I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die
May 15, 2022 5:21 AM Subscribe
If It Feels Like a New Dark Age Is Falling… That’s Because It Is. Why We’re Entering a Dark Age Between Civilizations.
What’s Happening to America? A Theocratic-Fascist Revolution. When a Fanatical 30% Suddenly Seizes Control of Your Society, It’s Called a Revolution.
Umair Haque - love him or leave him. That his writing output is prolific is an understatement.
He has been described as a Master of Catastrophe who speaks in apocalyptic jazz scat (thanks clavdivs).
What’s Happening to America? A Theocratic-Fascist Revolution. When a Fanatical 30% Suddenly Seizes Control of Your Society, It’s Called a Revolution.
Umair Haque - love him or leave him. That his writing output is prolific is an understatement.
He has been described as a Master of Catastrophe who speaks in apocalyptic jazz scat (thanks clavdivs).
Article:
We are the unlucky ones who are going to bear witness to the single most transformative episode in all of human history — the one that will never be forgotten. We are the witnesses to the death of a planetMatthew 24:34-35, NRSV:
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.posted by howfar at 5:41 AM on May 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Honestly, I stopped reading this guy about 7 years ago because it feels like doom and gloom is his beat/grift.
I’m ok, thanks.
posted by bxvr at 5:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
I’m ok, thanks.
posted by bxvr at 5:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
No disrespect meant to you, adamvasco — thanks for posting.
I think I’m cranky from logging onto twitter for the first time in a month.
posted by bxvr at 5:51 AM on May 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think I’m cranky from logging onto twitter for the first time in a month.
posted by bxvr at 5:51 AM on May 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
As a counterpoint, this Kurzgesagt video makes the case that while climate change is likely going to be a major catastrophe, there is some good news and there are meaningful differences in the outcomes that are realistically within our grasp.
posted by justkevin at 6:05 AM on May 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by justkevin at 6:05 AM on May 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
I guess what I feel like these days is that's it, the seed corn is eaten, the unstoppable machine is coming, there's no real point in making a big fuss online. If you can do something, do it, but arguing about it is pointless now.
What's going to happen is what always happens, small pockets of relative decency will persist in some places where people are lucky and well-organized, most places will turn fascist or tear themselves to pieces. A lot of unexpected things will happen; the lucky and well-organized places won't all be places you'd expect. If you live in the US and you have a middle class job and you keep your head well down, you can probably get a few more fairly decent years.
Mainly I hope that things stay stable enough through the rest of my elderly father's life so that he doesn't have to deal with what's coming.
posted by Frowner at 6:18 AM on May 15, 2022 [40 favorites]
What's going to happen is what always happens, small pockets of relative decency will persist in some places where people are lucky and well-organized, most places will turn fascist or tear themselves to pieces. A lot of unexpected things will happen; the lucky and well-organized places won't all be places you'd expect. If you live in the US and you have a middle class job and you keep your head well down, you can probably get a few more fairly decent years.
Mainly I hope that things stay stable enough through the rest of my elderly father's life so that he doesn't have to deal with what's coming.
posted by Frowner at 6:18 AM on May 15, 2022 [40 favorites]
Unfortunately, what he's written here seems fairly accurate to me. I hope he's wrong, but that seems increasingly unlikely.
However, his writing style--- yeesh. Tell me about the death of the planet and rise of fascism with a few less LOLs, please.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 6:25 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
However, his writing style--- yeesh. Tell me about the death of the planet and rise of fascism with a few less LOLs, please.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 6:25 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
if it's as bad as he says it is then what a bunch of primates decide to do about their political system is irrelevant to the big problem - the real endgame is mass chaos - it has to be, there couldn't be any other way it could end
posted by pyramid termite at 6:25 AM on May 15, 2022
posted by pyramid termite at 6:25 AM on May 15, 2022
It's hard to know what to do with this, because even if you agree with the general pessimistic thrust of it--and I certainly do--the details do matter. Does it feel, reading this, that he has simply substituted the word "stagflation" where others might use "hyperinflation"? This fear of prices ever-spiraling upward has driven so much online discourse, even though it ignores history (and for a nice recap of inflation history you could do worse than checking out this comment from Pseudonymous Cognomen a couple days ago). The insistence on apocalyptic inflation--wheelbarrows full of useless cash!--seems to ignore the fact that we do have tools to control it, and this piece actually ridicules the most basic of those tools ("You can’t resurrect a dying planet with interest rates").
"We’re not going to suddenly be able to plant more crops," except, well, that's exactly what we're going to be doing, as formerly frozen land opens up, because we don't have any choice. "Who will water California and Arizona and Nevada and so on? The answer to that question is: nobody will. But what happens then?" Except we know what happens then...technology either increases the water supply, or people migrate back east, because we don't have any other choice.
Without wanting to ignore the clear threats of fascism as it marches down our main streets, I feel like there's something missing with the assumption that we'll be sliding directly into climate fascism. In a sense, it's too easy an answer. There is a lot of technocratic and cultural inertia in the way, and that doesn't all get swept aside, even if people want a strongman to come in and solve all their problems. How do you get from where we are now, to the author's vision of planet-scale race war? There are an awful lot of steps in between, or at least, a lot of handwaving. What is the evidence we'd give up our precious nations for some kind of more ethnic grouping--what is the evidence that nations would allow themselves to be given up?
We are rushing toward disaster, and there's no doubt about that. But there's no reason at all to think the disaster will play out in simple, predictable ways. COVID was our early example of just how weird and unpredictable things get under stress. We should be opening our minds, using our imaginations, not taking the easiest lessons from a pre-warming history, because it's only going to get weirder from here.
posted by mittens at 6:32 AM on May 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
"We’re not going to suddenly be able to plant more crops," except, well, that's exactly what we're going to be doing, as formerly frozen land opens up, because we don't have any choice. "Who will water California and Arizona and Nevada and so on? The answer to that question is: nobody will. But what happens then?" Except we know what happens then...technology either increases the water supply, or people migrate back east, because we don't have any other choice.
Without wanting to ignore the clear threats of fascism as it marches down our main streets, I feel like there's something missing with the assumption that we'll be sliding directly into climate fascism. In a sense, it's too easy an answer. There is a lot of technocratic and cultural inertia in the way, and that doesn't all get swept aside, even if people want a strongman to come in and solve all their problems. How do you get from where we are now, to the author's vision of planet-scale race war? There are an awful lot of steps in between, or at least, a lot of handwaving. What is the evidence we'd give up our precious nations for some kind of more ethnic grouping--what is the evidence that nations would allow themselves to be given up?
We are rushing toward disaster, and there's no doubt about that. But there's no reason at all to think the disaster will play out in simple, predictable ways. COVID was our early example of just how weird and unpredictable things get under stress. We should be opening our minds, using our imaginations, not taking the easiest lessons from a pre-warming history, because it's only going to get weirder from here.
posted by mittens at 6:32 AM on May 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
I came across something yesterday that floored me. Something that made me think of the little details mentioned in the early chapters of a 60s speculative fiction novel about social/environmental collapse, the little thing that gets mentioned, but no one is all that concerned about it, until we realize it was the beginning of a snowball of events that can't get stopped. All those memories of growing up reading Zanzibar and Make Room, and there it was, just a random headline.
India is banning wheat exports.
India has been making up a good amount of the global shortfall due to Russia (top exporter of wheat worldwide) invading Ukraine (number 7). Yet, India is experiencing unprecedented heat waves that could have a disastrous effect on their crops.
So, yeah. The question is, is this year going to be a blip, and things will revert to something more stable in the near future, or is this all (much earlier than expected) just the way things are now? I'd love to hope for the former, but the last two decades have shown me what happens when I let that into my heart.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:44 AM on May 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
India is banning wheat exports.
India has been making up a good amount of the global shortfall due to Russia (top exporter of wheat worldwide) invading Ukraine (number 7). Yet, India is experiencing unprecedented heat waves that could have a disastrous effect on their crops.
So, yeah. The question is, is this year going to be a blip, and things will revert to something more stable in the near future, or is this all (much earlier than expected) just the way things are now? I'd love to hope for the former, but the last two decades have shown me what happens when I let that into my heart.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:44 AM on May 15, 2022 [31 favorites]
It was 1995, if I recall correctly, when I first started hearing people with solid access to relevant data talk about the Great Extinction of 2050.
I have yet to hear or see or read anything that convinces me we're not pretty much on track.
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on May 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
I have yet to hear or see or read anything that convinces me we're not pretty much on track.
posted by flabdablet at 7:16 AM on May 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
The first link (at least) feels like catastrophe entertainment. Much, but not all, of it is written at a high level of abstraction, so that it is impossible to prove or disprove its propositions. Even the throwaway propositions are vague pronouncements that lead nowhere: "Sartre and Camus warned us. This is what L’Etranger and La Nausée were really about. Killing." Well, yes, definitely, and no, not at all. And as mittens points out, the article ignores likely counter-reactions to trends he identifies. Articles like this feel obviously true to some and obviously false to others, but really the most you can say about them is maybe yes, maybe no.
What puzzles me, and the reason I'm writing this comment, is I cannot fathom why so many people find media like this to be so entertaining. Why is the apocalyptic such a die-hard literary form? I personally dislike it all, from Revelations, to Left Behind, to Don't Look Up, to this particular article. And every explanation I have for its lure is super-patronizing. Like, "I guess people like to feel superior and in control, because they are highly confident about their predictions for the future." Which, of course, is a very "superior" thought to have about other, equally wonderful humans.
So, I personally would like to know from those who like this form, why does it appeal to you? Mr. Haque has 170k+ subscribers who want to read this content. Almost certainly, they are highly-informed and caring people. Why do they read this?
posted by ferdydurke at 7:23 AM on May 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
What puzzles me, and the reason I'm writing this comment, is I cannot fathom why so many people find media like this to be so entertaining. Why is the apocalyptic such a die-hard literary form? I personally dislike it all, from Revelations, to Left Behind, to Don't Look Up, to this particular article. And every explanation I have for its lure is super-patronizing. Like, "I guess people like to feel superior and in control, because they are highly confident about their predictions for the future." Which, of course, is a very "superior" thought to have about other, equally wonderful humans.
So, I personally would like to know from those who like this form, why does it appeal to you? Mr. Haque has 170k+ subscribers who want to read this content. Almost certainly, they are highly-informed and caring people. Why do they read this?
posted by ferdydurke at 7:23 AM on May 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
why does it appeal to you?
Though it only mildly appeals to me personally, I assume the reasons are similar to why people listen to sad music when they're sad: catharsis, feeling less alone, reassurance that some make it through, so on. Existential fear is rightly ratcheted way up these days, and this is a sort of pressure release valve for those feelings.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:29 AM on May 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
Though it only mildly appeals to me personally, I assume the reasons are similar to why people listen to sad music when they're sad: catharsis, feeling less alone, reassurance that some make it through, so on. Existential fear is rightly ratcheted way up these days, and this is a sort of pressure release valve for those feelings.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:29 AM on May 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
from the article:
If you think about the world even twenty years ago, it was a strikingly different place. If I’d told you then that it was to be one where democracy was dying, fascism rising, stagflation surging, war erupting, and armies of lunatics backing it all — you probably would have scoffed at me. If we human beings can’t quite grasp the nature of change over decades — we also make the mistake of thinking the good times will go on forever.
May 2002. Correct me if I'm wrong but 9/11 had happened eight months previous. America was well on its way toward using the negative momentum to manufacture a catastrophic war against a nation that had pretty much nothing to do with the attacks. Thoughtful voices were prognosticating a war of civilizations that would go on for decades. George W Bush and his gang of misfits, loony tunes and squalid criminals were only getting MORE popular in the polls. And global-warming-climate-change-environmental-catastrophe was very much in the news. Yadda-yadda-yadda.
I don't know what "good times" this guy was bearing witness to. I sure didn't see them. The fucking world's been officially apocalypsing since at least 1991 (the first Gulf War) or maybe 1972 when the Club Of Rome filed its report, or as far back as 1945 -- the splitting of the atom, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whatever.
And yet so far, here we all still are. The future ain't written. And every time I see somebody try to write it, I can't help but think, there goes another fool doing the devil's work for him. Guy needs to get out more, maybe get a ukulele, do some Duran Duran covers.
posted by philip-random at 7:40 AM on May 15, 2022 [45 favorites]
If you think about the world even twenty years ago, it was a strikingly different place. If I’d told you then that it was to be one where democracy was dying, fascism rising, stagflation surging, war erupting, and armies of lunatics backing it all — you probably would have scoffed at me. If we human beings can’t quite grasp the nature of change over decades — we also make the mistake of thinking the good times will go on forever.
May 2002. Correct me if I'm wrong but 9/11 had happened eight months previous. America was well on its way toward using the negative momentum to manufacture a catastrophic war against a nation that had pretty much nothing to do with the attacks. Thoughtful voices were prognosticating a war of civilizations that would go on for decades. George W Bush and his gang of misfits, loony tunes and squalid criminals were only getting MORE popular in the polls. And global-warming-climate-change-environmental-catastrophe was very much in the news. Yadda-yadda-yadda.
I don't know what "good times" this guy was bearing witness to. I sure didn't see them. The fucking world's been officially apocalypsing since at least 1991 (the first Gulf War) or maybe 1972 when the Club Of Rome filed its report, or as far back as 1945 -- the splitting of the atom, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whatever.
And yet so far, here we all still are. The future ain't written. And every time I see somebody try to write it, I can't help but think, there goes another fool doing the devil's work for him. Guy needs to get out more, maybe get a ukulele, do some Duran Duran covers.
posted by philip-random at 7:40 AM on May 15, 2022 [45 favorites]
There was a point where I felt that if someone just laid it out, like "too many things have gone wrong, there are too many failure points, look at how humans have reacted before" that it would do some good, that somehow through some mechanism I didn't really identify, it would turn the tide. Maybe some people who had power would read it and become convinced and maybe, after all, they would not in fact want us all to die in order for them to stay wealthy and powerful. Maybe "democratic" change would happen, maybe we'd vote in some politician who would actually do something.
At that point I felt that the problem was that people didn't understand. People don't understand, but that's not the problem. The problem is that the machine has been built and it's too complex to dismantle.
I assume that there are still people reading this stuff who feel that it may help in some way if people understand what's happening.
I think it was also a kind of whistling past the graveyard - surely if this person said all this hyperbolic stuff, it wouldn't all be true, just like if you say all the terrible things that you're sure will happen, the universe will contradict you and things will go okay.
At this point, having seen Trump, the pandemic and the Biden administration, I can tell that there is no turning the tide, at least not in this country. Our last chances are gone. So this stuff has less appeal to me because I don't believe that it matters whether you say it or not.
I think that it probably helps the writer to write it - it probably helps release the pressure of feeling that there's an apocalypse and no one is paying attention, like how my twitter feed is entirely terrible, terrible news interspersed with pseudo-woke advertising for movies and TV.
posted by Frowner at 7:42 AM on May 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
At that point I felt that the problem was that people didn't understand. People don't understand, but that's not the problem. The problem is that the machine has been built and it's too complex to dismantle.
I assume that there are still people reading this stuff who feel that it may help in some way if people understand what's happening.
I think it was also a kind of whistling past the graveyard - surely if this person said all this hyperbolic stuff, it wouldn't all be true, just like if you say all the terrible things that you're sure will happen, the universe will contradict you and things will go okay.
At this point, having seen Trump, the pandemic and the Biden administration, I can tell that there is no turning the tide, at least not in this country. Our last chances are gone. So this stuff has less appeal to me because I don't believe that it matters whether you say it or not.
I think that it probably helps the writer to write it - it probably helps release the pressure of feeling that there's an apocalypse and no one is paying attention, like how my twitter feed is entirely terrible, terrible news interspersed with pseudo-woke advertising for movies and TV.
posted by Frowner at 7:42 AM on May 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
I remember 20 years ago pretty well. Things are a lot worse now. They are not worse on every single vector and there are a few improvements. But things are worse on the biggies and climate change is the real killer.
posted by Frowner at 7:43 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 7:43 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
that's exactly what we're going to be doing, as formerly frozen land opens up, because we don't have any choice.
Uh, that’s not how that works. 1) there is vastly less high latitude surface area, 2) vastly less intense insolation because of the lower angle of the sun, 3) vastly shorter growing seasons as well.
So there’s less land to grow stuff, it grows slower because of less solar input per day, and the growing season is shorter so it has less time to reach maturity and many crops won’t be able to make it.
The higher latitudes will not be able to replace the growing capacity of the lower latitudes. We might be able to eke some food out up there, but it’s going to be a pittance.
You’re correct about the part where we don’t have any choice, though.
posted by notoriety public at 7:48 AM on May 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
Uh, that’s not how that works. 1) there is vastly less high latitude surface area, 2) vastly less intense insolation because of the lower angle of the sun, 3) vastly shorter growing seasons as well.
So there’s less land to grow stuff, it grows slower because of less solar input per day, and the growing season is shorter so it has less time to reach maturity and many crops won’t be able to make it.
The higher latitudes will not be able to replace the growing capacity of the lower latitudes. We might be able to eke some food out up there, but it’s going to be a pittance.
You’re correct about the part where we don’t have any choice, though.
posted by notoriety public at 7:48 AM on May 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
Why do they read this?
For me, the core of truth that shines out through his snark has the same kind of appeal as the perfect little pop songs that My Bloody Valentine buries under their astonishing wall of noise:
Seriously, turn him up.
No, louder than that.
Louder than that too.
posted by flabdablet at 7:49 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
For me, the core of truth that shines out through his snark has the same kind of appeal as the perfect little pop songs that My Bloody Valentine buries under their astonishing wall of noise:
What’s really happening here? Hold on a second, while I chuckle at the word “alarmist.” If you’re not alarmed by all this, well, you’re probably a Republican or an idiot, but I repeat myself.Mere full agreement with the thrust of what somebody writes, and enjoying the style in which they write it, isn't particularly cathartic though. If it's actual catharsis I'm after, I listen to Max Meredith at ear-bleeding volume. No words required.
Seriously, turn him up.
No, louder than that.
Louder than that too.
posted by flabdablet at 7:49 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
I have to take issue with his early assertion that twenty years ago nobody saw this coming. Take to begin with the political atmosphere in America. We were already in the post 9/11 World. As someone who moved out of America before that day and came back only infrequently to visit afterwards, it was obvious that things had changed and we were already after an epoch-making event. That the next generation would only know chest-beating, flag-waving, drone bombing America.
And similarly I think when it came to climate we were whistling past the graveyard for a very long time. Go back and watch An Inconvenient Truth, where Al Gore lays out the data so calmly and elucidates exactly what that would mean for the world. But what gets people to their feet, what moves them, is the postscripts at the end about some courthouse in Kansas City deciding to use 20% recycled paper or whatever. It's a stylistic clanger like if Noam Chomsky rounded out Manufacturing Consent by whipping up a standing ovation for some Iowa teenager's deep ecology zine. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. We want easy solutions of the Now This variety, the human interest story about a rescued puppy at the end of the solemn evening news.
I read this sort of apocalypse forecasting because as somebody who has been studying the climate science since I was a postgraduate oceanography student in the 90s, it is curious to watch young people and mainstream media finally try to grapple with the ideas en masse.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:50 AM on May 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
And similarly I think when it came to climate we were whistling past the graveyard for a very long time. Go back and watch An Inconvenient Truth, where Al Gore lays out the data so calmly and elucidates exactly what that would mean for the world. But what gets people to their feet, what moves them, is the postscripts at the end about some courthouse in Kansas City deciding to use 20% recycled paper or whatever. It's a stylistic clanger like if Noam Chomsky rounded out Manufacturing Consent by whipping up a standing ovation for some Iowa teenager's deep ecology zine. The writing has been on the wall for a very long time. We want easy solutions of the Now This variety, the human interest story about a rescued puppy at the end of the solemn evening news.
I read this sort of apocalypse forecasting because as somebody who has been studying the climate science since I was a postgraduate oceanography student in the 90s, it is curious to watch young people and mainstream media finally try to grapple with the ideas en masse.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:50 AM on May 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
Why do they read this?
It's like WebMD. By far it's most common use is freaking people out, but that's kind of the point. My toe is numb. Is it a fracture? Gout? Diabetes? Heart problems? A brain tumor? Maybe!
But for some brains, if something is going wrong, it won't let you look away. This is a thing that is dangerous and scary and HERE. Better to know exactly where it is and what it is doing than to let it catch you by surprise.
posted by Garm at 8:04 AM on May 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's like WebMD. By far it's most common use is freaking people out, but that's kind of the point. My toe is numb. Is it a fracture? Gout? Diabetes? Heart problems? A brain tumor? Maybe!
But for some brains, if something is going wrong, it won't let you look away. This is a thing that is dangerous and scary and HERE. Better to know exactly where it is and what it is doing than to let it catch you by surprise.
posted by Garm at 8:04 AM on May 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
TFA reads like a General Flynn letter but aimed at my feels. I couldn’t love it but it does help to tie climate change to eco-fascism, which, I recently came to appreciate, is a thing.
But this thread is about both content and style for analysis we use as we all hurtle toward oblivion. I’m in, and I thank OP for opening this can of worms.
I would be very eager to learn about communications the move the ball down the field for you, gentle Bluereader.
I am lucky to work in a minor supporting tech role with people trying to save the planet and communicate the good and bad, in scientific and social terms. It is not easy. It is a sidecar for every effort - how to get the findings out there to the widest group possible. There are teams trying to make sure that we recognize that climate change exists at all in the face of disinformation.
Sometimes I don’t care how the message gets across. But more often I see that while one size does not fit all, we need to be on the lookout for where the offramps go. Increasingly, it does seem that fascists will be creating funnels from our gloom to their drains of doom.
One of the few things that I took from undergrad was that Augustine of Hippo told me that remote control of the senses rarely produces lasting moral change in the audience to alleviate suffering witnessed in the entertainment. I need to go back and see if he thought the same about the same about negative moral change. (Sure pick on Jon Stewart, but tell me about Alex Jones and the Fox nighttime lineup, Augie.) I should go back and see if he had anything to say about fascism/totalitarianism in whatever form he might have seen it. Surely every thinking man so tied to their mum would have opinions about that.
I admit to not knowing about Eco-Fascism until I heard about it on The Empire Never Ended podcast. It is real, and does seem ripe for growth. Like all the other Fascisms, it will probably be conceived, nurtured, and controlled by a small group of capitalists that will allow their eco harm and social harm to run unchained at all costs.
And there it is - at long last I reveal what keeps me going on the path. I find myself patreoning people who do a bunch of research on super bad news and history, then deliver with gallows humor, as long as they never punch down. Especially if the research itself isn’t their day job.
It helps to think that I too can find time to dig in and keep the narrative moving on days when I can’t move the ball.
posted by drowsy at 8:09 AM on May 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
But this thread is about both content and style for analysis we use as we all hurtle toward oblivion. I’m in, and I thank OP for opening this can of worms.
I would be very eager to learn about communications the move the ball down the field for you, gentle Bluereader.
I am lucky to work in a minor supporting tech role with people trying to save the planet and communicate the good and bad, in scientific and social terms. It is not easy. It is a sidecar for every effort - how to get the findings out there to the widest group possible. There are teams trying to make sure that we recognize that climate change exists at all in the face of disinformation.
Sometimes I don’t care how the message gets across. But more often I see that while one size does not fit all, we need to be on the lookout for where the offramps go. Increasingly, it does seem that fascists will be creating funnels from our gloom to their drains of doom.
One of the few things that I took from undergrad was that Augustine of Hippo told me that remote control of the senses rarely produces lasting moral change in the audience to alleviate suffering witnessed in the entertainment. I need to go back and see if he thought the same about the same about negative moral change. (Sure pick on Jon Stewart, but tell me about Alex Jones and the Fox nighttime lineup, Augie.) I should go back and see if he had anything to say about fascism/totalitarianism in whatever form he might have seen it. Surely every thinking man so tied to their mum would have opinions about that.
I admit to not knowing about Eco-Fascism until I heard about it on The Empire Never Ended podcast. It is real, and does seem ripe for growth. Like all the other Fascisms, it will probably be conceived, nurtured, and controlled by a small group of capitalists that will allow their eco harm and social harm to run unchained at all costs.
And there it is - at long last I reveal what keeps me going on the path. I find myself patreoning people who do a bunch of research on super bad news and history, then deliver with gallows humor, as long as they never punch down. Especially if the research itself isn’t their day job.
It helps to think that I too can find time to dig in and keep the narrative moving on days when I can’t move the ball.
posted by drowsy at 8:09 AM on May 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
There are places that are not the United States of America.
And maybe we're not doing ok on those places.
But the end of American history is not the end of world history, and maybe the US-centric amongst us would feel better if they remembered that.
posted by prismatic7 at 8:44 AM on May 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
And maybe we're not doing ok on those places.
But the end of American history is not the end of world history, and maybe the US-centric amongst us would feel better if they remembered that.
posted by prismatic7 at 8:44 AM on May 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
There's nothing quite as MetaFilter as comments complaining about an article's "doom and gloom".
You don't have to be gloomy or throw up your hands. It is worth being joyful or mindful through the climate crisis and global fascism crisis that humanity is going through. It is worth thinking about carbon reduction and adaptation; it is worth taking small steps towards building anti-fascist local community and culture or joining a mutual aid group. It is worth taking positive steps and remembering to breathe. But it is not worth it to plug one's ears and go "la la la" or to feel superior to people who are pointing out that this shit is gonna be bad.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
You don't have to be gloomy or throw up your hands. It is worth being joyful or mindful through the climate crisis and global fascism crisis that humanity is going through. It is worth thinking about carbon reduction and adaptation; it is worth taking small steps towards building anti-fascist local community and culture or joining a mutual aid group. It is worth taking positive steps and remembering to breathe. But it is not worth it to plug one's ears and go "la la la" or to feel superior to people who are pointing out that this shit is gonna be bad.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
I tend to think nuclear waste storage NIMBYs (or the not in my expansive desert mountain complex-ies) will get shoved aside if we reach the point we have to grow food vertically under lights to avoid revolutionary collapse (and everything else that requires energy input without worsening the situation). Also allows tighter water recapture and reuse.
It's happening right now in Europe to cope with the loss of Russian supplies, to a limited extent. (Increasing nuclear generation that is; not vertical farms springing up.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
It's happening right now in Europe to cope with the loss of Russian supplies, to a limited extent. (Increasing nuclear generation that is; not vertical farms springing up.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:47 AM on May 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I tend to think that there is no situation in which the nuclear energy fanbois will finally shut the fuck up and go away. But I'm somewhat encouraged by the way the world has pretty much entirely stopped funding their ludicrous preference in fragile centralized non-renewable waste-producing warfare-perpetuating tech now that distributed wind, solar PV and batteries have so thoroughly eaten its lunch, both on the basis of levelized cost of energy and time to market.
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:12 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
And yet so far, here we all still are. The future ain't written.
There's a certain degree of unavoidable bias inherent in the fact that the people doing the writing aren't the ones it's already killed.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 AM on May 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
There's a certain degree of unavoidable bias inherent in the fact that the people doing the writing aren't the ones it's already killed.
posted by flabdablet at 9:20 AM on May 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
I tended to think that the ridiculous infighting between low carbon energy advocates was done with. If Jigar effing Sun-Edison Shah can be doling out gigabucks in DOE loans to the SMR people, then surely that nonsense is over!
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:45 AM on May 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:45 AM on May 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
But the end of American history is not the end of world history, and maybe the US-centric amongst us would feel better if they remembered that.
Doesn't help, actually. Because rising fascism is a global problem. Climate change is a global problem. An economy profoundly disconnected from its own fundamentals is a global problem. Rising income inequality is a global problem. Power-mad tyrants with access to nuclear weaponry are a global problem. The fact that the end of the US isn't the end of history doesn't offer any relief, because the converse is also true: fixing the US wouldn't actually fix any of those global problems. And while I'm not exactly bullish at present on the future of democracy in the United States, the possibility exists, at least, that it could be fixed. The mechanisms exist. (Which is why even at this moment there are folks who continue to believe that with just *enough* voter turnout, everything can be made fine again.) But to fix global warming? The United States could go zero-emissions today and both global warming and eco-fascism would continue to march on. Telling people they'd feel better if they were less focused on the US feels, to me, like telling people they'd be less worried if they ignored the canary in the coalmine.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:59 AM on May 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
Doesn't help, actually. Because rising fascism is a global problem. Climate change is a global problem. An economy profoundly disconnected from its own fundamentals is a global problem. Rising income inequality is a global problem. Power-mad tyrants with access to nuclear weaponry are a global problem. The fact that the end of the US isn't the end of history doesn't offer any relief, because the converse is also true: fixing the US wouldn't actually fix any of those global problems. And while I'm not exactly bullish at present on the future of democracy in the United States, the possibility exists, at least, that it could be fixed. The mechanisms exist. (Which is why even at this moment there are folks who continue to believe that with just *enough* voter turnout, everything can be made fine again.) But to fix global warming? The United States could go zero-emissions today and both global warming and eco-fascism would continue to march on. Telling people they'd feel better if they were less focused on the US feels, to me, like telling people they'd be less worried if they ignored the canary in the coalmine.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:59 AM on May 15, 2022 [24 favorites]
I am super into wind, solar, tidal, all that stuff. Not picking a fight but I wish I could believe that these will be war machine free.
There will be wars fought to support this just like oil unless we can make batteries out of very common stuff. Nations of Earth will be battling over nickel, copper, etc, and people who are hurt by their extraction are going to keep getting hurt. We will be shredding landscapes for lithium, etc.
I try to keep this in mind precisely to watch how fascist groups and govts will try to invalidate less burn-y fuels, or to claim territory for the Fatherland, etc.
I am also not a fanboy but not against letting better nuke plants run for a decade or four if we can use less oil and coal and keep advancing storage and the efficiency of non-polluting generation.
Of course if we can make all people live well with less energy that would be ok, but that would take even longer. The time span itself will drive former allies into eco-fascism with promises of mass compliance when all else fails.
posted by drowsy at 10:00 AM on May 15, 2022
There will be wars fought to support this just like oil unless we can make batteries out of very common stuff. Nations of Earth will be battling over nickel, copper, etc, and people who are hurt by their extraction are going to keep getting hurt. We will be shredding landscapes for lithium, etc.
I try to keep this in mind precisely to watch how fascist groups and govts will try to invalidate less burn-y fuels, or to claim territory for the Fatherland, etc.
I am also not a fanboy but not against letting better nuke plants run for a decade or four if we can use less oil and coal and keep advancing storage and the efficiency of non-polluting generation.
Of course if we can make all people live well with less energy that would be ok, but that would take even longer. The time span itself will drive former allies into eco-fascism with promises of mass compliance when all else fails.
posted by drowsy at 10:00 AM on May 15, 2022
Adjectives! I'm right! You can't make a battery powered war machine! All the tech I favor doesn't rely on resource extraction to achieve scale! oh...
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:03 AM on May 15, 2022
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:03 AM on May 15, 2022
Imagine we hadn't let the nuclear boogeyman keep us on fossil fuels for the last four decades, and made solving the storage problem the same kind of national priority as developing the bomb rather than leaving the nuclear power industry more or less frozen in time with aging designs? What might that have done for global warming, and geopolitics? Note that conventional wars have still managed to kill lots of people, the opposition to nuclear power didn't prevent the nuclear arms race and to this day hasn't done away with mutually assured destruction. Arguably leaving us with the worst parts of the nuclear age, while we avoid nuclear power generation.
But, anyway, the point was more that we'd turn to more nuclear before suffering a civilizational collapse because there's not enough sun to grow crops; not that it's preferable to "greener" energy -- to the extent we can build enough if, in a way that makes sense, and in time.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
But, anyway, the point was more that we'd turn to more nuclear before suffering a civilizational collapse because there's not enough sun to grow crops; not that it's preferable to "greener" energy -- to the extent we can build enough if, in a way that makes sense, and in time.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
TFA acting all like the Toba Eruption never happened and humanity didn't come back from a 95% near-extinction event just 75k short years ago. At least next time around most of the valuable metals and building materials will have already been brought to the surface and maybe it won't take millennia for us to figure out laserdiscs again. God I miss those things.
posted by Richard Saunders at 10:17 AM on May 15, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by Richard Saunders at 10:17 AM on May 15, 2022 [18 favorites]
I think there are some other alternatives to, “people don’t know,” and “it’s too big to stop,” that at least US mefites could encounter with a quick trip to their local evangelical church this fine Sunday, and two of them are, “I am incapable of believing it,” and, “good.”
I realized any discussion of climate change with my wife’s uncle was impossible a few years ago when he told me, “I don’t care about your science. God made the world and he’ll end it when he’s ready and Man can neither end the world before its time nor save it when its time comes.” There are millions of people who think exactly that.
There are also millions who would be happy to see the world end because they grew up hearing that the end times were coming and they welcome it. Some go to church with my wife’s uncle but I sometimes feel like I spot some of them on Metafilter who picked this attitude up elsewhere.
I suspect there are solutions to The Problem but ignoring that there are people who will actively oppose the solution not due to ignorance or selfishness or apathy but because they are actually opposed to solving it. Any realistic solution has to include dealing with them too.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 10:19 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
I realized any discussion of climate change with my wife’s uncle was impossible a few years ago when he told me, “I don’t care about your science. God made the world and he’ll end it when he’s ready and Man can neither end the world before its time nor save it when its time comes.” There are millions of people who think exactly that.
There are also millions who would be happy to see the world end because they grew up hearing that the end times were coming and they welcome it. Some go to church with my wife’s uncle but I sometimes feel like I spot some of them on Metafilter who picked this attitude up elsewhere.
I suspect there are solutions to The Problem but ignoring that there are people who will actively oppose the solution not due to ignorance or selfishness or apathy but because they are actually opposed to solving it. Any realistic solution has to include dealing with them too.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 10:19 AM on May 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
unless we can make batteries out of very common stuff
Sodium common enough for you?
The extra mass of sodium compared to lithium does cause an unavoidable energy to mass ratio hit, but that's offset to some extent by the sodium chemistry allowing the use of aluminium in places where lithium cells require copper. First-gen commercial Na-ion cells already have better energy density than first-gen Li-ion did, and it seems quite likely to me that they will soon be plenty good enough even for mobile applications.
The fact that you can make Na-ion cells on existing equipment designed to make Li-ion ones is a plus as well.
posted by flabdablet at 10:21 AM on May 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Sodium common enough for you?
The extra mass of sodium compared to lithium does cause an unavoidable energy to mass ratio hit, but that's offset to some extent by the sodium chemistry allowing the use of aluminium in places where lithium cells require copper. First-gen commercial Na-ion cells already have better energy density than first-gen Li-ion did, and it seems quite likely to me that they will soon be plenty good enough even for mobile applications.
The fact that you can make Na-ion cells on existing equipment designed to make Li-ion ones is a plus as well.
posted by flabdablet at 10:21 AM on May 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
I like sodium in my diet and it is welcome in my batteries any time, so that sounds good, @flabdablet. Especially the idea of using existing factories. I do remember scanning the CATL headlines recently but had not dug in. I thank you for this and many many other posts.
As to war, and the tendency of fascists and govts to seek footholds for power, when this bears out and reduces conflict in MeFi threads, I will be hopeful that it can do the same among nations.
posted by drowsy at 10:42 AM on May 15, 2022
As to war, and the tendency of fascists and govts to seek footholds for power, when this bears out and reduces conflict in MeFi threads, I will be hopeful that it can do the same among nations.
posted by drowsy at 10:42 AM on May 15, 2022
the real endgame is mass chaos
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!
posted by kirkaracha at 10:54 AM on May 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!
posted by kirkaracha at 10:54 AM on May 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Democrats and Republicans laughing at the same jokes
posted by philip-random at 11:05 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 11:05 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
But I'm somewhat encouraged by the way the world has pretty much entirely stopped funding their ludicrous preference
posted by Mitheral at 11:24 AM on May 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
China is planning at least 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35.They are on pace to overtake the US as the largest generator of nuclear power by mid decade.
posted by Mitheral at 11:24 AM on May 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
The problem with all the nebulous extreme doomsaying is that it creates a huge itch for action, while being absolutely unactionable
posted by wotsac at 11:25 AM on May 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 11:25 AM on May 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Sorry probably already commented on several times above, but Jane Jacobs literally wrote a book called Dark Age Ahead in 2004, so I think it's a big stretch to think no one could have imagined where we'd find ourselves in 20 years time.
posted by flamk at 11:29 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by flamk at 11:29 AM on May 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
"So, I personally would like to know from those who like this form, why does it appeal to you?"
Personally (and though this particular article didn't appeal to me, I do read a LOT of disaster fiction and non-fiction), it's a method of controlling my anxiety. I'm a clinically anxious person on medication about it, but even with medication, I have to use other strategies to keep my anxiety under control. One of the things that is remarkably effective for me is learning a lot about whatever I'm terrified of (it's almost always not as bad as I fear), and especially walking through worst-case scenarios, sometimes for real, sometimes in fiction. I'm kind-of a dire hypochondriac, and I spent a long time in my 20s reading about every horrible thing that could kill you for no reason, and it ratcheted my anxiety waaaaaaay down. Like, I used to literally have panic attacks if I heard "ebola" on the news. Now I know a lot about transmission, treatment, and control of ebola, and it doesn't trigger my panic anymore. (I coped remarkably well with Covid lockdown, for someone who's disease-anxious -- I've read a lot about pandemics, both real and imaginary!)
Anyway, sometimes it is cathartic. But for me it mostly lets me imagine and experience things I'm afraid of without any actual risk to me -- one of the big reasons we like kids to read fiction! -- and that really helps me put my fears and anxieties into a more proper perspective.
(I generally do not like climate-apocalypse writing, though; it tends to make my anxiety worse, not better. I also do not at all understand the appeal of "true crime," which people recommend to me all the time because I like reading about disasters. But I find it stressful, upsetting, and voyeuristic! So I totally get why someone else would find disaster writing stressful, upsetting, voyeuristic, and kind-of gross for people to indulge in reading. Which, I don't think reading true crime is gross; I just recognize it is absolutely not for me, while for a lot of my friends it's very appealing, and I know they are not immoral or voyeuristic people; our brains just work differently, which is fine.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:48 AM on May 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
Personally (and though this particular article didn't appeal to me, I do read a LOT of disaster fiction and non-fiction), it's a method of controlling my anxiety. I'm a clinically anxious person on medication about it, but even with medication, I have to use other strategies to keep my anxiety under control. One of the things that is remarkably effective for me is learning a lot about whatever I'm terrified of (it's almost always not as bad as I fear), and especially walking through worst-case scenarios, sometimes for real, sometimes in fiction. I'm kind-of a dire hypochondriac, and I spent a long time in my 20s reading about every horrible thing that could kill you for no reason, and it ratcheted my anxiety waaaaaaay down. Like, I used to literally have panic attacks if I heard "ebola" on the news. Now I know a lot about transmission, treatment, and control of ebola, and it doesn't trigger my panic anymore. (I coped remarkably well with Covid lockdown, for someone who's disease-anxious -- I've read a lot about pandemics, both real and imaginary!)
Anyway, sometimes it is cathartic. But for me it mostly lets me imagine and experience things I'm afraid of without any actual risk to me -- one of the big reasons we like kids to read fiction! -- and that really helps me put my fears and anxieties into a more proper perspective.
(I generally do not like climate-apocalypse writing, though; it tends to make my anxiety worse, not better. I also do not at all understand the appeal of "true crime," which people recommend to me all the time because I like reading about disasters. But I find it stressful, upsetting, and voyeuristic! So I totally get why someone else would find disaster writing stressful, upsetting, voyeuristic, and kind-of gross for people to indulge in reading. Which, I don't think reading true crime is gross; I just recognize it is absolutely not for me, while for a lot of my friends it's very appealing, and I know they are not immoral or voyeuristic people; our brains just work differently, which is fine.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:48 AM on May 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
The calls to US mefites to be less US centric about the oncoming collapse of their nation and the in general hurtling we’re all doing (not just the US) past any and all of the supposed chances to avert what’s coming feel a bit, I don’t know, off. I mean, it’s one thing to tell people who are sad about something that they no longer have any real ability to change to just be less sad, or to realize that other people aren’t sad about it, so just hush now, and another to imagine that, as the in general driving force for drastic climate change, that any kind of collapsing America won’t drastically make the world a much worse place.
Think about it for a second. Maybe the percentages have slightly shifted, but it’s a country that makes up about 5% of the global population, yet consumes roughly 25% of its resources, maintaining an absurdly high level of military spending. Aside from its utter unwillingness to rein in its unchecked consumption, the lean in towards fascism and electoral capture through gerrymandering and control of then courts? It’s not like the nation will just quietly blip out of existence. In whatever resource based conflicts that do arise, whatever the States are becoming will likely be a prime instigator of them, to make sure the standard of living (for those who can afford it) stays as high as it can as long as it can.
To put it another way: at the end of Titanic, when they’ve gotten into the water, they have to get away from the boat as it goes under, because as it does, it starts to suck everything down with it. That’s America, and when it does finally fall apart, the havoc that creates won’t simply be contained in its borders.
Past that, it’s kind of okay to be a bit myopic when the place where you keep all your stuff is visibly collapsing around you.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:46 PM on May 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Think about it for a second. Maybe the percentages have slightly shifted, but it’s a country that makes up about 5% of the global population, yet consumes roughly 25% of its resources, maintaining an absurdly high level of military spending. Aside from its utter unwillingness to rein in its unchecked consumption, the lean in towards fascism and electoral capture through gerrymandering and control of then courts? It’s not like the nation will just quietly blip out of existence. In whatever resource based conflicts that do arise, whatever the States are becoming will likely be a prime instigator of them, to make sure the standard of living (for those who can afford it) stays as high as it can as long as it can.
To put it another way: at the end of Titanic, when they’ve gotten into the water, they have to get away from the boat as it goes under, because as it does, it starts to suck everything down with it. That’s America, and when it does finally fall apart, the havoc that creates won’t simply be contained in its borders.
Past that, it’s kind of okay to be a bit myopic when the place where you keep all your stuff is visibly collapsing around you.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:46 PM on May 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
By an amazing turn of fatality, since economists in general have turned out to be such shit prognosticators, Robert Heilbroner saw all this coming back in 1974:
There is a question in the air, a question so disturbing that I would hesitate to ask it aloud did I not believe it existed unvoiced in the minds of many: “Is there hope for man?”posted by jamjam at 2:57 PM on May 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
In another era such a question might have raised thoughts of man’s ultimate salvation or damnation. But today the brooding doubts that it arouses have to do with life on earth, now and for the relatively few generations that constitute the limit of our capacity to imagine the future. For the question asks whether we can imagine that future other than as a continuation of the darkness, cruelty, and disorder of the past; worse, whether we do not foresee in the human prospect a deterioration of things, even an impending catastrophe of fearful dimensions.
So on the topic of the articles, like I generally agree with Haque's broad points, but I often find his details to be lacking. For example, in the theocratic-fascist revolution article, he says, "America’s revolution was the worst thing that ever happened to Native Americans or a whole lot of Africans." Which ... the US Revolution didn't START the Native American genocide or the Atlantic slave trade; those were both already well underway. I know alternative history loves to dig into "well, if the US had remained part of Britain, they would have abolished slavery in the 1830s." But man, the Revolution probably dramatically accelerated Britain's timeline on abolition because it made slavery far less economically important to the British economy. Britain ceased participating in the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, which is when the US also theoretically quit importation; but a large part of Parliament's rationale for quitting the Atlantic slave trade was to keep its Carribbean colonies from Haitian-style slave revolts so they could keep producing sugar with slaves. The sugar industry collapsed in the 1820s; Britain didn't abolish slavery until the 1830s, when it was clear sugar plantations would never be economically important again. If the US and its wildly lucrative tobacco and cotton plantations had remained part of Britain, it may not have been nearly so eager to outlaw slavery in the 1830s, not when there was still profit to be made.
Anyway, not that the US isn't morally responsible for the Native American genocide within its borders (both before and after it became an independent nation) or for the trans-Atlantic slave trade that it participated it -- it is culpable for both -- but it's really hard to see how the American Revolution is the "worst thing that ever happened" to people who were victims of those forms of violence, when it seems like "arrival of European settlers in the Americas" was probably the actual worst thing. Or arguably "the invention of guns" or "the morally bankrupt theology of 1600s Christianity that just went all-in on chattel slavery and mindless slaughter."
The other objection I have to this piece is, Republicans have spent a lot of years insisting government get small enough to drown it in a bathtub, and one of the massive consequences of that is wildly unregulated corporate power. But the most powerful corporations in the US today are mostly tech companies, and tech companies that have red-state presences have mostly clearly stated they will pay for employees to travel out-of-state to access reproductive care. (Hell, the AIR FORCE has offered to transfer any service members who have trans family members and are trapped in anti-trans states.) Amazon, Apple, DoorDash, Lyft, Microsoft, SalesForce, Tesla ... but also Citigroup, Levi Strauss, and other more traditional companies. Does anybody really think that if Texas sues Apple for helping an employee travel to get an abortion, and Apple subsequently pulls out of Texas and pays to relocate its employees to California or New Mexico, that people like Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney are going to actually pass legislation to let Texas come after Apple for withdrawing? If Facebook shuts down in Texas because of Texas's wildly dumbass social media law, is a Republican Congress really going to FORCE Meta to return to Texas?
There are a lot of theocratic fascists in the GOP, no doubt, and the Wall Street arm no longer has the power to use them but keep them in check. But does anyone really think that mammon-worshipping Republicans (a category that includes a lot of the theocrats and fascists) are going to go up against Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Citibank? No, they're going to take their fucking lobbying money and STFU about corporations brazenly flouting these laws. And those companies may agree to keep sort facilities and warehouses and Apple stores in red states, but they're going to be helping their high-value tech employees move to blue states where those employees want to live. Because if they don't, those employees will defect to a company that will a) let them live in Oregon and b) pay to relocate them.
And we already saw this when Indiana passed its shitty RFRA bill to let them discriminate against gay people. The magnitude of the corporate and sports reaction forced Indiana to back down and pass laws amending the RFRA to defang it, until the Christian lobbyists who got it passed said that the amendments "destroyed" what the bill was intended to accomplish. Indiana is hella Republican and Mike Pence really hates gay people, and that bill passed the state senate 40-10 and was signed into law in March 2015.
By April 2015, corporate and sports boycotts and threatened boycotts, as well as complete outrage from universities in the state (including very religious ones like Notre Dame and ones run by former Republican governors like Indiana University), forced Indiana to back down and pass Senate Bill 50 to defang basically all the theocratic parts of the original law. ("Section 1 of Indiana Senate Bill 50 stated that Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is not a authorization for a “provider” to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing to an individual on the bases of certain characteristics, including, but not limited to, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. This section also stated that Indiana's RFRA is not a defense in a civil action or criminal prosecution for such refusal by a “provider” on the basis of certain characteristics, including, but not limited to, sexual orientation and gender identity." -- which basically undoes the entire thing the RFRA was intended to do.)
I've been hearing that some science-y employers in St. Louis, for example, have been struggling to hire qualified science and tech people as Missouri has gotten worse and worse (I've heard both BASF and Dow have been struggling to hire chemical engineers to their St. Louis-area plants). I know some people at ADM, and I've heard they've been having a lot more trouble recruiting people to their red-state and rural blue-state facilities. Like, people are happy to work at ADM HQ in Chicago, but it's getting harder to recruit scientists and executives to go to ethanol plants in central Illinois, let alone Iowa or Nebraska. And one thing that I hear they're hearing from interviewees is "I won't send my kids to those high schools." Because these are graduates of top college programs who want their OWN kids to go to the same top programs, and they know graduating from a religious curriculum in rural Kansas isn't going to do the job (and most of the places aren't big enough to support top-notch private schools -- which are mostly Christian-run anyway (some by science-believing Christians but more by, um, NOT) -- and the jobs don't pay enough to support sending your kid to boarding school). Some of these companies are going to start saying that running a chemical plant in Missouri isn't worth it when they can't staff it with the high-value engineers they need, and it might be better to build a plant in Rockford or Kankakee, take the sweet tax incentives from Illinois, and let their high-value executives and engineers live in Naperville or Orland Park and commute to Chicago via train as desired, and to Rockford or Kankakee by car as needed.
I watched the anti-CRT movement attempt to roll through suburban Chicago high schools, often in pretty Republican areas (Orland Park is a GOP hellscape tbh), and people lost their shit about it not because they gave any shits about CRT (most did not), but because they recognized that if their kids went to high schools that refused to have discussions about racism in the US in English lit or history classes, their kids were not competitive for Ivy League schools or Big Ten flagships. Locally a radical Republican with a pretty serious personality disorder got up an entire anti-CRT slate for school board in our VERY PROGRESSIVE suburb, and he was firmly rebuffed by the townsfolk, but the part that really made him feel betrayed, that he's still complaining about two years later, is that all the GOP party officials in town were alarmed and upset by his proposals, and urged their voters to vote against him. Because they care exactly 0% about CRT and 100% about their kids getting in to Northwestern. They are FINE with supporting anti-environment candidates for city council, but they were NOT IN FAVOR of supporting "anti-your-kids-going-to-college" candidates for school board.
And eventually the NFL and NBA players' unions are going to get a guarantee that players don't have to transfer to states that engage in discrimination that could impact their families, and a BUNCH OF PEOPLE are going to start refusing to play in Texas. Like, sure, a lot of people will still go play for Cowboys money. But some top players will refuse, knowing they can go anywhere else. And others will fly into Texas to play for that sweet Cowboys money, but they'll flaunt the fact that they actually live in California because Texas sucks.
And like, I don't know how this works out at a national level, because the Senate ensures actual democracy is always out of reach, and the judiciary has collapsed as an authority wildly quickly and in very uncomfortable ways -- that I nonetheless saw coming way back when I was in law school. I always said back in 2001ish, "I'm not sure I want to live in a country where the judiciary is illegitimate, but I feel like I'm probably going to" and LO AND BEHOLD my prophetic powers. But this is a theocracy that subordinated itself to multinational corporations and their desires, and their money. And they can probably make life in a lot of the US suuuuuuuuuck for a pretty long period of time. But they're beholden to corporations who are not interested in their revanchist theocratic aims, who will not support them, and who require a critical mass of well-educated employees with liberal values. Theocrats who gain national power are going to be like, "Well fine, move to fuckin' Canada or Europe" and a bunch of top-level employees will literally do that, with their companies funding their moves, because the companies need those employees more than those employees need the US. And obviously Amazon and Apple and so on want to keep selling in the US, but it's really hard to see the US Congress outlawing them if they move their HQ to Vancouver and make their US operations a subsidiary. And the more aggressive the US theocratic right gets towards tech companies, the more those companies are going to diversify their profits into other parts of the world, so the US's aggression matters less.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:59 PM on May 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Anyway, not that the US isn't morally responsible for the Native American genocide within its borders (both before and after it became an independent nation) or for the trans-Atlantic slave trade that it participated it -- it is culpable for both -- but it's really hard to see how the American Revolution is the "worst thing that ever happened" to people who were victims of those forms of violence, when it seems like "arrival of European settlers in the Americas" was probably the actual worst thing. Or arguably "the invention of guns" or "the morally bankrupt theology of 1600s Christianity that just went all-in on chattel slavery and mindless slaughter."
The other objection I have to this piece is, Republicans have spent a lot of years insisting government get small enough to drown it in a bathtub, and one of the massive consequences of that is wildly unregulated corporate power. But the most powerful corporations in the US today are mostly tech companies, and tech companies that have red-state presences have mostly clearly stated they will pay for employees to travel out-of-state to access reproductive care. (Hell, the AIR FORCE has offered to transfer any service members who have trans family members and are trapped in anti-trans states.) Amazon, Apple, DoorDash, Lyft, Microsoft, SalesForce, Tesla ... but also Citigroup, Levi Strauss, and other more traditional companies. Does anybody really think that if Texas sues Apple for helping an employee travel to get an abortion, and Apple subsequently pulls out of Texas and pays to relocate its employees to California or New Mexico, that people like Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney are going to actually pass legislation to let Texas come after Apple for withdrawing? If Facebook shuts down in Texas because of Texas's wildly dumbass social media law, is a Republican Congress really going to FORCE Meta to return to Texas?
There are a lot of theocratic fascists in the GOP, no doubt, and the Wall Street arm no longer has the power to use them but keep them in check. But does anyone really think that mammon-worshipping Republicans (a category that includes a lot of the theocrats and fascists) are going to go up against Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Citibank? No, they're going to take their fucking lobbying money and STFU about corporations brazenly flouting these laws. And those companies may agree to keep sort facilities and warehouses and Apple stores in red states, but they're going to be helping their high-value tech employees move to blue states where those employees want to live. Because if they don't, those employees will defect to a company that will a) let them live in Oregon and b) pay to relocate them.
And we already saw this when Indiana passed its shitty RFRA bill to let them discriminate against gay people. The magnitude of the corporate and sports reaction forced Indiana to back down and pass laws amending the RFRA to defang it, until the Christian lobbyists who got it passed said that the amendments "destroyed" what the bill was intended to accomplish. Indiana is hella Republican and Mike Pence really hates gay people, and that bill passed the state senate 40-10 and was signed into law in March 2015.
By April 2015, corporate and sports boycotts and threatened boycotts, as well as complete outrage from universities in the state (including very religious ones like Notre Dame and ones run by former Republican governors like Indiana University), forced Indiana to back down and pass Senate Bill 50 to defang basically all the theocratic parts of the original law. ("Section 1 of Indiana Senate Bill 50 stated that Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is not a authorization for a “provider” to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing to an individual on the bases of certain characteristics, including, but not limited to, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. This section also stated that Indiana's RFRA is not a defense in a civil action or criminal prosecution for such refusal by a “provider” on the basis of certain characteristics, including, but not limited to, sexual orientation and gender identity." -- which basically undoes the entire thing the RFRA was intended to do.)
I've been hearing that some science-y employers in St. Louis, for example, have been struggling to hire qualified science and tech people as Missouri has gotten worse and worse (I've heard both BASF and Dow have been struggling to hire chemical engineers to their St. Louis-area plants). I know some people at ADM, and I've heard they've been having a lot more trouble recruiting people to their red-state and rural blue-state facilities. Like, people are happy to work at ADM HQ in Chicago, but it's getting harder to recruit scientists and executives to go to ethanol plants in central Illinois, let alone Iowa or Nebraska. And one thing that I hear they're hearing from interviewees is "I won't send my kids to those high schools." Because these are graduates of top college programs who want their OWN kids to go to the same top programs, and they know graduating from a religious curriculum in rural Kansas isn't going to do the job (and most of the places aren't big enough to support top-notch private schools -- which are mostly Christian-run anyway (some by science-believing Christians but more by, um, NOT) -- and the jobs don't pay enough to support sending your kid to boarding school). Some of these companies are going to start saying that running a chemical plant in Missouri isn't worth it when they can't staff it with the high-value engineers they need, and it might be better to build a plant in Rockford or Kankakee, take the sweet tax incentives from Illinois, and let their high-value executives and engineers live in Naperville or Orland Park and commute to Chicago via train as desired, and to Rockford or Kankakee by car as needed.
I watched the anti-CRT movement attempt to roll through suburban Chicago high schools, often in pretty Republican areas (Orland Park is a GOP hellscape tbh), and people lost their shit about it not because they gave any shits about CRT (most did not), but because they recognized that if their kids went to high schools that refused to have discussions about racism in the US in English lit or history classes, their kids were not competitive for Ivy League schools or Big Ten flagships. Locally a radical Republican with a pretty serious personality disorder got up an entire anti-CRT slate for school board in our VERY PROGRESSIVE suburb, and he was firmly rebuffed by the townsfolk, but the part that really made him feel betrayed, that he's still complaining about two years later, is that all the GOP party officials in town were alarmed and upset by his proposals, and urged their voters to vote against him. Because they care exactly 0% about CRT and 100% about their kids getting in to Northwestern. They are FINE with supporting anti-environment candidates for city council, but they were NOT IN FAVOR of supporting "anti-your-kids-going-to-college" candidates for school board.
And eventually the NFL and NBA players' unions are going to get a guarantee that players don't have to transfer to states that engage in discrimination that could impact their families, and a BUNCH OF PEOPLE are going to start refusing to play in Texas. Like, sure, a lot of people will still go play for Cowboys money. But some top players will refuse, knowing they can go anywhere else. And others will fly into Texas to play for that sweet Cowboys money, but they'll flaunt the fact that they actually live in California because Texas sucks.
And like, I don't know how this works out at a national level, because the Senate ensures actual democracy is always out of reach, and the judiciary has collapsed as an authority wildly quickly and in very uncomfortable ways -- that I nonetheless saw coming way back when I was in law school. I always said back in 2001ish, "I'm not sure I want to live in a country where the judiciary is illegitimate, but I feel like I'm probably going to" and LO AND BEHOLD my prophetic powers. But this is a theocracy that subordinated itself to multinational corporations and their desires, and their money. And they can probably make life in a lot of the US suuuuuuuuuck for a pretty long period of time. But they're beholden to corporations who are not interested in their revanchist theocratic aims, who will not support them, and who require a critical mass of well-educated employees with liberal values. Theocrats who gain national power are going to be like, "Well fine, move to fuckin' Canada or Europe" and a bunch of top-level employees will literally do that, with their companies funding their moves, because the companies need those employees more than those employees need the US. And obviously Amazon and Apple and so on want to keep selling in the US, but it's really hard to see the US Congress outlawing them if they move their HQ to Vancouver and make their US operations a subsidiary. And the more aggressive the US theocratic right gets towards tech companies, the more those companies are going to diversify their profits into other parts of the world, so the US's aggression matters less.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:59 PM on May 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I also don't exactly disagree with the climate article about the New Dark Age -- except that my uncle/godfather, in the mid-70s, got married while he was working on his ecology PhD (one of the first in the US!) and he and his wife decided not to have children because of the specter of global warming and their certainty that they'd be bringing any children into a collapsing world. I feel like I first heard this when I was about six -- it's not a family secret! And his gifts to his nieces and nephews and godchildren have always been focused on environmentalism and appreciating the world as it currently exists (and may not exist for long). He went into teaching high school biology rather than academia or industry in the hopes of training a generation of students about the dangers of global warming (which I feel like he mostly HAS done; he has the highest AP bio pass rate in his entire state and has been invited to the White House by several successive administrations to recognize his contribution to science education in the US). I will say, because it comes up a bit in the rest of the comment, that my uncle is a devout Catholic and his wife is a VERY devout Presbyterian, and they have spent a lot of their lives writing letters to their pastors, bishops, and sessions, explaining why those people are VERY WRONG about their theology of the environment, and they write HELLA GOOD LETTERS, I can say as a theologian. They are both people who believe God created the universe through science, and studying the natural processes of the universe leads you to a better understanding of God, which itself is good and holy. Understanding the Big Bang, or the extinction of the dinosaurs, or how evolution works, is one step closer to understanding the mind of God. Insisting on creationism is a rejection of God, and a rejection the majesty and holiness of the Created Universe. So for my uncle, teaching AP Bio is a holy act that introduces generations of students to the majesty of the Created Universe.
Like, Haque isn't wrong -- a lot of what he identifies is happening. I remember having a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian in about 2004, where I explained thermo-haline currents and the consequences if they shut down, and he understood what I was saying, but told me, "But God won't let that happen -- God has already redeemed the world." That is not a barrier you can break through. (I have tried!) But yeah -- I don't know that his confident predictions are based in reality rather than one particular story about how shit goes wrong. (There are many stories about how shit goes wrong!) But it feels a bit shy on actually engaging with cataclysms and how people actually behave when faced with one -- a topic there is a lot of academic literature about, but also a lot of ethical literature about. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation was a fuckin' life-changing book for me, that I've talked about at MetaFilter before. I said,
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:05 PM on May 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
Like, Haque isn't wrong -- a lot of what he identifies is happening. I remember having a conversation with a fundamentalist Christian in about 2004, where I explained thermo-haline currents and the consequences if they shut down, and he understood what I was saying, but told me, "But God won't let that happen -- God has already redeemed the world." That is not a barrier you can break through. (I have tried!) But yeah -- I don't know that his confident predictions are based in reality rather than one particular story about how shit goes wrong. (There are many stories about how shit goes wrong!) But it feels a bit shy on actually engaging with cataclysms and how people actually behave when faced with one -- a topic there is a lot of academic literature about, but also a lot of ethical literature about. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation was a fuckin' life-changing book for me, that I've talked about at MetaFilter before. I said,
"From the chickadee, Chief Plenty Coups knew that he had to watch and learn as voraciously and courageously as possible, not just from his people and their ways but from everything available, and adapt, and that was how the Crow would survive. And he did, and they did. He became chief in the year of the Battle of Little Big Horn, and he spent the next decades of his life fighting for the survival of the Crow when the US wanted them destroyed. He took the tools he could from the white men and used them to argue down the US Senate. He won (most of) their tribal lands and protected them from gold prospectors and land speculators. He brought the Crow peacefully into the 20th century, and was so respected in Washington that he was the only Native American invited to speak at the dedicated of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier."And further, "The book, and the story, and the chickadee, have been a source of hope and solace to me as a parent facing these incredibly difficult times. When I see a chickadee, or hear its call, I think of the lessons of the life of Chief Plenty Coups, and the ethical responses to catastrophe that Radical Hope draws from his life, and I feel like, it's going to be shitty, but we can survive. We can hear the chickadee and follow her guidance -- learn, adapt, survive, using every tool at our disposal. And there will still be beauty and birdsong, even in the midst of utter catastrophe."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:05 PM on May 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
"arrival of European settlers in the Americas" was probably the actual worst thing
New World devastation
New World devastation
“We found that disease didn’t really start to take effect until after 1620, but we then see a very rapid depopulation from 1620 to 1680. [The death rate] was staggeringly high — about 87 percent of the native population died in that short period.posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 AM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
“Think about what that would mean if you have a room full of people and nine out of 10 die,” he continued. “Think of what that means for their social structure, if they’re losing the people who know the traditional medicine, their social and religious leaders, think of the huge impact it would have on their culture and history.”
And lots of native groups were pretty small dropping from 1000 to 125 people could litterally mean not having enough labour available to man key projects even if the leaders and artisans weren't among the 87%.
The assorted coloniser wars were far from a cake walk in a lot if cases; they would have went way differently if the population hadn't been decimated by desease before they got underway.
But does anyone really think that mammon-worshipping Republicans (a category that includes a lot of the theocrats and fascists) are going to go up against Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Citibank? No, they're going to take their fucking lobbying money and STFU about corporations brazenly flouting these laws.
I think the Cheeto proved that lobbiests and the people beholden to them may not be able to control the geoups they have cultivated to hold on to power.
And obviously Amazon and Apple and so on want to keep selling in the US, but it's really hard to see the US Congress outlawing them if they move their HQ to Vancouver and make their US operations a subsidiary. And the more aggressive the US theocratic right gets towards tech companies, the more those companies are going to diversify their profits into other parts of the world, so the US's aggression matters less.
But it still matters a lot to the USA. Companies, even proto tech companies like IBM, were more than happy to take Nazi money to not only further their ends in Germany but actually propagate the Holocaust. BASF, Trupp, IBM, Ford, Coke, etc were on board. Deutsche Bank underwrote construction loans for Auschwitz. Chase sold fucking nazi war bonds to german americans for fucks sake.
And as a Canadian I'm constantly low level worried that as America slides into autocratic theologisim that not only will it spill over here (*cough Freedun Convoy cough*) but we'll also get to play Ukraine to USA's Russia.
Not as bad as it could be leaves a lot of room for pretty bad.
posted by Mitheral at 7:46 AM on May 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
The assorted coloniser wars were far from a cake walk in a lot if cases; they would have went way differently if the population hadn't been decimated by desease before they got underway.
But does anyone really think that mammon-worshipping Republicans (a category that includes a lot of the theocrats and fascists) are going to go up against Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Citibank? No, they're going to take their fucking lobbying money and STFU about corporations brazenly flouting these laws.
I think the Cheeto proved that lobbiests and the people beholden to them may not be able to control the geoups they have cultivated to hold on to power.
And obviously Amazon and Apple and so on want to keep selling in the US, but it's really hard to see the US Congress outlawing them if they move their HQ to Vancouver and make their US operations a subsidiary. And the more aggressive the US theocratic right gets towards tech companies, the more those companies are going to diversify their profits into other parts of the world, so the US's aggression matters less.
But it still matters a lot to the USA. Companies, even proto tech companies like IBM, were more than happy to take Nazi money to not only further their ends in Germany but actually propagate the Holocaust. BASF, Trupp, IBM, Ford, Coke, etc were on board. Deutsche Bank underwrote construction loans for Auschwitz. Chase sold fucking nazi war bonds to german americans for fucks sake.
And as a Canadian I'm constantly low level worried that as America slides into autocratic theologisim that not only will it spill over here (*cough Freedun Convoy cough*) but we'll also get to play Ukraine to USA's Russia.
Not as bad as it could be leaves a lot of room for pretty bad.
posted by Mitheral at 7:46 AM on May 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
It's hard to comment here because I feel far out of my depth among the more well read mefites.
I also have work to do, so I don't have much brain to spare to add to the conversation.
I recently did a curiosity browse of an outspoken-ly fascist chan.
They would agree with this story, and praise it being spread among us.
They want you to believe that the arc of history bends toward them, and they do not care how absolutely terrible the planet gets on the way. The ecological disaster of our civilization is taken for granted as a starting point for fascism.
posted by shenkerism at 9:44 AM on May 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
I also have work to do, so I don't have much brain to spare to add to the conversation.
I recently did a curiosity browse of an outspoken-ly fascist chan.
They would agree with this story, and praise it being spread among us.
They want you to believe that the arc of history bends toward them, and they do not care how absolutely terrible the planet gets on the way. The ecological disaster of our civilization is taken for granted as a starting point for fascism.
posted by shenkerism at 9:44 AM on May 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
I’m fairly sympathetic to his views in general but WOW that was the most cynical and pessimistic possible take.
posted by viborg at 11:32 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by viborg at 11:32 AM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Like, people are happy to work at ADM HQ in Chicago, but it's getting harder to recruit scientists and executives to go to ethanol plants in central Illinois, let alone Iowa or Nebraska.
What happens is a self-reinforcing impoverishment of Red states. Their public schools and universities will decline due to increased politicization (like loyalty pledges) and defunding. Their major employers will look to relocate to places nurturing of intellectual capital and high skill workers. Generally political power follows economic power. There will come a point where the declining economic contribution of red states will result in a political disenfranchisement. That’s particularly true given that the current political power of red states and communities is strongly illiberal, due to a system rigged in their favor. What that realignment looks like, I have no idea. It will may grow out of a states rights argument where, after some egregious court ruling or legislation violating the rights of their citizens, places like California stop paying taxes. Then things get very interesting/scary.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:19 PM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
What happens is a self-reinforcing impoverishment of Red states. Their public schools and universities will decline due to increased politicization (like loyalty pledges) and defunding. Their major employers will look to relocate to places nurturing of intellectual capital and high skill workers. Generally political power follows economic power. There will come a point where the declining economic contribution of red states will result in a political disenfranchisement. That’s particularly true given that the current political power of red states and communities is strongly illiberal, due to a system rigged in their favor. What that realignment looks like, I have no idea. It will may grow out of a states rights argument where, after some egregious court ruling or legislation violating the rights of their citizens, places like California stop paying taxes. Then things get very interesting/scary.
posted by leotrotsky at 12:19 PM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Add in that the pro grift, anti regulation bent of the GQP means that places like Texas can't keep the lights on not because of some natural disaster but because it is better for electrical generators to induce shortages and defer maintenance. If rolling blackouts become just a thing that happens in some states that will also encourage people to leave, discourge people from coming.
posted by Mitheral at 1:15 PM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Mitheral at 1:15 PM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
There's nothing quite as MetaFilter as comments complaining about an article's "doom and gloom".
you do us all an injustice, sir, in failing to mention that many of us find fault in the tone and details of the article's "doom and gloom." because if it's doom and gloom on the MeFi, you'd best have the cut of your jib all straightened out and get it precisely so. and it still won't quite do for some of us, believe me
posted by elkevelvet at 2:05 PM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
you do us all an injustice, sir, in failing to mention that many of us find fault in the tone and details of the article's "doom and gloom." because if it's doom and gloom on the MeFi, you'd best have the cut of your jib all straightened out and get it precisely so. and it still won't quite do for some of us, believe me
posted by elkevelvet at 2:05 PM on May 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
EYEBROWS!!! I bow before you!
Thank you for writing all of that; your take on this is so twisted and grim and hopeful and deadly realistic, and I don't know how I *feel* about it, whether I agree or hate it or both or neither, but I've printed your comments out to read again at bedtime so I can really think about what you've said.
(Also requested Radical Hope from the library. Thank you.)
posted by MiraK at 2:22 PM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thank you for writing all of that; your take on this is so twisted and grim and hopeful and deadly realistic, and I don't know how I *feel* about it, whether I agree or hate it or both or neither, but I've printed your comments out to read again at bedtime so I can really think about what you've said.
(Also requested Radical Hope from the library. Thank you.)
posted by MiraK at 2:22 PM on May 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
But does anyone really think that mammon-worshipping Republicans (a category that includes a lot of the theocrats and fascists) are going to go up against Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Citibank?
I would be very cautious in hoping that corporations will be a bulwark against fascism or theocracy. Netflix and Apple and the rest of the tech companies may be happy to undermine Republican anti-abortion efforts today, because they think that's the winning play right now, in the current political environment.
But those companies certainly aren't paragons of social virtue, or anything else other than an unquenchable lust for excess profits. That's all they are.
Apple may be happy to score domestic PR points by flipping the bird at the GOP, but their anti-authoritarianism sure doesn't seem to influence their actions in China, where the authoritarians have actual no-shit power over them. When any aspect of Apple's core business—like the Foxconn sweatshops that keep their margins high, or their ability to sell iPhones to a few billion people—starts to come under threat, even just implied threat… it turns out their ethics are actually very negotiable. When push comes to shove, they back down. And they always will, because when your primary goal is profits, all else is by definition secondary. And you don't make money by fighting with the people who print it, and who can take it away.
Right now we're seeing a game of chicken play out between Texas Republicans and the social media companies. I suspect the social media companies will win this one, mostly because the Texas laws are comically badly-written, and seemingly exist mostly as stunts to drive voter turnout (and donations!). It's probably better for Republicans if the courts toss their stupid law than if it sticks. Maybe that's their idea of a cunning plan.
But if the social conservatives and theocrats and fascists ever manage to really get a firm grip on power—Xi Jinping style, enough to actually threaten the profitability of major companies (or physically threaten their executives)—I fully expect those companies to quickly rewrite those cute "Company Values" pages and start toeing the line.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:18 PM on May 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
I would be very cautious in hoping that corporations will be a bulwark against fascism or theocracy. Netflix and Apple and the rest of the tech companies may be happy to undermine Republican anti-abortion efforts today, because they think that's the winning play right now, in the current political environment.
But those companies certainly aren't paragons of social virtue, or anything else other than an unquenchable lust for excess profits. That's all they are.
Apple may be happy to score domestic PR points by flipping the bird at the GOP, but their anti-authoritarianism sure doesn't seem to influence their actions in China, where the authoritarians have actual no-shit power over them. When any aspect of Apple's core business—like the Foxconn sweatshops that keep their margins high, or their ability to sell iPhones to a few billion people—starts to come under threat, even just implied threat… it turns out their ethics are actually very negotiable. When push comes to shove, they back down. And they always will, because when your primary goal is profits, all else is by definition secondary. And you don't make money by fighting with the people who print it, and who can take it away.
Right now we're seeing a game of chicken play out between Texas Republicans and the social media companies. I suspect the social media companies will win this one, mostly because the Texas laws are comically badly-written, and seemingly exist mostly as stunts to drive voter turnout (and donations!). It's probably better for Republicans if the courts toss their stupid law than if it sticks. Maybe that's their idea of a cunning plan.
But if the social conservatives and theocrats and fascists ever manage to really get a firm grip on power—Xi Jinping style, enough to actually threaten the profitability of major companies (or physically threaten their executives)—I fully expect those companies to quickly rewrite those cute "Company Values" pages and start toeing the line.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:18 PM on May 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Why do I read doom and gloom articles? Because it's nice to see my world views validated? Because I feel less like a crazy shouting alone in the desert about the obvious?
I live in Texas, currently, and am making major plans to move blue by the end of the year. Even better if I can get out of the country entirely. Several of the places I'd love to live are red states, and those bastards are avalanching anti LGBTQIA laws at me left and right. I genuinely view myself as a political refugee at this point. If you think the oppression isn't that bad yet, well, lucky you. I'm not that optimistic. I understand the meaning behind words like pogroms and lynching and genocide. I don't trust the people who voted Republican not to kill me if they think they can get away with it. Gay panic defense or stand your bathroom ground laws or straight up banning any and all medical care for me.
Oh, and of course the climate here is atrocious and getting worse. It's already 95 out, and summer is just beginning. And any claims that I have any meaning as an individual are bullshit. Yes, I'm going to vote democrat and not run the lights and not drive a SUV. But Texas has voted Republican since before I was born, so maybe my vote matters if only X million other people voted with my side this year! And ecological conservation isn't nothing, but my lifetime contribution is vastly, order of magnitude wiped out by a single second of an Exxon or coal plant or NFT mining or something. Trying harder won't save me from the craziness bound and determined to sink the boat I live in.
And this all leaves me sadly exhausted. We aren't going to win. Evil has figured out how to give itself power once more. People are going to die, more and more. Freedoms are going to be reserved for the right people. Water very well might become a privilege in my lifetime. And....... We don't stop voting for coal mines
and oil money and devestating environmental protection in the name of profit. We can't convince 40% of the population not to mask as their neighbors die.
I used to think believing this all was crazy. But I just don't anymore. I think the light at the end of the tunnel is a doom train driven by forest and gas well fires, captained by hate and destructive rage.
posted by Jacen at 12:08 AM on May 17, 2022 [8 favorites]
I live in Texas, currently, and am making major plans to move blue by the end of the year. Even better if I can get out of the country entirely. Several of the places I'd love to live are red states, and those bastards are avalanching anti LGBTQIA laws at me left and right. I genuinely view myself as a political refugee at this point. If you think the oppression isn't that bad yet, well, lucky you. I'm not that optimistic. I understand the meaning behind words like pogroms and lynching and genocide. I don't trust the people who voted Republican not to kill me if they think they can get away with it. Gay panic defense or stand your bathroom ground laws or straight up banning any and all medical care for me.
Oh, and of course the climate here is atrocious and getting worse. It's already 95 out, and summer is just beginning. And any claims that I have any meaning as an individual are bullshit. Yes, I'm going to vote democrat and not run the lights and not drive a SUV. But Texas has voted Republican since before I was born, so maybe my vote matters if only X million other people voted with my side this year! And ecological conservation isn't nothing, but my lifetime contribution is vastly, order of magnitude wiped out by a single second of an Exxon or coal plant or NFT mining or something. Trying harder won't save me from the craziness bound and determined to sink the boat I live in.
And this all leaves me sadly exhausted. We aren't going to win. Evil has figured out how to give itself power once more. People are going to die, more and more. Freedoms are going to be reserved for the right people. Water very well might become a privilege in my lifetime. And....... We don't stop voting for coal mines
and oil money and devestating environmental protection in the name of profit. We can't convince 40% of the population not to mask as their neighbors die.
I used to think believing this all was crazy. But I just don't anymore. I think the light at the end of the tunnel is a doom train driven by forest and gas well fires, captained by hate and destructive rage.
posted by Jacen at 12:08 AM on May 17, 2022 [8 favorites]
Jane Jacobs literally wrote a book called Dark Age Ahead in 2004, so I think it's a big stretch to think no one could have imagined where we'd find ourselves in 20 years time.
Yes and Jacobs wasn't alone. Quite a few writers could see around the turn of the century that the combination of austerity/neo-liberalism and the flourishing internet at a time when collective action on climate was becoming obviously needed could lead us down a dangerous path if the wrong choices were made (suprise! the wrong choices were made).
posted by dry white toast at 10:19 AM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes and Jacobs wasn't alone. Quite a few writers could see around the turn of the century that the combination of austerity/neo-liberalism and the flourishing internet at a time when collective action on climate was becoming obviously needed could lead us down a dangerous path if the wrong choices were made (suprise! the wrong choices were made).
posted by dry white toast at 10:19 AM on May 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
« Older Shift your vibe | A Movement That’s Quietly Reshaping Democracy For... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
The characterization of slow reaction culminating in something sudden and surprising is apt, I guess. But not every revolution is the Irani revolution, and not every huge nation with a patchwork of histories and tolerances is the same.
So, he's convincing nobody that wasn't already convinced. But he's right, so I guess that's something.
posted by abulafa at 5:39 AM on May 15, 2022 [4 favorites]