Threads of foreboding

[Barry Admin]

As mentioned here, I just remembered some old threads where a few of us were fearful that we were heading for some kind of destructive event or great calamity.

There was a few of them in the past three years or so, I distinctly remember the likes of Puce Moment, myself and others communicating this general sense of foreboding, and there was a widespread agreement that we were heading for some bad times.

Can anyone remember or find any of those threads please? I really want to look back at them now.

[Barry Admin]

Found this one: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,54506.0.html

Which mentions similar sentiments in the thread relating to the attacks in Nice on Bastille Day, trying to find that at the minute.

[BlodwynPig]

Luckily we've passed through those times of foreboding and are now entering the sunny uplands of prosperity and equality.

[spaghetamine]

I'm not downplaying all the shit going on now but wouldn't those kind of threads be relevant at pretty much any time in history? Bad shit is always going down whether we're aware of it or not

[Buelligan]

I suppose it entirely depends on what happens next.  All the times in history when it might have felt appropriate, it clearly wasn't because here we still are, teetering and nibbling our poor bloody nails.

Of course, for those whose world ended then, yes, entirely appropriate. 

[Barry Admin]

I'm not downplaying all the shit going on now but wouldn't those kind of threads be relevant at pretty much any time in history? Bad shit is always going down whether we're aware of it or not

Yeah, grassbath makes that very point at the end of a great post:

At the same time, I realise that people have expressed similar 'world fucked' feelings at every point in history.

I was just interested to revisit those threads having suddenly remembered them.

[chveik]

I'm not downplaying all the shit going on now but wouldn't those kind of threads be relevant at pretty much any time in history? Bad shit is always going down whether we're aware of it or not

this time we have enough hard scientific evidence to know that we will be utterly fucked very soon. the OP seems to imply that it's a 'sentiment' but imo it's the most rational prediction. even if you avoid the news you can see with your own eyes that they aren't many bees around anymore, that the weather's all over the place, that your living conditions are getting worse etc.

[Hand Solo]

[Rizla]

Oh sod it.

[imitationleather]

I've got no idea why anyone would look at our society or the world in general and conclude that we're all on the verge of something utterly dreadful happening.

[shagatha crustie]

I was watching 90s stuff on youtube the other night, Caroline Aherne on Frank Skinner's show, Peter Cook on Clive James

I do this too. Those very ones. Norm on Conan and Dennis Miller. Why are 90s chat shows so comforting? When Aherne says 'That's David Baddiel for ya!' I want to cry and kiss her and give her a hug.

[Barry Admin]

I was watching 90s stuff on youtube the other night, Caroline Aherne on Frank Skinner's show, Peter Cook on Clive James, remembering being 21 and feeling the threat of armageddon receding, the vague hope that a labour gov held, a feeling of anything is possible culturally, I dunno, it was nice. Downhill ever since, a feeling of the world shrinking and yet we are more isolated from one another, feeling the cunts have long ago won and we're just being punished for having hope now, jesus I just looked at TikTok for the first time ever and any hope evaporated. I spend time with my little boy with a sad feeling, like I'm remembering the present from the future all the time, feels like the end of that film A Ghost Story, political angst consumes every minute of every day, I'm going to seed, I drink too much. When I do feel joy it's like the lad in The Castle, instantly shot through with melancholia that these times will one day be in the past.

Still, you have to laugh.

That's really interesting as I'm still working through the old thread, and was very intrigued by this post:

I don't think we're on the edge of apocalypse but 2016 is definitely going to be remembered as a turbulent year, like 1968.

Probably got nothing on the Cuban Missile Crisis though, or the run up to World War Two.

I do wonder if, certainly for people in their twenties and thirties (like me) it's a bit unsettling for world events and politics to be quite so... visceral. But for anyone old enough to remember the Cold War, the Troubles, Vietnam, JFK, Kent State etc. it's more like going back to business as usual.

After the Brexit vote my friend's dad (who'd voted Remain) remarked that he'd seen plenty of 'oh shit' moments in his life, and all you could do was clench your arse and get on with it.

I started wondering whether we're just going through a process that occurs as you get older and more used to calamity and horror. Maybe a lot of us just aren't calloused enough yet.

Yet it seems we're actually going in the opposite direction as the people mentioned in Wet Blanket's post. In other words, I have a small sense that we'll continue on for generations to come, and humanity will live through many more epochal moments... But I have a far greater belief that the whole thing could go absolutely tits up at any second, as we seem to be a profoundly stupid, ignorant and greedy species.

[Hand Solo]

Think you've got it hard? Imagine if you were born in 1900.

[bgmnts]

Yeah but think you've got it hard being born in 1900?

Imagine if you were born in 1900 with no arms and legs?

[George Oscar Bluth II]

The level of calamity and horror we've had in the last few years is fucking exhausting though isn't it. Let's hope March/April this year was as bad as it's going to get but somehow I doubt it. What's next? Trump stealing the election? A US civil war? Boris abolishing democracy? A second wave and a flu pandemic at the same time? Bloody aliens appearing and zapping us all?

[Buelligan]

Think you've got it hard? Imagine if you were born in 1900.

It's not about having it hard at all.  Living has always been hard.  It's about recognising that the stuff we're doing to ourselves right now, the way it's playing out, is End Game stuff.  That's not hyperbole, it's reality.  Sitting back, chuckling, remembering we weren't born in a paper bag isn't going to make it go away.  Far too many people do this instead of demanding a change of direction.

[Hand Solo]

Yeah but think you've got it hard being born in 1900?

Imagine if you were born in 1900 with no arms and legs?

I've imagined being born in 1647 with no arms and legs.

Buchinger was married four times and had at least 14 children (by eight women). He also is rumored to have had children by as many as 70 mistresses.

Not too shabby, he certainly could get a leg over.

[Bernice]

It's not about having it hard at all.  Living has always been hard.  It's about recognising that the stuff we're doing to ourselves right now, the way it's playing out, is End Game stuff.  That's not hyperbole, it's reality.  Sitting back, chuckling, remembering we weren't born in a paper bag isn't going to make it go away.  Far too many people do this instead of demanding a change of direction.

I get a bit stuck on this sort of thing. I personally find it helpful and empowering to try to practice a stoic sort of outlook, to think of the miseries an privations of decades past, of worse sufferings and worse prospects. It can be helpful to take stock of what one has, what the world has, rather than focus on what can easily seem like relentless horror. Doing so allows me to be more productive - not just in an individual sense, it helps me be there for others, gives me the strength to get involved in causes and so on. It can spur me to action by making me focus on where I am and what I can actually do, rather than trembling at the sheer weight of generalised calamity.

But there is always the other side of that which is a "could be worse, don't know you're born" type quietism which ushers one towards apathy, or at least a very narrow sense of the world and oneself. Is there some sort of left wing, global justice form of conservative bootstrap-ism? Or am I destined to be it's great prophet and, ultimately, martyr.

[Buelligan]

The second one I think.  Speaking for myself, I never tremble, why even bother?  Will the apocalypse have a little look first and leave all the frightened ones on the side of the plate?  Will it fuck.

The only thing the apocalypse understands is being stymied.  And you can only do that if you stop tittering about white dog shit and look it right in all its eyes.  Take the fucker on and deal the fuck out of it.  That's what I reckon anyway.

[spaghetamine]

All the predictions regarding us getting fucked over by climate change seem far too optimistic to me, reckon we'll have nuked ourselves out of existence way before then

I still have to get on with my life though, no good reminiscing on the forebodings of the past just so you can have an "ooh we were right weren't we?" moment

[Buelligan]

There are other alternatives though, aren't there?  Like, if you really believe we're about to terminate everything, doing ones best to prevent that eventuality.

[Barry Admin]

I still have to get on with my life though, no good reminiscing on the forebodings of the past just so you can have an "ooh we were right weren't we?" moment

That's not what I'm doing here though, to clarify. I was interested to see what sort of things were happening that caused some of us to feel this way back in 2016.

When I was trying to locate the threads, I did recall that they happened in the year where a shit-ton of celebrities died, and I think that's worth noting in and of itself, in terms of how much focus and importance we can give to popular culture.

Yeah though, as Buelligan says, and as I made more explicit in my other thread, I just wonder what it will actually take before we stop acting out the "this is fine" meme. I'm constantly amazed at how little regard there actually is for human life, and for our own continued, collective existence.

[olliebean]

There are other alternatives though, aren't there?  Like, if you really believe we're about to terminate everything, doing ones best to prevent that eventuality.

Theoretically, yes, but in practice there's not enough money in it.

[idunnosomename]

Found this one: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,54506.0.html

Which mentions similar sentiments in the thread relating to the attacks in Nice on Bastille Day, trying to find that at the minute.

i was in Paris when that happened, total fuckdown, amazing how it's been forgotten since it's one of the most horrific things in human history committed by one man.

[canadagoose]

Think you've got it hard? Imagine if you were born in 1900.

If you were born in 1900 at least you'd be deid. The oldest living person was born in 1903. Dunno how they can be fucking bothered, I'd be done long before now if I were them. Maybe they're exceptionally strong. Can we maybe have some of their extract?

[Hand Solo]

If you were born in 1900 at least you'd be deid. The oldest living person was born in 1903. Dunno how they can be fucking bothered, I'd be done long before now if I were them. Maybe they're exceptionally strong. Can we maybe have some of their extract?

I remember watching one documentary on the oldest living people, there was a guy called Buster who smoked and drank every day and still worked in a mechanic's shop at 100 years old..

I think later they showed some old people's home in Japan full of centenarians and they all looked completely fucked with eyes that read "Please end this horror!"

[canadagoose]

I remember watching one documentary on the oldest living people, there was a guy called Buster who smoked and drank every day and still worked in a mechanic's shop at 100 years old..

I think later they showed some old people's home in Japan full of centenarians and they all looked completely fucked with eyes that read "Please end this horror!"

I like that dichotomy. Either life is a mechanic's shop where you're drunk, or a horror hellhole waiting room for oblivion. Must watch that documentary; I find old people who are still arsed fascinating somehow.

[Buelligan]

The man I get my heating wood from is pushing ninety, he spends his days on the mountain splitting logs and, some evenings, he goes to the old peoples' retirement village to play accordion and cheer the fucks up.  He looks sixty if a day over.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Something that really struck a chord with me, which I read a bit before I joined here I think, was an article about some scientists who have modelling systems. Kind-of like an advanced form of sim city where the events are a bit more advanced than the power plants randomly blowing up. And they found they're models kept collapsing no matter what they removed from the equation, e.g. removing weather events gave a finanical collapse, removing that gave a pandemic etc. It's almost as if it's all unsustainable.

I've articulated this poorly and I'd really like to re-read the article again.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The man I get my heating wood from is pushing ninety, he spends his days on the mountain splitting logs and, some evenings, he goes to the old peoples' retirement village to play accordion and cheer the fucks up.  He looks sixty if a day over.

BEAT THAT