Weekly Observations: What signs of collapse do you see in your region? [in-depth] November 18
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Valeriejoyow@reddit
Location Asheville NC
We're getting a multi day storm with cold temps, high winds and possibly snow. I'm preparing for a power outage by turning up the heat and filling the bathtubs. We have solar power but it only lasts about 12 hours and that's if it getting fully charged on a sunny day. I seem to have some PTSD from Helene because my anxiety is going crazy from the winds and a potential power loss. We had lost power and water for two weeks plus no cell service for a week.
I'm also worried about my elderly MIL in Seattle who has lost power for 24 hours already from the Bomb Cyclone.
joez37@reddit
Is your solar tied to the grid or does it have battery backup, if I may ask?
Ghostwoods@reddit
That sounds really tough. I hope the power stays on.
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Location: Washington DC, Adams Morgan area.
I was out today and got solicited by a Nature Conservancy fundraiser. I gave several thousand to them over the 80's and 90's and believed in their mission. But I no longer give to conservation organizations. Which is what I told her.
Then she made the mistake of asking me why.
I explained to her that I write about Climate Change and that I could no longer support their work due to the pointlessness of it at this time.
How do you "conserve and protect" land against GLOBAL WARMING. How do you protect fisheries against the oceans warming up. We have warmed the earth +1.5°C and the rate of warming is probably +0.36°C per decade. We will almost certainly be at +2°C by 2035. With Arctic Amplification that means +8°C in the High Arctic Boreal Forest zone.
The whole planet is warming up. That means EVERYWHERE. There is no place you can go, or save that can be isolated from this warming.
The entire planet is undergoing a RAPID ecosystem turnover in response to this warming. ALL of the forests across the planet are going to die over the next 30-40 years. Then they will BURN and make space for the next wave of vegetation.
Which, will probably burn again in 30-40 years as temperatures continue to climb and conditions change. A cycle that will continue for hundreds of years as temperatures climb.
There is no "conserving" forests anymore. The way to do that was to prevent warming in the first place. Everything you see around you, all the trees. They are already dead, already lost.
Her supervisor jumped in and told me that she had "studied Climate Change for six years" and that what I was saying was just wrong. She told me that "it took 60 years to build the first terawatt of renewable energy but only TWO to build the second". Now was not the time to "give up". When solutions are so close to being realized.
"I have two nieces under ten, what am I supposed to tell them? Am I supposed to tell them they're doomed already? I refuse to accept that, and I think we can still save things".
In the end I pulled a $20 out of my pocket, put it in her hand, and walked away.
Xamzarqan@reddit
I agreed with you 💯
Btw rebuildables (more accurate term than "renewables") are a massive copium lol
Lord_Vesuvius2020@reddit
The idea that our present economy could run just the same on renewables after a smooth seamless transition is a fantasy. As you said, it would require a Degrowth economy and a smaller population. It would appear that the birth rates are declining in most countries below replacement levels so the population will decrease on its own dramatically in a few decades.
Xamzarqan@reddit
Does degrowth here also means returning to an agrarian society with most ppl being subsistence farmers and giving up most of modern technology?
Ghostwoods@reddit
There really isn't any meaningful path to stable degrowth using a "third world" lifestyle as a model. They're utterly dependent on global logistics too, they're just shafted far harder.
Our society is like the (mostly bullshit) cliché about sharks -- if they stop swimming, they die.
Agrarianism requires highly specialised knowledge, extensive networks of specialised low-tech trade, deep adaptation patterns in daily life and, above all, fertile soil and a stable climate. We have none of that.
In practical terms, degrowth means a reversion to the paleolithic -- about a million people scattered around the place in small pockets, trying to find ways to scratch out an existence in microclimates that are somewhat sheltered by local geography from the worst of the chaos.
My guess is that it'll take about a century from the Fall for the last remnants of technology give up and leave the very few survivors in that situation.
Xamzarqan@reddit
I believe you are right.
"Third world"/agrarianism this case also refers to any preindustrial times after the neolithic revolution?
Medieval Europe, ancient Rome or even as far back as ancient Sumer and Egypt were also dependent on global logistics?
Shit so we will be back to 10,000 BC, just a much hotter denuded ecologically dead and climatically volatile version without all the cool ice age creatures?
Ghostwoods@reddit
The Medieval world was highly advanced and specialised for the tech available at the time. We can't replicate that.
We could probably go back to Rome or later Egypt, if the climate was stable and the soil wasn't so thoroughly degraded. What we lack in accessible minerals, we could probably have made up for in scientific know-how. But the climate and the soil are going to make that impossible.
So yeah, I'm thinking -10K BC is where we're headed. The global population at the time was 1 million, which is about all that could be maintained without metals knowhow. We have the knowhow, but we ravaged every deposit, so...
Xamzarqan@reddit
I see. And ppl often viewed as the "Dark Ages" where life was bleak and everything was just shitty. Seems like that just a myth that modern westerners believe it regarding the Middle Ages.
Damn it would be cool to fall back to the Antiquity/Iron Age like ancient Greece or the Bronze Age Kingdoms like Hittite Empire or Babylon. But yeah, the unstable climate and depleted soil will make that difficult to "time travel" back.
Right. But we fucked with the planet so hard the carrying capacity will be much lower than 1 million. Heck, we might be back to post-Toba Eruption numbers...
My lord, at least give me all those magnificent Stone Age megafauna!
Ghostwoods@reddit
Yes, the whole 'dark age hellscape' thing is very much a sneering myth from later folks wanting to feel superior. It certainly wasn't all sunshine and roses, and getting to adulthood was a bit of a crapshoot, but it absolutely wasn't the nightmare that so many folks believe.
In some thousands (or tens of thousands) of years, we'll have some exiting new Megafauna adapted to high temperature, high chaos life.
I'm guessing they'll be bugs rather than mammals, but... :D
Xamzarqan@reddit
Yeah, modern-day Westerners seem to have an image of Mad Max, Somalia, Haiti, The Road, Sudan, etc. when ask to imagine the Middle Ages.
Agreed, it was probably similar to "third world" countries today in terms of living standards. They seem to think their ancestors were living an apocalyptic world or something.....
Humans might totally die out by then. My peace of mind is that least our destructive and cancerous ways (the vast majority) won't impact the new life and plants anymore.
Yeh prolly bugs but I hope something bigger than that also evolve.
I sincerely wish the planet cool down again one day after we are gone and forgotten.
Ghostwoods@reddit
We might die out, but I think we'll cling on in pockets here and there. Probably even manage fairly decent lives, once the temperature change slows down and vegetation has worked out what it's doing.
I wouldn't be totally surprised if the planet doesn't see megabugs in a few tens of thousands of years. Mmm. Ultracockroach vs Megasquito!
In time, the crust will cycle, and it'll be rich in minerals again, temperatures will be nice and stable, there'll be a flourishing biosphere, and we won't even be hints of myth. Sounds nice, honestly.
Xamzarqan@reddit
If a few remnants of humans ever survive, do you think we will be stuck at 3,000-10,000 individuals (post Toba numbers) or we will rise to 1 million again?
It's unlikely we will ever be back to one billion though as all the resources for modernization are gone even if the climate cools down and stabilizes again.
Do you think the remaining humans will be stuck in perpetual Paleolithic era?
We will likely never progress pass the medieval times again though.
OuterLightness@reddit
Too be fair, that $20 dollar bill is doomed. Inflation is inevitable.
c3tn@reddit
“ALL of the forests across the planet are going to die over the next 30-40 years. Then they will BURN and make space for the next wave of vegetation.”
This is not accurate. The vast majority of the ecosystem modeling we have shows forests shifting in response to climate. Up or down in elevation. North or south as weather changes. Changing in composition. Some forest plant communities will undoubtedly disappear. But forests are absolutely going to still exist, albeit in different forms and in different places, in 30-40 years.
Even if there are large-scale forest fires, many forests are fire-dependent communities. I can’t emphasize this fact enough.
Bormgans@reddit
Could you explain your reasoning why you believe all forests are going to die in 30-40 years?
c3tn@reddit
It’s a completely unfounded, non factual statement. There is absolutely zero scientific evidence suggesting that, even in fairly extreme climate scenarios that will happen.
BobWellsBurner@reddit
"I refuse to accept that, and I think we can still save things."
Sorry lady, that window for action was decades ago.
_rihter@reddit
Ignorance is evil.
PaPerm24@reddit
"Refuse all you want. We are still fucked"
Ghostwoods@reddit
That's the thing about unthinkably horrific disaster. Very few people can think about it.
RuralUrbanSuburban@reddit
I’ve had similar go-round discussions/debates with a retired biologist/conservationist, as he waxes poetic about how ‘conserve and protect’ will save the planet. I’ve suggested he check out Michael Dowd to get a more comprehensive overview of how we got to this point, and then check out your Substack for The Crisis Reports to learn about the latest climate research and your well-written, thoughtful analysis of what’s actually happening, but he’s not interested in an update. It’s all I can do to control myself and not tell him that if his life’s work was really ‘the answer’ to solving the complexity of climate change, then it would have done that already.
Right-Cause9951@reddit
I can see "The Road" in what your saying. The beginning of the movie is so powerful. The circumstances are way darker but no one is right or wrong in what they wanted to chose.
We all bargain with ourselves to continue living or not. You can become dead in the sense that you simply go through the motions and no longer seek out fulfillment for yourself.
All I'm saying is that it's hard and there's no good way through this. Our future has already been sold lock, stock, and barrel.
Lifesabeach6789@reddit
Location: Vancouver Island
Currently sitting in the dark and cold as the power went out a few hours ago from the Bomb Cyclone hitting us. We have everything electric except the gas furnace but of course, it needs power to run. Piled up the extra blankets and the lanterns. May be late tomorrow before it’s back on. Ughhh
I tried to fill the tank yesterday but the local stations were all out of 91 octane so need to limit car usage until they get delivery. Down to 1/4 and nervous.
Expert_Tea_5484@reddit
If you have a tent that's small enough to put up indoors you can try sleeping inside it (especially if you have high ceilings) it can be a good way to retain extra heat and keep warm
IPA-Lagomorph@reddit
Even without a purchased tent, can make one from blankets, cardboard and duct tape, or whatever seems like it will work. This is might be a good project to keep entertained and have a purpose, too.
maddomesticscientist@reddit
We lose power pretty often due to ice storms and a blanket fort is the way to go. Last time my son was old enough to provide useful input and help. We wound up with a two story blanket pavilion with rooms that stayed up a couple days past the power coming back on.
First_manatee_614@reddit
Got a picture of that?
maddomesticscientist@reddit
If I do it's on a dead old phone in my closet. I dont think I took one though. I'm bad at thinking to take pictures of things lol. It almost took up my entire dining room. I used my heavy ass table for a building base, anchoring light blankets to the chandelier bottom and attaching them to the table edges for the top floor. Draped thinner things off the table edges to partition off inner rooms then built out around them. I used my enormous tye dyed tapestry to create the "staircase" out of a chair. I went all out lol. My kid had a blast with it.
Barbarake@reddit
I just bought a two-person tent just for this. Pile blankets over the top and my two dogs and I should be set.
Valeriejoyow@reddit
My elderly MIL doest have power in Bellevue WA near Seattle. We're worried about her. He house is getting cold.
Lifesabeach6789@reddit
Sorry to hear that :(. Hopefully she warmed up in the car.
Ours JUST came back on. 24 hours it was out.
Valeriejoyow@reddit
Good to hear. Hopefully hers will come back soon.
Moochingaround@reddit
Location: southern Vietnam
The coffee prices are soaring so the locals are happy. They don't realize why the price is high. Coffee used to have a season here, now it just randomly fruits throughout the year. People pump and pump water up from underground. Last dry season many wells ran dry and there was constant traffic of trucks loaded with water going around. 1000 liter cost as much as an average days work. 15 euro. This rain season it didn't rain enough to replenish all that. And the season is ending.
We live on a homestead and we're preparing as much as we can. Storing more and more rain water, digging more ponds, trying to soak every drop we don't store into the soil. So far it hasn't been enough.
Xamzarqan@reddit
Was the weather there hotter and humid than usual? Do you still have the "cool season" in South Vietnam? Any problem of crop failures?
I live in Bangkok and I feel the "cool season" where the temp drop to 25 celsius and a bit below than that, is gone for many years now.
The entire SE Asia got hit by a several months heatwave this year and I feel wet bulb mass events are very probable in the upcoming years.
Moochingaround@reddit
Our cool season is usually from around now to march or so. So the beginning of dry season. Last time, because of El Nino, it was quite short and not as cool. Right now it seems to have already started. We're lucky, we get strong winds from the east china sea that come from further north, they bring cooler air. The coldest I've experienced here is around 20 degrees.
After that cool season it gets hot though, that's when the sun passes straight over us. 40+ degrees, but very dry. That's forest fire season.
Xamzarqan@reddit
Thanks for the reply.
It has never gotten below 20 degrees?
Have you experience any wet bulb mass events?
Moochingaround@reddit
No I'm an immigrant. I have no plan to return to Holland, where I came from.
No experience with a wet bulb here, just that when it finally starts raining after the very hot season there are a few weeks that moving is difficult because of the humidity. I guess that's low on the wet bulb scale. People here are more accustomed to it and don't seem to sweat a lot, even when working in the heat. Whereas my Dutch ass is losing liters when just sitting around.
Xamzarqan@reddit
I see.
Are you worried about any future wet bulb events/heat waves where you are? Because they will likely become much more common as the global temp heats up. Here in Thailand, we got hit by a several months long heat wave this year, which left at least 61 dead. I think it's going to get worse and worse in the future. I also haven't experience a wet bulb event here but I think it's very probable in the next decades.
You live in a homestead? That's cool.
Moochingaround@reddit
No I'm not worried. It might happen, it might not. At this point it is what it is.
We farm according to permaculture principles. The local Vietnamese farmers are all in on chemicals. The local minority groups that have lived here for centuries used to be hunter gatherers from the forest. But that forest has disappeared for the most part.
Xamzarqan@reddit
Right.
I see. Do you compost your manure for growing crops?
Just wondering, did your spouse (im assuming she is Viet?) inherit any preindustrial farming knowledge and skills from her grandparents (before the introduction of chemicals and other industrial inputs)?
What happened to the minority group? Are they farmers now?
Is your spouse collapse aware?
Moochingaround@reddit
That's alright, I've got time to answer hehe.
My wife is Vietnamese and she kinda grew collapse aware by herself. I didn't want to bring it up because I was struggling with it myself at the time and there are kids involved. Didn't seem fair to do that to someone else. She has some knowledge from the past, but it has more to do with the uses of the plants and the way to prepare it. Farming was new for us both. We compost humanure and use it mostly for our trees. We have a flock of chickens helping us with extra composting. Last year we bought a truck of cow manure, but we're hoping to slowly transition to producing enough with just the chickens.
The minority groups are still around, mostly seasonal farming and some hunting and gathering. They're usually a lot poorer than the majority group. And they have less chances in life because of it.
fractalineglaze@reddit
Can you say anything more about the change in the coffee fruiting cycle? Are harvests down and that is why the price is up?
It sounds like it's more chaotic as opposed to an extended growing season. What is the season traditionally?
Moochingaround@reddit
Usually it flowers once, maybe twice a year. Mainly towards the end of rain season. If farmers irrigate it might happen a second time. Now, because the rains are less consistent, it seems like the plant doesn't know what to do. It's fruiting on some branches and flowering on others. It's costing the farmers more maintenance, but in this area it seems harvests are still ok. In other places, not so much.
fractalineglaze@reddit
Thanks!
joez37@reddit
If you have waste wood (dead trees -- logs, branches, twigs), you might make hugelmounds; I've read that the dead woody material soaks up a lot of water and slow releases it into the soil as the wood decomposes. Just an idea. It's cool that you capture the water that you use.
Moochingaround@reddit
Thanks! I tried hugelmounts before, at our previous place. Over there it got way too soggy in rain season. But it's dryer here, so I might try again.
They are a lot of work though. And this lifestyle is already a huge amount of heavy work, so I tend to be very careful with labor intensive projects haha.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
I hear there are ancient techniques to store rain water more efficiently, using clay basins. Couldn't find back the infos though. If I remember correctly, it's like a covered pond using a specially prepared type of covering soil (must be where the clay part comes in !). They started to use it in southern France villages... Ancient Roman techniques, still useful today apparently. It solves the evaporation issue of other types of storages, for cheaper than an underground tank.
I hope you'll have all the water you need before the next dry season
Uhbby@reddit
Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds for Domestic Supply, Fire and Emergency Use--Includes How to Make Ferrocement Water Tanks https://amzn.asia/d/gDO4bnp
psychetropica1@reddit
Look for it in your local library :)
Uhbby@reddit
A non-amazon option is always best, but if I have to barter with demons for knowledge, then so be it. I blight my soul so that others don't have to.
Nilbogtraf@reddit
I have been a regular at my local library for the last 10 years. Good audio book options for sight impaired like myself. Works great, the staff are insanely good at their work and extremely helpful.
Moochingaround@reddit
Thanks!
Unfortunately I don't think we have the space and soil for it. Very rocky here. We have more water stored now than last year, so I think we should be good. About 100m³ for domestic use and the same for watering our vegetable garden.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Location: Aquitaine, France (marked safe from Donald Trump)
Weather bulletin - Winter is arriving right on schedule: good. Malaga (Spain), lovely city which I visited when I was 12, is underwater. Awesome.
I can't even write a proper collapse report this week - More exactly, this is my third draft. The first two were very angry. Which isn't the goal of a weekly report. Here's the little part I'm keeping:
When I read The Guardian understanding nothing about Trump's victory, it gives me urges to dynamite coral reefs. To open the doors of collapse great, let the furnace in, and point to the godforsaken liberals "it's socialism or extinction, buddy, always has been, now please stop toying around with bullshit cosmetic issues".
Fauna and flora adaptation - I'm getting my free Covid vaccine this week. They needed to sting the old people first. I haven't been sick for almost two years now, genuinely it's really nice. I appreciate not being sick. As I'm writing (Sunday evening) the TV is open and there's the climate bulletin. They transformed the weather bulletin into the climate bulletin, and so every evening there are scientists talking, or right now primary school kids asking questions to a scientist. It's not much, but tactically it occupies the ground so there's that. That's on the public service channels, the ones Le Pen wants to close down. Meanwhile... Let me do a little zapping... Yeah, private newschannels are obsessing over migrants and "wokeness", just as every other evening. Being reinfected by this kind of garbage channels every day can't be without consequences on people's brain.
Saving Private Poilu - Nothing collapsy happened this week, so here's a picture of the 11th November Memorial Day:
Ghostwoods@reddit
I understand your rage, friend.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Thãnks
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Anger is better than depression.
jahmoke@reddit
anger turned inwards can become depression
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Yup.
And focused anger is better than unfocused hatred. Gonna channel my anger in the incoming protest season. Maybe this year enough people will understand we need a general strike, not a patchwork of isolated actions
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
That's it, I'm going crazy with pictures. Here a live update on the sky (you can observe migratory planes, I assume from the Airbus Airbusis family)
PrairieFire_withwind@reddit
You can tell they are not from the Boeingus shodditius family because they are staying in the air
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Oh snap.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
I enjoy the pictures!
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
I feel you on the anger. I too had trouble this week. My husband had an appointment with a “liberal white boomer who voted for Harris” but was also “not for this college loan forgiveness stuff.” Poor husband was like, you know the world you came up in doesn’t exist anymore. Boomer went to college before credit scores were a thing. Anyway.
He shares the tale of this appointment with me, and I ended up legitimately yelling in fury. Which was at least validating for my spouse. But by god, THESE PEOPLE ARE FOOLS.
Whew. It’s a lot to deal with.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Amen.
I get the yelling part, ahahahah. Sometimes it helps.
That's a thing I was ranting about (before erasing my yelling drafts). Basically: "stop making it a gender war, this is a class war, men and women do have different problems to face, but the root one, the one making lonely men in lack of purpose so angry they vote for the firestorm, is class warfare and the resulting alienation". Stuff like that. But more vindictive.
Boomers truly can't get it sometimes, yes. There's also the leftist boomer! Who can't get why we didn't have a general strike since 1995 ahahahahah. At least I like this kind of boomers better, they have ambitions for the disaffected youth !
PrairieFire_withwind@reddit
I know the leftist boomers. They are angry and screaming too. Or scared shitless because they remember what it was like when so and so bled for a week on my couch because of her abortion and couldn't get help because there was no money so we fed her and.....
DirewaysParnuStCroix@reddit
It feels more like winter here today, but what was supposed to be a week of winter weather has been reduced to about a day. One particular forecast has suggested that 850hPa temperatures could swing from -7°c to +18°c by the 20th. 18°c would be crazy for November as it's more typical of summer, that would potentially be a record breaking atmospheric anomaly.
joez37@reddit
Do you see masking in your community much?
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Not at all. Maybe one grandma here and there. I know I've been one of the last non-grandma person to stop wearing them in the supermarket (that's the place where I continued using them, there are fruits and vegetables in the open, for Fruit's sake!). I keep washing my hands a lot though.
Sadly, it seems East-Asians can learn from a SARS, but Westerners cannot. So far.
Same thing with the vaccine. I'm pretty sure that once again the pretty pharmacist will ask me "you're a medical worker?", and once again I will answer "not at all, but I have a family with many young ones and many old people too". Gotta protect myself from the little bacteriological Saddam Husseins, and protect my elders too ahahah
DecemberOne@reddit
Location: Manitoba, Canada
It's the 19th of November and it's raining again here in Winnipeg. It was pouring on Sunday as well. I feel like I'm being gaslit by the weather because I can't remember a time in my 33 years in this province that it's rained in November, but I keep telling myself that can't be true.
We still have kale growing in the backyard. I haven't had to wear my winter parka once yet. My birthday is in less than two weeks and there's no snow on the ground. It hasn't snowed once. Typically the weather on my birthday is FREEZING. Sometimes -20 or even -30 Celsius.
I can't help but be thankful for this weather because I hate being cold, but this is SO alarming.
livlaffluv420@reddit
As someone who has frequented this sub for the past decade or so, the amount of people I’m seeing from MB check in here throughout the past year is like my own personal collapse marker; it would seem the decay & inability for others to deny it is finally coming home to roost…
herpdurpson@reddit
one over in SK, we've just now gotten our first seasonal weather today. rain turned to snow overnight and the forecast is finally calling negatives as far as the eye can see. up till today i haven't needed more than a bunnyhug. pretty sure one of my neighbours mowed their lawn last week. crazy times
PatAss98@reddit
Location: Southeast Pennsylvania. The Philly area transit authority SEPTA is facing service cuts and fare increases in the coming months and years despite SEPTA being a major driver of the economy in Southeast Pennsylvania because the state legislature didn't set aside funds. our governor Josh Shapiro despite having previously administered Montgomery County (which is a MAJOR PART of the SEPTA service area) is nowhere to be found despite having executive capabilities of allocating funds from the highway budget towards public transit. Me and my friends who can't drive feel scared because if the service cuts happen, the freedom of movement of so many Pennsylvanians who can't drive is gonna be hindered.
CosmosMom87@reddit
Prepare for it to get a lot worse under this new administration. Large transit agencies are largely reliant on federal funding, and it looks like that funding is going to be dramatically decreased in the near future.
mobileagnes@reddit
Isn't SEPTA due for a strike based on the pattern? The last few times their strikes were: 2016, 2009, 2005, 1998 (40 days!), 1995, 1986...
lavapig_love@reddit
And the career lifespan of a lot of Pennsylvanian politicians will crater. Keep up the mounting pressure.
Nilbogtraf@reddit
Location: Northern Ohio, southern Mich.: Thursday we may actually have some snow for a couple of hours. Looks like we will have maybe 5 days this Nov. that will be close to the normal temps. It is something, I guess, as I look out my window and see roses blooming....
zspacekcc@reddit
SW OH here. It's been pretty weird knowing my spinach and arugula are going to make almost all the way to Thanksgiving (if I harvest it today we'll be able to have it day of). We had a few frosts, but we had maybe a few hours below freezing the entire month so far. It's been really odd. It feels like the entire year has been shifted back by a month and we're in mid October.
SewingCoyote17@reddit
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Besides the unseasonably warm weather, things just feel off. My husband and I both can't seem to even drive a few blocks to work without nearly getting into an accident every single day. I was almost run off of the highway on Sunday by some maniac in a pickup truck. He was tailgating so close, if I had removed my foot from the gas, he would've surely made contact. People behave as if they have nothing to lose.
Beyond the streets, people just seem unhinged and desperate. We live in an apartment complex in the suburbs and have started to notice gang-like behaviors near our building. We also walked past a very blatant drug deal right in our hallway. We are buying a house and should be moving out in a few weeks, but we're both being cautious until then.
I am absolutely terrified for the future of this country, my future. I can't help but wonder if the people I interact with are pleased with the direction we're headed? Are they really this hateful, did they know what they were voting for?
Meatrocket_Wargasm@reddit
This is one of the reasons I refuse to buy a new car. Sure, the price of a new car is a predominant factor, but i don't want to spend 70k on new car and have that additional worry while trying to drive in a demolition derby on the way to work. If my 16 year old, paid off truck gets banged up, it will suck. But wrecking a near brand new car is just something I can't afford to replace.
CaptainBirdEnjoyer@reddit
Also in the area. My wife and I have started leaving earlier to avoid the highways these days. We're lucky we both WFH and don't have to deal with a daily commute, but the highways are just terrible here. Increase in road ragers, people trying to open up a third lane between cars to pass, shoulder passing, nearly clipping cars into their lanes. Can't tell you how many people are just looking straight down at their phones these days watching videos, playing games, texting at 80mph.
My MIL was involved in a hit and run last week when a speed demon rode up within inches of her bumper and swerved into the next lane too late. That driver just kept going.
Hell we took our dog for a walk at lunch today in our old suburban grid/side street galore neighborhood. We saw 15-20 cars during our walk. One car actually came to a full complete stop at one of the stop signs. No wonder kids can't play outside anymore.
darkingz@reddit
In general the sentiment I gather is that people think that any inflation is what’s killing the country. They didn’t put it into relative terms of the rest of the world but what they felt in their wallets. So they heard the sweet lies that Trump was telling people. That he doesn’t know about 2025 (despite his actual policies even outside of 2025 being a reflection of the worst parts), that he will hire pro Muslim people (despite wanting a Muslim ban his first term), that he was brave to the asssination attempt (despite his entire party being the one to stoke the fear and give guns to everyone with a pulse), that he would tamp inflation (even though he caused the inflation that we saw to begin with). They bought into those lies because they were hoping the worst of his other policies will be blocked by sane people.
Obviously this isn’t talking about the racists (Kamala isn’t black), the homophobes (gender reassignment surgery in a single day?), the incels, the people who saw the state of America and think that he’s proposing to move us forward.
Extension_Grocery_44@reddit
Location: Portland, Oregon
Civil unrest is high. Individuals at my work are dragged down by the constant construction and terrible news around the world. All of our female partners have been devestated and are in fear of their rights being removed coming the next presidential term. Political talks are depressing and hopeless regarding the active genocide we fund, the escalating ww3 and the devestation happening to the climate. I work in manufacturing and my industry has not had significant wage increases in years. We are poorer then we have ever been, even those making leaps and bounds in their careers. Food, insurance, rent, etc... Continue to increase at massive rates. The local government does nothing to help, they allow landlords to increase rent by a higher and higher percentage every year. (currently %14, was 7% 3 years ago).
I fear we no longer have a future. Every appointed official under trump is a more devestating blow then the last to our future. No one is going to save us from our own downfall. I like to think that locally we are the "woke" people but most of my young friends have fallen down the trump hole due to economic desperation. I cannot blame them, times have been so hard. Even with me and my partners success I have had to begin to sacrafice luxurys that had been much easier to afford 2-3years ago. I eat one meal a day, typically fast food due it's cost. My health has already begin to suffer even at 25. I have no idea what to do. I was a simple 2 axis machinist making 29 an hour 4 years ago. I now am a high level machinist and full time CNC programmer. I make 32 an hour. This is not sustainable. I have tried to shop hop in hopes for raises but I see a mere dollar each time. Every shop suffers from a massive lack of skilled workers, processes once well created are crumbling as no one knows how to follow them anymore. I could go on forever, I fear we are at a point of no return.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
I’m very certain WW3 is upon us. As Biden walks out the door, he’s allowing Ukraine to use long range missiles inside Russia.
Ukraine has 2 months to win this war. This could escalate very quickly.
I of course support Ukraine, and in a Trump 2.0 world I hope they can soldier on.
But the pace of the conflict just went up a notch.
Ghostwoods@reddit
The UK and France have also "OKed" advanced munitions (as I understand it -- which is very poorly to be fair -- basically UKR provides the targets and a person to push the button.)
We've been in WW3, in some senses, ever since the end of WW2. It was cold for a long time, then we stopped fighting at the end of the 80s because the Russians sold us a crock of shit, but they kept going slowly and patiently.
Now the proxy wars are really kicking off, Ukraine and the Middle East are hot, chunks of Africa are in open war, and Korea and Taiwan are coming to the boil. Meanwhile, Russia has stabbed the USA in the femoral artery with Trump, and they're cutting internet cables to abboy the Baltics.
WW3 is properly out in the open -- but, I think, only for a bit.
And Europe has finally realised the danger -- that is, the voices of the Russian assets are no longer entirely drowning out the more perceptive generals and strategists -- but with America already so deeply wounded, I don't see much risk of it turning into a nuclear conflagration.
When Trump pulls back hard on NATO, or even withdraws, Europe will quietly bow to the inevitable, screaming about missiles and flames and vengeance all the way to save face. Ukraine will be swiftly partitioned.
Russia will continue merrily metastasizing. The rest of the Anglosphere is the obvious next target with the US in hand, and Canada, the UK, and Australia so close to the edge already. The UK might have some nukes, but trapped between Trump and Putin, with a political class jammed full of assets, it won't even try.
Far more likely than major war, we just all spiral down into the same Mafia collapse as Russia, which to my mind was always Putin's goal.
boneyfingers@reddit
My question is this: how effective a system of government is it, to run a country like Putin does, (and Trump wants to.) As things get increasingly dire, I'm afraid that Autocratic Oligarchy is one of the only resilient forms of state rule. All it seems to require is sufficient capacity for state violence. No one in power will accept an even distribution of the suffering that is to come. I think we can all expect a similar model of rule to emerge everywhere. It feels like the top half of every society will embrace that option, if all the pain and misery can be visited on the poor half. Then when the poor half dies, half of the remaining will turn on the new "expendables," and it will repeat in much the same way, again and again.
It just seems predictable, maybe inevitable. I used to say that the "Bottom Billion," the poorest 1/8 of the world, were pretty doomed no matter what. I thought everyone everywhere would have a lowered quality of life, and for the ones on the brink, it would mean they would just die. Now I'm starting to think it will not be a global thing: that it will happen a hundred different ways in each country. That is, I used to think the poorest American had a better outlook that the average Somali, or Sudanese. But now I think the vulnerable American will be among the first casualties.
(I'll post this despite my concern that I'm not making any sense.)
Ghostwoods@reddit
Putin (and Trump) are kleptocrats. Their only interest is in looting as much as they can.
It's a very, very ineffective system of government.
The theoretically most effective governmental system is an enlightened benign dictatorship. Sadly, like true communism, it's completely impossible as soon as humans are brought into the equation.
boneyfingers@reddit
I agree, and may have used the wrong word. By effective, I did not refer to things like the welfare of the governed, or anything that would characterize a healthy, thriving society. I meant it strictly in terms of durability. I just believe that neoliberal capitalist democracy won't survive anywhere near as long as totalitarian oligarchy. As each different model of state organization around the world falls to collapse, the Putin model may be the last one standing.
Ghostwoods@reddit
Ah, I see!
Historically speaking, repressive totalitarianism pushes citizens to the point where they've got so little left to lose that they run out of fear, and then the regime collapses.
That's going to be very different when the primary oppression is coming from the environment. So yes, I think they'll prove far more stable than democracies -- particularly given the various global demagogue forces stirring endless shit through the 'net and the mass media.
I suspect that with sufficient citizen ignorance and indoctrination, a God-King theocracy could give a totalitarian oligarchy a run for it's money.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
It made sense to me 💙
bottlechippedteeth@reddit
I was just reading another article discussing how the missles, of which there are very few, wont likely alter the course of the war much and thats one of the reasons they were denied to now. I think sadly for Ukraine the writing is on the wall.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
Me too 😞
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Fickle_Stills@reddit
If you're really just eating one meal a day, sign up for a holiday food box. You'll get a bunch of mostly shelf stable food, some meat you can freeze and a bag of oranges.
https://ctk.cc/st-vincent-de-paul
This is the one I got every year when I lived in Oregon. They deliver it to you!
Extension_Grocery_44@reddit
I'll look into it! Thanks! I just have tried to pinch pennies when I can. The world and work is so exhausting preparing food and shopping trips are expensive and exhausting.
fedfuzz1970@reddit
I've seen where older folks of limited means have a small breakfast, then visit an all-you-can eat buffet where they load up on their meal of the day. Don't know if you have one near but I always thought that was a good option.
CRKing77@reddit
I've been silently observing my younger coworkers (for reference I'm 34, most of my team is under 30 with the youngest being 22)
in times like these I can bury my own feelings and just...watch. There are two emotions the young people at my store are feeling: depression, or nihilism.
...it breaks my fucking heart when my 23 year old nature loving coworker says he doesn't know what he's going to do anymore because what he wanted is being systematically destroyed by people like Trump and similar movements. He's 23. Try telling this kid "welp, good luck with the next 50 fucking years buddy, get used to toiling away at a bullshit job for the rest of your life."
I will tell people, learn how to read and understand eyes. I learned well under an abusive father, the amount of times I was uncomfortably close to his angry face, looked into his eyes...and saw nothing. I can see what people are feeling, despite what they say.
I have a coworker in his 40's who had a mental breakdown to my boss a few weeks ago and expressed suicidal ideation. He came back after like a week...because he can't afford to get help. My boss (male) has suffered two miscarriages in a year. Came back to work after ten days after the second one. Says he needs work to distract from the pain, but sadly is just getting it from all sides. His woman is pissed at him (and frankly I just can't see them working out, I cannot imagine the pain and distance that TWO failed pregnancies creates), his boss is a fucking tyrant, his team is tired, pissed off, depressed, and lately he's been complaining of chest pains. My wife thinks he's headed for a panic attack, I hope, with his history of lifelong smoking, that the stress just doesn't outright kill him
My aforementioned 23 year old coworker is the type to laugh even when he's mad or sad, but damn it I see the lost spark in his eyes. One of our younger Mexican coworkers legit looks like she's blazed out of her mind every day. She functions well, so I can't really blame her. I do wanna say, if RFK Jr just...legalizes all psychedelics what's left of people's mental states will go right off the edge
I have risen to the rank of ASM at my store. Believe it or not, I'm in management! My wife is in her second year as a SPED paraeducator. We live in the master bedroom at her best friend's house, because our long time property owner died last year and earlier this year they evicted all tenants so they could remodel the units and sell them. The "remodel" was painting the fucking walls, leaving all other damage "as is" and selling each unit (these are duplexes so one unit is two apartments) for fucking $550k each in less than a month after kicking out 80+ year old women who had lived there 30 or 45 years, along with the rest of us. My grandmother was one, stress fucked her heart up, now she's in and out of afib. It's been rough. And because of the forced move, she went from being my neighbor and easily able to be checked on, to living in the next town over where if something ever happens, I likely won't make it in time. As for why me and my wife are here? Well...who's got $1500/month to rent out a converted garage turned studio when we were kicked out of a duplex at $1100/month (yes, I am FULLY aware of how great this rent was in CA and have zero doubt when my old unit is relisted it will be for $2k+)
Growing up in the 90's, my grandmother was a high school cafeteria lady, my grandfather supervisor for the city's Solid Waste Division (trash pick up), neither one "glamorous" but they still owned their own house, got a new car every other year, and had purchased their retirement property and were working on finding a mobile home to move there when my grandmother tragically passed in 02. She was 50, they were headed for retirement before either reached 60 years old.
My wife and I will never be able to reach that. Can't even rent, let alone fucking own.
The re-election of Trump just put me on the full nihilist path myself. I have no fucks left to give, because there's no point. Today I put myself back into the mindset of my younger self. I woke up, got ready for work, went to work, came home and didn't touch the browser on my phone all day. As we were driving home I told my wife, "I have no idea what's happening in the world right now and it fucking feels great."
Something happened to me on Friday night, something I've never experienced before. My wife still has a Netflix account so I ended up watching the entire Tyson-Paul card. The whole night I just could not shake this feeling of realizing that it was all a show, and at the moment that Tyson's bare ass was shown to the world I kind of...broke? I was laughing, not because it was funny or because I was mocking Tyson, but just at the absurdity of it all. I made it through three rounds before literally turning everything off and went to bed with a lowkey panic attack of my own. I've been sliding for years, the re-election of that bastard just broke the last few grips I had on everything. I saw a meme last month, that we had all taken a biopsy and were waiting for the results on November 5th. Feels like my diagnosis came back...it's malignant, and it's terminal. That's what this feels like, right? The daze a lot of us are in? We just got the news and we still can't rationalize it
Gas-Short@reddit
PNW
Happened a month ago but life has only recently returned to the "new normal." My BIL (Husband's younger brother) became the latest tragedy of a death of despair. It may have been "an accident," but our society doesn't help. It crushes people and offers inadequate assistance to the mentally unwell and troubled.
BambosticBoombazzler@reddit
I'm so sorry.
_rihter@reddit
Location: Location: Central Europe (Pannonian Basin)
WHO: Preparing for containment and mitigation of pandemic H5N1 influenza
Meanwhile:
A Hungarian hospital wing. That place doesn't look ready for another pandemic. It barely functions even during 'normal' times. And considering staff shortages, it won't function for a long time.
I'm starting to get very concerned about this.
icanseepeas@reddit
I hope that your national health director is not an antivax nutbag in addition. The US has better facilities, but it seems we may be treating with horse paste and essential oils. Going for the greatest body count possible.
Ghostwoods@reddit
Shit, Rihter. I've seen hospitals like that in horror games.
_rihter@reddit
Well. Living in this region sometimes feels like playing a horror game.
Ghostwoods@reddit
++hugs++
daviddjg0033@reddit
Trump mentioned Orban in the debate. Nobody knew what he was talking about. USA get ready this is the future of rural hospitals
FoundandSearching@reddit
A poster on that thread posted a photo from a hospital in Poland. It showed mushrooms growing from a wall. God I hope that was a deep fake.
_rihter@reddit
I doubt it's fake. Many hospitals in Central/Eastern Europe look like that.
FoundandSearching@reddit
TIL. ☹️.
Glacecakes@reddit
Location: Southern MD First frost is typically October. It was November 7. Dogwood and cherry trees have buds on top of fall leaves they haven’t yet shed.
Political atmosphere surprisingly normal despite being 5 miles out of DC though.
icanseepeas@reddit
😮
winkdoubleblink@reddit
I have seen a number of posts like this, about plants blooming out of season, and I don’t remember seeing them in previous years. As a plant person this really freaks me out, not gonna lie. It feels very ominous.
Old-Scientist-4257@reddit
Location: Pine barrens NJ
this unseasonably dry, warm weather continues to be unsettling and creepy. Smoke from the multitude of wildfires continues to waft around. There is a new bloom on my vinca, and a brand new marigold sprouted. Everything feels very dreamy and unnerving.
splat-y-chila@reddit
Sarracenia carnivorous pitcher plants live there in the woods. I hope they don't get wiped out by the fires.
Old-Scientist-4257@reddit
theyre not so much in the woods as they are around the bodies of water, i did think of them though
literallygnomish@reddit
Location: PNW
Weather: It's warm. I'm very sensitive to the cold and have gone out in short sleeves multiple times in the last week. I haven't lived here long, but I seem to remember the first frost around Halloween in previous years. Our nights are in the 40s, most days we make it up into the 50s. It's also incredibly wet, but that's to be expected. Bomb cyclone hits my area today, which I didn't even know was a possibility before yesterday.
Social/Political: I'm trying to align myself with other trans folks and leftist organizations to create community for the next four years, but it's been a shit show. Everyone's so defensive and scared that they're all turning against each other before the opportunity arises to organize anything at all. People who could make a huge impact can't participate even if they wanted to because they're so depleted from working multiple jobs and taking care of their people.
Beginning_Bat_7255@reddit
What do you find scarier? * Bombogenesis cyclone or * The fact Seattle area's most popular weather blog is run by an outspoken climate denier? e.g. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-storm-reveals-itself-eastside-wind.html
whatareyoudoingdood@reddit
Location: Oklahoma, USA.
What a beautiful place the little theocracy knows as the State of Oklahoma is, and my how far it has fallen. This sparsely populated state in the south central portion of the contiguous 48 was once a socialist stronghold. Producing folk hero’s like Woody Guthrie, proudly proclaiming Labor Omnia Vincit as its state moto.
But, the days of small farm holdings and close knit communities focused on the betterment of everyone in their social class is gone. All that remains is the hate from those idealized times of the past.
Our education secretary is currently in his ‘pick me’ phase begging for Trumps attention by mandating bibles (the ones purchased for this mandate were Trump branded of course) be present in classrooms, and requiring a video played to Oklahoma students leading a prayer for Trump.
Many districts are pushing back against this, but it happening at all is so unbelievably disheartening. My heart breaks for my country and the direction we are going. I am so tired.
Everything is not OK in Oklahoma.
RuralUrbanSuburban@reddit
I know Oklahoma well, and consider the state Ground Zero for all that has transpired in Republican and MAGA politics, given its intricate connection to the fossil fuel industry and evangelicalism. The state has always been at a disadvantage with its late admission to statehood in 1907, which originated in a shady land grab from Native American tribes years earlier. But the transformation to the collapse of what we’re seeing today began in the Reagan years—the people there were absolutely captivated by him and his hokey rhetoric. Soon every television was tuned to Fox and radios were listening to Rush Limbaugh. The substandard schools made the population an easy mark. You may be asking, “How bad could Oklahoma schools be?” . . . Having attended and graduated from a K-12 rural public school in Oklahoma in the 1980’s with mostly straight A’s, I never took Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus, because my lazy teenage self decided I didn’t like math and those courses weren’t required for graduation, nor was I taught ANYTHING about history past World War I. That’s right—neither I nor my classmates learned about The Great Depression, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement or anything about dictators, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, much less concepts, such as socialism, fascism, the Holocaust, or economic terms, such as tariffs. Don’t ask me why, but history lessons simply stopped at WWI, and I remember being immensely frustrated by this, because I was seriously curious about 20th century history. So, it’s easy to see why the average Oklahoma voter (or at least one of my high school classmates) could be duped into voting for a candidate that is going to be a dictator, given they weren’t taught what signs to watch out for. However, there was much emphasis in my K-12 schools on reciting the Lord’s Prayer at all athletic events and pep assemblies, and requiring ALL the grade school pupil’s to write letters to Santa for the hometown newspaper (they continued this tradition for at least 25 years after I graduated). Recently, the small public high school of the county seat, where my hometown is located, held a science fair. Instead of the students showcasing their science projects, what this science fair consisted of was a live Q and A opportunity for the kids to ask some questions with a NASA official via a computer hookup link, which I thought was fantastic. But the local, extremely conservative-biased newspaper chose to highlight what they considered the real draw of the science fair: all the various fossil fuel industries that had set up booths in the cafeteria touting how wonderful oil and gas are as energy resources and giving away gimmicky swag gifts to the kids. The newspaper interviewed the students, who enthused how fun the fossil fuel booths were, but the paper didn’t report on any questions the students asked NASA. Given the lack of general academic focus or high standards in the state’s schools, we mustn’t forget the overwhelming obsession with football at all levels—from cradle to grave. I personally feel the excessive fixation with that sport has helped keep people stupid in Oklahoma, and the oligarchy, such as the Koch brothers, want to maintain that situation. Remember Senator James ‘snowball in Senate chamber proves no global warming’ Inhofe? Well, daytime high temperatures for my Oklahoma hometown for the next 10 days are in the 50’s and 60’s—in November . . . when they used to be in the 30’s and 40’s for this time of year. Snow is a rarity there now. These days, I live elsewhere . . . talking with friends/relatives still residing there and I travel to my hometown for visits occasionally, and I can attest that most Oklahoman’s have sadly lost their G-d damn minds.
Fern_Pearl@reddit
wonderful oil and gas are as energy resources and giving away gimmicky swag gifts to the kids
Gives me shades of the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries. Cut from the same cloth. Just pure evil.
soitgoes75@reddit
Fellow sad and disgusted Oklahoman. So sick of seeing Walter's face on the news every damn day.
LemonFreshenedBorax-@reddit
Location: near a Great Lake.
Usually my sump pump runs once per hour for four months straight, starting around labour day. This fall was so dry that it hasn't run a single time since the spring. I guess I can stop worrying about having to replace it this year (and start worrying about several other things.)
Shadowfire04@reddit
Location: Ohio, USA
echoing what everyone else has been saying about the weather, it's been violently vacillating between a balmy 60-70 degrees F and 40-50 at night, but still far too warm for the time of year. there's a significant amount of trees still with green leaves, and those that have dropped their leaves have only managed to drop some of them, not all of them. i went outside yesterday without a coat on and was more or less fine - i tend to be more immune to the cold than usual and melt in the heat, which is extremely unfortunate considering the trend of our climate systems. been more and more worried about our supply chain as i start to imagine the rumblings start to stir, what with that orange cunt becoming president, tariffs and all.
yourknotwrite1@reddit
I have new seeds that dropped just a few weeks ago sprouting in my flower beds. I was still harvesting tomatoes that grew in a pretty sheltered area last week. Still getting blooms from some summer flowers. Things feel surreal.
ruskibaby@reddit
Our seasons are now early summer, summer, late summer, and kind-of-fall.
Shadowfire04@reddit
holding out hope for at least a kind-of-winter when it hits december, but i've not got my hopes up.
DystopianCollapse@reddit
Location: New England
It feels like a warm spring day and has for multiple days in a row. Same thing happened the last few weeks, it’ll be spring temps at the start of the week and then be somewhat cold (barely cold, like high 40’s to upper 50’s) closer to the weekend, rinse & repeat.
This isn’t normal, we should be getting regularly cold temperatures by November, maybe even snow flurries but it’s just so mild/warm consistently this November. It was similarly mild last year but this year feels a lot more noticeable.
Absolutely no rain either. We’ve had regular warnings of not to burn anything as it’s SO DRY. Pretty sure there’s been wildfires, I recall hearing New Jersey had some as well.
I remember when November would be cold, December would have insane snow, like up to my shins and sometimes up to my thighs (I am 5’5” but still) on a regular basis.
Now it’s pitiful, yeah sometimes it’ll show a significant amount but mostly it’s only so many inches. Or it just feels hella icy majority of the time. January/February has felt consistently cold though, if memory serves. We’ll see if this year is the same once we get to those months.
Glad the billionaires got all those temporary profits on a finite planet though /s
No-Measurement-6713@reddit
Im in NH, have ypu noticed the insanely warm nightime temps? Usually by now we have burned wood from mid- October. This year we have burned hardly any. Also we have had daily high winds, really high winds. And yes 5he drought, e erything is absolutely bone dry. We only have had 3 days of a slight frost, 32°. I betting no snow this winter.
icedoutclockwatch@reddit
I'm near chicago but I've definitely noticed the warm nights. It's very disconcerting, sometimes it even seems to warm up a bit around 8-10PM.
BlackMassSmoker@reddit
Location: United Kingdom
The UK feels like a grim, grey, depressing country to live in. Its populace are over worked and underpaid, our politics is sleazy and filled with short term thinking. There is no vision of a better tomorrow. Sure we're sold the lie we have since at least 2008 - pain today, jam tomorrow but the jam never comes. It's more pain as bills increase, household budgets are tightened and we all adapt to the new normal.
You're no longer classed as ill if you're out of work with whatever ails you. You're now 'economically inactive'. We're no longer told to seek out better opportunities and work for something better - you're told to take whatever soul destroyed, pointless job you can get because the economy needs it. The choice of jobs are thin - your options tend be service industry work or bottom of the rung office work and with very few opportunities to advance, make more money and improve your situation. Most jobs, even the most basic ones, seem to demand experience and qualifications, even for jobs you can learn in a day of being there. The new government says they're making the sensible choices to stimulate growth in our economy, but every day you see bills are going to increase, that child poverty is increasing, that mental health continues to decline.
In my almost 4 decades of being alive, I can't think of a time our health service was never not 'on its knees' due to chronic underinvestment, and the desire of previous governments to run a service like a business. Booking an appointment to just see a doctor is a two week wait. I know when I eventually sit down with one I'll get two choices - pills or some CBT sessions on zoom. That's your lot. COVID has been a real eye opener on how fragile our NHS is, with the waiting list massively increasing and never returned to 'pre-pandemic levels'.
I didn't think my life would look like this at 37. I thought at this age I'd have quietly slipped into adulthood, saved money, have a home, a family, a life. Instead I'm out of work, I have no money and I'm very, very much alone. I feel alone just visiting family. It feels like make believe, unreal, like I'm playing a game and pretending everything is fine and life is normal when it's clearly not. It should be obvious to anyone that country has been in a steady decline, some say 'managed decline', for decades.
There is a sense of misery and futility that sits over this country now. Politically things may be a bit calmer these days with a centre right government promising 'sensible' politics from now on. But with no real change on the horizon, with no real vision for better tomorrow, the anger people feel isn't going anywhere.
jazz-pier@reddit
If it's any consolation (and it's not really), most of the world is fucking depressing currently. There's no utopia for most of us. I think British weather makes it feel more grim. At least in Skid Row you can spend the year in t shirts.
Similar feelings to you otherwise. I stepped into adulthood around 2008. I have never felt like I'm living in a time where tomorrow will be better than today. I'd be fucked if I couldn't move back in with family.
phixion@reddit
hanging on in quiet desperation, is the English way
Shoddy_Reality8985@reddit
Why have kids only to watch them starve?
Mostest_Importantest@reddit
I'm in the PNW of USA, and I feel like I'm in the exact same boat. A bit older, though.
I'm going to see what angrier, dumber, elected morons and their followers do before I try and rescue myself.
This world needs some serious intervention from non-traditional (aristocratic/wealthy) individuals.
Our leaders of the world are... useless against the future.
Pretty-Ability9858@reddit
I am around your age and your post really resonates, though I am in Canada. A lot of parallels with what is happening in the two countries. Not a lot of hope here either. I also struggle with mental health and am also out of work for the first time and don't feel a sense of opportunity or optimism I once did. Every day feels like a slog. All we can do is take it one day at a time I guess. Stay strong!
Inner-View3074@reddit
I also resonated a lot with this post, and I'm in New Zealand. It's definitely a shared experience
Major_String_9834@reddit
Don't let them tell you you have a "mental health problem" because you're angry and disillusioned. You're angry and disillusioned because you see and think clearly while those around you don't.
Rossdxvx@reddit
I am right there with you, brother, just on the other side of the Atlantic. None of us thought things would turn out like this, yet here we are.
infintetimesthecharm@reddit
Feel every bit of this. I don't know what the play is. All I know is something has to change I cannot keep working when there is clearly no future.
See_You_Space_Coyote@reddit
Location: USA, Lower 48 States, East of the Rocky Mountains
Been a little cooler lately but today was un-seasonably warm, with high temperatures reaching the upper 70's, which my body likes but my brain is less happy about knowing the effects of climate change and how it's going to fuck us all in the ass with no lube. There hasn't been more than about half an inch of rain in my area for the last several weeks and there are also drought warnings and fire warnings in the upper Northeast (like around the New York/New England area.) I went on a walk a few days ago and noticed that even though there are a lot of dead leaves on the ground, there are still lots of green leaves on the deciduous trees-not all of them, but a decent amount, more than you'd expect for late November. I also saw a sweatshirt stuck in a bush and I'll always be wondering how that sweatshirt got there and why it wound up there because I have a bad case of Pandora's box syndrome-I'm always wondering how random things happen and why they happen as well as what would happen if random variable X changed in even the slightest ways.
Also, this is probably just local to my exact specific area, but I've noticed a sharp increase in littering lately-people just leaving out all sorts of trash outside like a bunch of rabid raccoons on meth-the planet is dirty enough, the last thing we need right now is to be making it worse.
As I mentioned in last week's post, I made a Bluesky account and while the website itself is decent (and it's very refreshing to use a social media website that actually seems to be functional,) a lot of the user-base is very left-leaning in the mid 2010's Tumblr sort of way so it remains to be seen how that'll turn out for me, as I'm very much not the sort of person who vibes well with that sort of crowd. With that said, I hate being stuck in echo-chambers so I make it a point to expose myself to as many different viewpoints as possible to try to get a better understanding of how other people think because as I mentioned in the last paragraph, my "needs to know as many things as humanly possible for my brain to absorb" disease is terminal and I've been this way all my life, whenever I have even so much as a single free moment, I feel compelled to search for information about whatever the hell is on my mind and if there's nothing particular on my mind at the moment, I think about random things that I don't know a lot about and start wondering what I can learn about those to become more well-rounded (I say this even though every social media profile of mine mainly consists of anime, shitposting, more anime, and more shitposting, in no particular order.)
While not collapse related, today I found out that someone made a Reddit account just to downvote my posts and leave negative comments on them, which was kind of hilarious since their negative comments weren't even creative or funny-I've had this happen to me several times before ever since I started using Reddit and while I have a burner account, I'd rather stick with this one since I have stuff saved on here for later reference.
Bird Flu is doing unpleasant things, or, as people Gen Z and younger might say, it's really popping off.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-11-h5n1-bird-flu-infects-humans.html
https://www.newsweek.com/bird-avian-flu-map-us-states-1987366
Sadly, expecting society to learn anything useful since the covid pandemic began was an absolute error on my part, the kind that steams my hams every single day (note: I don't even like ham.) If anything, people's general hygiene and general awareness of how disease works and general appreciation for public health has gotten worse since the pandemic began.
Finding up to date information about how many covid cases there are right now is a challenge that's become more and more difficult over time, the most recent information I've been able to dig up shows that cases right now are higher than they have been for about half of the rest of the pandemic so far and seem to be gradually increasing.
https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1855849157254074456
Trying to share information about covid with most other people rarely goes over well, but if for nothing more than posterity's sake, I like to share whatever information I can find when I find it. If even one person is helped by anything I share or finds anything useful from anything that I share, that's good enough for me. (That, and if I believed in reincarnation, I would guess that I was a town crier in at least one past life.)
https://longcovidsux.com/
https://covidhelp.org/
https://johnsnowproject.org/
If nothing else, maybe someone else will find something that I share and be able to share with with other people and even if nobody decides to listen to anything I share with them, maybe they'll listen if someone else shares it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
In other news, there's been an EColi outbreak with carrots sold in several popular grocery stores, so I had to throw out some carrots I bought a while ago. This is after a recent EColi outbreak involving onions, so if you like vegetables, now's a good time to cook them rather than eat them raw.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/carrots-recalled-trader-joes-wegmans-e-coli-rcna180546
The general cost of living continues to creep up, with wages not keeping up at all (and definitely not my wages-I've never been able to find a job that pays me enough to support myself, which is miserable, but I've given up feeling shame about it, as all I can do is work as hard as possible and save up as much as possible and hope that someday I get the opportunity to vote for politicians who have any interest in making sure people can afford to live.) I don't have all the skills I'd like to have and my brain's ability to pick up on social skills is lower than the minimum threshold one needs to properly blend in as a perfectly normal and well-adjusted member of normal society but I'm too stubborn to give up, roll over, and die, so the world is going to have to put up with my continued existence until I lose any semblance of support from my family and/or my body decides to give out on me.
As social skills are something I've had to manually teach myself rather than something that comes naturally to me like it seems to for most other people, I've cobbled together enough social skills to carry out polite conversations for a while and to do basic, low-paying jobs, I don't have what it takes to pass the vibe check in fancy office jobs or anything like that, which will severely limit my ability to achieve some of my goals, which sucks, but I refuse to let despair take hold and even if I'm always going to be a sort of person who's always going to be at higher than normal risk of falling through the cracks, again, my brain was wired to make me one of the most stubborn sons of bitches out there and so I continue to lock in and extract every bit of knowledge, information, and other useful resources I can gather from my environment and my life experiences and I'll ride out this crazy train for as long as I can.
Anyways, there's my weekly brain dump/rant/ramble/whatever the fuck and here I am, more than halfway through November. If life were a train and we were all passengers, I'd be climbing the walls in the bathroom counting all the cracks in the walls while everyone else is arguing about where the train is going, when it's going to get there, if we should change course, and if so, where we should change course to and whether or not it's even possible, with a few other passengers occasionally walking by, doing a double-take, and shaking their heads in some emotion that I can't pick up on and probably don't even notice anyways because I'm too busy counting the cracks in the walls to fill in some random empty space I found in my brain to give myself some enrichment like a zoo animal so I don't go insane.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and look out for yourselves, your loved ones, and your community (and if you're extra brave and/or extra bored, you can always hit me up and ask me for my other socials, as I don't like Reddit's messaging system.) (But be on the lookout for anime, shitposting, more anime, and more shitposting, so if that's not your thing, feel free to steer clear, no hard feelings.) Also, brush your teeth, floss regularly, get whatever type of mouthwash has whatever minty flavor you like best, and if you're physically and financially able to, check and make sure that you're up to date on all your vaccines and get up to date on them ASAP, smarter people than me can summarize why you should if you have questions.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
Thanks for posting, especially thanks for the food recall info!!! McDonald’s onions were involved apparently.
Aaah, I remember when I could afford McDonald’s, the good ole days 😂
Don’t sweat the trolls. Reddit has some of the best people (many many in this forum) but also some of the worst people, too.
ManticoreMonday@reddit
I always appreciate your updates and insight. Thanks for taking the time to post ☺️
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
I appreciate your Covid updates, because it means someone other than myself is paying attention.
Also, I got a delightful image of everyone in Snowcrash and then you just sneaking around counting cracks somehow.
KingofGrapes7@reddit
Location: Massachusetts
Got an automated call from the town that outdoor fires are banned due to the drought. Given the brush fires in places like Salem and Reading I'm all for it. But still. Brush fire conditions in November.
I occasionally do some model robots. Gundam and the like. Heard on the grapevine that prices will be going up next year. Beating a dead horse but if there is something you want, buy it now. Assume that nothing will be untouched by the economic disaster incoming. If your hobby has a holy Grail, this time next year it might be completely unobtainable. Game consoles? Pricier and both Sony and Microsoft are making their big push against physical versions. Car part? No idea but more expensive. Buy now, then pinch pennies.
People are putting up Christmas decorations earlier. Like start of November. Not malls, houses. Think people are trying to cling to that Christmas spirit against a dread and can't or won't fully understand.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Those news from the grapevine are concerning... Sounds like you describing the beginning of a deflation
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Practically everything in the US is "Made in China". Off-shoring manufacturing was just so damn cheap for companies since the 90's that almost all manufacturing jobs are gone.
Think about it, the total US population is about 330 million.
Just the "Working Age" population in China is DOUBLE that. The pool of labor in China is vast and they don't have to pay for things like health care, sick days, retirement accounts, etc. Plus no OSHA and expensive worker safety costs.
We make next to nothing in the US and Trump started a trade war with them because Xi wouldn't give him the "kickback" he wanted. Even after he threatened to withhold grain shipments to China (grain they had contracted/paid for) and use food as a "weapon of starvation" back in 2019.
Now both parties want to "bring back" American manufacturing and reduce American dependence on Chinese supply chains. They think tariffs will FORCE people to buy "Made in the USA" crap if the Chinese stuff they want costs 100% more.
Great Depression 2.0 is about to happen.
CannyGardener@reddit
Agreed. I mean, they can do that, and Americans will by and large start to buy US made goods, but the way that the market works, the US companies will see it as a reason to increase their prices on the US end to be just under the tarif'ed price of the imported equivalent of their product, and then consumption will crater. I'm not sure what they think is going to happen with 3% unemployment, when all of the sudden they need millions of factory workers on the manufacturing lines they plan to reshore. The scarcity of labor will cause the cost of labor to go through the roof. Going to be a trip...
Major_String_9834@reddit
How long will it take for US business, which has been outsourcing manufacturing for decades, to step up and start manufacturing to replace Chinese goods and Chinese parts in "American" goods? It could take many years.
Ghostwoods@reddit
You could recreate the American manufacturing base in 3-5 years if the whole country was mobilised similarly to being on "war-footing".
Maybe 15 years if you do it through persistent punitive tariffs.
Either way, it's a domestic disaster.
CannyGardener@reddit
I mean... by war footing you mean rationing and reduced consumption and increased prices? In my mind I suppose I think of reshoring meaning the complete reshoring of these goods' production to serve the current product demands in the US market. I just don't think there is any way that the volume of products being produced overseas, for consumption in the US, is fully reshored. The volume would be much lower due to lack of workers and higher prices, and the prices would be much higher for many many reasons.
Generally I agree with your thoughts though. The tariffs would have to be lasting and very punitive, and in the end, it would make a lot of jobs, a lot of inflation, and a lot of scarcity.
Ghostwoods@reddit
Rationing and reduced consumption, yes, very much so, but also forced conscription into rebuilding the infrastructure, working raw materials, training production facility workers, shipping materials and goods, etc.
CannyGardener@reddit
I mean, OK so I'm just going to throw this out here, because we live in a fucking weird timeline, but how crazy would it be if AI rolled out, and takes all the 'office' jobs, but then all those folks move over to being conscripted into reshoring tasks, obviously at very low cost. I think that is probably the only way to reshore all of that production without massive increases in prices, but then you have a huge portion of the economic engine that is unable to buy anything. Interesting times...
CannyGardener@reddit
The tariffs will have to be very high, with no hope of repeal, or a normal business will look at the results and ask whether it makes sense to not just move the manufacturing back to the US, but also the entire supply chain. A lot of these manufacturers are heavily integrated with their raw good supply chain, to help with JIT and reduce WIP. Tariffs that are high enough for companies to quickly bring their manufacturing back to the US will devastate the economy. I have no doubt we will end up in some sort of horrible middle ground, where companies try to wait out the tariffs, and we end up with higher consumer prices, and no local alternatives with better pricing (local prices will rise to just under the tariff level pricing). To this, I don't think that companies, even if they wanted to, could disassemble their overseas supply chains, and reassemble them efficiently in the US, it takes time to build those supply lines, and contracts.
No. Businesses will not move their manufacturing back, and if they somehow miraculously do, we will have high inflation (building a supply chain in North America is expensive and time consuming), and no one to work the lines. We are still losing excess people to COVID, and the millennials are not having kids (we just closed a couple dozen schools in the Denver area/suburbs because no one can afford to have kids...), where do they think these folks are going to come from to manufacture products?
We are heading for scarcity here, if these tariffs are pushed through. We might get lucky, and have them picking favorites, so we only have about half of our imports tariffed, but I think that is about as good as it will get.
FundamentalFailson@reddit
You forget they’re planning on rounding up millions of 13th amendment exceptions…
Karma_Iguana88@reddit
What is the best thing (or things) one can do now in anticipation of this?
FuzzySlippers__@reddit
Buy up seeds, grow your own food in your backyard.
Ghostwoods@reddit
What backyard??
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Like the man said, "buy it now". Next year, it's likely to cost twice as much. If it's available at all.
Major_String_9834@reddit
Yes-- buy what you need now. Next year there will be a tariff war, and China will win it easily because of its vastly superior manufacturing power and its reduced dependence on US soybean exports.. Expect Weimar-style hyperinflation soon.
boneyfingers@reddit
Is there a bright side to this tariff war? Will it maybe result in the consumption of far less plastic crap?
I remember a time in the 1980s, when China sent a trade delegation to Ecuador. There was very little Chinese trade with us in those days. They studied our markets, and made a plan, and then absolutely flooded us under a deluge of plastic. Plastic spoons from China are cheaper than wooden ones from Ecuador. Plastic jars are cheaper than glass or clay. In just a few years practically every toy sold here was a piece of plastic crap. If we did Trumpian tariffs here, maybe the prices would not go up, because we can't afford to pay more. Instead we might return to carving wooded spoons.
Codyss3y@reddit
I’m amassing the most embarrassing warhammer pile o shame before the tariffs hit 🤘😜
MountainTipp@reddit
I'm too fucking poor to even afford one last hoorah.
FuzzySlippers__@reddit
Amen. Never been so poor.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
I’m hearing the same things about supply lines for equipment and manufacturing items from friends in production.
Lifesabeach6789@reddit
Vancouver Island here. Went out to get gas today before the Bomb Cyclone hits us tomorrow and 3 gas stations were out of 89&91 octane. Only had regular- which of course my car cant use. ☹️
neu8ball@reddit
I live in MA as well. It's in the fucking mid-60s on November 18th on the South Shore. My wife just put up all our Christmas decorations early (she needs a little extra cheer this year), and I'm looking at all these snowglobes and ornaments with sweaters, snowmen, sleds, etc, just shaking my head.
I told my wife that the temperature on our wedding day five years ago (also in November) was a high of 51 (and a beautiful, clear day). We were nervous and ultimately thrilled because "it was real risky to pick an outdoor wedding in cold, rainy November in MA."
Mid 60s in mid-November. Mid-80s in mid-October. Not a drop of rain for over two months. And yet, as you say, better buy those presents or necessities now while you can.
Fern_Pearl@reddit
Car part? No idea but more expensive. Buy now, then pinch pennies
I paid over $700 for the cheapest winter tires I could get. Last year I paid $500, and there were cheaper options.
SoFlaBarbie@reddit
I put my Xmas lights and tree up in my house last week. The reason you speculated is the very reason I did it.
softsnowfall@reddit
I’m in Pennsylvania. I can tell you that we are putting up Christmas decorations because we believe it might be the last real Christmas for four years or maybe in our lifetimes…
Putting up early Christmas decorations for some of us isn’t putting our heads in the sand… instead we are going to pay attention to every moment left of our American democracy…
CatchaRainbow@reddit
Should be good for other parts of the world, though. USA stops buying, over supply everywhere else.
Sertalin@reddit
Germany, North-Rhine Westfalia
I work in healthcare. It is collapsing. Physicians and nurses are tired and burnt out and are leaving. The remaining are busy as hell and trying to maintain the system. Outpatient clinics are like a big box with many doors in which physicians, nurses and patients go in and out within minutes like mice in a psychological study. No personal talk to the patient anymore. Patients drive 50 kilometers (one way) to get advice from a specialist who speaks to them for a maximum of 5 minutes.
Until 2040 there will be a lack of 50.000 physicians in Germany. But people are still expecting healthcare as we had in the golden eighties...
Collapse_is_underway@reddit
Most people keep on expecting material growth in all areas, as they've known all their lives.
And we have pretty much nobody that are making plans for "how do we manage with less easily available energy and materials?" at a national leve (I'm talking Switzerland here).
Local preparation with your commune/village/small city/neighbours is what's to be done, at this stage. It's actually what's being done in many areas, but we'll never EVER hear about it in MSM news.
And also, all local preparations/associations is what will inspire people / what they will turn to once they can clearly see that the globalized system is slowly collapsing.
All members of main political parties, industries leader, business executives are brainwashed people that cannot fathom an economy that do not keep on growing its GDP; they're the ones that will try to make us go to war for "democracy".
Mission-Notice7820@reddit
Location: Mid-Atlantic
I think everyone is still in complete shock about the election. There's this resignation in the air, in everyone. We have to still get up and go to work and deal with the complexities and struggles of life, all while watching the people who are driving this bus, lean completely into insanity and nothing we can say or do will ever change the fact that they're mashing the gas pedal down and it's clear that there's a giant wall in front of us that will absolutely kill everyone on the bus, soon. We can't even really scream anymore, we tried that and nothing changed.
When the next major pandemic hits, there will be hundreds of millions of deaths. There will be no guidance, no help, no masks, no vaccines.
Already, everyone is damaged and confused and getting COVID like 20 times a year and wondering why their brains are full of holes and mostly everyone is suffering from various symptoms of early-onset dementia. I can see it in people around me, and there's nothing to be done about it at all.
The climate is now really entering a phase where we are not going to be happy with it at all. There is no consistent weather, besides drought. It's been almost 3 months since any significant rainfall in this region and nobody seems to really notice or care.
joez37@reddit
As someone who lives in a region (NM) where going 6 months without any appreciable rain is not unheard of, your city/state needs to invest in long-term drought and water conservation infrastructure. Years ago when I started hearing about water-rich communities panicking over a weeks long or month long drought, I was baffled, but then realized that such droughts don't phase us here in the west because we live with it and we have built out our infrastructure with long droughts as the norm. You guys need to do the same or similar.
mobileagnes@reddit
It kinda feels like the same day over and over in a way, right?
Mission-Notice7820@reddit
Definitely. I have aged almost 5 years since the pandemic "officially began" and it all feels like one long day.
mobileagnes@reddit
Eh to me March 2020 till around October 2022 feels like just one long year. The last few months with little rain or overall variation in weather feel like one month. I live in Philadelphia, so by now we typically need to keep an eye on the forecast this time of year as we can have any of warm, cold, snow, rain, or wind from day to day. Most days since late September have been sunny and chilly to warm (maxima between 10 to 25 °C / 50 to 77 °F).
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Location: Downeast Maine
Greetings, from the place where our Gulf is warming faster than any other body of water on earth. And the Boston Globe apparently just found out. (But don’t worry! They paywalled it. And I couldn’t find a freaking workaround.) Lobsterman (and women, and probably the three enby Lobsterpeeps) are, of course, busily spending their energy on dealing with issues regarding right whales after convincing folks last year that these whales were safe since none had died of entanglement! (Yet!)
The women focused preppers subreddit had an explosion of subscribers in the last couple weeks. Wonder why?! >.> Additionally, every woman friendly CC classes and gun safety class in the region has filled up faster then usual. Maine as finally got a Pink Pistols Chapter. (Mainers who want info, I can pull links for you, I just can’t do internal Reddit links on mobile easily.)
Meanwhile, in a conversation I don’t generally have here (as it hasn’t been relevant to collapse) I’m spending an inordinate amount of energy and time working through whether we change my child’s gender marker on their birth certificate before January or not. Four and a half years ago, their birth state required one based on external genitalia. Today, I can change it for them, and they adamantly have stated they are “not a boy or a girl” for over a year. We (parents, psychologist, & medical professionals) all agree that this is fine and respect it, my concern is that if we don’t change and align their gender markers now to to X we may never be able to. My concern is also that to do so adds an extra flag to the system concerning them. That said, I want my child to live their life as themselves as much as possible. God. This is the most agonizing thing I have had to sort as a parent so far.
My husband says he’s already seeing increased food & heat insecurity over last year, and we have increased our outreach to local organizations. This has gotten us some help and it’s likely my husband is going to be spending an extra ten minutes with some folks helping them fill out food bank delivery requests. Let’s hope it helps. We’re also looking to clear space here on our farm to create a wood bank, but that’s a much bigger project and will require resources we need to acquire over time.
With regard to healthcare, my algorithm has shown me several posts from multiple states this week about dissolving resources. Comments suggested that medical professionals are aware of the issues and it’s systemic. I’m not shocked. It’s likely to get worse, not better, as the H5N1 issues ramp up and if RFK, JR actually fucks up the FDA.
I am sitting here trying to conjure up my beautiful moment for you. Maybe it was the many grandparent aged folks who joyfully welcomed my child by name (but don’t remember my husband’s or mine) as they joyfully dance about in their tutu and big black snow boots. Or the few sweet folks who came to tell me with love how they miss their grandchildren and love to hear my child’s voice whispering during service or see them dancing during songs. I know not everyone agrees with bringing children into this world; they do bring so much joy and hope with them though.
Remember my friends, there is beauty in the world. Look for it, and for each other, out there.
TuneGlum7903@reddit
I thought it was ironic that one of the studies authors,
"urged regulators to do more to protect them, noting how vital they are to maintaining the delicate ecosystems in the valuable coastal waters."
Exactly HOW do you protect a body of water against GLOBAL WARMING?
Hot water is flowing into the Gulf of Maine and the HEAT builds up.
"The Gulf of Maine has been warming faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet. Last year, scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland said the waters off New England experienced their fifth-warmest year on record. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2012."
How do you "regulate" that?
theCaitiff@reddit
By cutting carbon emissions, converting energy infrastructure over to renewables, and investing in carbon capture and sequestration. CURRENTLY direct air capture is a joke for how inefficient it is. You can either massively invest at a government level to try to find better direct air capture tech, or turn to other methods entirely. A simple low tech approach would be back filling coal mines with biochar, literally put the carbon back in the ground. Not ideal, it has huge issues too, but it DOES remove atmospheric carbon and sequester it on a near permanent (thousands of years at minimum) timeline.
Is it too little too late? Honestly, it's almost certainly too late to change course, but doing nothing is 100% certain to kill us all. So do you shoot for the one in a billion chance of having an effect or do you lay down and die?
Ghostwoods@reddit
With a sternly-worded declaration, obviously!
Ghostwoods@reddit
I can't imagine how difficult it must be trying to navigate through the mazes of hate and chaos to find the right route to protect your kid. My heart goes out to all three of you.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Thank you. I’m doing the best I can, and consulting our community folks, my therapist, our family PCP, etc. I may make a call to the GLAD Law people before we make a final decision. There’s absolutely going to be distressing things that happen no matter what we do. I truly appreciate everyone’s support.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
I don't understand why the State wants to know your child's gender (maybe I'm missing something)...
I know that in France we're in the process of removing gender entirely from the administration's paperwork ("mother and father" has become "parent 1 and parent 2", etc). Just like we removed religion and ethnicity after 1945. Because, turns out those data are completely irrelevant for the State. I think that was a clever answer to both the progressists and the conservatives: "you want a battlefield over genders? Oh Marty: where we're going, we don't need genders!"
What are the consequences of this birth certificate conundrum..? Could the State someday allow/refuse something based on your children's birth certificate?
TuneGlum7903@reddit
In a country where moronic "citizens" actually believe that schools are doing "gender reassignment surgeries" and giving kids hormones you bet it's an issue.
The MAGAts believe that gender roles are MANDATED by G-D in his Holy book. Men are the "head" and women are the "helper". ANYTHING else is an ABOMINATION that must be "cured".
In Oklahoma, one of our most backward and regressive states, they are sucking up to Trump by putting copies of the Trump Bible in every classroom.
Oklahoma’s regulations leave little choice but to purchase specific Trump-endorsed Bible for public schools.
https://bjconline.org/oklahomas-regulations-trump-endorsed-bible-for-public-schools-101524/
Oklahoma school superintendent Ryan Walters continues to create disturbing church-state headlines in his quest to stock every public school classroom in the state with a copy of the Bible. Earlier this year, Walters issued an edict requiring schools in the state to place copies of the Bible, along with founding documents — like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence — in every classroom.
Now, as The Oklahoman reports, the resulting request for bids to satisfy the requirement is so specific that it seems to leave only one option for which Bible the state can purchase: the controversial “God Bless the USA Bible” recently promoted by former President Donald Trump. From the article:
Bids opened Monday for a contract to supply the state Department of Education with 55,000 Bibles. According to the bid documents, vendors must meet certain specifications: Bibles must be the King James Version; must contain the Old and New Testaments; must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and must be bound in leather or leather-like material.
That's 55,000 copies at $60 a pop, or $3.3 million. Trump probably gets a 70% profit on that.
daviddjg0033@reddit
ACLU or some group has to sue. This is infuriating.
"Paperback versions of the New King James Version are available online for $2.99 each, less than 5% of what the Trump-endorsed Bible would cost. There are many free Bible apps, too."
This is beyond grift it's absurd
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Yup. And crap like this, the extensive condoned hatred for queer, and specifically trans, folks in this country, that often plays out in schools is part of why I plan to homeschool my kid.
Ironically, Maine has robust homeschooling options and supports, along with regulations because the state doesn’t let kids go to public schools unvaccinated.
Maine is one of the stranger states in the country, but they make it work.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Low end? Increased harassment for things like travel. Flagged for more TSA checks, things like that.
Medium? They could force my kid to “choose” a gender and then attempt to enforce preforming that gender in public along with switching it back on paperwork.
Really shitty end? They could decide we’re horrible parents for “allowing” or “grooming” our kid and they take them away. Or, the real fear mongering is about rounding up trans folks and tossing them in camps with migrants and homeless folks.
Maj0r-DeCoverley@reddit
Baguettedamnit.
You're supposed to be the land of the free !
I hope nothing of that ever happens to your kids :/
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Me too. The risk of course is we leave the assigned gender, and they experience dysphoria (which they definitely do from other experiences) and that the government attempts to “enforce” that gender in some asinine way. Or they’re harassed for not performing their assigned gender “correctly.”
Already, in a playground by other children my sweet child has had to argue about “what” they are because some kid insisted they “had to be a boy or a girl.” It starts early, the indoctrination.
My kid just wants to be a kid. And it is shockingly harder to get the world to be chill about that than it should be.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
If it were me, I would start to explain to my child the grey man (erm, grey person!) strategy.
“We are going to play a game. When you are older, if you get the chance, you can dismantle the people who made you play this game”.
As someone who lived in the closet for 35 years, I know this game.
My love and best wishes are with you and your fam as you make this decision and navigate this hellscape.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
I too kept my queerness in the closet for a very long time. And know the benefits of it for safety. Where my husband grew up his whole damn life in Massachusetts. He was in the gay-straight alliance in high school. My high school still had prayers led by teachers. I lived in towns where people legit had crosses burned in their yards in the South during my lifetime.
We have different positions on what exactly the risks are. The trick is balancing the risk levels against my kids ability to pretend to be something they aren’t.
thepeasantlife@reddit
Paywall removed: https://archive.ph/AYGAI
Geaniebeanie@reddit
Location: Southeast Kansas
So, uh… it’s 70 degrees today. Really not much more that can be said about that, except that we are getting some rain today and that’s nice.
Standard report; no birds, no bugs. I was holding out some hope, but I finally accepted the fact that they’re probably gone for good. We do have a busy squirrel, so I keep the bird bath for his sake because 9 days out of 10 we’re in a drought.
After the political fiasco, I had to take a social media and news break. Shut everything down, picked up an old hobby and I’ve been all the better for it.
Now instead of doomscrolling, I pick up my sketchbook and let my pencil wander. It’s helped my physical health just as much as my mental health: I had no idea I had such a strong mind/body connection.
I allow myself to check for updates (hence my participation in this thread) but overall, I keep it out of my line of sight, and still keep limits overall on the news and Reddit.
I honestly suggest others do the same. I’m not putting my head in the sand about collapse; I’m well aware of everything going on at every angle. But there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, so I choose to leave it out of my thoughts.
The world is ending whether I pay attention to it or not, so why not spend some time playing an instrument on deck as the ship sinks?
plinpone@reddit
I am with you. Since the beginning of the month, I've been spending less time on the internet, except for work. It's...refreshing. I've been getting back to woodcarving and making sure my basic skills are improving - these things feel easier and more rewarding when I'm not watching a livestream of the ship sinking.
I'm not far from you (Missouri) and, while we have some birds where we are, my child looked up this morning and said "Woah!! Look at all those birds". There was a long line of birds migrating and probably the most they've ever seen at once. But it was...still so much fewer than there used to be. le sigh.
Good luck with your sketches!
squidlys90@reddit
I'm glad you are doing something you enjoy. Thank you for writing this. I have also been trying to spend more time doing things I once enjoyed before being trapped into the working world. I actually quit my job on the 5th because I couldn't take not being able to spend the rest of my time enjoying something. If you ever wanted to share your art I'd be willing to take a gander. if not I totally get it. I hope you find today to be a great day despite the unsettling truth about things.
greenman5252@reddit
Location: Olympic Peninsula, Wa State , USA. 43 days past average first frost. Lots of fall blooming of spring flowering plants. Country elected a trifecta of ultra right wing fascists.
Kindly_Log9771@reddit
Saw full on strawberries today.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
0_0
GodSpeedLightning@reddit
Location: Rural Central Pennsylvania
I have lived here almost my entire life and I have never seen it this consistently warm and dry in the Fall. I found myself pulling historical weather data from NOAA (while it still exists) to ensure I wasn't going crazy and that it did, in fact, used to get regularly below freezing (32ºF) in November. A local weather blog predicted my region would receive 20 inches of snow this winter, about 15 inches below the historical average winter, but if it did that, I would be ecstatic after the virtually snowless winters we've had the last couple years. There are still mosquitoes outside. The plants cut bare to prepare for winter are beginning to regrow because its just not cold enough.
Oh, and did I mention we've gotten almost no rain either? November could be the third month this year to produce less than an inch of rainfall (that was July and October). Nearly the entire fucking state is at least at D0 "abnormally dry" or worse. Wildfire danger is still high across the state and many burn bans have been issued. Parts of the Lehigh Valley mountains already caught fire, and this is the first time in my life that some of the PA wilds I've visited regularly have begun to burn.
With all of the other political and socio-economic happenings in my state, collapse feels tangible. With the recent election results, its going to accelerate. It's only soon to be the year 2025. What will it be like by 2050?
I'm coping with football, as long as our corporate masters let that form of bread and circuses persist.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Wow. I grew up partially in Lancaster County and we used to get So Much Snow. That’s a really distressing update.
That_Sketchy_Guy@reddit
Lancaster county resident now. Next to no snow last year, and it's been in the upper 50s all week so it's not looking likely until at least late December.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
That’s definitely warm. We usually didn’t get snow until Christmas, an occasional thanksgiving flurry. Most of our snow dumped between Solstice-Equinox. But I struggle to imagine those farms dusted with snow.
And I’m a little envious, cause I used to have to shovel a very long driveway as a teen.
PriscoJoseph@reddit
Killed three mosquitoes 🦟 last night in my one room apartment before going to bed. Big f*ckerz too. I'm an American living in Germany. Way up north by the border of Denmark. It should be cold and rainy here. With temperatures in the 50's and 60's, no wonder the mosquitoes won't die. There hasn't been a great amount of snow for about a decade around here. When it does snow it melts in hours or a few days... Winter comes in spurts, a few days of rigid cold (normally really cold all throughout October-February). Now the temps just hover between 40'-50 on "really cold days and nights".
Edit: temperatures in F. Not C.
GodSpeedLightning@reddit
Maybe if the cold can't kill the mosquitoes, the wildfire will... It doesn't feel right at all when the leaves are mostly off the trees and the sun sets before 5pm. You wouldn't think it would screw with your brain, but when it broke 80 degrees earlier this month at the same time, you have to wonder...
bipolarearthovershot@reddit
Location: Chicago Suburbs
We haven't had a significant frost yet and I just harvested Roma tomatoes and bell peppers. The weeds are still growing like crazy and some of my native perennials have very green foliage. I have mexican sunflower and other mexican natives that are still blooming it's really insane.
icedoutclockwatch@reddit
I'm in Chicagoland too, I swear I've noticed some shrubs and bushes budding again! Bizarre
ReflectionCalm7033@reddit
I'm in Michigan and my lilac bush started budding again.
yourknotwrite1@reddit
Mine did too!
StellerDay@reddit
In Eugene, Oregon there are new red blackberries on the vine.
deleted_by_reddit@reddit
[removed]
jasper_bittergrab@reddit
Location: USA, Western PA. They’ve been closing structurally unsound bridges with no timeline for when they will reopen. The infrastructure is deteriorating noticeably, and areas of the city are being gradually isolated. They’re also planning on closing a bunch of schools, partly because the buildings are so old they aren’t viable for repair/renovation.
joez37@reddit
Location: New Mexico
I found out that the city paid more than $37k for one speed bump. It had to be redone twice, so three times altogether, because it was too high the first time, too low the second time or something like that. Does this sound incredibly expensive to you all? Also, it was also reported that fencing in an alleyway on either end (to keep homeless out) cost $93k (or thereabouts). Are our city budgets being gouged by construction companies with the tacit cooperation of the local government? Do you see this in your community? I also notice infrastructure bonds every election, which means paying interest to Wall Street. At this rate, I don't know how we can pay for all the infrastructure repairs that need to be made. I'd like to especially hear from anybody who has knowledge of local government and infrastructure finance.
Ghostwoods@reddit
Old-fashioned corruption. It's almost quaint in its comparative benevolence.
Karma_Iguana88@reddit
Smells like catabolic collapse waiting to happen (or well in progress)
Extension_Grocery_44@reddit
Drasric and never ending construction in most of oregon. They somehow make the roads worse and more dangerous as the years go on. I haven't been able to use my normal route to work in well over a year. Our highways are left so uneven and with massive bumps that driving in poor weather is terrifying. They repath roads that looked great while leaving truely terrible roads the same. it doesn't make sense. Has to be corruption or tax evasion of some kind.
TuneGlum7903@reddit
I just read an article about the "most dangerous" stretches of roads in the US. A study found that ALL of them are cases where the road is under multiple jurisdictions.
Some roads are under Federal, State, and County control.
The study found that roads controlled by both Federal and State agencies are the worst. Because Federal safety regulations are more strict than state regulations, particularly in MAGAt states.
In MAGAt "shithole" states the legislators often won't fund the state half of the bill for work on these roads and so loose the matching Federal funds.
dakotamidnight@reddit
Same in Texas. They've dug up and redone my road 5 times in 2 years, each time for a different utility. Now they're paving alley curb cuts for alleys that aren't used.
JackBlackBowserSlaps@reddit
Yup, been like that in Winnipeg for as long as I can remember. City hall and construction/developers in bed together, just draining the coffers dry.
Filthy_Lucre36@reddit
Sounds like an inflation / wage spiral. More and more industries are headed that way, eventually it'll all be under water.
But hey right now the stock market looks great, what a great booming economy! /s
WizeDiceSlinger@reddit
Location: Norway
World championship tour in Biathlon opened on Saturday this weekend where the competition was skiing on a thin sheet of yesteryears stored snow and produced snow from cannons. Usually Sjusjøen has enough snowfall in November to make the tracks, but we’re seeing more and more use of stored or produced snow from cannons in order for the winter sport competitions to be held.
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Arctic Amplification: The High Latitudes are warming four times FASTER than the rest of the planet. HEAT starts in the Tropics (80% of ALL ENERGY in the Climate System starts between Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn) and FLOWS to the poles.
38% of the HEAT from the Tropics reaches the Arctic and it BUILDS UP FAST.
The High Arctic has warmed +4°C on average since 1979.
We just had a planetwide increase in the GMST of +0.5°C since 2021.
The High Arctic is going to jump about +2°C in the next couple of years.
darito0123@reddit
this is what kinda made collapse real for me about 10 years ago, I realized I couldnt just "move north" to escape the heatwaves
No-Measurement-6713@reddit
Norway for gosh sake! Terribly depressing.
Birch_Apolyon@reddit
Location Southern Half of Illinois: What the hell is this weather. When we moved down here we would get snow or it would be cold. Now, Nothing. That and the obvious disturbing news of escalating tensions everywhere and the political climate that is the equivalent of a hurricane.
wolfpup1294@reddit
I remember a couple years ago on Christmas morning, I walked outside in shorts and saw the neighbors jogging. Temps in the 60s in late December.
Miserable_Drawer_556@reddit
California Christmas, not in a good away!
rmannyconda78@reddit
Location: north central Indiana, Marion. It’s nothing but gloom, typical of a November, but with a twist, it’s 60 degrees F, extremely warm for a November. Kinda scares me for next spring and summer, considering it was a hell of a tornado season last one. As for people around here, I tend to avoid most of them because no one knows how to treat one another anymore (which has caused some damage to my mental health).
On the bright side I found some full spectrum CBD tea in the back of my pantry, not as effective as a tincture, but still effective in treating my mental ailments. I’ve created some sealed terrariums in liquor bottles to kinda preserve some of the flora, these could be priceless one day, and they are thriving. The cat(we think she’s Maine coon, Turkish angora mix) I adopted not to long ago is definitely bonded to me, and protective of me as well.
PrairieFire_withwind@reddit
Mmnnn i would love to have time for terrarium work. Such wonders to watch
rmannyconda78@reddit
Sealed Terrariums are easy to make, should be relatively low maintenance, things to look out for in them is mold.
Emergency_Agent_3015@reddit
Location, mountains of Colorado USA (eastern slope) The winter has not yet begun although tomorrow morning is forecast for 10F. The small amount of snow that we have received has not done much to alleviate the fear of wildfires. The major climate news is about above average temperatures and windstorms that cause tree fall. Truthfully I am extremely lucky and have a better circumstance than most. God Bless you all and keep up the good fight.
DrStuttgart@reddit
Eastern slope and you've gotten hardly any snow? Even with recent storm from Tues night through Saturday? That put almost 3.5' of snow on me in the front range.
blarbiegorl@reddit
Region: Great Lakes US
Seems like everyone in the dang country has pneumonia right now, which is crazy. No one seems to even care that covid is destroying immune systems and general health en masse, and now we're primed for bird flu to pop off? Fabulous.
evermorecoffee@reddit
Same here (Ontario). Crazy depressing…
Kozmicsky@reddit
Ohio here. The bird flu talk has me concerned. I’m paying close attention
No-Measurement-6713@reddit
Me too. Terrified.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
The pneumonia is out of control. Absolutely wild. I’m so glad I mask. It’s appalling.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
I know you have the inside scoop with your partner, is it mycoplasma? Mycoplasma went to my heart and almost took me out, “in the before times” (pre Covid).
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
That’s what most of the pediatric cases have been, and I believe much of the general population as well - though I’m not as sure. Would make sense though cause that bacterial crap is nasty catching. And kids legit cough right in your face, even when they’re trying to cover it.
My husband is actually not as up on this issue, I’ve been staying abreast of it to keep him updated and from a lingering professional interest (I was a patient advocate for a while). He does maintenance care right now, which limits his sick exposures, thank goodness.
Glum-Factor-364@reddit
3 people in my family have had Pneumonia, 1 person at work, and multiple friends and neighbours have had it recently. It’s going around which I don’t remember hearing ever before. We are in Southern Ontario.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
Lots and lots of kids are getting walking pneumonia in the US. I’m seeing so many pediatricians talking about it online.
TuneGlum7903@reddit
Don't go to the hospital though. The CDC is about to recommend against masking for medical personnel.
https://www.the-sentinel-intelligence.net/who-needs-rfk-jr-when-weve-already-got-a-corrupt-cdc/?ref=ok-doomer-newsletter
Last week a key CDC committee voted against recommending N95 respirators over surgical masks in healthcare settings. In their own words, “N95 respirators should not be recommended for all pathogens that spread by air.”
Dubbed the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), its members have spent the last year working largely without participation from experts on aerosols, ignoring evidence and outcry at every turn. They even declined to strengthen guidance protecting voluntary use of N95 respirators, saying their existing language was sufficient.
For the record, the new HICPAC guidance adopts an anti-science attitude that completely contradicts stacks of research and data, including an official statement by OSHA that “surgical masks are not designed or certified to prevent the inhalation of small airborne contaminants” and “are not designed to seal tightly against the user’s face.
A major study in eBioMedicine (a Lancet Journal) reached similar conclusions, stating that “an N95 is significantly better than the other options.” The authors of the study have stated very clearly that “N95 masks should be the standard of care in high-risk situations, such as nursing homes and healthcare settings.”
They work even without training or fit-testing. How do surgical masks stack up? Not well. In this study, even cloth masks with a good fit outperformed them.
Hospital-acquired infections already happen on a regular basis. They happen so often that healthcare researchers have given them a special name, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
They’re lethal. One study estimates hospital-acquired infections run as high as 19 percent in the ICU, with a rate of 4 percent for general patients.
If you get sick while recovering from a severe illness, your mortality rate shoots up to 50 percent. If you're in the ICU, it runs above 70 percent.
Infection during surgery isn't even the most common risk. You can catch an airborne disease like tuberculosis, measles, or Covid in your room during recovery.
The HICPAC committee has been working on updating their guidelines for more nearly three years, since February 2022. They appear to be accommodating demands from healthcare CEOs to lower costs, at the expense of our safety and our lives, as well as the safety of healthcare workers.
For a healthcare CEO, it’s cheaper to pretend airborne viruses don’t exist while forcing nurses, doctors, and paramedics to work while they’re sick, exposing patients to diseases when they’re the most vulnerable.
SunnySummerFarm@reddit
YES. OMG. I went into my hysterectomy this summer with a N95 on and when I came out, my mask was gone. I woke up and the first words I spoke were “where is my mask?!” I have never gotten the hell out of recovery so fast. :/ I was scared as hell, cause I could hear people coughing. IN A SURGICAL CENTER.
I was up, walking, and peed in less than an hour, and out that damn door. From abdominal surgery. I was not risking anything extra.
I always have hospital acquired MRSA. Five fucking infections in under two years, and all I can do is manage it for the rest of my life. I have accepted it’s probably what will kill me one day.
Stay out of the hospital if you can. I’m so relieved my husband does home visits.
Mudlark-000@reddit
My daughter had a lingering cough for weeks. 5 min doctor appt at Urgent Care - they had a ready-made slew of meds they just threw at her. Doctor said this is “everywhere.”
joycemano@reddit
I suggest that everyone who is able start wearing a mask again!
it-was-nobody@reddit
Location: Houston, Texas, USA
It seems we are lost. The American people have elected a fascist to the most powerful office in the world, an office he is sure to use for his own personal gain. He is appointing climate change deniers, Russian assets, and loyal lapdogs to positions of power throughout the executive branch. Already, the leaders of the christofascist tribe is preparing to implement Project 2025 andstrike down the rights and values that our forefathers founded our nation on: liberty, democracy, diversity, and the freedom of thought, speech, and peaceful assembly.
The government of the United States is tyrannical, corrupt, and grossly negligent; it is responsible for overseeing a world order that broke the only habitable planet in the known universe. Our government must be destroyed before the Great Deceiver takes office and he brings the full weight and power of the federal government to bear against those who righteously resist his autocratic rule. Our government must be destroyed before it destroys us.
It took me years to realize that what we need to create massive change is not more refined socioeconomic theories, more delicate prose, or more resilient solidarity; we need a leader. Our history teaches us that every major social shift is centered around an individual; someone who uses their character, words, and actions to unite a critical mass of the population and reorganize their civilization. It is the character of the individual that counts, that determines whether that social change is positive or negative.
And while that realization took me years, it took me even longer to build the conviction to stand up and say yes, I can be this person. Yes, I do possess everything necessary to invert our emotional state, I can change our seemingly absolute despair and hopelessness into ecstasy and euphoria. Yes, I do know a safe, simple, and rational way out of this darkness.
Because while it is incredibly easy to point out the obviously unacceptable state of our state, actually replacing that government with something better is arguably the most difficult and dangerous task in the world. So when I tell you “I’ve got this”, I expect that to matter to you. I expect that this is the first time someone has come up to you and proposed a nonviolent, democratic, diplomatic, digital revolution to replace our broken government with the best one possible.
This is a community dedicated to discussing the collapse of our economy, society, and environmental systems, and so it is also dedicated to exploring the counters to those collapses. The path forward is simple: we organize a digital constitutional convention. Like our forefathers before us, we collectively recognize that our government no longer serves the American people, we admit that our government no longer protects our life, liberty, and our pursuits of happiness, and we come together to create a new government – except this time we livestream it.
I propose that on the first day of the new year, the country freezes while we recreate our government. I propose that on that day, the wisest, most capable individuals in our society come together and broadcast the design of our new government to our citizenry in real time. I propose a rough draft of these individuals here, along with the data necessary to justify this radical course of action. Suggestions and comments are always welcome.
My ability to create the supermassive change we desperately need is dependent on you. I can only approach these incredibly successful people if I have a following, and you determine that. Each of us is just one person, but we can be a critical part of the greatest plot twist in human history by joining the only movement aiming to fix the fundamental problem: the hijacking of the American government by corporations and the hyper-wealthy.
I imagine that at some point you have probably asked yourself “who does this guy think he is?” So let me tell you. I think I am the greatest dreamer of my generation, I think this is the most beautiful dream you have ever seen, and I think it can change the world in the best way imaginable.
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
awkwardly backing my way out of the room and going into the forest
it-was-nobody@reddit
Marcos*
EllieBaby97420@reddit
Sounds like a cult and i’m sorry, because your conviction is strong, surely, but maybe also do your due diligence to ensure your mental health is stable and steady during times like these, your grandiose ego comes off as someone with mania, thinking they themselves are some self righteous person capable of saving us from ourselves. It’s a nice sentiment and all, but it’s also going to get you fuckin killed at a time like this. The people in power have more money than you could imagine and can literally imprison you in a private court if they so please, where the judge is literally hand picked by them… Just be fucking safe. Movements like these don’t form on reddit forums without so much risk. Hell the FBI already will have someone checking your links just to be sure, simply because you essentially said let us overthrow the government.
it-was-nobody@reddit
Hey, thanks for taking the time to write out a reply. I appreciate it and want to reflect the good vibes and best wishes right back to you.
And you're right, it is a cult. I'm probably the only cult leader who is both self aware and honest with my followers. All political parties are essentially cults, it's just that some are more intense than others. My goal is to create one based on the ideology that I am not smart enough to know what is best for everyone, but by combining our experts and our citizenry, we can collaboratively design a good government.
My hope is that by organizing only online, we can avoid any chance of violence that is associated with drastic political change as well as taking advantage of the viral nature of content on the internet.
accountaccumulator@reddit
Your list of delegates is a sick joke. Ben Bernake? Nancy Pelosi oh dear
it-was-nobody@reddit
Like it or not, Nancy Pelosi is one of the most experienced legislators in the history of this country. If we are going to design a new government, it makes sense to have her on the team because she has more experience working inside the government than anyone else. The same is true of Bernake, hes one of the few people living who has actually managed the Federal Reserve, so his input is valuable.
Mission-Notice7820@reddit
No sense in fighting our basic nature. We were always destined to go out violently.
GoblinAirStrike_311@reddit
Location: Phoenix valley, west
Been here a decade. Moved from a place where water conservation was enforced through local statutes, taught in school, practiced at home.
While here, have seen a real explosion of development. Literally THOUSANDS of new homes and accompanying businesses added within seven years.
Work a job that allows interacting with the local public on a daily basis.
Have noticed decreases in water pressure at the house. Several automated car wash businesses built and more under construction. Huge tracts of farmland paved over for giant million-square-foot warehouses that remain vacant for lease months/years after construction. The city watering, in SUMMER, green spaces that no one uses during the day. Older sectors of town, built like 70 years ago, flood irrigated for their lawns every other week. Public spaces with leaking irrigation spewing water into the street instead the dead or dying trees. Seen puddles of algae-filled water that never evaporate around fire hydrants and well water tanks that feed these new developments.
During the last few years, have observed the local well driller company get shiny, new vehicles, renovate their office, hire more staff; the staff driving brand NEW SUV’s.
All the while, the summers are hotter and longer.
And, STILL…
…no effort or NOTICE from the city or STATE to conserve water.
This is dessert for CHRISSAKES! 💧☀️
TuneGlum7903@reddit
And yet they are building a chip manufacturing plant in Phoenix as part of the CHIPS Act. When it takes 7 to 10 gallons of water to make EACH computer chip.
https://fortune.com/2024/04/08/tsmc-water-usage-phoenix-chips-act-commerce-department-semiconductor-manufacturing/
Biden GAVE this chip plant to AZ as part of a political deal to spread the money/jobs in the ACT around so that a few Republicans would vote for it. Actually building a chip fab plant in the desert is a terrible idea.
GoblinAirStrike_311@reddit
Am fairly certain this construction of data plants was part of ongoing goals for the developer’s lobby here.
Spoke with local electrical engineer. He is making an obscene amount working overtime to oversee construction on multiple sites. The data farms are partially underground.
daviddjg0033@reddit
Amazingly, agriculture accounts for most of the water. Golf courses in the desert are ridiculous. Fuck lawns.
Mission_Count5301@reddit
Location: Enfield, Connecticut, USA. This is a picture of St. Martha's Pond as Nov. 16, 2024. It is certified as a wildlife habitat and the church, which owns it, has been a good caretaker of it and has been recognized for its sustainable practices. But the drought is taking a considerable toll on this beautiful pond. Here's an image of it in better times: https://patch.com/connecticut/enfield/exciting-news-st-martha-pond
joez37@reddit
So, it is just refilled by rain? no streams connecting it?
Mission_Count5301@reddit
I don't think there are any streams feeding in to it.
roblewk@reddit
Not something we’d expect to see in the northeast.
curiousgardener@reddit
My goodness.
I am just heartbroken for you and your community. Not to begin to mention your local ecosystem.
That before and after comparison is just gut-wrenching.
So much love to you ❤️
rmannyconda78@reddit
Location, north central Indiana, Marion. Nothing but gloom, the people driving here seem to get dumber and dumber, I rarely drive down the main roads anymore because of these fools. Honestly next spring is going to be interesting, I’m pretty sure it was a EL nino last spring (when tornados should be less, correct if wrong) yet there was a ton of them, next spring may be a La Niña if I’m correct could mean more tornadoes due to the jet stream being more south, that could make for a interesting, but terrifying at the same time storm chasing season, not too long ago nearby gas city got grazed by a EF3, I never saw the twister, but I remember it shredding a high end motor home, and a few buildings. I have a bad feeling next spring is going to be a tornado hell. On the bright side I’m about to order a thing of CBD to treat my ailing mind, as my mental health gets damaged fairly easily, especially since long covid did a huge number on me, CBD is probably the best way I’ve treated it (it works perfectly for me but other user’s mileage may vary), and I got some standard 8 for my camera so soon I will have my first motion pictures.
PorcelinaMagpie@reddit
Location: Indiana
Weather: This week my area is getting a lot of rain and then switching over to snow by Thursday or Friday. Highs in the mid 60s, then highs in the high 30s within a few days. It sounds like we also might have a Thanksgiving in the low 70s.
Economy: I'm still job searching. My three second round interviews went very well last week. However, I'm still waiting to hear something from all three employers. I thought last Friday would be the day for updates but nothing happened. I felt like I was back in high school again, sitting and waiting for my crush to call me but this time it was an employer. Thankfully the rain stopped that afternoon and I was able to take a long walk to get away from my phone and out of my apartment.
Politics/Idiocy: I'm still dumbfounded about people still wanting to be cordial and also around fascist voters. Someone told me their sister voted for Harris and is still in the mindset that we can agree to disagree. Last week her two children (both toddlers) spent time with their fascist voting grandparents. Imagine how that conversation went..."Hey kids! Are you excited to spend time with people that voted against your future today? It will be so much fun!"
FoundandSearching@reddit
Fingers continue to be crossed for you and a job offer. The wait is brutal.
As for the toddlers who had their MAGA grampa & gramma imposed upon them, maybe the plan by the family is to have gramma & grampa piss off & die so they can get some inheritance in. [this is nasty I know]
WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit
I wish this was the case for me. But I caved to sibling pressure, to be cordial and around the Boomer, so that I can develop adult relationships with my sibs to weather collapse when she’s gone. She doesn’t have a dime to her name unfortunately (and when I’ve sent her money, she donates to Trump, so… that ended).
JagBak73@reddit
Location: Missouri/U.S.A.
Our infrastructure is dogshit. Every time it rains, you can't see the lanes at night because the paint is so faded. It wouldn't cost much to repaint it with something more reflective or add reflective bumps on the road, but the government is too cheap to spend any additional money on something that could save lives.
Moreover, I just discovered that Greyhound was bought out by German company called FlixMobility. Since then, stations and routes have been sold and cut, and tickets to cities only 4-5 hours away are roughly 80 bucks now.
This fucking embarrassment of a country can't even maintain adequate interstate public transportation. It gutted citywide public transpo years ago when they tore up trolley lines in favor of the automobile. Might as well double down on that and gut interstate travel as well, eh?
That's the trend, though. Hollow out, gut, deregulate so the rich reap immense profit as the proles slave away and live in increasingly shitty conditions. And Americans just voted in an administration that specializes in deregulation, the total abandonment of rule of law, and huckstering extraordinaire.
Fuck a duck...
Mudlark-000@reddit
Driving around Missouri, I notice odd “wear lines” on almost every large green traffic sign on highways - grayish-white streaks of wear and reflective paint chipping off. It is ridiculous. Looks like they got a lowest bidder who didn’t know their stuff…
Shoddy_Reality8985@reddit
And only 5 months later:
And then:
Here are your culprits. Trump pissed them off now they are buying up the parts of your country that they feel they will profit from.
Ant-maggedon@reddit
Location: East Coast, United States
Weather: Still dry as hell! The air smells of smoke because several local parks have had brush fires. Allegedly it's supposed to rain later this week, thankfully.
Social: There's been an uptick of mentally ill people acting out in my neighborhood in the past year, the latest being a man with an off-leash dog who harasses women (who are usually walking their leashed dogs) trying to avoid him. While people understand that these people are not well, it's left them shaken and worried about their safety in the neighborhood.
Miscellaneous: My corporate overlord added a resilience module (about preparing for disasters as it affects business operations) to the annual mandatory trainings. It seems like everyone is bracing for the shoe (or several shoes) to drop.
PrairieFire_withwind@reddit
Insurance requirement. The resilience module is being driven by insurance coverage.
Aka what are your backup plans, off site storage of data etc. became a huge thing when ransomware became a thing. Now insurance is driving a resilience piece.