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.
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.
You can take down 22 cameras every week with a drone.
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 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 guess 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.
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.
. I would say they doing as much as people and industries are letting them.
Kind of true, but industries are working to slow the transition down like working against modernising the electric grid.
This is what “best effort” gets us right now.
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.
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.
People hated seat belts and life jackets.
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.
Sometimes the government has to operate against the will of some people for the good of all people.
“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.
Historically speaking, the riots start when the bread runs out.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.
That sounds like plenty of reason to start a riot!
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.
As if half of us don’t survive on cheerios and chicken nuggies
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.
But they could eat cake…?
Why don’t they just eat cake then?
if you are ml it’s a constant riot
I’m hear it’s popular to go to spain if that happens.
@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.
9 meals away
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.
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.
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.
but their total environmental footprint is small in the context of the consumption of the larger population of this planet.
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.
I’ve done that math.
You haven’t.
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.
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
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.
We wait until the day after it’s too late
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.
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.
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.
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.
You just gave them more reasons to deny UBI.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Life goes on…
… until it doesn’t.
or, one could say life goes on even in mad max world
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.
Well, for one, stop posting about it online if you’re actually going to do something.
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.
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
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?
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.
But think how moderation is actually a tool to destroy creativity, originality and effort.
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
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?
For what it’s worth, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
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
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.
There’s no winning anyone over or changing minds if you’re not there to speak.
I totally agree.
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.
This is a valuable idea. How can we grow it?
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.
- InfoWars has it right by laying out a massive all-onion buffet, but man is that a tough watch.
Good points. I think the biggest obstacle is that these require reliable structures from voluntary engagements.
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 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.
:::
