It's ok to laugh, even when the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
It's ok to laugh, even when the world is going to hell in a handbasket.
Laugh while you still can.
Monty Python’s legendary 1979 comedy, Life of Brian, is a satirical Jesus parody and follows the adventures of Brian the Messiah. The crucifixion is one of the most iconic scenes in movie history: Crucified convicts sing “Always look on the bright side of life” to cheer up Brian while he’s dying on the cross.
This is a great example of gallows humor, also known as black humor or dark comedy.
For most of history, life was unimaginably shitty. And starving peasants all around the world dealt with it the same way: they got shitfaced, they cursed a lot, and they laughed at their problems.
You can either let life get you down, or you can laugh in the face of adversity. It may not get you anywhere, but hey, at least it’s more fun that way.
You know why we don’t have a tail anymore? Because there’s no evolutionary advantage to having a tail. It would just get in the way.
You know why we have a sense of humor? Because it keeps us alive. Having a sense of humor is an evolutionary advantage. It beats not having a sense of humor.
Humor is a coping mechanism. It’s a survival skill. Being able to laugh when something bad happens is good for our mental health. It saves us from going insane with grief and despair.
“I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.”
“Life does not cease to be funny when people die, any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.”
“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
Ask any military vet, and they’ll tell you that combat troops on the front lines have a very dark sense of humor. Being able to laugh while under enemy fire is really the only way to get through the day without losing your mind.
You can’t really blame Ukrainian troops for laughing, when Russia accidentally bombs their own troops. Again.
By the way, Russians are famous for having a very dark sense of humor, because in Russia life is shit.
In his own words: Alexei Navalny's dark humor during dark times
Ask any firefighter, cop, or ambulance driver about the jokes they tell each other. It’s very dark stuff about crispy corpses, and severed dicks. It helps them survive the horrors they see in their line of duty.
Cancer patients joke about cancer, not because cancer is funny, but because it helps them deal with their fear. Laughing at the things that terrify you makes them a little less terrifying.
Jews in concentration camps told each other Holocaust jokes. Not because the Holocaust was funny, but because it was horrible, and they were trying to stay alive by finding a brief moment of joy wherever they could.
Jewish comedian Robert Clary, who was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp and later acted in the 1960s sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, says that making people laugh during the Holocaust saved his life.
Humor helped some people cope with atrocious conditions in ghettos and concentration camps as they suffered under Nazi brutality. It served as a form of protest and a way to maintain dignity in the most undignified of circumstances.
On November 5th, the dumbest people in America voted for fascism and national suicide.
Most Americans have not fully grasped yet how bad things are gonna get for each and every single one of us.
Orange Hitler spits on democracy and praises dictators. Because he wants to be one himself. He has said so many times.
And his MAGA Nazis voted for that. They want him to be a dictator. To “punish” their “enemies.”
I used to think if I can make MAGA dumbfucks see that Trump is a Nazi, they won’t vote for him. But the truth is, they voted for him because he’s a Nazi.
MAGA Nazis love Adolf Hitler. They think he’s cool. That’s why they voted for Orange Hitler.
MAGA Nazis cackle with glee at the thought of making liberals cry, because they enjoy the thought of making others suffer. The cruelty is the point. The more Orange Hitler torments liberals, the more his MAGA Nazis love him.
Christofascist MAGA Nazis think Democrats are satanic demons from hell.
And they think of themselves as Christian warriors on a mission from God to exterminate evil.
And Christian warriors on a mission from God to exterminate evil have no intention of peacefully co-existing with satanic demons from hell.
They will try to eliminate us. That’s what the MAGA Nazis mean by making America great again: getting rid of all the people they hate.
Fascism is eliminationism. Deporting 20 million Latinos is just the beginning.
That’s what they mean when they say “the storm is coming.” The storm is a euphemism for genocide.
Fascists use lies as a weapon, to incite hate and violence.
Fascist lies get people killed. That’s how the Holocaust happened.
Growing up in Germany, we learned in school how Nazis blame all the problems they cause on their victims.
Orange Hitler will fuck up America, and blame everything on Democrats. His fascist propaganda will make MAGA Nazis' blood boil and incite hate and violence against immigrants, minorities, and all Democrats.
Oh, and remember when MAGA Nazis pretended to be all about states’ rights?
Now they’re gonna use the federal government to force their will on blue states. Because it was never really about states’ rights.
To MAGA Nazis it was always about forcing their will on others. And now they no longer need to hide it.
The government's one and only job is to protect the little folks from corrupt robber barons. And MAGA dumbfucks just put the robber barons in charge of regulating their own corruption. Great idea! What could go wrong?
These corrupt motherfuckers will dismantle government agencies like the FDA, that protect us from asbestos in breakfast cereal, pesticides in your orange juice, and thousands of other cancer-causing (but cheap and profitable) ingredients.
And that’s just one of thousands of things they’re gonna do in the next 4 years, to enrich themselves at our expense. They will make all our lives much worse, to buy themselves another yacht.
They’ll dismantle social security and the affordable healthcare act. Because billionaires are criminally insane money hoarders, and they don’t like to pay taxes. So they don’t want the government to spend any money on helping the poors.
Added bonus: the more desperate you are, the harder you’ll work for less money.
We will all suffer, whether you voted for Trump or not. You’re just too dumb to know it yet, if you voted for Trump.
And here’s the cherry on top: It’s not just gonna be the next 4 years. Even if Trump leaves office, which he won’t, the damage he and the other robber barons will do to America’s institutions will be catastrophic. That’s the point.
They even want to get rid of the department that tracks weather patterns and warns Americans when a hurricane is approaching.
Do you understand how fucking insane that is?
Orange Hitler and his MAGA Nazis will spend the next 4 years making sure they will never have to give up power again. There won’t be free and fair elections in 2028. They’ll make sure of that, because they’re now the ones in charge of elections. And they openly admit that they hate democracy.
They have shown us on January 6th and on many other occasions, that they’re willing to lie and cheat and do absolutely anything to steal an election.
They will dismantle democracy step by step, just like Erdogan in Turkey and Orban in Hungary.
But don’t worry, it’s now also official government policy to deny global warming.
Oil robber barons can pollute as much as they want, no matter how much it ruins the planet for future generations.
Kinda ironic that MAGA Nazis pretend to give a shit about children, when they obviously couldn’t care less about the future of their own children. Gen Z and Gen Alpha will have to survive on a planet that becomes increasingly hostile to humans.
Fun fact: There’s a temperature limit at which the human body can no longer survive. It starts to break down and die. Basically the protein in your body slowly fries, like an egg on hot asphalt.
And that temperature is a lot lower than you think.
Hottest Survivable Temperatures Are Lower Than Expected
A "wet-bulb" reading of 95 degrees Fahrenheit — or roughly 99 degrees using standard measurements — is considered the limit for human survivability over six hours of unshaded outdoor exposure.
Wet-globe readings account for a combination of air temperature, relative humidity, sun angle, cloud cover and wind speed.
But the study found that millions of Americans, particularly elderly and health-compromised individuals, could die at web-bulb temperatures much lower than 95 F, particularly as humidity increases and other human factors come into play.
A healthy young adult, for example, could die after six hours of exposure to a 92 F temperature with 50 percent humidity, according to the study. A healthy elderly person could die at 91 F under the same humidity levels.
The wet bulb globe temperature doesn’t just track temperature but also humidity. When it’s really humid, like in Florida, the heat is worse, because your sweat doesn’t evaporate, and can’t cool you off. That’s why humid heat feels worse than dry heat.
And when your body can’t cool off, you die. Every year, there are more heat waves, and they’re getting longer and hotter. All it takes is one intense heatwave in a population center, to kill tens of thousands of people.
And that’s already happening all over the world. So far mostly in areas that have always been hot, but have gotten even hotter in the last few years, and now cross the temperature limit that is no longer survivable for humans.
Climate scientists predicted this would happen in a few decades, but it’s happening a lot sooner than anticipated, because the climate models were too conservative. The planet is heating much faster than expected.
More than 1,300 people died during Hajj, many of them after walking in the scorching heat.
Why women are especially vulnerable during India’s deadly heat waves.
Heatwave last summer killed 61,000 people in Europe, research finds.
Heat waves have killed thousands this year. Experts say the worst could be yet to come. Across the world, climate change is driving deadly heat — but it will only worsen unless we end fossil fuels.
Spoiler alert: We’re not gonna end fossil fuels. We’re gonna use moar. MOARRR!
Trump and the other corrupt robber barons will make sure of that. They’re old and will die soon anyway. They don’t give a shit what happens to the rest of us after they’re dead.
Heat waves that cross the 95 degree Fahrenheit wet bulb threshold will happen more and more often, in more and more areas around the world.
We’re literally frying ourselves.
But corrupt robber barons want you to ignore it so they can make a few more billions before their greed kills us all.
So yeah, we’re fucked. None of us are getting out alive.
Don’t bother making long term plans, because the rest of your life is probably a lot shorter than you realize right now.
Things are gonna get much worse than you think. You lack the imagination to truly wrap your head around what’s in store for us. We are sooo fucked.
Spend the time you have left doing things you enjoy. Make each day count. Do something that makes you happy, every day. Masturbate more! Complain less! Laugh more! Do some of the things on your bucket list, while you still can.
These will be the good old days soon.
Make it a point to find and appreciate the little moments of joy in your life.
The darkness will come for us all.
But not today. Today we drink and curse and laugh!
Remember: The only reason why we have a sense of humor is to survive times like these.
"Looks like I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue" Lloyd Bridges, Airplane.
I couldn’t read all of it because it was spiking my anxiety. You grew up in Germany; I grew up all over the world—my father wasn’t in the military. He was a sociologist and functional alcoholic. We moved every 2 to 3 years and both my parents were narcissists. An international move every 2 to 3 years with no support other than random teachers. My sisters are also both assholes; we don’t speak. So I have quite a bit of trauma in my past. What I never thought about is why I have such a great sense of humor.