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.
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.
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.
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.
This topic is well covered in The Alt-Right Playbook: The South Bank of the Rubicon:
When death is no longer the worst alternative, there will be revolution.
- my favorite high school history teacher
We wait until the day after it’s too late
Historically speaking, the riots start when the bread runs out.
But they could eat cake…?
9 meals away
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.
Why don’t they just eat cake then?
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.
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!
As if half of us don’t survive on cheerios and chicken nuggies
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually you just need 3 years of back to back major crop failures… And then the cannibalism starts.
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.
Too late
It’s literally already too late.
… not that billionaires should see no consequence, but… what consequence are you going to make them see?? They’ve ALREADY ruined the planet.
I heavily disagree with this sentiment. Go work with your local conservation groups if you feel hopeless about the environment, God knows they need the help. You’ll be doing something useful and see that recovery and adaptation is possible. Endangered species can rebound, damaged ecosystems can recover, and societal views about our obligations to each other and the planet can change.
You can disagree all you want, but reality will show you what you’re fucking with.
It’s too late EXACTLY BECAUSE you are not a billionaire.
It’s okay to say you find working outdoors difficult, you don’t have to have a public doom spiral.
lol your snark will not save you, and that’s hilariously pathetic. Of you. You won’t be spared.
They are building bunkers because they know it’s going to happen
we saw how quickly the planet started to heal during covid. It’s not too late
Not to mention that the people that have put us in this mess would love nothing more than for us to throw our hands up and say it’s too late to do anything about it.
who said anything about saving the world? you good?
lol global warming DIRECTLY SHOWS that it’s too late… but you go off on how you fucking idiots will save the world…
Call it Pascal’s Wager if you like, but if it’s not too late to do anything, me doing my part, however small, will help, and if it is too late, my efforts won’t make it worse.
I’m not saying, “don’t do anything”. In fact, I mean to say you should be MORE pissed off.
These cretins are STILL fucking up the world EVEN MORE, yet you’re just here whining about it… Fucking sad.
Look at this guy, doing his fair share by being a total dick
Your disbelief will never save humanity. The fact my obvious opinion was downvoted so far only speaks to how utterly FUCKED we are as a species, because most of you fucking worms are too stupid to understand the scale of this problem.
You shouldn’t be angry at me, but at all the corporations and billionares constantly fucking the planet even harder. Yet here you are, grandstanding on my account. Genuinely, pathetic.
It can still get much worse and it makes sense to put a limit to that.
If you don’t want to help then you should get out of the way and not hinder the ones that do. I’m sorry you’ve adopted a defeatist mentality, but I’m still willing to try, and I think you should be too.
Who says I’m not? I’m just doing things I cannot speak of, because I don’t want to be on any more watchlists than I am… and no, the fediverse IS NOT anonymous enough.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Go ahead, but it won’t matter. As I said, they don’t make up the bulk of the pollution.
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.
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.
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.
Looking at Gen-Z protests around the world, it’s kinda already started, though the success rate/level in each case may be an issue. But yeah, for the US specifically I’ve been amazed things haven’t really escalated to the same level yet outside of maybe Jan 6 and even that was running in the wrong direction
It should be all of us. The far right idiots can band together to protect a pedophile, we can’t fight for the planet?
Well, when the working class is organized enough to do it, so organize.
That’s literally why I made this post.
Hey OP here’s a song that matches this post. (seriously it’s so fucking hard core everyone needs to give it a listen)
If the sun vaporized one day And the moon just faded away Would we still, keep going on At this pit of the mining pace
Should the birds fall to the ground And the fish die of thirst Would we still keep on living The way it’s always been
Now if the air could burn my lungs And the earth were only rocks Would it make us stop and realize That we rot, that we can’t go on like this
Devil, oh, devil Why don’t you tell me why I’m a slave in these desperate times
In this time that we could almost choose The color of our children’s eyes Can we still, keep going on living When the monster turns on us
Before the sun doesn’t rise one day, huh And the moon just dies away There is one thing (What?) One thing what, uh That we’ll never change Is that we’re only learning to survive You might also like Microcyte Beast (CAN) Mr. Hurricane Beast (CAN) Total Eclipse of the Heart Bonnie Tyler Devil, oh, devil Why don’t you tell me why I’m a slave in these desperate times
If the sun vaporized one day And the moon just faded away Would we still, keep going on At this pit of the mining pace
Should the birds fall to the ground And the fish die of thirst And the earth were only rocks Would we still keep on living The way it’s always been
Now if the air could burn my lungs And the earth were only rocks Would it make us stop and realize That we can’t go on like this
Devil, oh, devil Why don’t you tell me why I’m a slave in these desperate times
Devil, oh, devil Why don’t you tell me why I’m a slave in these desperate times
Another relevant song - Would You Be Impressed? - Streetlight Manifesto
Would you be upset if I told you we were dying?
And every cure they gave us was a lie?
Oh, do they mean it when they say we’re dead and doomed
And every single symptom brings us closer to the tomb
And who will take the credit for our swift impending fall?
Because it’s not my fault!
Would you be impressed if I said that the dead would help us counting every single moment that we waste our time?
All this time we’re spending vaccinating this disease, I just get dizzy when I think of all the ways we try to hide our maladies
We wine, we dine, and everything is fine
Because it’s not my fault!
Go now, the others they’ll await you
And every single one of the lot of you will have your turn
Ai! Ai! Ai! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
Likes moths that fly into the flame, it always ends up so
You’ll scream, “Not me! Take anybody else, because it’s not my fault!”
I had a dream last night where everyone was trying
Subconsciously I knew it was a lie!
And when I woke I knew that it was time to pray
To make amends before the end, before my judgment day
I looked around, I stood alone and I knew what I had to say
I said “It’s all my fault!”
I like, “Die Ärtzte - Deine Schuld”. Translated the lyrics are “It’s not your fault that the world is how it is; it would only be your fault if it stayed that way.” It gives me a little hope that even if they don’t know what to do, other people feel similarly.
My suggestion to OP would be to collect a few friends and contact your congress people together, mow your elderly neighbors lawn, volunteer somewhere. We need to unite the working class. People who already struggle to eat, won’t ever be ready to discuss the philosophy of social/political change until we give them a hand up Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs. Mamdami is having success in New York by meeting people where they’re at and proving he can do shit by solving neighborhood issues and stuff that affect normal people. Now he has cred with those people.
Rioting won’t help anymore. The time for action was 40 years ago. We could maybe save humanity by killing almost everyone and subsisting the few remaining on a clean energy, no-fossil fuel burning, aggressive carbon recapture society. Beyond that, we are fucked.
Treat your continued existence like terminal cancer and try to live with purpose.
Fuck that, I’m not going down without a fight!
Then fight already, you’re still going down.
The problem is that we still want to live through it.
In our imaginations it’s everyone rising up against tyranny and oligarchy and demanding a better world. It’s us seeing the change happen and getting to that better world. We want the world to be better because we want better. We want a fair chance to own a nice home and live a decent life without constant worry. We want to be able to afford basic health care. To not be forced to pay thousands of dollars for ‘health insurance’ and then still be hit with hundreds of thousands in bills if we actually have a serious medical issue. To be able to go to a hospital for one night to give birth to a child without ending up $10k in debt for doing it. We want to know that justice exists and the people in power aren’t raping and murdering kids and then laughing when we demand justice. That they aren’t throwing poor people who can’t afford to defend themselves in for-profit prisons for crimes they didn’t commit so they can be used for slave labor.
We want to live, and to have life be something we enjoy and love instead of endless struggle and stress. We want to see the change happen, to experience how amazing and different things can be.
We want to live through it.
Most of us aren’t willing to die for it. To walk away from every thing you have, right now. Every belonging, every relationship. To stand up and walk away from all of it expecting to never see any of it again. Expecting to die. But willing to do that to make the world a better place for other people. For your children, or their children.
It’s common to hear people saying they don’t have or want kids because of the state of things we all hate so much. Making the world a better place for your children is one of the biggest reasons people are motivated to give up their own lives to force a rotten system to change.
We want deaths like Alex Pretti and Renee Good suffered to stop. We don’t want to be the next people at the wrong end of the gun.
Revolutions aren’t without cost. Usually very high cost. It takes a lot of people being willing to die, expecting to die, planning to die, and deciding that it’s worth it just for the chance to make things better for the future.
No revolution ever fixes everything. There are still problems and injustices and wrongs after every one of them. There is no guarantee that you standing up and walking out of your entire life, to go fight the system and die, will change anything at all. It might not work. Enough other people might not stand up for it to make even a tiny difference. Even if enough people do, it might not end up in a very big difference in the end. There’s a chance that it could cause big changes. That a lot of the worst parts of today would actually improve. But that’s only a chance, while there’s a complete guarantee that it would never lead to some idyllic utopia where everything is all batter.
You will almost definitely die. You won’t even know if it makes any difference in the end. All you’ll have is that hope that maybe it will, and maybe things will really be better for future generations.
Are you actually ready? Are you standing up, moncharleskey? It’s easy to type. It’s not easy to do. The answer to what you’re waiting for it simple. You’re waiting for you to decide that the mere chance, the hope, that in rising up and almost certainly dying for it you will manage to make a difference and make the world a better place is worth walking away from your entire life and expecting to die.
Until you hit that point inside, until you’re willing to stand up on the spot and give away your own life, you will keep sitting.
I am ready, I’ve been ready, but I’m not going to pull some lone wolf bullshit that gets me killed and leave my wife and kids to deal with the fallout. The bigger question here is are you ready? I need allies. Are you one, or are you another complacent?
No, not at any initial stage. Primarily because I have two dogs who need me to take care of them and make sure they have the best life possible. While that remains the case I’d definitely be willing to join up with a large movement that was happening and assist in ways that seemed unlikely to end in my death.
Holding on to my life for the moment in order to give my girls the best life I can is more important to me than exchanging it for the chance to help other humans. I like them more than I like most people. They are furry balls of pure love, and deserve to have a life where that’s returned to them. Humans are more hit or miss. We’re harder to deal with and it’s never as free from drama and baggage.
Before they were abandoned with me it would have been a different situation, with a different answer. I’ve certainly considered things that would end in me dead or in prison for life and had them be the main reason I knew I couldn’t do those things.
In a lot of ways being in prison isn’t nearly as bad as people imagine. If you’re not a total sack of shit and you’re willing to stand up for yourself and show that if necessary then that test only comes once for most people. After that it’s mainly boredom and lack of possessions and good food.
If you go to prison a hero, one most people inside would see that way too, it’s a much different situation. People on the outside can send in care packages of food and clothing and a TV, tablet, etc. If you have money you can rent movies on the tablet, or subscribe to a lower end monthly streaming service (think paying $20/mo to access Pluto.tv), have nice head phones and streaming music, sometimes even have access to video game systems and games.
You can only get so many packages sent in under your name per year… but if tons of people on the outside want to send you things it’s simple to have them send them in the names of other inmates who don’t have anyone sending them packages. You hook them up with some stuff and the bulk of it is yours. If you go down for the sort of thing Luigi is down for where everyone inside respects the fuck out of it and plenty of people on the outside support you and you’re never going to be hurting for good food and entertainment and any books you’d like to read, and any drugs you’d like to take.
For instance if someone took out a fat old racist child rapist and managed to survive their capture and make it to prison? Absolute celebrity. You’d probably never even get tested to defend yourself, because plenty of people on the inside watch the news. Nothing much to do. You’d be known as soon as you walked in, and there’d already be a lot of people who would beat the ass of anyone who tried to touch you or take from you.
But… puppies are love, and they deserve that back. Plus puppy kisses, long walks to sniff things, tug-of-war, and treats, and wrastlin’, and cuddles. My family can’t feed itself without me, and sending them to a shelter near here would likely be a death sentence. I’m fine with sacrificing me, but not them.
Its when people have nothing to lose.
