1. This is literally a worse outcome than the alternative you prefer. You should care enough to try to fight it politically, especially if you are well positioned to do so.
2. This case (and 99% of cases of political outrage I see on the news) is trivial in the context of what is “normal” for human political history, even the political history that many people alive today were around for.
Will this even register as a trivia question in 100 years? Is a framing I ask myself when I’m mad about something in the world.
I think a lot of people walked from a world where they had no idea what the normal tumult of human political society is like, even normal American political messiness, and into the world of 24/7 current political news without any context what came before. It’s like, the sausage has always been made this way, you’re just now finding out.
I say these things and it always pisses people off. But I don’t recommend not caring, the world moves forward one micrometer at a time by caring, it’s just not worth the existential angst I see so often.
My family could be murdered in front of me and it wouldn't qualify as a trivia question for you or most other people in one year. This feels like a version of stoicism that missed the point of stoicism.
99% of what you see on the news you would never know happened if it wasn’t presented to you.
And I’m not saying not to care. I’m saying put big things into perspective. You don’t need to become catatonically depressed because the US changed its foreign aid in a way that you would never know about unless presented to you.
As I write this I’m thinking about one of my best friends, who literally has been so depressed because of world news he reads on Reddit this year that he can’t get out of bed, stopped going to work and got fired. There are appropriate and healthy levels to care about things.
> 99% of what you see on the news you would never know happened if it wasn’t presented to you.
What I'm hearing is that if the government kills someone, only their immediate family members are allowed to protest. We shouldn't protest when the government is killing people who aren't related to us, even if our relatives could be next.
That sounds like a nightmare existence to me. But if you really want it, maybe because it makes you feel righteous in your pain and holy in your angst, then go for it I guess.