I think you are right. Unfortunately knowing what's going on is not going to help us. The propaganda worked and people are truly turning hard right and pro-Russia. Something that would have sounded insane during the cold war. Often the same topics: "tax money wasted on corrupt Ukraine", "against woke agenda", "LGBTQ gender insanity", "immigrants are criminals". I tried to talk to people, but any information that contradicts what they now think is "fake". There are still parts of the puzzle I don't get. What turned Trump and Elon to Putin? What might Putin possibly have on Trump that could damage him? Trump can truly shoot someone in the street and people would be ok with it, like he said so himself. Elon has all the money in the world and can buy who he wants. Is it a cooperation that benefits them all? That destabilizing the West helps Putin is obvious, I suspect that what Elon and Trump get out of it is just making money and enjoying power. Where this all will end. I hope less bad than I fear. Prepare for the worst though.
Odys
Well, we can witness the 1930ths all over again. Great. Humans are dumb idiots, they don't learn.
Elon also supporting them too perhaps?
Seems the end of the Washington Post as a serious and reliable news outlet. It will not be the last in the current anti truth wave.
I'm not an American. Do you think they really will go as far as deporting people that are even born in the US? I feel it's more of a topic that Trump used to win votes? Now he's in, he doesn't even need the MAGA cult anymore.
I think only the extremely simple life doesn't feel pain, but then you have arrived on a microscopic level, where some tiny creature is getting eaten while eating themselves.
Organised religion tends to go south
I suspect that this might be true for the older religions? They are just not all that suitable for the times we live in. What I do expect is that the older religions will be replaced by more modern ones, that will turn into organised religion.
I grew up in a relaxed (not religiously fanatic) Catholic family. To me it all fell apart at 14, when I dared to critically think about it. Since then I have gathered as many books of the different religions as I could. The Bible was one of the last. I see new religions rising, constructed out of parts of the old ones mixed with new things. I can't see any really structured ones yet. I feel the old religions started pretty much the same. I don't believe in a higher, conscious power. I don't believe we are created, nor that we exist after we die. At most a few generations will remember us, now and then. I don't know any of that with 100% certainty, so that would make me an agnostic atheist I guess. I think we humans need to go for wellbeing, not pure economic/capitalistic metrics. Obviously you'll need a certain amount of money for wellbeing, but I also believe that there is more than enough to go around. It's just that a few take it all and we let them. We must finally take science and knowledge much more seriously. Hefty fines for bribing or forcing scientists and scientists that falsify data. Science it itself doesn't know ethics, so that has to be the human side of it: wellbeing.
Putin has his claws into way too many world leaders.
I also liked very much what was going on in the beginning, same as you. I don't want to Tesla shame anybody, sorry about that.
A strong polarisation occured the last few years. A splitting into a few fractions. And indeed, the rich becoming filthy, insanely rich. With so much money comes tremendous power. An increase in banning and outing those that think differently, where there used to be at least some dialogue. It's all a fight for power in the end. There's the power of the few rich. There's the power of the numerous people. It's not only those that take power, it's also those that give power.
There is definitely Russian propaganda, not that this is the only factor.