I am a reasonably optimistic person – we are facing many difficulties, but I believe human ingenuity will eventually solve the climate crisis despite our refusal to act responsibly up till now. I hope that the Ukraine situation will be resolved in Ukraine’s favour and that, after a suitable period of reflection and payment of reparations, Russian will re-join the civilised world. I may not be around to see it, but I think it will happen someday. But this story – this has fucked me up terribly today. I cannot bear to hear of deliberate cruelty visited on children or animals. We had a terrible story yesterday about the death of a five-year old girl in Co. Antrim after a sustained period of abuse and neglect by her mother and stepfather. That can be isolated, and the perpetrators identified and punished as a one-off anomaly. But the report from the BBC has horrified me, not just as a story of organised animal cruelty, but because it says something about the human condition. That there is a global network of people who are prepared to seek out this abomination on social networks leaves me feeling that perhaps there is no hope for us really…
Sorry for introducing a rotten topic to the forum, but I felt I had to vent on this one…
I Despair…
by 19 Comments
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-65951188
I saw the headline and couldn’t bring myself to look at the article. The people who create these videos, and the people who watch them should be put away and never let out
Yup. This story did for me. They had it on BBC Breakfast news yesterday.
I lose all my wooly credentials when I see this kind of horror. Throw all the perpetrators, enablers and viewers in a dungeon forever.
Awful, awful, awful…….
I saw this too and felt pretty much the same. It is sickening and beyond belief that people can sink so low, and makes me utterly despair at the human race. I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism about the climate crisis or Ukraine either. It’s only a relatively short matter of time until we are all done for.
That’s really spoilt my day. I sometimes feel that the human race is beyond redemption and maybe our demise via Climate change or AI or whatever else will be a blessing for the rest of this planet.
I want to believe that we can extricate ourselves from the climate crisis but can’t see the governments of the world having sufficient courage to make the huge changes that are needed. Ukraine is a different matter but in comparison it’s a trifling matter – everything else is ultimately a trifling matter tbh bar maybe all out nuclear war.
Have a great day everybody!!
This got me. Dozens of children killed at school in Uganda by Islamic militants:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-65937484
There has always been evil in the world and there always will be. We just have to hope that ultimately the good will prevail.
Talking of animal cruelty, there was a horrible news item recently about a guy who tortured a hedgehog. He was sentenced to 18 months. Bizarrely, he “was found in bed, naked from the waist down and wearing prosthetic breasts, with various items including a cucumber, a vacuum pipe, a gas stove, women’s clothing, a shard of mirror, binoculars held together by tape, and two lit candles”.
He sounds like a truly repulsive and frightening character who should definitely, I would hope, be kept under surveillance once released.
But at the same time, I couldn’t help reflecting that it doesn’t take much investigation. to see how cruelly some animals we commonly eat are forced to suffer before they arrive on our plates. Is there an element of hypocrisy in our judgement?
I myself am someone who recognises eating meat is both unhealthy and cruel (and a bit repulsive, if I think about it) yet still continues to do so, albeit quite rarely these days.
And in Sunderland this week … https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-jailed-bizarre-sex-attack-30290698
I don’t wish to read that article, as it will fill me with hate for the humans involved and lower even further any level of optimism left in me for the human species. Ultimately, the planet will shrug us off, and every other species – those we haven’t already driven extinct – will be the better for it, I’m convinced. A few million years more and another species will take our place, lording it above the rest until they too succumb to stupidity and ignorance and squander their days in the sun. Meanwhile, the solar system will continue to rotate, the stars will still shine, and no-one will have heard of The Beatles.
Got someone called Danny Boyle on line 2 for you, VV..,
I saw this the other day and like Foxie I couldn’t bring myself to read the article. I just hope those sadistic bastards involved and those who have participated by viewing these atrocities suffer the pain and suffering that they deserve.
The cruelty shown to children by the people who should be caring for them nurturing them and giving them hope & love sickens me as no doubt it does everyone else reading this thread.
Do we deserve to survive as a species? Only if we can rid ourselves of the madmen running the show and those degenerates who enjoy inflicting pain, despair and suffering on others.
There was a big piece on BBC World service – horrific and sickening. I think there are too many cruel people in the World and too many cruel Governments who should lead by example.
It’s the organised nature of it and the fact that there’s an audience out there willing to pay to see animals being tortured. I also despair.
Not only paying to see the torture but commissioning particular acts so that they can watch the clips.
Name, shame and drive them out. There is no place for such people in a civilized society.
I think that while such appalling actions and activities take place, the fact that there are far greater numbers who feel revulsion and disgust should give hope that such crimes and will always be challenged and addressed. Truth will out and better standards of behaviour can be affirmed and enforced. It is up to us all to create a culture of good values for people to live up to rather than to chase the lowest common denominator.
The ejection and judgement on Johnson is a small sign of optimism in this regard.
I’m reminded of The West Wing scene where President Bartlet says “they ran…into the fire”.
For every absolutely shithouse news piece, there’s something, somewhere, that reminds me that people can be great.
A BBC news piece about a family, with a very disabled youngster, who had lost their dog. Volunteers, who had nothing to gain from this, went on a lengthy search. It was a sad ending for the dog, but the humanity involved in supporting the family…I reckon we’ll be right.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-65970917
(And yes, this is from a professional misanthrope who generally hates people)
The nihilism of the times is grim; I have to look at it close up for work , and think it has coarsened human relations with unpleasant consequences. I see the culture of trolling, “accelerationism” (this era’s “situationalism”), the acceptance of 2+2=5 and condemnation of those who dispute this notion, and returning acceptance of brutality and vindictiveness for “fun” (see “Mizzy”) as all part of it. To paraphrase, Karl Popper, the only thing we should be illiberal about is the (il)lberal who would seek to take our liberalism. For all our complaints, the post war period to the early naughties was pretty good, but I see the tide going back out and exposing a lot of wrecks, dead fish, and rotting seaweed polluting the atmosphere. No, I do not watch GB News or read The ‘Fail.
Gentiles calling Jews “anti-semitic”, straight people calling gay people “homophobic”, pronouns no longer connected to grammar, politicians criticised for saying women don’t have penises… who would have predicted any of it?