My fiance and I are doing it ourselves. It's a tiny house and he has a few years of construction experience. We had to learn a lot on the fly, but it hasn't collapsed yet! Seriously though I bet you can do it, especially with a few mates.

So apparently amateur tunneling can be addictive. Check out tunnel girl Engineer Kala on TikTok if you want to lose your mind on a modern example. William Lyttle is the reining champ; he dug tunnels for fun for 40 years. Destabilized his house, caused sinkholes around town, connected with a rail line.

Gee wiz y'all why didn't we just all think of that?! Then we could all do the same thing! Obviously this is stupid to the point of making me wonder if it's a troll.

But I know a lot of people wonder, how do we fix this when we literally can not vote our way out of it? I see only one easy avenue; create alternative systems for housing, food, and energy. We can start small and fragmented, but then grow as things collapse. Keep voting , but learn how to grow food. Buy land with friends and family. Reuse, repurpose, thrift from nonprofits, post things for free on craigslist. Do what you can until you can or must do more.

I wonder if it's like a translation thing? I bet individuals in these groups don't speak the local language but have a translator. Maybe the translator is too deferential and won't actually translate orders properly so as not to offend their clients. Just pulling a guess out my bum; anyone with real experience know?

Yes, and they are being bribed just like our politicians were

If any labor were truly unskilled; you could come in day one and perform as well as those who'd been at it for 10 years. I can't think of one thing where that is the case. Does anyone still test if food has been poisoned by eating it first? Little skill, but man if so that person definitely deserves a good wage.

You literally are not doing any labor, and are not getting paid. Is that supposed to be a gotcha?

And women and Black folks and Muslims and refugees and environmentalists and disabled people and journalists and subcontractors...

I don't totally disagree, but he's a straight white man who is really wonky/can dive into the weeds of legislation and is affable. He has a potentially broad appeal with the coasts and Midwest.

You really think those massive, experimental water tanks won't require more maintenance, because you have to trim trees once ever few years? Or because their roots might grow too much?

Don't worry, they definitely won't go that route of helping everyone a lot when they could help their people just a little.

These jobs you are speaking of--washing cars, mowing lawns, even kids working in their parents' store--do you think that is the same as working for a multinational conglomerate handling food with no breaks and minimum wage?

I have a PhD and wrote an article (that no one will ever read) obliquely criticizing Trump and every once in a while I wonder if that is what will get me shot.... but it will probably be the pipe bombs.

I really appreciate your call to do something. I personally don't think we can vote our way out of this, but we all need to do something. Anything. Whatever we can and feel called to do. This isn't the dress rehearsal.

Some violence will be inevitable; but the real power will be when masses of us pull out of the system. Quit your job or work less. Don't make money, dont spend money, buy only what you need second hand or local. Grow your own food, make your own clothes. Don't pay taxes or pay for local permits if you can get away with it. You can help starve the beast so that others might slay it.

What work can we do to get that system? We aren't allowed to vote for it and neither party is interested in more competition. French-style protests might work, but our list of grievances is so long. We'd have to unite under something big...it just all feels like a long shot for our society.

Thank God I thought it was just me!

The solution is to keep some people from setting the ship on fire for a few more years, while we build lifeboat communities with alternate care systems so that we can withdraw our money and labor from the sinking ship system in a more gradual way that minimizes global and local pain and suffering and death.

Same issue with the big bang, since we don't know what created it. I personally believe that God is the universe. The universe manifested itself...somehow...and to me that makes it as close to God as we can get. I hope that the universe is conscious, and that our consciousnesses goes back into the big thing at the end. My evidence is experiential; an excellent acid trip 😉. I do wonder what atheists experience when they trip...