this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

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[–] Ramblingman@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am not religious, but I like the substance of this quote by C.S. Lewis: "If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things —praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

There are always wars, rumours of wars, plagues, natural disasters, but the work remains the same as it has been for much of human history.

[–] androidul@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

well said, thank you for this

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago

Gen X here - we had Mutually Assured Destruction as well.

[–] Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Gen X checking in. Here's a list of world crises just in my lifetime. This is by no means a comprehensive list:

1975 - 1990: Lebanese Civil War
1976: Tangshan earthquake (China) - 242,000+ deaths
1979 - 1989: Soviet-Afghan War
1979: Three Mile Island nuclear accident
1980 - 1988: Iran-Iraq War
1981 - Present: HIV/AIDS pandemic
1983 - 1985: Ethiopian famine - 1 million+ deaths
1984: Bhopal gas disaster (India) - 15,000+ deaths
1986: Chernobyl nuclear disaster (USSR)
1987: Black Monday stock market crash
1989: Exxon Valdez oil spill
Late 80s - early 90s: Recession 1990 - 1991: Desert Storm
1991 - 2002: Somali Civil War & famine
1992 - 1995: Bosnian War & Srebrenica massacre
1994: Rwandan genocide - 800,000+ deaths
1999: Columbine High School massacre (the beginning of a trend)
2000: Y2K
2000: Recession (Dot Com Bubble, etc)
2001: 9/11
Early 2000s: Recession (Fallout from 9/11) 2001 - 2021: Afghanistan War
2003 - 2011: Iraq War
2004: Indian Ocean Tsunami - 230,000+ deaths
2005: Hurricane Katrina - 1,800+ deaths
2007 - 2008: Global Financial Crisis
2008 - 2009: Great Recession
2009: H1N1 swine flu pandemic
2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill
2010: Haiti earthquake - 160,000+ deaths
2011: Tōhoku Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
2011: Arab Spring uprisings & Syrian Civil War begins
2014: Ebola outbreak (West Africa) - 11,000+ deaths
2014: Russian annexation of Crimea
2015: European migrant crisis
2017: Hurricane Maria (Puerto Rico) - 3,000+ deaths
2019 - Present: Covid19
2020: Australian bushfires - 3 billion animals affected
2020: George Floyd protests & global BLM movement
2021: January 6th US Capitol riot
2022: Russian invasion of Ukraine
2022: Pakistan floods - 1,700+ deaths, 33 million displaced
2023: Turkey-Syria earthquakes - 50,000+ deaths
2023 - Present: Hamas-Israel war and open genocide
2025: Global Trade War

The first third of this list took place during the Cold War, when WWIII and nuclear attacks were a real fear. Add in climate change, the discovery of microplastics in everything, the world seemingly embracing Fascism again, and a whole slew of other shit, and it's no surprise that suicide rates have increased almost 40% over the past 25 years.

[–] RaccoonBall@lemm.ee 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

We didn't start the fire.
It was always burning, since the world's been turning

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 9 points 2 days ago

No we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it...

Did we fuck

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Another one for the list in early 1980 when US tried to start a nuclear war with Russia and that's when the doomsday clock was born. They told kids ‘just roll under a desk if a bomb drops’

Yes, a nuclear bomb. The same as the one in Hiroshima.

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[–] Tracaine@lemmy.world 141 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (7 children)

A lot of us are 40+ but I appreciate your meaning.

[–] argh_another_username@lemmy.ca 28 points 3 days ago (13 children)

We need to include the Cold War and the nuclear crisis to the list.

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[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I've become convinced after the recent India/Pakistan conflict that WW3 is near impossible under current conditions just due to the fact that you start losing your very expensive airforce really really quickly.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It seems the Ukraine conflict and the U.S's plans to counter China's push on Taiwan indicate that the future of warfare is:

....Just...a gazillion, never-ending swarms of coordinated, "cheap", militarized drones....

[–] HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons the War in Ukraine has gone on as long as it has is because of how much of the conflict has been taken up by the use of militarized drones, cutting down on (but not eliminating by any means) the amount of people getting killed.

Which is good in that it means fewer people dying in a pointless war for Putin's ego, but bad in that in that it dulls the human cost that has been known to really kill war efforts, even in dictatorships.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Before Ukraine, I’d read that idea quite a few times.

Previous wars were run on logistics and manufacturing - can you keep your guys supplied longer than the other side? But now you goto war with what you have, you lose ridiculously expensive and very lethal equipment very quickly. Modern equipment is so complex and expensive that you can never sufficiently speed up manufacturing, so once you’re out, you’re out. Your equipment may not last long enough to institute a draft and call up more people, so once you’re out, you’re out. War over. Very quickly.

That was the expectation. Then there’s Ukraine, which defied all expectations. Somehow it kept going, it turned into a logistics battle again. The modern lethality didn’t happen as expected

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

The losses for the Russian airforce has been huge, i feel like the war would be over now if not for the massive minefields they laid down sort of freezing the conflict

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As a Gen Xer who lived through the fall of the Berlin Wall and then all of the rest of this shit, I'm so tired. Y'all millennials even got to miss there Reagan years. Nixon may have started the car, but Reagan is the asshole that shifted it into drive, tossed a brick on the pedal, and let it go off down the mountain.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Real I'm not quite sure Y2K should be in there since it didn't really result in anything happening.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Y2K was like the ozone.

It became a big nothing issue because of the spreading awareness, hard work, and other activities that went into preventing it.

So like I said in another post.

The problem with crisis is always the people.

If nothing happens, cause of the hard work to prevent it, people riot over it being a big waste of time cause nothing happened

if something happens, then people riot because no one worked hard to prevent it.

[–] HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago

A theory of mine is that one of the reasons people don't take the various crises threatening to destroy civilization seriously is that we've lived through so many crises that were solved without the average person suffering that much.

Y2K, overpopulation, the decay of the ozone, acid rain, all major problems, which received major attention from government, media and the scientific community....and were solved, by the scientific community through incredible efforts that were unthinkable a generation before thanks to advances in science. But things didn't really change that much for your average schlub on the street. The change in fluorocarbons in bug spray or air conditioning units may have changed the price a bit, but not enough to really hurt the ordinary person's wallet.

In World War II, everyone participated, everyone did something, be it as big as risking their life on the battlefield, or as small as collecting old newspaper to recycle. Nothing in the past eighty years has demanded that kind of investment or sacrifice or commitment. A great swathe of our population simply cannot believe there is or can be an existential threat to life as we know it.

I have a similar theory about politics, that most Americans thinks of the modern American democracy as inevitable and irrevocable, thus don't take it seriously when the President's platform seems built around totally destroying democratic norms.

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[–] MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank software engineers for that.

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (7 children)

The real concern for computers is the Year 2038 problem.

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[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

It was considered pretty serious at the time. I remember being at a new year's party and everyone went outside at the ball drop to see if the world turned off.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Apparently IT people at the time had to deal with bunch of stuff and come to work at christmas just in case.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Hopefully "possible WW3" will turn out the same way.

[–] praxis_jack@lemmy.world 65 points 3 days ago (6 children)

It's missing working 3 jobs to survive and still being called entitled and lazy

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[–] hoch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Older Gen Z have lived through all of those as well, but before the age of 30 😭

Gen X went through a wall street crash and recession. We went through a recession when reagan screwed up the economy in the early 80's the frequency is just increasing.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] StonerCowboy@lemm.ee 32 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Pretty sure we are in a "unofficial world war 3" considering how there's like 6 countries at war

Russia vs Ukraine

Israel vs Palestine

India vs Pakistan

Americans vs America.

[–] TassieTosser@aussie.zone 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Does US vs the world in economic war count?

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[–] carrion0409@lemm.ee 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

We're also closing in on a potential second plague here with bird flu since there's been a concerning surge of infections in cats and the current regime is refusing to act on it.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Don't forget the return of measles, as well as even more e-coli and salmonella outbreaks as food safety is curtailed.

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[–] morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de 50 points 3 days ago (18 children)

Y2K wasn't that bad compared to the rest

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[–] fenrasulfr@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

I still remember watching the news as a child right after the tsunami of 2004 and seeing the death toll rising day by day.

It is only going to get worse with climate catastrophy barely being addresed. Hunger and water shortage is only going to increasr the frequencies of wars and pandemics. Which will result in more and more extremism.

[–] minorkeys@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Add a housing crisis, the construction of a corporate surveillance state, a fascist takeover and the impending employment apocalypse of AI implementation.

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[–] JulieLemming@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago

Milkdrinkers

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

Interesting times

[–] grode@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Oh yeah, 9/11. The biggest issue of this generation. I imagine millennials in Ukraine be like “war is tough, but thank God 9/11 is over”

[–] MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

I don't know how old you were during 9/11 but it was an awful time to grow up. Out of nowhere you were being bombarded with messages of hate towards of nebulous group of "others". The country overnight decided that unabashed Islamophobia was in vogue (previously there was still hate but not as outright). Think the Asian hate during covid but ramped up to 11. Your country was changing (at least from a young persons perspective) and all the sudden our allies were not to be trusted (remember freedom fries?). The US became embroiled in what was ostensibly a forever war for no reason.

It wasn't the worst thing, but people were going to war again and that was very clear and very scary. The financial crashes probably take the spotlight since they affected a lot more Americans directly and it's possible that everyone knew someone who lost or had to leave their home, but 9/11 changed the country in unmistakable ways and it was scary to watch and then have to witness the fallout without really having much understanding and certainty no agency. I don't think the meme is saying all of these things are equally bad. Just pointing out that these were major events and possible inflection points in history that didn't break in favor of justice.

[–] grode@lemm.ee 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The world is bigger than the states. My country didn’t give a damn about a couple of towers. My comment mentions Ukraine as an exaggerated example to show people how unimportant 9/11 was for everyone in literally any other country in the world.

In any case, point taken, I hope you got my point as well

[–] jonesey71@lemmus.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was in prime conscription age. My father was called up for Vietnam but refused conscription and only the end of the conflict kept him out of jail. I had already applied with selective service as required when I turned 18 and when I saw the second tower get hit, followed by the pentagon, I was certain we were going to be in another conscripted war. Anyone who blows off the impact of 9/11 wasn't there for it. Anyone who thinks it is history doesn't realize how many rights we lost on that day that we will never get back doesn't understand.

I couldn't agree more. Things might have turned out similarly regardless, but there's a non-zero chance that without it the patriot act, the second bush term, and the following collapse of civil liberties would not have occurred, or at least would have taken more time or a different path. Sometimes you see people say al-Qaeda won that day and though I don't think anyone really won, sine it and the aftermath were devastating worldwide, they certainly had some of their aims accomplished.

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[–] PartyAt15thAndSummit@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is very obviously a US-centric meme, as evidenced by the first word in the header, "milennials."

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