A Compass for the Politics of Collapse • Hacker News Board

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#51

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #15

cratermoon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What spike in crime? Well, see, that's the subtle part. Is there really a crisis-level crime wave (in the US)? There was a sharp decrease in crime in the initial months after lockdowns went into affect, but a spike in gun purchases. As such, homicides, which in the US are overwhelmingly committed with guns, are definitely up. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/us-crime-rat... But it's not anywhere near…

It's so hard to find good data on this in one place. On one hand there's a pandemic, on the other hand there's police protests, etc. Year by year numbers will be so lumpy that you could support tons of narratives, I bet. I couldn't find month-by-month numbers quickly for some of the cities in that article like Chicago or NYC, but Baltimore has some: https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2020 Interestingly th…

That's a pretty cherry you've picked.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#52

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

Telemakhos wrote: post #16

margalabargala wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What spike in crime? All data I've seen has shown marked, consistent decreases in crime. Could you link the data you refer to?

Here's some data from Chicago: https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_D... Murder in particular is way up.

Nice cherry. Where'd you pick it? Oh, the police say that violent crime is up and we need more policing? Whodathunkit.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#53

Post by seandoe » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #36

It's interesting but not insightful. Anyway, I would find more conducive to stop talking nonsense about collapses and focus on the many technologies that are being developed. We got a million times better at creating vaccines. AIDS vaccine is on the way. Clean technologies are growing exponentially and a future of clean-air cities is approaching fast. Working from home thru video conferences, I saw that in sci-fi whe…

Yes, I'm with you. The focus and obsession with doom and collapse needs to end. It's like porn. We're biologically programmed to direct our attention to it. While the various media fuel this neverending stream of negativity, we have to realize that our primal selves yearn for it. Regardless of how likely any of these scenarios are, obsessing over them does not help our situation. How can we break this cycle of addiction? I guess the first step is recognition.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#54

Post by cratermoon » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #45

Telemakhos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some data from Chicago: https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_D... Murder in particular is way up.

That is one city with its own very specific problems in a large country. Are we picking only the data that fit our narrative now? What about all the other big cities? Starting point for an example: "Reported violent crime rate in the United States from 1990 to 2019" -- https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-...

If you really want to compare the so-called violent crime crisis with historical data, look back to the 70s and 80s, when crime was really bad. There's a ton of stuff out there looking back only two or three decades, which is like looking at global temperatures since the 90s and saying global warming is fake.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#55

Post by giantg2 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

chobeat wrote: post #43

giantg2 wrote: post #17

Not sure which buckets I fit into. Maybe a pessimist bucket that isn't listed. Maybe a matrix of longterm near linear decline with localized event driven rapid declines. Probably a degrowth variant since I do believe there's a minimum level of consumption tied to each person and that incremental cost has a ceiling when talking about sustainable population levels. Probably a combination of apocalyptic and cottage for…

It's a compass, it's a tool. You give it a purpose

And what purpose have you given it? Do you have any theoretical uses?

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#56

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

gspr wrote: post #50

papito wrote: post #30

Oh, this is nice. While the mortals are talking about surviving a self-inflicted societal collapse, the trillionaires are busy building penis rockets, fighting taxes tooth and nail, and building doomsday bunkers. Ironically - in New Zealand, a place where society will most like be one of the last ones to fold. Good bye, and thanks for all the fish!

How is it ironic to be building doomsday bunkers in the society most likely to be one of the last to fold? It seems like exactly the place to build one, if one were looking to.

[deleted]

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#57

Post by Karrot_Kream » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #23

This is a Very Online taxonomy; I don't think it incorporates the vast majority of normal, not particularly Online people who are aware of these problems but aren't spending most of their energy on them. The vast majority of people are fundamentally outside of this taxonomy because even if they are thinking about ideas related to "collapse", it's as a problem someone else is going to solve for them. The biggest chall…

I've always found Collapse believers to be composed of mostly people from highly developed Western nations. From what I've read online, many of these folks cannot visualize a world where their society/nation may backslide in a couple aspects (e.g. government corruption or infrastructure standards), but still continue to function mostly normally. Most of these folks have never seen rampant political corruption, low hygiene standards, political instability, broken/lacking infrastructure, or general unsafety that often comes up in developing nations. The West _is_ going through a lot of change/political soul searching right now, so it's understandable, but I highly suggest visiting developing nations to see how everyday people live, succeed, and thrive despite many problems around them.

Even the historic concept of "collapse" is ill-defined. It's widely accepted today that the Western Roman Empire (probably the most written-about "collapse" event) didn't really collapse at once as much as it slowly changed from within and without. Is this "linear collapse"? I mean maybe, but it may just be the process of change itself.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#58

Post by codeulike » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

throw0101a wrote: post #26

For those that would like to know how to rebuild civilization, the book The Knowledge by Lewis Dartnell is a handy reference on things to know and do. General bibliography: * http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/bibliography/ Deep dives on particular topics of agriculture, food and clothing, substances (charcoal, lime), materials (wood, cement, furnaces, glass), medicine, etc: * http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/further-readi…

Also

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comfort

https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#59

Post by at_a_remove » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

I guess I fall into Accelerated/non-linear collapse pessimism, with a hint of eco-fascism as the only option out of the Road Warrior post-apocalptic aesthetic. Even as people cheerily mention that they expect the population to peak at ten billion, I think that's at least an order of magnitude beyond the carrying capacity. Plus, those ten billion people? Yeah, the U.S.A. has been exporting its lifestyle via movies for a long time -- those ten billion people are all going to want American lifestyles. They'll want steak, they'll want SUVs and fast fashion. They want their own McMansions, not just running water.

Re: A Compass for the Politics of Collapse

#60

Post by chobeat » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 6:05 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #57

ivraatiems wrote: post #23

This is a Very Online taxonomy; I don't think it incorporates the vast majority of normal, not particularly Online people who are aware of these problems but aren't spending most of their energy on them. The vast majority of people are fundamentally outside of this taxonomy because even if they are thinking about ideas related to "collapse", it's as a problem someone else is going to solve for them. The biggest chall…

I've always found Collapse believers to be composed of mostly people from highly developed Western nations. From what I've read online, many of these folks cannot visualize a world where their society/nation may backslide in a couple aspects (e.g. government corruption or infrastructure standards), but still continue to function mostly normally. Most of these folks have never seen rampant political corruption, low hy…

well, they are already living it, westeners have the privilege to believe it's not something that is happening but something that will happen in the future and take distance from it framing it as a collapse after peak prosperity. Third world never had peak prosperity or at least it didn't look particularly different from their past. But they are gonna starve and migrate too even if they don't call it collapse.