All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

My opinion on this generally boils down to that the system has been set up to reward evil/antisocial behavior, and this part of the system is so entrenched and well established and organized that it has not been effectively and completely toppled or eradicated in so long, it has been able to consolidate power and resources to a point where very few extremely evil people are personally in charge of so much of what happens that it seeps into everything. Actually “seeps” is the wrong word, it’s injected into everything. It’s like has been said many times in recent memory, the cruelty is the point.

For a simplified example, evil executives reward evil behavior by their managers, who in turn punish their employees, who lose control of so much of their lives to these companies and managers that they end up hurting their families and friends out of confusion and anger and other complex emotional reactions, and harm is perpetuated in every area of life.

It’s self sustaining, and even worse it replicates itself. In some ways I think of these systems as viruses. Also as cults. We all buy in to some degree.

It’s a global far right power grab fueled by money from Russia using weaponized disinformation. It’s been going on for decades at a smaller scale before Facebook, etc, even existed. It’s also fueled by conservative dark money groups funded by conservative billionaires. You should read the book Dark Money, I highly recommend it.

Even the antivax stuff is from Russia and it way predates the big platforms. It was started in the crunchy mom communities on Livejournal, where they first experimented with seeing if westerners would glom on to weird mommy trends like not using shampoo, nursing your kids to ridiculous ages, “unassisted birth”, which is where people deliver babies without any medical care at all, “unschooling”, etc. That took off in a big way and then they began with the antivax stuff, and used Livejournal as a tool of Russian government propaganda.

Then they started funding white supremacist groups, and the groups like the yellow vests, Moms for Liberty, etc. Really recommend learning about dark money and Russian weaponized disinformation.

Evil people control almost all sources of information

We are entering a major transition period, with many technological changes happening to disrupt the existing economy. One of the most important is the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

For hundreds of years, the energy economy has been a system where certain countries and companies controlled the locations on earth where fossil fuels are located, and had the technology to process the fuels. Fossil fuels by their nature require the user to buy “feedstock” as they go. The countries and companies that control fossil fuel production profit from this system and are some of the wealthiest groups in the world.

Renewable energy systems, such as solar, wind and batteries, require an upfront payment for the equipment. The cost of equipment for renewable energy is dropping every year. They can be located almost everywhere. There is no ongoing feedstock payment. Renewables break the fossil fuel industry model, and some of the wealthiest people in the world are scrambling to control governments to somehow retain their income flow. Currently their strategy is to delay implementation of renewables, but eventually they will try to create monopolies where they control the source of power and charge the customer about the same as they are paying now, with the utilities benefitting from the low cost of renewable power.

This is only one of the transitions happening at this time. There are many major disruptions coming from implementing AI in the economy, from electric vehicles and self-driving vehicles. There are probably many more transitions that no one is predicting or even imagining at this time. You can expect things to be crazy for a decade or more as these technologies change the way our economy, infrastructure and society is shaped.

Nothing has changed. The world is the same as its ever been. Maybe you have discovered a new definition of what you consider evil. What do you mean by evil? I doubt the ones you consider evil would consider themselves as such. There exists no good and no evil. There are only events that transpire and actions that take place. The world has no preference for such human concepts.

Why does it feel like evil is winning globally?

Propaganda works.

We are now innundated with it. And the answer is not “anti-propaganda” although sometimes that helps a little.

The answer is everyone needs to learn how media works; How words and images and sounds form the world.

And to do that requires the help of media corporations.

Because the return of massive wealth disparity - similar to having kings again - has allowed those with money and power to bend the world in the direction of some form of dictatorship, whether it be fascism, oligarchy, whatever…. The New Kings are carving up society and want to increase control and profit, and an authoritarian governance is the way to do it. Just like how they treat their corporations. They are dictators, the little people are disposable production units to feed their machine.

Because history is cyclical, and at all times some forces are on the losing side of it. Back in the days when the left was more powerful, the right complained about winning evil. Now it’s the other way around.

Note: this is not a “both sides” argument, I am left.

Babylon rots from the inside. Corrupt systems cannot last forever.

Perhaps, because by now enough people feel a real impact on their life and fear for the ruling classes is not there anymore?

Just a few examples from direct, personal experience (I am German, so what I enumerate has a German/Euro perspective):

• Constitutional state? Does not matter, as long as powerful/influential people can literally buy laws or prevent even discussion of laws in the parliament
  • Easy way to figure out who is favored by one law, is to check who has to prove something and how hard it is to prove
  • Best part about this is, people in power can always point out to the law and that ‘we’ agreed upon that law
• Systematic discrimination against the worker class/people not owning things: Thing about laws, taxes, …
• Every media has an agenda and is propaganda (In the west, propaganda means mostly being selective about the information presented and how to build the narrative. Only idiots in the west will outright lie about things. It also means, who gets to talk in the media, where to position news (headlines ore somewhere else) etc. Media are owned by rich people or the state owned media are controlled by people with strong affinity to political parties
• Corruption on all but the lowest levels, especially in the government (In Germany corruption on the lowest level is uncommon und has a high penalty, but go up the level a little bit and ‘you scratch my back and I scratch yours’)
• Nepotism on all but the lowest levels (Worked in many different companies and the bigger the company the worse it gets. Working class kid does not get an intern position although it would technically be the best choice? No worries, some kid with the right parents and no clue will have that opportunity.
• No feedback loops: In Germany, we have professional politics which have extremely good conditions for their pension, whose children do not visit public schools and who have private health care decide, what in their opinion is appropriate for most of the people in the country concerning this things…
• No real political influence: We just had the clown-show of voting. Guess what, I can only vote between Nazis and non-Nazis. Can I vote for more taxes for the rich, a sane economic agenda which not benefits the rich, and full military support for the Ukraine? Sorry, I am out of luck. Of course I am free to build my own party. Let’s see how successful that is without massive investment of money and good connections to the ruling classes to get positive media coverage.

Before the eastern block fell apart, at least in Europe/Germany, there was always the fear of the ruling class to experience another (French)revolution. Since this fear is gone, they literally have nothing to fear…

Is it possible to change anything about the situation? I am more than cynical by now:

• Most everyone is struggling to keep their level of wealth/position in society, so the middle class fights hard to be a little bit better of then the lower class, don’t even mention the upper middle class, which fights with nails and teeth for every little advantage and privilege they have
• The higher you go in hierarchies, the more sycophants you’ll discover, which don’t mind selling out other humans for status/privileges, and there are even true believers, so brainwashed by neoliberal agenda, that they will fight for the privileges of rich folk they will never belong to
• There is no way to organize enough people in real life to force any political change (especially not with an aging population)
• The ruling class figured out for a long time in western world, that instead of fighting facts/the truth, they just have to generate more bullshit, discussions, alternative narratives and lean back, because people will discuss and not agree
• Nearly all change to the status quo is opposed and fought by some group, which benefits from the status quo
• Neoliberal propaganda and views are so ubiquitous and pervasive in our media, stories, etc., that a lot of people cannot even think about alternatives any more.

That’s just for the western world, let’s not start about the dictatorships/regimes supported by western governments with money, weapons and knowledge, where things are even more shitty.

It’s not. We’re just more aware of it.

Don’t give in to despair!