this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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call me when people start starving, power utilities stop producing power, and people no longer have water in their taps.
Until then, we're probably fine, rattled, but fine.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/26/1208760054/food-insecurity-families-struggle-hunger-poverty
https://theweek.com/environment/electrical-power-risks-grid-america-artificial-intelligence-climate
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/climate-dries-american-west-faces-problematic-future-experts-warn
the first one talks about a trend starting in 2022, the second one is referring to a long awaited grid capacity issue that's now starting to become a problem. The third one has literally been around since the discovery of climate change.
The second one isn't even a huge problem, we can easily fix it within the next 10-20 years. The third one is harder, but it's a global problem, and realistically, spurred on heavily by agricultural water use rights, which are really stupid.
How am I going to call you if we have no power?
probably from your mobile phone, running on battery power, assuming the grid works. Realistically, if you can't call anybody, i probably can't either, so we'll both know at the same time, ish, approximately what is happening anyway.
Literal prisoners have food, electricity, and clean water... So maybe your standards are too low. Our children being reduced to wage slaves for the oligarchs is something we should fight to prevent
literal prisoners are not "literal people" they have no literal freedom or autonomy, they have literally no rights.
Giving them food, electricity, and clean water (which isn't even a guarantee, the prison industrial complex is a disaster, do some research on that one) is quite literally the minimum you can do to not violate human rights.
Another "I'm personally doing fine, so everything's okay." joker
i mean literally, nothing has happened, sure some things have happened, but my point is, nothing to the scale of "THE US IS FUCKING DISSOLVING INTO ATOMS RIGHT FUCKING NOW"
when the government no longer recognizes my ID, i will believe that claim, but up until then, very little has happened.
Well a lot of people had to go to court before Transpeople could start getting passports and I'm not sure all of us can
i'm not sure what that holds for the future either, but ultimately if you exist as a citizen of the united states, you must have SOME form of legal identity that exists in SOME level of authority to grant you a passport. I'm not sure it would abide international law, or human rights to deny that. Maybe it doesn't, north korea is notoriously restrictive after all.
And at that point, i would assume you can manage something like asylum, outside of the states. Because at that point, things are getting desperate.
In your short comment you went from "literally nothing" to "something" to "very little" has happened. Which is it?
Just because not much has affected you individually doesn't mean that nothing has happened and that other people aren't affected.
Don't let the world descend into chaos before you finally decide to give a damn. By then it's already too late
literally nothing, to "something" and "very little" are not very large swings, especially when taking account of context.
then go post about those things, stop making shit up and lying about the state of the US, post about actually bad things that are happening to actually real people.
unfortunately, i used to care, until i comprehended the sheer stupidity of the general public, unfortunately now my apathy far exceeds any desire for the human race to continue, and i hope for everybody to die a painful death as retribution for their stupidity.
Then I'd hate to see how painful your death is going to be....
Nice to know you're ok with being part of the problem.
that's ok, assuming it actually mobilizes people into doing something about it, instead of me just dying in a cold dark hole where nobody hears about it or cares about it because trump executive order 2134 has passed and it states that "everyone who wears a hate must wear a hat of this specific shade of red"
i'm not part of the problem, i'm part of the result of the problem. You guys all had your chance, and didn't manage it. Don't come crying to me when i die a martyr.
fr tho - in one of the richest countries in the World, why should it need to get that bad before people start wanting something better? Not just for themselves, but for every American: coworker, neighbor, friend, family. Why should we (or a majority of Americans) just get the bare minimum on the standard of living and just accept that as normal?
When are we going to start recognizing Action, Causation, and Consequences over lip service? America has ~400 Billionaires.
because when you're talking about mass heuristics like "the united states is falling apart" it definitionally, should be falling apart when you say that.
When people are saying that "the US is fascist" there better be some fascist government shit ACTIVELY going on when that statement was made, right now, we're definitely closer to fascism, than we are to not fascism, but it's hard to say until some shit actually happens unfortunately.
the most correct way to define this is that "The US is in deep political turmoil"
TL;DR because otherwise you're lying, and i expect factual accuracy from people who hate disinformation and misinformation. There are problems to talk about, but we are hardly "falling apart at the seams" currently, more so, there are several loose threads, and if something isn't done about it, it will probably fall apart at the seams eventually, given enough thrashing.
Hard disagree. That downplays the importance of the issues at hand, at the time, whatever they may be. If it's "mass hysteria" as you claim, maybe it's something important that should have some attention brought to it , and discussion, at looked at with an open, but objective mindset. Discussion at minimum.
It's both.
My man, a downfall is a fall. Let me explain.
What's happening in the U.S. is an important moment. A Multi-Billionaire was seen addressing The Nation through the States allowed Media literally behind the Oval Office Desk. This has never happened and really shows the intense influence money in politics has, for better or worse. Multiple factors has led the U.S. in a deficit (debt) of close to 2 Trillion. Instead of raising taxes on the Billionaires (~400 Americans), 4 of whom sat Presidents inauguration were worth north of 900 Billion. One of whom has had direct access to the American National Treasury without Congressional Approval or Independent Oversight. Federal employees are being cut. Eyes on Federal Programs that help the most low-income and vulnerable to be cut next.
This doesn't even get into the international issues such as Gaza, Ukraine, Elon Musk influencing German politics, the aggressive and unnecessary negotiation tactics with our neighbors and long-time allies. It's a long list of anti-teamwork, anti-peaseant, and quite frankly unAmerican actions that The United States haven't seen at this extent in arguably 50+ years, over half of many of our lives.
In short, if you're a fan of the ideas of Democracy and ensuring working people are taken care of, and you're living in the American Democracy, then this is an important timespan.
that is a misreading of my comment, my problem is that we're doing the meme the republicans do, and then make fun of them for doing.
"they're transing the kids" LMAO HOW COULD THEY BELIEVE THAT!!!!!
"trump just killed the investigation into himself" THE US IS LITERALLY GOING TO FALL APART AT ITS SEAMS ANY FUCKING MOMENT NOW!!!!
OK, but I don't think I'll be able to get a signal at that point.
fair enough, but then you would actually be experiencing what people claim is currently happening, even though practically nothing has changed in day to day life, federally it might be a fucking mess, but you can suffer a lot of harm before things actually start getting bad, especially as a bureaucratic body.
This is the real, "I don't spend all my life on internet forums" answer.
Most of this really is just optics. Even with the first Trump presidency, my life did not meaningfully change aside from having to hear about him nonstop.
It's when people's regular lives start to change for the worse that we'll start to see them fighting back against someone like Trump. Like it or not, most of what Trump does is affecting people other than Americans.
real shit.
People don't go outside, this is why things like setting a bar for "oh shit oh fuck" is important, a litmus test if you will.
The US is big enough that it will take a long time for things to change drastically. Even when a large company gets a new president, it can take months before low level employees feel the changes. I really hope that it'll be slow enough that most will be spared any suffering, and perhaps the next administration could start to reverse the tide.
yeah, that's my assumption, i assume we're going to be "weathering a storm" so to speak, but nothing on the level of war torn countries in south africa for example. That's just not likely.
It's a gradual decline, but it will continue to happen for decades.
The sad part about this is people who are wasting away waiting for the day that never comes. We should realize today that America will not improve or do anything to reduce the disparity in wealth so we're not disappointed in the future.
Alternatively, as a little side-hobby, we can be more politically active locally, voicing our opinions and trying to educate the local populace of the immense wealth disparity and the issue of corporate money in politics. No doubt those are easy concessions to agree on and no doubt things are just going to get worse as the rug slowly gets pulled. It's only going to be easier with time to win over more folx with the fact that they're in the same boat as us and it's sinking. We can be proactive with small amounts of our time to involve ourselves in (local) politics. Spreading ideas and voicing opinions has always been the defacto way to progress. Change starts locally and spreads from there.
what we have here is a failure of imagination.
(and a lack of basic understanding of historical trends and long term forecasting)
i assure you, my imagination works just fine, i tend to rely on reality, and facts, when talking about uh, real world things that actually happen, rather than made up statements and vibes, so.
It’s been less than a month, tell me how things are in a year.
that's literally what im saying lmao, it's only been one month, we literally have no time for any significant change to set in, come back in a year, when people are starving and dying (if they are) and tell me then.
I think most of us see the writing on the wall, and are waiting for you to catch up and stop being in denial.
look man, i will be the first to admit that this is going downhill fast when it starts happening, my problem is that it hasnt yet happened, this is all speculative.
Keep speculating and watch other people be right on the money.
People you can relate to better than the ones who’ve been starving? Did you miss that Flint still doesn’t have safe tap water and that the state no longer considers it an emergency so they’ve lost their bottled water funding?
classic misdirection gaming, Flint has been a mess for like, a decade or more, this is old news, considering it no longer an emergency is definitely a big problem, the biden admin allocated a shit ton of funding to fix that exact problem during his term, perhaps that's why the state delisted it's status? Who knows, i'm not politically informed on the local state politics of flint michigan unfortunately, because i do not live there. On the previous account of it being a fucking shithole.
Gotcha. Disputing you is classic misdirection, existing traumas are old news, fresh traumas just rattle us (“us”), and of course anything that’s wrong happened somewhere you don’t think about with a shred of care in your heart. I think I can hear the goalposts moving again
well yeah, if we're talking about the recent trump admin fucking shit up, of course existing trauma is old news. Fresh traumas have barely begun to play out, we don't even know if they're truly happening or not, it's all up in the air currently. Is it a good sign? No, does that mean the US is crumbling? Also no.
bad things have been happening for like 5 years now, most of this isnt new, in fact most of the things trump instated were previously instated under his 2016 term, anything outside of that is unlikely to get anywhere due to his sheer incompetency, unless corruption cooks really hard. Which will inevitably take a little while.
I'm trying to figure out where we went from "damn bros" to "we're so joever, it's never happening again" in literally 4 months.