In this day and age, there's a lot to be upset about. Humanity seems to be fast tracked into doomsday given the pandemic, climate crisis, social and economic injustices, and wars waged across the globe.
Sometimes, even with all that is around us, we are given first hand reasons to lose faith in humanity. Without hesitation, people will show their true colors.
The Scientific American journal says we are in an empathy deficit in the U.S. They recommend that we remind ourselves how everyone is at the end of their ropes these days, which can bring out the worst in us.
Redditor TastyTwix asked:
"What has made you lose all of your hope in humanity?"
Hopefully this doesn't completely destroy your faith in humanity.
Being a server.
"Guys, I worked as a waitress, and bartender for years..."
"And still, nothing prepared me for the level of a**holery I've encountered over the pandemic period."
"I sincerely hope someone like Gordon Ramsey teams up with Louis Theroux to make a f*cking docuseries about this."
"Fellow waitress, it was bad before the pandemic but damn after, it's like people forgot how to manners. It's terrible, my biggest problem personally is, I'm female, and I guess people take that as an invitation to do/say whatever they damn please."
- Emmy1369
"Yep, I did deliveries for a restaurant till mid 2020, when I wasn't out doing deliveries i basically did security for the waitresses since I got the qualifications. The sheer level of entitled a**holery is off the charts. I'm glad I got out of hospitality and now I work security."
"Honestly, the restaurant industry as a whole needs to institute a zero tolerance policy for abuse towards staff."
"We had that at my last workplace for a whole f*cking week, before one of the people mouthing off actually got kicked out by a manager for being a d*ck and complained. Suddenly the owners were claiming we had to be 'more hospitable.'"
"To paraphrase Dave Chapelle: 'Don't be a hero, because heroes don't die comfortable deaths.'"
"'Heroes happen because someone made a mistake. We don't want any heroes today.'"
"-Unnamed unit commander, Persian Gulf War"
"Grocery worker, here. I feel this in my soul. The worst thing I've heard this past year is, 'The job is essential, not the person doing it.' It's clear they'd rather let us all die or lose our minds and just hire replacements to keep repeating the cycle. Humanity sucks."
"Teacher Hero reporting in."
- Badloss
"You actually got called a hero? In the UK, teachers got sh*t on constantly, being told we were lazy and just didn't want to work. It got really bad over Christmas, when teachers went to their unions and began refusing to go back after the holidays because the UK was in the middle of the deadlier second wave. I can't tell you the amount of people in my life I had to explain to that schools weren't closed, we were always open for keyworker and vulnerable children throughout, while also juggling full time online learning. It was a f*cking sh*t show and a lot of long serving staff members have left."
Adoption and foster care.
"The fact that you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to adopt a child. Like what the f*ck, they are basically just set up to never be adopted."
"AMEN. Most people have NO idea what a broken, convoluted, expensive and set up for failure system it is. When faced with infertility, my husband and I looked into adopting and were quickly turned off. Domestic and international adoption is ultimately babies for sale. Foster to adopt is also tough - there are few babies or young children available, most have already been the victims of severe abuse and neglect (children are in foster care for a reason, and it's never a good one) and reunification is usually the goal. You could foster a child for years only to have some parent or relative show up and the child is then removed from your care. Termination of parental rights takes forever and is never guaranteed. Plus, for fostering or adoption you need to open up your entire life to various third parties - your finances, your marriage, your extended family, your career -- to determine if you're 'worthy' of being a parent."
"My husband and I ended up going the IVF route - we had 2 babies over the course of four years for about $5K out of pocket, which would not even have covered a home study and a lawyer's retainer fee if we wanted to adopt. Everything was just between us and our doctor. We knew our babies' genetic backgrounds, I was able to take care of myself during my pregnancies and had proper prenatal care. When those babies were born, they were 100% ours - no 'open' adoptions (which is the setup for most domestic adoptions these days), no birth parents changing their minds at the 11th hour, etc."
"The system is so, so broken and it's the babies and children who lose out the most, by far."
"This actually just happened to someone I know. She had three children in her foster care and she was set to adopt all three of them. She did all the necessary steps and petitions to have them adopted. Then out of no where, a family member wanted them to come live with them. So these poor children who never knew anyone in this family suddenly want them back in their lives."
"The children she was going to adopt already called her Mom. When I heard that these children were being ripped from a very safe and loving family with great schools to go live somewhere not safe broke my heart. The social worker failed the children."
The TikTok commenters defended a killer.
A 24-year-old killed a mother and child while he was street racing and TikTok teens defended him.
"People on TikTok saying a person who killed two innocent lives should not go to jail bc 'he's too young and handsome.'"
"He deserves the full sentence. It makes me sick to hear people trying to justify his crimes. It was not the first time he was punished for Street Racing."
- gaggnar
Sandy Hook deniers.
"Sandy Hook deniers were harassing the parents. I didn't know I could hate so much. Humanity is doomed with a**holes like them in this world. They live among us."
"This one of the worst things I ever did read on Reddit."
- gaggnar
"When people deny the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, claiming it's about gun control I just wanna say, 'People didn't give enough of a f*ck to take your guns when 20 five year old's were killed, you really think they would try it again using teenagers?' It makes me sick."
Can we eat the rich yet?
"Seeing NFTs sell for millions of dollars."
"Don't worry, they are just tax scams."
"It's like art, a semi liquid asset that rich people use to quickly move funds around."
- marekelu
It's just exhausting to witness.
"Sheer exhaustion of witnessing some peoples' behaviors towards others and the lack of kindness in general."
- kmcp1
If you feel like you need to restore some faith in humanity after reading this, take a look at this list that came out this year. Now all hope is lost!
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.