Today, I watched a video shared by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy where a Russian drone, on a “human safari”, chased Yuri, a 52-year-old market vendor around his vegetable stand until the drone dove down next to Yuri and blew up. It was nauseating to watch. Luckily, Yuri escaped with cuts and a concussion, but if you watch the video, you’d agree Yuri’s lucky to be alive.

I don’t recommend watching it, but in case you’re overly curious, here it is:

Aside: I know it’s common for most people to want to watch videos like that. However, I’ve always avoided it. Even when I was deployed to Iraq, I avoided seeing death and injuries whenever I could. Once, there were a couple of Iraq soldiers who were messing around with a piece of munition that blew up on them. They both died. This happened as my patrol was pulling into the base. We were told what happened and every single one of my squad members - except my friend and I - didn’t go look. My friend was an older soldier who experienced much more combat than I did and he told me you can’t un-see something like that and you never forget the smell. That was enough for me to follow his lead. I’ve never regretted that decision. Perhaps that’s why this video shook me so much. I am an avid horror movie fan and I can stomach a lot of gore because I know it’s fake. I continue to avoid viewing violence and death. For this video, the way the Atlantic article worded it, I imagined it much less scary and a close-call as this one was. I don’t regret watching it though. It’s a healthy dose of reality.

Just knowing this level of depravity exists is enough to cement my world-view cynicism. I’m not proud of being a cynic. In fact, I’m pretty sure it makes me rather miserable to be around. Yet, it’s not like my cynicism is unfounded. Isn’t it logical to conflate various outcomes of the current state of US politics like:

  • the war in Iran using up all of the US’s most sophisticated munitions and blowing through billions of dollars with no credible advances
  • no one being held accountable for their ties to Epstein and the lack of justice in the Justice Department
  • paying more for almost everything due to tariffs, the Iran war, and corporate greed
  • ICE agents and National Guard soldiers tormenting neighborhoods, especially minorities
  • congressional redistricting to favor the Republicans
  • the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the attack on women’s healthcare
  • the national deficit exploding beyond what is ever repayable thanks to aesthetic, ego-minded projects like the White House ballroom project, the wading pool, adding a name to the Kennedy center (then removing it)
  • ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling the tariffs are illegal and adding new tariffs while big companies like Amazon get huge tariff refunds that will likely never trickle down to use consumers - the ones that actually paid for the tariffs

I can add much more to that list but it’s sort of panic-inducing bullshit that I’m completely sick of. The video Zelenskyy shared was a tipping point for me. I never considered being a cynic something to be proud of. I’d love to feel optimistic about the current state of the world and its future. As a father, I hate coming across to my wife and children that I’ve given up on the world being a positive place and worth participating in. I’d give anything to feel a glimmer of hope again, but there doesn’t seem to be an organization or a person alive capable of pushing back on this momentum towards the utter collapse of a civilized world.

Then again, maybe I’m reading too many of Dave Pollard’s posts on how to save the world.