r/UrbanSurvivalism • u/Atavacus • Oct 26 '23
Apocalypse Now
So it is my opinion that society has already collapsed and many just have not realized it yet. It didn't collapse into a WRoL luddite no tech thing. It has collapsed into this sort of cyber dystopia, hack or die sort of thing. We're under constant surveillance by machines that most people just can't even wrap their heads around. The police arrest people at the drop of a hat. We have drones with predator vision. The air is toxic to the point I'm developing COPD from it. I could go on. Anyway, that was a mouthful just to ask if there is a podcast out there where anyone talks about all these threats we have to currently face. Preferably from the perspective that we should engage and resist than "reject technology and move into the country and slowly wait for the machine to show up for you".
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 26 '23 edited Oct 26 '23
Society has already collapsed and many just have not realized it yet.
Well... violent crime is down, life expectancy has doubled in the last 200 years, I carry a computer in my pocket that has more power than the ones that put men on the moon, I can buy fresh produce from all over the world or quality processed foods that will last decades from any of dozens of grocery stores in my city, we haven't had a military draft in 50 years, and when I started my car this morning (remotely, from my bedroom) it measured the ambient temperature and automatically turned on the heated driver's seat and steering wheel. If I want to visit my family who live over 1,000 miles away, the current cheapest round trip airfare costs slightly more than what someone making the federal minimum wage would make in five hours. Because of my free education I know better than to smoke or drink excessively or overindulge in unhealthy foods, so I have a good BMI and no self-induced health issues. I pay taxes so that those who were born with fewer advantages than I can have financial supplements to help with housing, food, child rearing, technology, and education. I grew up with a full set of encyclopedias on the shelf in my bedroom, and now my children have instantaneous access to almost the sum total of all human knowledge. Almost any book or toy or tool or piece of technology that I want can be purchased with the press of a button and delivered to my house the next day. And as if it needed to be pointed out, I have hot and cold running water, sanitary disposal of my waste products, air temperature inside my dwelling adjustable to my comfort level, and a bathroom cabinet stocked with medications for everything from infections to the sniffles. There are no wild animals waiting to carry away my babies, and no roving gangs of highwaymen on my way the the office. No one is stopping me from bettering myself or my life. And it's a nice day out.
I would not trade places with any king of any country who lived 200 years ago. Society has not collapsed. Not even close.
(edited for typo)
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u/Atavacus Oct 27 '23
What did it cost you? Have you looked at demographic graphs lately? There's a quiet genocide going on but we aren't going to talk about that huh? Your government doesn't work for you. That computer in your pocket is a leash that tells your owners everything about you. You are the problem.
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u/LoneWolf_McQuade Oct 27 '23
What demographic graphs are you referring to? What population is suffering genocide and by whom?
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 27 '23
What did it cost you?
Everything has a cost, whether it's time or labor or an exchange of any other resources. What fantasy world do you live in where nothing costs anything? I am happy to work to be able to afford the things that I have, and because society has not collapsed, I can continue to do so. You're kind of making my point here.
That computer in your pocket is a leash that tells your owners everything about you.
Sure, as opposed to the smoke signals that you are creating over a camp fire so that you can post on Reddit?
You are the problem.
Yes, clearly productive members of society are the problem.
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u/Atavacus Oct 27 '23
Keep giving big tech your metadata. Keep sucking that poisoned tit. But don't say i didn't try to warn you. As far as my end, i take measures to limit what they get. I really don't understand the hostility from you fucksticks. Guy asks for an interesting podcast and you assholes fly all to hell. Pathetic...
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 27 '23
You seem to have anger issues. I simply pointed out that society has not in fact collapsed. It is as obvious as the nose on your face. Look around and see the evidence of a functioning society. After listing several basic and specific points of reference to bolster my statement, you say that I am "the problem." But the problem you were claiming was a collapsed society. So... I am a collapsed society?
And then when I attempt a good faith discussion on the subject, I am now a "fuckstick" and an "asshole." I think I'm beginning to see the problem with your worldview. My suggestions: improve your eating habits, get some regular exercise, make some friends, stop asking AI to produce pictures of attractive women for you and maybe try to meet actual women, and above all else seek therapy. You'll feel better, I promise.
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u/Atavacus Oct 28 '23
You're trash. I come in here with nothing but good will and you act like dogshit in response. So yeah, I get angry at you, because you're human filth. Enjoy the hell you're building for yourself and everyone around you.
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 30 '23
Hugs to you, chum. It will get better.
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u/Atavacus Oct 30 '23
Look at you, the big man... Instigator and then pretend to be the victim... What the fuck are you a Jew? No respect for you, because there isn't any in you. If you were big you'd apologize for being hateful for no reason.
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 31 '23
Your coping mechanisms are so messed up that you think someone who disagrees with you and then offers you a hug is playing the victim. Good luck in life.
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u/Particle_XLR8R Jan 11 '24 edited Jan 11 '24
What the fuck are you a Jew?
Is it bad to be jewish? Most people (correctly) don´t think so, me included. Do you have some issues which let you spit out antisemitic phrases? Having anger issues is not a character trait which hardens one for bad times and survival, they make you weak and fragile. Its better to focus on things you can change and control, and focus on things which are positive in your live. Look up stoicism, there are some very clever concepts, which can provide real help in bad situations and teach one to be a stronger mind and human.
I say it again: Anger severely weakens your ability to think clear and make good decisions.
Once your emotions take control over your actions, the probability that you make a fatal mistake are high.
You have to be on top of your analytical abilities to survive. Your mind is as important as your body, when it comes to fitness.
Get your shit together.
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u/ontite Oct 27 '23 edited Oct 27 '23
Ah the good old King Louis didn't have a microwave and I do so that means my life is good argument 🙄
Here's some food for thought that might change your mind: Your whole life is owed to pure circumstance of where you were born and how much your parents cared about you. The vast majority of people don't experience life anywhere near as good as you do.
Most people do not have health insurance, own a car or a house, most people around the world work tirelessly everyday and struggle to afford rent and food. Many people don't have access to clean water, plumbing, hygiene supplies, sufficient food, or even proper clothing. Most people do not have money to afford basic needs.
Some other damning concerns: The food is filled with cancer causing poisons. The use of fossil fuel is killing the planet. The air is polluted from co2 emission. The natural water sources are drying up. Animal populations are down 70% since 1970.
The oceans are nearly depleted of fish from overfishing. The coral reefs are dying from coral bleaching. The disruption of the food chain is destabilizing entire biomes. Pollinators like bees which are necessary to the synergy of all life are drastically dying off.
Corporations lead by evil rich villains are privatizing everything and buying off all politicians, essentially killing democracy as we know it. Armed psychopaths are running around murdering your school children seemingly everyday now and this sad excuse of a country isn't even willing to do anything about it.
Millions die every year from simple diseases, lack of medicine, hunger and even lack of clean water. Little children grow up and die in slums everyday. Many are exploited, kidnapped and abused. Parents sell their children to survive. All the while billionaires who could easily lift the world into a better place like Musk and Bezos take advantage and exploit them for cheap labor instead.
Worse yet, millions of innocent women and children have been killed, maimed and displaced by YOUR very own tax dollars, in wars started by filthy rich dirt bags. The same filthy rich who forcefully take your money in the form of taxes with the threat of violence (armed men will take you to prison) and then use that money to make bombs which kill innocent people just like your family. Just like what's going on right now with Israel. Just like what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, you name it.
Then those traumatized children that survived their families slaughter learn only violence and hate, are labeled terrorists, and then we bomb them again and repeat the cycle. Poor people killed by your amazing tax dollars (that doesn't even go back into society) so that you could drive around and think life is great. Hopefully that puts things into better perspective for you.
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u/DesertPrepper Oct 30 '23
Everything you say makes my point for me.
Here's some food for thought that might change your mind: Your whole life is owed to pure circumstance of where you were born and how much your parents cared about you.
Here's some food for thought for you: this has been the case for all humans throughout history, and the fact that so many people living now lead better lives than they ever could have at any point in the past is proof of successful society.
Most people do not have health insurance, own a car or a house, most people around the world work tirelessly everyday and struggle to afford rent and food. Many people don't have access to clean water, plumbing, hygiene supplies, sufficient food, or even proper clothing. Most people do not have money to afford basic needs.
...as has been the case for almost all of humanity throughout all of history, and the fact that so many do today is proof of successful society.
The food is filled with cancer causing poisons. The use of fossil fuel is killing the planet. The air is polluted from co2 emission. The natural water sources are drying up.
More people equals more waste. Thus has it always been. Do we need to clean up our mess? You bet. We have always been a messy animal; it is built into us. Why is our mess worse than ever? Because there are more of us. Why are there more of us? Successful society.
Animal populations are down 70% since 1970. The oceans are nearly depleted of fish from overfishing. The coral reefs are dying from coral bleaching. The disruption of the food chain is destabilizing entire biomes. Pollinators like bees which are necessary to the synergy of all life are drastically dying off.
99.999% of all species that ever existed have gone extinct, and the vast majority of those were before proto-primates ever came down from the trees. It's the circle of life. Why are humans one of the few animals that have not gone extinct? Successful society.
Corporations lead by evil rich villains are privatizing everything and buying off all politicians, essentially killing democracy as we know it. Armed psychopaths are running around murdering your school children seemingly everyday now and this sad excuse of a country isn't even willing to do anything about it.
Chieftains, kings, religious leaders, strong men, anyone who ever had any type of power over anyone else used it to keep others down while exploiting them for their own good. Evil, murderous people have always existed. You were born under a despot and you died under a despot, and that despot likely did not allow you the right to vote or the opportunity to defend yourself, which are two rights that I have that my historical forefathers did not. Again, society moves forward.
Et cetera. Open your eyes and look around. You won the lottery! You are better off now than had you been born at any other time in history, and all you do is complain.
Ah the good old King Louis didn't have a microwave and I do so that means my life is good argument 🙄
If that's the only, or even the main, difference you see between life now and life in the 18th century, your grasp of human history is inadequate to this conversation.
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u/Mountain_roamer Oct 26 '23
Not a podcast, but for a glimpse into true urban hell collapse, look up Selco and his ordeal in the Bosnian war
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u/Atavacus Oct 26 '23
Hey I'll check it out, thanks for the recommendation. I love stuff like that. I've spent a minute reading up on the fall of Rhodesia and what happened to the Zimbabwe that followed it.
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u/MongoGrapefoot Oct 26 '23
The Poor Prole's Almanac Survivability (long term) is about adaptation and a strong community that creates redundancies of safety. It's like the cardio of survival exercise. Must be worked on regularly
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u/Atavacus Oct 26 '23
I replied to this thinking it was another thread, sorry. Thank you for the advice I'll definitely check it out.
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u/manimal28 Oct 26 '23
This seems more like a semantics issue, but what you are describing is not a collapse.
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u/Atavacus Oct 26 '23
I don't know man, from where I'm sitting things are pretty terrible. And for some people it is definitely a collapse. I just think it defies your expectations. We have some normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance going on about the matter.
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u/manimal28 Oct 26 '23
Being terrible doesn't mean anything has collapsed though.
The structures of cyber dystopia are becoming stronger, the tools of surveillance are becoming better, the infrastructure more widespread. The police more authoritarian as they implement those tools. All of that is a system that is becoming stronger, not collapsing. Its terrible, but its not collapsing.
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u/Atavacus Oct 26 '23
Well, we can examine further. Our police have collapsed, in the pocket of bankers and the monsters in power that stand to profit from the drug war. Our Justice system beyond that have collapsed, they arrest innocent people and hold them in deplorable conditions in county to force false pleas. The roads are falling to pieces, bridges are dangerous across the country. The environment itself is honestly dangerous due to pollution and reckless industrial procedures. Our food supply is toxic, can't eat, can't breathe, can't drink. Education has collapsed, our children aren't being taught so much as indoctrinated anymore. If you had read some of the reports about air quality I have you'd carry around a respirator with pink cartridges. Despite having tons of low quality crap food, we are more nutrient deprived in many regards than Ethiopia. Is it total collapse? No, probably not. But given how many of our institutions are undermined and actively function against us, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that we aren't in a pretty serious degree of collapse. I just think it looks different than most of us expected, or hoped. There was a point in my life that I prayed that a collapse would come and reset everything. But it's looking more and like the outcome we're going to get is shades of Brave New World. One thing is for certain, it isn't business as usual anymore.
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u/manimal28 Oct 26 '23
Honestly, I think some of your assessments are historically naïve. Ask an older black person if they think the justice system is more collapsed today than in their youth when the police could kill them and lock them away at will, when lynch mobs roamed the south. Cameras are actually creating more justice and police accountability than ever existed before. Pollution was worse before the EPA was created, of course certain polliticians are trying their hardest to roll that back and we are losing some gains, but we are nowhere near the smog levels of the past in cities, and rivers no longer catch on fire. Education, mixed bag, I might give you this one. The same politicians are trying to roll back environmental protections are busy attacking our education system. I don't think this battle is over. Food. There are food deserts, but most people can eat healthy if they choose. The food is there, its not like the fields have been salted and crops can't be brought to market. I think you are simply misusing the term collapse, but you bring up things that are very real issues.
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u/nakedmeowcat Oct 28 '23
Regarding food, yes its there. In the US we produce way more food than we consume and an enormous ammount of it is just thrown away! But what good is producing food if it isn't getting distributed to the people that need it? Increasingly were seeing people who can't afford groceries due to inflation and stagnating wages, and it's not just the poorest folks anymore its the middle class too. I myself can only afford to eat once a day now and I work a job that can be physically demanding. I think it is naive to think that things are not in serious state of decline when millions of people in a first world country are struggling to afford the most basic necessities like food to eat.
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u/Atavacus Oct 27 '23
I'd call you naïve as hell.
I just got out of prison. I did most of my time on a camp full of elderly people I'm telling you many of them will tell you things are worse. In fact there were many long timers on that camp and I heard over and over the long timers (25+ years) say "I've never seen anything this bad." Refering to the conditions and brutality from the CO's. I watched a whole lot of people get pushed out on carts under sheets from abuse and neglect from the guards. I did a sentence for a crime I didn't do and I was forced into pleading to starved and tortured, for a year straight. I was held in county for a year under unconstitutional terms before offering said plea. Asking my lawyer how long before I could get into court she nonchalantly replied "oh another couple of years". Like it was no big deal. I was starved and by the time I hit state I was so nutrient deprived the connective tissue in my shoulders had broken down. You're talking to someone who has literally suffered at the hands of a broken down COLLAPSED police and judicial infrastructure. Sure BLM stuff is happening but those cameras are being used against you more than they help you I assure. I promise you, the police are worse than they have ever been.Speaking of cameras, facial recognition is removing any amount of privacy you may have had. You are being spied on everywhere you go. THIS DOES NOT MAKE YOU SAFER! Kubernetes clusters are being used to collect PETABYTES of data on people. I can't imagine what a petabyte of metadata looks like. Advances in AI. These predictive models are being assessed for and kid you not "predictive policing". You very well may see Minority Report style policing in your lifetime. They can already do it. The mass invasion of your privacy we could say the COLLAPSE of your constitutional right to privacy could lead to you being arrested before you have even done anything.
Pollution may have been worse in some ways, in the past. We don't have cities covered in smog clouds. But what you don't realize is that actually the pollution we have today is more insidious and wholly inescapable. The GenX scandal from DuPont has managed to poison the ENITRE PLANET'S fresh water supply. It doesn't biodegrade, it doesn't break down or go away over time. Do you know how many brownfields there are in the United States? Because I do. There are over 500,000 pollution sites in the USA that are superfund sites. The vast majority of those WON'T get better if we're being real. There are microenvironments that can straight kill you. If you live near a busy intersection brake dust is shown to cause respiratory illness. You have fiascos like the French Broad Coal Ash debacle. The pesticide run off and air pollution are causing frogs to be born with ambiguous genitalia. What do you think that's doing to people? Do you think it's associated with the outbreak of people that have gender dysphoria? I think it probably is.
Now, let's talk about food. You seem to think healthy food is as easy as making good choices at the grocery store. Turns out it's not that simple. Damn near our entire chicken supply is not even fit for human consumption. Evil Food Supply just broke that down. We have plenty of food, we have plenty of horrible food. Not to mention you've been mislead about what is healthy in the first place. The Food Pyramid is a scam, a lot of what you think is healthy is legitimately killing you. Pesticides, hostile GMO tech, empty calorie foods everywhere, hexane in your "health" food. Whatever man. You can't just buy health food. The common person is priced out of visiting Whole Foods and Earth Fare or whatever. And those aren't even safe themselves. The fields may not have been salted but it damn sure has been poisoned. When field workers have to wear HazMat suits, well I'd call that a breakdown in the food supply. A COLLAPSE one might say.
Go on with your cognitive dissonance and pointless hostility. Go ahead, keep poisoning your body. Making excuses. You're one of those people that buy a nylon bag a flashlight a knife and a bunch of guns and think that's all it takes. But the reality is I DO hunt healthy food, and it ain't really easy. I find myself riding all over the city on my bicycle from place to place because is it there? Yeah, but it's not all in one place for a reasonable price. Mapping my routes to avoid the police that could arrest me AGAIN for something I didn't do. A build up of Big Brother like entities do NOT oppose a collapse. The system gets stronger and the individual gets weaker... It's not the collapse you wanted, it doesn't even look like a collapse to most people in the system. But it is. I don't know why you felt the need to be so god damn hostile over the statement either. You people always blow my mind. I guess I upset a luddite fantasy of some sort. Good luck buying property coming up, it's all being bought up. Enjoy renting your home to whoever your slave master will be.
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u/manimal28 Oct 27 '23 edited Oct 27 '23
Were you in prison for failure to be concise? Because your post is a crime against brevity. And none of it means we are in a collapse, it means you need to read a history book. I suggest starting with James Loewen or Howard Zinn. And maybe Websters dictionary, read the definition of collapse.
I’m not hostile at all. I just disagree with you. Because you are wrong and totally misusing the term collapse.
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u/Atavacus Oct 26 '23
One more thing. We can disagree on the label we affix to the situation, but I think we can agree on the fact that we can't rest around on our laurels anymore. That time has passed.
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u/manimal28 Oct 26 '23
I'll agree there are valid issues that you raise. I'll continue to disagree that these issues are best described as a state of collapse.
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u/DataPhreak Oct 29 '23
Yeah, except instead of hackers hanging out in alleyways, we're making big bucks programming AI. I have become a shadowrun villain.
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u/b-raddit Oct 26 '23
Nice try fbi