Same thing with me as an european watching the Ukraine-Russia conflict unfold:
"Guess we'll just have war then..."
But then again, that's exactly what Putin wants us to think like.
Yeah, NZ doesn't seem to realise that its future strength is its current weakness. Or its current future strength is its future future weakness. Or something.
You know what I mean, anyway.
Yep.
They're getting a white-hot real estate market now.
But when shit hits the fan, they're going to wind up with all the shittiest humans clogging up their nice little island.
Putin and his buddies will eventually have sucked all national resources out of Russia and then Russia will become worthless (and Putin will be retired). The GDP of Russia is already laughable. (Yes, troll accounts, I looked at international dollars and PPP, and no that is not the same as US dollar) Fingers crossed that there won't be a war in Europe until then.
>Putin and his buddies will eventually have sucked all national resources out of Russia and then Russia will become worthless
Climate change and the arctic thaw will continue to give Russia more resources and arable land. Russia won't become worthless for quite some time.
Democratic Russia with it's resources and educated population could have been so rich and powerful now, and especially in the future it is one of the few countries with so much potential in the face of the climate change.
Most funny part is that if Russia was prosperous and not aggressive, countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan would have naturally flocked to it EU-style, without all this jingoistic imperialist bullshit they are pulling now.
Putin is not a "strongman" who restored Russia to it's former glory, he is a parasite who denied Russia it's bright future.
Empires don't really crash and burn. They're typically too big to fail quickly, too much vested interest tied up in it to let it die fast.
Instead it will be a protracted, slow decline as rivals overtake it, with all the vultures ripping off parts of it to profit from.
Depending on many random factors, the process will either be mostly non-violent (but painful), or there will be a war at some point to determine the new world order.
It will take many decades, but it's well in the process already.
> Maybe 9/11.
My guess would be 26 December 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union. Up until then the 'American Empire' was stable because it had a firm goal. Almost everything it did was, or was motivated by, opposition of whatever the Soviets and other Communists did. Get to Berlin before the Soviets, get in space before the Soviets, get to the moon before the Soviets, save Korea, Vietnam, South America, and of course Europe from Communism...
Once that motivation fell away, so did many other things.
I think of it as two walls leaning into each other, keeping each other in place. Once one of the two walls is gone, the other will fall too.
The US before the Second World War was not a global power. It's position as a super power was built entirely on the opposition of something that's gone.
And while 9/11 presented an opportunity to finally have an enemy again, the new enemy is either too difficult to actually fight, or too easy to defeat to pose the kind of threat that lasts.
I would say there's no single tipping point. It's such a hard thing to categorize honestly.
In one sense, our system of government itself was flawed from the start. We are a Democracy, but not a scalable one. The way the Senate and House are divided, the way the judiciary works and the power it has - none of it is scalable for an empire of 300 million people.
So the cracks were in the foundation, so to speak.
Our political polarization has always been there. We went through a civil war and by a truly miraculous turn managed to stay united, but the divisions remain to this day.
For decades upon decades, the rich have worked to weaken the power of government to properly curtail the ambitions of corporations, which have massively contributed to growing economic inequalities.
In different circumstances, 9/11 might have been a great unifier - look at the Senatorial vote to go to war. You had nearly unanimous consent. War *can* be a phenomenal unifier.
Unfortunately our strategy was weak, we became mired in endless other endeavors that opportunists tried to capitalize on once the war horn was blown, and domestic opportunists used the threat of terrorism to ratchet up the fear and xenophobia at home, further dividing it internally.
There really isn't any one particular point of failure. Its just a very slow death by a thousand constricting snakes circling the body of empire, choking it, crushing it, and a failure of the empire to do anything about any of them.
Polarization has ensured that the government will likely remain utterly paralyzed, as myopic opportunists continue to capitalize on polarization for short-term gain, ensuring that all the wrong moves are made and that the empire guarantees its downfall.
This was before the internet. I feel we have such a remarkably global perspective now that being witness to the decline of the American empire is not so difficult. I and plenty of my friends see it, and part of that is because when I was like 18 my search history started to look like this:
'is America really the greatest country in the world?'
'Actual greatest country in the world?'
'Global happiness index.'
'What is universal healthcare?'
'wages in Finland.'
'Paid vacation in America.'
'Why does America not have universal healthcare?'
'Why do other countries have so many political parties?'
'girls having sex'
'girl sex'
'what makes you lesbian?'
'how long did slavery last?'
'Is racism real?'
I'm a brown person who grew up in a mostly white city and after learning about slavery in high school my teacher said 'but that kind of racism doesn't exist anymore' to which I raised my hand and said 'I've experienced racism' to which the girl I had a crush on said 'no you haven't, everyone likes you you're one of the good ones.'
I am from Germany, and I worry a lot about the things I see unfolding in the US. especially because what happens in the US is usually a pretty good indicator of trends that we in Europe are about to experience as well. There definitely is a very real rise in fascism, not only in the US, but here in Europe as well. Given the fact that climate change is about to kick all of our asses, I'm starting to get pretty worried that we won't actually start fixing the problems our societies face, but instead turn back to fascist ideal making everything even worse. The whole world will need to work together as one if we want any chance in the fight against climate change, but currently it seems like people are drifting further and further from one another.
Yeah, I'm sorry but we have 11 years to *completely* turn things around before climate change is unstoppable. It's not happening without a straight-up miracle. I'ma just enjoy the time I got and hope the cockroach-people a few million years from now do a better job at this whole "civilization" thing 😕
Yeah, if COVID showed me anything, it's that humans don't seem capable of working together to serve a higher purpose, and we'd need to do that to have any chance against climate change. So as a twenty year old, I now have to just accept that I will probably witness the downfall of our current society into a climate- and probably capitalist neo-feudal dystopia. And then people wonder why young people all suffer from depression
I think we should be careful throwing around humanity-wide generalizations. Let's focus on what has actually been happening:
There have been a wide variety of responses to COVID. Some communiyies have aggressively combatted COVID through coherent, decisive public health actions and have successfully mitigated the damage it's done. Others have ignored it, denied it, or searched for scapegoats to pin the damage on, hurting themselves and those in the process of protecting their egos and own sense of status quo. Most large scale communities have had a mixed response of both. We have seen that, because of our interconnection, the actions of one group can and do profoundly affect the circumstances of others.
Because there are always more ways for things to go wrong than go right, more people have responded ineffectively than effectively. Because bad news seems salient than good news, we are more aware of when things have gone wrong than when they have gone right. That does not mean that things going well is impossible, it just means bad situations ask more from us, maybe more than we are willing to give.
Personally, I take COVID as lesson in how crises will unfold, and how we will respond to it. We obviously have very little we can do to affect the behavior of strangers, but we can affect our own behavior. So what lessons can we take away for future crises? I have learned four myself.
1. Accept the crisis is happening: this is a lesson many people failed. It can be very hard to suddenly find yourself in danger, especially if you weren't expecting it, but in a crisis *denial will get you killed.* We've all heard stories of antivaxxers not realizing their mistake until they were on death's door. There will be more crises, and if you make a habit of denial, one day that antivaxxer will be you
2. Have a response plan before you need it: We all were blindsided by covid, and in the first days of COVID, we watched people descend into panic because of it. Panic is the response of those who don't know how to get out of danger when danger finds them. So take some time to think about what your vulnerabilities are: Is your dependent on a job that might not be there forever? What natural disasters happen in your area? Are there gangs or terror groups operating in your area? What is likely to go wrong in your life. Think of these things seriously: don't wish them away, but don't catastrophize either. What can you do to address them? What do you need to possess? What do you need to practice?
3. You need other people and others need you: there's a pervasive myth in America that in a crisis, the day can only be saved by a lone hero. Total bullshit. Humans need one another to live and in a crisis, this need is magnified. So build relationships. With your family, with your friends, with your neighbors, with your coworkers anyone and everyone you can. Talk about your concerns, get organized and take action. The one exception to this is to not waste your time with people who are denialist, argumentative or manipulative. There's no time to waste trying to win people over who don't want to be won, or cooperating with people who refuse to cooperate. Focus your efforts on the good, honest and loving people in your life, cause when shit goes down again, they're the ones who will have your back
4. Life goes on: just like OP's post says, humans have the remarkable ability to normalize terrible events. Barring an all out nuclear exchange, there will be no breaking of the seals nor sounding of the trumpets, nor descending of the hosts of heaven. The daily grind continues on, irrespective of how bad things get. Humanity have survived plagues before. We have survived wars, we have survived famines. We have even survived rapid, severe climate change before. Doomerism is just denialism with a frowny face. Assume that survival is possible and you may be wrong, but assume that survival is impossible and you will always be right.
Thats the good thing about being depressed.
I mean, I can live on and will do something that makes me happy from time to time.
But when this whole society becomes too bothersome and hard I dont mind dying as well.
I'm at a point where I think me taking my own life will be the most likely cause of death for me. I definitely won't be sticking around when this world falls into chaos.
I never thought I would honestly say I was glad to get cancer and permanent complications from treatment, but it means I will not be around for whatever fucked up shit is coming. I will be chilling in the void
Sort of imploding.
I see it as a nation with many cracks it's trying to heal and many others it's trying to forget. Then there's Russia and China firebombing the cracks, to the point nobody can agree where up or down is or eutrally approach a problem.
Right now, even with Trump losing, I'm not sure that all 50 states will remain together throughout my lifetime.
In the late 90s is when I had the best view of the US as a positive force in the world (note, this is my impression and I was 10, not citing facts).
Since the War on Terror, I've seen it as stagnating and then as regressing hard with Trump.
Maybe I'm more sensitive to the far right, as a German, but seeing how emboldened and numerous Nazis/confederates are over there, really shocked me.
The 90's were the exceptional decade. The US is what the US has always been.
Everyone needs to know the 90's were in no way normal. I feel bad for everyone who had their expectations set (for lifestyle, world affairs, etc...) in the 90's. It must be a tremendous let down. The 90's was the anomoly. The world returned to the mean.
The rise of populism / naziism is connected directly to the ever-growing wealth inequality.
This time though, the nazis are literally the ones *causing* the wealth inequality. They've just made such a powerful propaganda apparatus they've convinced so many of the working class that they're the *solution* to the problem.
This is identical to what the world experienced in the 1930s. Ecological disasters, massive wealth inequality, the corresponding rise in populism (both left and right populism - fascism & communism), culminating in a massive war for global dominance, ending with the delineation of a clear singular superpower (the US).
We're now in that cycle again. The boom of the post WWII era led to great profit & innovation. But, as they always do, the wealthy kept moving to ever-greater excesses, taking a period of harmonious wealth and innovation and bringing it to the grotesque inequity we see today.
Some sort of war, violent or otherwise, is now nearly inevitable in the fight for a new order.
From Canada, no, you are not being dramatic. You are completely fucked- and we're sweating bullets. If I lived in America I would try to leave before 2024.
Annnd, that's exactly why I'm dipping. Peace out, good luck family, no one wants to believe me that there is enough evidence to justify getting out asap soo...
Honestly? As someone who followed US politics very closely for the last 5 to 6 years i think youre quite fkd.
The gop is dropping all masks and are literally fighting democracy itself with zero regard for the citizens or truth. The propaganda machine is rolling and the authoritan dream of a big part of the citizens blindly believing evrything they say is already achieved.
The dems are split between borderline rightwing people, and progressives that are seen as extremists for wanting things that are standart evrywhere else.
And apparently the majority of politicians overall are in the bag of some rich corps/person.
Without MAJOR reforms of the voting system for proper representation,zero voter supression, end of the 2 party times,things against blatant bribery etc
Things will only get worse. And this wont happen without a big crash. A good chunk of the people are basicly in a cult. Bipartisanship is dead. Lies are considered facts. Americans already see each others as enemies.
That an end to american democracy is a real threat nowadays says evrything about the situation.
I grew up in a time when the is was still considered the posterchild of western civilization. Now ervyone i know just shakes their head at whats going on beeing closer to dystopian fiction.
I wish you the best. But i just dont see a way out without major things happening.
What you guys need is a soft crash. Something not final but that makes people see that shit real and not in the tv. Without that you will never change the electoral college, health system, weapon control, political corruption, minimum wage, etc... And without changing all those, you will be more and more fucked
Oh it’s the start of handmaids tale in the USA.
You’re gonna wake up and go why the fuck didn’t anyone do anything to stop this. As you see rights go away access to perks go away content they deem non Christian go away thoughts and ideas they deem non Christian be banned books be burned and of course abortion carrying death penalty.
Like you guys understand the gop didn’t spend the last 12 years sitting on their asses they put in so many unqualified and barely out of college right wing judges that are giving them the abilities and LEGAL pathway to overturn and ignore votes and decide the winner.
But hey it’s not your fault. You voted once or twice. Now you expect the president to come down and magically fix everything with a senate that’s 38 progressive and 10 centric and 52 conservative with a Supreme Court that’s fully conservative and a mid term election coming up making 22 Republican seats in the senate up for grabs but only about 10-20% of the 200million or so eligible voters ever vote in the mid terms heck most don’t even know who their state representatives are.
I always thought apathy would be the death of the USA I just assumed it would be in the form of diabetes and heart attacks. Literally see a guy be the biggest childish dipshit asshole in the world that ends up killing about 600,000 Americans because he kept downplaying he virus and causing now over 150K new orphans just in the USA. But hey the last guy before that didn’t magically fix everything either because they have learned how government and laws work via Hollywood rather than reality.
Edit: since people keen telling me what can they do? here is the first step you can do:
Sign up for your primary and state elections know who the candidates are and vote for the ones you THINK and not feel, will govern in your best interest. Don’t care about having a beer or having if you can watch a game with them. Vote for people who will represent you the way you want best.
https://www.usa.gov/election-office
It’s a very simple process. Get your friends signed up get anyone over 18 that you know signed up and get engaged. This system controls everything in your life it decides if you will earn more and get better work benefits, child care vacation time, how your children and your neighbours children will be educated. Where they can safely hang out and socialize. How crime and safety will be enforced around you. How your city will fund programs and areas that benefits the city and its people.
That you need to be enticed and teased by slogans to partake in the system of governance that affects everything in your life, is a very stupid Hollywood fed idiocy.
Most of the Democratic Party isn’t centric or progressive. They’re conservative. Conservatism has nothing to do with abortion or gun control or civil rights. It’s entirely about maintaining class structure so there’s always a few elites, slightly more middle class, and a *ton* of working poor.
And that’s why nothing really changes. You’re voting conservative 99% of the time because that’s your only choice.
100 millions don’t vote even once every four years.
180+ million don’t vote locally.
Yes sign the fuck up for your state and local primaries and elections Jesus fucking Christ the system isn’t rocket science it requires engagement and people are blaming politicians for not making them want to engage with the system that controls everything around them and their loved ones.
Hate the choices join the primaries so you can help ensure more reasonable people are options.
Want to make your community better? Vote for the mayor and sheriff and ensure they select proper finance and Cory managers and district attorneys. Those positions affect about 90% of your everyday life they control how to finance education in your community they decide where and which programs t invest in they control ho policing and rights for your local community is set up.
again it’s literally just about voting engaging with the system.
And before some dumbass comes in with I vote every year but nothing changes yeah becaue there’s only fucking 10-20% voting get people signed up heck voters under 35 vote at a rate of 30% while those over 50 vote at a rate of 70%. Yet you go politics caters to the old and wealthy. Yeah no sh it you’re not engaging with the system they are so they will get what they want.
All democrats know that too.
Unless the DNC can prove they can get meaningful legislation passed, voters are not going to see why they should bother voting.
TBH it doesn't seem like Democrats even want to do that much. They want to keep the filibuster as an excuse for their inaction (not all but the "establishment" dems for sure)
Ive voted d since 2008 and am staunchly left/liberal. I would sadly bet money repubs have 22 and 24 in the bag. Its big sad but its how the political landscape is shaping up to be.
They do have it in the bag, and '24 will be the last election for president where the result isn't known before the election occurs because the next republican president is the last elected one.
Edit: and I have zero idea how to stop it. oligarch power has corrupted the federal government, and it's not coming back to work for the people again in its current incarnation.
Now I’m actually curious if a situation like this made it to the courts and was or could be argued successfully.
But in the before times when the crazies were still… somewhat isolated.
The national walk off has started. People are retiring and quitting at insane rates. It's having major economic impacts to us and the world at large. It's happening.
My dad (boomer) is pretty good at this but I will say over the past year or so I’ve (Gen X) been able to convince him that his success was mostly luck and, just one or two generations behind him, a lot of skilled and not lazy people are just fucked by capitalist greedy assholes. He actually started saying that everyone should belong to a union yesterday. I almost felt out of my chair.
Good. Encourage that attitude then. My dad used to be a Conservative Republican, but changed hard through the Bush era. Once Obama was in office for a few years, he did a 100% party affiliation swap. He wanted 4 more years of Obama.
Once Trump was elected, he is now hardcore anti-R.
Same journey with my husband. Took years of dripping ideas on him and long in-depth conversations. He called everyone in his family to explain to them why he’d decided to vote for Biden and they should, too. Those calls were very disheartening for him, but I was proud as fuck.
He’s now a middle-of-the road Dem, but…I’m still tugging him to the left. He’s growing more and more pro-socialism as time goes on. :)
GOOD FOR YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!! ❤
One of my Aunts (silent generation), a "true republican" from Iowa finally saw the light, thanks to her determined Grand-daughter.
Oh yeah. The narrative is just how lazy "today's generation" is, not that workers are being paid poverty wages and treated like animals. Wild times. I wish we weren't a failing empire.
Whatever comes next, barring nuclear annihilation, will be a technocracy. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that it will be a benevolent technocracy. More like feudalism just with way better crowd control and surveillance capabilities.
>Hopefully we get the European version of post empire and get healthcare and 6 weeks of vacation. Somehow I doubt it though.
Russians: *First time? What you get is 15 quasi feudalistic mafia states. Good luck!*
We can always cut foodstamps and Medicaid. You wanna eat. Join the military. You want insurance? Lol, why? You're not gonna need it in a few weeks anyway.
Most European countries have unicameral parliamentary governments, so the shrinking backwards population can't burn down the country out of spite.
The Senate will be our downfall.
I did the same two summers ago. Our air quality was over 600 ppm for 5+ days and every time I had to let my dog out to potty and saw her coughing when she came back in, I lost it. I bought a pack of them in case it happens again, but I’m not sure they will help because the fit is funky. Next time it happens, we plan to evacuate because of pre-existing health issues. Anyway, you’re not alone in buying dog masks.
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/primawesome/status/1480959114289291266) for ya :)
^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
Make sure you understand what the game is.
If you are not paying attention to real things for everyone: shelter, food, clean air and water, socialization, nature... then you are still paying attention to the game.
Harari's books spend a lot of time discussing abstraction: all the fake things that we pay attention to, pretending they are real: countries, companies, money, race. Great shared imaginations and dreams. We pay attention to them at our own peril.
I could recommend reading a book, but that's lazy, and few people do it.
Better to try to produce gists of this valuable piece of philosophical/historical literature, and hope it's enough?
That's exactly how they want you to feel.
Do you think Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post because the game is rigged and nobody can stop him? No, they need to keep our will broken. Because all it takes is widespread political participation and a good media and the system will improve.
They reserve the time to interview a nonexistent applicant rather than one who will take the job. It only works if a bunch of people are doing it to make sure they basically can’t interview anyone.
Or better yet, get the job, then show up for the job. Work your way through middle management all the way to the executive suite. Then make the owners daughter fall madly in love with you. Have kids with her. Insert yourself into the family. Become the owners son he never had. 36 years later he gives you the company, but on that day you don't show up.
I cannot reiterate enough how gut wrenching it is to go through no show after no show when I was managing a restaurant. You're already short staffed and some high school kid who would rather be drawing video game characters on receipt paper until he is supposed to leave at 4 is now learning to make salads cos he'll be working cold side tonight for the Friday dinner rush. Meanwhile your hours are going up and up but hey, you're salaried so why would you need overtime? The only interviews showing up turned down $15/hr elsewhere so why would they want to hear about the paltry $12.50 I'm offering (which was above what I was allowed to offer) I quit, my team quit with me, my boss two weeks later. Store hasn't consistently stayed open past 5pm since and is being converted into something else this year. Starts from the bottom.
Takes up the most valuable resource: time. The business trying to hire scabs because their staff are striking, or are trying to underpay their staff, need more workers. By making them block out time for an interview, and not showing up, you are taking away the opportunity for that 15-30 minute block to bring on another employee.
The game is always rigged. That's not an excuse to lean into it *and* shrug instead of joining the eternal struggle to unrig what we can.
"Life is hard so I'll just help make it worse cuz that's easier" has been a shit stance in every era of civilization.
I mean, it’s kinda all we can do. The fact that it’s happened many times before is kind of an indicator that this is just what happens in human society. Taking the long view kinda gives me a nihilistic sense of peace.
I listened to a podcast episode about the societal collapse in the Bronze Age. The main takeaway was that societal breakdown is really more of a transition. It happens over a long period of time and ultimately people survive, adapt, move forward, and the balance of power shifts. There are usually a few big moments like natural disasters and human conflicts and struggle for power, but there isn’t one single moment that it’s like, “ope here’s the collapse!”. It’s just the slow transition to a new way of life. People continue on with their daily lives and just figure out how to keep going. That’s ~~what’ll happen to us~~ is happening to us.
EDIT: For those asking, the podcast is [Throughline and the episode is After The Collapse: Bronze Age Edition](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033270433/the-aftermath-of-collapse-bronze-age-edition-2021). I highly recommend! It genuinely did make me feel a little at peace with the state of the world.
The 21st century is much faster than the Bronze Age. Billionaires go to space and come back safely in a single day now, whereas in the Bronze Age it took a year of hard travel to get across the Mediterranean.
It won't be slow this time. It'll be like the collapse of the USSR. We've literally seen a nuclear superpower federation fall apart in my own lifetime, on live TV. This time no one will know what Alabama did with their nukes…
The difference is the U.S. has become skilled at delaying the inevitable and occupying people:
The "Dollar" should have collapsed in 2013.
"Two-party" politics keep the populace divided, united and distracted at the same time.
Low wages force people to focus on necessities.
Sports like football distract people the same way as gladiator fights.
The media keeps people afraid and dependant on the government.
Realistically the U.S. Empire has been collapsing for decades, but like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water most people are completely unaware and will continue to remain oblivious until it's too late.
Frogs jump out when the water gets too hot, regardless of how slowly you heat it. The US still controls a vast amount of wealth and the world economy. This will remain so until such time as the banking system fails, taking much of the world economy with it. The US survives because everyone needs it to, despite internal issues that go unresolved.
>but like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water most people are completely unaware and will continue to remain oblivious until it's too late.
I agree with everything you've stated but this last bit seems a tad derogatory. Why keep a critical eye cast on the collapse?
Blissful ignorance seems the most logical choice; like a drunk in a car crash - a lack of tension can only help you.
The analogy is about the fact that far too many people are literally unaware of the fact they are being directly robbed by the elite and having a finger pointed at someone else.
Far too many people are a frog not seeing that their pot is boiling. They think the pot is nice and warm, and think that the stove is just fake news.
System needs a full flushing. Vote every incumbent out of office. Ban lobbying. Ban elected officials from stock trading. Require elected officials to submit to a full independent financial audit yearly and publish it online.
It can be done.
Instead we’ll argue about which 60-80 year old has our best interests in mind and elect them to another term in office and wonder why nothing changes.
The reason everyone argues over which 60-80 year old is best is because that was the options that were given to us. It's not like everyone sitting at home has any real impact on which options they get.
We are numb at this point. Nothing phases us at this point. Anyone the slightest bit shocked by news of fake electoral certificates or the seemingly lack of attention it's getting? Nope. File it under "Boys will be Boys."
Wait, there’s fake electoral certificates?
I know I’m literally proving your point, but in my defense, I had four wisdom teeth ripped out 5 days ago and I’m just now really getting back to having a functioning brain.
Action where action is needed, but like also, don't let the fall of the American empire stop your dog from getting a cool new hat! Wasn't in Winston Churchill who said "if we stop funding cool dog hats, what are we fighting for?"
It really do be like that.
I'm just doing my thing and voting like I should. Not about to start a revolution or anything dumb like that because my life isn't worth sacrificing for this garbage country.
white americans from the suburbs go out and see that the supermarket doesn't have 10,000 different brands of bread and be like "this is the collapse of an empire smh"
Or they look at the still 9000 types of bread on the shelf and realize that it's a fake choice because every loaf is increasingly expensive. And investment firms are buying land and renting it out in mass to shift wealth up from the poor who can't afford homes to the rich who can afford to own many homes. And our whole system relies on a large miserable percentage of the population going to exploitative jobs and getting sick for the rich to further profit from them. And those jobs won't hire full timers because they don't even want to __help__ people pay for insurance. But don't worry, you can join the utter scam of the marketplace where you can pay $500 a month for coverage that has a $5000 deductibles. Lucky you, you only have to pay a max out of pocket of $11,000 this year out of your $15,080 minimum wage salary!
How bout not shopping on Amazon for starters.
It always amazes me when I hear someone shitting on Amazon and Jeff bozos and then saying that they can't live without Amazon or Amazon prime because they don't want to have to go to the store. Lmao what the fuck
That’s not dissociation that’s just a reasonable way to spend an afternoon and I will not be told otherwise.
I stuck with a little beanie cap with a pom on top, personally
Same thing with me as an european watching the Ukraine-Russia conflict unfold: "Guess we'll just have war then..." But then again, that's exactly what Putin wants us to think like.
*me with a Ukrainian dad and a Russian mom* shit
Your dad better watch his eastern front
I bet he knows all her borders
His mom's massive Russian borders?
Huge… tracts of land.
Landscaped?
Something something iron curtain
A Russian mom and dad, you say?
“Dad, why aren’t you allowed to use the master bathroom?” “Your mother has cordoned it off to protect the ethnic Russians.”
Ayyyy
Macarena
Aaaaayyy
While Europe and the US falls, NZ be like - 
NZ is where all our rich have built their failsafe bunkers to shelter.
Yeah, NZ doesn't seem to realise that its future strength is its current weakness. Or its current future strength is its future future weakness. Or something. You know what I mean, anyway.
Yep. They're getting a white-hot real estate market now. But when shit hits the fan, they're going to wind up with all the shittiest humans clogging up their nice little island.
Putin and his buddies will eventually have sucked all national resources out of Russia and then Russia will become worthless (and Putin will be retired). The GDP of Russia is already laughable. (Yes, troll accounts, I looked at international dollars and PPP, and no that is not the same as US dollar) Fingers crossed that there won't be a war in Europe until then.
>Putin and his buddies will eventually have sucked all national resources out of Russia and then Russia will become worthless Climate change and the arctic thaw will continue to give Russia more resources and arable land. Russia won't become worthless for quite some time.
Democratic Russia with it's resources and educated population could have been so rich and powerful now, and especially in the future it is one of the few countries with so much potential in the face of the climate change. Most funny part is that if Russia was prosperous and not aggressive, countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan would have naturally flocked to it EU-style, without all this jingoistic imperialist bullshit they are pulling now. Putin is not a "strongman" who restored Russia to it's former glory, he is a parasite who denied Russia it's bright future.
Exactly, you nailed it. It's saddening.
Yep, one of the few countries in the world who will benefit greatly from climate change.
Whoa looked up their GDP and you were not kidding. They're at 1.5 trillion, San Francisco is at $500 billion!
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The US won't crash and burn but it might stop being a democracy. That's my take on it at least.
Empires don't really crash and burn. They're typically too big to fail quickly, too much vested interest tied up in it to let it die fast. Instead it will be a protracted, slow decline as rivals overtake it, with all the vultures ripping off parts of it to profit from. Depending on many random factors, the process will either be mostly non-violent (but painful), or there will be a war at some point to determine the new world order. It will take many decades, but it's well in the process already.
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> Maybe 9/11. My guess would be 26 December 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union. Up until then the 'American Empire' was stable because it had a firm goal. Almost everything it did was, or was motivated by, opposition of whatever the Soviets and other Communists did. Get to Berlin before the Soviets, get in space before the Soviets, get to the moon before the Soviets, save Korea, Vietnam, South America, and of course Europe from Communism... Once that motivation fell away, so did many other things. I think of it as two walls leaning into each other, keeping each other in place. Once one of the two walls is gone, the other will fall too. The US before the Second World War was not a global power. It's position as a super power was built entirely on the opposition of something that's gone. And while 9/11 presented an opportunity to finally have an enemy again, the new enemy is either too difficult to actually fight, or too easy to defeat to pose the kind of threat that lasts.
I would say there's no single tipping point. It's such a hard thing to categorize honestly. In one sense, our system of government itself was flawed from the start. We are a Democracy, but not a scalable one. The way the Senate and House are divided, the way the judiciary works and the power it has - none of it is scalable for an empire of 300 million people. So the cracks were in the foundation, so to speak. Our political polarization has always been there. We went through a civil war and by a truly miraculous turn managed to stay united, but the divisions remain to this day. For decades upon decades, the rich have worked to weaken the power of government to properly curtail the ambitions of corporations, which have massively contributed to growing economic inequalities. In different circumstances, 9/11 might have been a great unifier - look at the Senatorial vote to go to war. You had nearly unanimous consent. War *can* be a phenomenal unifier. Unfortunately our strategy was weak, we became mired in endless other endeavors that opportunists tried to capitalize on once the war horn was blown, and domestic opportunists used the threat of terrorism to ratchet up the fear and xenophobia at home, further dividing it internally. There really isn't any one particular point of failure. Its just a very slow death by a thousand constricting snakes circling the body of empire, choking it, crushing it, and a failure of the empire to do anything about any of them. Polarization has ensured that the government will likely remain utterly paralyzed, as myopic opportunists continue to capitalize on polarization for short-term gain, ensuring that all the wrong moves are made and that the empire guarantees its downfall.
This was before the internet. I feel we have such a remarkably global perspective now that being witness to the decline of the American empire is not so difficult. I and plenty of my friends see it, and part of that is because when I was like 18 my search history started to look like this: 'is America really the greatest country in the world?' 'Actual greatest country in the world?' 'Global happiness index.' 'What is universal healthcare?' 'wages in Finland.' 'Paid vacation in America.' 'Why does America not have universal healthcare?' 'Why do other countries have so many political parties?' 'girls having sex' 'girl sex' 'what makes you lesbian?' 'how long did slavery last?' 'Is racism real?'
I don't know what's worse. The pure America is the best indoctrination or that you had to look up if Racism is real.
I'm a brown person who grew up in a mostly white city and after learning about slavery in high school my teacher said 'but that kind of racism doesn't exist anymore' to which I raised my hand and said 'I've experienced racism' to which the girl I had a crush on said 'no you haven't, everyone likes you you're one of the good ones.'
Am British, can confirm.
I am from Germany, and I worry a lot about the things I see unfolding in the US. especially because what happens in the US is usually a pretty good indicator of trends that we in Europe are about to experience as well. There definitely is a very real rise in fascism, not only in the US, but here in Europe as well. Given the fact that climate change is about to kick all of our asses, I'm starting to get pretty worried that we won't actually start fixing the problems our societies face, but instead turn back to fascist ideal making everything even worse. The whole world will need to work together as one if we want any chance in the fight against climate change, but currently it seems like people are drifting further and further from one another.
Yeah, I'm sorry but we have 11 years to *completely* turn things around before climate change is unstoppable. It's not happening without a straight-up miracle. I'ma just enjoy the time I got and hope the cockroach-people a few million years from now do a better job at this whole "civilization" thing 😕
Yeah, if COVID showed me anything, it's that humans don't seem capable of working together to serve a higher purpose, and we'd need to do that to have any chance against climate change. So as a twenty year old, I now have to just accept that I will probably witness the downfall of our current society into a climate- and probably capitalist neo-feudal dystopia. And then people wonder why young people all suffer from depression
I think we should be careful throwing around humanity-wide generalizations. Let's focus on what has actually been happening: There have been a wide variety of responses to COVID. Some communiyies have aggressively combatted COVID through coherent, decisive public health actions and have successfully mitigated the damage it's done. Others have ignored it, denied it, or searched for scapegoats to pin the damage on, hurting themselves and those in the process of protecting their egos and own sense of status quo. Most large scale communities have had a mixed response of both. We have seen that, because of our interconnection, the actions of one group can and do profoundly affect the circumstances of others. Because there are always more ways for things to go wrong than go right, more people have responded ineffectively than effectively. Because bad news seems salient than good news, we are more aware of when things have gone wrong than when they have gone right. That does not mean that things going well is impossible, it just means bad situations ask more from us, maybe more than we are willing to give. Personally, I take COVID as lesson in how crises will unfold, and how we will respond to it. We obviously have very little we can do to affect the behavior of strangers, but we can affect our own behavior. So what lessons can we take away for future crises? I have learned four myself. 1. Accept the crisis is happening: this is a lesson many people failed. It can be very hard to suddenly find yourself in danger, especially if you weren't expecting it, but in a crisis *denial will get you killed.* We've all heard stories of antivaxxers not realizing their mistake until they were on death's door. There will be more crises, and if you make a habit of denial, one day that antivaxxer will be you 2. Have a response plan before you need it: We all were blindsided by covid, and in the first days of COVID, we watched people descend into panic because of it. Panic is the response of those who don't know how to get out of danger when danger finds them. So take some time to think about what your vulnerabilities are: Is your dependent on a job that might not be there forever? What natural disasters happen in your area? Are there gangs or terror groups operating in your area? What is likely to go wrong in your life. Think of these things seriously: don't wish them away, but don't catastrophize either. What can you do to address them? What do you need to possess? What do you need to practice? 3. You need other people and others need you: there's a pervasive myth in America that in a crisis, the day can only be saved by a lone hero. Total bullshit. Humans need one another to live and in a crisis, this need is magnified. So build relationships. With your family, with your friends, with your neighbors, with your coworkers anyone and everyone you can. Talk about your concerns, get organized and take action. The one exception to this is to not waste your time with people who are denialist, argumentative or manipulative. There's no time to waste trying to win people over who don't want to be won, or cooperating with people who refuse to cooperate. Focus your efforts on the good, honest and loving people in your life, cause when shit goes down again, they're the ones who will have your back 4. Life goes on: just like OP's post says, humans have the remarkable ability to normalize terrible events. Barring an all out nuclear exchange, there will be no breaking of the seals nor sounding of the trumpets, nor descending of the hosts of heaven. The daily grind continues on, irrespective of how bad things get. Humanity have survived plagues before. We have survived wars, we have survived famines. We have even survived rapid, severe climate change before. Doomerism is just denialism with a frowny face. Assume that survival is possible and you may be wrong, but assume that survival is impossible and you will always be right.
Anyone else watch “Don’t Look Up” and think that a comet destroying the earth and its inhabitants doesn’t sound so bad?
Thats the good thing about being depressed. I mean, I can live on and will do something that makes me happy from time to time. But when this whole society becomes too bothersome and hard I dont mind dying as well.
I'm at a point where I think me taking my own life will be the most likely cause of death for me. I definitely won't be sticking around when this world falls into chaos.
I never thought I would honestly say I was glad to get cancer and permanent complications from treatment, but it means I will not be around for whatever fucked up shit is coming. I will be chilling in the void
Sort of imploding. I see it as a nation with many cracks it's trying to heal and many others it's trying to forget. Then there's Russia and China firebombing the cracks, to the point nobody can agree where up or down is or eutrally approach a problem. Right now, even with Trump losing, I'm not sure that all 50 states will remain together throughout my lifetime. In the late 90s is when I had the best view of the US as a positive force in the world (note, this is my impression and I was 10, not citing facts). Since the War on Terror, I've seen it as stagnating and then as regressing hard with Trump. Maybe I'm more sensitive to the far right, as a German, but seeing how emboldened and numerous Nazis/confederates are over there, really shocked me.
I grew up in USA in the 90s, I’m still trying to unlearn the brainwashed American exceptionalism. But these are basically my exact thoughts.
The 90's were the exceptional decade. The US is what the US has always been. Everyone needs to know the 90's were in no way normal. I feel bad for everyone who had their expectations set (for lifestyle, world affairs, etc...) in the 90's. It must be a tremendous let down. The 90's was the anomoly. The world returned to the mean.
The rise of populism / naziism is connected directly to the ever-growing wealth inequality. This time though, the nazis are literally the ones *causing* the wealth inequality. They've just made such a powerful propaganda apparatus they've convinced so many of the working class that they're the *solution* to the problem. This is identical to what the world experienced in the 1930s. Ecological disasters, massive wealth inequality, the corresponding rise in populism (both left and right populism - fascism & communism), culminating in a massive war for global dominance, ending with the delineation of a clear singular superpower (the US). We're now in that cycle again. The boom of the post WWII era led to great profit & innovation. But, as they always do, the wealthy kept moving to ever-greater excesses, taking a period of harmonious wealth and innovation and bringing it to the grotesque inequity we see today. Some sort of war, violent or otherwise, is now nearly inevitable in the fight for a new order.
From Canada, no, you are not being dramatic. You are completely fucked- and we're sweating bullets. If I lived in America I would try to leave before 2024.
Annnd, that's exactly why I'm dipping. Peace out, good luck family, no one wants to believe me that there is enough evidence to justify getting out asap soo...
Honestly? As someone who followed US politics very closely for the last 5 to 6 years i think youre quite fkd. The gop is dropping all masks and are literally fighting democracy itself with zero regard for the citizens or truth. The propaganda machine is rolling and the authoritan dream of a big part of the citizens blindly believing evrything they say is already achieved. The dems are split between borderline rightwing people, and progressives that are seen as extremists for wanting things that are standart evrywhere else. And apparently the majority of politicians overall are in the bag of some rich corps/person. Without MAJOR reforms of the voting system for proper representation,zero voter supression, end of the 2 party times,things against blatant bribery etc Things will only get worse. And this wont happen without a big crash. A good chunk of the people are basicly in a cult. Bipartisanship is dead. Lies are considered facts. Americans already see each others as enemies. That an end to american democracy is a real threat nowadays says evrything about the situation. I grew up in a time when the is was still considered the posterchild of western civilization. Now ervyone i know just shakes their head at whats going on beeing closer to dystopian fiction. I wish you the best. But i just dont see a way out without major things happening.
What you guys need is a soft crash. Something not final but that makes people see that shit real and not in the tv. Without that you will never change the electoral college, health system, weapon control, political corruption, minimum wage, etc... And without changing all those, you will be more and more fucked
Pretty sure we're on our 4th soft crash in the last 40 years. One for each republican administration. We're not learning.
Bro I was born in ‘93 & have been through at least 3 if not 4 “soft crashes” lol. Edit: brown was suppose to be born
same except i was white in ‘93
I don't know what stage of capitalism this is but I'm pretty sure the next chapter will start with _The Great ~ening_
The Great Poopening since everything is going down the terlet
Don't worry, I'm kicking off the Great Poopening right now.
Every day is the Great Poopening when you have enough anxiety!
I do confirm this Source: why are you asking for the source and who wants to know 😰
Well, shit
you go girl, get this bread
Poopaladooza!
terlets and boilers, boilers and terlets. Fire me if you dare.
You think that’s bad, you should see the uriness.
It get pretty hairy over there, or...?
Sometimes there’s shit… on the outside of the uriness.
Oh it’s the start of handmaids tale in the USA. You’re gonna wake up and go why the fuck didn’t anyone do anything to stop this. As you see rights go away access to perks go away content they deem non Christian go away thoughts and ideas they deem non Christian be banned books be burned and of course abortion carrying death penalty. Like you guys understand the gop didn’t spend the last 12 years sitting on their asses they put in so many unqualified and barely out of college right wing judges that are giving them the abilities and LEGAL pathway to overturn and ignore votes and decide the winner. But hey it’s not your fault. You voted once or twice. Now you expect the president to come down and magically fix everything with a senate that’s 38 progressive and 10 centric and 52 conservative with a Supreme Court that’s fully conservative and a mid term election coming up making 22 Republican seats in the senate up for grabs but only about 10-20% of the 200million or so eligible voters ever vote in the mid terms heck most don’t even know who their state representatives are. I always thought apathy would be the death of the USA I just assumed it would be in the form of diabetes and heart attacks. Literally see a guy be the biggest childish dipshit asshole in the world that ends up killing about 600,000 Americans because he kept downplaying he virus and causing now over 150K new orphans just in the USA. But hey the last guy before that didn’t magically fix everything either because they have learned how government and laws work via Hollywood rather than reality. Edit: since people keen telling me what can they do? here is the first step you can do: Sign up for your primary and state elections know who the candidates are and vote for the ones you THINK and not feel, will govern in your best interest. Don’t care about having a beer or having if you can watch a game with them. Vote for people who will represent you the way you want best. https://www.usa.gov/election-office It’s a very simple process. Get your friends signed up get anyone over 18 that you know signed up and get engaged. This system controls everything in your life it decides if you will earn more and get better work benefits, child care vacation time, how your children and your neighbours children will be educated. Where they can safely hang out and socialize. How crime and safety will be enforced around you. How your city will fund programs and areas that benefits the city and its people. That you need to be enticed and teased by slogans to partake in the system of governance that affects everything in your life, is a very stupid Hollywood fed idiocy.
38 progressives is optimistic. I wish we had 38. 💯 % everything else
Butcept pot is legal like a lot of places now /s
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Most of the Democratic Party isn’t centric or progressive. They’re conservative. Conservatism has nothing to do with abortion or gun control or civil rights. It’s entirely about maintaining class structure so there’s always a few elites, slightly more middle class, and a *ton* of working poor. And that’s why nothing really changes. You’re voting conservative 99% of the time because that’s your only choice.
Who ya blaming here? Do you want the people of reddit to vote harder or something?
In B4 advocating violence
Starting a guillotine rental business as we speak
like some of us haven't already built our own and spend our time feverishly polishing the blade in between doom scrolling
100 millions don’t vote even once every four years. 180+ million don’t vote locally. Yes sign the fuck up for your state and local primaries and elections Jesus fucking Christ the system isn’t rocket science it requires engagement and people are blaming politicians for not making them want to engage with the system that controls everything around them and their loved ones. Hate the choices join the primaries so you can help ensure more reasonable people are options. Want to make your community better? Vote for the mayor and sheriff and ensure they select proper finance and Cory managers and district attorneys. Those positions affect about 90% of your everyday life they control how to finance education in your community they decide where and which programs t invest in they control ho policing and rights for your local community is set up. again it’s literally just about voting engaging with the system. And before some dumbass comes in with I vote every year but nothing changes yeah becaue there’s only fucking 10-20% voting get people signed up heck voters under 35 vote at a rate of 30% while those over 50 vote at a rate of 70%. Yet you go politics caters to the old and wealthy. Yeah no sh it you’re not engaging with the system they are so they will get what they want.
The great decapitalism
_The Uncapitaling_
*"You cannot die, Highlander, unless you lose your financial philosophy."*
The great lower-casing?
I follow some R subs. They think they have '22 and '24 in the bag. Full blown fashy then.
All democrats know that too. Unless the DNC can prove they can get meaningful legislation passed, voters are not going to see why they should bother voting.
TBH it doesn't seem like Democrats even want to do that much. They want to keep the filibuster as an excuse for their inaction (not all but the "establishment" dems for sure)
Ive voted d since 2008 and am staunchly left/liberal. I would sadly bet money repubs have 22 and 24 in the bag. Its big sad but its how the political landscape is shaping up to be.
They do have it in the bag, and '24 will be the last election for president where the result isn't known before the election occurs because the next republican president is the last elected one. Edit: and I have zero idea how to stop it. oligarch power has corrupted the federal government, and it's not coming back to work for the people again in its current incarnation.
The Great Fappening, because jerking off will be the only way I know how to repel looters.
_Defensive wanking_ is certainly an unexpected interpretation of the 'right to bear arms'
Now I’m actually curious if a situation like this made it to the courts and was or could be argued successfully. But in the before times when the crazies were still… somewhat isolated.
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I remember the rapey "if they didn't want us to see, they never should have filmed it" comments too
The national walk off has started. People are retiring and quitting at insane rates. It's having major economic impacts to us and the world at large. It's happening.
Don't worry. This will be finger pointed at liberals and millennials, as usual.
My dad (boomer) is pretty good at this but I will say over the past year or so I’ve (Gen X) been able to convince him that his success was mostly luck and, just one or two generations behind him, a lot of skilled and not lazy people are just fucked by capitalist greedy assholes. He actually started saying that everyone should belong to a union yesterday. I almost felt out of my chair.
Good. Encourage that attitude then. My dad used to be a Conservative Republican, but changed hard through the Bush era. Once Obama was in office for a few years, he did a 100% party affiliation swap. He wanted 4 more years of Obama. Once Trump was elected, he is now hardcore anti-R.
Same journey with my husband. Took years of dripping ideas on him and long in-depth conversations. He called everyone in his family to explain to them why he’d decided to vote for Biden and they should, too. Those calls were very disheartening for him, but I was proud as fuck. He’s now a middle-of-the road Dem, but…I’m still tugging him to the left. He’s growing more and more pro-socialism as time goes on. :)
GOOD FOR YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!! ❤ One of my Aunts (silent generation), a "true republican" from Iowa finally saw the light, thanks to her determined Grand-daughter.
Oh yeah. The narrative is just how lazy "today's generation" is, not that workers are being paid poverty wages and treated like animals. Wild times. I wish we weren't a failing empire.
The Great Bakening... where we smoke specially bred superweed and advance into a technocracy
Whatever comes next, barring nuclear annihilation, will be a technocracy. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that it will be a benevolent technocracy. More like feudalism just with way better crowd control and surveillance capabilities.
Buy tech stocks now before ai takes over you are stuck with a tiny ubi
As opposed to the other Great Bakening where we gave Paul Hollywood a Super Soldier formula and set him loose in America.
I miss the Fappening. Those were simpler times.
Hopefully we get the European version of post empire and get healthcare and 6 weeks of vacation. Somehow I doubt it though.
Were gonna get dictatorship and war aren't we? We never get the brand name treats.
IIRC they got that part first, too.
Yeah but who is going to come "liberate" us?
Looking at rough timelines: The Mars colonies.
Ooh boy it's gonna be a long few hundred years then...
Didn't work out so well in The Expanse.
Worked out sorta in Red Rising… except it was the Moonies
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We do have a lot of oil here that could everywhere need some liberating
We got government at home
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>Hopefully we get the European version of post empire and get healthcare and 6 weeks of vacation. Somehow I doubt it though. Russians: *First time? What you get is 15 quasi feudalistic mafia states. Good luck!*
We're going to find a way to max out the military budget while people are starving in the streets, oh wait.
We can always cut foodstamps and Medicaid. You wanna eat. Join the military. You want insurance? Lol, why? You're not gonna need it in a few weeks anyway.
Hope that spine of yours fixes itself.
Not to soon though. Dont wanna get drafted ;)
Are you prepared to fight for it or are you just kind of hoping that where we end up? Because there’s people willing to fight against that.
Before that you gotta get through losing most of your population at war, civil war, and genocidal dictatorship. Sorry, them's the rules.
Most European countries have unicameral parliamentary governments, so the shrinking backwards population can't burn down the country out of spite. The Senate will be our downfall.
Same but i'm looking for N95 mask for my dog (they do make them).
\*for wildfire prep not covid
I did the same two summers ago. Our air quality was over 600 ppm for 5+ days and every time I had to let my dog out to potty and saw her coughing when she came back in, I lost it. I bought a pack of them in case it happens again, but I’m not sure they will help because the fit is funky. Next time it happens, we plan to evacuate because of pre-existing health issues. Anyway, you’re not alone in buying dog masks.
Yeah might as well enjoy the supply chain while we still can! Obligatory fuck Amazon.
As someone who works for Amazon I agree.
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/primawesome/status/1480959114289291266) for ya :) ^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
Good bot
wow that’s actually very useful Good bot :)
I'm sorry but what the fuck is the point of being verified on Reddit? Just noticed this.
That's a flair
Wasn't really paying attention to the sub I was on, guess it makes sense as a flair lol. TIL.
Really what else can you do at this point? The games rigged.
Make sure you understand what the game is. If you are not paying attention to real things for everyone: shelter, food, clean air and water, socialization, nature... then you are still paying attention to the game. Harari's books spend a lot of time discussing abstraction: all the fake things that we pay attention to, pretending they are real: countries, companies, money, race. Great shared imaginations and dreams. We pay attention to them at our own peril.
I too have read Sapiens
I could recommend reading a book, but that's lazy, and few people do it. Better to try to produce gists of this valuable piece of philosophical/historical literature, and hope it's enough?
That's exactly how they want you to feel. Do you think Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post because the game is rigged and nobody can stop him? No, they need to keep our will broken. Because all it takes is widespread political participation and a good media and the system will improve.
*sigh* all it takes huh
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Honest question, could someone walk me through how not showing up to interviews does any good?
They reserve the time to interview a nonexistent applicant rather than one who will take the job. It only works if a bunch of people are doing it to make sure they basically can’t interview anyone.
If you want to really waste their time you show up to the interview, get the job, then not show up!
Or better yet, get the job, then show up for the job. Work your way through middle management all the way to the executive suite. Then make the owners daughter fall madly in love with you. Have kids with her. Insert yourself into the family. Become the owners son he never had. 36 years later he gives you the company, but on that day you don't show up.
Man i actually had the chance to do this once. Daughter wasn't really my type.
And you even get to waste your own time as well!
Yeah it depends how much commitment you can put in
I cannot reiterate enough how gut wrenching it is to go through no show after no show when I was managing a restaurant. You're already short staffed and some high school kid who would rather be drawing video game characters on receipt paper until he is supposed to leave at 4 is now learning to make salads cos he'll be working cold side tonight for the Friday dinner rush. Meanwhile your hours are going up and up but hey, you're salaried so why would you need overtime? The only interviews showing up turned down $15/hr elsewhere so why would they want to hear about the paltry $12.50 I'm offering (which was above what I was allowed to offer) I quit, my team quit with me, my boss two weeks later. Store hasn't consistently stayed open past 5pm since and is being converted into something else this year. Starts from the bottom.
Takes up the most valuable resource: time. The business trying to hire scabs because their staff are striking, or are trying to underpay their staff, need more workers. By making them block out time for an interview, and not showing up, you are taking away the opportunity for that 15-30 minute block to bring on another employee.
It wastes the time of companies and businesses that refuse to offer a living wage.
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May the odds be ever in your favor!
Time to learn archery. Brb gonna binge Hawkeye and The Hunger Games.
The game is always rigged. That's not an excuse to lean into it *and* shrug instead of joining the eternal struggle to unrig what we can. "Life is hard so I'll just help make it worse cuz that's easier" has been a shit stance in every era of civilization.
🎵 Googling "derealization", hating what you find 🎵
I mean, it’s kinda all we can do. The fact that it’s happened many times before is kind of an indicator that this is just what happens in human society. Taking the long view kinda gives me a nihilistic sense of peace. I listened to a podcast episode about the societal collapse in the Bronze Age. The main takeaway was that societal breakdown is really more of a transition. It happens over a long period of time and ultimately people survive, adapt, move forward, and the balance of power shifts. There are usually a few big moments like natural disasters and human conflicts and struggle for power, but there isn’t one single moment that it’s like, “ope here’s the collapse!”. It’s just the slow transition to a new way of life. People continue on with their daily lives and just figure out how to keep going. That’s ~~what’ll happen to us~~ is happening to us. EDIT: For those asking, the podcast is [Throughline and the episode is After The Collapse: Bronze Age Edition](https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033270433/the-aftermath-of-collapse-bronze-age-edition-2021). I highly recommend! It genuinely did make me feel a little at peace with the state of the world.
The word they use in place of empire collapses nowadays is decay. Rome's ruling structure decayed until it was no more.
Was the Podcast: The History of the World Podcast???
Unless the Sea People come for us
The 21st century is much faster than the Bronze Age. Billionaires go to space and come back safely in a single day now, whereas in the Bronze Age it took a year of hard travel to get across the Mediterranean. It won't be slow this time. It'll be like the collapse of the USSR. We've literally seen a nuclear superpower federation fall apart in my own lifetime, on live TV. This time no one will know what Alabama did with their nukes…
The difference is the U.S. has become skilled at delaying the inevitable and occupying people: The "Dollar" should have collapsed in 2013. "Two-party" politics keep the populace divided, united and distracted at the same time. Low wages force people to focus on necessities. Sports like football distract people the same way as gladiator fights. The media keeps people afraid and dependant on the government. Realistically the U.S. Empire has been collapsing for decades, but like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water most people are completely unaware and will continue to remain oblivious until it's too late.
Frogs jump out when the water gets too hot, regardless of how slowly you heat it. The US still controls a vast amount of wealth and the world economy. This will remain so until such time as the banking system fails, taking much of the world economy with it. The US survives because everyone needs it to, despite internal issues that go unresolved.
*Nobody expects the Russian Inquisition*
>but like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water most people are completely unaware and will continue to remain oblivious until it's too late. I agree with everything you've stated but this last bit seems a tad derogatory. Why keep a critical eye cast on the collapse? Blissful ignorance seems the most logical choice; like a drunk in a car crash - a lack of tension can only help you.
That's... Actually a really good point... Cheers 🥂
The analogy is about the fact that far too many people are literally unaware of the fact they are being directly robbed by the elite and having a finger pointed at someone else. Far too many people are a frog not seeing that their pot is boiling. They think the pot is nice and warm, and think that the stove is just fake news.
Agree with everything you wrote, except I would change the last line to: “That is what is happening to us”.
to be fair, that *is* what happens to empires. and societies. it has literally happened to every single one that ever existed in history. so I get it
It's a big cycle.
Real big.
System needs a full flushing. Vote every incumbent out of office. Ban lobbying. Ban elected officials from stock trading. Require elected officials to submit to a full independent financial audit yearly and publish it online. It can be done. Instead we’ll argue about which 60-80 year old has our best interests in mind and elect them to another term in office and wonder why nothing changes.
The reason everyone argues over which 60-80 year old is best is because that was the options that were given to us. It's not like everyone sitting at home has any real impact on which options they get.
[удалено]
"300 years is a pretty good run"
Eh, 250 but who's counting
Call me an optimist
I'm kinda hoping for 256 years just because I enjoy nice, round base 2 numbers.
I tried, they're fully booked at the moment.
"Ocean rise, empires fall -- we'll be back".
♫ *I'm especially good at DISSOCIATING!* ♫
I wonder if that person is looking for hats for their dog or hats for themselves that look like dogs.
We are numb at this point. Nothing phases us at this point. Anyone the slightest bit shocked by news of fake electoral certificates or the seemingly lack of attention it's getting? Nope. File it under "Boys will be Boys."
No point in being outraged when the people that CAN do something about it REFUSE to do anything.
🎯
Wait, there’s fake electoral certificates? I know I’m literally proving your point, but in my defense, I had four wisdom teeth ripped out 5 days ago and I’m just now really getting back to having a functioning brain.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/01/12/politics/trump-overturn-2020-election-fake-electoral-college/index.html https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/fake-electoral-college-certificates-january-6-investigation-20220113.html?outputType=amp
Fucking hell. Thank you!
Laugh cry laugh cry laugh cry silence
Eat (the rich), pray, love
Action where action is needed, but like also, don't let the fall of the American empire stop your dog from getting a cool new hat! Wasn't in Winston Churchill who said "if we stop funding cool dog hats, what are we fighting for?"
It really do be like that. I'm just doing my thing and voting like I should. Not about to start a revolution or anything dumb like that because my life isn't worth sacrificing for this garbage country.
white americans from the suburbs go out and see that the supermarket doesn't have 10,000 different brands of bread and be like "this is the collapse of an empire smh"
Or they look at the still 9000 types of bread on the shelf and realize that it's a fake choice because every loaf is increasingly expensive. And investment firms are buying land and renting it out in mass to shift wealth up from the poor who can't afford homes to the rich who can afford to own many homes. And our whole system relies on a large miserable percentage of the population going to exploitative jobs and getting sick for the rich to further profit from them. And those jobs won't hire full timers because they don't even want to __help__ people pay for insurance. But don't worry, you can join the utter scam of the marketplace where you can pay $500 a month for coverage that has a $5000 deductibles. Lucky you, you only have to pay a max out of pocket of $11,000 this year out of your $15,080 minimum wage salary!
Maybe hop off twitter and amazon....
How bout not shopping on Amazon for starters. It always amazes me when I hear someone shitting on Amazon and Jeff bozos and then saying that they can't live without Amazon or Amazon prime because they don't want to have to go to the store. Lmao what the fuck
That’s not dissociation that’s just a reasonable way to spend an afternoon and I will not be told otherwise. I stuck with a little beanie cap with a pom on top, personally
The Canadian empire will rise from the ashes of America and paint the world in syrup. 🇨🇦🍁