One consumer problem now is lousy quality.Two new appliances ,a fridge and washer/dryer I purchased are falling apart after only 6 months. An Electrolux vacuum cleaner I inherited is still working after 30 years.We need to bring back quality then there will be less junk in landfill
At the end of his video, his suggestion of self-reliance is naive. Those who would survive a collapse are those who develop community-reliance. It is irrelevant to be self-reliant if there isn't a local system in place to support and protect you. You'd need a way of easily shift to local agriculture that would feed the entire local population, a system to ensure everyone's needs are taken care of to avoid social unrest and mob violence, and a militia to defend from potential outside threats.
It's interesting that you mention the militia aspect to this 'civilized society, which, for some unexplained reason, tends toward chaos and violence, as per this projection og of a 'civilized society'. Let's consider that the Pentagon in the US, admits to "losing" 6.5 Trillion dollars in the two decades. That's money that is UNACCOUNTED for, it doesn't yet include the money spent that HAS been accounted for, many, many trillions more!! They spend nearly a Trillion per year ON the books. So in the last 20 years, you can probably, safely say, the US military has spent at LEAST 20 TRILLION dollars on war or "defense" (except that they haven't exactly been attacked by any foreign nations). What do you think we would be able to do, in terms of solar energy collection, storage, tidal power generation, hydrogen production, etc. with TENTY TRILLION DOLLARS??!?!?!?!?!?!?! On Wikipedia, I found a figure that in 2005 the median personal income was $24,100 for people 18 or older. Today that is about $29,400. So the median person can expect to earn roughly $29,400*(78.7 year average lifespan) = $1.8 million per person. So in other words, you could employ about 11 million 'typical earners' for about 8 decades. Do you have any idea what 11 million people can build in 80 years???? What if we compressed that into 8 years and instead employed 100 million people for 8 years. What do you think 100 million people (roughly one third of the entire population of the United States of America) could build to help with clean energy and clean food production? If we have that many resources to put into war, I am sorry, but we do not have a food, water or energy shortage problem, we have an over-abundance of war problem!
You're assuming I'm a kind of person that I'm not. I don't particularly care about militias and militaries. In a perfect world, they wouldn't exist. My point is that if and when this civilization collapses or simply falls into mass social chaos (as happens eventually to every society), it won't be a fun and easy process for the survivors. That is reality, like it or not. Until then, we are dealing with a different kind of situation. I'd rather, like you, do something better with all that money we waste on military adventurism, expansionism, and oppression abroad. I'm the opposite of a war hawk. But this video and my response was about a hypothetical future, not the actual present. For the moment, that hypothetical future is irrelevant, except to the degree one wishes to prepare for it, although our present social order could continue long after we're all dead. I don't sit around fantasizing about post-apocalyptic worlds.
Ben Steele Actually Ben, I think your viewpoint is right on the money, considering the situation today. I am venting my frustration and also looking at a hypothetical. You are absolutely right, food production and self-sustenance would be something each and every one of us would have to take part in and we would need to cooperate with our neighbors if we want to survive in a major collapse. Although the powers that be don't truly want a total breakdown of society - they need us. If anything they will allow it temporarily, just to scare the living shit out of everyone and force them into accepting whatever "solution" will then be offered (since most people have no clue how to work together in a crisis, let alone how to survive on their own).
I do wonder about another possibility. What if we could move to another kind of society without all the extreme forms of breakdown? Technology is creating the possibility of doing much more as individuals and communities. We now have the ability at the small-scale local level to clean water, grow food (even in cities), produce energy, and even make basic products (3D printers, laser cutters, along with all the old tools). None of this is a speculative vision of the future. We could do it right now. But it will take time for these technologies to become more available to the general public. Those who want to maintain power will do their best to obstruct this from happening (i.e., laws against collecting rainwater).
@Accelerationist Mob violence includes the Regulator movement, the Boston Tea Party, American Revolution, Shays' Rebellion, Civil War, West Virginia Coal Wars, 1919 Red Summer, Tulsa race massacre, Battle of Athens, Bundy standoff, 2015 Waco biker gang shootout, Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and on and on. We might also include organized violence such as that done against family planning clinics and staff, although much of it was committed by individuals. That is an interesting thing with other violence committed by the political right, sepcifically whites --- it's so often a lone actor or small group. Think of the major acts of terrorism such as the Oklahoma City bombing. But that isn't always the case, as many other examples show. Even during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, poor whites also rioted in their own neighborhoods in response to the police abuse they had also experienced. There is nothing new about direct action, including violence, in American history. Most of it, in fact, has been committed by whites and not always poor whites. The Bundy family and their supporters weren't poor. Yet the media doesn't tend to portray such violence and threat of violence in the same way. Why?
"moving away from these centralized systems and bringing things back to the local"--no, that does not avoid collapse, that *is* collapse. The choice may be between a planned collapse now and a chaotic collapse later.
One consumer problem now is lousy quality.Two new appliances ,a fridge and washer/dryer I purchased are falling apart after only 6 months. An Electrolux vacuum cleaner I inherited is still working after 30 years.We need to bring back quality then there will be less junk in landfill
It's called planned obsolescence. The key word is "planned".
At the end of his video, his suggestion of self-reliance is naive. Those who would survive a collapse are those who develop community-reliance. It is irrelevant to be self-reliant if there isn't a local system in place to support and protect you. You'd need a way of easily shift to local agriculture that would feed the entire local population, a system to ensure everyone's needs are taken care of to avoid social unrest and mob violence, and a militia to defend from potential outside threats.
It's interesting that you mention the militia aspect to this 'civilized society, which, for some unexplained reason, tends toward chaos and violence, as per this projection og of a 'civilized society'.
Let's consider that the Pentagon in the US, admits to "losing" 6.5 Trillion dollars in the two decades. That's money that is UNACCOUNTED for, it doesn't yet include the money spent that HAS been accounted for, many, many trillions more!!
They spend nearly a Trillion per year ON the books. So in the last 20 years, you can probably, safely say, the US military has spent at LEAST 20 TRILLION dollars on war or "defense" (except that they haven't exactly been attacked by any foreign nations).
What do you think we would be able to do, in terms of solar energy collection, storage, tidal power generation, hydrogen production, etc. with TENTY TRILLION DOLLARS??!?!?!?!?!?!?!
On Wikipedia, I found a figure that in 2005 the median personal income was
$24,100 for people 18 or older. Today that is about $29,400. So the median person can expect to earn roughly $29,400*(78.7 year average lifespan) = $1.8 million per person.
So in other words, you could employ about 11 million 'typical earners' for about 8 decades. Do you have any idea what 11 million people can build in 80 years???? What if we compressed that into 8 years and instead employed 100 million people for 8 years. What do you think 100 million people (roughly one third of the entire population of the United States of America) could build to help with clean energy and clean food production?
If we have that many resources to put into war, I am sorry, but we do not have a food, water or energy shortage problem, we have an over-abundance of war problem!
You're assuming I'm a kind of person that I'm not.
I don't particularly care about militias and militaries. In a perfect world, they wouldn't exist. My point is that if and when this civilization collapses or simply falls into mass social chaos (as happens eventually to every society), it won't be a fun and easy process for the survivors. That is reality, like it or not.
Until then, we are dealing with a different kind of situation. I'd rather, like you, do something better with all that money we waste on military adventurism, expansionism, and oppression abroad. I'm the opposite of a war hawk.
But this video and my response was about a hypothetical future, not the actual present. For the moment, that hypothetical future is irrelevant, except to the degree one wishes to prepare for it, although our present social order could continue long after we're all dead. I don't sit around fantasizing about post-apocalyptic worlds.
Ben Steele
Actually Ben, I think your viewpoint is right on the money, considering the situation today. I am venting my frustration and also looking at a hypothetical.
You are absolutely right, food production and self-sustenance would be something each and every one of us would have to take part in and we would need to cooperate with our neighbors if we want to survive in a major collapse. Although the powers that be don't truly want a total breakdown of society - they need us. If anything they will allow it temporarily, just to scare the living shit out of everyone and force them into accepting whatever "solution" will then be offered (since most people have no clue how to work together in a crisis, let alone how to survive on their own).
I do wonder about another possibility. What if we could move to another kind of society without all the extreme forms of breakdown? Technology is creating the possibility of doing much more as individuals and communities. We now have the ability at the small-scale local level to clean water, grow food (even in cities), produce energy, and even make basic products (3D printers, laser cutters, along with all the old tools). None of this is a speculative vision of the future. We could do it right now. But it will take time for these technologies to become more available to the general public. Those who want to maintain power will do their best to obstruct this from happening (i.e., laws against collecting rainwater).
@Accelerationist Mob violence includes the Regulator movement, the Boston Tea Party, American Revolution, Shays' Rebellion, Civil War, West Virginia Coal Wars, 1919 Red Summer, Tulsa race massacre, Battle of Athens, Bundy standoff, 2015 Waco biker gang shootout, Occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and on and on.
We might also include organized violence such as that done against family planning clinics and staff, although much of it was committed by individuals. That is an interesting thing with other violence committed by the political right, sepcifically whites --- it's so often a lone actor or small group. Think of the major acts of terrorism such as the Oklahoma City bombing. But that isn't always the case, as many other examples show.
Even during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, poor whites also rioted in their own neighborhoods in response to the police abuse they had also experienced. There is nothing new about direct action, including violence, in American history. Most of it, in fact, has been committed by whites and not always poor whites. The Bundy family and their supporters weren't poor. Yet the media doesn't tend to portray such violence and threat of violence in the same way. Why?
I can listen to this a lot better at 1.25 playback speed. Funny, I was just listening to the Automatic Earth lady and she is better at .75
Date of the interview ?
"moving away from these centralized systems and bringing things back to the local"--no, that does not avoid collapse, that *is* collapse. The choice may be between a planned collapse now and a chaotic collapse later.
Interesting point.
You’re crazy it’s lies
Please see the questions out loud I’m listening not watching
Please