is still standing, which I think gives a different perspective on what the post-apocalypse could look like, since a lot of people would have experienced at least one spectacular disaster in their lifetime. I feel like manga/anime/japanese games have a lot more of what I can only describe as "chill apocalypses"? Stuff like Girls' Last Tour or Yokohama Shopping Log where the point of the story is less about conflict or destruction and more about the survivors living out their day to day lives afterwards.
Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. I’ve been an embittered cynic for years, and feeling immense climate anxiety for the past several years, made worse in the summer. It’ll be tough to re-route my mind and get over cynicism….but I’ll get there. I’ll remember this video, remember the Tumblr poem, and remember that humans are community-driven, and will seek to help each other. It’s not too late.
i've had those deydream-scenarious, where i would be stuck in a building that's occupied by terrorists or school shooting or whatever, because this gives me a feeling of being a part the group, sence of belonging that i don't usually feel
100% copied from Wikipedia: Widely regarded as Mark Fisher's most influential idea, capitalist realism is an ideological framework for viewing capitalism and its effects on politics, economics, and public thought. The name itself is a play on the term "socialist realism". Fisher wrote extensively on the subject and frequently gave interviews with political bloggers and theorists on the subject, which expanded on his definition of the concept.[3] According to Fisher, the quotation "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism", attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek, encompasses the essence of capitalist realism. Capitalist realism is loosely defined as the predominant conception that capitalism is the only viable economic system, and thus there can be no imaginable alternative. Fisher likens capitalist realism to a "pervasive atmosphere" that affects areas of cultural production, political-economic activity, and general thought.[3]
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏I was moved to tears girl, I wish I could give you a standing ovation 😩🥹 I cannot understate how much I needed this video !!!! Truly amazing work!!!! eye-opening, entertaining, enlightening, powerful yet light-hearted, this video really has it all. I wish I could put into words how much this means to me, I'm so glad you do what you do, please keep it up you wonderful, majestic, beautiful person!!!!!!!!!!!
when I was around 14 I was super obsessed with natural disaster youtube videos. Especially tornadoes. It got to the point where I love to seeing how disastrous it could be. I knew that it was bad and of course I don’t want people to lose their homes, belongings, and lives, but it was so interesting to see how horrible it can be. which looking back was pretty unhealthy and still problematic The thing about having pent-up anxiety and being anxious mess when you’re younger is so true for me too. I used to cry about dying at 5 years old. some of my earliest memories I remember thinking about life, the fact that I was alive, and my consciousness and I would cry because it scared me. But at the same time I would pretend that every 12:12 pm there was a tornado that I had to be prepared for. I would pack everything in a big blanket, and I would bring it down to my basement and sit there for hours doing whatever down there. It was my entertainment. Seeing tornado watches and warnings were my thrill. Even now I love thunderstorms not only just for the rain, but also the fact that I need to chill inside and I have to watch it happen and because it’s more disastrous. Once my family was on a walk and there was a thunderstorm coming in and we could feel the air change when it was started to get closer. We were like “oh we need to get home quick”. That was so exciting for me to be out during a time where we were like we need to go in quickly because it’s thunderstorm coming. I am beyond scared of death but I still like the idea of bad stuff happening because it’s thrilling to me. It’s not ordinary life and it’s not boring. I’m not sure why am like this but it’s interesting you know
Great video, I do want to nuance one thing. It's not relevant to the overall point, but not all prepping is about the end of the world. A lot of prepping is also about being prepared for everyday catastrophes. Things like having a good savings account in case you lose your job. Having an evacuation plan if you live somewhere that gets wildfires or hurricanes. Being prepared for short-term blackouts. I do like that you took a deeper look into what prepping actually is though. It's a much more diverse community than is given credit, and it's not just about guns (for many of is it's not every about guns).
This reminds me of the podcast series "It Could Happen Here" by Robert Evans. The world is messed up and our current systems of power keep it that way, but whenever those systems are disrupted (e.g. natural disaster), people come together to help each other and are generally more effective than outside help (if and when it arrives). It's intense at times, but also deeply optimistic imo. I highly recommend! (Also his novel is a fun listen.)
There's a portion of me that wants to see the world almost wipe itself out. It's not that I want to just see the world burn, but instead so we are reminded of how fragile humanity and planet really is and the survivors come together and rebuild. It would be like hitting the reboot button to improve a PC's performance, which is to say maybe we could undo and fix a lot of "that's just the way it is" issues.
An incredibly comforting and inspiring video. That inkskinned poem made me cry so hard and it was just what I needed to get through the hardships I'm going through lately.
59:22 yes, Zoe! I’m grateful everyday for and in awe of us just being here. We made it here today on this little ball of rock and water and magma. This world is so beautiful.
(This comment is more of a note to myself than anything else) I literally cried in the corner of my bathroom at the end of the video. Man, existing is hard, and there are so much things I want to do and change and learn and achieve...but I'm just here, watching TH-cam on the corner of my bathroom.
I'm an introvert with pretty severe self-worth issues. I always considered myself pretty useless. When I was in the Army and deployed to Iraq I saw a lot of messed up stuff which contributed a lot to my radicalization to the left. The one event that sticks with me most though is when a mortor hit a few yards away from me. I was fine, the guys I was with were fine and we took cover. Next thing I remember is someone yelling, "we need a medic!" Without thinking I SPRINTED towards the impact site. I saw one person obviously dead, then another person with a bad but not life threatening injury. I told her help was on the way and kept scanning the area. I saw a buddy over another body and ran over. Dude was not in good shape. I instantly started helping with the limited medical knowledge I had. Dude ended up losing a limb, and eye and a couple internal organs. By the time the actual medics showed up I thought he was a gonner. He ended up living and while disabled, still around today. All I remember is how calm I was and how divisively I acted. I could have never imagined myself reacting like that beforehand. If I'm capable of "heroics" like that, literally anyone is. I'm still quiet and try not to involve myself in most interactions but knowing deep down how I react when shit hits the fan has given me a basic level of confidence I never had before. Sorry for the rant and being on mobile and not a good writer, sorry for the ramble. The point is, Zoe nailed it when she said that most of us are braver and stronger than we can imagine. We all are so much more than we give ourselves credit for
also go subscribe to the Human Restoration Project TH-cam channel --> www.youtube.com/@HumanRestorationProject/
❤🚀
good pick!!
In some ways you're describing the Community Resilience movement which is a communitarian approach to prepping. I work in policy and I think that most systems of belief get in the way of innovation and problem solving. Environmentalism, democracy, socialism, republican government, liberalism, capitalism and religion all have good ideas from which we can learn but inasmuch as they require strict adherence to doctrine they become more of a problem than a solution. Capitalism is a great way to develop self driving cars and a terrible way to manage a healthcare system for example. I see people like you coming to the same conclusion I have and I think we might all be on to something.
oh no, capitalism is also a terrible way to develop self-driving cars
Guitar Eddie here: I wish I'd had an English teacher like you back when I was in hight school. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo!
Nice to see Zoe Bee talk about little day-to-day topics, like wanting the world to end
topical !
Sounds like the thoughts of someone on a Monday commute to the job
😂
Very real
When I was a suicidal teen, the end of the world was a tempting idea in the same way an end to life was. When escaping your current situation seems hopeless, sometimes the only escapist fantasy you can conjure up is a total end to it all.
Well, I know I'm just a stranger on the internet but I want you to know you matter - and I'm glad it sounds like you've begun to heal from those most difficult times.
In life, nothing lasts forever and when you are young, a hopeless situation might seem like that is the way it will always be. The truth is, some time in the future you will wonder why you ever felt that way. Still, at my age, I realize how short life really is. The end always comes and it comes too soon and it comes just as you think you are starting to get it. Most of my life, I lived life backwards, focused on what my life had already been, nursing ancient hurts. If you can turn around and see life coming at you and leave the past behind, you will begin to see the magic. Death is always there, waiting to take you away and someday, will step forward and tap you on the shoulder and it will be time to go. Live life to it’s fullest, be afraid of nothing and realize we are travelers, not occupants and enjoy the trip knowing that the hurt you encounter will not last.
Dude, you hit me. Keep on.
Defeatism and anxiety driven solipsism
well put, thanks for sharing
My entire town of 88,000 people in Alberta, Canada was evacuated due to a wildfire in 2016. During that major trauma, we had people from not just our community but from all over the world volunteer their time and resources to help. It was incredible. Not a single life lost in the fire, even though there was only one route to leave town.
BROOOO, that's cool af
That is... incredible. I'm so glad everyone made it out, and I'm moved by what we can do working together. Much love from Ontario.
UNLIKE MAUI'S FIRE!🌺🌺🌺🙏🙏🙏🇨🇦🇮🇱♾️🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🦅🗽‼️
Are you from Fort Mac? My town was one of the first to begin aid! I still think about it all the time. Much love
I think about Fort Mac all the time.
For the reasons Zoe listed, I'd love to see more disaster movies accurately depict most people as cooperative and compassionate, and hyper-competitive or ruthless people as dangerous, aberrant outliers.
Yep.
Real life: People band together to save as many as possible.
Movies: *every man for himself! Shoot!*
sorry I'm late, but I just finished listening to "the strange case of starship Iris" and this has that kinda vibe. There's loads of stories made by not Hollywood that bring out the good of humanity, I hope you find more good stuff :3
Even with the ruthless and hyper competitive, those things alone are not indicative of selfishness.
Take for example the classic revenge story. Someone’s loved one is killed in cold blood, and they ruthlessly hunt down the killer.
There is a degree to which societies closer to the “knifes edge” in terms of survival will be stricter, more conformist, and more brutal.
I feel like Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Talos Principle, and SOMA had elements of this in their end of the world scenarios, and that's why those stayed with me like they have.
Also, Roland Emmerich does this in ID4 and 2012, too.
i think differently; i suspect humanity would descend into violence given half a chance. It would take time for the post critical psychology to emerge. During the critical stuff, amid the crisis, survival instincts are running and morality takes a seat right down the back and shuts up. People get killed at a distance, because it is too risky to meet and have a chat to see if your value systems are the same. I cite "Threads' as the most accurate depiction of human nature post crisis.
My zombie apocalypse fantasy was always setting up a community of survivors to work together for the good of us all. It was always a no man left behind ideology based on caring about others and protecting one another in a dangerous situation.
deep down you want to form a community, which has a shorter name. In modern society; you can't. It is not allowed, and whatever way in which it is, it's unaffordable; and even if you succeed through these barriers, a toxic narcissist will find their way in like a fox among your chickens. You crave a world in which just solving problems efficiently can be the dominant idea, and for that to happen..
This made me realize that the reactionary people maintaining the status quo do not simply 'lack imagination' as an absolute. To the contrary, they constantly imagine reasons why a better world is impossible, and why establishment is necessary. While we might consider this a limited imagination, it's still imagination so powerful that it defines what is possible culturally
This is really well said
I had a phrase I started using while writing "it seems like you have more investment than creativity." Basically: 'you're latching onto this thing because you like it, not because it's the best way that you can come up with to continue the story'
mark fisher capitalism realism goes in depth
This is absolutely a thing that can happen in human psychology. It happens when the emotional part of our minds and our instinct for self-preservation hijack the logical, cognitive part of our brain and uses it to come up with all sorts of reasons as to why you shouldn’t even try. They’ll even sound like rational thoughts, and often times they really are but are based on some flawed assumptions, but your brain won’t recognize that unless your conscious mind learned to catch it.
Though for me this only really affects my ability to go make new friends or take a chance on a career change, not large scale stuff.
This is called "capitalist realism". Capitalists would rather die, than admit the their economic system is a destructive force.
Zoe, it was not a downer. In fact, you made me cry about the beauty of humanity. It is hard for many people to realize that humans are social creatures that want to rely on one another. Thank you for the reminder and I sincerely hope this changed someone's mind about the nature of people.
This video got me very close to tears too. As someone who lives in Stockholm Sweden, a city where it’s very easy to feel lonely in a crowd due to how reserved we all are, the local and community aspect of this essay really struck a chord with me. I want to be part of something meaningful, get involved with people and make something better, but I’m so scared of being let down that I don’t dare to look
I was watching this last night and finished it listening at the start of work today and the message at the end, and the poem, broke me into joyful tears at my desk.
This species is a joke.
Hi! I'm inkskinned :) thank you for using my poem in such a hopeful and beautiful way! This is such a lovely and important video and I'm so grateful and honored to have been any small part of it. Keep bringing joy to others! How wonderful to live in a world where our lives have crossed in such a beautiful and wonderful way!!!
Oh my gosh! Thank you so much - this means a lot to me. Your poem was so beautiful, and I'm so glad you liked how I used it in the video. Sending lots of love your way 💜💜💜
You’re poem is great.
I cried. I cried in my kitchen while making dinner. Thank you both.
@@larkirienys1396 Okay, good. I would feel weird if it was just me crying.
I bawled. So beautiful.
Older people never understood why I found comfort in apocalyptic stories. I never wanted to live in a world where I could kill with impunity and carve out power. I just wanted to live in a world where trees were allowed to grow.
The whole world will. End when all the power plants melt down… their cooling systems down man themselves forever …. We will nuke ourself in the end
Unfortunately, if we found ourselves in a post urban world, it would take less than a decade to wipe the continent clear of hardwoods. Without modernity, we’d have to burn wood to cook and keep warm. And there’s millions of us.
But yes, I have a similar fantasy. Maybe we can create that world without catastrophe.
@@irenafarm There's all KINDS of stuff you can do to bring trees and other nature into urban spaces.
And if we build denser instead of building miles upon miles of suburbs, then you can have cities where you can take a train to a forest instead of the lawns that we use as public parks in most cities. (nothing against those types of parks, we could just use some more variety).
Could you imagine that, instead of lawns, it was still forest?
We can have a world where the trees are allowed to just grow. It's all about land use policy, which is something that is decided on the city level, which means you, personally, can change it.
Jesus Christ.
@@irenafarmpopulation decline is ongoing and population declines after the apocalypse are certain and trees thrive on carbon dioxide plus fuel depots and alternative sources of heating would absolutely survive. Trees wouldn’t be wiped out in ten years they’d take hundreds to recover but they absolutely would. Even now the earth is statistically greener in some places than it was half a century ago.
Excellent video. It got me thinking about how Japan has a "cozy apocalypse" subgenre I haven't seen in Western media -- manga and light novels set in a world where civilization is ending gradually; generally the main characters are traveling a relatively calm post-apocalyptic world, reflecting on the nature of humanity in its decline. (Ex.: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, Girls' Last Tour, "Tabi ni Deyou, Horobiyuku Sekai no Hate made", Shuumatsu Touring.) I hadn't considered the way one's religious and cultural background would inform how they tend to think about the end of the world.
For a Japanese viewer, it's not too difficult to imagine something like that because of Japan's culture of collectivist conformity and entrench Shinto-Buddhist morality. For a American (those in rural areas especially) however is almost impossible to even imagine considering the culture of rugged individualism, consumerism, gender conformity, toxic masculinity, and strict Christian Evangelical morality has been ingrained into the American psyche.
The history of Japan is full of "world-ending" events. It has constantly been bareaged by devastaging earthquakes and tsunamis, fires, and ultimately the atom bomb. Japan's national character is largely about rebuilding after such events.
Yes, I love this genre. It’s essentially my fantasy lifestyle 😂 ETA I’m not Japanese. My best friend was though, so her library shaped my early fantasy life.
I have primarily been a bookseller for my professional life, and I clearly remember the December morning when I spent an hour putting 50% off stickers on the 2012 Apocalypse books the day after the world didn’t end.
Mistake number 1 is putting a date on the Apocalypse.
@@dionysusnow yeah, every good cultist leader knows the end of the world is "soon" but not too soon.
It was the beginning if the last age, which ironically is the age of enlightenment. 😂
Ahh, I remember that December 21st. I spent it on Lake Mead in my kayak. I think Las Vegas was holding their collective breath because I saw nary a boat on that lake other than mine. I didn't believe the world was going to end, but if it did, I was in a place I most wanted to be.
@@hendrsb33 well, if anywhere was going to be Mayan Apocalypsed it would be Las Vegas.
For me, I find myself wanting large-scale disasters when I'm overwhelmed by anxiety because of a sense that it would strip away all the mundane day-to-day things that I am struggling with.
In reality, I know I'd be completely unprepared for an actual end of the world scenario, but the fantasy is appealing.
I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I entertain the idea that it would be beneficial to our relationships with each other. We would most likely group up with family/friends and actually be able to spend time with them without our modern distractions and people would be forced to talk to each other, regressing to the days before smart phones. But really there's no guaruntee I'd be able to locate and group all the people I care about together. Also some, many or all could die depending on whatever happens. Just makes me depressed that whenever i see friends or family now it's just for a few minutes/couple hours and usually were on our phones for most of it. Then we don't see each other for months, sometimes years.
Simply put, your name is misery
Yes, there’s a relief to being forced to focus on immediate survival rather than the constant stress of trying prepare for an uncertain future.
@johner3364 something is wrong with you
Do you have anxiety from societal expectation?
I do consider myself a "prepper" but it's about community building and mutual aid. Your characterization of the prepping community was spot on. There's always 5% of any group that are insane.
Does the prepper community have its own term for that 5%?
@@dinosaysrawrpotential cannibals lol.
@@dinosaysrawr That essay used Doomsday Preppers, sounds like a good distinction from just sensible survival preppers who focus on prepping for blackouts, tornadoes, pandemics, flooding, and so on.
@@josethebioform7519 Then what about the preppers who are prepped for these so called 'potential cannibals' then? lol
@@PresidentFunnyValentine pcpp , potential cannibals preppers, preppers. Thank God the acronym is decently catchy
Phenomenal video- I wanted to add to the part about human nature and panic: There’s a show called “Station Eleven,” which is based off of a novel, and I think it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve ever watched to date. SPOILERS AHEAD: In the story, there’s a character called Miranda Carol, and she of course dies of the fictional Georgia Flu along with 99% of humanity- but as she is dying, she and her coworker (who is dying with her in a hotel) save a whole airport of people by calling a pilot who’s just landed with a plane full of sick people. She does not panic and shut down or become reckless. This is actually the whole point of the book- all of the characters are incredibly complex, but one thing all of the survivors and main characters who die at the beginning have in common is hope. Miranda had hope for the people who would live, even if she couldn’t. The Traveling Symphony, though complicated and flawed as people, go around putting on plays to entertain people. Community still exists, and humanity is not inherently evil like you said. It is in fact quite the opposite. Station Eleven actually changed my life, so I highly recommend watching and/or reading. It is unlike any other apocalyptic fiction I’ve ever seen.
I was reading to see if anyone would mention Station Eleven in these comments, a phenomenal show!
in 2021, i entered in a depressive episode because of the fear i had of the end of the world. there was this never ending anxiety about how everything was wrong, and how every single good thing the past generation has had in matters of public policies, education, financial aid, and housing access were being destroyed by people in power that seemed to want to kill us on purpose. i'm from brazil, so the context is different in a lot of ways, but very similar in others. so at some point, i lost hope and started to become obssessed with being prepared for the big end - even knowing that there would not be a big single event, the feeling of having to watch the world die slowly e helpless freaked me out. so i learned how to plant my own food, make my own clothes, learn about natural medicines, make my own paper so i could register everything and maybe leave it to posterity. eventually, i came out of it, don't know when. it took me a while to process that period in my life (sometimes it's still hard), but what i realized is that all of that was just me being afraid of losing the people i loved and not being able to do anything about it, to protect them, feed them, make sure they have good clothes for winter and are safe from the summer floods that get worse every year. what i really wanted was just to take care of them, at the same time, i didn't trust them enough to take care of me, so i decided i had to do everything alone. this video hit me hard, and i'm so thankful. having hope became a really hard thing for me, this was a good reminder that being alive is worth it! thank you
Eu espero que vc esteja se sentindo melhor ❤
@@milenamartins21 estou sim! obrigada ❤
But tbh all these skills you learned are great skills in general. And if times get tougher you are more competent at dealing with shit.
I’m curious what your perspective on the end of the world looks like coming from Brazil? And what you think now that you’re not living in a depressed state
@@EarthgirlinthesunI’m also from Brazil and honestly I don’t think our experiences are much different if you’re american even though the US have a better purchasing power, everything is expensive, the never ending political problems, the younger generation struggling to buy their own home, working a lot and not gaining a fair salary…it’s hard to have hope here.
Zoe's channel when I subscribed: This is why we should encourage everyone to write! Let's be compassionate and happy and express ourselves
Zoe's channel today: The world is a pit of despair and the tearful reflections we see of ourselves in a muddy puddle tells us that we have nobody to blame but ourselves (but like, lets write about it and chat about it!)
Okay but would you have it any other way?
@@zoe_bee Not even for a second!
The world *is* a pit of despair, but if we do something about it, and actively try to make it a better place for ourselves and everyone else, that's a good thing. And the first step in solving any problem is admitting that there is one.
Did you even watch up to the first myth?
Also I kinda like the evolution from writing as a means of expression to what we express and how we express it means a out us as people
Honestly, I see this video as far more hopeful than "a downer." Something in my depression needed to be reminded of the inherit goodness of humanity, so obscured as it is by modern media. Thank you, Zoe.
It’s natural to feel depressed in a world that isn’t meeting our basic needs. It gives me hope knowing that I’m not alone in this disparity nor am I alone in wanting a better world for us all.✊🏻🫶
I don’t know if this was intended, but this video actually helped my self esteem. Reminders that humans don’t generally treat each other badly serve to help me combat my own shame and guilt for when I’ve fallen short. Empathy for all the humans in the room except myself is not real empathy. I deserve self compassion, dignity, and to fight for my survival as much as I fight for the people around me. And to do that, I need to meet people, be excited, and allow myself to experience and change this world with the people around me.
Wow, I'm very happy for you .
Whether that specific outcome was Intentional or not it means the video accomplished what it set out to do.
6:29 - as a trans person living in the US, I often get invested in more political apocalypse scenarios (like, y’know, the one happening right now in real life), and this made me realize that this isn’t just some special interest, but that this is also motivated by what is happening right now where I live
As another trans person (though living in Indonesia), I second this. Also kinda why I like when the main protagonists are just normal people fighting against more powerful antagonists.
Political apocalypses arent technically apocalypses as apcalypses revolve the end of the world
I appreciate the empathetic approach to preppers. Reality tv and media is way too good at finding the weirdos, or just the weird soundbites from otherwise relatively "normal" folks.
Building and making things yourself is incredibly empowering and i guess some people focus that energy towards self-sustaining crafts.
I'm so glad you covered the flaws in the original Stanford Prison Experiment. I grew up hearing that it proved humans were evil, but that was never true.
This was taught in one of my undergrad psychology courses but not the way Zoe covered it. It was surprising. I didn't end up going into psych lol
I was an aspiring social psych grad student in 1971 (might have been '73) when Dr. Zimbardo was making the rounds about his "experiment", so I eagerly took in that lecture. It wasn't an experiment at all--it was theater, or perhaps an adolescent playing with a chemistry set (do they still make those?). His telling statement--and I still remember this clearly--when asked by a colleague: "So what exactly is your dependent measure?" was: "No time for that now, I have a prison break on my hands." (Or words to that effect--it was half a century ago.) The lecture never mentioned coaching his prison guards, but Zimbardo did note that he had his prisoners dressed in fairly short orange tunics and no underwear explicitly to make them feel vulnerable and humiliated. Obviously nothing like that could even remotely be sanctioned these days, mercifully. After all, he was responsible for what can only be called torture and learned absolutely nothing.
The experiment is methodologically bad, but the point was never that humans were evil, but whether humans could be made evil by putting them into certain roles and situations, whether "power corrupts" or in other words "is your boss a dick because he was always a dick, or is he a dick because he's the boss and if you were the boss you'd be a dick too".
While this can be interpreted as everyone being abusers just held back by not having power over someone to abuse, it can also be interpreted as people wanting to make things right according to their own view of what right is, and, given power, being tempted to use that power to "make things right" the fast and easy way.
I think everyone agrees role and situation impact morals to some degree. Think of what the alternative is, if it's not situations that make people evil, then it's just that evil people are evil. Ironically, that's a right-wing axiom, that people are inherently better or worse no matter the situation and therefore they deserve better or worse lives. The left position is that people act wrong because of unfortunate situations, the system they are in, and that by changing the system we can mitigate people acting evil by removing those unfortunate situations (reducing crime with social programs, reducing abuse of workers by reducing economic inequality).
@@Jorge-np3tq What Zimbardo showed was that if you create a prison situation, people will act like they're in a prison situation. Well, duh. Happens every day in real life with real prisoners and guards. And he never really measured anything, so you can't even call it an experiment. He caused real psychological harm (enough that he had to shut it down early) apparently for little more than his own amusement. At least Milgram's coersion experiment--another that could not be sanctioned today--had actual measurements and controls.
@@KR-ll4dj While I agree, as I said before, that the methodology was shit, I don't agree with the "duh". It's important to know whether people that behave like that do so because of inherent reasons or if anyone would behave like that when put in a certain situation.
It’s actually really cool to see someone putting this together in a whole connected essay. I stumbled into a lot of the parts of what was mentioned here: leaning into cyclical thinking and mirroring it in my life habits, disconnecting from the 24hr news cycle, focusing on my own hobby creativity rather than getting meaning from work, and intentionally planting my rear end into a community space with people who not only dream of a better future with me, but find ways that we can make small improvements for both local community needs and certain major international crises. It’s certainly a change, but I don’t want the world to end anymore. Im too busy caring about and trying to help people around me through the cycles of change in their own lives to care. And Im happier. Little changes can go a long way.
Climate anxiety has me suicidal, but this video helped a bit. Thank you, Zoe
Don't forget, we could all be vaporised soon because of the proxy war against Russia.
Hope you’re doing ok and that suicidal was a bit of hyperbole. The future is full of unknowns and let’s hope humanity will rise to the challenges as well as creating new screw-ups.
@@LiteratureEastandWestActually, when it comes to all the other life forms we share the planet with and ultimately even ourselves, humans continuing our current growth industrial based form of civilization, would be the absolute worst thing that could happen.
Frankly, being suicidal due to Climate Change is pretty dumb. It will happen over the course of generations. The effects will be slow, thus you will have time to adapt. It is not like we wake up tomorrow and everything has changed for the worse.
Weak mindset🖕🏿🖕🏿🖕🏿
Not sad or a downer-- this video essay felt like it took my wide spectrum of feelings (from cynicism all the way through to elation) and gave it a very comforting, gentle hug. Made me tear up. Thank you for making all the heart and hard work you put into this, Zoe 🙏 What a wonderful thing to come upon.
I worked at Walmart when covid started and it was literally chaos. Customers fighter in isles, taking products from other people's carts, yelling, screaming, punches being thrown..
People thought it was the end of the world. That's how they behaved.
Capitalism makes people anxious.
A lot of us fear that there won’t be enough, to feed us. If you ever worked at a resturant, you know how much food they can throw away. All while starving people are right at the corner. Or even the workers themselves, like I was, being the working hungry.
We have enough, food to feed the word. But if capitalism says ‘make a scarcity, and increase price’ It can cause people to have a, “if you don’t get it first, won’t you starve?” mentality.
If you know prices are going to be regulated, and you are not going to be price gouged, why would anyone need to act like that?
Those people were manipulated into a great fear of scarcity thanks to the economy of the situation but make no mistake the vast majority of us were people like you at Wal mart working or calmly waiting at home for news. While a very small minority panicked over the scarcity and another more predatory group tried to profit off of it but the VAST majority was reasonable people going on about their lives.
Don't let the confirmation bias overwhelm you.
true I lived in a big city and during covid most people were calm with the exception of a few people. But overall, I never saw huge amounts of people in panic. @@josephmatthews7698
I always had the opinion that the average person was pretty much considerate and socially conscious. 2020 utterly shattered that lie. People are aśshats at the core.
Sorry Zoe, you’re wrong on this one imo. In the case of a slow moving catastrophe, people come up with clever ways to put down others to salvage even the slightest inconvenience. This is different from a reaction in this moment (when indeed most people are decent). The people most able to enact their panic, are also the ones most likely to blame and attack marginalized groups. In my experience anyway.
9/11 isn’t a good example as it’s a community used to behaving calmly in crowds, and trained with frequent drills on how to evacuate. Plus of course they had absolute heroes who stood in the stairwells to get people out calmly.
It’s not monstrous actions that would make a post urban world intolerable. It’s slow burn selfishness and prejudice.
The USA has no hope if our modernity were torn away. We’re too divided, too invested in our tribes, to cooperate.
You think capitalism is bad have a vacation in North Korea and let us know how much fun you had.
zoe for most of the video: people are good! we can fix any problem we put our minds to! togetherness and happiness will prevail over all of humanity’s issues!
zoe at 52:25: burn it down and drag the bastards to the gallows. the blood of the rich and powerful will flow over the land in a great cleansing flood, and our new society will be birthed from the righteous ruination
People are good, people are beautiful, wonderful, kind creatures who alone are able to perceive of the world and themselves in all their majesty. People make art, people save lives, people build and improve the world.
Those who spend their days robbing people less fortunate than themselves so that they can continue living in a world defined by excess... they are not people. They are not beautiful, and they make nothing. They only take what others make.
@@DivideByZerr0 fucking based
@@mallory-maeBased? This person just found a way to no-true scotsman that beautiful reflection while simultaneously dehumanizing and missing the point of systemic critique. I could not conjure up a worse take if I tried.
@@DivideByZerr0they’re still people. Corrupted by a system that’s robbed their humanity. They’re victims too. Truly.
We must extend our humanity even to those that harm us because it is only through compassion and love that we come out the other side of this. Violence will lead to more violence. To change systems, you have to change minds. Preferably not through fear.
@@EroticInferno Yeah, systemic problems can only be fixed by systemic change. But you can't fix a broken system by using the same system.
I admit that my original comment was more emotional than it maybe should've been. I'm just exhausted by ineffective peaceful protests. I want to fix the problem before the world burns down. We're on a timer here, but nobody with enough power to change it seems to care. I just struggle to see people who profit off of human misery as the same as the people they're profiting from.
Again it's a problem with the system we all live in, not a problem with people. When someone is given an early advantage they're effectively punished for not taking advantage of it, and to be fair, we're all punished when we don't take advantage of each other. It's how the system was built, and it's designed to perpetuate itself for as long as possible.
This *gestures to the entire video* is why I love the concept of Spiderman so much. Sure, he has powers, but Spiderman is also (in most universes) a random teenager who, thousands of times in thousands of universes, almost always chooses to do good in his community. And most Spiderman narratives also have a point where a group of random, ordinary people in his community protect him and/or his identity. The whole point of Spiderman is that most ordinary people, when they see the chance to help others around them, will do it.
I still remember the scene where the citizens help Spider-Man against Green Goblin while shouting "You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!" at Goblin.
I was talking to an elderly Christian man and he told me that he genuinely believed we were at the end times. there is a lot of fear mongering going on and it has everyone on edge. I refuse to live in the end times without a fight. I am going to fight with all of my kindness, hope and love to make a brighter future.
When I was a kid my family purchased a house from a family who sold everything because the world was ending in 1980, these endtimers are as old as Christianity.
You won't believe me but your actions are in vain.
@deathbycognitivedissonance5036 So, what's the alternative? To just roll over and perish? I might not be able to do much? But even a little good is better than just doing nothing.
@@deathbycognitivedissonance5036Doomerism is cringe.
@@General12th The truth is rarely a comfortable feeling
I had a house in the 9th ward and evacuated with my 3 month old baby the day before Katrina hit. I only experienced help and support from everyone I interacted with.
Some fellow evacuees at the campground told me the two dogs I had to leave behind had probably been killed by my neighbors who stayed behind.
The truth is, those unfortunate neighbors, who had no cars, fed my dogs.
After watching this 100% right-on vídeo (thank you Zoe) it hit me: those unfortunate people on foot trying to cross the bridge to Gretna to escape the disaster and were blocked by rifles, in the language of zombie movies are the zombies and the racist sheriff who stopped them are the good guys.
I was worried because this video was the longest on my to watch list, but it was worth it. I used to depress a lot on climate anxiety and doomerism, but it slowly has been getting better because I been trying to reach beyond that and I have found a lot. A lot of people who also feel sad, a lot of people who care, a lot of people who feel lonely. And those three lots...make most of the planet.
It's all connected. From work, to school, to library, to gardening, to hanging out, to feeling happy, to dreaming, to eating, to hoping.
Thanks a lot for this video.
Zoe: "Turns out people are good, actually.... well not rich people, but.."
100% spot on. It's wild how few people think that other people are generally good and instead think everyone is out to steal their shit.... everyone except the specific people they know; their acquaintances happen to be the planetary exception.
Even if there wasn't plenty of research to suggest otherwise, it still says a lot more about you than about other people if you think everyone is horrible.
This is so true. I grew up with a road rager parent, and it always seemed so hypocritical and ironic how it would work. They would get all worked up about this car going too slow or not knowing where they’re going because it slightly inconveniences them, but there’s time when i’m in the car with them or other drivers who are in a new place or got lost, so they go slow and do all the things that my parent would rage about. But I know those people who are lost or “acting insane and can’t make up their mind” as a road rager might put it, but i know those people and they aren’t bad people, they’re just people trying to drive like everyone else. And the road rage and cynicism of “everyone on the road is a bad driver” also speaks to society and the idea that everyone else is bad but not the people you know because you know WHY they act like they do. Just my personal experience, and this was way longer than I thought, but thought it was relevant to what you were saying.
@@PasticheUnleashed Nah you're absolutely spot on, that's 100% what I was getting after. It's the same place racism tends to come from. Sometimes it's a violent reaction, but most of the time it's just simple lack of exposure. Easy to believe anything about people you've never met, tbh. It's one of the reasons I want to ride my bike across the country... cause I have ideas about people in other parts of the country, but they're vague and while I try to be generous in my expectations, I'm certain there's a lot I'm missing. The breadth of humanity is far too vast to live within our concepts, and I'd like to experience as much humanity as I can.
Rich people are mostly great people
Well how did they get rich@@TheRealLesterGreen
I'm a new subscriber who is also a middle aged misanthropic anarchist who clicked on this video because I need to vary my media feed and I wrongly pigeonholed this video as liberal nonsense by the thumbnail. An hour later in sobbing while I do the dishes. Great work and a great reminder that I need to be more active in building community.
curious to know what made this seem like “liberal nonsense” to you from the thumbnail. in any case, cheers for your enjoyment of this content :)
@@CrazyGamer1541Often times any 'popular' media has a liberal slant in which nothing can be imagined without the thought of a profit driven market upholding everything
yes, i feel ya ... well done !
@@CrazyGamer1541 Same here. Looking forward to Jeremy's response....
I don't think you know what anarchist means
you probably mean nihilist
I haven't finished the video yet, but OMG this is so true. I have always been anxious about not being seen as "valued" during an apocalypse since I am disabled (invisibly) and neurodivergent. So, while I do also enjoy these hobbies I am about to list, I have also taken the following up in hopes of being seen as valuable: Foraging, herbal first aid and medicine, metalworking, friendship and body language research with various animals in my neighborhood, fishing, cooking, and tracking.
I have also collected: Renaissance weaponry and armour (aka silent weapons), reusable and easily packable period supplies, camping supplies that is easy to carry around on foot, and toiletries that will last me ages and are natural. (Though I have played with making my own a bit, and have not been very successful.)
I have many other hobbies, such as making my own clothes, climbing, hiking, and so on--along with having sensory sensitivities (which can be disabling in our LOUD & SMELLY world full of car-centric cities) but they can help me a lot in the wild to stay safe. Such as keeping track of the smells of various animals, identifying plants through smell, hypervigilance of surroundings to avoid predators or people, etc.
I have always wanted a community and don't really want to live in the apocalypse--so a lot of this has also been because I might end up alone or homeless as a disabled person because of ableism and the economic situation of capitalism that forces disabled people to become financial burdens in many cases. I hope it doesn't have to pass and I can actually have a nice life though.
Yeah, you'd be the one being defended by scary armed mugs with that skill set... Your trouble would be going anywhere without someone watching your ass constantly!
If you know any of that you listed you would be more valuable than most ppl would be in trying times
I'm late to this one, but oh my god, *thank you.* If we were inclined toward selfishness and competition, we wouldn't be where we are, we would have destroyed ourselves. I often feel that we're currently at a crossroads; people who benefit from the narrative of selfishness are trying to steer us in that direction, and it's what we'll become if we listen to them. Choosing the correct path, choosing cooperation, means knowing the truth about humanity and recognizing that we have the power to make this choice in the first place.
We grew up in an anxious mess. Were watching it come to fruition.
Edit: you've put in to words what I've been trying to understand for so long. Reading, researching, philosophizing, catastrophising, resenting, bargaining, and accepting. Ive been able to think differently as I've begun to understand more of what I'm seeing and understanding.
Cycles. Ancient cultures and ring patterns, communal living and our villages have been lost to linear thinking, scrambling toward an end time that we've been pushed to believe for our entire lives. We've lost our villages and we continue our maladaptive behavior behind closed doors, complacent with our pseudoconnections online. We are social creatures and we are so very alone.
Thank you for shifting my perspective. This world is not sustainable. We're essentially yearning to be let out of our cages.
It feels hopeless. We've allowed this to happen. I want the world to end because i don't have a will to live when there's nothing to live for.
Lets bring back our villages. Revolution.
"I don't have a will to live if there's nothing to live for"
Well said
Another mind-blowingly, wonderful video going straight after my heart about a topic that I, myself, have thought about for years. Thank you!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for your support and kind words!
There wouldn't be billions of individuals of our species if a majority of us were as predatory-natured and individualistic as some folks want to believe. There are examples, but they tend to be the bullies corrupting our industry and government. Great essay, thanks ZB. Keep on comrades:)
But those few corruptors are all you need. Predators don't kill off all the prey or they would die too. There always have to be masses of prey.
There is no corruption if the system is designed to be corrupted.
People = Profit
@@sladehunter then burn the entire system down and watch what happens
@@wren_. The system has also corrupted its people. Which is why preparation is key
I was a kid in the nineties and the supposed 2k apocalypse was everywhere in the media for several years before we actually hit 2k. Didn't help that my family was into astrology and such and there was a cable network where the end of the world in 2k was being presented as a fact. I was legit scared, like sitting on my bed and listening for the whistle of bombs falling or maybe a shockwave approaching.
I heard from my parents that the same end of the world narrative was also exploding during the 70's energy shortage, over population and global cooling. Among other scares.
Not to mention the cold war and nuclear annihilation.
yeah, every generation has a new theory ... but there is no escape, the march continues
I wasn't worried. Being a computer geek and all...
@@andkar72 the 2k bug wasn't the only thing, plenty of previsions about space objects falling and Nostradamus and several others "prophets" too being interpreted as damning. It even made its way into the lyrics of the main song of a popular musical that was everywhere. All the TV fortune tellers and whatnot were adamant that there would be *some* kind of catastrophe of biblical proportions, the news on TV would have reports every now and then if not about the predictions themselves then the fears it caused and the adults around me lapped it all up.
Nowadays I wouldn't care but for me as a kid it was rather terrifying.
I haven't found anyone's trancription of that poem at the end of the video, so here mine:
- Isn't it beautiful -
Acutally life is beautiful
because the sound I make while trying to breathe around hot food sounds like my dog trying to eat an apple.
When I yawn, my cat tries to put his face in my mouth
like a little dentist man and, when he yawns,
I put my finger in his obligate-carnivore trapzone
and we both know he won't hurt me.
When I do not fold my clothes,
they do not hold it against me.
I am demonstrably sad, and lonely, and full of fear.
But there are other people who will hold my hand,
who will point out the hawk overhead,
who will give you That look in a public space.
The other day at the coffee shop,
a child said "look! it's snowing"
so all of us strangers went to look out the window.
It wasn't the first snow and it won't be the last,
but wasn't it lovely like that?
How wonderful to live in a world
where both birds and frogs both say "beep"!
How wonderful to have an ocean
of beautiful sharks with their dinosaur theeth!
How wonderful toe moon and her changing face,
how wonderful the bees and their dancing to communicate,
how wonderful shrimp and their forbidden layers of vision!
How wonderful you, and what you will give to the world!
The way we love things enough to
spend entire blogs devoted to them?
How people will let me explain
my pokemon team to them?
How we will both jump
at the scare in a movie,
how we laugh so loudly,
how it feels to give someone your baking?
How wonderful to be alive.
I am sorry for forgetting.
This is the process of getting better.
With wonderful people,
wonderful strangers
and wonderful friends:
I am getting better,
slowly.
Thank you whoever you are.
In some way you've been wonderful,
and left a wonderful place in the world
to ripple out to me.
In some small way
- isn't it beautiful -
I promise,
you've been helping.
- Inkskinned, Tumblr user
Not only was this not a downer, it's the most inspiring, optimistic and beautiful thing I've seen in a while. Thank you.
Zoe, A bunch of years ago at the height of the ‘Walking Dead’ era I had this moment of realization about how many of our stories revolved around apocalypses and I had the recurring thought: And so I started writing a utopian novel, and researching the ones that came before. I learned ‘utopian fiction’ hadn’t really been a category since the end of the 19th century, when there were a bunch of optimistic, largely socialist/communist, best sellers published. I have a chronic pain condition and so my own novel is taking years, but by far the hardest part of learning to write fiction from square one, and then doing it, has been staying hopeful the whole time. (I wonder why?, lol) Your video and some of the resources you’ve offered have been really helpful to kickstart me again when I had hit a bit of a pessimism wall. The themes in my book, about hope and human nature, mirror many of the themes in your video, and again, I thank you for reminding me of my initial mission. If we can’t even imagine a better world, how will we ever hope to build one? I’m going to try to help the world imagine a better world. You’ve done that too. Thanks
You should read "Ecotopia" a book written in 1975.
Will do, thanks for the recommendation!@@NJGuy1973
I remember after hurricane harvey, I wanted the world to end because things were so crazy. I would watch this channel called "Mr. Doom" every day that would cover all the bad news that supposedly shows that we're in the end times. For me, the end of the world would've been an escape from everything.
Were you affected by Harvey personally?
I would like to understand the situation and mindset you were in at that time. What were you trying to get away from - the aftermath of the hurricane?
I’ll always remember Hurricane 🌀 Harvey as the first time I heard a meteorologist predict 3-4 FEET of rain 🌧️🌊
Zoe, I hope you understand how beautiful this video is. I don't know how to explain it, but this video has done something to me. I feel like I finally have hope and purpose in the world. That conclusion never fails to make me cry. I feel alive again. I have genuinely never felt this happy in my life. I don't know how you did it, but thank you. 💛
I definitely only started to feel genuinely more stable and happier once I started engaging in creation that I was directly producing. Over the past years I was becoming more and more distressed with the things I was consuming, because even if they were fun and interesting and amazing (Tekken 7, FF14, Arcane), there was still that void that I was just consuming someone else made, usually a corporation, consuming their thoughts and values that, while I could examine them critically, still left a void. I would talk to people about the things other people were doing, what other people were making and the impact they left on me. It was only when I finally made the leap to working on the long, arduous process of learning to draw for myself that I felt that void finally closing. I had always loved drawing, in fact I literally made it my career since I got into construction drawing technical drawings, and the drawing was always one of the few things I really enjoyed about my work. But making something for yourself, assured that what you are making is something that reflects your perspective of the world at the time is something so amazing, it is healing, and frustrating and so real. I want so badly to make beautiful things I don't see in the world yet, that express every step in my journey, that give new life to the people and places and times I miss. I don't want to be lost in a desert of nostalgia when the things I love change for the sake of profitability, or are cancelled or become unrecognizable. If there are things I love and that I want to see last I know now that I will have to pick up the torch, the axe, the hammer and support them with my own two hands. And I will, and I have. I was depressed and apocalyptic for most of my life, 30 years, but fostering my imagination has given me hope.
I think this is something my dad might need to see. He's a believer in the "innate terribleness" of human beings, and I think this might help him get out of that. Thanks, Zoe.
I don't believe humans are evil by nature, but we have so many evil people around due to various circumstances that a further degradation of society will be a complete catastrophe.
I'm active in a community garden in a socially difficult neighbourhood and the children and youth of a specific group of people are always breaking into the garden, stealing fruit, trampling the plots and damaging the trees.
They have now taken to breaking entire branches off our small apple trees.
It's just total senseless destruction.
If the situation became even worse, for example with crop failures, we can stop trying to grow anything in that garden, because this horde will steal and destroy all of it. They are already raiding our trees to an extend that we often don't have anything left to ourselves. Even pumpkins have been stolen.
They are also frequently damaging a newly erected vertical flower wall and have torn out many bulbs from a newly renovated flower plot with tulips and narcissuses in addition to just breaking off the flowers.
There is no point trying to build something when you have people like that in your vicinity that will tear it down again. That's why I'm generally pessimistic. Even if you find people willing to work together, you just need a couple of half-feral kids to ruin it for everybody. And that's not even taking into account the armed Nazi marauders we can expect when the shit hits the fan.
Thank you so much for posting this. I was literally in the middle of one of my existentialist crying sessions when I opened TH-cam and your video was the first thing I saw. It’s such a relief to hear for once that humans aren’t inherently evil; this is one of my worst fears and I appreciate all of your evidence and the very clear and comprehensive ways you put it together. Again, thank you. ❤️
let's go ! each day, a new one !
Thanks!
I have been experiencing a relapse in my depression, after previously feeling I was in a well enough state to wean off of my medication in the beginning of 2023. I have been positively consumed by feelings of dread, inconsolable grief, and inpending doom. I am much too afraid of death to do anything drastic but that has somehow made it worse. Instead, it feels like I'm waiting for a painful future that is uncertain but, for some reason, irrefutably terrible. I cannot tell you the comfort this video has given me. I am sadly too tired to fully detail my thoughts, but I needed to express my gratitude. Despite it all, I want to live, and it's nice to be told through academic research about human nature that what we see and consume isn't what really happens day to day, person to person. Thank you
This is genuinely one of the best anarchist pieces I have seen in a while. Thank you
I was trying to find an eloquent way to say the same thing.
It's both fascinating and frustrating that cynical narratives about human nature are more likely to become solidified in the popular imagination and get propagated in media. It takes a lot of work to believe in ourselves and in our collective power, rooted in hope and action! I think about adrienne maree brown's Emergent Strategy, where she says, "I would call our work to change the world ‘science fictional behavior’ - being concerned with the way our actions and beliefs now, today, will shape the future, tomorrow, the next generations. We are excited by what we can create, we believe it is possible to create the next world. We believe...We are in an imagination battle"! Simply imagining that the world could be different and better is a radical act of hopefulness that is a threat to the status quo!
"Science Fictional Behavior" - name of CTRH 2026?
This is genuinely one of the best video essays I've ever watched, and a refreshing, inspiring, and hopeful take in an environment of doom scrolling, mass media hysterics, and overall defeatism. You've yet again left me with a fresh perspective and a sense of direction. Thank you.
suckup
I was born six months before the Cuban Missile Crisis. During those weeks my parents didn’t expect me to live to see my first birthday so I’m happy I’m still here sixty one years later
I just got to watching this one after a long vacation, and after watching Sophie from Mars' rough cut of "The World Is Not Ending," and these two pair amazingly in conversation with each other. I'm delighted to see such loving optimism from y'all, and really appreciate the perspective at a time that is very, very scary, in the middle of a massive neverending heat wave in Texas, having just two weeks ago been in Tennessee where the air was virtually unbreathable from smoke. It's *needed*. Thank you so much.
Also, I have a long-running joke with another exvangelical friend about how we were raised in what amounted to an apocalyptic death cult, obsessed with Left Behind and Revelation and all things Rapture-related, and how hard it makes it for us to live our lives now as if they exist for their own sake. I still expect the end (whether it is death or an apocalypse or whatever) in some part of my lizard brain, and it's a funny joke until I stop to consider how many other evangelical children were and are damaged in this way. This makes messages like this particularly important to me.
I also deeply apprecaite the discussion of cyclical time, as someone whose first *chosen* religion was Wicca. Thinking of time as cyclical has been immensely healing when I remember to do so. "This too shall pass, and we know roughly what will come next, even if those expectations slowly modify over time as factors in the cycle change" has been absolutely crucial to my mental health. Cyclical time is sacred, and such an important and necessary part of maintaining sanity.
finally found the video. thanks man. i forgot the sophie video. all i remember is the mushroom at the end of world book.
Half way through I think I realised that this is one of the best, most inspiring video essays I have ever listened to.
Makes me want to go and write some post-apocalyptic fiction focused on the goodness of human nature. Kind post-apocalyptic fiction. Dare I say feminine post-apocalyptic fiction. Perhaps not even post-apocalyptic, but apocalyptic; a slow devolution of society as we knew it into something better, more altruistic, grass-roots and unmanaged.
Summing up my entire worldview in just over an hour is no small feat.
I'm sharing this with everyone I know
I've generally taken myself out of existence because of my hopelessness about this world (among other difficulties). But the idea to place oneself in public as a way to build community struck something in me. So here is me existing. And I hope that I can take this message and build on it. No one deserves to feel like they have to hide at home just to make it through the day.
Elite panic should be shouted from rooftops, I first heard it in the "Elite Panic" episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards (which I highly recommend). I am very very happy that Zoe Bee is talking about this. It is the most important concept I know about politics and society.
that tumblr post at the end genuinely WRECKED me - i love being human :>
I love that one paragraph about hope and not surrendering it
It reminds me of how Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom depicts its post apocalypse society. Sure, there is a lot of ruins from the previous civilization, but the surviving people are kind, co-exist and do their own thing, enjoying life and help Link defeating Ganon / Ganondorf. It's also uplifting to see new towns or facilities on Tears of the Kingdom. That means the fight Link and the other characters did on Breath of the Wild was worth it.
I also tend to see the depictions of post-apocalypse in Japanese media to be more hopeful, relatively speaking. Zombies? Find a shelter and keep things sustainable. Simple. Communications cut off due to the apocalypse? Let's reconnect with the other survivors, new monsters be damned. Monster gods ravaged the world? Make them your weapons! There was an apocalypse before? Oh boy, new ruins of old, superior tech to ravage and let's learn if it will happen again or not and if it can be prevented or not.
Wind Waker and Skyward Sword are also post-apocalyptic, and again, we see new societies just existing.
beautifuly said, maybe what we look forward isn't the end of the world, but what comes after it. I'd love to live in one of Z:TBOTW communities
Unfortunately, the end of the world irl isn't as glamorous. there's no hope of rebuilding and coming back from everyone burning to death. The end of the world IS going to be final because it'll kill us all.
It's probably because Japan has a high frequency of natural disasters, so apocalyptic events aren't that far-removed from their reality. I also like to think works in the kaiju genre, like Godzilla and Ultraman, really influenced Japanese pop culture with their themes of humanity struggling against impossible odds
It actually gave me a lot of relief for my anxieties about the end of the world. It made me feel hopeful, and it reminded me how much I love certain people and certain things. Thanks you. I've been dealing with massive anxiety since accidentally coming across a group of people talking about misery, and cruelty, and the world collapsing horribly because of climate change.
It scarred me. It gave me nightmares about not being able to achieve my dreams, about being unable to be happy with the people I love. I knew they were wrong, but their words were stronger in my head.
Now I have more faith in people, and in a better world. I'll try to help. I want to love and be loved. Thanks. Really
As a sci-fi fan, I love that one of the remedies was "let's write speculative fiction," and to provide lots of detail to make the imagined worlds feel lived in -- and *livable* in - it doesn't all have to be dystopian fiction
"Basing your beliefs about something on media about that thing is bound to be flawed", is honestly a quote that i didn't know i need to hear until now.
A great video as always thank you zoe🙏🏻🙏🏻
I cannot tell you how relieving it was for you to say in the beginning that it was to end on a note of hope
This society fosters extreme selfishness. That's a huge problem.
In the past few months i have fantasized about a nuclear war breaking out and somehow found comfort in the idea that the world as i know it would change. It stroke me as odd that i would like the thought of this happenening as it's clearly irrational.
I think a lot about scenarios like this and other similiar to it. I'm glad you talk about it as i have not seen anyone talk about this topic. Kinda makes me feel less alone if that makes sense. Thank you :)
It does make sense, and I'm happy to have helped! 💜
I moved to Baton Rouge to attend LSU in fall of ‘03, and 2 years later I got to live through Hurricane Katrina, family members died and others ended up living with me and at my mom’s house. It was a crazy, traumatizing mess. A disaster. I got to experience a semi-apocalypse first-hand and to this day, neither I nor my family or former cities have fully recovered. I had some pretty serious anxiety before that and it only cemented itself in me.
I know how it feels to obsess with the end of the world.
The appeal seems to be a desire to have all the structures around us dismantled in an instant, and to see what life would be like in its wake. It’s not pretty or glamorous. But sometimes society can seem equally as horrifying.
First, im sorry you went through that. im glad you still made it through.
What i will say, i dont think the problem is simply the uprooting of structures: the problem is the people in charge of these structures. Louisiana is notorious for being corrupt & having poor infrastructure, and even though they have the resources to invest in better disaster-relief, they just choose not to do the best they could. Things didnt have to be as bad as they were; so much of that stuff, they *let* happen.
Im pro-society IF that society does the work to continuously improve and look after its people to the best of its ability. But if its a society that is crumbling & leaving its people to die, then it needs to be uprooted and replaced with something better.
As a contrast, fellow LSU attendee here, I went in fall of '11 and went through Isaac in 2012. I know Katrina was far worse, but with none of my family being in south Louisiana it was kind of fun. We called it Hurrication and the entire floor of our dorm partied through it, as did the rest of the campus I'm sure. I remember the trees outside being sideways and tons of flooding, especially on Highland. They locked down the campus for it, we weren't allowed to leave the building after a certain time, so it was crazy, but fun.
it’s like we want a revolution without doing any of the actual hard work that goes into it. right now we’re only dreaming.
christ, man. i just finished this video and i’m ugly sobbing. life is so incredible. i’ve been suicidal for a long time, and a large part of that was because of the terror of an impending “end of the world.” it feels like everything is out of my hands. but it’s not. it never is. we always have power, and life is always amazing. thank you for this. i need to go blow my nose
I've got a couple thoughts on this video
1. I am part of a beautiful community with my neighbors. We all live in a town home and our backyards are shared. We have get togethers, pot lucks, and celebrate all the kids birthdays together (and currently theres about 10 of them). I love it and it feels so good being a part of it and contributing and bettering everyone's lives. We help each other and celebrate together. It makes me sad to think about moving and leaving those people behind. Thats where I wish for the end of the world so that we can make a homestead together, not worrying about leases and moving out or doing something the managment doesnt like. But I will continue to savor every event we have together and make every one of them special.
2. I am so glad you got to show the true side of preppers. I have ADHD and feel completely useless in the world today. Being able to work with ny hands and provide for my loved ones brings me great joy. It's not about shooting people up and being a mad individual. It's about providing for the people I love, protecting them, and like you stated, to feel like I matter. I'm a young woman who dreams of living off grid and getting to appreciate everything I have through my own hands. :)
Honestly a great video. When I started listening I was sceptical, but you did a great job. I hopeang people can see this video.
I am a huge fan of the Fallout Franchise and I ponder this question on a daily basis. This video just connects the dots on many of the ideas I've found for myself.
Modern society alienates people from the fruits of their labor. Thats why we crave that need to be connected with what we create.
Saving this to watch later
Too bad the world will be over by then. :(
It truly boggles my mind whenever I express (whether online or in my everyday life) how tired I am of capitalism, and its effects on the world, and people get all defensive, and do all these mental gymnastics to justify why we need this system or straight up say that capitalism is good actually. It’s like they’re blind to all the obvious negative aspects of this very destructive, racist, and exploitative economic system.
It's because capitalism is the best bad thing we got. There's a reason why capitalism is the most popular system for countries. Because most countries have tried other forms and absolutely hated it.
Capitalism isn't perfect...it can be downright evil even. But other forms of governance is much much worse.
Like socialism? Americans view social ideas on a very skewed way. I loved Zoe Bee putting emphasis on human cooperation which is the basic tenet of socialistic societies.
@@ambientlightofdarknesss4245happens when you resolve the evil parts, and keep the good parts? Call it whatever you want, but don't act like capitalism can't be evolved into something better. Would you justify the system of slavery in the US? Capitalism is more egalitarian than slavery, you somehow all moralistic and commie all of a sudden because you care about human beings? Your intentions to end slavery will actually result in mass famine and the end of all structure society. The truth is we need slavery because if we evolve beyond the bad parts of slavery than society won't work anymore!
Did we end slavery because it was immoral? What do you think? Does the pain caused by the abuses of slavery really matter? You say capitalism is painful, but it doesn't matter if it's painful. Where does your logic stop? Why can't we just do slavery and then there would be a bunch of productivity? Really, I'm just trying to draw out of you, your rational argument for ending slavery, made to a group of people who think slavery is the only way forward. What do you say to them? Lots of farmers lost productivity when they lost their slaves. It wasn't easy to readjust. Do you believe that resteuctural period was worth it, or do you think the pain of the restructuring shouldn't have been felt by slave owners?
I just don't see how your logic progresses us beyond slavery? How does your logic progress us beyond fuedalism? What is your logic that takes you beyond these systems and chooses capitalism? What has been resolved from slavery and fuedalism that made capitalism viable? Do you think the forces that led to the ending of slavery and the ending of feudalism are no longer active - the natural human desire to see less suffering in the world?
I can put all of humanity really simply. Humans suffer and we don't like watching each other suffer. As long as what you offer is suffering, humans will reject it. Now, go out and make a better system and don't get lost in the semantics. When you succeed, less humans will suffer. If you get lost in the semantics, you fail to use suffering as a metric for correctness of a system, and you fall back to desperate mindsets that cause exploitation.
Here's something else to think about. At the pace of human development, in another 100 years every person will probably be able to have a factory and mass produce commodities. Each human being will be productive beyond comprehension, because the development of capitalism is to increase the rate of production. What other species in the planet must first produce a factory for every human being in order to survive? None. Survival is consuming food , staying alive. Capitalism is literally not about survival, it's about productivity for people who control means of survival. Humanity does not first need a factory for every human being in order to survive, but the way capitalism operates you would think that if humanity doesn't barrel towards this goal then we will all starve to death. If we can't produce exponentially, we starve to death? Capitalism only exists because there is surplus and extra. To let it define survival is in actuality the inverse of the truth. Capitalism is like a survival meta game ontop of actual survival. We recreate predator vs prey, after spending millenia overcoming these base animalistic modes of survival. A business owners only loss is a loss of excess, not loss of survival, but they treat it like it's real survival so they turn their workers into the desperate people. So you have excess built on the backs of people who literally are trying to survive, when none of it needs to be this way. It reproduces these relationships, maintains wealth disparities, continues to place burden of survival on some and extreme excess on others. If you think life has to be this way, the suffering masses will prove you wrong and will attempt to fight for something better. That is the essence of revolution, which our founding fathers thought would need to happen every few decades.
Nowadays when I hear people defend capitalism, I hear them reading the script provided by billionaires. It's not based in capitalism being good, it's based in fears of the unknown, fears in fighting for revolution. This is a revolutionary nation, we should have the culture of pushing for the masses to fight for their lives! If your response to people fighting for a better world is, "x ideology has been tried so I'm not inboard with this", then you are really missing the forrest through the trees. Capitalism will be overthrown eventually, but it will be a longer process than the systems that came before. If you think you are winning and convincing people to like capitalism, you're wrong. You're not convincing at all.
Capitalism is a religion that has a clergy and demands on the powerless that the powerful are free to ignore.
Capitalism was created by Karl Marx so sully the name of the free market. He knew that this was the biggest opposition to his communist end goal.
I struggle a lot with misanthropy. From a combination of just seeing humans constantly get things wrong for the sake of capitalism or their worldviews. As well as my own struggle to understand the humans around me and the acceptance that I'll never truly feel like one of you. I love this world, I love the life living on it, and I want to protect it.
I was just directed to your page by another group that I belong to, and just wanted to say that I love this topic, the time, research and energy that you put into it shows your dedication to your craft. You found a new fan and I'm looking forward to hearing more of your ideas in the future.
Not only did I just drop my own Apocalypse themed project on SM, but I've been waiting for yours for weeks. You just said "eschatology", and my eyes lit up.
What is SM?
Zoe, this video wasn't a downer at all, it really was inspriational, and a huge relief.
The link between prepper and wanting to have self control has always resonated for me? My winning the lottery fantasy was always to just go out in the country, raise animals, build sheds, tend a garden - because I want that hands on control.
But I do feel insprised in a new way to "be the change you want to see in the world", in less strong words. I've felt like a huge peice of garbage in the past for having those same doom and apocolypse fantasies - imagining myself alone without friends or family, imagining a mad max scenario. Its a relief to know I'm not alone, and to know why its resonated so much.
I don't want the world to end, but I do want change, and I want everyone around me to be less miserable. If I can think of ways for that to happen, that are under my control, and within my capabilities, I know I can make that change.
For me as someone who also was obsessed with the world ending as a child and has trouble envisioning future, this video was incredibly touching and if I don't forget about it by then, I will definitely seek out "we survived the apocalypse". Thank you so much for your work, I felt seen here.
The sci Fi channel ran a hopeful reality show for a few seasons called The Colony. It was a simulation of the apocalypse with a bunch of scientists trying to figure out survival methods, and all the conflict came from raiders working for the show who would test their defenses.
As a complete climate change doomer here, this video was quite uplifting to hear and reinforced somethings I talk about.
I have a quick tip for you, actually 2.
1.The climate has and always will change regardless human activity. Did you know a lot believe all the continents used to be joined together? That's some epic climate change to get to where we are currently! Oh and by the way whatever broke them apart hasn't and will never stop so eventually they'll join back up! Human ignorance is only matched by human arrogance. I really like the damage done to earth to create and implement "renewables" Turbine blades that get buried. Solar panels that get buried. All the mining to make solar panels and batteries. All the land clearing to put up wind turbines....
2. No one have ever made it out of life alive. Everyone is going to die. So the secret isn't secret. Everyone's world will end.
P
@FreeXenon, I hope you read this. I find it comforting to realize that our current ACC predicament could be or likely is the Great Filter that solves the Fermi Paradox. That is to reach space to colonize other planets all aliens would need fossil fuels as a stepping stone to reach better sustainable sources of concentrated energy to get out of their gravity well. However, fossil fuels are so addictive that none of them realize that in the last doubling time one half of all the fossil fuel energy in their ground will be consumed. So, they all wait too long to do anything to avoid overheating their world which ends their civilization. This leaves any survivors (if there are any) with a looted world that can't sustain a high energy civilization. I'm a doomer also, I find this comforting.
The wildest thing about becoming a political zealot is the massive detriment it actualy has on your personal individual mental health.
I’ve never understood it really, we have almost zero power in the grand scheme of things.
Thinking we can control this system is the height of fantasy.
I entered as a cynic and left as a cautious optimistic, so thank you for making that happen, Zoe ❤
I actually do not want the world to end and never have. I might be an outlier in that respect, but I want the better world that we will build if we can let ourselves.
I never would have imagined a poem written by a stranger, read by another stranger not even in my own native language could feel so personal and charming, i dont remember the last time droped a tear out of joy, thank you
Zoe, not only was this video NOT a downer at all, but for me it was the exact opposite. I can't thank you enough for this video and it would be impossible to overstate just how badly I needed to see it.
I have been consciously trying to loosen my grip on the imagined apocalypse for a very long time, but it's more difficult than I can fully explain to muster enough trust in other people, enough belief in my own agency, and enough hope for a future worth having to take each tiny, shaky step. Your video supplied more of these things in an hour than I can usually come up with in a span of months, and taught me several new ways I might be able to generate that healing mind-fuel for myself and others.
It's a cliche that knowledge is power, but truly, the more a person knows about how to shape their own beliefs and worldview, how to heal from emotional injuries and how to foster useful collaboration with others, the more agency that person has. By teaching and by pointing the way to where we can learn more, YOU HAVE GIVEN ME SOME OF MY AGENCY BACK.
Please do not ever doubt the positive impact of your work. No topic is too heavy when there are listeners/viewers/etc who already carry it inside, and a frightening but hopeful truth does more to help us hold our heads high than a million tactful attempts to soften reality ever could.
I didn't find this video to be a downer at all, quite the opposite in fact! The last 20 minutes or so were incredibly optimistic and left me feeling like real change is not only possible, but attainable, even within my lifetime. Thank you Zoe!
My best friend from elementary school told me the world was ending in 2012. I had so much anxiety leading up to that day, I don't think I've let go of it since then. Thanks Martin!
One thing that you commented on during the setup section (Defining the Apocalypse) that I think is also worth commenting on is the idea that all this apocalyptic media has a Western focus.
While I wouldn't be terribly surprised if there were some slant there, I think it's worth pointing out that our friends in the East can also make some darn good apocalypse or post-apocalypse media. On the anime/manga side, you have things like Akira, Evangelion, Princess Mononoke (rebirth style apocalypse, imo), Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, and Attack on Titan, to name a few. For video games, I'm pretty sure I could get a half-dozen apocalypses out of just the Final Fantasy series, never mind the Tales, SMT, Persona, DQ, Drakengard/NieR, and Star Ocean series. Or Zelda and Resident Evil, now that I've tabbed away from the RPG-specific list.
Japan is an especially interesting example given that it has experienced a lot of those single-event type of apocalypses (tsunamis, big earthquakes, both regular and nuclear bombs). But obviously the country is still standing, which I think gives a different perspective on what the post-apocalypse could look like, since a lot of people would have experienced at least one spectacular disaster in their lifetime. I feel like manga/anime/japanese games have a lot more of what I can only describe as "chill apocalypses"? Stuff like Girls' Last Tour or Yokohama Shopping Log where the point of the story is less about conflict or destruction and more about the survivors living out their day to day lives afterwards.
Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity. I’ve been an embittered cynic for years, and feeling immense climate anxiety for the past several years, made worse in the summer. It’ll be tough to re-route my mind and get over cynicism….but I’ll get there. I’ll remember this video, remember the Tumblr poem, and remember that humans are community-driven, and will seek to help each other. It’s not too late.
You’re the definition of finding a hidden gem in the TH-cam algorithm. Thank you for your amazing work!
i've had those deydream-scenarious, where i would be stuck in a building that's occupied by terrorists or school shooting or whatever, because this gives me a feeling of being a part the group, sence of belonging that i don't usually feel
"Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights." - Uncle Iroh
Make that coffee, and I’m 100% on board! 😏
I don't remember the exact quote, but basically, we would rather see the world end than think of an alternative to capitalism.
100% copied from Wikipedia:
Widely regarded as Mark Fisher's most influential idea, capitalist realism is an ideological framework for viewing capitalism and its effects on politics, economics, and public thought. The name itself is a play on the term "socialist realism". Fisher wrote extensively on the subject and frequently gave interviews with political bloggers and theorists on the subject, which expanded on his definition of the concept.[3]
According to Fisher, the quotation "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism", attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek, encompasses the essence of capitalist realism. Capitalist realism is loosely defined as the predominant conception that capitalism is the only viable economic system, and thus there can be no imaginable alternative. Fisher likens capitalist realism to a "pervasive atmosphere" that affects areas of cultural production, political-economic activity, and general thought.[3]
In other words we would rather create more problems than fix existing ones. If that ain't the definition of the republican party I don't know what is.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏I was moved to tears girl, I wish I could give you a standing ovation 😩🥹 I cannot understate how much I needed this video !!!! Truly amazing work!!!! eye-opening, entertaining, enlightening, powerful yet light-hearted, this video really has it all. I wish I could put into words how much this means to me, I'm so glad you do what you do, please keep it up you wonderful, majestic, beautiful person!!!!!!!!!!!
when I was around 14 I was super obsessed with natural disaster youtube videos. Especially tornadoes. It got to the point where I love to seeing how disastrous it could be. I knew that it was bad and of course I don’t want people to lose their homes, belongings, and lives, but it was so interesting to see how horrible it can be. which looking back was pretty unhealthy and still problematic
The thing about having pent-up anxiety and being anxious mess when you’re younger is so true for me too. I used to cry about dying at 5 years old. some of my earliest memories I remember thinking about life, the fact that I was alive, and my consciousness and I would cry because it scared me.
But at the same time I would pretend that every 12:12 pm there was a tornado that I had to be prepared for. I would pack everything in a big blanket, and I would bring it down to my basement and sit there for hours doing whatever down there. It was my entertainment. Seeing tornado watches and warnings were my thrill. Even now I love thunderstorms not only just for the rain, but also the fact that I need to chill inside and I have to watch it happen and because it’s more disastrous.
Once my family was on a walk and there was a thunderstorm coming in and we could feel the air change when it was started to get closer. We were like “oh we need to get home quick”. That was so exciting for me to be out during a time where we were like we need to go in quickly because it’s thunderstorm coming.
I am beyond scared of death but I still like the idea of bad stuff happening because it’s thrilling to me. It’s not ordinary life and it’s not boring. I’m not sure why am like this but it’s interesting you know
I couldn’t have said it better myself
Great video, I do want to nuance one thing. It's not relevant to the overall point, but not all prepping is about the end of the world. A lot of prepping is also about being prepared for everyday catastrophes. Things like having a good savings account in case you lose your job. Having an evacuation plan if you live somewhere that gets wildfires or hurricanes. Being prepared for short-term blackouts. I do like that you took a deeper look into what prepping actually is though. It's a much more diverse community than is given credit, and it's not just about guns (for many of is it's not every about guns).
This reminds me of the podcast series "It Could Happen Here" by Robert Evans. The world is messed up and our current systems of power keep it that way, but whenever those systems are disrupted (e.g. natural disaster), people come together to help each other and are generally more effective than outside help (if and when it arrives). It's intense at times, but also deeply optimistic imo. I highly recommend! (Also his novel is a fun listen.)
There's a portion of me that wants to see the world almost wipe itself out. It's not that I want to just see the world burn, but instead so we are reminded of how fragile humanity and planet really is and the survivors come together and rebuild. It would be like hitting the reboot button to improve a PC's performance, which is to say maybe we could undo and fix a lot of "that's just the way it is" issues.
An incredibly comforting and inspiring video. That inkskinned poem made me cry so hard and it was just what I needed to get through the hardships I'm going through lately.
59:22 yes, Zoe! I’m grateful everyday for and in awe of us just being here. We made it here today on this little ball of rock and water and magma. This world is so beautiful.
(This comment is more of a note to myself than anything else)
I literally cried in the corner of my bathroom at the end of the video.
Man, existing is hard, and there are so much things I want to do and change and learn and achieve...but I'm just here, watching TH-cam on the corner of my bathroom.
I'm an introvert with pretty severe self-worth issues. I always considered myself pretty useless.
When I was in the Army and deployed to Iraq I saw a lot of messed up stuff which contributed a lot to my radicalization to the left.
The one event that sticks with me most though is when a mortor hit a few yards away from me. I was fine, the guys I was with were fine and we took cover.
Next thing I remember is someone yelling, "we need a medic!"
Without thinking I SPRINTED towards the impact site. I saw one person obviously dead, then another person with a bad but not life threatening injury. I told her help was on the way and kept scanning the area. I saw a buddy over another body and ran over.
Dude was not in good shape. I instantly started helping with the limited medical knowledge I had. Dude ended up losing a limb, and eye and a couple internal organs.
By the time the actual medics showed up I thought he was a gonner. He ended up living and while disabled, still around today.
All I remember is how calm I was and how divisively I acted. I could have never imagined myself reacting like that beforehand.
If I'm capable of "heroics" like that, literally anyone is.
I'm still quiet and try not to involve myself in most interactions but knowing deep down how I react when shit hits the fan has given me a basic level of confidence I never had before.
Sorry for the rant and being on mobile and not a good writer, sorry for the ramble.
The point is, Zoe nailed it when she said that most of us are braver and stronger than we can imagine. We all are so much more than we give ourselves credit for
I commend you