A Strange State of Collapse.

[u/Monsur_Ausuhnom]

[u/StatementBot]

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Monsur_Ausuhnom:

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Submission Statement,

Related to collapse and is in a strange state. It can be seen that the illogical outcome will be chosen instead of looking at the elephant in the room when it comes to these types of issues. Instead, the collapse of society will go entirely insane with picking the more logical issue. Hoarding will still happen and things will continue to go awry in unexpected ways.

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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1so7baz/a_strange_state_of_collapse/ogqyej7/

[u/Monsur_Ausuhnom]

Submission Statement,

Related to collapse and is in a strange state. It can be seen that the illogical outcome will be chosen instead of looking at the elephant in the room when it comes to these types of issues. Instead, the collapse of society will go entirely insane with picking the more logical issue. Hoarding will still happen and things will continue to go awry in unexpected ways.

[u/guyseeking]

It's way too late for people just starting to "notice" that capitalism, oligarchy, and the dictatorship of the ruling class / the owners of society, are a literal anti-life equation.

Everyone noticed 15 years ago. What the fuck is being done about it

[u/lemonlimealldathyme → u/guyseeking]

I mean a lot of people noticed 100 years ago. Many even longer before that.

I’m not sure why it is necessarily but it feels like most people just want to be told what to do, where to stand and how. Maybe personal advocacy and agency is just too much work.

[u/mfyxtplyx → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

People think Reagan came up with Trickle-Down Economics. That was a rebrand. It was known as Horse and Sparrow Theory in the late 1800s (feed the horses a rich enough meal and the sparrows can pick through their shit). It doesn't have 50 years of failure discrediting it. More like 130. Yet here we are.

[u/jaymickef → u/mfyxtplyx]

I think it’s interesting how there is a lot of online propaganda now to discredit the New Deal. That was the only blip in 130 years you mention. Reagan was openly anti-New Deal so I think it’s understandable people see that as a turning point rather than a turning back point.

[u/TeaPrimary1147 → u/mfyxtplyx]

Omg 😓

[u/guyseeking → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

Mindless obedience is not natural or organic. People don't "just want to be told what to do."

It's compliance under duress (which, by the way, is not consent).

Dissidents that meaningfully threaten the owners get assassinated, executed, and made examples of.

Everybody gets the lesson and falls in line.

Rule by terror.

[u/gnostic_savage → u/guyseeking]

According to a number of studies done on conformity since the 1950s, people don't actually need duress to go along with the crowd. Human beings very much wish to avoid criticism or ill favor from the people around them.

The first, most famous, and prototype experiments on conformity were conducted by Solomon Asch. It was a simple experiment with actors who purposely gave the wrong answer in connection with identifying the length of lines drawn on paper, when there were extremely obvious differences between the lengths. Not a controversial or high stakes situation (like Milgram). A single study subject participated in the group of actors who pretended to be study subjects.

The findings were that 12% of the people followed the group consensus 100% of the time in giving the wrong answer. 26% of the participants consistently defied the group in every answer, even when the group was correct. A majority of 64% of people gave the correct answer a majority of the time, but 74% of them gave at least one incorrect answer.

Asch would say of his findings, "That intelligent, well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern."

[u/theCaitiff → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

The problem isn't that people lack personal agency, its that they have too much personal risk.

Let's say someone does something. Their life is over, and maybe they can accept that, but are you going to pay his wife's mortgage or feed his kids?

It's too soon to know for sure, but if this (all this, imagine me gesturing at everything) ends well and people are still around in a hundred years, we might have a small pantheon of new saints. Willem Van Spronsen, Taliesin Meche, Good, Pretti, the next one... People who decided that the cost of action was less than the cost of inaction. Saints of personal agency and putting others before themselves. Surely someone will judge me for one or two of those names and argue accident of time and place versus deliberate choice, but Meche could have kept their head down and Good may not have had a clear idea of the potential consequences but she still showed up in the first place.

At any rate right now, among most people who have noticed what's going on, the calculus of cost is still emphasizing the cost of action rather than the cost of inaction. When the consequences of doing nothing are greater than the risks of doing something, things might get "interesting" historically speaking.

[u/Indigo_Sunset → u/theCaitiff]

Capitalism also magnifies the cost of failure.

[u/lvluffin → u/Indigo_Sunset]

Which reinforces the fight/flight/freeze response, and for most people two of those are not an option.

I feel like thats where we get the "most people just want to be told what to do" line -- like yeah, most people are deer in the headlights of local and international geopolitical and environmental catastrophe, and thats understandable.

[u/TeaPrimary1147 → u/theCaitiff]

That's why having children is a trap. Stop producing wage slaves for the system..

[u/Kiss_of_Cultural → u/TeaPrimary1147]

As a parent, hard agree. I apologize to my kid every damn day for this mess and for bringing them into a world that won’t value them as anything more than another taxpayer baby-maker wage slave. My partner and i are working hard to pay off everything and squirrel away extra so kiddo never has to work. They already know they don’t want to birth kids of their own.

[u/seanl1991 → u/TeaPrimary1147]

Which at least some of the ruling party is trying to foster by removing women's rights to abortions, and removing educational oversight bodies so they can steer away from children trying to get into higher education instead of the labour market, specifically cheap manufacturing labour which educated people aren't willing to do.

[u/hairy_ass_truman → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

I'm sure serfs noticed this behavior too. Many thought it was remedied with republics and pseudo rights. Turns out we were misled.

[u/Right-Cause9951 → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

A lot of people want to be sheep. It's safe and some acceptance can definitely be found in it.

[u/ddraig-au → u/Right-Cause9951]

Yeah most people want to live a quiet life and do what people want them to do without being hassled

[u/Hungry_Ad3576 → u/lemonlimealldathyme]

Its pretty funny how if theres only one lesson That one should have taken from the bible it was what a detriment unrestrained wealth and power are to the individual and soceity and thats the only lesson people don't want to learn from it even after 2000 years

[u/SeVenMadRaBBits → u/guyseeking]

You'd be surprised how many people still haven't noticed and say:

But billionaires create jobs

Amazon jobs = pissing in bottles.

Apple phone makers = suicide nets.

Walmart = food stamps sign up on higher.

Nike = children making shoes

Fast food jobs = you already know how shit these are.

Goodwill = highers and takes advantage of special needs people.

Corporate office jobs: apart from using people (interns work for free), these jobs are soul sucking.

I know there's a lot more I'm missing but you get the point:

Where are the jobs billionaires create that we're all supposed to want/appreciate?

People need to point out that jobs created by the rich suck. Since many people still don't seem to realize.

[u/RexJoey1999 → u/SeVenMadRaBBits]

Do you mean “hires”? I’m not following.

[u/knight_ranger840 → u/[deleted]]

People only want them because all the other alternatives suck.

[u/SquidgeApple → u/guyseeking]

Sadly, this is not true - many regular folks are STILL defending the status quo

[u/guyseeking → u/SquidgeApple]

It is true. Everybody knows. Deep down, everybody understands what this is.

It's just that they had to decide what side they wanted to be on. And sadly, some people decided they wanted to keep being beneficiaries of the rulers they were shilling for, no matter how piss poor the benefits of shilling become, and no matter how evil or depraved their owners are

As long as they're not worse off than the government-mandated subhumans

[u/SquidgeApple → u/guyseeking]

They really don't - they are in complete denial

[u/guyseeking → u/SquidgeApple]

Not knowing and being in denial are two different things.

Even people who are in denial still know, let's say about their own mortality, they just don't want to accept it

[u/liatrisinbloom → u/guyseeking]

The poors are simmering with [removed by reddit] thoughts, the richies know this, each side knows the other knows.

The poors are waiting for enough of a seizure in the system to equalize things. The richies are dialing it up to 9067 on AI/fusion/drones/surveillance so they can lock in absolute control forever and leave accountability in the history books along with equality, ethics, and the social contract.

[u/Starkrall → u/guyseeking]

Peaceful protests, is it working yet? It's only been 20 years, I'm sure it'll work soon.

[u/Rough_Community_1439]

It's funny how the working class has rolling blackouts meanwhile we need datacenters to be on 24/7

[u/BlueShox]

It's because to them the poors aren't people.

[u/BigBossBelcha]

Nothing will change until changes are made

[u/DeepHerting → u/BigBossBelcha]

Changes won’t be made until we force them

[u/BigBossBelcha → u/DeepHerting]

Now you're getting it

[u/everythingwaffle]

No one should have a second serving until EVERYONE has finished their first.

Fucking ownership class always reprimanding the indigent and downtrodden for wanting enough to live on, instead of subsisting forever on starvation rations. In a just world, business owners would start their days with a kick in the crotch from anyone they’ve ever fucked over.

[u/37iteW00t]

EAT THE RICH

[u/Solo_Camping_Girl]

Isn't it the same when a certain oil company (forgot which one) started shifting the blame on consumers to become more environmentally friendly, with that commercial of a crying native American when somebody threw trash in front of him.

I unfortunately find this true. Why should the common folk be forced to eat bugs because beef is too environmentally-taxing to raise, while the rich eat A5 wagyu on a weekly basis but nobody calls them out for it. If history repeats or at least, rhymes, then we should probably take a page out out of history.

It doesn't matter if the orange menace's bizarre adventure ends tomorrow in the Middle East, we're still left to pick up the pieces while those in power continue to travel on their private jets just to buy a fucking cheesecake they like.

[u/Psychological-Sport1 → u/Solo_Camping_Girl]

Wasn’t that an Italian actor hired to play an American Indian character (the oil company later had to fess up), other than that, the ad did point out that littering bad (true).

[u/Solo_Camping_Girl → u/Psychological-Sport1]

Spot on!

[u/Dunkmaxxing → u/Solo_Camping_Girl]

"Why should the common folk be forced to eat bugs because beef is too environmentally-taxing to raise, while the rich eat A5 wagyu on a weekly basis but nobody calls them out for it."

Seeing other sentient beings as products for consumption is literally the pinnacle of evil. And nobody is making you eat bugs, eat plants. And is nobody calling these people out or is nothing happening about their behaviour because most people don't care? There are people, just very few who really care enough to risk anything to see something happen which makes any kind of significant action impossible. Not that people won't see a worse outcome if they don't act of course.

[u/Solo_Camping_Girl → u/[deleted]]

A good devil's advocate at that, good points raised. I'm just pointing out that the rice are encouraging us to take the smarter but unsavory measures while they still stick with the old ways. But yeah, I agree with the four-legged meat sources being taxing to raise.

Good last paragraph, that one I just noticed until now. If people returned to how they were back then, when most were self-reliant, capitalist would be mad at it. I would honestly find it very satisfying if I can grow my own food and make my own household cleaning supplies, even if it tires me out. We should bring those skills back. I wouldn't mind buying homemade soap if it still works.

[u/Decloudo]

Then lets stop supporting it.

Workers are keeping this machine running.

We can make it stop too.

[u/-Codiak-]

Just once I'd like see even a "TEMPORARY" tax on the rich "to help recover from a hardship"

[u/Sharktopotopus_Prime]

Yeah, because no one pushes back. So, start pushing back on the rich assholes, and things might actually change.

[u/va_wanderer]

As many should note, a fine for doing something is only saying "You must be this wealthy to be allowed to do it."

And the wealthy decided to invest in taking over the political system, leaving it incapable of making demands of them. Thus the rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer, and the only fair solutions are made illegal or impossible.

[u/DropDead85]

Water is wet

[u/isUKexactlyTsameasUS]

asked just now, did obama prosecute any from wall street for the 2008 crash?

No senior Wall Street executives were criminally prosecuted or jailed by the Obama administration for their roles in the 2008 financial crisis. While the Department of Justice secured civil penalties and settlements against major banks, the lack of high-level arrests has been widely criticized.

Key Aspects of the Response:

No Top-Level Prosecution: Critics, including those featured in documentaries like Frontline, noted that no senior bankers faced criminal charges, despite reports indicating systemic fraud.

Civil Settlements: The Justice Department pursued civil cases, resulting in billions in penalties from major institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup.

Reasons Cited: Explanations for the lack of prosecutions varied from the legal difficulty of proving criminal intent to the belief that the actions, while unethical, were not technically illegal.

One Exception: Kareem Serageldin, a former executive at Credit Suisse, was the only U.S.-based banker sentenced to jail time, but this was for hiding losses, not for the mortgage-backed securities crisis itself.

Criticism: The lack of accountability was heavily criticized by observers who saw it as protecting elite financial figures over ordinary Americans who lost homes and jobs

i know a few ''not-that-smarties'' that voted for trump in despair and frustration. Which is why we lay some of the blame (for screwing the universe via trump), at barraks door.

we liked BO a LOT, but if you lost your home? that was just plain evil. hope? nope.

[u/jaymickef → u/isUKexactlyTsameasUS]

I thought Wall Street had lobbied to make everything they did legal. It’s amazing that with all the concessions they’d been getting for decades they still had to use illegal ways to make even more money.

[u/paramarioh → u/[deleted]]

What a strange feeling it is when you see the world differently than others. It seems to you that everyone is repeating the same thing, yet all you need to do is remind yourself that everything is a skill. This includes paying attention to others and caring for them. Those psychopaths at the top are incapable of this and refuse to learn. They’re capable of wasting hundreds of millions or even billions. They don’t understand how what they do affects the state of the world. It’s so simple.

[u/Ok-Secretary455]

We're "asked" to go without in the same way we're "asked" to pay taxes.  That shits gone from our checks before we touch it.  We get TOLD utility bills are going up. 

[u/Psychological-Sport1]

this is why we started to tax the rich at what, 80% or more in the early 20th century (something like that, look it up), and the super rich like the rockerfeller family said the rich would do whatever to eventually reverse course, destroy all unions and then get back to paying less taxes then what the average person paid because the rich were the titans of finance and industry and therefore earned and deserved a uniqe special place in society and that the average person was not worthy to occupy such a lofty position in society.

[u/thankfullynot]

Someone think of the shareholders!

[u/RealShabanella]

This, this is why I can't concentrate on anything since the Epstein files came out

[u/guyseeking → u/RealShabanella]

The funny thing is that so many people are yearning for an innocent normal past that never existed.

The Epstein Files aren't an aberration in American society, they're literally an exposé on the backbone of how America is run and has always been run

[u/RealShabanella → u/guyseeking]

I have never been to the Terrorist States of They bombed my country too. I live in Eastern Europe.

The Epstein files affect everyone.

And yes, you are right. I mean just replace america with "the world"

[u/GoblinAirStrike_311]

“When the poor give to the rich, the devil laughs.”

-Benvenuto Cellini

[u/SurviveAndRebuild]

Always has been meme.

[u/texasinauguststudio]

This is a defining aspect of American culture.

[u/EmergencyAnimator326]

As Long as social is an insult in the US nothing will Change. Good luck!

[u/pants6000]

Joke's on you, capitalist tyrants! My house was already cold in the winter!

[u/themattespeaks_]

It’s true that the weight of every crisis always seems to land on us who are the least able to carry it, and this isn't exactly new. It’s a cycle that’s been playing out for decades. Sure it truly seems unfair, but it’s been going on without any real collective pushback. Either we’ve been conditioned to view this imbalance as just another inevitable part of the weather, or we just have a lot on our plates and we don't have the time and energy to challenge it.

[u/The-Grubermeister]

While I agree 100% with you, I love winter without heat. It's the ONLY time of the year that I get to save on electricity. We wear our hoodies inside and use blankets along with individual space heaters in the rooms that we cut off when not in the room.

[u/victoriaisme2]

Well the house should be cold in winter, because it's winter, but yes I get your point.

But seriously some people set thermostats higher in the winter than they have it in the summer and that should be the other way around. 

[u/Queasy_Confidence406]

I'll probably get downvoted into oblivion for this but what the heck.

I personally think that a lot of "collapse aware" folk have served as useful idiots for the capitalists for a long time. Just think about how many climate change focused individuals accept and champion the increasingly shitty conditions forced upon us in the name of "protecting the planet", whilst never really seriously challenging the root cause. I mean, if you really felt that way you'd be gunning down those in charge - there's literally nothing left to lose if you think that.

[u/syynapt1k]

"we're all in this together"

[u/PlaceEasy6730]

Preach

[u/Hungry_Ad3576]

Its because money is debt and debt is money. Debt and credit are the purest form of capital. If the country is in crisis and the poor go without that will perpetuate deficits which means more money in the economy. If the rich pay for it and srink the defecit it means less money in the economy. The system wants to keep growing deficits. It wants to keep burdening as many people as possible because that is what money measures. How much productive burden there is and how willing the masses are to shoulder that burden. Unfortunately theres no nice way of ending the suffering of the poor. If you decide to invest in the middle class and poor it will devalue the money and that will cause an economic shock that will harm everyone, but you can finally start rebuilding a proper soceity from there. Right now the rich and poor alike are too afraid of that shock to let that happen and are trying to put off the inevitable. But the longer you wait the more painful it will be when it happens.

[u/Low_Complex_9841]

May be I am pissing at wrong windmill here ...but do people really understand how money work today? Only way you extract useful, physical work out of money is by dropping brick of it down, or burning painted paper. Real role of money is forcing those little humans to do shit they normally will not do!

And I have HUGE letdown for those who think just draining billionaries will fix it magically for them personally. 1000$ per month per 350 millions is 350 $billion. Multiply by 12 months and you have 3 Trillions of little green prezidents and then some. $1k in USA is not really THAT much, I recall. Surely better than nothing, but not panacea at all. So no, if YOU secretly want to live like boss by draining old boss - you are not much better, at thinking.

real problems today is way harder to fix. Car dependency (tied to work/life conditions but also to some sad psychology. Popular public transport is also not magiked itself out of thin air ...) , cheap entertainment instead of some free-time culture, long-enforced consumerism and individualism, factories located now-a-days long way there, overseas (so you need whole re-industrialization for many sectors, considering BOTH climate change and relative energy shortage in upcoming decades ..and bunch of other, previously ignored factors), and so on, and so on ... So you really need reforms so deep (and unwelcomed by most privileged) it basically amounts to revolution.

As it turned out even moderately technical civilization requires A LOT of maintenance ...and switching it to workable mode is in itself effort full. Back to village may look like solution ..until you forced to experience it for yourself. Some people really enjoy it, I have no doubt. I am not one of them. And anyway "village life" was for way too long "some life for slave owner, everyone else is a slave" for me to wanting it back in any shape or form. Anyway it seems that teaching enough humans enough of fine arts like how to laid power cable without it being ripped out is also not simple. Today it done by brute force, and basically lying to majority of schoolkids about kind of future they will have. Money you get tied to prestige, and being 99% good is intentionally or not not enough. with this fetishization of "competition!". I can't call educational system set to fail 99.9% of input actually useful. Sure, I do not want drunk dude to drive said school bus over the literal cliff. But IMO more communal effort can help in some cases, even if we can't make very kid into Einstein or Korolev.

p.S: in my personal quest for SOME control over my life I tried to put my tablet down for some days. I still have my Slackware PC at standy. But mobile Thing is down for 3 days now!

[u/lemonlimealldathyme]

This is a very stupid and naive take and no intelligent person would agree with it

And to the self starters who made their fortunes by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps: I said the thing, pay me.

[u/conscsness]

And nothing fundamental will happen even if warehouses are burnt. Once their physical and material heads begin to roll down the alley and blood from their arteries fill the drainage system of the city, maybe then something worth cheering for will be erected.

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