When do we riot?
How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can't sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it's 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I'm so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I'm ready. I've been ready. How about you?
How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don't work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it's worth it to you, that you're willing to get uncomfortable, that you're willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.
294 replies
Historically speaking, the riots start when the bread runs out.
9 meals away
Which IMO is going to happen in the USA before 2028. Their dependance on food imports and climate change interrupting the food supply is only half of it. The other half is that they've isolated themselves economically both trade and labour wise.
The US is one of the biggest exporters of food in the world and while it would definitely change what we eat and when, the idea that the bread runs out anytime soon is actually insane nonsense. 2038, fucking maybe. But in a little over a year? We'd need multiple blights and animal plagues that sweep across the country killing everything, and that's more of a "global apocalypse" scenario. And yes global warming bad but also, the US has a lot of land and like 90% of it is not in use. There will be places to farm, even if the place changes.
I think a more realistic prediction is like... 2045-2060 and honestly, I'm not sure it'll matter much.
Actually you just need 3 years of back to back major crop failures... And then the cannibalism starts.
90% is not in use for a reason. Even if 5% can still be started for agriculture, nature doesn’t instant-produce food. Field cultivation often takes multiple years.
You’re forgetting the US is no longer a democracy. This is the last emperor on the throne right now, running a kleptocracy to the tune of billions. To keep control he installed the certifiable most incompetent people in his ‘cabinet’. None of these care about the country or its people.
They were installed by a foreign influence and their job is to dismantle the country. This level of burocratic incompetence will reign till the end of the nation, probably in less than 10 years.
2045 is bad for the entire world, the US will be far sooner.
They are an insanely divided nation in the middle of an empire level collapse. They are a violent people. Their civil war which has started with ICE wil only get worse, their oilgargy only making life less tennable for so many.
You will have riots and strikes, and essentially just people shooting each other. It’s already happening but tuned out of the media for now. But it’ll get worse, and at some point a prolific tiktoker or youtuber will livestream something nearby and that will be an accelerator.
There are already thousands of americans that have to choose between getting medical care or food. Thousands more that have to choose between feeding themselves or their children.
There is no scenario in which the USA survives the next 10 years.
I'm sorry but, this is all so fucking unrealistic and doomer its unreal.
First of all, I live in the US. I have seen ICE and how communities comes together first hand. Fuck off with this "Americans are violent people" rhetoric.
I'm not saying its gonna be sunshine and roses, but the scenarios you are describing are functionally impossible to occur without genuine global cataclysm and then we have bigger things to worry about.
"There's no scenario in which the us survives the next 10 years."
democracy in the us? sure, maybe, arguably its already gone.
the us itself? Of course it'll be around in ten years lmfao?? Things would have to get so much worse in the next 10 years it would break records on how fast nations collapse.
These are insane predictions that have no historical or factual basis for why they would happen at the speed you suggest.
Yeah my guy can't even spell bureaucrat or oligarchy, I don't think political science is their forte.
The two often overlap. An oligarchy can become a kleptocracy if the ruling elite uses its power to systematically steal wealth. But they're not the same thing. A country can have an oligarchic government without widespread theft, and in theory a kleptocracy could exist even if power is concentrated in a single dictator rather than a small group.
But billions? That's really low balling it. 40 trillion debt... Kleptomania! Watch and see it grow.
I think you responded to the wrong person.
Being in the US isn’t giving you better data, if anything it makes you emotionally attached and blind to the obvious. Humans are the same. We often know our friends a lot better than they know themselves. I understand you don’t want this to happen, but not wanting it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
There is massive historic precedence. The roman empire to name one. Except never before has an empire collapse overlapped with the fastest recorded ecocide and environmental collapse.
You may not be aware of all the datasets I’m aware of. It sounds like doomer, but it is data based so it unfortunately just is doom. Hard to grasp, I know, it’s why people with terminal illnesses also stay around as long as possible.
The USA will be there in 10 years, but it won’t be called that, and won’t have any of the respect and glory it still has some of today. It’s not a country. It’s more like a european union that falls apart as soon as things start getting tough. Your very demented pedophile president is personally directing FEMA to withhold disaster relief to blue states. That can’t last another 10 years, let alone 5. Not with the disasters scheduled in the next 3 years. States will simple secede from the union, and as resources will be scarce, war will be inevitable.
Never before in history has the ruling empire by both capital and military might waged a war against it’s own people, whilst very carelessly trying to light a match to the middle east and south america and soon parts of europe, whilst also diplomatically and economically alienate all its former allies with erratic tariffs, whilst ignoring both its own domestic rule of law as well as the international one. Smarter dictators started wars with foreign nations as a way to unify their people and bolster nationalism, this regime is only trying to make the oligarchs who installed it wealthier.
10 years is a short time for a nation to collapse, true. But you didn’t start collapsing today either, my American friend. I wish you all the best.
Dependence on food imports? The US is a large net food exporter. And will remain so for a long time. Especially in wheat, corn and soy beans. Harvesting grains is incredibly labour efficient. The labour crisis is mostly in fruits and vegetables which are very labor intensive. Even if soy and grain yields would be unexpectedly badly impacted by climate change it will first impact the exports and lastly animal feed and agro ethanol. The yields would have to be unrealistically devastated for it to lead to shortages in human food like bread. So at worst we are looking at a shortage of meat, fruits and vegetables but we are extremely far away from any situation involving starvation. This also includes Canada, the EU and Australia. And it's not all vegetables either. Potatoes, carrots, peas and onions are machine harvested and won't get affected by a farm labour crisis and will continue to be available. No one is gonna starve for having to substitute broccoli and asparagus with carrots and peas. No one is going to starve when fruits gets expensive either, they are healthy but you can live without them.
It's the part of the third world which currently relies on western food exports that will have food insecurity in a worsening climate crisis. The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.
That sounds like plenty of reason to start a riot!
As if half of us don't survive on cheerios and chicken nuggies
I've been ready to riot since 2004. That's when they changed the fries at McDonalds. Now they suck.
pitchfork ready
Hot take: McDonald's fries are trash. Sure, I'll eat them, but every other fast food place has better fries.
I think you underestimate how much some countries are willing to support having a positive relationship with the US in spite of it being in their best interest to do otherwise.
Only as long as the US has something to offer in return, but the Chinese are gaining ground in a lot of countries
I agree. But it’ll come due to drought and the fact that Trump screwed over farmers with soy exports, which is an important cover crop for crop rotation.
If farmers can’t make money on soy, they’ll take shortcuts, which will rob the soil of nutrients. That with drought will lead to another dust bowl that will be devastating.
Soy fixes nitrogen and doesn't affect the rest of the nutrients. Without soy in the crop rotation you have to simply buy more nitrogen fertilizer for the subsequent crop, which will make it more expensive to grow. Soy is good but it's not a looming disaster without it. The EU barely grows soy and is doing fine. And regarding dust bowl. Those areas of the US have already switched from plowing to no-till decades ago. Another dust bowl is unlikely even with drought because of it.
Why don't they just eat cake then?
But they could eat cake...?
The cake is a lie.
@RobotToaster @moncharleskey Which is why we used to have "the dollar menu," to keep the plebes bellies just full enough.
Someone, however, seems to have either forgotten that lesson or decided they have enough power to ignore it.
I'm hear it's popular to go to spain if that happens.
if you are ml it's a constant riot
I don't think the memes and internet arguments count as rioting.
If anything is done it's done offline. The best way to fight back is to build community and solidarity. Meet your neighbors, volunteer, get out there off the computer.
Computer can help with spreading the word for said meetups
That's how we get COINTEL on your ass. Any open rebellion is useless.
It's why I'm going for the legal way, will at least give them some pain.
Only of you stick to platforms that are closed that you can't control. Facebook, etc.
Some places don't have a lot of third spaces unfortunately
eh, that's bullshit. the success of any operation basically depends on the quality of the plan behind it. a plan is information and therefore processed with the help of information processing machines, in other words computers (and the internet).
"organizing offline" is bullshit. yes, you can organize a farmer's market offline, but anything more complicated than that is gonna give you a PAIN IN THE ASS if you try to organize it purely offline. the internet is the best tool for organization. because it allows information exchange.
Universal basic income would be a huge way to facilitate this. When we have a bit of a safety net, we can afford to take a few weeks off for a general strike. We can leave that evil corporate job, or educate ourselves on issues that need our attention. Studies have shown that with a little more time each week, people tend to invest more in the community or mutual aid. Not to mention, we could compel billionaires to join and facilitate the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. There's a foundation (ITSA) attempting to start it's own UBI via an app I recently joined. DM me if you want the link :)
I know I'll get downvoted for this, but...Lemmy and related are an "echo-chamber" of sorts. You'll find that a vast amount of people "in the real world" don't share this sort of imminently apocalyptic mentality. I really mean no offense in my phrasing and I'm not trying to shit on anyone here. It's just the way things are.
I remember being almost surprised at how "normal" life was when I first moved to a place that had polar opposite political views than me. Life went on...in mostly the same way it did when I was surrounded by people who mostly shared my ideologies. Life goes on...especially in the western world. Even in different parts of the US, it's a far cry from some place like Somalia or Iran or Israel/Palestine or North Korea.
Idk. Sorry I got a bit rambly. Suffice to say that I don't think you're ever going to find what you seek.
Your fellow countrymen are rounding up people of colour and putting them in concentration camps and you’re right that, for you, life goes on.
Not really sure about the echo-chamber thing though, but I feel like most people outside the Fediverse only doomscroll “brain-rot” content on social media.
Politics, climate change, science, Star Wars/Trek, programming, GNU/Linux, etc, are such niche topics that don’t drive that much interest, unless it’s rage-bait.
I don't think that's entirely accurate. I try to talk to people every day about the greed of billionaires, the invasion of our privacy, the fascist takeover of the US government and the actions of ICE, and the horrible state of our climate. And I've yet to have anyone argue against me in real life. If anything, it's worse on lemmy. We can do something about this, but we have to do it together, and that doesn't happen without talking to people face to face. So many people know the situation is terrible, but feel completely helpless. We have to support each other so they see they aren't alone.
For real. I have to travel often for work, which means driving through big cities, little towns and the countryside. If someone never got on the internet, they'd never think things are like the way they sound online. Especially in the rural areas but even in most areas in towns. Houses are all within 50 years of age, all the cars and trucks are new. Crops are growing, streets are being worked on, society is humming right along. Average people seem to be doing just fine.
There's definitely a corrosion in the fabric of society but when people wonder how the "other side" can vote the way they do, especially in light of xyz, they don't realize that for many folks their perception of the current state of events is significantly reinforced by their day to day living, which is going reasonably well.
Is it going to stay that way? Maybe. Probably not. But you can't convince people who are doing well that they need to change their outlook for some imagined future.
... until it doesn't.
or, one could say life goes on even in mad max world
Don't look on the internet, you won't find the community you're looking for here. Find the coolest candidate running in your local area and volunteer for their campaign. Even if they kinda suck, show up for their events. You aren't there to meet the candidate, you're there to meet other people who care about their community. Talk to the other volunteers. You'll be surprised at who you meet.
This is a good approach, thank you for the suggestion.
You're welcome! I hope you find your people, we're going to need a lot of local organization to get through this.
This is the best advice for sure.
Local action is the most approachable and effective for the average person. Unless you have tons and tons of money, its hard to move things higher up as an individual.
Rioting is illegal and usually it's poor people smashing the windows of other poor people's shops.
The word you're looking for is "uprising" or "revolution"
I see where you're coming from, but that's why we need targeted action and leadership. An uprising or revolution would be just as illegal.
Any group with a serious leader gets co-opted and the leader killed or imprisoned. Small underground groups of 10-20 people or fewer can do a lot. Many components of things like Patriot missiles are made in average workshops and factories with relatively little security. With a little know-how a small drone is relatively easy to construct as well.
I was ready in February 2025. But after 12 months of being surrounded by people who don’t know/don’t care, and the growing threat of illegal detention of my legal immigrant spouse, I packed my family up and left.
I undersrand that for sure, but unfortunately you can't get away from climate change. I'm not saying you made the wrong choice, just that the fight isn't over.
You’re right. The fight isn’t over. It sure feels like we’ve lost sometimes though.
Smallscale you want a laugh?
10 odd yrs ago we and a friend were exploring and abandoned building......had 13 squaddies and a chopper on us....had reportd we were stealing lead (we werent....obv) yet when our forests burn our gov cant send a chopper with water......shits been burning over a week now.
Priorities!?!?!?
I guess you don't live in an area surrounded by the wealthy. You and I both know that if you did, those choppers would be there a week ago. Our government doesn't serve we the people, and that's why we are in this mess and desperately need change.
that was 6 years ago:
https://www.livescience.com/un-confirms-arctic-hottest-temperature
I guess we should wait for 110 degrees then.
https://generalstrikeus.com/
We need a general strike to start. It has to be big enough that is disrupts the ongoing social order, then revolution. Unfortunately many people are appeased by their treats and unwilling to commit to opposing the status quo in any effective way.
I agree 100% and am all for a general strike, but without some sort of push I don't know when it will happen. It's like everyone is waiting around for The Signal, but is it even coming? Why should we give up our own autonomy and wait for someone else?
Quorum sensing is an important factor in processes of quantitative change reaching a point where qualitative change is possible. This is just how social dynamics work. You're welcome to encourage more people to join the push for a general strike or other local organizing groups and parties, but a mass of people will be necessary to bring about qualitative changes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing
https://quantumdialectics.blog/2025/05/22/change-in-quantity-leads-to-change-in-quality-a-quantum-dialectical-perspective/
https://youtu.be/0YFdwfNh5vs
The issue is that the powers that be did learn their lesson and they learned it well. If you keep the masses JUST sufficient enough that they still have something "to lose" they'll be to busy chasing that to be able to mount any kind of resistance to their exploitation. It's the splash and dash mentality. It's also why they are so against abortion. they frame it as a moral issue, but it's really about ensuring a good crop of fresh people to exploit when the current crop wears out. It's a common fascist tactic: Concentration Camps were usually billed as "work" camps where people would be set to menial or meaningless tasks, so they would waste away on purpose, and the deaths could be logged as "by natural causes" and not murder. (only what the regime defined as "undesirables" were sent to be euthanized.)
Competing Lords owned the land and extracted labor from the peasants, and this was feudalism. Then peasants overthrew the lords so they could seek ownership of those lands, but that only benefited those who already had the means to fill the vacuum left by the lords. Capitalism only shuffles the deck of Feudalism. it doesn't solve the underlying flaw in the game, namely that there will always be someone with more means than you extracting value from people whose only asset to sell is their labor and time. Eventually a group of gentrified individuals will emerge that fill the rolls that the old lords did, and given that nepotism is rampant in industry, it's not even really that different at all from feudalism. The idea that a CEO should be president of a democracy is such a perversion of the idea of public rule that it is anathema to it. Extreme wealth should be disenfranchising in of itself, as if you are that wealthy, you no longer need the protections of a popular government, but rather, you are what that kind of governance is supposed to be protecting against.
For years I've held the view that slavery never ended, they just made the entire country and most of the world of the plantation, with the illusion of mobility and free choice. All you are really free to do is choose what cog to be in their machine, and as soon as you are used up you are replaced with another. I agree with you on abortion, but I think it also goes deeper. Parents have even more to lose, and are more likely to be good little wage slaves to protect their children in the short term, unable to see the long term.
Are you guys fucking nuts?
You can't even utilize the tools giving to you to muster a solid defense online. You're all just showing up everyday giving up/down votes and reading your daily alloted news article about Trump in your over moderate hug box.
You probably had to review multiple rules just to post this message in case you pissed off some almost homeless 18 year old moderator. I know the instinct is to say fuck me over this stuff. But think how moderation is actually a tool to destroy creativity, originality and effort. Moderation is a tool created by corporations to sanitize the internet so it could be sold piecemeal to advertisers. But what this also does is prevent us from keeping events in the forefront. If i have a political content community that only allows one type of content, that is fucking boring and stifling. When we separate our politics into [discussion], [political memes] [news] it may look nice but you kill free form thought and how people actually communicate. This is what feels different from the internet back in the day and the internet today. We have moderation sanitize our efforts. Compare this to MAGA or the right whose spaces are more creative. They combine multiple types of media into a menagerie that keeps things alive and interesting. Their spaces are filled with new, memes, in jokes plus calls to action. Because that's exciting. That's how content works. There's collaboration and mixing of media to create new stuff, like we use to before 15 years ago.
The left has been boxed in on purpose. We are in a snuff box. MAGA seized every platform that's full of kindling and energy while we placed ourselves into a snuff box. Until we fix some core problems and understand how the internet works to engage people then nobody should be encouraging any kind of revolution. If you cannot fight in an online digital space and get measurable victories in a low effort maximum impact environment then a revolution is just going to get people killed and laws that push us towards more authoritarian state.
And maybe I'm wrong. Could be full of shit. But if you want things to change we need to look at us as a whole and address our faults because we all fucked up big time. For decades the left went from a dominate culturally relevant position to a fucking joke. We're still using the most outdated playbooks and refusing to adapt to a new world. MAGA fucking sucks. But their victories is directly related to how we reacted and interacted. How did we show up for no kings with millions and nothing happened. How did we show up to BLM and only thing that lasted was the idea that the organization was corrupt and stealing millions. How did we show up for the woman's march and still they're dying in states because they can't access abortion. What we did is not working and I think it's a systematic problem in the left that needs to be reviewed before attempting anything.
For what it's worth, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I see what you're trying to get at, but you picked the wrong target. Moderation is a tool to keep a community that is focused around a specific topic from devolving into flame wars, trolling, spam, and co-opting. I don't know if you have see what happens in large, unmoderated online forums, but it isn't pretty. Tin-pot despot mods are a big problem, sure, but getting rid of moderation is not the solution.
Even 4Chan has mods.
Mods today are not what mods where originally used for. Hell does anyone remember what the original point of up and down voting was for.
Originally we held a strong belief that the community should control moderation while mods were there to make sure nothing illegal or crazy was posted.
We also didn't call people arguing "trolling" but that changed so mods could remove anyone they didn't agree with. It's disgusting that we accepted it.
Moderation is abused quite literally everywhere, including on Lemmy. I just got banned from Lefty Memes by diva because I said Mao killed millions of people. Reasoning: transphobia/chauvinism.
This user is 100% correct in their assessment.
last interaction we had you were transphobic as fuck to me, called me a troglodyte, clanker, mentally ill, fake trans, all sorts of gross shit. obviously it never got moderated because .world. I even posted my fucking sharps container, some good that did.
then i see your name pop up in an anarchist space doing apologia for US empire. ::: spoiler spoiler
:::
obviously it's on sight, go pollute some other space with your presence.
death to america btw
How was I transphobic? Because I assume everything you say is a lie?
You can say whatever you want, the reality is that you have a personal grudge against me because I don't accept your bullshit and I call you out on it.
Imagine suggesting that detailing the millions of deaths in the great leap forward is 'U.S. Empire apologia'. Like I said, you're 100% mentally ill - and you routinely lie or sweep for countries responsible for millions of their own peoples deaths.
Choke on it.
Dude you were being extremely transphobic. I actually went and read your convo. You were using the fact that Diva is trans so say some really horrible shit. No wonder she doesn't want you posting in her comm.
Even if you differ in opinion. You actually do have to be nice to people and you do have to treat everyone with respect.
Bullshit, post the comments - I don't need to be nice to anyone, especially not people who sweep for mass murderers.
That wasn't very nice.
question, are you a police officer? or just cop-brained?
Has anybody an idea of what is lacking?
One thing comes to mind: overcome or circumvent "the algorithm."
Retreating from spaces like X and Reddit has had one big drawback: we are choosing to not engage with people that have bought into propaganda and right-wing rhetoric. There's no winning anyone over or changing minds if you're not there to speak.
At the same time, those spaces have elevated the generation of echo chambers to an art. Social media algorithm drive feeds of all kinds of media that strongly reinforce this. Breaking into those spaces would be a useful ability to bring change. Again, we can't even begin to address that kind of a problem if nobody is there.
Alternately, we need a vehicle that can go around all of the above. What does that look like? I don't know. Alternate media like print perhaps? Or maybe just an outrageously good youtube channel? Pooling some cash and buying advertising space? Anything would be better than nothing.
I totally agree.
This is a valuable idea. How can we grow it?
Wasn't this the purpose of zines?
Which kind of zines?
Zine zines.
They are a solution people took back in the day to self publish. Publishing company's act like moderators did back in the day. They rejected this arbitrarily and gate kept what people saw. So people would create zines of their interests and leave them all over town. Some became super popular
This is pretty much what I had in mind. Circumvent censorship, and put paper directly into everyone's hand.
I have no plan. Only a few concepts and tactics.
Print newsletters keep coming to mind. Perhaps that's me romancing a bygone era where sweat equity gets you distribution and readership, even if it's just a single page. Then again, print has never been cheaper for the common-man, and sitting on top of global digital distribution would create an impressive reach.
We can also start making "conservative alt accounts" in social media, in order to penetrate those spaces. Build a profile that gets you into echo chambers that you don't want anywhere near your real life. At the very least, before all these damn photo ID features and laws go into place.
There really needs to be a playbook for dismantling propaganda, and how to handle people that are programmed to parrot talking points. Like some kind of conversational aikido.
Social media rides on optics, tagging, and vibes. It might be possible to co-opt the style and tagging of existing content, say Newsmax, and provide a palatable lean for recent topics for a conservative audience. This is nothing like going full-bore "The Onion"^1^, but rather, providing a positive framing or just undercut the lies that are in the same space. Report the exact same stories - move for move - just without the hyperbole, lies, and vitriol. Facts should speak for themselves. Buy a blue suit and rip off their look.
In fact, more positivity online in general might be a big help to everyone. The algorithm rewards engagement, and while rage bait is 100x easier to create, stuff that makes people feel good (e.g. kittens) gets good traction too. Granted, that's a high-effort and talent-focused operation - not for everyone.
Lastly, it's possible that we could see a great firewall go up around the US, or find de-facto censorship and de-platforming a huge problem to any attempt to better organize digitally. Once you're a legit problem, the ban-hammers will come out. I think it prudent to be prepared to use mesh networking, radio, sneakernet, private couriers, (again) print, anything that works around a complete fascist takeover of the internet. Fortunately, the bandwidth and storage requirements for truth and information are shockingly small. It won't take much.
Edit: Lastly, attend rallies and protests and fucking network. You won't find a better place for like-minded people that actually want to do something about all this.
Good points. I think the biggest obstacle is that these require reliable structures from voluntary engagements.
I don't think it's quite as bad as you suggest, but I understand where you're coming from here. I think it's also worth considering who stands to benefit from our lack of organization. When the right wing wins, the billionaires win, but when the left wing wins, the billionaires lose. Left wing leaders are systematically targeted and repressed. MLK Jr wasn't assassinated until his message started to reach more than just poor black people. When he started encouraging all people to throw off the yolk of the ruling class, by providing for themselves instead of being good little capitalist consumers, that's when he became so dangerous it was worth it to murder him. We need leadership, yes, but we also need a message that endures through whatever they throw at us. I think it's possible, and I hope we can make it happen.
I never read the rules before posting btw, I just went for it.
*Yoke, btw. Just in case you want to use the word again in the future.
:::
Ah, you're right, that was actually a mental typo so thanks for the catch.
The second paragraph answers the first. We wait until we're coordinated.
If you want to speed up the process, get out there and coordinate. You might be ready, the people here might be ready, but a few thousand geographically isolated people on a left-leaning niche forum aren't gonna do it. Getting out into the community and getting active, that could actually shift sentiment.
Find a local organization with at least a hundred members. Even if you don't align 100% with the DSA, join and go to meetings. That's where you're going to find people to coordinate with. Network with people, find out who has which skills, and volunteer your own. Participate in mutual aid. Canvas for leftist politicians. Even if you only care about revolution, going to these events and interacting with these causes will bring you in contact with the people who will coordinate with you.
We couldn't organize enough people to go stand in a line for 20 minutes and scribble in a few little pencil bubbles to prevent the hell upon earth that is currently happening.
Unfortunately there will be no revolution or uprising or meaningful riots until things are far, far, far worse than where they are now.
Our citizens couldn't sacrifice 20 minutes out of their lives to prevent what appears to be the beginning of the end of the USA; they're certainly not going to give up their homes and livelihoods and freedom anytime soon.
A small group of very passionate people can move the world, in fact its the only thing that has ever moved the world.
Sounds like you should consider working to get out the vote. I certainly will be.
No one REALLY feels the threat posed by the polycrisis. It's all complex, intellectual worries about things that FEEL like they're still just a little ways out, not quite here. People are mostly focused on the here and now and the very near future. The riots happen when people literally can't feed their kids in the here and now. As long as it's just difficult, and not impossible, people will struggle on with their nose to the grindstone. Watch for rises in unemployment. CoViD showed what can happen when millions if people find themselves with mountains of free time to use on political action. When enough people are hungry and have no job to distract them, the fires will come.
I tell people all of the time
"I won't throw the first brick, but when the bricks start flying give me a call"
The thing that broke me wasn't data centers or hot weather, it was when I had to pay $7 for hot dog buns
The business men who put a $7 price tag on hot dog buns during the 4th of July are not nearly as afraid of the public as they should be.
It's fucking bread. Bread!
When stealing bread to feed your family is almost a felony... burn it down.
Problem is, if it happened, you would need to choose your targets wisely for it to be effective. Looting a Target isn't the answer. The point is not to get yourself a new TV; it's to advocate for real change. Don't burn down your own place of business, don't burn down your own neighborhood... burn theirs
Find the motherfuckers in the Epstein Files, sink yachts, tear down the walls surrounding billionaire neighborhoods, etc...
You're spot on with identifying "bread" as the general problem. The issue with your perspective though is that people are burning things down in order to get bread. They know where the bread is in their neighborhoods, and "their" businesses. At the point they're burning and looting why not grab a circus(new TV) on your way out?
Do you know where the bread is on a megayacht? I don't! It's not where the rioting is going to start. It will start at where there is know bread. If you have the understanding that that the fires need to reach the billionaire enclaves you can't be shaming people for getting their bread however they can and then burning the evidence after. That will always be the initial spark.
The rioting needs to target the capitols and in my opinion, not the grocery stores. Down with the parasites!
The grocery stores are capitAls too.
Grocery stores are also a parasite who's entire existence is in order to ration food/supplies/materials at the barrel of a gun to see how much extraction people will put up with.
However, I agree. Killing the canary doesn't close down the coal mine. Ideally the canary wouldn't be harmed but you're going to need to dramatically change your relationship with the canary first, starting with setting it free.
I'm not rioting for bread, I'm rioting to tear down a broken system
If I want bread, I'll just steal it. I don't have to burn down Target to steal bread now, why would that change?
I do need to remind the people in charge who they work for though... and if they're not willing to share what they have, then I'll take it from THEM. If they're not willing to get rid of their shit to save the environment then I'll get rid of it for THEM
I don't want to steal a TV from Target, I want to steal the TVs from the CEO who decided bread costs $7
Well, when the working class is organized enough to do it, so organize.
That's literally why I made this post.
Its when people have nothing to lose.
Looking at Gen-Z protests around the world, it's kinda already started, though the success rate/level in each case may be an issue. But yeah, for the US specifically I've been amazed things haven't really escalated to the same level yet outside of maybe Jan 6 and even that was running in the wrong direction
It should be all of us. The far right idiots can band together to protect a pedophile, we can't fight for the planet?
Too late
It's literally already too late.
... not that billionaires should see no consequence, but... what consequence are you going to make them see?? They've ALREADY ruined the planet.
we saw how quickly the planet started to heal during covid. It's not too late
Not to mention that the people that have put us in this mess would love nothing more than for us to throw our hands up and say it's too late to do anything about it.
who said anything about saving the world? you good?
lol global warming DIRECTLY SHOWS that it's too late... but you go off on how you fucking idiots will save the world...
If you don't want to help then you should get out of the way and not hinder the ones that do. I'm sorry you've adopted a defeatist mentality, but I'm still willing to try, and I think you should be too.
Who says I'm not? I'm just doing things I cannot speak of, because I don't want to be on any more watchlists than I am... and no, the fediverse IS NOT anonymous enough.
Call it Pascal's Wager if you like, but if it's not too late to do anything, me doing my part, however small, will help, and if it is too late, my efforts won't make it worse.
I'm not saying, "don't do anything". In fact, I mean to say you should be MORE pissed off.
These cretins are STILL fucking up the world EVEN MORE, yet you're just here whining about it... Fucking sad.
Look at this guy, doing his fair share by being a total dick
Your disbelief will never save humanity. The fact my obvious opinion was downvoted so far only speaks to how utterly FUCKED we are as a species, because most of you fucking worms are too stupid to understand the scale of this problem.
You shouldn't be angry at me, but at all the corporations and billionares constantly fucking the planet even harder. Yet here you are, grandstanding on my account. Genuinely, pathetic.
Who the fuck said people aren’t angry at the billionaires and corporations who caused it? Fuck you and your stupid little rants dude. Do you think you’re the only one who understands how shit works. You shouldn’t be angry at people who are trying to do more than just being pouty and mad and throwing little tantrums like a little bitch. Fuck you.
It can still get much worse and it makes sense to put a limit to that.
It's definitely too late in terms of ecological overshoot lol.
I heavily disagree with this sentiment. Go work with your local conservation groups if you feel hopeless about the environment, God knows they need the help. You’ll be doing something useful and see that recovery and adaptation is possible. Endangered species can rebound, damaged ecosystems can recover, and societal views about our obligations to each other and the planet can change.
You can disagree all you want, but reality will show you what you're fucking with.
It's too late EXACTLY BECAUSE you are not a billionaire.
It’s okay to say you find working outdoors difficult, you don’t have to have a public doom spiral.
lol your snark will not save you, and that's hilariously pathetic. Of you. You won't be spared.
They are building bunkers because they know it's going to happen
Yes, that might have to happen. Historically it's how things tend to go. And in the mean time, boycott everything you can, hit them in the hip pocket, find groups with listings that make it clear what's owned by "the bad guys" unsubscribe, disengage and lock down privacy, they make money from you, by you just engaging. There's a creator who led a boycott on Kelloggs after the ceo said, when asked about the cost of living, how people should cope, he said people should eat cereal (which had recently doubled in price) I'm retelling it poorly, but it drove people to gather and start a boycott. And it was big.
If we led instructors on how to unsubscribe, disengage and engage privacy, that would hit their hip pocket.
If we figured out who sucks the most, and targeted them, one by one, boycotting, they'd feel it.
Figure out and share reports on local candidates and politicians, because the news is owned by the billionaires.
Remember that they want you to believe change isn't possible, they will fight you with big shows of how what you're doing isn't causing change and isn't worth the risk, by putting people in prison for ridiculous lengths of proposed time, and filming their own atrocities to keep everyone in fight or flight, (in a head space where you can't organise and fight back)
A lot of their warfare against the public consists of driving you into despair, driving you into fight or flight, etc. You can see that, in some of the ansers here. People who have or are giving up and exasperated, thinking what they're doing isn't making a change. A huge way to prepare yourself for the fight is learning nervous system regulation tools and practicing them daily. You need your faculties about you. Let the turkeys around you gobble all they want, keep on your path.
Boycott it's not enough. Firebomb Nestlé
You're my kinda people
Part of the problem is that there's a thing called "Co-opting the Revolution" that's been figured out, that you can neatly repackage dissent as a product to sell.
Like how you get Che Gueverra as merch now.
And it's done an incredible job at making people feel like they're doing something, whilst actually doing nothing.
Or
And the sad thing is, IT FUCKING WORKS
Psychologically, for many people, it silences the parts of the brain that are like "FIX THIS! DO SOMETHING!" for quite a lot of people
this is not an argument against the need to fight. just giving up the future because the enemy will be underhanded in how it fights back.
The technical term often used is "recuperation". Any innovation in radical evolution of culture is seen as a threat to the status quo, so recuperation comes in to co-opt the radical impulse and funnel it back into the status quo in a manner that is not destabilizing to exist structural power.
The classic example is media piracy like napster, bit-torrent, etc being co-opted into streaming services, itunes, etc. Service the desire that animated the radical impulse while reinforcing the existing power structures, foreclosing the potential threat. Enshittification often follows shortly after the enclosure has been successful.
Ooh neat!
Universal basic income would be a huge way to facilitate this. When we have a bit of a safety net, we can afford to take a few weeks off for a general strike. We can leave that evil corporate job, or educate ourselves on issues that need our attention. Studies have shown that with a little more time each week, people tend to invest more in the community or mutual aid. Not to mention, we could compel billionaires to join and facilitate the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. There's a foundation (ITSA) attempting to start it's own UBI with an app called comingle if you are interested in getting started at the grass roots level.
You just gave them more reasons to deny UBI.
UBI will be used to control us. It sounds good, but it won't be. As evidence I would like to point to everything humans have ever done.
I applaud the initiative (because at least they are actively trying instead of just talking about it), despite the inevitably devastating outcome this will have.
For anyone who would be interested in joining, be aware that not only will you lose everything you send there, the lawyers will strip you bare throughout the decades long legal battles, after what is basically an insurance company you helped to crowdfund goes belly up.
I don't have an answer for you other than, I don't know why it hasn't happened already.
Yesterday was the best time. Now IS the best time we have left. Later might be too late.
How can we as a group choose to suffer more than we already have? The majority of people have NOTHING if they don't have a paycheck in the next 3 weeks. We starve and we die. And it's not pretty.
The militias whose sole existence should be to combat the tyranny of government are the ones putting a boot on the necks of the people they should be marching into ICE held territory and saying this is not happening and I'm willing to fight for it.
That's only in amerikkka though, which as long been the too big to fail state that has absolutely failed everyone.
That the epstein pedophile ring hasn't been brought to clean and swift justice is a mockery of all that anyone has believed in as far as governments are willing to operate in anything resembling justice.
It's fucking bleak. What can anyone do?
It depends where you live.
I honestly feel bad for the doomers in these kinds of comment sections who feel confused and aimless, like nothing is happening. I live in Oakland, California, and it's clear to me that my community is not waiting around.
If you're feeling adrift, let me know where you live and I'll make suggestions. This sense of idleness is situational, and you can get involved in planning a revolution is you know where to look.
I'm in the southeast, in a rural area, so networking is a challenge. I know some like minded people but we are spread out and most of them lack the courage to speak up. I don't begrudge them for it, it's a scary thing to put yourself out there like that, but I hope they find it in themselves. We need millions in the US alone, but we need a global movement to have a chance of halting the damage to our enviroment.
Hey OP here's a song that matches this post. (seriously it's so fucking hardcore everyone needs to give it a listen)
Beast - Devil
If the sun vaporized one day And the moon just faded away Would we still, keep going on At this pit of the mining pace
Should the birds fall to the ground And the fish die of thirst Would we still keep on living The way it's always been
Now if the air could burn my lungs And the earth were only rocks Would it make us stop and realize That we rot, that we can't go on like this
Devil, oh, devil Why don't you tell me why I'm a slave in these desperate times
In this time that we could almost choose The color of our children's eyes Can we still, keep going on living When the monster turns on us
Before the sun doesn't rise one day, huh And the moon just dies away There is one thing (What?) One thing what, uh That we'll never change Is that we're only learning to survive You might also like Microcyte Beast (CAN) Mr. Hurricane Beast (CAN) Total Eclipse of the Heart Bonnie Tyler Devil, oh, devil Why don't you tell me why I'm a slave in these desperate times
If the sun vaporized one day And the moon just faded away Would we still, keep going on At this pit of the mining pace
Should the birds fall to the ground And the fish die of thirst And the earth were only rocks Would we still keep on living The way it's always been
Now if the air could burn my lungs And the earth were only rocks Would it make us stop and realize That we can't go on like this
Devil, oh, devil Why don't you tell me why I'm a slave in these desperate times
Devil, oh, devil Why don't you tell me why I'm a slave in these desperate times
Another relevant song - Would You Be Impressed? - Streetlight Manifesto
Would you be upset if I told you we were dying?
And every cure they gave us was a lie?
Oh, do they mean it when they say we're dead and doomed
And every single symptom brings us closer to the tomb
And who will take the credit for our swift impending fall?
Because it's not my fault!
Would you be impressed if I said that the dead would help us counting every single moment that we waste our time?
All this time we're spending vaccinating this disease, I just get dizzy when I think of all the ways we try to hide our maladies
We wine, we dine, and everything is fine
Because it's not my fault!
Go now, the others they'll await you
And every single one of the lot of you will have your turn
Ai! Ai! Ai! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
Likes moths that fly into the flame, it always ends up so
You'll scream, "Not me! Take anybody else, because it's not my fault!"
I had a dream last night where everyone was trying
Subconsciously I knew it was a lie!
And when I woke I knew that it was time to pray
To make amends before the end, before my judgment day
I looked around, I stood alone and I knew what I had to say
I said "It's all my fault!"
I like, "Die Ärtzte - Deine Schuld". Translated the lyrics are "It's not your fault that the world is how it is; it would only be your fault if it stayed that way." It gives me a little hope that even if they don't know what to do, other people feel similarly.
My suggestion to OP would be to collect a few friends and contact your congress people together, mow your elderly neighbors lawn, volunteer somewhere. We need to unite the working class. People who already struggle to eat, won't ever be ready to discuss the philosophy of social/political change until we give them a hand up Mazlow's hierarchy of needs. Mamdami is having success in New York by meeting people where they're at and proving he can do shit by solving neighborhood issues and stuff that affect normal people. Now he has cred with those people.
What if you choose another path instead? The government that installed the flock cameras is usually 5 overworked people trying to do the best they can for their community. Go to a city council meeting and speak to them as though they have not been radicalized yet.
Volunteer for and show up to city council sponsored events. The very same people who make decisions about the flock cameras put on these events and they will be there. Get involved in your community and get to know the leaders.
All of the city council people I know are either idealistic and trying to build a better community or they are tired and looking for someone to give their seat to. If you can't convince enough council members to change their mind get them replaced.
The tricky part is going to be the rest of your life.
All the city council people i know got their job because the big developers in the area backed them. One of them even owns 100k+ stock in palantir. We need ranked choice voting so bad
by the way, "radicalizing" is how you get someone killed. try to talk sense into them, but don't radicalize them
People will riot when they feel like they have nothing left to lose. Unfortunately, things have to get even worse and affect a very large number of people for us to reach that point. When you have nothing left to lose, you become very dangerous.
That's why they don't target everyone at once. They'll remove the immigrants. Then they'll wipe out the Trans population. Then gay people.
So long as a majority of whoever is left is comfortable or complacent, they can get away with it.
It's the analogy about frogs in slowly boiling water. I don't like sounding like an accelerationist, but I feel like if they moved harder and faster we would see more counter action. Like when ICE was all over Minnesota, but now that they are spread out and keeping a slightly lower profile, well, a couple of murders here and there, well that's just how it is now so best keep your heas down and h#ad to work!
You're asking people mostly disconnected from global affairs, buried under poor working conditions, trying to stay afloat and distracted from their own foibles, to take part in something that will take the pathetic and worse existence they are living now into a direction that is SIGNIFICANTLY worse.
Riot and revolution are always downgrades from the status quo in the hope the suffering leads to something better. The jury is out on whether not that always happens.
For now we get a very boring five phase empire collapse and its never a drastic change to bad until multiple systems fail.
It's when those in charge start destroying the circus and the bread isn't affordable people usually revolt as well. They're in the process of that (ID laws for internet and rising food prices) but we haven't reached a point where essentially death is a preferable outcome to not doing anything.
Some of your neighbors still think it’s fine. Global warming is bullshit because we still have super cold winters sometimes.
Start by changing their minds. All the rioting in the world will just make them dig their heels in. But if they understood the issue then maybe rioting wouldn’t be necessary.
Probably will start with an uncontrollable flash point. Arab Spring supposedly started when a citizen set himself on fire whose frustration about daily life was wide spread. It just flipped a switch in people.
Yeah, based on my own observations of events like that and things such as Luigi, I think that's the only thing that might trigger it.
Op, unfortunately the only way I see something like that happening in a place like the USA is if you pulled a Luigi but had a clear manifesto that you made sure was spread throughout the internet that rallied people up. Luigi already had a lot of people on his side simply from the act itself. Imagine if he had also spread a video stating the evils of the health insurance system there and that the issue would only go away if the CEOs did, whether peacefully or violently.
If you did the same but against an oil exec, a refinery, or select political figures that aren't actively on politics at the moment (Musk, Sam Altman for example) while pointing out how easy it technically is to fix the "problems", then you'd likely see some momentum. It might take 2 such events close to each other to really get the ball rolling though - Americans are too comfortable (The French probably are more aggressive due to the lack of AC. It's bad enough where I'm at in the Nordics I don't want to imagine 30+ degree weather with none).
If you can't do that, then tough luck, you'll have to take the much slower approach and campaign for politicians who are actually left wing, or run yourself.
I'm free past 4:00pm
Part of the issue is that everyone I know that wants to do something is terrified that it’s going to place targets on vulnerable members of their larger communities. A lot of trans people, queer people, black and brown people, disabled people, immigrants, and indigenous folks I know want to DO something. They’re just scared that if they do, then it’s going to only accelerate violence against their marginalized communities and the greater population isn’t going to fight for them.
Nothing is going to happen until we weaponize the cishet white dudes and get them on our side.
I get that, for sure, as one cishet white dude.
This 100%. It's the only demographic that can do any heavy lifting if we're talking raw manpower, and they're currently being heavily courted by fascists and death cults. That tide needs to turn.
It starts with holding our leaders accountable. Especially the ones that do the Epstein-Class' bidding.
All over the USA municipal councils are feeling the heat from constitutions regarding AI/flock. I have no sympathy for councilors who fear for their lives after throwing their constituents under the bus.
AI/flock needs to be the flash point that unifies working class people. The Epstein-class is desperately trying to stop the working class from forming class consciousness.
I've seen 11 new cameras in the last week and it's absolutely infuriating. Can have clean energy, but we'll throw up a Flock camera with a solar panel so we can monitor every where you go and who goes with you. The world burns and this is what our governments spend our tax dollars on now.
Organize a protest at your next municipal meeting. If we can't take back our local governments than forget changing things on a federal level.
I absolutely agree. I will be using my voice, strategicly hopefully.
You can take down 22 cameras every week with a drone.
climate change can be stopped with solar energy, and the amount of installed solar power has grown exponentially in the last few years. so that's something positive.
All renewables will help here. And new storage options. And nuclear as a base power.
We can’t stop the current impact but we can reduce it and start turning the tide around.
There are literally more of us than them. We could walk and crowd the capitol to force them to make a decision by striking the hell out of them.
We could be leaking corporate secrets. Feels like none of that is happening rn surprisingly. I'm talking about like Mr Incredible leaking loopholes, secrets, and all of the above.
They won't listen until we bring the fight directly to them in their own stupid language. Just imagine. One day, KFC recipe is leaked. Next day, financial corps have their secrets leaked, and so on and so forth.
So much could be done but we're just waiting for a new hope trope to show up and swoop in.
Kudos to you @[email protected] for asking the right questions. I've been wondering when shit will finally start happening myself and I have no clue still.
We need good trouble, covering the world like the wildfires that are now a constant part of our lives. Corporate espionage may be effective for those with the connections. For the rest of is we need to be off the assembly line and in the streets.
"More of us than them" is a gross oversimplification of our unity.
Take here on Lemmy, for example... Lemmy's users are almost exclusively broadly all on the "destroying the planet is bad" and "corporations are causing many problems" side, but aside from that it's a constant, unending cesspit of purity tests and infighting.
The fact is, there's no mass of people unified on riots because there are 8 billion of us, and we can't even get a few million to stop using social media brainwashing tools that actively give them depression.
The billionaires are the DRIVERS of our destruction, but people are walking themselves right into it of their own free will.
Its less about starting to riot and more about stopping to buy. Cancel your accounts, throw away your credit cards, stop paying taxes, start a fucking garden ( now is perfect btw) and build a network of friends and neighbours.
We all want to have a good life lets just live it.
I have pulled back from consumerism as much as possible, anything I can buy used I do, and I have been gardening and planting fruit trees since before covid. It's not enough, not in the face of the problems before us, and the greed that has brought it about. Everyone should start a garden if able, if nothing else to find out just how hard it is to get viable crops thanks to our erratic climate.
This shit has gone on for way too long.
Best way to start it off is with a symbolic figure. Some greedy CEO, board of directors member, police chief, or corrupt politician. Whatever is done has to involve being publicly displayed.
I find myself being pushed closer and closer everyday to jumpstarting it myself, but the reality is, it is highly unlikely that one person is going to accomplish it. Coordination with others is key.
...or so I've heard.
It's simultaneously mindblowing and completely believable that no major action has been taken yet. So many sheep heading to slaughter.
When death is no longer the worst alternative, there will be revolution.
Food and energy will start the entropy. No power in the house, food spoils, Hungry/uncomfortable and can't drive to work then people get mad.
But now days everyone is fat and lazy on how many medications that you can't take it to the streets. If they do you will have your banking turned off (see Canada) and you are basically useless at that point.
Then part 2, how many of you have the means to actually get out there and chop it up? How much cash do you have on hand? Once the riots start their will be a run on the banks. ATMs will be shut off or empty. What happens when paper money is considered nothing? Do you have a plan "B"?
Then the police/fire stop working, now its true chaos. Do you have the means to defend yourself and your loved ones? Do you have it in you to go that far? How much have you put aside for such an event?
The short answer is I would guess 99 in 100 are not even remotely ready, capable, or have the spine to get to that point.
Buy a gun with ammo, train on it, have 6 months of food onsite w/ water, get your HAM license or go rogue as it won't matter. Hunt, forage, build a community of like minded people. Also have a couple grand in small bills onsite, use them until people figure out they are just paper then goto your PM's/trade ammo/food as that will be the real currency.
I would say the left and the right need to reach common ground on the issue - but like someone else said: "when the bread runs out"
Surprisingly, Flock cameras seem to be a unifying force between left and right, everybody seems to hate them. That's an in road, maybe we can finally come together on other common goals like fighting corruption and billionaire elites.
Honestly i agree, that and AI data centres. Could be the lynchpin snap we need
10 years or so ago? Tomorrow?
I think you need to find like minded people. Look for action groups near you. For example in the UK there is Extinction Rebellion or Take Back Power.
As you meet more like minded people you can help cause change.
And then it's a case of talking to people and sharing ideas without pushing your agenda.
most countries have given up on climate change, with all the propaganda that the oil/gas pushed helped too. deforestation is a big problem in tropical areas, where the biodiversity is very high, and not because of the "charismatic megafauna" , theres a group of types plants that are extremely susceptible as they usually only found in one or few locations(mycohetereotrophs) and are easily extirpated or extinct, if you even disturb that small area of the forest.(see americas own Thismia species, people have been trying to find this rare plant for 100+years). there is a related on in japan, that was though to have been extinct for 30 years only to be rediscovered.
They've given up because we've allowed them to do so. Complacency is our worst enemy here, and the people that stand to profit from further polluting our planet know that they just need to wait for the masses to turn away for them to continue pillagingour future. We can't turn away, we have to be resilient, and we have to work together.
also the propaganda that they pushed in the past 10 years, all those "eco comapnies they funded, and those protest groups that use to damage/vandalize property.
You want to riot to fix climate change? Ok, let's say you will get everyone to riot, abolish the government and kill the elites. What will you do next to solve climate change?
Ban* cars? People will be against it. Ban beef? People will be against it. Ban air travel? You guessed it, people will be against it. Majority of people support measures that they think will not affect them like carbon taxes and renewable energy but if you look at actual, consumer level changes you will see a big drop. Only 34% of drivers support ban on ICE cars.
Look how much people bitch about paper straws. You think they will agree to actually limiting CO2 emissions by using less energy, traveling less, eating less meat and buying less useless stuff? The problem are not just the the elites and the billionaires. WE are the problem.
10% richest people account for half of the emissions. To be in the top 10% you have to make over $30k a year. To stop climate change pretty much everyone on lemmy would have to agree to big sacrifices. Are you ready to significantly lower your quality of life or you just want to riot because you think it will help you save it?
*By ban I mean limit by making more expensive.
Effective leadership is necessary to accomplish these things. People didn't like it when leaded gas was banned, or asbestos. People hated seat belts and life jackets. Sometimes the government has to operate against the will of some people for the good of all people.
No one was rioting for or against seat belts. It was a simple policy that some people didn't like but it wasn't opposed by the majority. To solve climate change the people you want to riot would actually have to sacrifice something.
"Some" people? Sure. Majority? I don't see it. We're seeing so little progress on climate change because ordinary people oppose most of the solutions. No one is going to riot to get something they don't want.
oil/gas already pacified protests, demostration agains global warming for a while now. they funded all these companies so they dont have to , plus they fund the protests themselves that vandalize publicproperty to get the public to side against them.
I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head here, most people don't want to sacrifice what they have for the "greater good", even if they intellectually know it is necessary to avoid losing even more.
As I see it, there are two ways of dealing with this; either the government forces people to make those changes, which would be massively unpopular, and probably lead to the government falling, or we find ways to make the necessary changes without people having to make massive sacrifices. This would probably involve things like a worldwide push to renewable energy sources, replacing ICE based transport with electric, likewise replacing industrial processes with non-emitting versions, finding ways to grow meat protein in an industrial process rather than farming it, and miriad other big changes.
It would be a massive endeavour, involving international coordination, major infrastructure projects, and a certain amount of state imposed industrial planning, but I think it would still be easier than getting everyone to give up the things they like.
EU is pretty much doing what you're describing: it has some (weak but still) EV transition plan, it's pushing hydrogen (to de-carbonize industries), it's installing a lot of renewables. I would say they doing as much as people and industries are letting them. Push any harder and industries will move, people will lose their jobs and you will see even more discontent. And doing more would cost money which would mean higher taxes or less investment which people would also not like. We could tax the rich but this also isn't very likely as there will always be a place for them to hide their money in (if not US than Russia or Argentina).
This is how it's going:
This is what "best effort" gets us right now. Even if by some miracle all other countries started doing the same (and as we know US for example is doing the exact opposite) we would see 50 more years of emissions. This is obviously not going to happen so we're pretty much fucked. Rioting will definitely not change any of that.
Kind of true, but industries are working to slow the transition down like working against modernising the electric grid.
So it's time for best effort, without quotation marks.
Of course industries are trying to slow down the process but I don't think overcoming them is as easy as trying harder. As I said, they do employ a lot of people so you have to modernize them without destroying them. It's a slow process and you have to fight lobbyist and corruption on every step.
Then we have to keep thinking. It's worth finding a way to overcome corruption and other obstacles to transform in years and not decades.
The problem is that we still want to live through it.
In our imaginations it's everyone rising up against tyranny and oligarchy and demanding a better world. It's us seeing the change happen and getting to that better world. We want the world to be better because we want better. We want a fair chance to own a nice home and live a decent life without constant worry. We want to be able to afford basic health care. To not be forced to pay thousands of dollars for 'health insurance' and then still be hit with hundreds of thousands in bills if we actually have a serious medical issue. To be able to go to a hospital for one night to give birth to a child without ending up $10k in debt for doing it. We want to know that justice exists and the people in power aren't raping and murdering kids and then laughing when we demand justice. That they aren't throwing poor people who can't afford to defend themselves in for-profit prisons for crimes they didn't commit so they can be used for slave labor.
We want to live, and to have life be something we enjoy and love instead of endless struggle and stress. We want to see the change happen, to experience how amazing and different things can be.
We want to live through it.
Most of us aren't willing to die for it. To walk away from every thing you have, right now. Every belonging, every relationship. To stand up and walk away from all of it expecting to never see any of it again. Expecting to die. But willing to do that to make the world a better place for other people. For your children, or their children.
It's common to hear people saying they don't have or want kids because of the state of things we all hate so much. Making the world a better place for your children is one of the biggest reasons people are motivated to give up their own lives to force a rotten system to change.
We want deaths like Alex Pretti and Renee Good suffered to stop. We don't want to be the next people at the wrong end of the gun.
Revolutions aren't without cost. Usually very high cost. It takes a lot of people being willing to die, expecting to die, planning to die, and deciding that it's worth it just for the chance to make things better for the future.
No revolution ever fixes everything. There are still problems and injustices and wrongs after every one of them. There is no guarantee that you standing up and walking out of your entire life, to go fight the system and die, will change anything at all. It might not work. Enough other people might not stand up for it to make even a tiny difference. Even if enough people do, it might not end up in a very big difference in the end. There's a chance that it could cause big changes. That a lot of the worst parts of today would actually improve. But that's only a chance, while there's a complete guarantee that it would never lead to some idyllic utopia where everything is all batter.
You will almost definitely die. You won't even know if it makes any difference in the end. All you'll have is that hope that maybe it will, and maybe things will really be better for future generations.
Are you actually ready? Are you standing up, moncharleskey? It's easy to type. It's not easy to do. The answer to what you're waiting for it simple. You're waiting for you to decide that the mere chance, the hope, that in rising up and almost certainly dying for it you will manage to make a difference and make the world a better place is worth walking away from your entire life and expecting to die.
Until you hit that point inside, until you're willing to stand up on the spot and give away your own life, you will keep sitting.
I am ready, I've been ready, but I'm not going to pull some lone wolf bullshit that gets me killed and leave my wife and kids to deal with the fallout. The bigger question here is are you ready? I need allies. Are you one, or are you another complacent?
No, not at any initial stage. Primarily because I have two dogs who need me to take care of them and make sure they have the best life possible. While that remains the case I'd definitely be willing to join up with a large movement that was happening and assist in ways that seemed unlikely to end in my death.
Holding on to my life for the moment in order to give my girls the best life I can is more important to me than exchanging it for the chance to help other humans. I like them more than I like most people. They are furry balls of pure love, and deserve to have a life where that's returned to them. Humans are more hit or miss. We're harder to deal with and it's never as free from drama and baggage.
Before they were abandoned with me it would have been a different situation, with a different answer. I've certainly considered things that would end in me dead or in prison for life and had them be the main reason I knew I couldn't do those things.
In a lot of ways being in prison isn't nearly as bad as people imagine. If you're not a total sack of shit and you're willing to stand up for yourself and show that if necessary then that test only comes once for most people. After that it's mainly boredom and lack of possessions and good food.
If you go to prison a hero, one most people inside would see that way too, it's a much different situation. People on the outside can send in care packages of food and clothing and a TV, tablet, etc. If you have money you can rent movies on the tablet, or subscribe to a lower end monthly streaming service (think paying $20/mo to access Pluto.tv), have nice head phones and streaming music, sometimes even have access to video game systems and games.
You can only get so many packages sent in under your name per year... but if tons of people on the outside want to send you things it's simple to have them send them in the names of other inmates who don't have anyone sending them packages. You hook them up with some stuff and the bulk of it is yours. If you go down for the sort of thing Luigi is down for where everyone inside respects the fuck out of it and plenty of people on the outside support you and you're never going to be hurting for good food and entertainment and any books you'd like to read, and any drugs you'd like to take.
For instance if someone took out a fat old racist child rapist and managed to survive their capture and make it to prison? Absolute celebrity. You'd probably never even get tested to defend yourself, because plenty of people on the inside watch the news. Nothing much to do. You'd be known as soon as you walked in, and there'd already be a lot of people who would beat the ass of anyone who tried to touch you or take from you.
But... puppies are love, and they deserve that back. Plus puppy kisses, long walks to sniff things, tug-of-war, and treats, and wrastlin', and cuddles. My family can't feed itself without me, and sending them to a shelter near here would likely be a death sentence. I'm fine with sacrificing me, but not them.
We wait until the day after it's too late
We just need to ask the French for tips and advice
What did the French protests achieve in the last decades? Hint: nothing.
The Yellow Vests were largely ignored and the fuel tax was eventually scrapped because Covid hit, not because the government got scared of the protesters. The latest protests against pension reform were also ignored and the changes were delayed only because they couldn't get vote of confidence in the parliament.
Whenever we riot we’ll end up with the same bullshit in a few decades.
Humans can’t be trusted to rule themselves.
Rioting will just cause lockdowns and curfews and people getting beaten and arrested by cops.
Striking has a better chance to help but it needs to be soon before AI is actually good enough to replace us all (maybe 2 years away?)
After that point we have no more leverage and will be fucked.
Well, for one, stop posting about it online if you're actually going to do something.
I've got nothing to lose, If anyone wants me to wear a cool vest and shake someone's hand let me know.
At least the crotch area will be well protected?
Fed posting.
But: There are countries where millions of the population lives without working plumbing and dies frequently of preventable diseases while more well off groups live in modern developed infrastructure with good life expectancy. There are countries where a majority of the population doesn't own their own house or property. They aren't "rioting." What makes you think any of us will?
Why aren't those in charge fixing anything? They're probably riot proof also.
You need focus, leadership, communication, and action planning.
Focus: You will have to choose climate change, flock surveillence, or social equality.
Communication: Dm people that seem like they could help, or believe as you do. Grow your organization.
Leadership: Choose or elect organizers by region or city so the people in your movement stay engaged. You need a central leader with impeccable morals/values. Dr. King is a good example to follow.
Action: Non violent protests, legal cases, and constitutional amendments come within reach when you have people power behind you. Plan and deliberatere internally to form a solid plan before going public; then don't back down.
You need REAL LIFE communication. Not just dms, you need to TALK to people. Build a community in real life.
Focus: Abolish capitalism
Communication: Done
Leadership: Fuck that, leaders are assassinated and co-opted. You need to develop your own agency and spread the protagonist virus.
Action: Everything you listed is performative, not action. Define clear goals and steps that directly achieve them. You won't remove a single flock camera by waving a "SHAME!" sign in front of it, you can with an angle grinder though.
Hot take. Why is it that people want to "save the earth" all of the time? The planet dirt will be fine. The only ones that are going to die, are those who are unfit. Admittedly, that's nearly all of us. It will continue until we are a society that remembers what sacrifice, and duty are. Someone has to do the work. Our slaves don't seem to be cutting the mustard anymore. Down with New Guinea!
Idk the animals didn’t deserve our destruction.
"admittedly, that's all of us" ftfy
This topic is well covered in The Alt-Right Playbook: The South Bank of the Rubicon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YFdwfNh5vs
Go! Be the spark that lights the fuse! Storm Area Whatever, find the Golden Clitoris and lead us to the the next racist Utopia!
Whoops./$
Or not
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
You won't riot, your will is gone, all hope is lost.
Speak for yourself. Do you feel better about your own lack of action by attacking others?
I'm not American dipshit.
Like that protects you from climate change?
One point,
Riot?
That's the solution?
I thought that was the problem they attempt to provoke in some of us to have more of us react in favour of their solution of more police, and better armed police, and more unaccountable police, and more rules and censorship.
This is no concern to those who can steer minds of masses. [Speaking as an ex-"one of those".]
Know anyone in the compartmentalised super secret special projects groups who have access to the emancipatory technology that would obsolete the enshitifying fake economy and all the manufactured scarcity and dependence on rentiers abusing us at expense of the healthiness of the environment, if released, and who could let that genie out of the bottle, eliminating the economic duress that impedes freedom, restoring each our ability to be worldly astute polymaths in the making, rather than slaves in training? Know anyone like that? Maybe they could help expedite mends. If you do not know that you know anyone like that, you could just meditate, and emit that kind of radical loving bold kindness, perchance that works, like the Chicago experiment (where meditators supposedly managed to produce a marked reduction in crime in the city), and through some kind of morphic resonance or psychic entrainment or quantum entanglement or luck or whatever, maybe those in the positions of power, will pick up that wave shape of goodness aimed at them, and it will cut through the loud chorus of most else aiming judgements at them that only reaffirm our worst fears about what they're like.
... Could work. At least as one easy ongoing part of a broader approach.
Maybe helping people stop being poisoned by mercury (madness), aluminium (apathy), fluoride (incompetence that has you eager to obey authority), excitotoxins (lowered cognitive fidelity, more stubborn and emotionally volatile), and so on, may help nudge things in an easier direction mendwards. May even push past some healthy tipping points... that may even help us sublimate from kali yuga to satya yuga. Many eyes make all bugs shallow.
Best part... No matter how dire any prognosis, defy it. Defy the dire prognosis. We can still mend this.
It's just a ride...
Are you sure?
Or is it more about dispelling it?
Even just the preceding omitted portion of the line that you replied to on the same line as (~ lol. oh boy), showed:
This is vastly distinct from how when I was "Just Doing My Job"[TM], and the intent would be to have you completely oblivious to ploys afoot, and to have you believe without question, just presume as normal, all the associations we'd be implanting without your awareness, to shift your perceptions, your preferences, your prejudices, and of course, ultimately, your purchases.
It's the difference between Penn&Teller showing you not only there is a trick, but how it's being done to you [or at least, so goes the pedagogical aspiration], and a conman not even pretending to be a magician, just tricking you out of your wealth, and having you be so tricked, you're even thankful for it. A really effective conman, an advertiser, who was really "good" at their job, may even manage to have you attack anyone who tries to get you out of the con, because they got you so identified with it, any critique, any questioning, gets seen as an existential threat.
The ignorance that dies, is not you.
^Is a great line to help remember, and to return to curiosity any time slipping to a place where different perspectives seem threatening and in need of being attacked again.
It's an ongoing "eternal vigilance" kind of thing, here in a sea of misinformation, where everybody's a shill.
So, yeah. I'm ex-advertiser, in so far as I've utterly relinquished any aspect of a career in it, since that first (and last) TV advert, that while I was making, I watched a Bill Hicks VHS over and over (the one with that "anybody here work in advertising or marketing" bit I linked above), wearing it out to snow, getting maybe a dozen doses a day of that bit. But not at all deluded to think that's it. It's a constant presence... that miasma that we're all swimming in, that normalises the hard sell, the con, the grift, ... the convincing. Now, I mmmmmuch much much more prefer the idea we all get epistemologically astute, wise to the con. It's easier to con, than to de-con. But ever worth striving for a world where people are honest, can spot tricks and psychological maladies, and can even then offer remedies... and then we can expedite mending this world, far easier, without the total abandon to corruption as is and have been for too long.
nah i'm sure.
That's an awful lot of explanation to answer
"You’re not as ex as you think you are. post is still dripping with it"
first off all floride is for the public good. the fact the republicans have been talking about removing it should be more then enough to show it’s not out there for graft
second, the argument against direct action for fear of justifying the actions already being done against us is, and always have been absolute bull shit
if they for some reason feel they needed to justify any of this, they would just manufacture that justification. but we are currently past the point the government needs justification for any of this.
if we had it your way there would never be a time or event that would justify fighting back and as such your opinion is worthless
... ? Implying I've made such an argument, in your interpretation of what I wrote?
Whooh. That's so far a mess in fallacies so far removed from what I wrote, that will be a brandolini's burden and a half to tidy up. Where did you pick up that idea from? It's so contrary to what I was saying, this implicit accusation seems like some kind of abuse of cunningham's law, in its nonsequitur, its strawman.
If that's not the intended implication, then, I agree. (And just wonder why it was raised there like that.)
But okay, lets go back to...
Fluoride, has many studies done on it and its effects. I'm wondering, to make such a simple one-sided blanket statement, are you rejecting the evidence of effects to the contrary? Or are you using "public good" in a way that betrays each individual for "the greater good" where it's good that people are chemically lobotomised to be easier to be controlled by a centralised government? Or maybe you have seen some study that is so compelling it undermines the claims of effects observed elsewhere? And what of the various historical documents showing plans and intents to use fluoride as I've described its effects? ... Who's defining this "public good", that contravenes what doctors, other healers (e.g. nurses) and communities were noticing? Weston A Price springs to mind for one. A book or two on that, past the name-calling that gatekeepers do to try to keep you away from such "quacks", can be quite an eye opener. Among the many surprising things, are how there's not evidence for a dental benefit, evidence of a dental harm, and how the industry just wrangled itself another market to keep itself alive. Mercury's story's similar. Along with a lot of big pharma. Interestingly the regulatory body for the pharmaceutical industry in USA is a chemistry regulatory body that was a front set up by the chemistry industry. When you become aware of things like that, it's hard to let statements slip by without a thousand questions springing to mind. Because what if that's not said as a satire mocking the absurdity... ... I guess it gets worse depending on the interpretation beyond the poor punctuation (~ and spelling ~ not important)... "First off all, fluoride is for the public good", or, "First off, all fluoride is for the public good"?
idgaf what those crooks are up to, as far as pertains to my own epistemology; my own ability to figure out what's going on. With puppets of either side, they can terrorise people in groupthink, terrified of not being sufficiently in their in-group, desperate not to be "the other", and so they accept the package deal of the entire groupthink, and run from anything [even suggested to be] of the other groupthink. And so the psyop keeps everybody who's still susceptable enough in the tyranny-tacking totalitarian-tiptoe, with one side loudly offered 1 freedom they care about while two they don't care so much about are taken away, then the same's done on the other side, 1 placation personal freedom for 2 economic freedoms, 1 placation economic freedom for 2 personal freedoms, and up we ratchet to the top of the political compass. I'm done falling for that.
I'd say we're past the point of getting snagged by that, and we're at the point where the op asks the questions it asks. This is radical mends o'clock. We've left it rather late to mend the worsening situation, and so now more desperate and likely ill-conceived efforts to attain remedy will be sought, especially as more extents of the corruption are seen and there are repeated hopes dashed as avenues of remedy in the system are revealed hijacked and corrupted too.
It's glorious, that the awareness is now so much more widespread and normal everyday, like it's no grand proclamation now. Now we generally all just know, they manufacture their justifications. ... This is not what democracy looks like. This is what the result looks like from letting government suspend democracy for an emergency. Every colour of false flag catastrophic emergency. The psychopathic circlejerk clique who crave power, the well meaning who get corrupted by the process of getting "power", have no empathy, no ethical moral quandry to hold them back. At all. And ... Let's see if I can remember how it goes... as one middling insider was caught on camera in (irrc) the [20]00s [even before Rockerfella's 2010 planning document that mentioned operation lockstep] saying "when the terrorist thing wears off, we're going to have people running scared of a disease without symptoms", and then there was the pandemic thing, and also in the list of contingency plans of mass distraction to run along side the PNAC global hegemony plan ("7 countries in 5 years" hah!, that was their "two weeks" future-faking bread-crumbing dog-whistle ~ nice to be able to name the ploys), there's economic collapse (always a classic), environmental disaster (weather warfare tech, banned in the 1970s, hah), ... I think I'm forgetting a couple... And then the big two... the penultimate, nuclear war, and the finale, alien invasion. ... So now this knowledge is out, and we've observed them incrementing through the plan... we won't fall for it this next time, huh? ... Easy to be deluded more people are astute to the issues, from inside an echo chamber. It's surprising how many people not only do not know, they do not want to know, such is the shape of the conditioning, that it's a horror too much to face. Your carer, is your abuser.
BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA. XD
CONSTANTLY! NOW! ALWAYS! NEVER RELENTING!
I do not know where you got the idea that A, you need wait for a time or event, B any implication of no justification for fighting back was made, C, fighting's only in one form (riot) or, D, that fighting itself is the only solution, E that any of that made sense and wasn't just succumbing to pointless infighting.
This is no time for falling for pitchforks vs torches.
And what would a riot serve?
I know it's murky at the "top", but that's no reason to turn on those who've a cookie more, when someone's hoarding the cookie making machine and the billions of cookies they make from it.
What's left of small businesses? They'll be pushed towards siding with the corrupt state, for protection, from a riot.
The corporations? They're already usurping states and their police. Will they be harmed by a riot? I doubt it. Have a go. See how well they've planned for it, and even promoted it and provoked it...
Maybe there are more tools available to us, to our toolboxes, than just the immediate reflexive cathartic futility.
But sure... if we all naruto run together...
It will of course, hurt, and that's a fantasy, that if ever achieved, would be redundant to attempt.
We will get better ideas how to remedy this, when we stop taking their poison that makes us dumb and reactive, so we're no longer easily controlled and easily pointed to as the problem.
(And... I thought I mentioned this in the comment being replied to there, but I guess it was in another recent post of mine somewhere... )
As I recall, in Nichiren Buddhism, of all the lower states of being, it's only anger that can be used for good. So if in a lower state of being, maybe anger can help. Wield it well.
... not like
shooting yourself in the foot, sowing division, conjuring enemies among allies, opposaming yourself into being the oppressor, undemocratically devaluing your fellow human kind...
Maybe we could turn mendwards?
... Might be handy to get some tools of mending, in that toolbox... otherwise, you'll just be hammering your allies any time they've an issue, until you've no allies left but the psychopathic circlejerk who had you frog-boil yourself, killed you with your compassion, contorted while your cognition was disabled in the moments of fear they managed to induce in you. It's so handy knowing about these ploys they do. From this more nuanced and nasty stuff, to the easier stuff to get, like "association". First step to recognising a trap, is awareness of its existence. "It must be a trap." "Then why are you still going!?" "I want to find out what kind of a trap it is."
Some say fight, in the broad sense, like in the broader sense of struggle against oppression. Some say it more acutely. Some get one thrown out with the other. Beware Embrace Extend Extinguish ploys. Beware inducements against your better principles. They invest billions and trillions in perverting your mind. So, oh yeah, I'm never not in the fight. But fight? I'd never let myself get played like that again. Also... It's way more powerful when you refuse to use their means, no longer affirming the validity of their means, now they're the ass-hole, attacking the innocant, and the whole crowd turns on them. Back into the pub. My exp.
Flouride skepticism? stops listening
The Kali Yuga shit is also a code word for alt right accelerationist shit.
XD Yeah... wouldn't want to listen to skepticism, huh. XD
You know, that's right. I'm skeptical about your comment being valid at all. That means you have to listen to me.
Rioting won't help anymore. The time for action was 40 years ago. We could maybe save humanity by killing almost everyone and subsisting the few remaining on a clean energy, no-fossil fuel burning, aggressive carbon recapture society. Beyond that, we are fucked.
Treat your continued existence like terminal cancer and try to live with purpose.
Fuck that, I'm not going down without a fight!
Then fight already, you're still going down.
Sounds like you already gave up, just like the billionaire fucks want you to do.
you're a minority
drill baby drill
clean coal
windmills are for losers
that's what the majority of you want and the message your people bring to the world
you're talking about a revolution but ignore the voice of the people
I'm not ignoring the voice of the people, I am of the people, and so are you. The media may parade around the types that support the billionaire agenda, but that doesn't mean we all, or even mostly feel this way. As things get worse, the group ofpeople that want to burn more oil will get smaller and smaller. Maybe never zero, but that's not necessary. We only need enough to galvanize support for a social mandate.
I have said this before, and I'll say it again, it's not the billionaires that are the problem. It's regular people making choices. Choosing the cheap or easy option instead of the environmentally friendly option.
The billionaires are bad, don't get me wrong, eat them for all I care, but their total environmental footprint is small in the context of the consumption of the larger population of this planet.
We all need to take responsibility for our individual choices if we want to have any impact in the world.
That doesn't mean a riot, it means eating less meat, taking more efficient transportation options, and getting rid of suburbs.
Improving those three things would change the world.
Edit: the number of people who don't want to take responsibility for their own actions because it's easier to blame others is the reason the world will burn.
no
The world will burn until people realize that simply blaming others does not fix the issue.
all you're doing is shifting blame. Read the other comments, their math lines up but yours doesn't. Go cry in your cybertruck
What math? Nobody else has posted math on my comments except me.
Yes, improve your impact, but fuck the rest.
Billionaires themselves are definitely more of an impact than your implying:
Billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the average person does in a lifetime
Also, they're making decisions for corporations that don't give one single shit about the world and do the most harm to everything in our lives. They are the "Greeds in Charge" GIC ^TM^
That article is trash. It implies that the carbon emitted by the companies they own is caused by the billionaires.
Amazon's carbon use is from the people buying shit, not from bezos himself.
You think bezos is somehow responsible for the plane emissions to fly that piece of shit plastic toy from China to your house?
Give your head a shake.
No it isn't. This is objectively false.
It's not. A billionaire could have 50,000x the use of the average and it still would be tiny. There are only about 4000 billionaires in the world.
4000 x 50000 = 200 million people worth
They would have to each be using 2 million times the average to even be half of the world usage.
Objectively they are not doing that.
You're right, it's that darn John Everyman and his at-home data center causing all the problems! Definitely not King Elon and his dozens of city-sized data centers!
Go do the math on Datacenter energy use. How much of Global Energy use do they account for (include all datacenters even).
I've done that math. It's fucking nothing at the scale of total human use. They are not the issue.
You haven't.
It's in my comment history. Feel free to pretend I didn't do it, but it doesn't change reality.
You’re not wrong but I think you miscalculate their carbon footprint when considering their political influence and operations / investments. Has to be where you’re getting down voted Like when oil lobbying gets the us gov to pull funding for renewable energy then yes the individuals that use that electricity are the end consumer but someone else’s greed made sure it didn’t come from a renewable source.
I think you miscalculate their footprint.
And even if someone forces your local electrical production to use fossil fuels there are still ways you can massively reduce your footprint both by saving money (not using it) and by replacing it with your own options by spending more (energy collectives, your own solar panels, etc.)
Even so, Electricity is not the largest share of energy use in the world, it's only around 30%. Most of it is direct use in industry, heavily in agriculture and transportation.
As I said before, eating less meat will save a massive amount of energy use.
Buying less shit also helps.
I don’t discredit individuals actions as the primary market force that drives industry what you seem to miss is it’s not local governments I’m talking about..
Giving examples seems to miss the forest for the trees here because you’re entrenched in your opinion and it has merit. Yes industrial agriculture,methane, people don’t realize 99% of 7 billion is basically 7 billion hungry breathing farting eating what’s cheap and taking the easy way out
But consider the ai boom that is driving markets mad causing supply shortages yada yada primary point isn’t so much that it’s the worst offender on the green house gas emissions list but the fact that 99% of people didn’t fucking ask for it lol but it’s happening anyway and effecting the world that’s the kind of market / political influence we’re talking about
When you shade that influence into a fraction of every individuals footprint they influence you realize whether you argue directly or indirectly they have a much larger impact than you give them credit for
Based on the last time I did the math a few months ago, and the projections of AI datacenter builds, they're expected to reach maybe 0.5% of total global energy use by 2030. HALF OF A PERCENT.
I don't know how even spreading that out matters at all. It's simply not a concern we should be focusing on until we solve things like meat production (15% of global energy use), transportation (something like 20% of global use), and more efficiency on systems like home and building heating (another 20-25%).
Sorry blame I can’t engage further I’m not arguing against anything you raise I’m only expressing the point that billionaires influence drives these (types of decisions) pick an industry they have a lobbying budget and misinformation campaign deployed like I understand that you’re talking concrete numbers regarding emissions in given industry but ignoring the movers and shakers at the big decision tables when you talk about market forces that incentivize change or business as usual.. you’re right we all need to change but refusing to acknowledge the existence of billionaires is an issue because I pick a lousy example? 😬
Also half a percent of global energy use for something 99% of people didn’t push to exist is more significant than you give it credit for
A billion people in the world are vegetarians, and yet 15% of the world's energy is going to Meat production. They didn't ask for meat production but there it is.
You also misunderstand what "push to exist" really boils down to. AI is being used by companies because it saves them money, people are buying the products from these companies. They could choose more expensive options that do not use AI, but they are not actually doing that.
By that same logic, people aren't responsible for the transportation and energy use for any industry, but without customers those industries would not exist and therefore their energy use wouldn't happen.
That's why it's individual responsibility that is causing this disaster, and people putting their head in the sand and blaming billionaires does not help that.
How exactly does an individual do the last two? Choosing mass transit when it's available and practical makes sense, but what if there isn't any? Which it tied to the last one, modern sprawl is why options are a rarity logistically and cost-wise, and how do you undo that?
Either change the local policies around transportation through local government, or move somewhere more sustainable.
You choose where you live, and your participation your local politics and economy.
People say they don't have a choice, but people move away for a better life all the time.
Some people can. Generalization like that ignores what some people are born into, and blames them when they can't break out of it.
Everyone can change if pushed hard enough. Would you just die if a natural disaster wiped out your entire city/state and you were forced to relocate elsewhere? No, you would not. So it's clearly possible.
We can govern the relatively few billionaires or try to govern the behavior of billions of people. I think the needs of the many should outweigh the greed of the few billionaires.
Strictly speaking, we only have to govern the billionaires if we don't just eat them...so it's kind of a run-off between how easy to govern they decide to be, and how they taste...
(This is solely meant to humorous, officer, your honor.)
My dog has bit a few. She indicates they all taste like chicken. Same as a rattlesnake.
Go ahead, but it won't matter. As I said, they don't make up the bulk of the pollution.