[-]

Specific-Scale1337@reddit

This is the driest year of the Netherlands so far. Spring was supposed to be wet with a lot of rain. It has not rained in months.

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Collapse_is_underway@reddit

A french biologist is describing our current era as the era of "standard deviation". We're leaving the stable climate and biosphere from the last 10k years.

I wonder if you'll have several months worth of rain in 1-2 days, as it's happening more and more.

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Specific-Scale1337@reddit

Like Spain has had recently, no ?

I will make myself a reminder when that happens to make here an update.

[-]

Pacific NW: working for a state agency, it’s depressing how almost all of our infrastructure was built from the late 40s-mid-60s and now almost everything is at the end of its useful life and needs replacing. Of course everything has gotten so obscenely expensive and complex due to permitting, environmental concerns, etc that the need is far exceeding the money we get. Now budgets are being slashed and we’re constantly being asked to solve impossible problems. The solution is that there is no solution- we need to just acknowledge that a reduction of services is inevitable and we can’t rebuild the halcyon days of back then. Our situation is less mandatory than some other agencies, but I imagine it’s like this everywhere. I just don’t see what our options really are and I worry about how bad our quality of life is going to get with bridges and roads and all forms of infrastructure worsening over time. I wish degrowth was an option that was seriously considered- why we can’t just decide that we’ll be doing less and focusing on what we need vs what people want. But every day it feels like a new impossible situation at work and I’m just tired. These tariffs will make everything worse and we’ve already been stretched too thin for decades. At a certain point there’s no more that can be cut and it feels like all the chickens are coming home to roost.

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FontMeHard@reddit

I’m also from the PNW, but canadian.

Same story. Too much infrastructure to replace, not enough staff, not enough money, decades of underinvestment due to politicians.

The paperwork is INSANE. We are literally drowning in paperwork and “process and procedures” that keep getting created.

I’ve been in my infrasturure area for 6 years now. It’s so much harder to get things done now. Just drowning in paperwork. Makes you wonder how the hell we did anything 100 years ago.

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ShivaAKAId@reddit

I grew up in Oregon and the infrastructure problem is directly caused by how it’s repaired. We used to see the road-crew “working” from the school bus and laugh at them because it would just be ten guys standing around a pothole and two guys actually moving — over the course of a month. A month is how long it took a dozen guys to repair a pothole on my street, and it was like this all over the state because the governor won the road-union vote by promising them work 24/7, and the way he did that was have them work as slow as possible. There was a bridge replaced connecting Portland with Vancouver that took five years to build for a billion dollars. Same timeframe for a bridge in Eugene. Meanwhile, Japan can repair roads in a single day because they have no choice living in an earthquake zone.

The solution is clear: gut the bureaucracy, trim the workforce, prioritize speed and efficiency over grift and corruption.

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unbreakablekango@reddit

This is infuriating and happening everywhere in America. The boomers have also famously been a generation of deferred maintenance so many things that should have been replaced 20 years ago are still in service and limping along. All of this infrastructure will fail soon and then we will be in trouble. There were several pieces written early this year about the elevator crisis in America that sums up the problem nicely.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-01-12/elevator-crisis-as-symptom-of-our-infrastructure-predicament/

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/05/elevators-escalators-regulations-buildings-construction

I travel all around New York and Connecticut and I can tell you this problem is real. Everywhere I go, I encounter elevators that are out of order, have been out of order for a prolonged period, and don't have any timelines for completion of repairs, or an estimated date for return to service. Elevators are only one small part of our infrastructure and other elements of our infrastructure are facing similar scenarios. YIKES!

[-]

Ghostwoods@reddit

That sounds like a deeply frustrating and worrying situation to be stuck in :/

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Location: Earth

Observation ..... collapse of willingness to follow someone to make things better.

I'm not going to overpromise anything or offer hopium. We may have passed thresholds which have already committed our species to extinction.

But even if we were going to go extinct ..... how would we want the process to play out ? We would want to go out in savage hand to hand (or drone to drone) combat for survival or we would we want to doing it mindfully with kindness and compassion.

I'm willing to implement the degrowth and detoxification of human industry if people were willing to stand up and say that's what they want.

Would you support me and join in that wish ?

That's what has collapsed.

The organized tribes in human societies are religious and capitalist. They have created the hierarchies necessary for making decisions.

There is no organized tribe for degrowthers with a hierarchy and hence no capacity for making decisions. Why don't we make one ?

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SweetCherryDumplings@reddit

This message doesn't land in its first-person singular, messianic tone. We need massively collaborative, peer-reviewed, research-based interventions to get anywhere.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

The Messiah is a collective.

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SweetCherryDumplings@reddit

Consider using plural pronouns.

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

You cannot railroad until it's railroad time.

Revolutions require certain conditions to happen. Either these conditions can happen spontaneously or they can be created by revolutionary's. Either way, they require the overthrow of existing hierarchies and power structures.

Either way, they are going to be bloody.

What has to happen now is an "awakening" globally to the true nature of the Climate Crisis. People in general CANNOT be convinced to risk everything they know, and the safety they possess, for an unknown future. Unless they are desperate and SCARED.

The "masses" aren't there yet.

Which explains why climate science is under attack across the world. The Elites don't care if a few "doomers" know the truth. They understand that they can manipulate "news" so that the majority views these doomers as scammers and idiots.

As long as mainstream "climate science" backs them up. As long as mainstream climate science keeps saying that:

Warming will be no worse than +4°C by 2100

Renewables will enable us to reach "net zero" and warming will stop at that point.

Then the Elites will be able to convince the vast majority of people that "everything is under control", "there's nothing to worry about", "keep calm and KEEP WORKING". Keep the system going a little longer so that they can prepare for what's coming and attempt to "ride it out".

The Elites already understand that the global population will be AT LEAST 75% smaller by 2075. What they imagine is that they, or their children, will be the "kings and queens" of the world that emerges from the wreckage.

What they FEAR is that "the masses" realize how we have been lied to for decades. They FEAR the RAGE of people who suddenly realize that THEY HAVE NO FUTURE and are going to die in pain and misery because they were sold a LIE.

What they FEAR is a "Green Revolution" that starts by putting them on trial and executing them for their crime of stealing everyone's future for their "privilege".

The Elites are moving to keep everyone as ignorant as possible until it's too late. What they fear. Is that the situation will become so bad, so quickly, that people will stop believing what they say. And find a leader who is ruthless enough and charismatic enough to FORCE change on the world.

We aren't there yet.

People aren't DESPERATE enough YET.

Not much longer though.

I think the 2030's will see the Collapse of the existing Elites and their replacement by a global coalition of revolutionary governments who are FANATICAL about "saving the earth". It will probably be the "last gasp" of our civilization before complete Collapse.

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holistivist@reddit

Was with you until the last paragraph. Those in power have every kind of power you can list, and so much more of it than any number of revolutionaries combined. And they’re building camps. That’s where the revolutionaries will go.

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Grand_Dadais@reddit

You overestimate the powers of the richs :]

A good chunk of the richs that are bunkering down will be murdered/tortured by the "security teams" they hired and tried to control instead of making friends with them.

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ScentedFire@reddit

Most of them are also literal dumbfucks. You can tell by the shitshow that is the current Trump admin that these people are idiots and not good at their jobs. Now, their money and influence still go a long way. So does just their absurd brazenness. But it's not really going the way they hoped it would. I have no doubt that more people will be interned. But these people do not have the same skill nor even the same drive as the Nazis, for example. It will be a lot harder to achieve their goals than they anticipate.

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cBystroff@reddit

Trump is not a Dumbfuck. He is an enemy spy. You people are so caught up with elites and class struggle you fail to see the battle that is raging now between the USA and Russia. Russia infected us like cancer and is killing us without bullets or bombs. They have warped our minds, duped us, conned us, made us sit and watch as they dismantle our democracy and our economy. This is collapse. It is now, not 2030. It is the elites alright but not our elites, their elites. Just watch as they reveal themselves. It should not be long now.

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unbreakablekango@reddit

Russia is only helping along a process that was already in motion. Like u/TuneGlum7903 said, you can't railroad until it is railroad time.

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bystrc@reddit

Russia has installed thousands of operatives throughout the economy of the US and throughout the world, but mostly here. Inevitably some of them have risen to power. Many in fact. For Russia, in the US, it is railroad time and we are the ones being railroaded.

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unbreakablekango@reddit

Oh, I totally agree that it is currently railroad time, that is the point I was trying to make. If it wasn't Russia, it would be another actor that wishes us harm. America is primed for rampant deterioration, Russia is just helping to push along the inevitable.

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

It could go either way.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

It would all be fine and we could all work together if it wasn’t for THEM (insert your own personal them here).

At this point degrowth means a massive decline in population, I don’t see any way that goes down peacefully, no utopia where the people logically discuss the merits of degrowth of certain demographics/ groups/ populations, who then calmly cue up to walk into suicide chambers. Of course it’s going to be violent, in the same way drowning people will drown their rescuers to save themselves.

Oh well, guess we can hope for bird flu!

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

I think you are working with a different definition of "degrowth" than I am.

I'm not going to decrease the food supply. I'm going to make sure that everyone is fed and clothed.

I'm going to get rid of shit like recreational jet travel, cattle, Fritos and soda.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

Lots of people are willing to die for their beef, recreational jet travel, Fritos and soda, that’s kinda how we got into this mess.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

I'm willing to be the bad guy and remove those addictions.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

Right, which would lead to the conflict you talk about wanting to avoid lol.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Conflict is part of nature. Survival of the fittest.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

Your post is literally about wanting to walk into extinction arm in arm singing kumbaya instead of “savage hand to hand (or drone to drone) combat.”

You’re really going to need a more coherent and consistent platform to lead anyone.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

You are quite liberal in your assumptions.

You might attempt to shift to a conversation style which involves asking questions.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

Look in the mirror, “messiah”

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Do you have anything substantive to say ..... or are you just interested in name calling ?

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

Where did I name call???? The irony….

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

"messiah"

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

That’s literally your username…

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

What is the relevance of my username to this conversation ?

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

It’s circumstantial evidence your honor, speaks to frame of mind

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Can you define that perception of "frame of mind" you are alluding to ? And what your objection is to it ?

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

I don’t trust anyone seeking power, even those who self appoint for, “the right reasons,” and in general I find your attitude to be self aggrandizing, and your inclinations toward conflict over collaboration, brow beating others and need to have the last word concerning for someone in a position of unchecked power. Meet the new boss same as the old boss.

[-]

CO2_3M_Year_Peak@reddit

Do you trust or have a survival instinct ?

Do you prefer leadership which is willing to do what is necessary for our species to survive ?

Are you an anarchist ?

How do you think the human collective should make decisions ?

[-]

lifeissisyphean@reddit

I have the same inherent survival instincts as I suspect all humans have, I don’t necessarily cling to it, but I fight for it because I am afraid of the dark, and of being wrong about what comes next. I don’t swim to the surface because I have idealistic ideas of what life should be, I swim to the surface because I am afraid to drown.

Am I an anarchist? Maybe? But not naive enough to believe that’s a system which would work at any sort of scale. I believe, like most of you believe, that the best system that could be implemented would be whatever I say it is.

I don’t have a vested interest in our species surviving outside of the few select members that I love and care about. I realize humanity is a plague upon the earth, a misstep of nature, a growth that grows for growths sake. A cancer which chokes out all other life under the guise of being better, more special, anointed, or whatever lies you tell yourself to justify the rampant pillaging of life, and of the earth itself.

I don’t know how the “human collective,” should make decisions because I do not believe in the inherent right for humanity to decide the course of all life on the planet. Does a cancer ask its cell where it should spread next? Or does it do that things it finds natural.

I didn’t ask to be here and I don’t find most of you to be worthy of the price you, or I, require to continue to exist in the state that we do.

It’s an abomination.

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CO2_3M_Year_Peak@reddit

So why don't you do the world a favor and leave if you're part of an abomination ?

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

I feel like you didn’t read what I wrote at all

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

[removed]

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, ClimateMessiah. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

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[-]

ClimateMessiah@reddit

Your heart is filled with darkness. No joy. No sense of adventure. Your life is just an exercise in deferring death.

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

I don’t need to play pretend with myself, messiah.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

You pretend to be God and the arbiter of human worthiness.

[-]

lifeissisyphean@reddit

You and me both, friend 😘

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, CO2_3M_Year_Peak. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

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[-]

SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Dude, this is why I like you.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

I'm curious what you consider your purpose in life

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

I bet you are

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Is that meant to be a meaningful answer to the question of your purpose ?

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lifeissisyphean@reddit

I don’t need to resort to a manufactured “purpose,” to combat the absurdity of life and find meaning, nor do I owe an explanation of my life philosophy to an internet stranger with strong cluster B traits

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Empty comment

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

The platform involves an attempt to salvage our species survival.

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ClimateMessiah@reddit

Where did I say that I want to avoid conflict ?

[-]

HousesRoadsAvenues@reddit

Consuming beef, Fritos (Frito Lay products - don't take away my Lays potato chips or Doritos FFS!) and sugared soda, not to mention sugary coffee beverages (or tea) will make a person's health decline.

[-]

slayingadah@reddit

Speaking of bird flu... I saw a mallard the other day in my work neighborhood who was morning his mate, who was just lying dead in the road, but not run over. Just random dead ducks, falling out of the sky these days.

[-]

ButterscotchSmall506@reddit

Everyone I talk to seems to become competitive in some way. Every conversation, someone one ups someone else, or they seem to already know everything and are unteachable. “Me first”. Within social circles I’ve noticed the same predatory behavior.

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PrairieFire_withwind@reddit

Yeah, our disconnect from others has become a disease.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Agreed. It takes real work to connect with people.

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anonymous_owlbear@reddit

I think this was a major benefit of religions over the centuries. Getting everyone to agree (more or less) on shared values with a system of power, decision making, leadership, etc to mobilize people to a common goal.

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Lele_@reddit

And that's why the Roman Empire was terrified of the early Christian church. They were organised.

[-]

PrairieFire_withwind@reddit

Except religions, atleast our current dominant ones all separated 'man' from 'nature' which a real contributing factor to why we are in this mess.

[-]

bystrc@reddit

Location: Las Vegas Nevada

An analysis of the voting patterns in Clark County Nevada for the November 2024 election by the Election Truth Alliance revealed an anomaly that could be explained by electronic vote manipulation. In election day voting, a histogram of %Trump votes by voting district showed a normal bell curve distribution. But the histogram for early voting showed two peaks, one centered around 48% for Trump, the other, three times larger, centered at 62% for Trump. The bimodal distribution is remarkable in itself, suggesting that the sample was drawn from two separate pools. But more remarkable is the stark difference between the unimodal distribution of election day voting and the bimodel distribution of early voting. Non-nefarious explanations include the "Deap Red Areas" theory, in which early voters for Trump converged to selected polling places, since voting in Nevada is not confined to an assigned polling place. But this would not explain why no such deep red areas appeared on election day, only before election day. According to Election Truth Alliance, the strange pattern is most easily explained by electronic manipulation of the voting machines. If approximately 3/4 of the early voting machines were rigged to report a 62% vote for Trump, while the other 1/4 of the early voting machines returned the unmanipulated vote count (apparently around 48% for Trump), then the observed strange result would make sense. Nevada's vote audit has been called "insufficiently rigorous", as are the audits in most states. A group of cyber security experts wrote a Duty to Warn letter to Kamala Harris, citing multiple election security breaches that occurred between 2020 and 2024, involving Election Systems & Software (“ES&S”) and Dominion Voting Systems machines, in which “software for the central servers, tabulators, and highly restricted election databases” for both voting system vendors was compromised over a multi-year period. These experts say this was “the most severe election security breach publicly known”. Is this a sign of impending collapse? Perhaps, but only if it is not corrected soon. Rigorous audits would prevent such events.

[-]

collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, bystrc. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 4: Keep information quality high.

Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the Misinformation & False Claims page.

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[-]

DisingenuousGuy@reddit

In case you missed it and was curious, it was a 300+ word paragraph, completely unsourced rant about how Voting Machines were rigged to favor Trump despite audits by officials that you can find pretty easily.

The persistent source of this is the Election Truth Alliance, a nonprofit that appeared in Late 2024 saying that the Clark County elections were rigged from data analysis despite officials reassuring that the election was fair and no abnormalities were ever discovered.

This persistent silent-but-deadly fart that lingers around and doesn't seem to go away may be considered a part of BlueAnon, a large conspiracy ring that emerged as a reaction to, well, how 2024 went.

This is not the first time the Election Truth Alliance was mentioned here either.

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bystrc@reddit

Whenever I point to a broad conspiracy of election fraud, I get an angry response like this one from someone who has no name. Why?

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DisingenuousGuy@reddit

Because there's no basis of it in reality??

If an external organization can run their special formula on polling numbers and detect ""fraud,"" then actual election officials who checked the votes would have detected fraud after auditing the ballots directly. But no, to date, no recount or audit has ever found anything solid, otherwise the same officials would be blasting it off the rooftops already.

If you'd like places where you can fart out and distribute unsourced, unverified claims of fraud, places like SomethingIsWrong2024 or BlueSky would be a better fit.

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bystrc@reddit

You really are angry. Is this personal for you? When I see emotional defensiveness, I see someone who has something to hide. By the way, my claims are sourced, verified and they are true. You are wrong to think corrupted officials would shout it from the rooftops. They will do the opposite, as you are doing. Send me your name and phone number and we can have a call.

[-]

animals_are_dumb@reddit

Hi, bystrc. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 1: In addition to enforcing Reddit's content policy, we will also remove comments and content that is abusive or predatory in nature. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other.

Please refer to our subreddit rules for more information.

You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[-]

DisingenuousGuy@reddit

Thanks, I was ignoring that abrasive message.

Just for the record, I had hoped that Trump did not win, my relatives and friends who are in and out of the US hoped that the election went differently.

But we should not be distributing unsubstantiated claims that the electoral process is compromised without heavy evidence. And there is unfortunately no substantial evidence that massive fraud or voting machine hacking has happened.

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Mission-Notice7820@reddit

The election was absolutely hacked, but it doesn't matter anymore. There will never be elections again here.

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iamjustaguy@reddit

I found your removed comment, and I can see why it was removed. You didn't include links to sources, and the block of text you wrote includes more speculation than facts.

I agree that something is wrong, but the Week Observation thread may not be the most appropriate place.

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bystrc@reddit

Here's a link to the text tat was removed:

https://www2.bioinfo.rpi.edu/bystrc/pub/.private/subredditpost.html

[-]

animals_are_dumb@reddit

Hi, bystrc. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Don't repost removed content.

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You can message the mods if you feel this was in error, please include a link to the comment or post in question.

[-]

Normal-Ear-5757@reddit

Location: A provincial city in England, UK

I don't know how this fits here but it's a moment of political collapse.

I went to a very important demonstration (issue personally important to lots of friends of mine, went to show support) and noticed something:

All communication was top-down - Attendees were heavily discouraged from talking to one another.

Demonstration consisted of a march through town. It started and ended with a rally at which LOUD amplified speeches were made with LOUD amplified music filling any and all gaps. I guess it's just the way things are now - it is like a show in which loud noises are generated to fill any gaps in the "performance".

But I can remember when demonstrations were meeting places for like minded people. You didn't just go there to have orders shouted at you and be entertained by terrible dance music - you went to meet like minded people and discuss the issues. Now demonstrations are simply not a place for politics so much as showing off and one way, top down pseudo-communication.

And decisions are always made for you - for instance who to ally with. You simply are not welcome if you aren't on board with a whole load of other things you didn't come to discuss. I dunno, it's like we're supposed to be fighting for democracy but we're not very democratic are we?

[-]

mistegirl@reddit

Location: US, TX Panhandle

I drove from Western NY to the TX Panhandle last week, straight through, including overnight. When I got home, I was dumbstruck at the lack of "bug goop" on my windshield. There were maybe 5 large splatters and a few small ones, but not much at all. Last time I did that drive a few years ago I had to stop twice to just to clear it off so I could see.

Our small town of 2,500 people just released a statement that there's a confirmed case of Measles in the grade school. Any non-vaccinated kids can't return to the school for 2 weeks. I guess I figured with how remote and small we are that maybe we wouldn't join the rest of the region with them, but I was wrong. I'm grateful that my family are all vaccinated.

[-]

antikythera_mekanism@reddit

My son is 10. We were chatting in the car and in the conversation I realized that in all his life, he’s never seen me have to squeegee the windshield at a gas station to get the big goop off.

Squeegeeing the windshield was a normal part of life when I first started driving, early 2000s. Seeing my dad clean the windshield at the gas station was a normal part of my own childhood in the 1980s and 90s. All the gas stations would have the little buckets with the tool ready to go because everyone always needed that.

I told my son about all the bugs and how they would splatter on the windshield. He was laughing and couldn’t really imagine it. I had such a funny, bad and odd feeling after that conversation.

I do hope the best for your community and the health of the kids. It is infuriating that little kids are put at risk by their own parents. They don’t deserve it and I hope they are unscathed and stay well.

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shr00mydan@reddit

2013 was the last year I saw it. Since then, no bug goop. :(

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Zandmand@reddit

Its better here in Denmark but we have had hard regulations on pesticides for 20-25 years. We actually get bug splatter but not as much as 10 or 20 years ago. Take a long ride and you will have to remove some insects. Last year especially when we had a lot of rain and no drought we saw so many insects. Honestly more then I have seen in the last 5-10 years.

Still there are not nearly as many as when i was a kid. We cought frogs and salamanders everywhere. Now you rarely see them unless you find an actual pond.

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LowEndLem@reddit

I'll drive the 57 North/South every few weeks and I haven't had bug goop in years.

It's worrying in a way I don't think I have words for?

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DancesWithBeowulf@reddit

I ran errands through SE Massachusetts today. I swear every other yard had signs showing they’d been sprayed by this or that mosquito exterminator company.

So many fucking yards just covered in insecticides.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Measles is awful. Thinking of your community.

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BriefCar2237@reddit

Location : Ireland

Recently had to go into hospital for some tests and treatment. This followed a heavy duty viral infection that nearly totally challenged my 70 year old immune system. This led to a serious secondary chest infection and caused me to collapse for a short period of time.

One thing that struck me was how lucky I was, compared to many others in the assessment ward where I was parked overnight. An old man with renal cancer was stoically awaiting admission to a hospice, another person had some extreme discomfort in their bowels and was constantly crying out in pain, my neighbour was suffering acute alcohol psychosis whilst his wife, also an alcoholic was struggling to look after a young baby at home. Another patient kept howling and screaming randomly, seemingly mostly as an attention seeking activity. Several old and worn out looking men shuffled back and forth vacantly staring into space and where constantly being asked where they were going as they passed the nurses station on the way towards the ward exit........... I realised what a largely charmed and sheltered life I had led up to now.

Another thing was the sheer volume of very ill looking people, strikingly many quite young, forming a queue parked in wheelchairs and trolleys around the ER department looking just like the walking wounded after some major incident. I commented on this to one of the porters, who wheeled me to X-ray and back, and he said this was just a pretty normal day and that it was getting worse all the time.

I have no complaint of how well or quickly I was treated and totally admire the amazing dedication of the staff working under such constant insane pressure. Many must be prime candidates for burnout.

I suppose what I am now wondering is how long can this situation be contained. Are people living longer and getting sicker or is it just sheer pressure of numbers at a hospital with a catchment area of about 200,000 folk? We all moan about he health service in Ireland but I do not want to think what I would have experienced in a similar situation in the US.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

That sounds chilling. COVID has done so much damage to immune systems, too.

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BriefCar2237@reddit

I can understand older folk's health issues leading to increased pressure on health systems. However what got me was the sheer number of sad and quite disorientated looking youngsters amongst the walking wounded. A nurse told me that mental problems are seen be increasingly what is leading to admissions and this seems particularly prevalent amongst the young. The unrealistic expectations of modern society are producing a lot of fecked up folk.

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SecretPassage1@reddit

French here, One of the things they taught us in heart rehab was how to identify when you need to go to the ER, and when you can wait to see your doctor. I know from older people with longer standing heart conditions that they used to be told to go to the ER at the smallest symptom.

Luckily, they do tell women to go if they have similar symptoms than during their initial heart attack, to which we all looked at each other and chuckled, our symptoms were: zilch; a headache and tiredness; none they just happenned to be doing a check on their heart; heartburn; and I experienced a pain on the (wrong) side of the jaw, and chest compression.

So the message was : "you better be having a heart issue if you go to the ER" rather than "When in doubt go to the ER, better safe than sorry" which used to be the motto for cardio patients.

And on TV you now have ER doctors explaining how to see for yourself if you have a broken bone and it's legit to come to the ER when your ankle/wrist hurts, or if it's just strained (if you can walk on it/hold a very light item, it's not broken) and you can just bandage it, pop some tylenol in and wait to see your doctor to get a specific strainer prescribed, and maybe some anti-inflammatory pills or cream.

I remember the day I did this on my own accord, maybe 10 years ago, because I knew the ERs where starting to get swamped, and you could still get a spot at the doctors the day you called, my doctor looked at me like I had 2 heads. But I was right, just a strain, got a spot at the X-ray the same day, almost immediately, to check nothing was broken, which was better than spending half a day at the ER.

But today? There's a 2 months wait to get an appointment at my doctor's.

So really we're moving towards patients being expected to self-triage, and adding pressure to be right about the severeness of our condition.

And after COVID so many nurses changed careers that quite a few hospital departments had to be closed because they were below squeletton crew and couldn't offer proper care to the patients ...

Quite honestly I don't get it. Shouldn't we be getting more youngsters applying to learn to be a nurse, what with the threat on the east and just constant underlying talk of collapse? That's a key skillset to have, not only to help others, but also to be deemed valuable enough to survive even in a high intensity conflict.

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_rihter@reddit

what with the threat on the east and just constant underlying talk of collapse?

That's why the EU wants to continue the war in Ukraine. They know the EU is absolutely not prepared for an armed conflict.

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Normal-Ear-5757@reddit

Location: England, United Kingdom

(A cheap supermarket)

Went out to pick up some groceries. Went around stocked up on decaff coffee, herbal tea, milk, cheese, bin bags, usual shit. Most indulgent thing I bought was some waffles. Expected to pay around £30. They totted it up, I looked round and

£49.90.

Basically FIFTY QUID. Fuck me.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Groceries are wild.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Never something you want to hear from someone who knows their agriculture...

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

I went big on my perennials this year. :/

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lavapig_love@reddit

Pay attention to those prices, mate. Put everything down and do some quick math before you get in the checkout line. It might be 60 or 75 quid by end of year.

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

It will be worse by this winter.

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kea1981@reddit

I used to think it was just a novel phrase, concocted to lend depth to a fictional world we could and would never see, but I'm starting to feel it deep down in my bones.

Winter is coming

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Ghostwoods@reddit

o_O

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Several_Initiative_2@reddit

Location, : US

There's a rumor going around that the federal government is going to crash one of the big websites for federal scientific grants, erasing any record that grantees submitted reports, which woild either block scientists from reapplying in the future or even open up the excuse to demand money back from universities that has already been spent.

Once, this would have felt deranged. It still feels deranged but people are busy being everything up they can with screenshots and time stamps.

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WernerHerzogWasRight@reddit

I needed to hear this message and it came to me right when I needed it. Sorry to be cryptic, but I really appreciate this post. Thank you 💙

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SecretPassage1@reddit

Also print out as much as you can. Damn harder to hack paper staks than it is to reach your laptop.

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Ellen_Kingship@reddit

Location: Indianapolis, IN

More chronicles of personal collapse, lol.

Weather: More of the same. One day it's sunny and warm; next it's rainy and windy. More storm clouds ahead.

Easter Sunday: This has been the most interesting Easter weekend I've had in a long time. I worked all weekend at the bougie liquor store, and it was busy and open and busy on Easter Sunday. 😭 So many shenanigans this past weekend. From rude and entitled customers to straight up thievery. Cops were called. Reports were filed.

All the while, customers talked about their adult Easter plans, mainly hiding 50ml shots for adult friends and family to find. Suddenly, Easter doesn't sound so bad as an adult anymore.... 😂 I also heard a few Boomers and older Gen X'ers yearn for future grandkids "maybe next Easter," and all I can say is yeaaahhh. In this economy. Under this fascist regime. In this universe? Gestures wildly at everything. Good luck with that. I certainly won't be participating. Ever.

Work in general: Outside of Easter Weekend & Sunday shenanigans, I've found that some people are awake. Ended up in a discussion about the Target boycotts with a customer and found out a coworker is participating. Heard other anti-Trump sentiments in the store from customers and coworkers alike too. "Who picks a fight with Canada?!"

Lastly, a mgr and coworker were going over numbers in the break room. Mgr was disappointed in the sales of a wine that did well last year. The wine is $40+. According to my coworker "Bob," he's having a hard time steering customers to purchasing bottles over $30. It's a nonstarter, and Bob blames the economy. According to him, the economy was a lot better last year. Take that as you will.

Job Search: My hours have dropped significantly this week and next week. It feels like I can breathe for once and focus on looking more closely for my "real job." It's been tough going but onward.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

I really don't think anyone is splurging on luxuries at the moment.

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BigJobsBigJobs@reddit

yeah, next year in jerusalem and all that other holiday bullshit. rings so hollow.

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rmannyconda78@reddit

Location: north central Indiana, today’s photo “I can feel it in the air tonight” I sit in my garage smoking a cigar listening to Phil Collins reflecting on today, wondering what the hell happened with people these days, it’s like no one cares about each other anymore. There was two shootings in my area today, all this violence for what, clout, pettiness, what? Makes me wonder how long this society has left, it seems to be rotting from the inside out, like a pumpkin left on a porch.

The weather has mellowed out in my area (for now) except for high winds, but as it gets ever so slightly warmer, people get crazy, violent even, evil is once again rearing its ugly head, and I feel strongly about it, it’s really depressing. I have a very, very bad feeling about this summer. I will certainly be laying low this summer. Collapse rating for my area 2.5/10 things are starting a slow march downhill For the internet 9/10, it explains itself.

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Retrotrek@reddit

Phones. When I got the idea, for the first time in my life, to just indefinitely abstain from anything entertaining/stimulating a couple of years ago (which ended up meaning for me the internet + music), one of the things I noticed was that I had an increase of empathy that I didn't recognize in myself. And that's been a consistent truth each time that I stepped away again since. When I'm off shit, I notice that I'm more empathetic. I think this might be a silent spring of this generation

Cause it's harder to detect the absence of something unfamiliar than the presence of something unfamiliar. I think in the US alone you have millions of people who've never known a life without the internet, and they either can't recognize or are unwilling to take the option of stepping away, and so you end up in this weird society.

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HousesRoadsAvenues@reddit

Thank you for the ominous photo. In the air that day you took it.

American society has been rotting for longer than we care to admit.

Interesting thought on DoorDash. I agree - who can afford it now?

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rmannyconda78@reddit

I know I can’t, when I did it the amount of orders I got steadily declined, not as viable as a side hustle anymore

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HousesRoadsAvenues@reddit

You could feel it happening even before the election. The "gig" economy was a scam, IMO.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Everyone I know with any sort of creative, gig or hustle-based income is suffering at the moment. Artists, writers, sex workers, uber-drivers, content creators, everyone's saying the same thing -- almost no-one is spending anything they don't have to.

Great goddamn photo. I love the colour balance. Stay safe, the world is more interesting with you in it.

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rmannyconda78@reddit

Many thanks, definitely doing my best to stay safe, it’s getting crazy out there, you stay safe too man. I’ve always have been a hustler and it’s is getting hard now, I used to be a oil painter, at one time I was selling work right and left, I have not sold a single pice in years.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

I'm sorry to hear that. Art is being particularly brutalised right now, given the whole AI thing. It's truly appalling. We've become an entirely cannibal culture, existing solely by feasting on its own -- mostly the young. Even without the polycrisis, we'd be in full disintegration soon.

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rmannyconda78@reddit

I hate ai generated stuff, it’s just not as good as human made stuff, only really used ai once to generate a song for a video I shot, as I needed it on the fly, but yeah I would have rather composed the song myself.

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See_You_Space_Coyote@reddit

Location: USA, Lower 48 States, East of the Mississippi River

Covid updates are spotty at best thanks to the CDC fucking up even more than usual (a blaring sign of collapse, to be sure,) but the available data that I've been able to hunt down shows that there's still a lot of covid out there.

https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1913688513758859284

https://x.com/michael_hoerger/status/1913472801597424012

Life has really done a number on me over the last 5 years, and one of the worst parts about it has been the discovery that people actually get angry at you for not wanting to get covid. With that said, for various reasons even a trained psychologist probably couldn't grok out, my general tendency in any interactions with other people is the following: When they got low, dive down all the way to the center of the Earth. To that end, since I've discovered that it makes certain people upset when I talk about covid or remind literally anyone how dangerous it actually is, here's a bunch of information about covid and information related to covid, as well as an article about how history repeats itself, courtesy of yours truly. To all the haters, the losers, and the trolls that might be stalking my profile or stalking me across other parts of the internet (several of you always pop up from time to time,) this is for you:

How Covid Can Impact Your Sleep Quality: https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/how-covid-can-disturb-your-sleep-and-dreams-and-what-could-help

How Long Covid Can Impact Your Hormones And Immune System: https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2023/people-with-long-covid-have-distinct-hormonal-and-immune-differences-from-those-without-this-condition

An Opinion Piece About How Society Handles Infectious Diseases: https://www.nukit222.com/blogs/info/pathogens-and-the-law-of-club-and-fang

An Interactive Body Map That Shows How Long Covid Can Affect Every Organ System: https://longcovidsux.com/

Covid Safety 101: https://covidhelp.org/

Quick FAQ About Covid: https://www.covidsafecampus.org/health-ed

The Engineering Science That Shows How Masks Work: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/masks-work-distorting-science-to-dispute-the-evidence-doesnt/

A Primer On How Covid Affects The Immune System: https://johnsnowproject.org/primers/textbook-immunity/

The Story of Ignaz Semmelweis: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1878875019330402

Bird flu is still wreaking havoc, with increasing concern and evidence that it's gotten much better at spreading between different species than it used to, which could potentially lead to a pandemic if the universe decides to throw a massive curveball at us (and, given what's happened with covid, it's entirely possible that another pandemic the scale of covid or worse could happen in the future.) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bird-flu-risk-as-pathogen-spreads-60-minutes-transcript/

Trump's tariff bullshit continues to tank the stock market, and protests against Trump have popped up all over the country, though how effective the protests ultimately are turns out to be seen. The local news in my area has been full of stories about increasing crime and weird weather patterns, and on a more national level, it's been chock full of stories about the variety of screw-ups Trump and his ghouls have been up to lately, as well as stories about the pope.

The pollen in my area is pretty thick, which is to be expected with almost everything blooming right now, but I like the flowers, so I just put on a mask and enjoy whatever beauty nature deems fit to display.

The internet has been even more dead than usual lately, and on Twitter, I saw an entire thread that spanned several hours that was dominated entirely by AI-no humans were involved in the original post, comments, or replies. My Twitter account is broken and won't even let me post anything anymore since it says I have a rate limit or some bullshit garbage like that, but I only use it because it's the only way I can follow certain artists I like. In the past, however, it's helped me find a lot of useful info about covid, though luckily most of that info can be found elsewhere.

Youtube has so many commercials that you can barely get through half of a 3 minute song without getting interrupted by at least one or two commercials. Reddit won't let me see messages anymore and it often eats my comments. In order to post on these weekly threads, I have to type out everything first, then copy-paste it into old.reddit on my laptop.

There have been a lot of ambulance sirens in my area, mainly in the middle of the day, though my area is generally pretty busy in just about every way most of the time. Pretty much everyone I have any kind of social ties to (I use that word loosely, since the older I get, the more I realize how little people like me, and this is even in spite of me never discussing anything controversial with anyone I know in real life.) is burnt out, frazzled, or struggling in some way, shape, or form, with a lot of people dealing with a variety of new-onset health issues or old health issues that have started to worsen. The more I try to reach out to people, the more they pull away, though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised anymore. Autism is an incredibly stupid disorder, because even if you know something doesn't work, sometimes you can't change a damn thing about it because you brain literally won't let you learn any new, better ways to do it because you lack the cognitive ability to do so, a phenomenon that's caused me no end of frustration throughout my life.

While I'm more of a dog person myself, if I were an animal, I would probably be one of those whales whose whale song doesn't match up with anyone else's. I've been stalked and harassed by people for not taking covid seriously enough, I've been yelled at by other people for not wanting to get covid, I've had people tell me I deserve to die for pretty much every inborn, immutable trait I possess, and I've been ghosted by hundreds of people without even so much as a warning. If life, and the last few years in particular, have taught me anything, it's that I wasn't meant to fit in with other people, and while not having any kind of emotional support system sucks, I'm pretty used to it at this point, even if having a few more coping mechanisms would help me feel better than I do now.

As I mark the end of one week and the beginning of another week, one thing I can say about 2025 is that it's been a wild ride so far and while I hope the rest of the year brings some peace, calm, and joy, I know better than to get high off of hopium. Stay safe, stay healthy, and do what you can to take care of yourselves, your loved ones, and your community, and remember to treasure any sort of beauty you can still find in the world because it's all the more precious in times like these. Even if times are tough, any time spent appreciating good things, beautiful things, and helpful things is never wasted.

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kea1981@reddit

...who knows why, but your comment helped me put something together that's been haunting me since late 2019.

I think some weird neurological symptoms I had that winter (19/20) were likely the manifestations of COVID... I worked at a high traffic casino buffet and that winter was especially bad for the service staff and "The Crud" (as we call the endless winter sniffles here) were intense. One guy even retired early because of complications from pneumonia... I too got a cold a little after Christmas (touching cash all day for days on end tends to do that) and it was rough. I had three jobs at the time, so I chalked the long recovery up to general exhaustion and moved on. When COVID hit, me and my peers (also service staff, also had The Crud that winter) all basically universally decided it was COVID. Okay cool, whatever.

But OMFG. I never talked about it because I knew then and I know now what I'm about to describe wasn't a mental health issue, but I still don't have the words to describe what it actually was. Like...shadows of voices? Like deja vu of the present? Like...if I hadn't been so fundamentally certain of my sanity, but equally willing to question that certainty, I would have actually been concerned I was developing schizophrenia. As a late 20's female at the time it would track, and I actually started calling around to get the appointments and referrals I needed if that was actually the case because it was sooooooo bizarre. But then the symptoms just kinda...went away? After about 5 months? Just...poof.

I think it was a neurological impact from COVID. I'm the same person, but not quite entirely myself since. I chalked it up to aging: sometimes losing a word right as I went to say it as an avid reader and successful debater, slowly starting to misplace objects after a lifetime of always knowing exactly where everything is...but the timing.

Thank you for that.

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BeardedGlass@reddit

"The Crud"

Dang, yeah in my case though I had issues with my brain a couple years into the pandemic. It was the first time I've ever felt that. I've had mild COVID in summer of 2020, got better... and I was never the same.

My head got really weird. I was tortured by disassociation (derealization?) every day. I wasn't sick, no physical symptoms, just that weird mental thing. There were weeks I also had vertigo, so I went to an EENT a few times... they found nothing.

I had to work despite that. And I really struggled "acting" as if I'm normal. Because I couldn't afford to be sent home. I felt I was dreaming, spacing out, and I had to "reel" myself back into reality. It felt like I was watching myself from the 3rd POV or something over my shoulder.

I felt I was going crazy and I really feared for my life.

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kea1981@reddit

This is exactly my experience, you just did a far better job of describing it than I. The derealization, like you're experiencing yourself through a curtain, or watching someone else wear your meat suit around even though you're the one inside it. Utterly bizarre, and because it wasn't something I could easily put words to it wasn't really something I could as for help for. And if I did ask for help, would I be labeled crazy?

I'm sorry your experience reflects mine, but I'm comforted to know I wasn't entirely alone in my experience.

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BeardedGlass@reddit

Oh! I just remembered that the feeling was quite similar to being drunk. My brain's processing power felt sluggish and lagging. I didn't slur my speech but I did have to talk slow, in order for my mind to keep up to what's happening in the world around me.

I'm glad you're feeling better. Mine also went away after a while. I never really found out what the heck that was about. I tried searching for it but couldn't really find anything definite.

Makes me wonder if my braincells or neural connections degraded or something. Like perhaps a micro-bloodclot caused some neurons to starve and wither away. I did read that people had issues with lower blood oxygen too. When the brain is starved of oxygen, it dies.

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gentian_red@reddit

Microclotting would make sense. The brain does have the ability to rebuild itself over time but it's not an automatic process, you have to really "practice" the connections you want to make mindfully. There's also factors like proper sleep, exercise, nutrition etc which all support neuron growth, and on the other side things that keep it from happening like drugs, stress ,etc

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gentian_red@reddit

Man this is the first I heard someone else report this. I had covid multiple times and after a bout had derealization similar to this lasting about a year. It's a bit better now but I used a lot of supplements to try to counteract it, at one point I was convinced the supplements were causing it though those side effects arent reported by anyone else. Spacey, feeling like everything is a simulation or reality collapsing, dizzy kinda feeling like my body isn't really connected to me etc. Pretty disconcerting and thought I was having mental health episodes or had a brain tumour or something. It's slowly gotten less severe though I stil have days where it plays up if I am tired or stressed so I try to keep that stuff to a minimum. My mind goes sideways very quickly under stress now, similar to when I was being treated for PTSD.

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See_You_Space_Coyote@reddit

I know several people who got really sick for a while in late 2019/early 2020 before covid was officially said to have been found in the United States. I always think Covid actually got here before a pandemic was declared but we'll never know for sure.

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kea1981@reddit

Our casino has an especially high volume of visitors from China, and I explicitly recall seeing a passport from a woman who was from Wuhan Province... I would be utterly unsurprised if Seattle wasn't actually the first hotbed for COVID in the US, just the biggest. I'm in Tahoe and we certainly felt it, named or not.

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WilleMoe@reddit

I deeply appreciate your posts and bringing covid updates to this sub (along with all the other topics you address). It has destroyed millions of lives and continues to do so on a daily basis.

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nosnowjob@reddit

I, too, am very grateful for the Covid info. Thanks for always including it.

For what it is worth, I absolutely consider you my Reddit pal and always look forward to your posts.

Feel free to DM anytime. We are all in this together and we all have our oddities - to me, that is what keeps life interesting.

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See_You_Space_Coyote@reddit

Thanks, I appreciate it, I can't see incoming messages on Reddit right now for some reason, Reddit has been having a lot of technical issues for me in general lately.

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kitty60s@reddit

Thank you for still talking about Covid. My life was permanently wrecked when I got Covid in 2020, I have long covid and I will always need to wear a mask and prevent infection since any viral illness puts me in bed for weeks or months at a time now. My immune system has been completely destroyed. I haven’t even gotten the backlash you have about still being cautious because I’m too disabled to interact with the world (I’m mostly housebound). Bird flu and the measles outbreak is terrifying me.

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See_You_Space_Coyote@reddit

One of my life mottos is "If somebody's gotta do something, it might as well be me." And since very few people talk about covid anymore even though it's still killing and disabling people every day, I figure fuck it, I might as well do it. If even a single person learns more about how dangerous covid really is, that's a win for me.

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CAWildKitty@reddit

Location: Reddit subs for certain chronic conditions

Encountered an AI in a subreddit for a somewhat marginalized chronic health condition. Looking closer it’s in many of them, pretending to have the illness and also dispensing advice in super lengthy comments and sometimes posts. All of the conditions are ones that are poorly understood and difficult to diagnose which is ominous that it chose those in particular. In one post it’s clearly scraping for info asking users to share their personal experience with the illness. Then commiserating or telling them what to do, including meds to use. Users are grateful and unaware they are being manipulated and misadvised. It’s collapse-worthy because it’s preying on sick people and most of them aren’t aware of what is happening. A new low if you will. In its current form it’s somewhat recognizable (if you know what to look for) but where is this going when we can’t detect it anymore? What things will it start telling unaware and vulnerable people to do?

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BlueLilyM@reddit

How do you know it's an AI? I'd love to understand more about spotting them so I can ignore their "contributions" in forums.

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CAWildKitty@reddit

It’s getting harder but you can still see some patterns:

-short sentences OR overly long and detailed ones that sound robotic-pedantic, like you are being instructed by a…computer… because they aren’t relating to you, they are regurgitating information. Sometimes they use both in the same comment but the short phrases start it and end it, like bookends

-frequent use of the “long em” — as punctuation

-repetitive phrases, often weird like “OMG, so funny!” but not always in the right context, or sound they just sound off

-typically new accounts or very recent ones with unusually prolific posting & comments

-sometimes use bolded phrases to start each paragraph in the comment

-most comments are overly organized and too formal because they aren’t writing in a genuine human freeform voice…yet

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PhoenixRisingdBanana@reddit

The em-dash is a huge giveaway. Most people don't even know that it's different from a regular dash — and even fewer know to hit "ALT+0151" to make one.

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ImAprincess_YesIam@reddit

Idk about the em-dash being something ppl don’t know how to do easily. On an mobile phone, if I tap the dash/hyphen twice without a space between them, it automatically converts it to an em-dash

- two dashes with hitting the space bar in between

— two dashes without a hitting the space bar

Idk why I’m pointing this out other than I like the look of — over -. Makes it more substantial looking. Yes…I’m weird

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PhoenixRisingdBanana@reddit

There are actual applications of both, and they serve different functions. It's not about how it looks lol.

And it's pretty clear when it's a normal post with the occasional dash, whereas CGPT tends to put at least one in each paragraph.

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RunYouFoulBeast@reddit

Too perfect and too structure. people generally make mistake in comments.

Like the make , should be made .. ?

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Ghostwoods@reddit

I've been a professional writer and editor for thirty years (aagh!) and the first rule of publishing is this: There are always typos, even compensating for this rule.

Bold type, em-dashes, bullet points, one-point paragraphs, error-free spelling, odd tone... they're great AI signs. "As a foulness shall ye know them", etc etc.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

I will keep my em-dashes! Bah

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mobileagnes@reddit

I use 'space hyphen space' when I really should be using one of the dashes (em dash? en dash?). For date ranges, I prefer the ISO 8601 format which is yyyy-mm-dd, but is a problem for ranges due to the hyphen as the separator. ISO requires either the slash (/) or double hyphen (--) for specifying ranges (e.g., 1999-09-07/2001-06-14 or 1999-09-07--2001-06-14 for the date range 7 September 1999 to 14 June 2001). Google Docs automatically converts double hyphens to en dashes when between numbers. One Asian practice I have seen before was to use a tilde (~) as a range indicator (so 1999-09-07~2001-06-14 in the above example), which I do in personal handwriting. Some fonts force the tilde to the top when it typically appears in the middle in actual Japanese signage for store hours, etc.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

This was a delightful info dump. Thank you!

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mobileagnes@reddit

I have Asperger's. Date/time formats are one of my 'special interests' (IYKYK).

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

100%

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Ghostwoods@reddit

S' OK, we know you're real :) Besides, em-dashes alone aren't any sort of clear sign. Lots of US folk still use them!

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Uncommented-Code@reddit

The em-dashes, bullet points and bolded list starts are the biggest giveaways for text, at least in chatgpt in my opinion. When it generates python code, it also has some hallmarks. It'll often put emojis in print statements (never seen that done by a human) and always use standalone comments above code blocks instead of inline comments.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Interesting, particularly about the emojis. What an odd default!

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ImAprincess_YesIam@reddit

Make a post about this on r/thesefuckingaccounts. It’s a sub that is dedicated to figuring out and taking down bot accounts.

Lemme know if I got the sub name wrong. I’m going off of memory (and posting from my phone which makes it harder to verify before posting bc the app sucks and I’m a Luddite 😂)

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Surprised-Unicorn@reddit

Location: Canada - Pacific Northwest

Emergency management/disasters: We have had unprecedented disaster seasons in 2017, 2018, 2020 (covid), 2021, and 2023. 2024 ended up not being a bad year but that was just luck. If certain situations would have gone worse-case scenario, last year would have blown everything else out of the water. This year wildfire season started before spring flooding (freshet) which is unheard of. 5 years ago, wildfire season ran from approximately mid-June to end of September. Last year it started in mid-April and ran until October. This year, the wildfires started at the first week of April.

Weather: over the last 4 years we have had:

hottest temperatures ever recorded
drought so bad that the forecasters had to create a new category
NO snow in areas that have NEVER been without snow (2023)
tornado where there have never been tornadoes

Politics: Canada is taking the USA's threat of annexation seriously. Many people are seriously talking about how this could end up as an actual war not just a trade war. Our current Prime Minister has stated many times that the relationship that we had with the USA for 75 years is over. We can't trust them anymore and we are looking at other trade partners to decouple from our reliance on the USA.

Canada is currently in the midst of a federal election to determine the Prime Minister for the next 4 years. This election is viewed as the most important election in our lifetime as many are viewing it as a matter of national sovereignty. People are very anxious because there is a portion of the population who are maple MAGA and would sell us out to the USA or bring American-style politics/policies to Canada.

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BriefCar2237@reddit

What % pf the population would you think are maple MAGA? (neat expression!).

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Surprised-Unicorn@reddit

There was a poll recently that said 10% of Canadians support Donald Trump and his style of politics. Our polls right now are showing 38% favour the Conservative Party. Our last provincial election was a dead heat between the conservatives and the liberals.

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BriefCar2237@reddit

10% is not too bad total brain rot seems much less prevalent your side of the border.. What really gets me is the huge percentage of US citizens who think the sun shines out of the trumper's arse!

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mobileagnes@reddit

I'm an American who hails from the city that started the USA who is in full support of youse Canadians. I loved my trips up there over the years to Montréal, Québec City, Saint John (NB), Toronto, and Niagara Falls. I hope Canada continues to be Canada and keep sovereignty. I think it makes sense to view the annexation as a real threat and plan accordingly, despite the craziness and difficulty it may be. We live in incredibly scary times. Change for no-one.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

I can't imagine the chaos if PeePee somehow gets in. Keeping everything crossed for y'all.

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swinghammerofohio@reddit

When you say Canadian Pacific Northwest, is that more towards Alaska in location?

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Surprised-Unicorn@reddit

No, lower Vancouver Island/Vancouver area.

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Terinth@reddit

PNW USA here, this was a dry winter for us. Worried about fires this summer, was spared of smoke last summer in my location. About 4 years ago I was in a ‘get ready to evacuate’ zone of a major city. 2 years ago I had multiple trips canceled due to smoke (not to whine, people have it worse). Drove to the Tetons and couldn’t even see the mountains, same with Sawtooths.

I have family in Spokane, Washington near the border and they get a lot your smoke. The fire seasons up in Canada are crazy these days!

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FrozenVikings@reddit

You just made me triple check our insurance policy, even ran it through chatGPT to catch any gotchas. We're in the South Okanagan and I'm on alert 12 months of the year now.

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emerioAarke@reddit

Location: The Arctic

While I'm actually isn't living in the Arctic I'm at least located not that far from the Polar circle (northern Sweden.)

I'm not going to talk so much about my personal collapse recognitions instead I'm going to put out som data for you guys. I'm really a nerd in that field and think that's where you see how it really is going when we're looking at climate change.

I've gotten all the data from:

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/global/time-series/arctic/tavg/land_ocean/6/3/1850-2025

and

https://polarportal.dk/en/sea-ice-and-icebergs/sea-ice-thickness-and-volume/

As most of you in here know that the Arctic is warming in a much faster rate than the rest of world. But if you look closer to data it's clear that in last 3 decades have increased the speed of warming significantly. Be aware that is only for the winter/dark season of the year when the ice is growing. This year have been the warmest winter by a huge margin.

The sea ice volume (not area) is also on a all-time low. The total volume are now on below 20 000km³, last year it was around 22 000km³ and only 15 years ago it was at 25 000km³. That's a decline of more than 20% in just 15 years, in summer it's even worse with about a 50% decline of Sea ice in volume.

The data from NOAA have used the anomalies to 1910-2020 mean I but converted it to a more equitable anomaly with the 1880-1919 mean.

Temperature anomalies are with respect to the 1880-1919 average

1850s (0,73)

1860s (0,64)

1870s (0,05)

1880s (0,14)

1890s (-0,32)

1900s (0,15)

1910s (-0,01)

1920s (1,02)

1930s (1,38)

1940s (1,54)

1950s (0,84)

1960s (0,39)

1970s (0,47)

1980s (1,16)

1990s (1,27)

2000s (2,10)

2010s (3,34)

2020s (3,94)

Top 10 hottest winters

2024/2025 (4,87)

2023/2024 (4,22)

2016/2017 (4,18)

2015/2016 (4,11)

2017/2018 (4,06)

2018/2019 (3,83)

2021/2022 (3,78)

2019/2020 (3,75)

2020/2021 (3,55)

2022/2023 (3,47)

[-]

TuneGlum7903@reddit

What makes Arctic Winter "warmer"?

MORE HEAT flowing from the Equator to the Pole is what's doing this.

Back in the 90's mainstream Climate Science decided that this extra heat would just "bleed away" during the Arctic winters. That was the ONLY way they could get their Climate Models to work AND, since they ASSUMED they could not be wrong. That's what they went with.

In 1998 mainstream climate science "declared", based on nothing but their models, that warming in the Arctic would be "no more than 2X" what warming at the equator was.

Latitudinal temperature gradients and climate change.

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 103, NO. D6, PAGES 5943–5971, MARCH 27, 1998 by David Rind NASA\GISS

They were WRONG.

What people are just beginning to realize, is that this "error" meant the Collapse of our civilization.

HEAT at the Poles doesn't "bleed away". It turns out that there is a limit to the amount of heat the poles can shed each winter. They thought this limit would increase as the amount of heat arriving at the poles increased.

Mainstream Climate Science got that WRONG.

The Arctic is warming 4X faster than the rest of the planet. If we stopped adding CO2 to the atmosphere the "high Arctic" would STILL WARM about +20°C.

HEAT flows to the poles and RAPIDLY BUILDS UP.

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emerioAarke@reddit

20 degrees hotter? I can't get my head around that.

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

Pole--to--Pole Temperature Gradients for Hothouse, Greenhouse and Icehouse Worlds (climatic designations from Kidder and Worlsey, 2012)

From: Some Thoughts on Global Climate Change: The Transition from Icehouse to Hothouse Condition. Earth History: The Evolution of the Earth System (2016)

Because the North Pole is warmer than the South Pole they have different “Energy States”. The NP is a “Cooling Greenhouse”, while the SP is a “Severe Icehouse”.

The way to use the graph, is to pick the state each of the poles is currently in and average the results to get the Global Mean Temperature of the planet. We are currently in a 5/7 configuration, so the GMT should be around 15C (59F). Which, of course, is the current GMT.

Now, what happens if we dump enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise the GMT by +4C? The amount of warming the paleoclimate record indicates we can expect at a CO2 level of around 400ppm.

At the North Pole temperatures go up about +20C.

Shrinking the difference between the Equator and the NP from -45C to just -25C. Meaning, that if is 77F at the Equator we would expect it to be about 32F at the North Pole.

This is what the “near term” future of the Arctic looks like. It’s a LOT hotter than the rest of the planet.

What the paleoclimate data indicates, is that an “avalanche of heat” is in the process of raising the High Arctic temperature by about +20C.

If that seems “far fetched” to you, remember the High Arctic has ALREADY warmed about +4C ON AVERAGE. Parts of it have warmed +7C.

Around 2015 the RATE of Warming jumped up again. Per Hansen, we know that the EEI roughly doubled. It went from about +0.24C per decade to AT LEAST +0.36C per decade. AT THE EQUATOR.

In the High Arctic that’s going to mean temperature increases of +1.5C per decade on average. With Siberia warming at about +2.5C PER DECADE.

The farther NORTH you go, the more it will WARM UP.

In a +4°C world, cities like Vancouver, Montreal, London, Paris, and Kiev can all expect to be about +8C warmer.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

This chart haunts me since the first time I saw it. I do appreciate it. But man…

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fedfuzz1970@reddit

How did (or will) the elimination of the ice cap(s) effect the rotational character of the planet? Will there be an effect and, if so, what does science say that effect will be? Thanks.

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emerioAarke@reddit

Thank you for the detailed response. I guess 20 degrees warming in the Arctic isn't impossible in the near future (Maybe even this century) specially when it's seems we already are around 5 degrees of warming today.

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TuneGlum7903@reddit

Exactly!

When summer BOE conditions become "the norm" around 2035 there will be a big SURGE of warming from what you mention. The loss of the summer sea ice will be in effect a "termination event" as something that was cooling the planet is suddenly removed from the equation.

After BOE conditions develop, we can expect an additional +0.5°C of warming to happen in the 10 years afterwards. This warming will be IN ADDITION to the CO2 forcing.

I expect warming from 2035 to 2045 to exceed +1°C. I think that's what will tip us into hitting +3°C by 2050.

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Sad-prole@reddit

Location: Denver, Colorado, U.S.A

I was at a large car dealer yesterday, I was the only customer for the entire time I was there.

The salesperson said usually this time of year they are very busy with people using their tax returns to put down payments on vehicles. He said it had been dead like this the last few weeks.

This is the first time I’ve purchased a car in about a decade and it was a little strange. Usually car dealers are pushy and annoying but yesterday they all seemed, accepting? Defeated? Apathetic? They gave me the price I asked for, didn’t try to push any extras like warranties or financing… just some friendly conversation, let me sign the papers, hand over a check and on my way.

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Mercurydriver@reddit

Honestly I don’t see the issue with anything you just posted. Car salespeople are some of the most scummy, shady motherfuckers ever. Car dealers have been historically known for trying to fuck over their customers and squeezing as much money as they can from them. I have zero sympathy for the car dealer industry.

These were the same motherfuckers that during the pandemic, were charging markups thousands of dollars over MSRP as a “Fuck You Fee” and used Covid as an excuse to do so. They actually had their best profits during the Covid years. So I’m not sad or heartbroken that they actually have to behave like reasonable human beings now. Serves them right.

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LuciusMiximus@reddit

location: Poland

Climate change, as disastrous as it is, is not isolated from other issues in the society, which may make its consequences even worse.

Biebrza National Park is burning, fortunately the fire is under control. Hundreds of hectares of a unique ecosystem went up in smoke. The general cause is obviously climate change: an extremely dry winter, with some towns not getting a drop of precipitation in an entire month, caused the water level to drop. Seasonal flooding should have happened, but there was no snow to melt.

That said, fuel doesn't ignite without a spark. Weather conditions help the fire by making stuff combustible, sure, but even gas stations aren't burning all the time. River regulation makes things worse and isn't enough as well. It's human action which is typically the direct culprit in temperate climates. Accidental or deliberate action. Fire risk forecasts and risk factors are publicly available. An even larger (by area, not necessarily by severity, as it was very shallow) fire in 2020 was caused deliberately through ignition in several separate places. Has the current fire been caused by sabotage? That's pretty likely, just like Marywilska fire in Warsaw and IKEA fire in Vilnius were, and the government plans to make penalties for arson harsher. I don't disagree, but shouldn't politicians who destroy the ecosystems be tried first? They made the sabotage possible.

It seems easier to fight the consequences than the causes. But it's not and legal changes won't relieve the drought or jail all the Russian spies running free. An explosive combination, literally.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Location: Downeast Maine

Greetings, friends & comrades, it warmed at last. I got sunburned on the farm yesterday. A month later than my usual first sunburn of the year. I, as usual for the first burn, missed a couple spots. I will be vigilant going forward as skin cancer, while the babiest of all cancers can kill you if healthcare isn’t available to catch it.

I come to you with the news, from my friends who are connected that tariffs are here to screw you over across the board. Everyone wondered how this was going to help American companies?! Well, to quote a senior partner at a large international conglomerate whose text I was screen shotted “you can’t raise the price 80% on items only from China” so they’re going to raise them 40% on everything, which is the price they’re seeing with competitors.

(Yes, I swear I run a little farm. I didn’t always though. My friends are far fancier people who stayed in cities.)

I got relatively similar news from folks in the food, drug, & supplement industry because a zillion biologicals for food & drugs are grown in China cause it’s the size of well… China.

Locally, 800-850 people showed up in one small town to protest. NPR doesn’t think the protests are news worthy. We are not yet under martial law despite everyone’s deeply overwrought fears. Maine is in legal battles deeper with the Administration. Everyone thinks Vance killed the Pope (if I had to be alone with Vance, I might want to shuffle my mortal coil too).

Meanwhile, I got many hundreds of row feet hand seeded, the orchard is getting planted this week, and I moved lilacs off the hill. The ravens are back to nest. The birds are very loud! We even heard the nightjar over the weekend, which was exciting. (We hear it rarely.) I pick up potatoes and I scheduled myself a mini vacation across the continent while that still seems viable. (As a white woman with a white name, flying domestically, I imagine it will be boring.)

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fedfuzz1970@reddit

People that think that it is only tariffed goods that will increase in price are naive. Having known the predatory nature of business, I feel most will raise prices on unaffected goods under the cover of, "but the tariffs!!" Sort of a second hit similar to profiteering that goes on regularly during natural disasters-tragedy for some, boon for others.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Absolutely. But it is definitely unsettling seeing it in my friends personal texts.

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RunYouFoulBeast@reddit

Now if Americans just change the word with Tariff to Tax, head will be on Spike. As George Carlin said "word play".

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Thank you for the violets -- lovely!

Like your friends, my brother is a senior figure in the global corporate hospitality world. Being pathologically friendly and agreeable, he has a lot of buddies at much higher levels than he is.

He's been telling me for two years straight that contacts at the highest levels have been telling him that the US economy is going to be shattered so its value can be extracted and some of the surplus population, uh, "de-emphasised". Then the shards will be snapped up for next to nothing and the country rebuilt with a much smaller pool of ownership.

Eighteen months ago, I had serious doubts. Not that I have savings or investments or anything more than hand to mouth, so it's been purely academic, but I had really hoped he was wrong.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

I remember you discussing this before. I definitely agree. I spoke to a friend and he was discussing retirement in 13 years. I… was absolutely in bafflement. Not only is this friend my age, I know for a fact, my husband and I are not planning to retire so much as attempt to survive. WTF.

But I didn’t marry one of those corporate jerks, because I wanted to be happy. So, trade offs I guess? I have food. And will for as long as anyone can reasonably grow it. Meanwhile he can have his fantasy retirement.

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ThisMattressIsTooBig@reddit

As a homesteader(?), what's your hot take on that potash availability thing?

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PaPerm24@reddit

Not op but as a permaculturist id say its not an issue for small scale farms if you have access to restaurant waste, that will replenish any nutrient loss from the soil if you have enough, even as the foods potassium drops overtime. When the access to food waste is gone, we will be starving already and hopefully enough built up in the soil long term. also if you have a thriving microbiome the plants have access to it even in low-potassium soils, which is NOT the case with monoculture industrial farming that are reliant on chemical fertilizer

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Right, polyculture within permaculture plans is the only way to make food plans going forward, in my opinion. If we don’t make farms that plan for that, we’re not preparing for the climate issues that are blowing hard, fast, and hot at us.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

So my hot take, as a small farm/homesteader (we’re currently somewhere in the middle, as we grow both for our self sufficiency and to feed our neighbors) is pretty similar to u/PaPerm. Personally, I primarily use seaweed for potassium enrichment, and allow my plantings and rotations to manage most of my additional nutrients, along with say, manure & composting.

Potash is… a big problem for mono crop mega farms. They’re screwed. Which, frankly, they have been walking toward big problems for quite a while. Potash might just multiple nails in that coffin. Monoculture 1000s of acres were never going to survive without massive inputs from somewhere else and government subsidies, if we’re 100% honest about it. Having inputs and subsidies slashed out from under them in the same year? It is either enormously stupidity or intentional sabotage (or both).

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asteria_7777@reddit

Location: central Europe

I feel another food price hike coming. This week I paid 9,50€ for 500g of ground coffee. Regardless which type and which brand. And I thought 7,70€ was bad enough before that.

I don't think there's anything else in the grocery store that's in the vicinity of 20€/kg... Not cashews, not mangos, not eggs, not brazil nuts.

All non-animal milks, too. Oat milk, soy milk, almond milk. All around 2,20€ per litre. Even the cheap one that's obviously diluted with water. Rarely ever discounted. A few years ago I got it for 1,30€ or less...

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

Coffee prices in the northern US are higher than what you paid - typically $11 - $13.50 per pound.

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Oldebookworm@reddit

My favorite coffee went up $7 in the last month, which is my cue to stop buying for now. I started buying an extra every time I went shopping. I have about’ months worth of pods, 3 leg cans of ground coffee, and two jars of instant as well as some coftee bags.

I just realized I may have a coffee problem 😂

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holistivist@reddit

“I have about 8 months worth of pods”

Thanks for your contribution.

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asteria_7777@reddit

Except we have lower wages and higher taxes.

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Odd_Awareness1444@reddit

9.50 Euro actually converts to $11.00

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Big_Dependent_8212@reddit

500g also translates to 1.1 lbs

I'd say they're probably about the same

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

I remember the exchange rate being closer, but that was before the trade wars and the negative effect on the dollar, so that tracks. Most coffee in my area is $10-99 - $13.00, and has been at those prices for many months. This isn't for crappy Robusta beans, though - those are indeed cheaper.

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totalwarwiser@reddit

Coffee increased 50% in the last months here in Brazil, both due to lower production (due to climate) and I guess due to increased exportation to supply international markets.

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boneyfingers@reddit

My coffee in Ecuador just went up 20%. I know the region it comes from has had climate disruption, with a long drought followed by floods and landslides. I wonder if export will decrease as prices internationally rise to unaffordable levels. Someone on last weeks thread said they saw coffee for sale blended with barley to lower costs, I forget where.

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TrickyProfit1369@reddit

Yes those prices are insane. Hope that I wont fuckup my bean and tomato plants.

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PorcelinaMagpie@reddit

Location: Indiana

Easter was very uneventful yesterday. I went to a large get together and everyone seemed out of it and on edge. Sure, we had conversations and laughs here and there, but it just felt different. The hottest topic was about eggs and how much it cost to make all of the food. Interestingly enough the build-up before the election and after the election (specifically this exact moment) is quite the contrast.

I was speaking to a former teacher who happens to be a Trumper. He told me he's against charter schools, yet he voted for every damn politician in the state who are for charter schools. At this point I don't understand their mindset AT ALL. It makes zero sense. ZERO. In what reality does that make any damn sense??!!

My area will be hitting the low to mid 80s starting on Wednesday will a big chance of severe weather activity. Hold onto your asses.

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MsCalendarsPlayaArt@reddit

Can you say more about how folks seemed out of it?

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AgencyWarm2840@reddit

Anxiety, fatigue, depression, stress, microplastics in our brains, long covid, put all that together and you get a lot of people feeling 'out of it'

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fiddleshine@reddit

I’m noticing a lot of people saying and doing very very absent-minded things. Like not being able to do basic addition. Or repeating the same story 3 times. Or forgetting something that happened a few minutes ago. It is so bizarre. I think it’s for all the reasons you mentioned above.

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ctilvolover23@reddit

Yeah. I haven't been experiencing that in my life. As far as I know of.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Feels like everyone's lost their goddamn minds.

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rematar@reddit

Might anything in this article explain some of the nonsensical motives?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/why-voters-might-be-choosing-dominant-authoritarian-leaders-around-the-world.html

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ParisShades@reddit

LOCATION: eastern North Carolina, USA.

TEMPERATURE:

It has been awfully warm for the past couple of weeks or so, from the high 70s/20s to the low 80s/30s, with a few cooler days in between. I can only imagine what the summer will be like, but I'm sure this is a taste, just without the lower humidity.

GROCERIES:

Went grocery shopping today and the shelves were nicely stocked, but the prices were pricing. There were deals, but not like they were ten, or even five, years ago. I will say I found the other shoppers unusually friendly. Lots of hellos and smiles directed towards me. Maybe it's because I was in an upbeat mood or maybe it's because people are realizing we need to be kinder to each other. Life definitely has a way of humbling us.

VIBES:

Even though people were especially friendly to me today, I do find the general vibes of the country to be off. If you're attuned to the energy of society, it's like you can sense something building upon the horizon. When I was returning home, all I could think about was how this land can be drenched in the blood of a Civil War 2.0, only to be cleansed by the waters of climate change.

Y'all take care of yourselves.

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mobileagnes@reddit

A bit more accurate Celsius conversion for our international readers: 77 to 79 F = 25 to 26.5 C; 80 to 82 F = 26.6 to 28 C. 25 C = 77 F. 30 C = 86 F. We here in Philadelphia have been having wild temperature swings all spring. We have gone from coat weather to shorts/skirts weather and back in a single day at times.

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ParisShades@reddit

Thank you so much for the accurate conversion. When I posted, I was sleepy, so I just did a rough estimate. Once again, thanks.

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mobileagnes@reddit

Yep. On the other hand, we probably will be seeing low 30s °C / around 86 to 90 °F soon enough even in the northeastern US. Climate change is no joke. Even as I speak there is a wildfire going on in Ocean County, NJ.

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europeanputin@reddit

Location: Estonia

Weather:

There was some crazy warm weather during the last weekend (highest temp ever recorded in April, 27.8 degrees Celsius) and the birds are nuts. I've never heard that birds are so active during the night - it's mating season and since it's like +25 degrees above normal, the birds never slept and instead made noises all around.

I pointed it out in the r/BalticStates and gained a lot of feedback how surreal it was for others as well.

Society:

All talk about war. Literally every day the country is preparing for a defensive war against Russia as if the invasion is immediate. Just today I saw from the news that the government is subsidizing apartment buildings to prepare for crises and that the government is starting to fund the building of bunkers.

Economy:

Inflation is at an all time high and people are no longer buying anything that's not worth buying - each consumer is very price sensitive and given that there will be more price increases after the raise of VAT in July, it's going to cause even more inflation.

It really feels like we are starting to near the endgame. I hope that im wrong.

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ButterscotchSmall506@reddit

I’m in MA, Usa, and I agree about bird behavior. They’re active as early as 3am here.

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TA20212000@reddit

In the Rockies in Alberta, Canada. There's a rooster down the street that starts going off around that time. And the birds are constant. They don't seem to sleep anymore.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Similar up here in Maine. I even heard the Nightjar.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

You're in a really difficult position. This is such a shitshow.

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Icy_Bowl_170@reddit

As someone from Romania, I tell you, if the Russians get Odessa and an armistice with Ukraine, maybe Moldova +- Romania are next. Talks over there are not that serious so the waters seem calm on that front.

Otherwise it is the Baltic countries 100%. Shit is about to get real in the rest of Europe.

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rexmus1@reddit

Chicago, IL here, in the actual city, never heard this many birds at night. Thought I was losing my mind, thanks for confirming I'm not lol

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_rihter@reddit

Putin would need a victory if there's a stalemate in Ukraine. That's why your concerns are valid. The Baltic states are next if the war in Ukraine stops.

NATO's response must be unanimous, and Trump will do everything to block any assistance. Launching missiles into Russian territory will also not be approved easily, due to concerns about nuclear retaliation.

Putin will most likely give an ultimatum before the invasion. Demilitarisation, withdrawal from NATO, etc. Except this time, the US will support Putin's demands.

[-]

Calowayyy@reddit

Location: mid midwest

I apologize for rambling in advance. Government is slashing social services and non profits like you wouldn’t believe. Food stamp requirements (which were not very forgiving to begin with) have tightened considerably both in terms of what is allowed to be purchased and how poor you have to be to qualify. There is also talks about gutting the service we have for helping new mothers with food insecurity. Pro-life my ass. In order to qualify for Medicaid now you must work a minimum of 20 hours a week. So if you cant work due to disability I guess you are fucked. Things like museums and libraries are next on the chopping block. Food banks have been low but still operational, and increasingly more popular.

100 dollars feels like how 20 dollars did in 2015. It’s insane to consider more than half of my wages are going towards a mediocre overpriced apartment and a car that will absolutely shit out by the time i am done paying it off. The price of purchasing ingredients to make food is almost the same price as going out. I have stopped going to therapy because i cant afford it. I don’t know what the fuck i will do when i get kicked off my dad’s insurance this summer. I have maybe 250 bucks after paying my bills and pretty sure my companies insurance will take that much when i eventually have to join. I have already cut back on luxuries and i should probably quit smoking. But that is one of the last somewhat affordable pleasures i can grant myself, especially during a 12 hour shift. It’s also my retirement plan because I’m hoping the carcinogens will get me by the time i was supposed to have enough money to retire (lol.)

Speaking of work (entertainment industry btw) they have had weekly board member meetings to discuss 401k since the tariff shit hit initially. It doesn’t look good. Im considering opting out because at this point a 401k feels like just another bottomless pit to throw money into. Workplace claims record profits this quarter once again but thats only because the company is eating itself. Cutting entire services and shifts to save money despite multiple customer complaints. Entire weekend positions for various departments like food services and secretary-like positions have been slashed. Employee treats they used to do once a month without a doubt have now been spaced out to once every two or 3 months. It was never anything crazy, maybe a company branded cup or they would hire a food truck or something. The latest employee treat they did after not doing one for 3 months was free burger day. And those were the freezer burned hockey pucks that were gonna go bad soon. We have way too much management in nearly every department that gets grossly overpaid while they continue to slash grunt worker shifts and perks. They used to buy or get free tickets to local sports events for employees but thats stopped. Foot traffic has been slow. Our busy season starts in may and usually by now it starts to pick up. Not this year. Also have heard multiple older co workers say they need to put off retirement due to either finances or waiting to qualify for social services. They are not happy.

Tried to donate plasma because I needed groceries. I used to donate twice a week before i was pretty sure I was hurting myself by doing so. Went to a different location than i used to closer to the metro area because the other was booked full. i was shocked at the amount of individuals donating who were clearly tweaking. People coming in off the street with huge backpacks and dirty faces begging to sell their blood. They added a new rule that once you were checked in with basic vitals you could not leave the building. I asked the worker out of curiosity and she informed me that they had multiple instances where people would check in to donate, ask to use the restroom, then OD because they used. Didn’t even get to donate because stupidity i disclosed my PTSD and now I am waiting for my doc to give the okay. That was also a new requirement. But meanwhile Methany McTweaker over in the corner with huge track marks and scabs gets the green light to donate. Should have lied.

Increased police and armed security presence in public. They will arm these dudes to the teeth and spend thousands on uniforms and weapons but one has to wonder if the ends justify the means. I seriously believe the money spent on loss prevention often cancels out money lost on theft. They have baby formula, diapers, liquor bottles locked up in huge glass cases. Large TV monitors displaying low grade CCTV footage looming over the aisles to remind you that you exist in a surveillance state. A patrol car has been parked at the local walmart every evening for a week now. Dude is watching tik toks getting paid with our tax money to deter people who are struggling to afford food and toiletries from MAYBE stealing. Nice.

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mercenaryblade17@reddit

Oof. Been considering donating plasma myself but worried that my prior history of drug use plus tattoos might disqualify me... Also it kinda sounds miserable. If they're letting tweakers and junkies in tho... Maybe I should give it a shot. Could really use the money

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DrenRuse@reddit

I used to donate all the time when I was in my 20s. As long you haven’t had a recent tattoo (like a year or so) it shouldn’t be a problem.

I used the cash for gas and groceries. I stopped going a while ago because long wait times and low payouts made it a pain in the ass frankly. The payouts on donations actually started to DECREASE if you can believe it.

If you need emergency cash, it wouldn’t be too bad though I’d say. It’s such a shame that these places even have to exist like this. The poorest and most down trodden people typically donate from what I’ve noticed. Plasma companies know this and take advantage of it. They pay their phlebotomists low and purposefully keep a skeleton crew like alot of places.

If you do decide to donate, please drink plenty of water and eat something nutritious before going in.

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AdventurousPaper9441@reddit

Could you elaborate on active drug users donating plasma?

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mercenaryblade17@reddit

I've never donated but the person I replied to seemed to be implying that when they donated, they encountered seemingly active drug users either donating or attempting to donate

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Fuck, that feels like something written by Hunter S Thompson.

As an aside, I've stopped using the term pro-life. It's pro-pregnancy. They don't give a flying fuck about either the women or the babies, they just want the women pregnant (and tired, distracted, more controllable, and out of the way).

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ThrowDeepALWAYS@reddit

Great write up. Sounds like a dystopia

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

WIC was a nightmare to use five years ago. Almost unusable. What a nightmare they’re thinking of tightening it even more.

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StarlightLifter@reddit

Location: Midwest US. I feel like everyone around me is starting to disassociate from reality. And I get it. I’m hanging by a thread some days. Trying to keep a routine.

I feel like I’m seeing relationships break down. Some of my own, it’s heartbreaking.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

I'm not even in the US, and I'm constantly fighting dissociation. I can't imagine...

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Imhappy_hopeurhappy2@reddit

NYC here, breakups and weird vibes everywhere. Feels like everyone is having a full blown existential crisis, including myself.

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Haveyounodecorum@reddit

It’s every fun conversation in New York.

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jahmoke@reddit

finally

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Location: Southern Spain

The temperature is bouncing around like a frog on a hot-plate^ but that's to be expected nowadays I suppose. Quite a lot of birds around this week, which is a lovely change. Not seen or heard many recently. A lot of things are in bloom too, although some of them seem a little confused and irresolute about it.

The roses that were in bloom all autumn and winter (until the apartment janitor trimmed them) are already back in bloom again. Are continually-blooming roses a thing?

Locally, people seem to be in a good mood. Easter is always a big thing here. More internationally, most of my friends seem to be sick right now, and all with stuff that's proving more serious than they are used to it being (whatever 'it' is, it varies). I'm about the only person I know (or see out and about) still masking/distancing though, so I'm sure they're all deeply immune-nobbled from Covid.

Globally, of course, I'm reeling. Just waiting for the next jackboot to fall. Plague, War, and Death are already in full throat -- doesn't feel long before Famine joins the chorus. I'm thinking we might need some extra horsemen for this apocalypse though. Ruin, for example, for the coming economic crisis, or Madness, for our ever-accelerating psychosocial disintegration -- with a shoutout to the Hostile Internet theory.

But maybe the Cthulhu Mythos offer a better eschatology than the Christian one. "The time [when the stars are right] would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy... and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

^ Do not put frogs on hot-plates. They're having a shitty enough time as it is.

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Classic-Today-4367@reddit

I dunno about roses, but I was able to over-winter my tomato plants this year. Even getting flowers in November and harvesting tomatoes in January. They now appear to be dying back, although I have seen some flowers so I guess just wait and see.

Edit: I'm in a part of Asia that is borderline sub-tropical, although winter nighttime temps below 0C are common. And I grow in pots, which I brought into the apartment and had next to a sunny window all wimter.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

That's very interesting.

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96-62@reddit

Famine in Gaza, as a starting "test famine".

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Yeah, for sure. An acorn of famine, out of which the mighty oaks of devastation will grow.

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PrairieFire_withwind@reddit

Yes roses will have multiple flushes of flowers. Especially if they have access to water. Mine flower all summer long as long as they have water.

The bumble bees love them.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

Right, that's good to know. Yes, we had a lot of rain in Spain (aha) this winter/early spring. Lots of US storms came straight across, rather than skewing north into France and Ireland, so we're doing quite well for water right now.

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ThisMattressIsTooBig@reddit

Famine is the slowest horse in the race. War is fastest - very spiky, bolts out of the gate like it's going to miss the party. Plague used to be the champion but has come out of retirement for one last hurrah. Famine's a draft horse really, but once it gets going, it will not be stopped.

Death is the finish line. Not at the finish line, the finish line. The others talk a lot of shit while holding their trophies but Death is the one handing out trophies.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

That's an excellent set of points!

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rmannyconda78@reddit

It’s good to see the birds out, they are starting to come back in my area, mainly robins, finches, and vultures are what I’m seeing the most, frogs are also starting to come out. But yeah people are getting crazy

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Ghostwoods@reddit

It's songbirds and doves for the most part in the city here. Some corvids. I need to try to get out into the campo one day, if I can talk a patient car-bearing friend into it.

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ctilvolover23@reddit

Location: North Central Ohio

I went grocery shopping a couple days ago, and all of the stores including the grocery store, Meijer, Walmart, Target, and even the pet store were all completely wiped out of canned cat food. Every single brand was out.

That was the only thing that I've noticed recently here. Besides people driving horribly.

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missinglabchimp@reddit

I stocked up on pet food recently because there was a good deal: the cheapest price is usually about £10 for 40 meals, and it was £35 for 5×40. But that got me thinking: why is it so cheap? Food inflation has been crazy - sticker prices up 10% between store visits (feels like being gaslighted: "wasn't that different yesterday?") Also the shrinkflation (try telling a cat why their meal pouch is 85g not 100g now). I have a horrible feeling these bulk deals are to dump excess stock, because people are giving up their pets and there's less demand than anticipated.

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Zandmand@reddit

Location: Denmark, central Jutland.

We had one 4-5 weeks with basicly no rain, however over the last week we godt about one months worth of rain, mainly on one day.

Weather scientists say that we can look forward to long droughts broken up by monsoon like rain. Crazy.

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Classic-Today-4367@reddit

I was just reading that eastern Europe is experiencing early drought this year, with low water levels in the Rhine affecting barge traffic among others. Not to mention the prospect of Poland and Ukraine having much lower grain yields this year.

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Zandmand@reddit

Sidenote, I actually read about this being a possibility before we bought a house 7,5 years ago. So I insisted on having the house relatively high and we bought a house on the top of a hill. 38 meters above sea level. Pretty high for the flat Denmark. Friends kinda laughed when I mentioned possible sea level rise and heavy rain Falls. Now not so much, mainly because a few of them have had flooded basements over the last 3-5 years.

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rematar@reddit

Location: Canadian Prairies

Winter started with mild temperatures and snow. The ground may not have froze due to the insulating effect of the snow cover. The runoff seems low, and the unfrozen land is likely absorbing the moisture.

Gardens, farm crops, and wild food have been less predictable the last few years. We have a heavy snowfall warning in effect.

Somewhat predictable growing conditions seem to have been hitched to the coattails of democracy.

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bystrc@reddit

Location: United States

Election systems are broken in the US, in two ways. Election officials have been corrupted, including those who buy, sell, and program the voting machines, those who administer them and those who audit them. Secondly and more importantly, the public has been gaslit into trusting our election systems without testing them. Stating publically that you don't trust the elections gets you a label: conspiracy theorist, Trump supporter, or both. Actual Trump supporters may claim election fraud, but have been gaslit to believe election fraud means non-citizen voting, multiple voting, or ballot stuffing. The actual fraud is electronic. Ignorance of the election process, its oversight (or lack thereof) and its many vulnerabilities, and ignorance of the foreign threats, create insurmountable barriers to any short-term solution. Meanwhile, elections controlled from abroad install lawmakers, who then block attempts to reform the election process. Russia is the major player in this long-game of subterfuge and sabotage that has its roots in the cold war. But at the end of the cold war, 1989, the other side did not stop playing. The president and the majority of Congress could be currently controlled from Moscow. Proof of election rigging is found in highly improbable patterns of voting. For example, in Nevada the vote from Democrat-majority voting districts was inexplicably capped at 50%, even in cases where 90% of the voters were registered Democrats. This is not possible by chance. Much more evidence has been presented. See SMARTelections and Election Truth Alliance pages, also Steven Spoonamore, David Buell, Andrew Appel, Alex Halderman, and many others who have attempted to raise this issue. A suppression of reports of election fraud and manipulation is evident. Possibly this is accomplished through foreign control of social media using trolls, or by an inside job within the platform such that election fraud posts are selectively filtered out. In any case, a strong social norm has been established that suppresses distrust, which in turn suppresses transparency. The prediction goign forward is that Russia will control the US through its installed lawmakers and executive, and the US economy will be mined of its value, sending it to oligarchs. This is already happening. In the end, the US will be a shell of a nation, no longer having economic or political power, and having lost all of its allies. The way to claw back to a healthy democracy would be to openly discuss the vulnerabilities in our elections and demand they be fixed. Election experts must be given a voice.

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collapse-ModTeam@reddit

Hi, bystrc. Thanks for contributing. However, your comment was removed from /r/collapse for:

Rule 4: Keep information quality high.

Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the Misinformation & False Claims page.

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

I'm an chief election inspector. You're full of shit.

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MsCalendarsPlayaArt@reddit

Bro, what're we going to do about this shit? I don't even know where to start, but I know we have to do something to stop it.

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daviddjg0033@reddit

Your vote matters. I do not want people to read this and think otherwise. There are over 3000 election districts in the US. I also want the paper recount in some states which should match up. The targeting of young males (18-25) by toxic masculinity (think Andrew Tate) and the Democrats not registering voters were the two takeaways from the election.
By the next census, the Democrats will have to win GA or FL as sunbelt states have gained population. Carrying OH, PA and MI will not be enough.
I remember sweating to go door to door to register people to vote, going to the local farmers market, but now that is in jeopardy. Putin is the devil. He will fund the most virulent groups on both the left and the right. See Cambridge Analytica- which I believe is more salient, funding both BLM and anti BLM media.

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bystrc@reddit

Re: Cambridge Analytica. I read "Targetted", written by one of the (disgruntled?) programmers of the AI that is Cambridge Analytica. They are evil. They pushed Brexit, Ted Cruz, DJT, and elections in Africa.

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daviddjg0033@reddit

They would push both extreme left and extreme right. Brexit was a disaster and it is almost as bad as the tariffs - or worse.

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bystrc@reddit

Yes, I didn't mean to say your vote does not matter. It matters more than ever. But it also matters that your vote is counted.

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SettingGreen@reddit

You are hallucinating. Also, you know that there was no Russia during the Cold War, right? That was a wholly different country

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PrairieFire_withwind@reddit

Add in fun things like the ND state legislature outlawing ranked choice voting and taking it away in Fargo where it was being used.

Ranked choice guves an opening to smaller 3rd and 4th parties that could possibly represent other voices of constituents.

Our full capture and control by the 2 party system is part of our downfall.

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ManticoreMonday@reddit

Aside from fierce, border line draconian, anti corruption legislation, Ranked Choice Voting delivers more democracy per pound in terms of better representation and eliminating safe seats. Making politicians compromise vs pander.

Until we manage to get both of those tools back into elections, there's really no point in doing anything else - except yell extremely good points and sick burns at each other stridently.

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PrairieFire_withwind@reddit

Lol. The entertainment/humor value is the only thing keeping me sane right now.

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

Location: Great Lakes state, US

As I noted in Signs of Collapse, the southwestern and south-central counties of Wisconsin were hit with a major hailstorm. Hail measuring 1 inch or large affected 200,000 properties in the state, particularly the cities of Evansville and Platteville. Destruction was severe, with roofs, vinyl siding, and cars damaged. Most of the houses in Evansville will need new roofs, at a minimum of $8000 per building. Any car that was not parked under a cover suffered at least hail damage (many windows broken). This is the worst hail storm Wisconsin has ever seen. Large hail events have not been common in that state.

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mimaikin-san@reddit

Northern Michigan (not the UP) got hit with a major ice storm that tore down power lines all across the region. This was weeks ago and I believe there are still areas without electricity.

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SecretPassage1@reddit

Location: France, Paris area

Call for scientists (repost for visibility, as a public service, was posted a little late last week)

As promissed a few weeks back, France has created a platform for scientists and researchers to apply to a worldwide call to scientists: Choose France for Science

How does the Choose France for Science platform work?

The Choose France for Science platform enables universities and research performing organisations to submit projects to host international researchers, especially in the following areas:

Health research

Climate, biodiversity, and sustainable societies

Digital technology and artificial intelligence

Space studies

Agriculture, sustainable food, forests, and natural resources

Low-carbon energy

Digital components, systems, and infrastructure

Each selected project can be co-financed up to 50% by the government. The funding must be supplemented by institutions, which can call on local authorities and the private sector for this purpose. Application assessment criteria

Each application will be assessed according to the following criteria:

Quality of the research project presented

Context of the application

The researcher's motivation for pursuing their research in France

Ability to secure funding for the project

Successful applicants commit to submitting a competitive European or international project (e.g. ERC, EIC pathfinder, etc.) within two years of their arrival.

And repost of links to other places where you might find a position that fits your skillset that hire international researchers:

inserm ("from science to health")

cnrs ("Those who create knowledge need your expertise")

University of Aix Marseilles - AMU is actively searching for climate scientists and clinical researchers in "Immunology Biocluster" see article in french here

I will continue forwarding info about calls for other professionals, that may not fit this criteria, as they arise.

US scientists, you're more than welcome in France and Europe.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Thank you. I have passed this info on to my friends who are still working actively in research.

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SecretPassage1@reddit

Good, just be aware that Europe is ramping its effort to prepare for a war due to Putin doing his megalomaniac thing, and because of the US not being a reliable ally within NATO anymore.

Pretty much a choice between risking being disapeared locally or facing hybrid war in europe (russia regularly attacks hospitals through ransomwares, tries out media manipulation like during the bed bug panic, sends jets or ships circling a little too close to NATO territories, ...) and the possibility of actual war, especially on the eastern european front. All european countries are re-arming.

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BlueLilyM@reddit

Location: rural Oregon coast, USA Health care has always been hard to find here, but in the last few months, it has gotten so much worse. I am the caregiver for a disabled friend, and we have had 2 doctors quit the clinic he goes to, and then the clinic itself closing due to loss of funding. This clinic was the only medicaid option within 60 miles.

The dental situation is even more dire. He needs emergency dental care, and we were lucky to get him an appointment in a few days, an hour away, because someone cancelled. He had already been waiting for 2 months on this issue, and the original appointment was another month from now. Calling other dentists in the area, I was told that they were scheduling into May of >>2026<< at this point.

The emergency nurse number medicaid gives out is "not taking incoming calls", and neither is the emergency number for his new doctor. The emergency dental number gave me all kinds of "solutions" I'd need to drive hours to get since there is no drug store near here that is open any useful hours.

No one has the money to staff any of these services, and I fear for our future in the rural place that we love as our already collapsing care system unravels. As I said to him yesterday- being on our own out here was an interesting challenge when it was toilet paper shortages, but this area is full of older folks and watching the system fail them more and more every day just sucks.

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SunnySummerFarm@reddit

Similar is happening in rural Maine, and as a couple who both needs to pay our bills and has the skills to help people my husband and I are struggling on the way to move forward. We’re waiting to see how the price of meds and things change in the next few months as possibly Medicaid and then Medicare fail. Options are getting so tight for so many.

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BlueLilyM@reddit

I love our rural area, and I just can't live anywhere more populated, my nervous system would crash. But the health care aspect is really hard on a good day. And medicaid is always the first thing that both parties are willing to throw under the bus when they want to eke out a few more dollars in the budget for bombs or something. I hope we can all hang on, but I know may folks in the same boat and worse, and they won't all make it.

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springcypripedium@reddit

Same experience in rural Upper Midwest with dental and health care. My dentist retired and, I swear, trying to find a new dentist made my TMJ about 10 X worse (along with trump/maga)! I can barely eat! Now I have to find a specialist who treats TMJ which is most likely, NOT covered by my shitty medical "insurance".

I called several places and, like you, was told they were booked out at least 1 year. Miraculously, I got an appointment with a dentist (an hour away) who had a cancellation. Of course they wouldn't see me unless I had a massive amount of x-rays which cost over 400 dollars (out of pocket). After an exam, the dentist told me I needed between $5-6,000 worth of work 😱. It should be noted, in spite of the out of pocket costs, I take excellent care of my teeth (foregoing other things I need). It had been just over a year since I last had a cleaning/check up with my former dentist who didn't say a thing about my teeth needing work.

Again, miraculously, I was able to get in for a second opinion from a friend's dentist (an hour away)who she trusts 100% (has been seeing him for decades). He said my teeth looked great! He did say there is a full blown crisis in dentistry----between collapse (i.e. extreme shortage) of hygienists and a huge number of charlatans-- like the guy who told me I needed to replace fillings, get crowns to the tune of over 5,000 dollars---it is dire.

I've experienced similar things with health care, which is no surprise. I am surprised that this sick system (which makes people sicker) has held on at all for this long. I can only get appointments with nurse practitioners, if that. And I suspect many really good physicians will leave the u.s. hell hole.

Best wishes to all as we witness and feel the effects of environmental/political/societal collapse ❤️

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BlueLilyM@reddit

That is so frustrating- I'm sorry you went through that! The scammers are so hard to spot if it's some system you don't know anything about, like how would I know if a dentist was lying to me? It's not like I know anything about dentistry, I guess that's what they take advantage of. I had a similar experience a while back, I way overpaid to have a tooth pulled because it was urgent, but the quote they gave me for ongoing work was so crazy, I found another dentist that was much less and who I am really happy with. Even so, I'm going to have to just lose one of my teeth with a bad cavity because I don't have 2K for a root canal.

I'm so grateful that my friend's care is at least paid for when we can find it, his medical bills would be impossible for him if not. And so true about good doctors. His last one that he had for over a decade just suddenly quit after Covid, and I don't blame him. He is a kind, caring man and an excellent doctor and I think the pandemic just broke him. I hope he's happier retired, but we've sure miss him and hope the new doc is good.

Best hopes for all of us, indeed.

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soletsercro@reddit

Location: South-West of Finland

Vegetation is going crazy this week: early bloomers are blossoming simultaneously with narcissus and tulips! No fully-open leaves yet, but apple trees are blossoming simultaneously with cherry trees, while birch is still having the catkins! And almost no grass yet... But lucky we, at least we didn't have a blizzard as in the last year!

It was +20 on Friday, and it's +6 today. Still too much of the jumps, and the peak is too high. My poor head is not reacting well 💀

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The_Weekend_Baker@reddit

We had something similar in central Virginia. On Friday, it was cold enough in the morning to turn on the heat for a while -- around 40F when I woke up, but the temperature climbed to 80F that day. The next day? 89F, exactly 20 degrees warmer than the historical average for April 19. Not surprising, we flipped it over from heating to cooling.

The last two months have been like this. Swings in temperature of 20-30 degrees, heating one day, cooling the next. The whole notion of opening windows and leaving them open for weeks once spring arrives is pretty much gone. We might get a day or two at best now.

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soletsercro@reddit

Yep, spring instability is getting more and more random.

The funny thing: I was talking with my sister, who still lives in Russia, the southern part near Black Sea - and they have the exactly opposite phenomena! Usually the weather there is wild, with 15-20 minutes of the rain straight to sunshine. But they had the most weird period of seeping rain-mist, all grey and dull, for hours and hours - Lovecraftian style London, not a sunny beach city!

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Terinth@reddit

Location: Pacific Northwest, United States

I could go on about weather, know someone who worked an oyster farm job report harsh yields, fires, etc. I worked as a grocery orderer for a while and see how prices are going up and large entities monopolizing our food - but I’m in a major city and I can only truly report on housing prices and homeless populations. Not just drug addicts, which is a growing problem in the country and west coast, particularly, but people living paycheck to paycheck missing work or getting into emergencies they cannot afford. I don’t have kids and have no clue how yall young parents do it.

This corner of the country is stunning so I overlook the problem most days. But the tent and pallet cities constantly being pushed around from county to county or block to block is depressing. In the warm months it’s not THAT rare to see a homeless person in a psychotic state naked in public.

I am currently looking to move, I am comfortable now but don’t love my neighbors, and apartment prices are crazy for anything remotely decent in the city. I could move to a rural area if I wanted to buy a home but jobs are scarce/competitive unless you are In Certain fields, I’ve done the trade thing and would not like to go back.

I love Oregon and Washington, but seeing a future with renting a two bedroom, having a car and carving out a little time for vacations is bleak. Not to mention owning a home.

Luckily I live with a responsible partner, we can cover rent, food and have fun where we are in life. Just went to school to get some certificates and an associates but instantly was met with federal job creation being frozen and cut (lol).

Life goes on!

You MUST include Location: Region when sharing observations.