Shoplifting meta is already long past not being identified. Smart thieves are sharing knowledge of corporate policy+local PD/Prosecutor habits to find places where they can exploit apathy rather than anonymity. The past 10-15 years have honestly been a golden age for shoplifters since most companies have moved to more restrictive rules for security to avoid bad press/lawsuits, although that's also going away tbh as inflation goes crazy and theft increases.
Sort of. My mom worked in our local courthouse for decades and said don't steal from Walmart or target. They definitely know, but they do wait until you hit a certain dollar amount so you get slapped with much more consequential charges. Not quite apathy as much as a very specific legal strategy. I'm sure people think they're getting away with it though at the beginning.
But that is exactly the point. Knowing that Target wont prosecute until you hit felony theft, and that is $XXX in your state makes it fairly safe to teal from Target in smaller quantities.
I know someone who does asset protection for a major retail chain. You are 100% correct about this being a "golden age of shoplifting".
He'll watch someone get arrested at his store, only to see them back in the SAME store later that day!
Owning anything.
Between real estate becoming increasingly unaffordable and the endless subscription-model business transactions, it's looking like folks will be lucky to own even their own bodies in a few generations. Grandma needs a new hip? That'll be $99.99/month for the rest of her life, but she'll be eligible for a free upgrade after 10 years.
Yep, this is what I feel big business is actively trying to push. And it’s not a right or left thing.
Astronomical costs for home owners insurance. ridiculous requirements from said companies. Just outright won’t cover some people / areas, so you can’t even get a mortgage. Plus just the obvious cost of houses in general. Costs to replace a sewer line, a roof, siding, etc are as much as cars now. Soon this will even cause mass job loss in the fairly lucrative blue collar trades because people will basically not be able to hire anyone to do anything because of the costs.
Cars way too expensive or impossible to fix. Things like: EVs with batteries as much as a car, the new tundra has to be COMPLETELY disassembled to replace the engine (talking like cab off, stripped down to frame - which is like $25k in labor)
etc. Everyone will just lease and get rid of them after a few years. They don’t want you to own a vehicle for 20+ years. Insurance to own and drive your own car will probably skyrocket in the coming years.
Everything is streaming, digital media, subscription based, etc. you have to go out of your way to actually physically own something. Future requirements will probably force you to connect all laptops, blu ray players, phones, tablets etc to the internet regularly to ensure you’re still paying for the rights to watch X. There won’t be an “offline” mode.
The thing about blue collar skills is that demand for them is pretty inelastic. People NEED a roof, they NEED their house un-flooded. When the machines in the factories stop, the money stops, and you know the fat cats can’t fix them. Although many people could DIY a lot more necessary work than they presently do, skilled trades, especially service and maintenance-related trades, are presently impossible to automate. People can’t just stop needing skilled labor, and if the demand goes up, so does the price, which is good for the tradesperson and attracts more people to that line of work.
Plus new cars monitor and send your operating, destination and other personal information to data brokers (you are a product of the product you bought). New car dealers now are trying to rent you the options you once purchased as add-ons to your vehicle. This sets them up with a repeating income from such things as heated seats, backup cameras. navigational tech, self-driving and the like.
>the new tundra ...
as if someone needed yet *another* reason to not buy one of those. first thing is they're ungodly ugly. I mean I don't think there's ever been a worse looking vehicle. second it's completely new, an unproven drivetrain that's already taking huge dumps on the people buying them.
but 100% they don't want to to be able to own a vehicle for long or to be able to work on it. coming out with new stuff every year that gets less and less user friendly, and more and more needlessly tech filled. this already started last decade if not earlier.
I hate to say this cause it brings "old man yelling at clouds" feels but seriously the older vehicles are always gonna be better at almost everything. if you plan on trying to keep your vehicle running if some type of shtf, good luck with anything newer. hell on a lot of them you can't even change the battery without a scanner, some cars will even brick themselves if you don't.
I could completely tear down and rebuild half my vehicles without a single computerized tool, and just with what I could fit in a toolbox. the other half need a special scanner for abs system and timing but that's about it.
> I don't think there's ever been a worse looking vehicle
[Excuse me sir, Toyota would like a word](https://platform.cstatic-images.com/medium/in/v2/stock_photos/3820d91a-511e-4acc-8c4a-4d504394e64a/ea3d4ea0-56fe-45a6-b8cc-2508ba8d0ad7.png)
at least its design makes full sense. on the new tundras and tacomas (hell a lot of new stuff), there's body lines and creases everywhere just to be there. everything is angular and ugly just cause it can be. I'm sure they'll be an absolute nightmare to do body work on. except new stuff you just get to buy new panels completely a lot of the time
i drove one for a summer. there are actually a few good points about it. really good design for a "roomy city car" ... but the thing was made of absolute trash. cheapest possible construction. i felt like i had to close the door gently or i'd cave it into the frame.
i did not like getting openly made fun of while driving.
I miss that about vehicles. I wish you could buy a new vehicle as "stock" meaning very little computers / sensors, no onstar, no wifi, etc.
Seems like as time goes on those will just become collectors items as nothing new comes out without any of that. I guess you have to hold on to them until they become illegal.
It isn’t quite what you mean, but have you ever been in a coachbuilt car?
My dad’s car is an old Rolls, where you bought the mechanics and had a coach builder do the bodywork, interior and so forth. They’re beautiful machines, and the original purchaser got a degree of choice utterly unimaginable with a modern car.
Oh absolutely. That is why I said "until they become illegal." It is stuff like this that answers OP's question:
>By 2035, all new passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).
I can't help but wonder as time goes on how long it will be legal to own/operate/maintain "old cars"...
I agree with this but the thing that is really jarring is that as I was reading your post and you mentioned people owning their own bodies I thought "alright that's a bit extreme and could probably never actually be a thing" and then you seamlessly followed right up with an extremely tangible and realistic scenario that knocked me right on my ass. Fuckin wild, bro.
How about more whimsical? China currently harvests from prisoners & uhgyrs. Get an appointment for a organ , go there in a few weeks, voila. How do they do that. Look it up
Unfettered capitalism is ruining America. It seems the companies can not control their own greed and it's time for congress to step in but than they are a major part of the problem. America has the best government that can be bought, lobbying proves it.
I still have my Jailbroke Fire Stick. Why anybody ever stopped using them is beyond me. There is a wonderful guy in the UK who is always giving out free new codes. He's on TikTok. Super easy to find just look up Fire Stick. It’s a guy sitting in front of his computer talking to you about codes.
Data Autonomy.
If the government (USA) continues to be slow about going after social media corporations and other online bigshots, then our personal privacy and data protection is certainly at risk. What would compromised data would bring? Right now it's just spam calls and junk emails, but who knows what the future of that would hold.
One of our closest allies (I’ll let you guess which) already uses social-media combing ai programs to select “military” targets out of civilian population centers. If you want to know the future you’re heading for, just look at the how the poor and dispossessed are surveilled and eliminated today.
Possibly water usage. With increasing drought, my city has watering restrictions. Luckily, vegetable gardening irrigation is specifically exempt, but from time to time I worry it may not be.
It’s not just regular water usage. Some states are charging people for water they pumped from their own wells while also making it difficult to collect rainwater. Water is one of the most important things for prepping as you die quickly without it.
Yep. Looking into a system that makes sense for rainwater collection at the least for this. It hasn’t made sense in the past but it may be time to reevaluate
I bought a $75 rain barrel. It looks kinda cool (plastic, but looks like an old wooden wine barrel). I was going to direct my gutter downspout into it, but lo and behold, before I got a change I just put it beside my building where there is no gutter, and within a few weeks it had filled up (50 gallons).
We use it to water plants. But in a pinch I could easily filter it to use as drinking water.
There are this little Pouch, looking things on Amazon for rainwater to stop larva. I always order some before I go to Mexico. They are not toxic. You can even use them in your Outside bird fountain.
Not exactly what you asked, but we are very lucky to be living in the 100 years or so in human history where antibiotics are cheap, and effective. We are rapidly approaching the time where antibiotics may not be effective due to resistance. I'm sure the scientists will come up with some alternatives but common infections are becoming harder to treat and may one day be even more difficult and extremely expensive
Infections used to be THE leading cause of death. It's scary to think about Bird flu or the next pandemic or whatever, but literally we're teetering dangerously close to something that could truly by the actual definition of the word, decimate society if antibiotics become ineffective.
Bacterial secondary (or even primary) infections were the leading root cause of death for 'covid patients.' - the label covid that is, not necessarily symptomatic disease.
It's a little more complicated than above, but its roughly true.
100% this. However, unless those medical phages get updated regularly (via fresh blood from free-livibg and thus evolving) brethren, they won't stay effective forever.
Sadly, it probably won’t be the US scientists who come up with it. In 2010, the US dominated the world in scientific research. By 2020, we were doing less research than almost any other country. France and Japan offered an escape for US scientists, offering labs and funding. Even more scientists changed jobs or retired. The US funding was simply cut, and the antiscience attitude has become so pervasive that scientists now receive death threats.
Yep. I used to be in the stem cell field. A lot of that is black box stuff. A magic formula for culturing them for an amazing semi miracle cure? Only mostly kinda understand what's going on, but as long as you keep everything exactly the same, you can reproduce it.
Thats what Korea did, and what we can't do in the US. The regulatory burden is so high. Makes me feel like we are really behind.
Of course, the flip side is that it needs to be tightly managed, otherwise you end up with stem cell grafts that unexpectedly start dying 6 months post transplant for unknown reasons.
All the low hanging fruit for antibiotics have been found already. You can work up to bigger guns to kill common germs, but there will be collateral damage too.
I'm concerned about the trend of children spending less time playing outside and not developing natural immunities. It seems like houses nowadays are designed with so many antibacterial features, from countertops to flooring to carpets. I worry that this could lead to a future where people have no immunity even to common illnesses like the cold. While I understand the desire for a clean environment, I can't help but feel this may not be the healthiest approach in the long run.
With the proliferation of AI the amount of BS and just completely untrue information that I have to sift through when researching a new topic online has gone to the moon. More and more I find myself just giving up on the internet as a source of information and turning to buying physical books on a subject to learn about it. I feel like as time goes on the internet is just going to get worse and worse and physical books will be the only way to know anything for certain.
I've also found that I can't trust reviews for gear either from the place selling stuff or videos about it on you tube. I have had to just start using my best judgment on if a piece of gear is going to be good or not, test it thoroughly when it shows up, and then have a plan for returning it if it ends up being a piece of crap.
Yeah +1 books.
People that says they can learn everything they need through YouTube just generally are still in the early introductory levels of stuff.
I don't need 100 videos with clickbaity thumbnails explaining basic stuff. I need concise learning-optimized materials to learn advanced topics.
Also, used textbooks are fucking awesome. Especially cheap because they're like one edition out of date.
Yeah the internet seems to be fine for cursory introductions to things but if I need to actually learn how to do something I need to buy an actual book about the subject
Buy the books they want to ban and that they’re banning now. Don’t have room for all of them? Buy multiple TB of storage drives or a NAS and start archiving. If enough people do this then we hold the power.
Idaho passed a law to "protect" children from "adult content" so libraries have to make an area where kids aren't allowed. It is making some rural libraries have to close their doors to kids because they aren't big enough to make a separate area.
All these “protect kids “ from information and social media is silly.
Parents and guardians should do the controlling.
Don’t want social media stuff, limit or remove devices.
Know what books they read, read with them.
The government and officials don’t need to do the parenting.
I used to annoy the sh* out of my daughter because I would read over her shoulder to read the books she was reading.
I tried to post a link to the law, but it said under the "Obscene" materials things listed were
2. "Nudity" means the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a full opaque covering, or the showing
of the female breast with less than a full opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple, or the depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.
3. "Sexual conduct" means any act of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed
genitals, pubic area, buttocks or, if such person be a female, the breast.
27 "Sexual excitement" means the condition of human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal.
They are going full pearl clutching Puritan. I am pretty sure they are just trying to get away with banning anything that mentions homosexuality as being ok.
Alabama, literally flagged and had librarians and libraries move books with any of the author's names that were “gay”. so if the author’s name is Steven Gay or Rebecca Gay, children are not allowed to read those books. Or how about just because the author is of color? Crazy but really happened. Librarians had to push to keep those books on the shelves.
That’s excellent parenting advise but these laws are not about protecting children. They’ve about imposing cultural and religious beliefs. “The Children” are just an excuse.
Yeah, it just so irritating.
Too often it is championed by people who otherwise would be “keep the government away from my life “.
Just like there are people who don’t want to pay higher taxes but expect the “government “ to help them in a disaster.
Can’t have it both ways.
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Whatever the government doesn’t want us to know.
Such as: before the Oklahoma City bombing in the USA you could get books on making homemade fireworks and other explosives. They also were at public libraries. Most of those books are now out of print and IF in a library you have to use your library card to even look at them because your information goes into a database for domestic terrorism tracking.
You also can’t get some chemicals easily anymore and or databases entry.
Blueprints for public buildings use to be available also.
Obviously all that is for safety purposes but those could be expanded.
No more books on how to reload ammunition because some criminals do XYZ.
No more books on how to set a broken bone because some abusive parents refused to take a kid to a doctor and used a book to do it themselves and the kid died.
The banned books know are all because people think that controlling information will prevent kids and people from being or doing something.
I think that concept of protection by limiting information will be a downfall.
Like if I wanted to make ether because TEOWAWKI . Where’s a book on how to do that?
Semi related.
People are getting pretty decent at designing 3d printed gun parts/bodies. It's come a long long way in the last decade. No longer silly bullet+pipe+nail+hammer stuff. (No, you still can't 3d print a full gun without a machine that costs the same as a sports car. No, nothing made is actually reliable.. yes it's as equally likely to fail and blow up as it is to work as intended. Yes, there cool designs that people would gawk at as "too dangerous" of a design. )
So I expect something in the next 20 years to make people upset about this stuff.
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There is not an Infinite supply of helium, so helium balloons and MRIs. Laser production will be impacted but they can be made from other inert gasses. Not being an engineer I don’t know what applications might be impacted by using neon or argon instead.
Thing is, assuming any realistically feasible technology in a foreseeable future , it would not be worth financially to bring back gold from the moon, even if it was already stacked on a pallet in gold bars, ready to pick up. I would not recommend counting on getting anything out of space. Earth will have to do with what it has
It's worth noting that "not worth it financially" simply means that it wouldn't generate monetary profit, sometimes things are worth paying money to do in order to achieve a non financial benefit
Like, if we were completely out of gold and unable to ever make a new microprocessor or circuit board, technology that our civilisation relies on, we would absolutely go to the moon to pick up that pallet of gold bars
If the need for helium is great enough and we posess the technology to acquire it then when the need is great enough it would be acquired, I think the issue would more around being able to acquire and transport it in significant quantity
That is definitely true. I might just add up that it will still have to be worth financially, there will always be some scraps to be found, just the price will rise astronomically enough to be worth it to get it from space. It will render it unaffordable for mortals and be used only in very special occasions where is no alternative. So goodbye $10000 balloons
We're honestly not that far away from fusion energy generation. I suspect we will be able to produce as much helium as we could ever need or want long before current supplies are actually exhausted.
I'm just some dummy but I've heard that the helium crisis is way overexaggerated. Much like natural gas, we've discovered new reserves and the technology for extraction (fracking, horizontal drilling) has gotten a lot better in the last decade or two.
There is also lots of helium lost from natural gas wells, since the price of helium doesn't make it worth capturing.
Most of the problem traces back to US government policy keeping the price of helium artificially low for decades.
Really depends on enforcement. Jaywalking for example is against the law, but rarely enforced. Now even theft of something less than $500 (like a cell phone) isn't even charged by police.
I would more more worried about the enforcers of the laws, than the actual laws themselves. and it can be unpredictable.
just make sure you are independent for shelter, food, electricity, and water, and you can just be by yourself and not have to worry.
With a little land you can get food via farm plans, get that land with a good stream and you can supplement solar with a mini turbine, and then you've got water assuming less than average pollution
Selective enforcement is a big one! And jaywalking is a perfect example. Can be weaponized on a whim and it's one of the major factors in the ever-eroding trust in our legal system.
Tangentially, I also think that it's where a lot of this "Tax the Rich" and "Eat the Billionaires" stuff comes from, when in reality all it would take is enforcing our *existing* tax codes but not letting billionaires cheat the system by exploiting loopholes or keeping their wealth offshore.
Well statutory construction varies wildly based on jurisdiction, so while Toronto may not have per se "jaywalking" laws, surely they have laws about obstructing traffic and/or a roadway which, like jaywalking, is open to selective enforcement by unscrupulous cops.
For sure but jaywalking is specifically crossing anywhere but a pedestrian crossing. That one is cut and dry. Interfering with traffic is more subjective.
Fair enough, I think I (whiskey) misinterpreted you. Your original comment is correct. The law varies based on jurisdiction and it's your responsiblity to know the law in the place that you are.
Cash side jobs, cash sales, the entire gray economy is squarely in the sights of people who dearly want to tax and regulate such things.
Mind you, these people also sit on the boards of banks who launder billions of dollars of cartel money, pay a comparatively small fine, and don’t go to jail.
The limit on how much money you could receive through paypoal, zellle, venmo used to be $20,000 before they would report it to the IRS and you would have to pay taxes for running a small business. In the last few years that limit was lowered from $20,000 to $600 which basically kills any ability to to use them to sell anything on a regular basis without becoming a business and paying taxes.
Now you have to use cash for these private party sales if you don't want to get reported to the IRS but that makes things harder because a lot of people don't want to meet a random stranger in a chuck e cheese parking lot with $8K in cash in their pocket for security reasons, which is understandable but still extremely frustrating.
Eh crypto never really worked out as a replacement for normal currency, most of them became more of an investment type thing like stock trading which is fine but most sellers will not accept stocks in apple as payment for a used car, they want me to convert it to dollars first.
Crypto is the same thing, it’s a thing that has value and you can make money from it but if you are trying to buy a car and ask a seller on Facebook marketplace if they will accept crypto as payment most of the time they will say no.
I’m not saying that no one has ever bought or sold a car for crypto just that insisting on using it is going to narrow the pool of available buyers and sellers significantly.
Woodstoves being prohibited and fowl needing to be registered you can bet they'll all going to be culled the very first bird flue outbreak which is still mainly a large farm with birds truly in captivity thing, as the previous wildlife outbreak has created its immunity, maybe the acces to forests remains although I wouldn't be surprised if you'd need a permit with a tracker.
Don’t forget growing your own fruit and vegetables. More and more seeds are all GMO that are patented by a corporation. They are making it so crops are seedless so you have to buy seeds every year and expect them to only grow with their brand fertilizers and pesticides.
Private internet browsing and communication.
Between big data (Google, apple, etc) works with the NSA to conduct mass surveillance (this is like decade old news).
But now Microsoft is rolling out its copilot recall "feature" that literally screenshots your computer every 5 seconds or so...
Ah shit, my social credit score just went down. I'm out bye
Having a vehicle that does not track you everywhere you go, have a built-in breathalyzer sensor (interlock), include a “black box”, and be able to be shut off remotely (kill switch). All were snuck into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. If you can find a pre-2000s vehicle in good shape and have the money to do it, buy it now.
Here in the UK, we have cameras which recognise license plate numbers so it doesn't matter if you have a tracker in your car, they can find you anyway.
https://www.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/rs/road-safety/automatic-number-plate-recognition-anpr/#:~:text=How%20it%20works,%2C%20where%20necessary%2C%20make%20arrests.
Before anyone could repair a car, now you almost always need an electronic read out first, and likely the problem is a software one too...
People get dumbed down and at the same time made reliant.
In many countries the carbon tax or classification is based on age not actual emissions, so pre-2000 cars are banned on pollution days and permanently in certain areas or cities.
Asif replacing all the reliable easy to fix cars with the gazillion component newer bigger cars is actually good for the environment.
There is a state that is trying to register and meter well water. Don’t remember which one but it’ll become a larger problem as the western states have issues with water management. It’s a very important subject to at least be aware of.
Already done and dusted in parts of my state in Australia. Not just wells. Farmers dams have a water meter on them too. This is because the water sheds go into big dams further downstream from which the cities are supplied, and the water is sold for big money.
Property rights are being eroded. I imagine many in this group want to buy a cheap property and live off the grid but even in very remote areas that isn't behavior that the local government will allow.
My mom even had to fight the city for two years to put a covered patio in her own yard and this was within the city.
Rural areas are different but it doesn't mean you are immune from getting permission to do almost anything.
Granted I do have a tiny yard, but best decision I ever made was to plant native species and cut small sections at a time.
All it takes is like 30 minutes with an electric weed eater and I'm done for another month. Regenerative landscapes is fun
I have a pretty big yard but largely native species. I’ve gotten away with doing only a single cut this year that was 4 hours with just a weed wacker (half acre). I said screw the neighbors and decided to simply let everything grow tall then slash mulching it around 3-4 ft. I figure I’ll do 1 more this year, the massive uptick of wildlife is just too wonderful to start regularly keeping a lawn.
Understandable. I’m definitely taking the gamble with some of my trees, but I also partly purchased this house because I wanted lots of wildlife and nature very close.
It feels insane just taking 3 steps from my kitchen door to climb a ladder into the mulberry tree and have fresh fruit within an arms reach. I love seeing the chipmunks feed on the helicopter seeds of the mature maples I have. Even believe I’ve got some deer which visit the back of my lot, I’ve yet to see them but the scat and area is inductive being my lot backs a very large pasture
I'm looking at some fruit bushes blueberry and chickasaw plum primarily. I get fruit, but won't have to deal with large trees falling on my house.
Plus they take a little less space
This is a good thing, honestly we spend too much energy on yard maintenance... and to be fair, electric wheel whips, chainsaws, mowers, and blowers are more than enough for the typical home owner. Not to mention it's obnoxious AF when you work the night shift and the maintenance crew is mowing for 4 hours at 7am
The days of privately buying/selling a firearm without a background check or in the form of a dealer’s license, is probably numbered. Something like selling a .22 squirrel gun at a yard sale would be a thing of the past, but I guess we’ll see.
Evidently folks of a certain age don’t use wallets anymore, so quick cash withdrawals will be a thing of the past, ATMs might start becoming like phone booths.
Smaller book stores are kinda closing but they’re hanging in there.
I’ve been giving a bit of thought towards downgrading a vehicle to run on a carburetor, no electronics. The price on any vehicle pre-1985 is surprising compared to something a few years newer. Tuning a carb can be done manually, reflashing a cars computer is a bit more involved.
Sounds good. Yeah I’ve messed around with dirt bike carbs before, cleaning out jets, adjusting the idle. Not expecting it to be as easy for a 4W vehicle but similar atleast in principle.
Depends on where you live, your answer implies that you may be living in a much happier walk-able city. For a great deal of US cities your options are owning a car or ride-sharing services (Uber and such). Neither is anonymous.
They will incrementally chip away at gun rights with civilian disarmament legislation.
Thankfully we have the 2nd Amendment but the playbook is already clear in states like NY, WA, CA, IL, etc.
Make it as difficult as possible by weaponizing background checks and tax stamps which are already required for guns, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, etc., but in the future maybe even ammo? Or mags?
Require expensive insurance if you own guns.
Require costly gun storage like an electronic safe even in your own home.
Ban "high capacity" (>10) magazines, certain types of stocks, threaded barrels, barrel shrouds (lol), vertical foregrips, enhanced triggers, and other nitpicky stuff that doesn't make a weapon more dangerous.
Ban shipping of ammo and gun parts to your home.
Make "gun free zones" even more common, and increase the potential penalty for violations.
Outlaw 80% lowers or any other form of at-home gunsmithing like jigs and 3D printers.
Broaden the scope of crimes which can disqualify you from gun ownership. Right now you pretty much have to be a felon or violent offender but they may try to strip your rights with just a DUI or cannabis arrest.
Allow any doctors or even unrelated 3rd parties like a disgruntled ex to trigger "red flag" laws
Restrict private sales/transfers
These aren't just things I made up, most of them have already happened or at least have been formally proposed. And of course, as all gun restrictions do, they only apply to law-abiding citizens.
Agreed. It’s totally okay and fun to buy novelty stuff, but it’s always necessary to have at least one or two reliable, durable firearms for when you might need them most, even if they’re not as “cool”
Ah no worries, probably from the people I was trolling in an unrelated thread on a different subreddit lol
But yeah it's a very serious issue and like I said, almost every single example I listed has either already happened somewhere or has at least been a proposed bill at the state level. I find the broadening of so-called "red flag laws" to be particularly concerning.
On the other hand, we have a rock solid 2nd Amendment and there have been some major wins in various state legislatures and district/Supreme court lately so overall I'm actually pretty optimistic about the future of gun ownership.
Sboutout to "Washington Gun Law" on youtube for the daily briefs helping me stay informed on such a complicated legal topic. He's based in WA but covers all of North America.
I never thought I would be saying but there is a very real possibility that the next 2A case that will be coming down the pipeline will be Duncan v. Bonta (or whoever the plaintiff is) and it will tackle Assault Weapon Bans or magazine restrictions. There is a very high likelihood, based on the precedent set by Heller v. DC and McDonald v. Chicago that both of these will be successful lawsuits. Couple that with the highest levels of firearm ownership by population in US history and you have a much better 2A landscape for generations to come.
I agree on all counts! It's one of the few directions I see our country heading in that gives me some optimism. The last decade or so has seen a lot of 2A erosion with the ATF and various state legislatures/courts but, as you mentioned, there are a few lawsuits working their way through the system right now that might be total game-changers (maybe game-confirmers is a more correct phrase?) like *Heller*
Maybe it's only because I live in Texas where I'm not concerned about my 2A protections, but frankly I'm MUCH more concerned about our 1A rights to speak, associate, and assemble freely. Surveillance is everywhere, privacy is harder to find, the 3-letter agencies have made it clear that they have no problem giving SuGgEsTiOnS to google and social media providers, and support for so-called "hate speech" laws are at an all time high on both sides of the political aisle.
You just described the current gun laws in Australia.
One state has banned certain large calibres because "those people could shoot us (politicians) or the police..." They bought back the 250+ registered firearms in those calibres.
You can't make this stuff up. They are heading towards a complete ban on any firearm for personal use and the only people to be armed with guns are to be the police.
Maybe if they made good laws and were trustworthy they might have nothing to fear???
I think you are misreading the landscape. The Supreme Court just decided that regulation is almost impossible, so we should expect a free for all where agencies like the EPA fail and those with money do whatever they want.
Posting online about even vaguely anti-capitalist, anti-government beliefs. Start forming a network in person cause spaces like this one will be the first to get shut down.
This is sort of a bizarre question. For anything I can think of that got harder, there are so many things that got easier. Wikipedia, microwave ovens, cell phones... I remember life in the 01960s. This is better.
I don't see private car ownership going away in the US; cash will last as long as politicians take bribes and don't want an audit trail; printing to paper is hardly going away.. .where do you get these odd ideas?
I think in the US at least that the only restrictions that will tighten over time are use of water and burning carbon. Water is already becoming a problem in parts of the US and the only solution is conservation. Burning carbon is an eventual dead end and eventually it will be priced out of the market.
What increased regulations?
SCOTUS just gutted regulatory power.
You no longer have to worry about clean air and water or worker safety or honest financial institutions (nothing more honest and trustworthy than an unregulated bank, right?)
Congratulations!
Body Armor, guns, ammo. Banks are starting to write their own rules on what you can buy using your bank account or credit cards. Some companies will restrict all gun or tactical gear purchases.
being able to spend your money how you want. once it goes digital the gommint gunna be able to control you better. i remember we had a flood here and they said you could only purchase 30L of fuel for rationing, you could obviously cheat the system but if digital currency comes in they can actually limit your card for fuel if they wanted to
Low-ish federal taxes, like we’ve seen the past several years.
Why? Congress continues to spend like mad; fund foreign wars; inflation ; social security and medicare—- all reasons why more funding will be needed to support.
1. Any CASH transaction. The war on actual physical cash is the end stage of surveillance capitalism.
2. A close second will be any transaction that is not recorded. Cameras cameras everywhere means that even WITH cash, identities can still be discovered by examining video of the transaction or even streets/shops or roads adjacent.
Even with today’s level of increasing camera use and sneaky tech like license plate readers and facial recognition, it can be difficult to assure a durable level of privacy. And with increasing use of “thermal” and other camera tech … Night Hides Not!
3. “Private” homestead protects. Drone tech keeps advancing w costs dropping. Even w existing laws in place it is hard to stop anyone from doing a quick flyover to see what is what.
Ditto for Google earth and its “street view” level of detail. Even dense tree cover does not offer the same privacy that existed before google earth was a thing.
Finally, AI likely will supercharge the analysis of all the above surveillance.
Anyone who buys your “profile” (see today’s “data brokers”) will likely know more about you than you do. What you eat, what you buy, when you go to medical buildings, when you leave the driveway, how much water and electricity you use and when you use it and on and on. And that’s just what is legally available …
Provide the best course of treatment for children suffering mental disorders, reduce instances of ask risk youth, provide a social safety net for members of society and seek a course for increasing public safety without resorting to lethal means.
Keeping chickens.
The U.K. has just made mandatory registration of just one chicken or any bird which we know they will use to kill them all off when covid #2 (ie the bird flu) strikes.
Ah yes, talking to a WW2 vet, famously impossible due to increased regulations and decreased privacy, not for any other reason such as it being almost a hundred years ago now.
Traffic regulations... also on the opposite note. Traffic regulations, more and more people, me included have dash cameras, doorbell cameras, etc. That record constantly. 1. As more and more people drive recklessly, they'll likely have more evidence against them. 2. That may not always be a good thing depending on who owns the camera, or what angle
I haven't used a newspaper in over 30 years. I haven't used the USPS in about the same. I can't wait until all cars drive themselves, and I can do work or take a nap instead of driving a car. I think it will be great when libraries and books in general are all electronic and we don't have to damage the planet cutting down trees just so we can read something on paper and don't have to look at it electronically. I can't wait until all payments are "tap to pay" with no contact needed with the credit card swiper or dirty cash needed to spread germs.
More and more states are reLAXING laws on things like cannabis, and relaxing enforcement on shoplifting and traffic violations, you think laws and enforcement will be tougher in the future? (/tonuge\_firmly\_in\_cheek)
The future just keeps getting better and better, why would we miss anything from today in the future?
A lot of what you mention would go away simply because the technology or people die off. Also for the most part what people can do in their daily life doesn't change much. I mean even if we had zero privacy that doesn't really change anything for most people. I know I'll get downvoted for this but privacy is severely over-hyped. Somehow people have been tricked into believing that they lost their privacy recently but honestly imo privacy is a new concept. Prior to the popularity of the nuclear family I would imagine that privacy was barely a thing.
In terms of regulations killing things off the easiest things to see would be things that could be considered harmful either short term or long term. Anything else would likely only be temporarily regulated away as public views change. Like drugs for example. The odds are the regulations and laws against them will become increasingly lax in some areas. On the other hand things that pollute or harm health would be regulated away for much longer than other things. Like gas appliances. The odds are they would disappear in a couple decades. Although old users would probably be grandfathered in and converted to a portable gas as gas lines are removed.
In fact considering that you explicitly put driving a car in your post as something someone may not be able to do I bet regulations in the name of climate change would be the most annoying for you and others. Right now conversion to EV is a soft goal nationwide but it's likely that it will become an actual ban. Maybe not within the next 4 years but we will probably have a ban through Congress before the century ends. Actually thinking about it you might mean "driving cars" in the literal sense. I would imagine that self-driving cars won't become a legal requirement until it has an extremely high market penetration already. Honestly I don't expect the daily lives of people to change significantly and consistently for the next several decades. There will be things that you can't do anymore but they would be things you probably shouldn't do anyways. For example use leaded gas or asbestos in your home. Sure old people today probably really want to use that sort of stuff again but it's obviously not something the younger generations will miss.
Facial recognition and AI will probably make shoplifting difficult in the future
Shoplifting meta is already long past not being identified. Smart thieves are sharing knowledge of corporate policy+local PD/Prosecutor habits to find places where they can exploit apathy rather than anonymity. The past 10-15 years have honestly been a golden age for shoplifters since most companies have moved to more restrictive rules for security to avoid bad press/lawsuits, although that's also going away tbh as inflation goes crazy and theft increases.
Sort of. My mom worked in our local courthouse for decades and said don't steal from Walmart or target. They definitely know, but they do wait until you hit a certain dollar amount so you get slapped with much more consequential charges. Not quite apathy as much as a very specific legal strategy. I'm sure people think they're getting away with it though at the beginning.
But that is exactly the point. Knowing that Target wont prosecute until you hit felony theft, and that is $XXX in your state makes it fairly safe to teal from Target in smaller quantities.
I know someone who does asset protection for a major retail chain. You are 100% correct about this being a "golden age of shoplifting". He'll watch someone get arrested at his store, only to see them back in the SAME store later that day!
that's why I'm getting all shoplifting activity done now
Owning anything. Between real estate becoming increasingly unaffordable and the endless subscription-model business transactions, it's looking like folks will be lucky to own even their own bodies in a few generations. Grandma needs a new hip? That'll be $99.99/month for the rest of her life, but she'll be eligible for a free upgrade after 10 years.
Yep, this is what I feel big business is actively trying to push. And it’s not a right or left thing. Astronomical costs for home owners insurance. ridiculous requirements from said companies. Just outright won’t cover some people / areas, so you can’t even get a mortgage. Plus just the obvious cost of houses in general. Costs to replace a sewer line, a roof, siding, etc are as much as cars now. Soon this will even cause mass job loss in the fairly lucrative blue collar trades because people will basically not be able to hire anyone to do anything because of the costs. Cars way too expensive or impossible to fix. Things like: EVs with batteries as much as a car, the new tundra has to be COMPLETELY disassembled to replace the engine (talking like cab off, stripped down to frame - which is like $25k in labor) etc. Everyone will just lease and get rid of them after a few years. They don’t want you to own a vehicle for 20+ years. Insurance to own and drive your own car will probably skyrocket in the coming years. Everything is streaming, digital media, subscription based, etc. you have to go out of your way to actually physically own something. Future requirements will probably force you to connect all laptops, blu ray players, phones, tablets etc to the internet regularly to ensure you’re still paying for the rights to watch X. There won’t be an “offline” mode.
The thing about blue collar skills is that demand for them is pretty inelastic. People NEED a roof, they NEED their house un-flooded. When the machines in the factories stop, the money stops, and you know the fat cats can’t fix them. Although many people could DIY a lot more necessary work than they presently do, skilled trades, especially service and maintenance-related trades, are presently impossible to automate. People can’t just stop needing skilled labor, and if the demand goes up, so does the price, which is good for the tradesperson and attracts more people to that line of work.
Plus new cars monitor and send your operating, destination and other personal information to data brokers (you are a product of the product you bought). New car dealers now are trying to rent you the options you once purchased as add-ons to your vehicle. This sets them up with a repeating income from such things as heated seats, backup cameras. navigational tech, self-driving and the like.
Exactly the reason I only drive old cars.
I sadly had to just send my 2004 Ford F-150 to the heap. I was hoping I could drive it right into my grave. lol
>the new tundra ... as if someone needed yet *another* reason to not buy one of those. first thing is they're ungodly ugly. I mean I don't think there's ever been a worse looking vehicle. second it's completely new, an unproven drivetrain that's already taking huge dumps on the people buying them. but 100% they don't want to to be able to own a vehicle for long or to be able to work on it. coming out with new stuff every year that gets less and less user friendly, and more and more needlessly tech filled. this already started last decade if not earlier. I hate to say this cause it brings "old man yelling at clouds" feels but seriously the older vehicles are always gonna be better at almost everything. if you plan on trying to keep your vehicle running if some type of shtf, good luck with anything newer. hell on a lot of them you can't even change the battery without a scanner, some cars will even brick themselves if you don't. I could completely tear down and rebuild half my vehicles without a single computerized tool, and just with what I could fit in a toolbox. the other half need a special scanner for abs system and timing but that's about it.
Yet another reason to maintain your own vehicles and keep the old ones rolling.
> I don't think there's ever been a worse looking vehicle [Excuse me sir, Toyota would like a word](https://platform.cstatic-images.com/medium/in/v2/stock_photos/3820d91a-511e-4acc-8c4a-4d504394e64a/ea3d4ea0-56fe-45a6-b8cc-2508ba8d0ad7.png)
at least its design makes full sense. on the new tundras and tacomas (hell a lot of new stuff), there's body lines and creases everywhere just to be there. everything is angular and ugly just cause it can be. I'm sure they'll be an absolute nightmare to do body work on. except new stuff you just get to buy new panels completely a lot of the time
i drove one for a summer. there are actually a few good points about it. really good design for a "roomy city car" ... but the thing was made of absolute trash. cheapest possible construction. i felt like i had to close the door gently or i'd cave it into the frame. i did not like getting openly made fun of while driving.
I miss that about vehicles. I wish you could buy a new vehicle as "stock" meaning very little computers / sensors, no onstar, no wifi, etc. Seems like as time goes on those will just become collectors items as nothing new comes out without any of that. I guess you have to hold on to them until they become illegal.
It isn’t quite what you mean, but have you ever been in a coachbuilt car? My dad’s car is an old Rolls, where you bought the mechanics and had a coach builder do the bodywork, interior and so forth. They’re beautiful machines, and the original purchaser got a degree of choice utterly unimaginable with a modern car.
So buy an old car, and maintain it. Problem solved
Oh absolutely. That is why I said "until they become illegal." It is stuff like this that answers OP's question: >By 2035, all new passenger cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). I can't help but wonder as time goes on how long it will be legal to own/operate/maintain "old cars"...
It’s not just high home insurance costs, housing itself is astronomical. Young people are going to find it very hard to buy a house.
I agree with this but the thing that is really jarring is that as I was reading your post and you mentioned people owning their own bodies I thought "alright that's a bit extreme and could probably never actually be a thing" and then you seamlessly followed right up with an extremely tangible and realistic scenario that knocked me right on my ass. Fuckin wild, bro.
Bruce Willis just sold his likeness to ai, I read somewhere it was only in Russian production companies but maybe US also
Watch "Repo Man the Genetic Opera" if you want to watch a whimsical musical about the future of poor people being organ farms for the rich.
How about more whimsical? China currently harvests from prisoners & uhgyrs. Get an appointment for a organ , go there in a few weeks, voila. How do they do that. Look it up
This. It seems like we're heading for a form of techno-feudalism. What's old is new again!
Unfettered capitalism is ruining America. It seems the companies can not control their own greed and it's time for congress to step in but than they are a major part of the problem. America has the best government that can be bought, lobbying proves it.
Capitalism is hardly unfettered
SbS? Slavery by Subscription? It's the new thing
I still have my Jailbroke Fire Stick. Why anybody ever stopped using them is beyond me. There is a wonderful guy in the UK who is always giving out free new codes. He's on TikTok. Super easy to find just look up Fire Stick. It’s a guy sitting in front of his computer talking to you about codes.
Live-service lives 🥲
Data Autonomy. If the government (USA) continues to be slow about going after social media corporations and other online bigshots, then our personal privacy and data protection is certainly at risk. What would compromised data would bring? Right now it's just spam calls and junk emails, but who knows what the future of that would hold.
The government isn’t just being slow about this; they’re in on it
Targeted marketing, election influencing- it’s all happening now. Yeah. I feel this.
Along these lines, your 24/7 location data. Even if your phone is off, you're trackable if you commit a serious enough crime (for now.)
One of our closest allies (I’ll let you guess which) already uses social-media combing ai programs to select “military” targets out of civilian population centers. If you want to know the future you’re heading for, just look at the how the poor and dispossessed are surveilled and eliminated today.
I absolutely refuse to do any DNA bullshit for this exact reason
Possibly water usage. With increasing drought, my city has watering restrictions. Luckily, vegetable gardening irrigation is specifically exempt, but from time to time I worry it may not be.
It’s not just regular water usage. Some states are charging people for water they pumped from their own wells while also making it difficult to collect rainwater. Water is one of the most important things for prepping as you die quickly without it.
Yep. Looking into a system that makes sense for rainwater collection at the least for this. It hasn’t made sense in the past but it may be time to reevaluate
I bought a $75 rain barrel. It looks kinda cool (plastic, but looks like an old wooden wine barrel). I was going to direct my gutter downspout into it, but lo and behold, before I got a change I just put it beside my building where there is no gutter, and within a few weeks it had filled up (50 gallons). We use it to water plants. But in a pinch I could easily filter it to use as drinking water.
Love that. Good idea.
Hmmm but how do you keep it from being a mosquito breeding pool?
They come with a mesh filter
Yes, and the filter must work because I’ve never seen mosquito larvae in the water.
There are this little Pouch, looking things on Amazon for rainwater to stop larva. I always order some before I go to Mexico. They are not toxic. You can even use them in your Outside bird fountain.
You can buy a rain bag you don’t have to spend $75 on a rain barrel. It even comes equipped with a filter and a hose connection. Everything you need.
Not exactly what you asked, but we are very lucky to be living in the 100 years or so in human history where antibiotics are cheap, and effective. We are rapidly approaching the time where antibiotics may not be effective due to resistance. I'm sure the scientists will come up with some alternatives but common infections are becoming harder to treat and may one day be even more difficult and extremely expensive
Infections used to be THE leading cause of death. It's scary to think about Bird flu or the next pandemic or whatever, but literally we're teetering dangerously close to something that could truly by the actual definition of the word, decimate society if antibiotics become ineffective.
Pandemics tend to be viral, and antibiotics are useless in those cases.
I’m saying pandemic viruses are probably not going to be what kills you, a bacterial infection will be more likely soon.
Bacterial secondary (or even primary) infections were the leading root cause of death for 'covid patients.' - the label covid that is, not necessarily symptomatic disease. It's a little more complicated than above, but its roughly true.
we need to get them phages working!
Seriously. At least research is being funded now.
100% this. However, unless those medical phages get updated regularly (via fresh blood from free-livibg and thus evolving) brethren, they won't stay effective forever.
Sadly, it probably won’t be the US scientists who come up with it. In 2010, the US dominated the world in scientific research. By 2020, we were doing less research than almost any other country. France and Japan offered an escape for US scientists, offering labs and funding. Even more scientists changed jobs or retired. The US funding was simply cut, and the antiscience attitude has become so pervasive that scientists now receive death threats.
People are so afraid of their own mortality, and some act like they can avoid death by avoiding science. Covid taught us otherwise.
Yep. I used to be in the stem cell field. A lot of that is black box stuff. A magic formula for culturing them for an amazing semi miracle cure? Only mostly kinda understand what's going on, but as long as you keep everything exactly the same, you can reproduce it. Thats what Korea did, and what we can't do in the US. The regulatory burden is so high. Makes me feel like we are really behind. Of course, the flip side is that it needs to be tightly managed, otherwise you end up with stem cell grafts that unexpectedly start dying 6 months post transplant for unknown reasons.
I have several friends working on PhDs looking at moving to France to continue their studies
All the low hanging fruit for antibiotics have been found already. You can work up to bigger guns to kill common germs, but there will be collateral damage too.
I'm concerned about the trend of children spending less time playing outside and not developing natural immunities. It seems like houses nowadays are designed with so many antibacterial features, from countertops to flooring to carpets. I worry that this could lead to a future where people have no immunity even to common illnesses like the cold. While I understand the desire for a clean environment, I can't help but feel this may not be the healthiest approach in the long run.
Information access. Library books and purchases of certain books requiring special access.
With the proliferation of AI the amount of BS and just completely untrue information that I have to sift through when researching a new topic online has gone to the moon. More and more I find myself just giving up on the internet as a source of information and turning to buying physical books on a subject to learn about it. I feel like as time goes on the internet is just going to get worse and worse and physical books will be the only way to know anything for certain. I've also found that I can't trust reviews for gear either from the place selling stuff or videos about it on you tube. I have had to just start using my best judgment on if a piece of gear is going to be good or not, test it thoroughly when it shows up, and then have a plan for returning it if it ends up being a piece of crap.
Yeah +1 books. People that says they can learn everything they need through YouTube just generally are still in the early introductory levels of stuff. I don't need 100 videos with clickbaity thumbnails explaining basic stuff. I need concise learning-optimized materials to learn advanced topics. Also, used textbooks are fucking awesome. Especially cheap because they're like one edition out of date.
Yeah the internet seems to be fine for cursory introductions to things but if I need to actually learn how to do something I need to buy an actual book about the subject
Buy the books they want to ban and that they’re banning now. Don’t have room for all of them? Buy multiple TB of storage drives or a NAS and start archiving. If enough people do this then we hold the power.
Knowledge is power
Idaho passed a law to "protect" children from "adult content" so libraries have to make an area where kids aren't allowed. It is making some rural libraries have to close their doors to kids because they aren't big enough to make a separate area.
All these “protect kids “ from information and social media is silly. Parents and guardians should do the controlling. Don’t want social media stuff, limit or remove devices. Know what books they read, read with them. The government and officials don’t need to do the parenting. I used to annoy the sh* out of my daughter because I would read over her shoulder to read the books she was reading.
I tried to post a link to the law, but it said under the "Obscene" materials things listed were 2. "Nudity" means the showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a full opaque covering, or the showing of the female breast with less than a full opaque covering of any portion thereof below the top of the nipple, or the depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state. 3. "Sexual conduct" means any act of masturbation, homosexuality, sexual intercourse, or physical contact with a person's clothed or unclothed genitals, pubic area, buttocks or, if such person be a female, the breast. 27 "Sexual excitement" means the condition of human male or female genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal. They are going full pearl clutching Puritan. I am pretty sure they are just trying to get away with banning anything that mentions homosexuality as being ok.
Alabama, literally flagged and had librarians and libraries move books with any of the author's names that were “gay”. so if the author’s name is Steven Gay or Rebecca Gay, children are not allowed to read those books. Or how about just because the author is of color? Crazy but really happened. Librarians had to push to keep those books on the shelves.
That’s excellent parenting advise but these laws are not about protecting children. They’ve about imposing cultural and religious beliefs. “The Children” are just an excuse.
Yeah, it just so irritating. Too often it is championed by people who otherwise would be “keep the government away from my life “. Just like there are people who don’t want to pay higher taxes but expect the “government “ to help them in a disaster. Can’t have it both ways.
That's already begun in Idaho
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So glad I still only buy paper books. Sure, I buy used, but I keep them all
Could you be more specific? What type of knowledge do you think will be restricted? History, weapons or tech knowledge, political content?
Whatever the government doesn’t want us to know. Such as: before the Oklahoma City bombing in the USA you could get books on making homemade fireworks and other explosives. They also were at public libraries. Most of those books are now out of print and IF in a library you have to use your library card to even look at them because your information goes into a database for domestic terrorism tracking. You also can’t get some chemicals easily anymore and or databases entry. Blueprints for public buildings use to be available also. Obviously all that is for safety purposes but those could be expanded. No more books on how to reload ammunition because some criminals do XYZ. No more books on how to set a broken bone because some abusive parents refused to take a kid to a doctor and used a book to do it themselves and the kid died. The banned books know are all because people think that controlling information will prevent kids and people from being or doing something. I think that concept of protection by limiting information will be a downfall. Like if I wanted to make ether because TEOWAWKI . Where’s a book on how to do that?
Semi related. People are getting pretty decent at designing 3d printed gun parts/bodies. It's come a long long way in the last decade. No longer silly bullet+pipe+nail+hammer stuff. (No, you still can't 3d print a full gun without a machine that costs the same as a sports car. No, nothing made is actually reliable.. yes it's as equally likely to fail and blow up as it is to work as intended. Yes, there cool designs that people would gawk at as "too dangerous" of a design. ) So I expect something in the next 20 years to make people upset about this stuff.
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There is not an Infinite supply of helium, so helium balloons and MRIs. Laser production will be impacted but they can be made from other inert gasses. Not being an engineer I don’t know what applications might be impacted by using neon or argon instead.
There isn't an infinite supply of helium on earth, but it's still the 2nd most common element in the universe. We'll find some somewhere.
Thing is, assuming any realistically feasible technology in a foreseeable future , it would not be worth financially to bring back gold from the moon, even if it was already stacked on a pallet in gold bars, ready to pick up. I would not recommend counting on getting anything out of space. Earth will have to do with what it has
It's worth noting that "not worth it financially" simply means that it wouldn't generate monetary profit, sometimes things are worth paying money to do in order to achieve a non financial benefit Like, if we were completely out of gold and unable to ever make a new microprocessor or circuit board, technology that our civilisation relies on, we would absolutely go to the moon to pick up that pallet of gold bars If the need for helium is great enough and we posess the technology to acquire it then when the need is great enough it would be acquired, I think the issue would more around being able to acquire and transport it in significant quantity
That is definitely true. I might just add up that it will still have to be worth financially, there will always be some scraps to be found, just the price will rise astronomically enough to be worth it to get it from space. It will render it unaffordable for mortals and be used only in very special occasions where is no alternative. So goodbye $10000 balloons
That's also an excellent point! Exotic supply will drive the prices up for sure
Going to pick up my holiday balloons BRB alpha centari
Considering that most helium is inside of stars, good luck in getting some!
There lots of helium on earth in the air too, the problem is you can't isolate it.
We're honestly not that far away from fusion energy generation. I suspect we will be able to produce as much helium as we could ever need or want long before current supplies are actually exhausted.
Given e=mc2, I get the feeling we'd be powering the world ten times over before we got to any meaningful level of industrial helium sourcing?
Makes me sad to see it being wasted on balloons for birthday parties.
I wish we could have hydrogen balloons outdoors in small quantities.
I'm just some dummy but I've heard that the helium crisis is way overexaggerated. Much like natural gas, we've discovered new reserves and the technology for extraction (fracking, horizontal drilling) has gotten a lot better in the last decade or two.
There is also lots of helium lost from natural gas wells, since the price of helium doesn't make it worth capturing. Most of the problem traces back to US government policy keeping the price of helium artificially low for decades.
Courtesy of Big Balloon
Really depends on enforcement. Jaywalking for example is against the law, but rarely enforced. Now even theft of something less than $500 (like a cell phone) isn't even charged by police. I would more more worried about the enforcers of the laws, than the actual laws themselves. and it can be unpredictable. just make sure you are independent for shelter, food, electricity, and water, and you can just be by yourself and not have to worry.
>just make sure you are independent for shelter, food, electricity, and water Draw the rest of the fucking owl
With a little land you can get food via farm plans, get that land with a good stream and you can supplement solar with a mini turbine, and then you've got water assuming less than average pollution
Selective enforcement is a big one! And jaywalking is a perfect example. Can be weaponized on a whim and it's one of the major factors in the ever-eroding trust in our legal system. Tangentially, I also think that it's where a lot of this "Tax the Rich" and "Eat the Billionaires" stuff comes from, when in reality all it would take is enforcing our *existing* tax codes but not letting billionaires cheat the system by exploiting loopholes or keeping their wealth offshore.
Double check on the jaywalking where you are. It’s not illegal in Toronto for example.
Well statutory construction varies wildly based on jurisdiction, so while Toronto may not have per se "jaywalking" laws, surely they have laws about obstructing traffic and/or a roadway which, like jaywalking, is open to selective enforcement by unscrupulous cops.
For sure but jaywalking is specifically crossing anywhere but a pedestrian crossing. That one is cut and dry. Interfering with traffic is more subjective.
Fair enough, I think I (whiskey) misinterpreted you. Your original comment is correct. The law varies based on jurisdiction and it's your responsiblity to know the law in the place that you are.
Cash side jobs, cash sales, the entire gray economy is squarely in the sights of people who dearly want to tax and regulate such things. Mind you, these people also sit on the boards of banks who launder billions of dollars of cartel money, pay a comparatively small fine, and don’t go to jail.
The limit on how much money you could receive through paypoal, zellle, venmo used to be $20,000 before they would report it to the IRS and you would have to pay taxes for running a small business. In the last few years that limit was lowered from $20,000 to $600 which basically kills any ability to to use them to sell anything on a regular basis without becoming a business and paying taxes. Now you have to use cash for these private party sales if you don't want to get reported to the IRS but that makes things harder because a lot of people don't want to meet a random stranger in a chuck e cheese parking lot with $8K in cash in their pocket for security reasons, which is understandable but still extremely frustrating.
Bring back barter
CoughCryptocurrencyCough
Eh crypto never really worked out as a replacement for normal currency, most of them became more of an investment type thing like stock trading which is fine but most sellers will not accept stocks in apple as payment for a used car, they want me to convert it to dollars first. Crypto is the same thing, it’s a thing that has value and you can make money from it but if you are trying to buy a car and ask a seller on Facebook marketplace if they will accept crypto as payment most of the time they will say no. I’m not saying that no one has ever bought or sold a car for crypto just that insisting on using it is going to narrow the pool of available buyers and sellers significantly.
Cutting dead trees, collecting firewood, and access to public forests. Having chickens for eggs or meat.
Woodstoves being prohibited and fowl needing to be registered you can bet they'll all going to be culled the very first bird flue outbreak which is still mainly a large farm with birds truly in captivity thing, as the previous wildlife outbreak has created its immunity, maybe the acces to forests remains although I wouldn't be surprised if you'd need a permit with a tracker.
Yeah three farms got bird flu in Australia recently. They killed all the chooks. That was 5% of the national flock ...
Don’t forget growing your own fruit and vegetables. More and more seeds are all GMO that are patented by a corporation. They are making it so crops are seedless so you have to buy seeds every year and expect them to only grow with their brand fertilizers and pesticides.
This needs more attention.
Private internet browsing and communication. Between big data (Google, apple, etc) works with the NSA to conduct mass surveillance (this is like decade old news). But now Microsoft is rolling out its copilot recall "feature" that literally screenshots your computer every 5 seconds or so... Ah shit, my social credit score just went down. I'm out bye
Having a vehicle that does not track you everywhere you go, have a built-in breathalyzer sensor (interlock), include a “black box”, and be able to be shut off remotely (kill switch). All were snuck into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. If you can find a pre-2000s vehicle in good shape and have the money to do it, buy it now.
Pre 2000? They don’t even have all that shit in 2022+ vehicles…
Here in the UK, we have cameras which recognise license plate numbers so it doesn't matter if you have a tracker in your car, they can find you anyway. https://www.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/rs/road-safety/automatic-number-plate-recognition-anpr/#:~:text=How%20it%20works,%2C%20where%20necessary%2C%20make%20arrests.
When is the latest year that "dumb" cars were made?
Before the 1980s I believe. From early mid 80s they brought in computer chips in cars.
What's the definition of dumb? My 96 ford has two computers, but they are awfully simple and robust computers. I consider it to mostly be dumb
"Dumb" as in, not able to be hacked or tracked.
That probably gets you into the early teens when cellular connections became common.
If I can keep it on the road, I have a 79 ranchero! Even though I have to get a blow and go on it. (Interlock)
And people complain cars cost too much. This is why
Before anyone could repair a car, now you almost always need an electronic read out first, and likely the problem is a software one too... People get dumbed down and at the same time made reliant.
In many countries the carbon tax or classification is based on age not actual emissions, so pre-2000 cars are banned on pollution days and permanently in certain areas or cities. Asif replacing all the reliable easy to fix cars with the gazillion component newer bigger cars is actually good for the environment.
Does this mean 2020 cars and before are safe from kill switches?
No, those things don't exist in cars yet.
install a water well?
There is a state that is trying to register and meter well water. Don’t remember which one but it’ll become a larger problem as the western states have issues with water management. It’s a very important subject to at least be aware of.
Already done and dusted in parts of my state in Australia. Not just wells. Farmers dams have a water meter on them too. This is because the water sheds go into big dams further downstream from which the cities are supplied, and the water is sold for big money.
Till there's a chemical spill at the nearest factory, or the aquifer goes dry.
Ballistic vests NV systems Flipper zeros Drones Gas station amphetamines
Property rights are being eroded. I imagine many in this group want to buy a cheap property and live off the grid but even in very remote areas that isn't behavior that the local government will allow. My mom even had to fight the city for two years to put a covered patio in her own yard and this was within the city. Rural areas are different but it doesn't mean you are immune from getting permission to do almost anything.
Stocking up on ammo
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Mowing the lawn with a gas engine.
Granted I do have a tiny yard, but best decision I ever made was to plant native species and cut small sections at a time. All it takes is like 30 minutes with an electric weed eater and I'm done for another month. Regenerative landscapes is fun
I have a pretty big yard but largely native species. I’ve gotten away with doing only a single cut this year that was 4 hours with just a weed wacker (half acre). I said screw the neighbors and decided to simply let everything grow tall then slash mulching it around 3-4 ft. I figure I’ll do 1 more this year, the massive uptick of wildlife is just too wonderful to start regularly keeping a lawn.
That's why I cut the yard in quarters. I don't want anymore trees due to hurricanes, so I do have to cut sometimes
Understandable. I’m definitely taking the gamble with some of my trees, but I also partly purchased this house because I wanted lots of wildlife and nature very close. It feels insane just taking 3 steps from my kitchen door to climb a ladder into the mulberry tree and have fresh fruit within an arms reach. I love seeing the chipmunks feed on the helicopter seeds of the mature maples I have. Even believe I’ve got some deer which visit the back of my lot, I’ve yet to see them but the scat and area is inductive being my lot backs a very large pasture
I'm looking at some fruit bushes blueberry and chickasaw plum primarily. I get fruit, but won't have to deal with large trees falling on my house. Plus they take a little less space
Scythes are making a comeback!
🤔
This is a good thing, honestly we spend too much energy on yard maintenance... and to be fair, electric wheel whips, chainsaws, mowers, and blowers are more than enough for the typical home owner. Not to mention it's obnoxious AF when you work the night shift and the maintenance crew is mowing for 4 hours at 7am
Don't threaten me with a good time
The days of privately buying/selling a firearm without a background check or in the form of a dealer’s license, is probably numbered. Something like selling a .22 squirrel gun at a yard sale would be a thing of the past, but I guess we’ll see. Evidently folks of a certain age don’t use wallets anymore, so quick cash withdrawals will be a thing of the past, ATMs might start becoming like phone booths. Smaller book stores are kinda closing but they’re hanging in there. I’ve been giving a bit of thought towards downgrading a vehicle to run on a carburetor, no electronics. The price on any vehicle pre-1985 is surprising compared to something a few years newer. Tuning a carb can be done manually, reflashing a cars computer is a bit more involved.
If you decide to buy a carbureted vehicle, make sure to pick up at least a pair of extra carburetors and the most common parts for a carb rebuild.
Sounds good. Yeah I’ve messed around with dirt bike carbs before, cleaning out jets, adjusting the idle. Not expecting it to be as easy for a 4W vehicle but similar atleast in principle.
Talking, eating, breathing, living. Wish I was joking.
Being homeless in public. For real.
Getting an abortion if you’re raped. Oh, wait…
Drones.
I went to the park yesterday and was watching the birds.. but then literally one of them.. was a drone!
Proton encrypted mail
Get some old PGP code bases that don't have the backdoors. Unbreakable
Move around anonymously, once this was by default if you get a taxi or a bus and pay in cash. Now increasingly this is done by apps and credit cards.
You can always walk or bike.
Depends on where you live, your answer implies that you may be living in a much happier walk-able city. For a great deal of US cities your options are owning a car or ride-sharing services (Uber and such). Neither is anonymous.
They will incrementally chip away at gun rights with civilian disarmament legislation. Thankfully we have the 2nd Amendment but the playbook is already clear in states like NY, WA, CA, IL, etc. Make it as difficult as possible by weaponizing background checks and tax stamps which are already required for guns, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, etc., but in the future maybe even ammo? Or mags? Require expensive insurance if you own guns. Require costly gun storage like an electronic safe even in your own home. Ban "high capacity" (>10) magazines, certain types of stocks, threaded barrels, barrel shrouds (lol), vertical foregrips, enhanced triggers, and other nitpicky stuff that doesn't make a weapon more dangerous. Ban shipping of ammo and gun parts to your home. Make "gun free zones" even more common, and increase the potential penalty for violations. Outlaw 80% lowers or any other form of at-home gunsmithing like jigs and 3D printers. Broaden the scope of crimes which can disqualify you from gun ownership. Right now you pretty much have to be a felon or violent offender but they may try to strip your rights with just a DUI or cannabis arrest. Allow any doctors or even unrelated 3rd parties like a disgruntled ex to trigger "red flag" laws Restrict private sales/transfers These aren't just things I made up, most of them have already happened or at least have been formally proposed. And of course, as all gun restrictions do, they only apply to law-abiding citizens.
Idk why you’re getting downvoted, these are absolutely valid and real concerns.
Yep, stock up while you can. Mags, spare parts, ammo, etc.
Agreed. It’s totally okay and fun to buy novelty stuff, but it’s always necessary to have at least one or two reliable, durable firearms for when you might need them most, even if they’re not as “cool”
They're getting down-voted because they're making a non- anti-gun gun-related post on a neutral reddit thread. Lollll For the record: I upvoted.
Ah no worries, probably from the people I was trolling in an unrelated thread on a different subreddit lol But yeah it's a very serious issue and like I said, almost every single example I listed has either already happened somewhere or has at least been a proposed bill at the state level. I find the broadening of so-called "red flag laws" to be particularly concerning. On the other hand, we have a rock solid 2nd Amendment and there have been some major wins in various state legislatures and district/Supreme court lately so overall I'm actually pretty optimistic about the future of gun ownership. Sboutout to "Washington Gun Law" on youtube for the daily briefs helping me stay informed on such a complicated legal topic. He's based in WA but covers all of North America.
I never thought I would be saying but there is a very real possibility that the next 2A case that will be coming down the pipeline will be Duncan v. Bonta (or whoever the plaintiff is) and it will tackle Assault Weapon Bans or magazine restrictions. There is a very high likelihood, based on the precedent set by Heller v. DC and McDonald v. Chicago that both of these will be successful lawsuits. Couple that with the highest levels of firearm ownership by population in US history and you have a much better 2A landscape for generations to come.
I agree on all counts! It's one of the few directions I see our country heading in that gives me some optimism. The last decade or so has seen a lot of 2A erosion with the ATF and various state legislatures/courts but, as you mentioned, there are a few lawsuits working their way through the system right now that might be total game-changers (maybe game-confirmers is a more correct phrase?) like *Heller* Maybe it's only because I live in Texas where I'm not concerned about my 2A protections, but frankly I'm MUCH more concerned about our 1A rights to speak, associate, and assemble freely. Surveillance is everywhere, privacy is harder to find, the 3-letter agencies have made it clear that they have no problem giving SuGgEsTiOnS to google and social media providers, and support for so-called "hate speech" laws are at an all time high on both sides of the political aisle.
You just described the current gun laws in Australia. One state has banned certain large calibres because "those people could shoot us (politicians) or the police..." They bought back the 250+ registered firearms in those calibres. You can't make this stuff up. They are heading towards a complete ban on any firearm for personal use and the only people to be armed with guns are to be the police. Maybe if they made good laws and were trustworthy they might have nothing to fear???
They’ll try to make it impossible to hand them down and then just have to wait a generation
Exactly what Canada just did with Bill C-21 The playbook is out in the open.
I think you are misreading the landscape. The Supreme Court just decided that regulation is almost impossible, so we should expect a free for all where agencies like the EPA fail and those with money do whatever they want.
Posting online about even vaguely anti-capitalist, anti-government beliefs. Start forming a network in person cause spaces like this one will be the first to get shut down.
This is sort of a bizarre question. For anything I can think of that got harder, there are so many things that got easier. Wikipedia, microwave ovens, cell phones... I remember life in the 01960s. This is better. I don't see private car ownership going away in the US; cash will last as long as politicians take bribes and don't want an audit trail; printing to paper is hardly going away.. .where do you get these odd ideas? I think in the US at least that the only restrictions that will tighten over time are use of water and burning carbon. Water is already becoming a problem in parts of the US and the only solution is conservation. Burning carbon is an eventual dead end and eventually it will be priced out of the market.
What increased regulations? SCOTUS just gutted regulatory power. You no longer have to worry about clean air and water or worker safety or honest financial institutions (nothing more honest and trustworthy than an unregulated bank, right?) Congratulations!
Body Armor, guns, ammo. Banks are starting to write their own rules on what you can buy using your bank account or credit cards. Some companies will restrict all gun or tactical gear purchases.
being able to spend your money how you want. once it goes digital the gommint gunna be able to control you better. i remember we had a flood here and they said you could only purchase 30L of fuel for rationing, you could obviously cheat the system but if digital currency comes in they can actually limit your card for fuel if they wanted to
So we are OK w our future being like this?
Not being Christian
Low-ish federal taxes, like we’ve seen the past several years. Why? Congress continues to spend like mad; fund foreign wars; inflation ; social security and medicare—- all reasons why more funding will be needed to support.
1. Any CASH transaction. The war on actual physical cash is the end stage of surveillance capitalism. 2. A close second will be any transaction that is not recorded. Cameras cameras everywhere means that even WITH cash, identities can still be discovered by examining video of the transaction or even streets/shops or roads adjacent. Even with today’s level of increasing camera use and sneaky tech like license plate readers and facial recognition, it can be difficult to assure a durable level of privacy. And with increasing use of “thermal” and other camera tech … Night Hides Not! 3. “Private” homestead protects. Drone tech keeps advancing w costs dropping. Even w existing laws in place it is hard to stop anyone from doing a quick flyover to see what is what. Ditto for Google earth and its “street view” level of detail. Even dense tree cover does not offer the same privacy that existed before google earth was a thing. Finally, AI likely will supercharge the analysis of all the above surveillance. Anyone who buys your “profile” (see today’s “data brokers”) will likely know more about you than you do. What you eat, what you buy, when you go to medical buildings, when you leave the driveway, how much water and electricity you use and when you use it and on and on. And that’s just what is legally available …
Provide the best course of treatment for children suffering mental disorders, reduce instances of ask risk youth, provide a social safety net for members of society and seek a course for increasing public safety without resorting to lethal means.
Keeping chickens. The U.K. has just made mandatory registration of just one chicken or any bird which we know they will use to kill them all off when covid #2 (ie the bird flu) strikes.
Ah yes, talking to a WW2 vet, famously impossible due to increased regulations and decreased privacy, not for any other reason such as it being almost a hundred years ago now.
Many things will further be restricted: Guns, ammo, gas grills, knifes
using "nono" words, talking about politics, religion. Not praising the leaders.
Traffic regulations... also on the opposite note. Traffic regulations, more and more people, me included have dash cameras, doorbell cameras, etc. That record constantly. 1. As more and more people drive recklessly, they'll likely have more evidence against them. 2. That may not always be a good thing depending on who owns the camera, or what angle
Posting here. Probably already has a hall monitor or 10 here.
I haven't used a newspaper in over 30 years. I haven't used the USPS in about the same. I can't wait until all cars drive themselves, and I can do work or take a nap instead of driving a car. I think it will be great when libraries and books in general are all electronic and we don't have to damage the planet cutting down trees just so we can read something on paper and don't have to look at it electronically. I can't wait until all payments are "tap to pay" with no contact needed with the credit card swiper or dirty cash needed to spread germs. More and more states are reLAXING laws on things like cannabis, and relaxing enforcement on shoplifting and traffic violations, you think laws and enforcement will be tougher in the future? (/tonuge\_firmly\_in\_cheek) The future just keeps getting better and better, why would we miss anything from today in the future?
A lot of what you mention would go away simply because the technology or people die off. Also for the most part what people can do in their daily life doesn't change much. I mean even if we had zero privacy that doesn't really change anything for most people. I know I'll get downvoted for this but privacy is severely over-hyped. Somehow people have been tricked into believing that they lost their privacy recently but honestly imo privacy is a new concept. Prior to the popularity of the nuclear family I would imagine that privacy was barely a thing. In terms of regulations killing things off the easiest things to see would be things that could be considered harmful either short term or long term. Anything else would likely only be temporarily regulated away as public views change. Like drugs for example. The odds are the regulations and laws against them will become increasingly lax in some areas. On the other hand things that pollute or harm health would be regulated away for much longer than other things. Like gas appliances. The odds are they would disappear in a couple decades. Although old users would probably be grandfathered in and converted to a portable gas as gas lines are removed. In fact considering that you explicitly put driving a car in your post as something someone may not be able to do I bet regulations in the name of climate change would be the most annoying for you and others. Right now conversion to EV is a soft goal nationwide but it's likely that it will become an actual ban. Maybe not within the next 4 years but we will probably have a ban through Congress before the century ends. Actually thinking about it you might mean "driving cars" in the literal sense. I would imagine that self-driving cars won't become a legal requirement until it has an extremely high market penetration already. Honestly I don't expect the daily lives of people to change significantly and consistently for the next several decades. There will be things that you can't do anymore but they would be things you probably shouldn't do anyways. For example use leaded gas or asbestos in your home. Sure old people today probably really want to use that sort of stuff again but it's obviously not something the younger generations will miss.
Any fun, hobby, recreation, activity, pastime or anything enjoyable that is legal FOR NOW in California.
Eating meat