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Boogaloo rhetoric is bad, and I think PMC Blue Tribers engaging in it may be a new low, but it is very LARPy. If everyone is thinking "I'm mad as hell, but I'm too pro-social to raise the black flag and start slitting throats myself. There are other people like me are just as angry and not as restrained so I'm hopefully anticipating things going down when someone else does." then nothing goes down, or worst-case you get a bunch of disorganised pseudo-political violence by people who aren't quite right in the head, which is what we are seeing in the US now.
I don't know why 2020's America, a society which produces mass material prosperity on a grander scale than any other in human history, is full of people (on both sides of the aisle) claiming that they are suffering to the point where raising the black flag and starting slitting throats would be an understandable response. But empirically 2020's America is not full of people who are actually suffering to the point where raising the black flag and starting slitting throats is a likely response.
But given that all the cool kids online are raising metaphorical black flags in their mothers' basements, it doesn't surprise me that people who should know better are talking like this. And given the taboo against assassinating elected politicians, health insurance CEOs are the closest thing to an acceptable target in places where the high-status politics is pro-establishment left.
I don't think this is particularly a partisan issue - online pro-2nd amendment culture definitely includes sharing wish-fulfillment fantasies about how one more Blue outrage will finally drive other Reds (but definitely not the poaster) to take back the country by force of arms. The one time I went shooting IRL with American 2nd amendment activists, everyone spent the drive to and from the range talking smack about shooting Democrats, but reverted to talking like grownups as soon as their hand was anywhere near an actual gun. I particularly remember ESR's post about armed anti-lockdown protests in Michigan because he has written a lot about healthy gun culture and is definitely smart enough to know better than to engage in Boogaloo fantasies.
I'm currently watching the ken Burns documentary about the revolutionary war. The 13 American colonies were a relatively prosperous place, and the absolute value of the taxation they were facing was relatively minimal to what British citizens were paying, and what most Americans would have to pay after the war ended.
In 1773 they could be described as loyal subjects of the crown. They thought the differences and problems they were having with England were reconcilable. Many thought the King would help by supporting their cause in parliament. Three years later they are declaring independence, calling the king a tyrant, and fighting a hot war.
It gives you a sense that things can kick off real fast. And I think people know this in their gut as well. The time to signal your loyalty is not once things have started kicking off, that is way too late. You need to let people know where you are beforehand.
There is a difference between prepping for a bad situation and wishing it to actually happen though. Anyone with two brains cells to rub together should know that a revolution or civil war in the US at this time would be completely awful, so they talk a big game just in case, but no one tries to make it come about.
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Everything is cheaper and easier to access now. Except food. And housing. And cars. And gas. At least electronic gewgaws are cheaper... oh wait that’s over now.
Is food, excepting beef, really more expensive in real terms? Or do you mean like eating out?
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COULD IT BE that there are other forms of suffering than lack of excessive material prosperity?
Have you tried finding a spouse, raising a family, or buying a home lately? Have you tried finding a good career? Particularly if you're young enough to be competing with AI for entry-level positions? Have you tried finding a healthy community to be a part of?
By the grace of God I have succeeded in all these categories. But I can see the writing on the wall and now I'm terrified about the world in which my children are growing up.
Lots of people seem to be settling into pod life. Thin gray walls, netflix, delivery slop, no (or exclusively poor) romantic relationships, sterile sex only, if any. They do not know their neighbors. The prospect of ever having property or children -- especially multiple children -- recedes farther into the realm of fantasy every day. There is no unifying identity; no shared values. Just alienated fragments of what used to be a collective human organism, dying in infantilized isolation. More and more turn to substance abuse just to feel okay for a little while. Others turn to increasingly-radical political movements which blame the pain and horror of modernity on the other side. This is about to get much, much worse.
Man does not live by bread alone.
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I think this is because 2020s America is even better at showing everyone all the people just a little bit better off than you (and then cherry picking only their best moments so it looks like with all that material prosperity you're actually falling further and further behind).
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