Living Through Collapse
Where I’ve been, and where Americans are
I was looking thru old photos and I’m like WTF was I doing? There was a war and it looks like I just drank through it. I wrote and protested and stuff, but the photos are mostly partying, interspersed with burnt bodies, heads in trees, and bomb smoke.
That’s what I write about in I Lived Through Collapse. The great banality of decline. As people from any messed up state can tell you, life goes on. I was a 20-something idiot and that proceeded on schedule.
I wrote that piece for Americans who are like ‘this is fine’ to tell them no, it’s really not. Anyone from Nigeria to Algeria to Bosnia can tell you. Even if your life goes on, your country has still collapsed. People still make dinner and drink and have sex while their societies collapse. They still go to work. It’s not the life that’s so different. It’s the death.
The amount of death Americans are living with on the daily is shocking. Roughly 1,000 people are dying every day. More than 2X as many people have died in 9 months (200,000) than died in 30 years of Sri Lankan civil war (80,000). It’s just, how do you live like this? But I guess I answered that question. This isn’t living. You’re dying.
Y’all
Perhaps understanding fails because English has no plural subject. No vous, only you. So someone can read that and say, “well, I’m not dying, so you’re wrong”. That’s why I used the word y’all in the article. The point is that y’all are dying. Death stalks among you, honestly with some pretty significant support.
We’re used to thinking of pandemics and wars as different things because you can’t prevent disease, but of course you can, that’s what public health is. Literally no other country has done this bad, because no other country is as ruled by such evil.
This is why I talk about societal collapse and not just misfortune. Because 40% of your population is literally willing to die to own the libs. I feel that there is a critical mass for stupid/evil in any country and it’s lower than 40%. Hitler got in with 37.3%.
There’s a good piece called This Is How It Happens describing people in Nazi Germany. We think of the Nazi-era as all holocaust but most Germans didn’t even know about it, or care. Hell, even America sent ships of Jews back to die. Future historians will talk about the concentration camps at your southern border the same way. You can’t see it from inside I guess, but we can see from here.
You’re living with evil in America. Historical evil. This usually takes a bit longer to get its own people killed, but you’re getting it all at once. You may feel that it’s not evil because it’s so stupid, but really, what’s the difference? The people are still dead. The children are still stolen. The uteruses are still ripped out.
Face your leaders and see that they are corrupt, evil, and in power. Your country has collapsed. Not in the future. It’s already happened.
Where do you go?
America is exceptional. I don’t know what lessons to apply.
Sri Lanka’s war ended almost 10 years ago and we’re relatively fine now. I mean, no, but by American standards it’s Valhalla.
The only lessons I can offer are this.
Time. This isn’t a lesson really, just a fact. It took us 30 years. Lost generations. The only alternative seems to be a lot of violence and getting it out at once. Neither option is good, but it won’t be done with one election. Even if Biden wins, 40% of your population has gone feral.
Protest and organize while you can. Those tools disappear fast. They weren’t even available to my generation. All the non-violent people had been killed by the violent ones.
Have an exit strategy. I’m from the majority, but my wife’s family always had another place to go and a foot in another country. But at one point, even my family left.
Don’t stop caring. This doesn’t seem to do anything, but don’t stop. I’ve been on candlelight vigils with a few dozen people. I’ve held placards with a few. I wouldn’t say that any of this works, but if you stop caring then what is there? You never know what spark can turn the tide. Again, that’s not what happened here, but it’s still the right thing to do.
I doubt this is helpful. I don’t really know. I don’t know where you’re going, but I know where you are. Your society has collapsed. I’m sorry. Good luck.
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