Thorned_Rose

I was a kid in the 80s. Back then protesting greenhouse gases or saving whales was seen as cool. Nowadays… not so much (why is being a greenie now a pejorative?). I’ve gone to plenty of protests in my life, small ones, big ones. I’ve seen a definite trend over time where people care less. People used to say protestors could be annoying but generally supported people’s right to protest, even if they didn’t agree with it. (I’m talking generally here and in the past 40 years or so, of course history shows some awful atrocities committed against protestors and I’ve seen first hand some traumatising treatment of fellow protestors more recently).

But now… the general sentiment feels like most people think that protestors are a bunch of annoying loons. I’ve seen the general public scream at peaceful protestors, yell obscenities, spit on them and at one protest even try to run some protestors over, all because they were annoyed at being inconvenienced by the protest (and I’m talking about an extra few minutes driving or walking time, not anything major). Suddenly a little bit of inconvenience matters more than fundamental rights, including their own.

I don’t get it either. The apathy is growing and it’s alarming. I’ve been doing volunteer work for over a decade now and it’s the same thing - volunteers are getting harder and harder to come by because everyone is “too busy” (even when they’re not). The volunteer work I do is getting harder and harder and I have to put in more hours because there’s less people to spread the work between. Doesn’t matter how hard you push “many hands make light work”, people would rather ignore your struggle as a volunteer and just say, “Thanks for your sacrifice”. I don’t want thanks! I NEED more people to care. Non-profits don’t run themselves.

I don’t know what the answer is. Just that I have noticed this slow decline and feel both deeply saddened and incredibly alarmed about the future for us all.

I’ve noticed some comments on Reddit from people saying that the Fediverse is too complicated and others commenting straight up incorrect information. While I have no doubt there’s just some ignorance going on, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s also some astroturfing - Reddit die hards and bots posting how terrible and hard Lemmy and Kbin are. Call me cynical, but I’ve seen way to much of it already to not be at least suspicious.