The Collapse Will Not Be Televised

With Audio from Gil Scott-Heron.  Text from Jessica Wildfire.

'The revolution will not be televised, and the collapse will not be televised.


Jessica Wildfire

Most people think social collapse happens fast.

They've seen too many movies.

No, it's slow.

The world can't produce enough diesel anymore. We can barely produce enough fossil fuels in general. We still rely on oil for pretty much everything. We need it for fertilizer. We need it to run supply chains. We need it to extract the raw resources for our solar panels and windmills.

Without it, we're screwed.

People seem to be living in a general state of dread and anxiety, with fake smiles plastered over everything they say and do. It's not because they're planning for the worst. It's because they still don't know how bad it's going to get or how fast. Nobody will give them a straight answer.

Well, here it is:

You don't need to worry about an overnight collapse. There's plenty of warning signs, all around us. Look at what happened this year. Wildfire smoke filled our cities, and then our cities flooded. In New York, water was gushing from walls and ceilings. Sewers backed up into people's homes. It was disgusting. It was gross. It was incredibly uncomfortable.

They still had to go to work.

You don't need to worry about a surprise famine.

You'll know it's coming.

All the food isn't going to suddenly disappear from the shelves. It's just going to keep getting more and more expensive. You'll have to adjust your diet, until one day you're eating beans and noodles.

You won't be doing it by choice.

You'll be doing it because that's all you can afford, or all you can find. There's going to be rashes of panic buying and hoarding along the way. Idiots are going to fill their garages with rice and let it go bad. They're going to hoard gas, without realizing that it also goes bad eventually.

You'll get to see parts of the collapse on your phone, as long as your state decides not to ban your social media apps.

Nobody is going to go on the news and tell you that society is collapsing. They're not going to report the scariest stuff. They're going to keep shifting the goalpost. You can already see it happening. The news isn't talking about limiting global warming to 1.5C anymore. They're not talking about net zero 2050 anymore. Now it's about keeping things under 2 or 3C.

Now it's 2070.

You know who owns the newspapers. You know who owns the television stations. It's the elite. They want everyone to panic just enough to support ad revenue. They don't want anyone to act on their survival instincts. They don't want anyone to demand any serious changes.

They like all of this.

The rich own our government. They own the left. They own the right. There's this thing called the Overton window. It refers to the spectrum of acceptable political opinions in public discourse. Maybe you've noticed how far to the right the whole thing has shifted over the last couple of years. Nobody talks about universal healthcare anymore. Nobody talks about universal basic income anymore. You're lucky if you're allowed to strike.

Life will get awful long before people start killing each other over the last hotdog. Rents and mortgages will keep going up. Adults with full careers will be forced to take on a roommate or even two roommates. Poverty and homelessness will rise every year. Everyone will be working two or three jobs.

Fewer and fewer people will get married or have kids. Instead, they'll opt for parasocial relationships with celebrities.

They'll get AI girlfriends and boyfriends.

They'll find it easier.

Fascists will exploit everyone's economic desperation. They'll cycle between a list of scapegoats, trading blame for political power. They'll pass evermore draconian laws while singing about their freedoms.

Consumer debt will keep growing.

Homes will sit empty. Nobody will be able to afford them. Nobody will be able to insure them. Banks won't let them go.

Child labor will make a comeback. It's already happening. The elite want 14-year-olds serving beer. They want them in meat packing plants. They're going to work kids to death, just like they worked their parents to death.

Devastation will exist on the periphery until it finally comes for them personally. Different places will deal with different problems. In a few years, cities in the west won't be able to keep up with the energy demand from everyone blasting their air conditioners. There's going to be brownouts and blackouts. Climate scientists have already told us that in places like Phoenix, a bad heatwave coupled with grid outages could hospitalize half the population.

Neighborhoods are already starting to fight over water.

Cities are already running out of it.

The militarization of the police will continue. It doesn't matter who's in charge. Liberals are funding the police now, and the police are building cop cities everywhere, even in the middle of forests.

They're getting ready.

The spectacles will be the last thing to go. As society collapses, the rich will work overtime to supply everyone with a constant stream of distraction and entertainment. They'll encourage everyone to keep eating out, shopping, and watching movies no matter what virus is spreading. A growing number of people will be too braindead and emotionally numb to resist.

The concerts aren't going to stop. The football games aren't going to stop. The movies aren't going to stop. The elite will keep all of that going as long as possible, no matter the cost. That's what convinces everyone that everything's okay. If that ended, people would have to stop and pay attention to what's happening. They would actually feel how hot it is.

They would feel the despair.

They might do something.

The elite realized something in 2020. They realized that if you allow people to feel emotions and take care of each other, it kills profits. The system of predatory capitalism is one of sacrifice. It demands cheap, expendable labor. Without that, everything starts to crumble. It's going to crumble anyway, because in the end humans are not an ever renewable resource.

The elite probably know all of this.

That's why they keep building bunkers and yachts. It's why they keep forcing everyone back to work while they telecommute. They plan to keep their distance from us. They're not trying to stop the collapse.

They're trying to manage it.

They have every intention of leveraging heat waves, floods, diseases, and crop failures to their benefit. They plan to let natural disasters do the heavy lifting of thinning out the world population while they sit back and sip champagne. Every year, they gather in places like Davos to talk about building robots to replace us, or sticking computer chips in our brains. There's no conspiracy here. It's just a bunch of people with the same general worldview.

It's called mutual interest.

It's going to be kind of like Soylent Green. It's going to be kind of like The Road. It's going to be kind of like The Parable of The Sower.

It's going to be kind of like Idiocracy.

Nobody's going to warn you.

It's just going to happen.

Slowly.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 05, 2023, 11:18 AMIt's just going to happen.

Slowly.

I have absolutely ZERO argument against any of this rant, and anyone who does IMHO is either willfully ignorant or as incredibly stupid as they have been taught to be through the public school system.  I happened to be lucky enough to actually get a good education, because when I went to the NYC Public Schoolls they functioned as a sieve to find genetically gifted kids and track them all with finer and finer mesh until only the smartest of the smart kids got into Stuyvesant, or just below Bronx HS of Science and down further to Brooklyn Tech.  3 true college prep schools that were as good or better than the most expensive private boarding schools in Amerika, or England.  Schools like Phillips Andover, Exeter and Choate.  Only Stuyvesant did better than Andover, and won more of the Westinghouse 1st Place Award for Science or Math achievement.

To get there, in elementary school you had 3 tracks, 4-1,4-2 & 4-3 when I rejoined the system after my time in Brasil.  Only 4-1 track students tested 4 the Special Progress program in JH, where you could either do 7-8-9 with "enhanced curriculum", or 7-9 i you wanted to get it over with faster.  In 9th grade you were tested yet again for the 5 "Magnet" HS, which besides the 3 mentioned included HS of Music & Art and HS for the Performing Arts (the school made famous by the "Fame" film).  That is 5 out of 571 public high schools, or of course, slightly under 1%.  Surprised?

In later years these tracks were eliminated in favor of "mainstreaming", which mixed smart kids and stupid kids, special needs kids, behavioral problems like ADHD treated with meds all together in one classroom, and nothing got done.  Why?   Because by 1990 at the latest they no longer needed to grow the elite caste from the ranks of the poor and middle class any more.  In fact they had too many engineers and scientists and college professors already.

The only thing I quibble with a bit is the definition of "slow".  In terms of the human lifespan maybe, but in Civilization terms, very fast.  You can peg Industrial civilization to beginning with the Steam Engine around 1750, so 270 years to get up to here.  If it takes 50 years to get back to the equivalent 1750 level I'll be surprised.  In 100 years, if there are people living at H-G level, that will be a good outcome.

RE

Right on cue.  The elite further dummification of public education, as if it isn't bad enough already.

Of course, there really isn't any need for much math past counting to 10 on your fingers moving forward into the future, so why bother teaching it?  Anyhow, it's been decades since any kids graduating 6th grade could add without using the calculator of their smartphones, so teaching algebra in high schools is a hopelessly frustrating task even if the HS Math teacher managed a C and passed it herself, so lets forget it and keep the kids entertained somehow. 

Paywall warning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/california-math-framework-algebra/675509/

California's Math Misadventure Is About to Go National

RE

Quote from: RE on Oct 06, 2023, 12:55 PMRight on cue.  The elite further dummification of public education, as if it isn't bad enough already.

Of course, there really isn't any need for much math past counting to 10 on your fingers moving forward into the future, so why bother teaching it?  Anyhow, it's been decades since any kids graduating 6th grade could add without using the calculator of their smartphones, so teaching algebra in high schools is a hopelessly frustrating task even if the HS Math teacher managed a C and passed it herself, so lets forget it and keep the kids entertained somehow. 

Paywall warning.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/california-math-framework-algebra/675509/

California's Math Misadventure Is About to Go National

RE

The girls' school is in the process of reverting to basics. Whole language models and new math is out. It's hit and miss with the teachers though. Last year they both had hard core math teachers so it was long division, adding on paper, multiplications tables; basically what I learned as a kid. This year one of the teachers is in that mold the other is more word problem oriented. We drill them on multiplication tables and adding and subtracting in their heads. These things come in waves, hopefully yours retreats soon.

The closing sentence of the article stuck with me.

QuoteWhen only the children of families with resources beyond the public schools are gaining preparation for the lucrative degrees and secure jobs of the future, public education is failing in a primary duty.

In the future, the elite once again have it all.  Mediocrity and poverty is what the bourgeois want for everyone but themselves.  The pie shrinks.  Music plays and chairs are taken unnoticed while everyone is consumed with dance.

There is contradiction in what people think the primary duties of education are.

The Atlantic author, a member of the professional managerial class attempts to use logic against a document that advocates exactly what the rulers of California desire.  A long document that promotes republican ideals.  Will logic work?



I think not.  The Overton window moved.  Education is not prized as it was.  And everyone thinks they know everything.

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 06, 2023, 05:15 PMAnd everyone thinks they know everything.

Except I am the only person who actually DOES know everything about everything. lol

Quote from: NFThese things come in waves, hopefully yours retreats soon.

Unlikely.  Having experienced the Public School system as both a student and 20 years later as a teacher, and in between first got my university education at an elite Ivy league university, then returned to get the education credential thru NYS public SUNY university system and the NYC CUNY system, I have seen nothing besides a steady downward slide in the methods and goals set by the system to bring the students to a "successful" outcome of HS graduation after 12th grade at the approximate age of 18-19. Besides gobbeldygook junk revisions like New Math (now deja vu new all over again), you had the manifestly stupid "No Child Left Behind" program implemented nationwide at the federal level during the Bush1 era with mandated testing and goal for every grade level and every school district to meet.  How can this be accomplished?  You dumb down the tests so a chimpanzee can pass them.  Nobody fails, nobody gets left back, problem solved!

It is inherently impossible to achieve this maintaining a fixed standard, because regardless of "nurture" (aka education), "nature" (aka genetic intelligence) means every kid has a best possible outcome.  To make a physical analogy easier to grasp, every boy can play PeeWee league football, most can play club football in elementary school, fewer can play JV football and fewer still Varsity football in HS, especially in Texas where its more important than the NFL.  Very few can play Collegiate football, especially for a Division 1 NCAA team, and for ALL boys who ever held a Pigskin on the Gridiron, only a microscopic few can play in the NFL.  Maybe that number is .0001%, WAG.

What No Child Left Behind purports to mean is every kid can play on the HS Football team at least, but in reality most boys can go no further than PeeWee or Club teams.  That's why kids used to leave school after 3rd or 6th or 9th grade rather than go further, because it just got too hard, and they didn't need it for the jobs their class of people had available.  The plum jobs were only open to the Elite, including a Commision as an Officer on enlistment to the military, which required a Bachelors degree + ROTC training here in the FSoA.  During the Vietnam War, they needed more Officers and college was a way to delay being drafted, which is when more public universities popped up along with private ones cheaper than the Elite & 2nd & 3rd tier schools built slowly up beginning with Harvard in the 1600s, then Yale etc followed, + 2nd tier like Duke and Notre Dame for the sons (not daughters early on) of the elite members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.  To be fair, Harvard etc were all male as well into the 1950s or so, girls had Barnard, Vassar, Mt.Holyoke etc.

So, if you want to use the wave analogy, is it's more like a Tsunami which rolls in successive building waves until the wave big enough to roll in over the people living in the lowest lying areas drown, while the folks living in Mansions at the top of the hill wave goodbye to them as they get washed out to sea.

Now New Math, circa 1965.  Courtesy of Harvard Math Professor and Folk Singer Tom Leherer.



RE

Wasn't sure where to classify this post ... but since the video title matches the subject title, my head scratching is over 

This does not qualify for "The Game" ... it's a little too tame and does not state things in a penis-goes-into-vagina way such that it would frame the big picture adequately enough, but hey ... it's still progressively adding to the zeitgeist.

From Al Jazeera of all places !   



P.S.
As I recall, RE had a run-in with some Reddit r/Collapse moderators , perhaps not this one, but I'm sure it'll stir up some fond memories ... 

I am getting sick of hearing about the five tech 'bros' who flew the dude in to talk about prepping. 

I hope there are a few cannibals left when the bros come out of the bunker.  If I am one of them I hope I have salt and pepper.

Years ago prepping did not taste as bad as it does now.  Doom was essentially, unknown so divorcing yourself from the ignorant herd and trying to stay alive was fine.  Now my opinion is different.  I understand it is my opinion, but prepping now seems to me like you are turning your back on everyone else.  If a community is prepping together, that is different.

The people in this video are consumers of doom.  Not much understanding of why doom has become a thing.

The vicious circle of late stage capitalism:  With new technology you solve the problems you created by using old technology, and you do it by doing things the same way you already did.

* Everybody here is participating.  That is not the same thing as scrolling.

Quote from: UnhingedBecauseLucid on Feb 18, 2024, 03:38 AMP.S.
As I recall, RE had a run-in with some Reddit r/Collapse moderators , perhaps not this one, but I'm sure it'll stir up some fond memories ... 

It probably would, if I watched the video, but I'm not a surfer of Doomer websites and videos anymore.  I still follow the newz on my own and make my own analysis, but I'm not much interested in what others are doing in response to it.  Definitely not interested in Reddit r/collpse, which was loaded with its own set of self appointed arbiters of truth in doom and quite heavy handed with the censorship and ban buttons.

Quote from: K-DogYears ago prepping did not taste as bad as it does now.  Doom was essentially, unknown so divorcing yourself from the ignorant herd and trying to stay alive was fine.  Now my opinion is different.  I understand it is my opinion, but prepping now seems to me like you are turning your back on everyone else.  If a community is prepping together, that is different.

I'm no longer a prepper myself since at this point I barely have an existence worth living, and once things fall apart mine is a wasted mouth to feed.  Better I am carved up for dinner by the care givers here while there is still meat on my bones.  I desire nothing more these days than a quick and painless death, scraping to stay alive holds no appeal for me.  Survivalism is for the young and healthy, not the old and crippled.

However, I see nothing wrong with younger and healthier people prepping up individually.  On course there are inequities there, since the richer you are, the more you can afford in the way of preps right up to a fortified bunker and private army.  These folks have an advantage going in, but it lasts only for as long as they can maintain the loyalty of those who surround them.  Right now that loyalty can be bought with money, in time only real leadership will buy loyalty.

Below that lofty stratosphere of tech barrons though, prppers who have stores of food in the basement are fine, they'll either share them or they'll be robbed, killed and eaten themselves.  Weapons are fine too, since they'll be needed for protection, but those will last only as long as the ammo does.  Ask the Ukrainians about that problem.

RE

Oh jeezus ... I've not much interest in prepping... I've no progeny to care about. I'll probably just  prep enough to see the "elite" 's smile turn into various expressions of anguish, fear and perhaps, lastly, humility, as their system comes crashing down. I'll probably erect a monument to their stupidity to; but that's about it. 

My interest in collapse is mostly just a fascination of the ... anthropological  kind.
At this point, my sole interest is the progressive penetration of the new reality into the society's collective consciousness and the evolution of this progression.