WTF is happening with the world

I think it’s the internet. Overexposure of information and stimulus about every conceivable issue, billions of voices and opinions and stray, intrusive thoughts fed directly into our eyeballs 24/7. It’s making people broadly lose track of reality or not really understand what’s actually important anymore.

This has had the effect of allowing the worst voices to gain power because those voices get shared more, both out of pushback and condemnation as well as support from niche groups.

Basically the information age is destabilizing society, the last couple decades have accelerated this process as capitalism has hijacked the entire system to algorithm advertising directly into your skull, so now attention spans are monetized and as a result, are being shortened further and further by competing forces.

And it’s been seen over and over in history that times of uncertainty and destabilization often come with a broad retreat from the social contract and a breed a large-scale attraction to authoritarianism and selfish motivations. Likely a survival response buried deep inside us as a way to survive famine and hard times.

Don’t worry, one way or another, it will end.

I knew exactly one BMW driver in my life, he was a marketing firm executive, looked like a character from Better Call Saul. I was in charge of marketing for a small company that I lied to about my qualifications and ended up a VP of marketing, so this guy comes roaring up one day and parks across two spaces in his BMW convertable, cigar in mouth, aviator shades, cheap suit and loud tie, he just always wanted to “make things happen.”

Absolute cartoon character. I have to say I kind of loved every interaction, it was like a recurring character on a sitcom.

Anyway, about all I remember was him complaining how hard it was to get the thing serviced and the wheels alone set him back the cost of another car.

I hated marketing, but I also hated the unemployment that followed when the housing market bubble burst and suddenly nobody had money anymore.

The BMW-driver stereotypes are real too.

This is already a shitshow of a comment section.

I wish people would stop debating “ages” of children and “cutoff points” and start talking how better to reduce suffering and trauma broadly.

Trump’s eponymous battleships will be armed with guns and missiles, as well as hypersonic weapons, electronic rail guns and high-powered lasers.

The lack of robots and sharks makes me worry he might be losing his touch entirely.

I’m pretty sure Tyson is just an old dude who wanted a check to retire on. He doesn’t seem to have the passion for fighting anymore, and I respect that. I don’t know if I would have lost to a giant asshole on international media for that check, but I don’t hold it against him for getting his bag.

People will compete for those negative awards to get famous.

Source: look at the fucking internet.

For now. If the trend continues across the globe those museums will be treated the way the US has been treating it’s “never forget” monuments, holidays and classroom curriculums.

That’s the neat part, you’re already in it!

It’s like when you try to shake people in a dream to get them to realize it’s a dream, but they’re not real so they just stare at you.

This is an overly simplified take on a potential coming tragedy, which is a rapid population collapse.

I’m not saying anywhere that we need constant growth or even stable population levels where it is now, we would absolutely do better with about half as many people on Earth.

But if that drop happens too fast, you have no idea how much harm and suffering it will do to society. We’re talking great-filter scenario where there’s simply not enough people to maintain the systems that deliver food to stores, maintenance supplies to the machines that keep your roads paved, antibiotics to impoverished nations, cornmeal to livestock and on and on and on.

And the left is broadly nodding on in agreement with the deranged fucking anti-natalists because we think it’s conservation. When right-wing people like Musk scream about birth rates and fertility, they’re using the coming problem to start seeding racist ideology around the problem and nobody seems to get what they’re doing.

South Korea is going to be one of the first major population centers that ends up with abandoned cities in a couple generations, the only short-term answer is open immigration, but it’s so dire in so many places that there won’t be anyone to enforce borders anyway.

This should NOT be painting a picture in your head of pastoral countrysides and empty cities where you can do all your reading. Think more in terms of millions of starving migrant families, children, lots and lots of elderly people, all walks of life, no resources being moved, no infrastructure being supported. Whole swaths of nations basically being amputated to consolidate manpower where it’s needed to maintain defense, and you better believe there will be wars.

You and people who raise this notion are all for rapid depopulation when you aren’t imagining it’s you dealing with the impact of billions of people not having enough resources. It sounds a bit entitled.

I think I’m going to trust the reporting from actual people in China over someone who’s moderation comment I can fucking SEE so don’t pretend shit around me. I will never see your stupid comments again.

How many humans should we aim to have, long term? 20 billion? 50 billion?

That’s not what this issue is about, this isn’t “pro-growth” this is about averting economic and logistical collapse across much of the developed world.

Sure, we could do with a reduced population, but it needs to be reduced slowly enough that we don’t see mass casualties and so that our infrastructure, production and logistics aren’t suddenly unmanned, or many, many people will suffer.

We have to understand that the argument for continued population upkeep is about stability not some desire to perpetually increase population. There’s not a sharp, two-sided binary here, the problem is that many, many people in the developed world are having either no kids or not enough to keep up with expected decline and longer lifespans. When we run out of young people to run our cities, our roads, our offices and our shipyards and rail systems, we end up with collapse.

Look into South Korea for a vision of the worst case and think about what will happen broadly when the same syndrome hits other major world powers and logistical hubs.

no… they canceled that

This shit is so easy to check before you click “reply” I have no idea why we can’t be asked to spend several seconds on a basic google search before spilling whatever is on our mind. You can hate China for whatever reasons, but let’s not share factually incorrect information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-child_policy

edit: why am I not at all surprised your mod history is filled with hate towards Asian people.

The solution is to pay workers enough so that the government doesn’t need to shift the burden of paying for children to those who don’t even have any.

I know you’re banned, and this comment tells me a lot about why that probably happened without me having to dig through the mod history.

This is some pro-capitalism slop even if you think it’s so far left it has tank treads. This is a surefire tactic to put a nation’s healthcare in the same situation the US is in now. Without a total reform of the entire economic foundation of a country, you are simply NOT fucking getting a government who will tax their wealthy to keep up with whatever the healthcare system is charging for their procedures.

This is why healthcare is more complicated than lopping off the heads of the elites and spreading that money. We have to make systems that ensure no single person or institution is left on the hook for figuring out what to charge or pay.

edit: the comment gets worse the more I reread it.

doesn’t need to shift the burden of paying for children to those who don’t even have any

This is the very fundamental principle of having healthcare, whether it’s private or public, it’s very expensive and resource-intensive to keep people broadly alive and healthy, you absolutely cannot start deciding who gets this funding and who doesn’t deserve it if you want a fair system, and it feels like everyone (people like you) really get bent out of shape about this right up until YOU are the special case who needs society to pool our resources to help you with your stupid problem. Then suddenly the “social contract” that made you so mad previously seems like a pretty good idea. FFS I am so fed up with narrow-minded children weighing in on shit they have no understanding of.

Sadly, when it comes down to it, children are necessary for society to function long-term.

It shouldn’t be sad, this is basic reality. We should love kids and want kids and pressure our own countries to make it easier to have families.

I am really getting worried that the left broadly is turning soft anti-natalist and there is no faster way to end your movement than by not having more people. I feel like “birth rates” and “fertility” are terms that we feel have been co-opted by the right because figures like Elon Musk and the manosphere bros.

China is thinking long-term and practical. If they lose their young work-force it won’t matter what those “other people” are doing or not.

Someone in China told me once that one of the biggest differences between China and Europe/USA is that in the west we think in terms of years or decades. In China they are making plans for the next several centuries.

This isn’t a glowing endorsement of the heinous shit China has done, but it should at least make you understand that this isn’t a social welfare program designed to help families as much as the first of many measures to fight the forces that are eroding the power and production capability of other countries. If you want to see how bad it can get, look into what the future holds for South Korea.

Nah fam you should probably wait until Trump dies, which won’t be much longer.

My point was only that a lot of the news is a little hyperbolic, you should check other sources to see exactly what people in your situation are facing, I ain’t passing out financial or travel advice, just providing perspective.

A couple points that media routinely skips right past because the current drama is great for clicks and views.

1. The current “escalation” of immigration hostility is only slightly more aggressive than it’s always been. Not counting the performative stunts ICE is doing in cities and neighborhoods, those are also just isolated cases that most people will never see in person, even ones who live in areas that have news reports showing fires and riots and standoffs… these kinds of things are happening in areas like, one square block at the most. Not downplaying it, but I do want people to have an accurate perspective.

2. And that percentage of bad cases and horror stories against tourists is very, very small to begin with. At least compared to the HUGE number of people flowing in and out of the country every hour. This is why the whole spectacle being played out by this administration is so ludicrous and pointless. More people were still deported under Biden. More people still stay in the country illegally just by overstaying their permits or travel visas. Most will never be caught or prosecuted.