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.
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.
Communication: Dm people that seem like they could help, or believe as you do. Grow your organization.
You need REAL LIFE communication. Not just dms, you need to TALK to people. Build a community in real life.
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.
Life goes on…
… until it doesn’t.
or, one could say life goes on even in mad max world
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.
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.
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.
One point,
When do we riot?
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.
There are more of us than them
This is no concern to those who can steer minds of masses. [Speaking as an ex-“one of those”.]
How
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.
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
[Speaking as an ex-“one of those”.] You’re not as ex as you think you are. post is still dripping with it
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 no concern to those who can steer minds of masses.
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”
Flouride skepticism? stops listening
Flouride skepticism? stops listening
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.
The Kali Yuga shit is also a code word for alt right accelerationist shit.
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.
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!
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
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 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.
This is a good approach, thank you for the suggestion.
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.
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.
Some places don’t have a lot of third spaces unfortunately
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.
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 :)
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.
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 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?
You’re asking people mostly disconnected from global affairs, buried under poor working conditions, trying to stay afloat and distracted from their own foibales, 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.
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.
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.
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.
10 years or so ago? Tomorrow?
Well, for one, stop posting about it online if you’re actually going to do something.
