Are you growing less moral?

yeah, I often think about how life is easy for sociopaths. there are numerous scams and frauds that I could have used to enrich myself if I had no morals. just going into crypto groups on telegram and pump and dumping memecoins to other online communities could have made me tons of money. liars and bullies usually get everything they want and are never punished. guilt hits me like a ton of bricks over the smallest things. i couldn't imagine leaving my cart in the lot. if i ever tread on anybody or get in their way i feel ashamed and horrible.

Funny you should ask, this did occur to me just the other day as I was separating my trash into all the different recycling bins in front of our flat. I thought to myself in that moment, "Zuckerberg is on his eleventh house right now and is building himself a bunker on top of it, I wonder if HE recycles."

It's all just so depressing, and the disparity is only going to get worse. Thank fuck I won't be alive to see the Blade Runner or Alien-type future.

I definitely think along the lines of R2. Here's an article that posits today's self-help books are geared towards making our selfish society even more so.

"There’s a certain flavor of advice that is dominating the self-help bestseller list. These books have titles like “The Courage to Be Disliked” and “Set Boundaries, Find Peace.” They tell readers not to worry so much about letting people down, not to answer those calls from aggravating friends, not to be afraid of being the villain. This all becomes more alarming when you think of the bestseller list as a mirror of the social moment, which some historians say it may be."

No, not really.

I have to live with myself. Corny but true.

No, I could never, ever become like those I neither respect nor even like. I will never emulate nor embrace the things I see some despicable people doing just to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Integrity is not something you place on shelf when it’s convenient. Either you have it or you don’t.

There is a special place in Hell for dog owners in NYC who think rules of any kind do not apply to them.

On the other hand, post-COVID I’ve realized that mine is a lost cause. I gave up caring. They won.

I’m with R5. My beliefs and behaviors don’t hinge on others’ behaviors.

Yes, it often frustrates me or makes me sad to see how others behave. On a daily basis I see people jumping the turnstile in the train station, boarding the bus without paying, littering - even when a trash can is a few feet away, pushing past others without so much as an Excuse me.

All of that sometimes makes me want to isolate. Or get away. But it never makes me think Oh, those folks are great role models. No.

I had an acquaintance, an elementary school teacher no less, who got on the bus ahead of me and walked right past the driver without paying/tapping. I said to him What’s up with that? His response: The guy in front of me didn’t pay so why should I. I just felt disgusted.

Nope.

This administration was really fucking with my mental health, but I have managed to pull out of my despair, & have reframed how I choose to view myself in all of this bullshit.

I’m not going to become a cunt because others are, nor am I going to lose myself because others have.

Is anyone else blown away by aggressive driving these days? I feel like there has been a notable increase in such behaviors after COVID. People tailgate me so aggressively when I'm only going 5 over that it feels like they're on the verge of hitting me on purpose, getting out of their car, and dragging me out of mine for a beating.

R9, yes, I've noticed that too. That's why our car insurance is through the roof as well.

I feel like I've become MORE moral. But does it count when it comes from a base of anger?