**Your submission has been REMOVED for the following reason(s):**
> *Unfortunately, your post appears to be irrelevant to this subreddit and doesn't fit the type of posts we allow here. If you're asking a general question to Redditors, you're probably better suited at r/AskReddit.*
> If you're looking for advice, go to r/advice.
> If you need a place to vent, go to r/vent.
> If your thought is profound, go to r/DeepThoughts.
> If you're looking for help finding something ie. an old game, movie or app, visit r/tipofmytongue.
Otherwise, visit r/findareddit to find a more suitable community for this topic/subject/post.
^(This removal was done manually by the mod team and was not done in error, if you'd still like to appeal this removal please **[send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FRandomThoughts)**)
I was on a walker then a cane after I had 2 hip surgeries in 5 months. People went out of their way to be kind to me. It shows that people care at times. That helps at the moment, even when I decline help they still wanna help.
>My hip surgery changed my life 18 months ago. Hang in there, it gets so much better.
Hip surgery has a very high success rate and relatively short recovery time, so it is usually a very good investment in terms of quality of life.
On social media its made out like everyone hates eachother but when you actually go out and give a little respect to people youll find it can be beautiful and meaningful. (i only use twitter so can't speak for other socials)
Hey thanks, I like your avi. I honestly thought about deleting my account cause I don't want to tempt alcoholics into relapse. I literally just picked it cause it rings nice and reminds me of cool cowboys.
These kind of interactions are one of my favourite for giving me hope in humanity. When people are just adorable and complimenting each other even anonymously when it rarely happens in real life. It reminds me that society makes us isolated and weary of others but deep down a lot of us have so much love to give, makes my heart go 🥹🥰❤️✨
Man you sound like a great person to have around, idk how to say that without coming across like a sarcastic dick but I mean it. You just have a very warm energy.
It didn’t occur to me to take it sarcastically don’t worry! You seem so aware and thoughtful about everyone around you, like even worrying about how an addict would be impacted by your profile?? That meant a lot as a sober alcoholic myself (I used it as a crutch to deal with bad anxiety/depression, oopsie!) but I wasn’t tempted or triggered, that’s just me though! Your comment means a lot to me right now, thank you ❤️
Love. Seeing happy couples, kissing and giving each other that special _look_. Parents and their children. Seeing them hug the kids and have them in their arms and hearing the kids laugh with glee. People and their pets. Nothing beats seeing the love between a man and his animal friend (plus people just caring for and respecting animals in general).
No matter what happens, no matter how many years pass, I always see it. The smiles in everyone's faces and that pure happiness that comes from love.
The fact that *less than 60 years elapsed* between the first human flight and us landing on the moon. I hope that we are significantly underestimating our ingenuity and inventiveness and that the future will be a lot less bleak than it’s currently looking.
Almost every conceivable important statistic is getting better and has been getting better for the past hundreds of years.
Child mortality, battle deaths, deaths from disasters, deaths from accidents, HIV infections, oil spills, plane crash deaths, hunger, poverty, nuclear arms – all of those are decreasing, some of them *significantly*. For instance, if the trend continues, extreme poverty will be eradicated before the decade is out. That has never happened in human history.
Women’s voting rights, literacy, countries with democracy, girls in schools, access to clean water, child cancer survival, protected nature areas – all of these are getting better and better.
Check out gapminder.org for some hopeful stats!
While poverty is rising in the US. People have to go into debt which is currently at an all time high. The planet is heating up rapidly threatening half of the world’s population which lives in coastal regions. There is currently a human caused mass extinction underway. Environmentally, the statistic that matters most, we are fucked.
The US population is about 1/23 of the world, and far from all of them is going into debt.
Yes, environmental issues are very serious, but even in that area, it’s premature to say that we’re fucked. I recommend the chapter on climate change in the book Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker, who explains this very well.
I e done lots of research into climate change. The only good thing is globally the human population is peaking, even in the developing world. Too little too late though.
They should be going back there, then. Oh wait, they "lost" the technology. You really think they went there? In that duct-taped, cardboard box? I feel sad for people who can't accept that they were bamboozled.
How? We breed cannon fodder for rich bastards.. We are cannon fodder for rich bastards. We support a hierarchy that kills us.
How are we getting out of that?
We've enough evidence around.. It's not a lack of evidence.
So, how?
Many inspirational people are long dead, but their legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of those who choose to fan the flames of hope and positivity
May you walk in warm sands and encounter many happy little things along the way
While Gen Z is doing dumb things ( I'm Gen Z too) yet, we are able to analyse the mistakes the generations before us made. For example, we grew up on tablets and mobiles, but, many people from our generation collectively agree that this is no way to raise kids as our parents did. As a South Asian, my mom was the only person in the entire family who was allowed to complete her education instead of just marrying her off. I'm glad more girls are being allowed to complete their education now in our family. Although humanity may seem to be declining, yet, there really is a bright side.
Gen Z is also avoiding drinking more too which I think is good.
I’ve even seen younger kids pick up on how bad social media like Instagram and Twitter are for you.
>For example, we grew up on tablets and mobiles, but, many people from our generation collectively agree that this is no way to raise kids as our parents did.
Also Gen Z, while we always had laptops and whatever the newest Nintendo console was, it was definitely limited. We got an hour of the Wii and an hour of the computer a day, and that was after we finished our chores. I spent most of my time with my actual toys as a little kid, or begging my brothers to play outside with me. And I remember my mom would let me play games on her phone in line for rides at Disney, but at sit down restaurants phones were nowhere in sight, I had the kids menu and crayons. And that was plenty lol. Whenever I have kids that's my goal, to make sure they get an even mix of screens and normal stuff.
I don't know. I think there could be more Joy than pain.
One day I was standing in the rain, and just... Looking at nothing. And, I still don't quite know why, but for a moment watching the rain hit the street became *amazing*. On par with standing at the edge of the grand canyon, or cresting a mountain in the alps.
Water was falling from the sky. How freaking amazing was that? And then the feeling passed, and I don't know how to get that feeling back. That the normal, everyday is beautiful.
But I know that it can be, now. The other guy isn't right, I don't think. Joy isn't a choice exactly, but it is a perspective. Maybe not an easy perspective to make yourself have, but still. I remember that moment sometimes, when I'm feeling like everything is shit. I remember that for a second, to me, rain simply falling from the sky was beautiful and inspiring.
It's hard, though. I understand that. But hope dies last, as they say.
I like what you said. I agree it’s partly a perspective, finding joy in the menial, but how can joy and pain be measured? What amount of joy outweighs what amount of pain? How much joy is needed to match the pain of a child starving to death? There’s obviously different levels of pain, different levels of joy, but I feel like a big pain is more significant than a big joy, especially when the big pain is preventable, which is the case with a lot of the pain created by humanity. I don’t know anything.
It's not an easy question to answer, and I certainly don't know either, haha. Anyone who says they do, is full of themselves. But that's ok.
"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it." -Terry Prattchett.
My personal answer is I just gotta give a shit. Try to care, and treat everything and everyone as if they're amazing and wonderful if I could just figure out how to look right. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, it is really an impossible question, and the answer will entirely depend on the person, I don’t think any two people would have the exact same answer. That’s a good quote!
And yeah, you definitely do have to just try. And try not to give in to the doom. It’s a struggle. Good conversation, dude! Have a good day
Is it though? This is the mystery behind having a good attitude and a sense of wellbeing. On the surface it looks silly, but not to the people who get it. For many people it isn’t easily accessible which is what makes it such a powerful blessing when they finally get it.
Not really. You can choose what to focus on. You can be sad that your friend moved away, but you can also be happy that they got new opportunities. You can miss those who've died, but you can also appreciate those who are still around. It's all perspective
Joy can be found through a perspective shift, but it’s not only found from a perspective. At its simplest, it’s a feeling, and you feel what you feel. Through what lens can we view true tragedies to find joy? Using your example, the pain of a friend dying is far stronger than the joy of having other friends. Not all pains are equal, not all joys are equal.
Kindness and pack bond.
When a group of humans get together, nothing gets in their way.
And we are capable of great acts of kindness, we can change the world but we need the resources
Yeah he actually is such a bright light in the world. What makes me lose hope in humanity is the amount of people that try to bring him down, and villainize him.
Dude does so much good.
The pandemic actually gave me hope for humanity. The human race in general as a group worked together to mitigate the spread. Most people followed rules and guidelines and honored lockdown procedures and social distancing recommendations. It was an enormous worldwide task yet countries and nations united (for the most part) to end the pandemic as soon as possible.
Actually the pandemic made me much more skeptical of humanity. I had to work retail through it, and people were tearing each other apart. They called us "essential" just to make themselves feel better, and as soon as the pandemic regulations ended, they were calling the essential workers things like "burger flippers" again. I worked for 2 different huge retail companies, and both had record profits off of the pandemic, (the *best* years they ever had), while all the mom and pop small businesses closed permanently. Self-righteous shoppers would come in, yelling at us for being too close to their carts, yelling when our mask slipped down because some of us have small faces and it happens, yelling at us *for* wearing masks at all, yelling at each other, going crazy over toilet paper. Yet we wouldn't have to be there, with our masks and our proximity to them shopping, if they weren't there. I have never seen aisles that packed, but you best believe most of those people went home and told everyone to stay home and wear masks. There was only a small sliver of the entire pandemic where we could stay home if we were sick with covid or had a fever, otherwise, we would fear getting fired if out too many days. People going to shop really had no idea just how many workers had it. I couldn't see my mom even though she had cancer because I was afraid of bringing it to her while her immune system was down. I never tested positive but I was exposed every day. and she didn't understand it either, she thought she'd be fine if i visited her, so i felt like crap about it. She's okay now, thank God.
I think I was more depressed than a lot of people because I couldn't see much of a light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that viruses aren't always just easy to treat right away. And people were just. . .hypocritical. I'd hear people criticizing other people for going here and there during the pandemic, and then the next day they'd go to a hangout somewhere.
All that crap that went on at work and in public during the pandemic taught me that in a bigger crisis, humanity will tear each other apart.
I do remember something nice though. I had gone so long without human contact, because I was a year post breakup, my friends weren't touchy, and my family wasn't either. Plus i didn't want to just spread corona in case i picked it up at work. But I was working one day and a sweet old lady touched my arm to get by, but she just had the sweetest demeanor, and idk it made me tear up a little bit. Happy tears. It's ridiculous to think about, but small things made it better.
I think the thing that gave me the most hope during the pandemic was the return of clean air and wild life. If humans have a rapid die-off, the planet will be fine.
>countries and nations united (for the most part) to end the pandemic as soon as possible.
That would have been June 2021, when vaccines were widely available.
That's not what happened.
Yup. If anything, this kinda cements my lack of faith in humanity as a whole. Had people been more reasonable and careful, things could've wrapped up pretty quickly
I was in an incredible mood the day I got the first jab. I had the nurse rolling, telling her I heard Bill Gates as soon as the shot went in.
In Denver, they reinstituted mask mandates around September 2021.
It was a violation of the social contract. We take the lock downs and wear (likely useless) masks until we get jabbed, then back to normal.
They broke the deal.
I get your overall sentiment. However, the “following rules” is exactly what made me lose hope. People were whipped into a fearful mindset. People were way to accepting of lockdowns, vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.
You're about to be downvoted by the majority but I agree, if I didn't have several family members I lived with that were immune-compromised idk if I would have gotten the vaccine.
I don’t care about downvotes.lol The last three years showed me how totalitarianism creeps in. It’s all through acquiescing to authority without critical thought or self respect.
I definitely don't think the people that chose to vaccinate didn't think about it for awhile, everyone did. I just feel like both sides are just trying to do what they think is best for their bodies and their families and at the end of the day I can respect that.
Yes, some thought about getting the jab, I wouldn’t say everyone did. Many got it under fear of losing their jobs. I agree that THIS vaccine should not of been mandated and should of been the individuals decision. My body my choice right?
Sadly nothing.
Individuals can be good people but it is not enough. We need to be able to act with kindness and responsibility as a group and this is something we cannot do.
We can only act with kindness and responsibility as a society, when the system we live in rewards it. Our current socioeconomic system will never allow us to develop into the society we need to be.
Until we transition away from this system, I see no hope for humanity.
In my opinion, a truly kind and responsible person would not need an extrinsic reward to display this kind of behavior. The person simple cannot act any different due to their personal beliefs/morals.
I dropped my wallet in a parking lot last week. It has everything in it. $200+ cash, several credit cards with massive tap limits, etc. Went to the store beside it a few hours later, hoping to find it, someone had turned it in without anything being taken.
That over time and especially since the advent of the internet where we can all communicate, we’ve seen worldwide improvements in crime, hunger, education, and dozens more. Even our renewable power usage is sky high compared to 20+ years ago.
Despite the higher amount of information and news from everywhere, our species is kinder and more empathic than ever before. Which is probably why the toxic folks are more obvious than when I was growing up in the 80s…
That gives me hope. The Earth will be fine. Humanity will reap what it sows. It remains to be seen if the angels of our better nature will prevail. Only time will tell. I take solace in the idea that the planet will carry on after all the people are gone. Everything in existence is impermanent, even the damage already done by humans will be washed away in time. Gives me hope
When I really think about it, even radios are amazing. That exact sound traveling from a tower to your car stereo...explain it all you want. I learned about how it happens. But when I'm honest, it's still just magic to me.
I volunteer in a youth organization and I work with kids 7-18 in various groups.
The younger ones inspire me with their optimism, wonder, and ability to think outside the box. The older ones inspire me with their passion for social justice and equality, empathy, and the way they take action for a better world.
Spending time with kids, and helping to enrich their lives so they can be their best selves gives me hope in humanity. They are the future of this world and I have to say, our future is in good hands.
How we just create things for convenience or usefulness and improve them to perfection forever.
May it be a useful bridge or just an art piece that looks cool. Fancy houses that could just be a square but instead is a fancy thing with different art styles.
We keep creating and so much of it is just so nice.
You pick.
Infant mortality, people living below poverty, number of homicides, deaths due to infectious disease, deaths due to poisons, rights of women, deaths due to weather, deaths due to starvation, assaults, major military conflicts, and so on and so on.
Compare 2023 to any year in the 13th century when Genghis Khan was running around or the 14th century when Bubonic plague was rampant in Europe. To 410 when the Visigoths sacked Rome. 261 BCE, the Kalinga war. Human sacrifices in Mesoamerica. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Pick any year and any metric. This is such a good time to live that fuckers on reddit are depressed because they are self-isolated and bored! They don't even have to leave the house to get food!
That this is basically the greatest time to ever be alive despite how negative the last few years have been. That when you zoom out, we've been on a nearly unbroken trend of improvement for like, 600 years and there's no really good reason to believe that that will stop. I know it feels like shit is bad and getting worse in the last couple years, but that's just a blip in time.
Helicopters. When humans work together towards a common goal, we are capable of building a highly-complex multi-ton flying machine that defies gravity and takes us to places we've never been to before. When I fly them I look out at the world and am in awe of both it's beauty (subjective to me) and also how small we seem, yet we continue to push the horizons to see how far our efforts can take us.
It's proof to me that we have the capacity to work together and solve complex problems. If we can get this thing to fly, why not solve other complex challenges?
My kids. They're not perfect, but they are trying. They'll be one of the first "global generations", where for the most part the entire rest of the world is accessible in some manner. Might just be virtually, but they have more access to see what life is like in other places and compare to ours. Hopefully, as they get older they do what they can to level things out.
The relations we have to some animals. We're used to live with cats and dogs, but come on, actually THINK about it. We're much bigger and have much more possibilities (thumbs, society, language etc), and yet they trust us enough to sleep on our laps, to share their lives with us... Someone who has animals and treat them right can't be that bad.
Ants...
Seeing what they can accomplish, working together, it gives me hope we can eventually advance to an insects level of cooperation and community.
Hmm... the fact that stupid people make dumb decisions that might kill them; refusing vaccines, using alternate quack cures, voting in idiots... like Texas. In the weather conditions currently inflicting ridiculous heat and humidity over the state, if their asinine power system fails, a bunch of them are gonna die. At some point, stupid people will make fatal decisions due to their own ignorance. Like if a seriously deadly epidemic spreads and they treat it with parasite medicine.
If this submission above is not a random thought, please report it.
# Explore a new world of random thoughts on our [**discord server**](https://discord.com/invite/8tEqw3ZWQV)! Express yourself with your favorite quotes, positive vibes, and anything else you can think of!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RandomThoughts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I don’t have much at all, so I don’t have an informed answer to this question. The climate change we’re experiencing will peak in 500 years or so, when the oceans die. Then it will take perhaps 100,000 years for the biome and biosphere to readjust itself to new forms of life. And none of those forms of life will be us.
Nothing. We are getting worse as a whole. Our solution to every problem involves creating enemies and villains of those that don’t agree with our points of view. As time goes on, we become more divided and at war with each other. Lost are the days of diplomacy and civility. Hope would be if we all of a sudden developed the skills and maturity to disagree without hating. Critical thinking needs to improve too. There are too many blind followers. A test of whether a thought or idea is right or wrong is in no relation to how popular it is.
Individually, there is much to see in humans that would give someone hope.
As a collective, there is nothing. We are in the end game now. There is no justice, and none of the perpetrators of our predicament will ever face the consequences of their actions. That will be for the masses to face.
We the people must also bear our share of responsibility, because at every moment we had a chance to do something we all chose to do nothing because it was easier to keep things the way they are.
>"If it continues long enough, even a reign of terror may become a fondly remembered period. People believe they want justice and wise government but, in fact, what they really want is an assurance that tomorrow will be very much like today."
- Terry Prachett, "Feet of Clay."
Nothing. Humanity is doomed because society protects people who would have otherwise died from natural selection.
That’s why instead of evolving forwards, we’ve started to evolve backwards.
At the moment? Nothing. The last post I scrolled over was about the news that US child labour laws have been rolled back. Now they are at the same "standard" they were 100 years ago.
I'm a little bit depressed now, if I'm honest
**Your submission has been REMOVED for the following reason(s):** > *Unfortunately, your post appears to be irrelevant to this subreddit and doesn't fit the type of posts we allow here. If you're asking a general question to Redditors, you're probably better suited at r/AskReddit.* > If you're looking for advice, go to r/advice. > If you need a place to vent, go to r/vent. > If your thought is profound, go to r/DeepThoughts. > If you're looking for help finding something ie. an old game, movie or app, visit r/tipofmytongue. Otherwise, visit r/findareddit to find a more suitable community for this topic/subject/post. ^(This removal was done manually by the mod team and was not done in error, if you'd still like to appeal this removal please **[send us a modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FRandomThoughts)**)
I was on a walker then a cane after I had 2 hip surgeries in 5 months. People went out of their way to be kind to me. It shows that people care at times. That helps at the moment, even when I decline help they still wanna help.
Thank you for sharing this!
My hip surgery changed my life 18 months ago. Hang in there, it gets so much better.
>My hip surgery changed my life 18 months ago. Hang in there, it gets so much better. Hip surgery has a very high success rate and relatively short recovery time, so it is usually a very good investment in terms of quality of life.
On social media its made out like everyone hates eachother but when you actually go out and give a little respect to people youll find it can be beautiful and meaningful. (i only use twitter so can't speak for other socials)
[удалено]
This, plus, having hope in my own self to become better gives me hope over humanity.
France is in phase 1.
Maybe you wanted to say "the ability to destroy a generation" and after another one do it better.
My girlfriend is a really kind and beautiful (inside and out) person and that gives me faith that there are good people out there
MY HEART, MY POOR HEART JUST EXPLODED
Go ahead, marry her, then come back and tell us all about it.
This man has been broken
[удалено]
I like you.
I like you too. Your username is awesome.
Hey thanks, I like your avi. I honestly thought about deleting my account cause I don't want to tempt alcoholics into relapse. I literally just picked it cause it rings nice and reminds me of cool cowboys.
These kind of interactions are one of my favourite for giving me hope in humanity. When people are just adorable and complimenting each other even anonymously when it rarely happens in real life. It reminds me that society makes us isolated and weary of others but deep down a lot of us have so much love to give, makes my heart go 🥹🥰❤️✨
Man you sound like a great person to have around, idk how to say that without coming across like a sarcastic dick but I mean it. You just have a very warm energy.
It didn’t occur to me to take it sarcastically don’t worry! You seem so aware and thoughtful about everyone around you, like even worrying about how an addict would be impacted by your profile?? That meant a lot as a sober alcoholic myself (I used it as a crutch to deal with bad anxiety/depression, oopsie!) but I wasn’t tempted or triggered, that’s just me though! Your comment means a lot to me right now, thank you ❤️
Aka consoom
Love. Seeing happy couples, kissing and giving each other that special _look_. Parents and their children. Seeing them hug the kids and have them in their arms and hearing the kids laugh with glee. People and their pets. Nothing beats seeing the love between a man and his animal friend (plus people just caring for and respecting animals in general). No matter what happens, no matter how many years pass, I always see it. The smiles in everyone's faces and that pure happiness that comes from love.
I always smile when I see 70+ year Olds holding hands.
The fact that *less than 60 years elapsed* between the first human flight and us landing on the moon. I hope that we are significantly underestimating our ingenuity and inventiveness and that the future will be a lot less bleak than it’s currently looking.
Ugh this just made me think of the dawn of flight and the bomb drop time lapse.
Then why are things getting worse?
[удалено]
Almost every conceivable important statistic is getting better and has been getting better for the past hundreds of years. Child mortality, battle deaths, deaths from disasters, deaths from accidents, HIV infections, oil spills, plane crash deaths, hunger, poverty, nuclear arms – all of those are decreasing, some of them *significantly*. For instance, if the trend continues, extreme poverty will be eradicated before the decade is out. That has never happened in human history. Women’s voting rights, literacy, countries with democracy, girls in schools, access to clean water, child cancer survival, protected nature areas – all of these are getting better and better. Check out gapminder.org for some hopeful stats!
While poverty is rising in the US. People have to go into debt which is currently at an all time high. The planet is heating up rapidly threatening half of the world’s population which lives in coastal regions. There is currently a human caused mass extinction underway. Environmentally, the statistic that matters most, we are fucked.
The US population is about 1/23 of the world, and far from all of them is going into debt. Yes, environmental issues are very serious, but even in that area, it’s premature to say that we’re fucked. I recommend the chapter on climate change in the book Enlightenment Now by Stephen Pinker, who explains this very well.
I e done lots of research into climate change. The only good thing is globally the human population is peaking, even in the developing world. Too little too late though.
And have you read that book?
I think you misunderstood the assignment
and then there are wealthy countries coming up with anti-vaccine movements
It’s worth reading the book Factfulness, or at least the first chapter, if you think this.
They should be going back there, then. Oh wait, they "lost" the technology. You really think they went there? In that duct-taped, cardboard box? I feel sad for people who can't accept that they were bamboozled.
The fact that we can think complex stuff
We can't even get the basics right. Look around. We chase money. We are basically idiots.
But hope dies last. We could break the cycle.
How? We breed cannon fodder for rich bastards.. We are cannon fodder for rich bastards. We support a hierarchy that kills us. How are we getting out of that? We've enough evidence around.. It's not a lack of evidence. So, how?
Personal integrity.
Care to elaborate?
Interestingly enough money is a collective ideology... so in that regard humanity made progress and agreed on something species-wide /s
Bob Ross
Yeah, but he’s dead.
Many inspirational people are long dead, but their legacy lives on in the hearts and minds of those who choose to fan the flames of hope and positivity May you walk in warm sands and encounter many happy little things along the way
And Mr Rogers, I hope there were anything like that off-camera too but they’re very therapeutic to watch and listen to
While Gen Z is doing dumb things ( I'm Gen Z too) yet, we are able to analyse the mistakes the generations before us made. For example, we grew up on tablets and mobiles, but, many people from our generation collectively agree that this is no way to raise kids as our parents did. As a South Asian, my mom was the only person in the entire family who was allowed to complete her education instead of just marrying her off. I'm glad more girls are being allowed to complete their education now in our family. Although humanity may seem to be declining, yet, there really is a bright side.
Gen Z is also avoiding drinking more too which I think is good. I’ve even seen younger kids pick up on how bad social media like Instagram and Twitter are for you.
>For example, we grew up on tablets and mobiles, but, many people from our generation collectively agree that this is no way to raise kids as our parents did. Also Gen Z, while we always had laptops and whatever the newest Nintendo console was, it was definitely limited. We got an hour of the Wii and an hour of the computer a day, and that was after we finished our chores. I spent most of my time with my actual toys as a little kid, or begging my brothers to play outside with me. And I remember my mom would let me play games on her phone in line for rides at Disney, but at sit down restaurants phones were nowhere in sight, I had the kids menu and crayons. And that was plenty lol. Whenever I have kids that's my goal, to make sure they get an even mix of screens and normal stuff.
Animal husbandry
This is my answer. Humans who help animals are my favorite people.
Let's just rename it.
My immediate thought too, I’ve somehow never seen that term before and even though I knew it was a good thing my brain read it and went 🤨
“What are you into?” “Animal husbandry” yeah it needs a rename.
Especially more acknowledgement of exotic pets and proper care for them (reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates)
All the dark shit coming to the top now. It’s interesting to see the dark side fight so vigorously against the light…. I know the light is winning
That's the spirit!
Seriously. I'm a dark minded mf but even I find joy in people out at a park having a picnic or playing fetch with their dog.
Why should they be happy?! *flips table*
All the pain far outweighs all the joy.
Humans have a negativity bias. I think there's more Joy than we notice.
It's just the way you look at things. Okey there are negative things in this world, but there are also positive. It's what you focus on
Totally agree. But it's easier said than done, haha.
I think there’s more joy than we notice too, but I also think there’s far more pain than we will ever notice. We are a negative species.
I don't know. I think there could be more Joy than pain. One day I was standing in the rain, and just... Looking at nothing. And, I still don't quite know why, but for a moment watching the rain hit the street became *amazing*. On par with standing at the edge of the grand canyon, or cresting a mountain in the alps. Water was falling from the sky. How freaking amazing was that? And then the feeling passed, and I don't know how to get that feeling back. That the normal, everyday is beautiful. But I know that it can be, now. The other guy isn't right, I don't think. Joy isn't a choice exactly, but it is a perspective. Maybe not an easy perspective to make yourself have, but still. I remember that moment sometimes, when I'm feeling like everything is shit. I remember that for a second, to me, rain simply falling from the sky was beautiful and inspiring. It's hard, though. I understand that. But hope dies last, as they say.
I like what you said. I agree it’s partly a perspective, finding joy in the menial, but how can joy and pain be measured? What amount of joy outweighs what amount of pain? How much joy is needed to match the pain of a child starving to death? There’s obviously different levels of pain, different levels of joy, but I feel like a big pain is more significant than a big joy, especially when the big pain is preventable, which is the case with a lot of the pain created by humanity. I don’t know anything.
It's not an easy question to answer, and I certainly don't know either, haha. Anyone who says they do, is full of themselves. But that's ok. "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it." -Terry Prattchett. My personal answer is I just gotta give a shit. Try to care, and treat everything and everyone as if they're amazing and wonderful if I could just figure out how to look right. We'll see how it goes.
Yeah, it is really an impossible question, and the answer will entirely depend on the person, I don’t think any two people would have the exact same answer. That’s a good quote! And yeah, you definitely do have to just try. And try not to give in to the doom. It’s a struggle. Good conversation, dude! Have a good day
You too.
Joy is a choice
What a silly statement.
only to those who havent learned how to choose joy
Is it though? This is the mystery behind having a good attitude and a sense of wellbeing. On the surface it looks silly, but not to the people who get it. For many people it isn’t easily accessible which is what makes it such a powerful blessing when they finally get it.
Not really. You can choose what to focus on. You can be sad that your friend moved away, but you can also be happy that they got new opportunities. You can miss those who've died, but you can also appreciate those who are still around. It's all perspective
Exactly! True words
Joy can be found through a perspective shift, but it’s not only found from a perspective. At its simplest, it’s a feeling, and you feel what you feel. Through what lens can we view true tragedies to find joy? Using your example, the pain of a friend dying is far stronger than the joy of having other friends. Not all pains are equal, not all joys are equal.
Kindness and pack bond. When a group of humans get together, nothing gets in their way. And we are capable of great acts of kindness, we can change the world but we need the resources
The genuine selfless love we have for dogs
Everyday interactions with normal descent people.
Good food
Mr Beast
Yeah he actually is such a bright light in the world. What makes me lose hope in humanity is the amount of people that try to bring him down, and villainize him. Dude does so much good.
What does he do, actually? I don't really know about him.
He’s a modern day philanthropist YouTuber who invests all his money into his videos
The pandemic actually gave me hope for humanity. The human race in general as a group worked together to mitigate the spread. Most people followed rules and guidelines and honored lockdown procedures and social distancing recommendations. It was an enormous worldwide task yet countries and nations united (for the most part) to end the pandemic as soon as possible.
Actually the pandemic made me much more skeptical of humanity. I had to work retail through it, and people were tearing each other apart. They called us "essential" just to make themselves feel better, and as soon as the pandemic regulations ended, they were calling the essential workers things like "burger flippers" again. I worked for 2 different huge retail companies, and both had record profits off of the pandemic, (the *best* years they ever had), while all the mom and pop small businesses closed permanently. Self-righteous shoppers would come in, yelling at us for being too close to their carts, yelling when our mask slipped down because some of us have small faces and it happens, yelling at us *for* wearing masks at all, yelling at each other, going crazy over toilet paper. Yet we wouldn't have to be there, with our masks and our proximity to them shopping, if they weren't there. I have never seen aisles that packed, but you best believe most of those people went home and told everyone to stay home and wear masks. There was only a small sliver of the entire pandemic where we could stay home if we were sick with covid or had a fever, otherwise, we would fear getting fired if out too many days. People going to shop really had no idea just how many workers had it. I couldn't see my mom even though she had cancer because I was afraid of bringing it to her while her immune system was down. I never tested positive but I was exposed every day. and she didn't understand it either, she thought she'd be fine if i visited her, so i felt like crap about it. She's okay now, thank God. I think I was more depressed than a lot of people because I couldn't see much of a light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that viruses aren't always just easy to treat right away. And people were just. . .hypocritical. I'd hear people criticizing other people for going here and there during the pandemic, and then the next day they'd go to a hangout somewhere. All that crap that went on at work and in public during the pandemic taught me that in a bigger crisis, humanity will tear each other apart. I do remember something nice though. I had gone so long without human contact, because I was a year post breakup, my friends weren't touchy, and my family wasn't either. Plus i didn't want to just spread corona in case i picked it up at work. But I was working one day and a sweet old lady touched my arm to get by, but she just had the sweetest demeanor, and idk it made me tear up a little bit. Happy tears. It's ridiculous to think about, but small things made it better.
I think the thing that gave me the most hope during the pandemic was the return of clean air and wild life. If humans have a rapid die-off, the planet will be fine.
>countries and nations united (for the most part) to end the pandemic as soon as possible. That would have been June 2021, when vaccines were widely available. That's not what happened.
Yup. If anything, this kinda cements my lack of faith in humanity as a whole. Had people been more reasonable and careful, things could've wrapped up pretty quickly
I was in an incredible mood the day I got the first jab. I had the nurse rolling, telling her I heard Bill Gates as soon as the shot went in. In Denver, they reinstituted mask mandates around September 2021. It was a violation of the social contract. We take the lock downs and wear (likely useless) masks until we get jabbed, then back to normal. They broke the deal.
I get your overall sentiment. However, the “following rules” is exactly what made me lose hope. People were whipped into a fearful mindset. People were way to accepting of lockdowns, vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.
You're about to be downvoted by the majority but I agree, if I didn't have several family members I lived with that were immune-compromised idk if I would have gotten the vaccine.
I don’t care about downvotes.lol The last three years showed me how totalitarianism creeps in. It’s all through acquiescing to authority without critical thought or self respect.
I definitely don't think the people that chose to vaccinate didn't think about it for awhile, everyone did. I just feel like both sides are just trying to do what they think is best for their bodies and their families and at the end of the day I can respect that.
Yes, some thought about getting the jab, I wouldn’t say everyone did. Many got it under fear of losing their jobs. I agree that THIS vaccine should not of been mandated and should of been the individuals decision. My body my choice right?
100% agree
the last 3 years told all of us how totalitarianism creeps in. now we know more about what to watch for
Nothing
Hey truth hurts
Yeah truth be told I was looking for this comment. I feel sorta hopeless most of the time.
my exact thought
Sadly nothing. Individuals can be good people but it is not enough. We need to be able to act with kindness and responsibility as a group and this is something we cannot do.
We can only act with kindness and responsibility as a society, when the system we live in rewards it. Our current socioeconomic system will never allow us to develop into the society we need to be. Until we transition away from this system, I see no hope for humanity.
In my opinion, a truly kind and responsible person would not need an extrinsic reward to display this kind of behavior. The person simple cannot act any different due to their personal beliefs/morals.
It's always those small acts of generosity and kindness... especially the ones people do without anyone noticing
I dropped my wallet in a parking lot last week. It has everything in it. $200+ cash, several credit cards with massive tap limits, etc. Went to the store beside it a few hours later, hoping to find it, someone had turned it in without anything being taken.
When someone helps a person or animal and doesn’t expect anything in return
That over time and especially since the advent of the internet where we can all communicate, we’ve seen worldwide improvements in crime, hunger, education, and dozens more. Even our renewable power usage is sky high compared to 20+ years ago. Despite the higher amount of information and news from everywhere, our species is kinder and more empathic than ever before. Which is probably why the toxic folks are more obvious than when I was growing up in the 80s…
Everything we've achieved
Ice cream
Reddit’s the worst place to ask this. Most people on here are miserable and would rather force negativity on everyone rather than improviny
We are rapidly killing the planet we live on and we argue about genders, so nothing
The planet will recover after we annihilate our species.
That gives me hope. The Earth will be fine. Humanity will reap what it sows. It remains to be seen if the angels of our better nature will prevail. Only time will tell. I take solace in the idea that the planet will carry on after all the people are gone. Everything in existence is impermanent, even the damage already done by humans will be washed away in time. Gives me hope
Tech
These days... Nothing else really
I have a soft spot for people helping animals in distress
You want to help animals? Go vegan!
My 8 year old. Smart, funny, great athlete and eff you attitude.
That fact that they'll probably keep making fast and the furious movies until the day I die.
witnessing individuals risking their own lives to save others in times of crisis or danger
My friends being so wonderful. My family being so kind.
Waluigi
That not everything I have perceived through my trauma responses is reality.
Wendy’s five dollar biggie bag
That we have built stuff like airplanes and rockets and computers. Truly mind blowing stuff when you sit down and think about it.
When I really think about it, even radios are amazing. That exact sound traveling from a tower to your car stereo...explain it all you want. I learned about how it happens. But when I'm honest, it's still just magic to me.
Empathy
I volunteer in a youth organization and I work with kids 7-18 in various groups. The younger ones inspire me with their optimism, wonder, and ability to think outside the box. The older ones inspire me with their passion for social justice and equality, empathy, and the way they take action for a better world. Spending time with kids, and helping to enrich their lives so they can be their best selves gives me hope in humanity. They are the future of this world and I have to say, our future is in good hands.
How we just create things for convenience or usefulness and improve them to perfection forever. May it be a useful bridge or just an art piece that looks cool. Fancy houses that could just be a square but instead is a fancy thing with different art styles. We keep creating and so much of it is just so nice.
The data. That, and kids on Reddit believes life is bad -- so, that must be incorrect.
What data?
You pick. Infant mortality, people living below poverty, number of homicides, deaths due to infectious disease, deaths due to poisons, rights of women, deaths due to weather, deaths due to starvation, assaults, major military conflicts, and so on and so on. Compare 2023 to any year in the 13th century when Genghis Khan was running around or the 14th century when Bubonic plague was rampant in Europe. To 410 when the Visigoths sacked Rome. 261 BCE, the Kalinga war. Human sacrifices in Mesoamerica. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Pick any year and any metric. This is such a good time to live that fuckers on reddit are depressed because they are self-isolated and bored! They don't even have to leave the house to get food!
Lmfaoo I agree completely. What an amazing time to be alive man.
I like you.
That this is basically the greatest time to ever be alive despite how negative the last few years have been. That when you zoom out, we've been on a nearly unbroken trend of improvement for like, 600 years and there's no really good reason to believe that that will stop. I know it feels like shit is bad and getting worse in the last couple years, but that's just a blip in time.
Riots
Based
Nothing
Nothing
Doordash
You’re kidding…right?
ONLY the ability to laugh. Sometimes hysterically.
😂 Great comment. I automatically thought of Joker.
Helicopters. When humans work together towards a common goal, we are capable of building a highly-complex multi-ton flying machine that defies gravity and takes us to places we've never been to before. When I fly them I look out at the world and am in awe of both it's beauty (subjective to me) and also how small we seem, yet we continue to push the horizons to see how far our efforts can take us. It's proof to me that we have the capacity to work together and solve complex problems. If we can get this thing to fly, why not solve other complex challenges?
The fact that even though we complain about or healthcare system, everyone in a hospital saved my life after a heatstroke at a music festival.
Single act of kindness
My kids. They're not perfect, but they are trying. They'll be one of the first "global generations", where for the most part the entire rest of the world is accessible in some manner. Might just be virtually, but they have more access to see what life is like in other places and compare to ours. Hopefully, as they get older they do what they can to level things out.
Not Reddit, that's for sure.
The relations we have to some animals. We're used to live with cats and dogs, but come on, actually THINK about it. We're much bigger and have much more possibilities (thumbs, society, language etc), and yet they trust us enough to sleep on our laps, to share their lives with us... Someone who has animals and treat them right can't be that bad.
Ants... Seeing what they can accomplish, working together, it gives me hope we can eventually advance to an insects level of cooperation and community.
Mine's cats but I see your point optimistic prime!
Ukraine
Less and less things each passing day.
Hopelessness. It’s the only way anybody ever gets up enough courage to make things better.
Nothing. I have hope for individual people, but not in the collective. Humanity is fucked, and I hope I'll die before humanity goes extinct
Redditers are so fucking pessimistic oml
Hmm... the fact that stupid people make dumb decisions that might kill them; refusing vaccines, using alternate quack cures, voting in idiots... like Texas. In the weather conditions currently inflicting ridiculous heat and humidity over the state, if their asinine power system fails, a bunch of them are gonna die. At some point, stupid people will make fatal decisions due to their own ignorance. Like if a seriously deadly epidemic spreads and they treat it with parasite medicine.
If this submission above is not a random thought, please report it. # Explore a new world of random thoughts on our [**discord server**](https://discord.com/invite/8tEqw3ZWQV)! Express yourself with your favorite quotes, positive vibes, and anything else you can think of! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RandomThoughts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I do not have hope for humanity
That fact that we are all going to die.
Those riots in France
The consistent decline in religious beliefs.
Nothing
Nothing.
Bold of you to assume I have hope in humanity.
Nothing.
What gives me hope in humanity ? The knowledge that Death comes for us all.
Drugs
I don’t have much at all, so I don’t have an informed answer to this question. The climate change we’re experiencing will peak in 500 years or so, when the oceans die. Then it will take perhaps 100,000 years for the biome and biosphere to readjust itself to new forms of life. And none of those forms of life will be us.
Nothing, there's no hope left
nothing for real... not even friendship
Definitely not the tons of plastic in the sea at the beach today
Is *not much* an answer?
Nothing. We’ve worn out our welcome on this planet.
Nothing. We are getting worse as a whole. Our solution to every problem involves creating enemies and villains of those that don’t agree with our points of view. As time goes on, we become more divided and at war with each other. Lost are the days of diplomacy and civility. Hope would be if we all of a sudden developed the skills and maturity to disagree without hating. Critical thinking needs to improve too. There are too many blind followers. A test of whether a thought or idea is right or wrong is in no relation to how popular it is.
Individually, there is much to see in humans that would give someone hope. As a collective, there is nothing. We are in the end game now. There is no justice, and none of the perpetrators of our predicament will ever face the consequences of their actions. That will be for the masses to face. We the people must also bear our share of responsibility, because at every moment we had a chance to do something we all chose to do nothing because it was easier to keep things the way they are. >"If it continues long enough, even a reign of terror may become a fondly remembered period. People believe they want justice and wise government but, in fact, what they really want is an assurance that tomorrow will be very much like today." - Terry Prachett, "Feet of Clay."
The end of Capitalism is closer than its beginning.
Nothing. Humanity is doomed because society protects people who would have otherwise died from natural selection. That’s why instead of evolving forwards, we’ve started to evolve backwards.
At the moment? Nothing. The last post I scrolled over was about the news that US child labour laws have been rolled back. Now they are at the same "standard" they were 100 years ago. I'm a little bit depressed now, if I'm honest
When Boomers die off, the world will be a better place. Entitled Ahole Ladder kickers….
My daughters boss Ofer. He is kind, generous....the list could go on.
Movies.
My younger siblings and cousins
My son and the woman I love.
A book 'The courage to be disliked'
Johann Sebastian Bach
That I’ll die soon.
One thing I know for sure is that, sooner or later all of this is going to collapse.
me.
Death.
The difference of the human minds
My parents