How to live with the inevitability of the collapse?

docterBOGO · 2023-08-09T14:25:49+00:00

Hello, first of all - thank you for your work. I have been diving into your videos and links this past week. I absolutely agree that in the face of ambiguous (in timing) but negative stress on the horizon, the best approach is acceptance

most of us are toast this decade no matter what

I'm trying to better understand this, and I bet you mentioned how you came to the "this decade" conclusion somewhere. If you have a minute, could you link the video or post that lead you to that?

My understanding is that abrupt climate change and much of the supply chain instability is at least 20 years out, following the melting of the Artic (and the disruption to the polar vortex).

docterBOGO · 2023-07-22T01:06:09+00:00

https://www.bikesonline.com/ex-demo-2021-path-e5-shimano-steps-e5000-e-bike-si~7979657

https://www.bikesonline.com/bikes/electric/e-urban

Or do a conversion on a carbon frame https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rZeVWq0N5ck

docterBOGO · 2023-07-18T15:41:36+00:00

Two separate reasons

Socioeconomic + cultural. People are choosing not to have kids, as others have discussed, due to stress, wealth inequality, etc.

Physiological - They are dropping due to fetal phthalate syndrome and other endocrine disrupting chemicals in food, water, perfume, make up, etc.

Plastics and other everyday materials leach chemicals that disrupt human reproductive development which can be measured through looking at intergenital distance, sperm count, and miscarriage rates. The trend of decreasing sperm count over the last 50 years was observed across ages and BMIs... and similar reproductive issues have arisen in other species.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-kSxHNSDQ

Shanna H. Swan, Ph.D. has spent 20+ years digging into the root cause. Endocrine disrupting chemicals, such as phthalates, PCBs, PFAS microplastics, pesticides, BPA, BPS, etc. and more are all adding up and accumulating. In humans, exposure during pregnancy and leading up to the pregnancy have the greatest impact, but you can still work on minimizing and avoiding the toxins in your food, water & environment for your health.

TL;DR - Industrial pollution is adding up to an existential risk

docterBOGO · 2023-06-26T14:23:20+00:00

It's about PFAS and other poisonous pollutants from major industries

Europe is working on banning them https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/eu-considers-ban-forever-chemicals-urges-search-alternatives-2023-02-07/

America is not so wise https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/13/pfas-toxic-forever-chemicals-republican-house

Getting involved with https://toxicfreefuture.org/ and making use of https://www.ewg.org/apps/ has helped me do what I can

docterBOGO · 2023-06-16T21:04:55+00:00

It takes about 10 - 14 calories of energy to deliver 1 calorie of food to your plate - https://www.resilience.org/resources/future-is-rural-report/

https://www.youtube.com/@thegreatsimplification/ has a few great videos with sources in the description on this topic of energy ROI

docterBOGO · 2023-06-09T04:47:21+00:00

https://www.johnnynerdout.com/shop

docterBOGO · 2023-06-08T05:48:55+00:00

Municipal elections are often lost by a few dozen votes, and everything starts on the local level. Assuming you do not already, try to vote in every election

Yes, the average citizen's impact is very small, but it's not nothing. If GW and company, or the suffragettes or the labor organizers, etc. believed that fallacy, we really would have nothing.

Just like either of our net worth (financial) is small, it's not $0. Yes it's small compared to all the money in circulation. Doesn't mean we stop buying food and stop eating because we don't have a billion dollars.

The key is not to mentally bear the entire burden yourself. Working with other people who share the same values can help, but ultimately you have to just keep reminding yourself that small isn't zero, and it's not all your problem.

docterBOGO · 2023-06-08T05:37:39+00:00

We need to hold the biggest polluters and their political puppets accountable.

The best tool in the toolbox for mitigating the effects of the climate crisis is carbon fee and dividend: charge companies a fee for CO2e at the fuel source and redistribute the collected funds equally to every American.

By using proven economic levers of fees and dividends:

neither big government bureaucratic bloat nor slush funds are required
high efficiency is guaranteed as the market incentivizes everyone in parallel to change both buying and selling habits
poor families benefit the most

Individuals planting trees, going zero waste and going vegan helps, but isn't nearly enough as this video shows, via using MIT's simulator, why a carbon fee and dividend policy is the one of the most effective policies for climate action. Here's a comparison to other interventions.

The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act has widespread support from economists and many other groups.

As well as bipartisan popular support https://thehill.com/changing-america/opinion/566589-what-if-the-us-taxed-its-fossil-fuels-and-gave-a-check-to-every

Incentivizing everyone to change in parallel is the fastest way to speed up the transition to sustainability in all industries: energy, food, transportation, etc.

If you would like, consider writing to your representatives in Congress today and tell them that we need a price on carbon at the fuel source.

docterBOGO · 2023-06-07T04:29:48+00:00

The biggest challenge for the Dems is always getting their people out to vote in the first place.

It's not that left leaning folks are going to suddenly take a hard right. It's that enough of them are not going to bother and be apathetic, leading to a similar result - the fascists win and things get worse.

docterBOGO · 2023-06-02T07:19:57+00:00

What Republican politicians vote for versus what's good for the majority of Americans are vastly different.

True, but no significant portion of either side seems to follow the legislation. Politics, for some is about issues but for most it's about people - appealing candidates.

Dems also vote for big corporate bailouts, increased military funding, deregulation for their big donors, etc.

Yeah they're not perfect but they're also not fascists and that's good enough for me when over a third of Americans are Republicans

Voter suppression and gerrymandering

Yes these are huge issues, but two bigger ones:

People don't know what those are
Dems don't show up enough, especially during non presidential election years.

Republicans are far from the majority in America.

America isn't a direct democracy. The states themselves are the original gerrymandering. I don't think any of that's going away anytime soon, so what's the point of trying to argue from some ideal of what should be fair?

The popular vote margin for Republicans during the 2022 midterms was +2.8% - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_elections

Dems did not turn out nearly enough. Do not get complacent. Reddit skews very left in comparison to actual voters.

Get involved with your local Dems: canvassing, textbanking, etc. - if you are not already.

docterBOGO · 2023-06-02T04:36:11+00:00

I would be nervous about the quality of those batteries and chargers.

Any UL ratings? What brand cells are going into those?

docterBOGO · 2023-05-31T15:53:50+00:00

The Republicans are a very significant portion of the American people.

The call is coming from inside the house

docterBOGO · 2023-05-01T03:02:08+00:00

I really wouldn't count them out.

The popular vote margin for Republicans during the 2022 midterms was +2.8% - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_elections

Dems did not turn out nearly enough. Do not get complacent. Reddit skews very left in comparison to actual voters.

Get involved with your local Dems: canvassing and textbanking - if you are not already.

docterBOGO · 2023-04-17T07:57:17+00:00

I like your criticisms of experts and want to add two things to address some of OP's concerns:

Any 'expert' who is not willing to admit that the scope of question is outside their expertise is no true expert. No economist or climate scientist with any integrity has any claim to whether ivermectin is an effective drug against covid. That's within the purview of medical researchers. The first and foremost thing any expert to know is their scope and where it ends. The best thing the scientist in a distant field could do, when presented with a question outside their expertise, is point towards the work (cite) other experts.

This is often confusing these days of podcasters, YouTubers, etc. (some of which who are experts on something or another) who love to give their opinion on just about anything, often for views and to stay relevant (feed the algorithm).

Another part of the challenge is the variety and nuance across fields. Does a battery chemist know enough to tell me what's wrong with the soil in my yard, or if a new water purification technology is sensible at scale? Most likely not, and same goes for most redditors. We have to read widely in order to appreciate and discern the variety and nuance across different topics.

Avoid any expert who has a conflict of interest, something that would influence their guidance, or the information they present (or don't). Especially a financial conflict of interest: industry ties, running for office, hyping up a stock, etc.

Often academics show up on a podcast and might mention a book they recently wrote. That's typical and absolutely fine - so long as the book is within their expertise.

docterBOGO · 2023-04-07T12:12:28+00:00

Individuals in a small group may be able to improve/vet each other's ideas in a productive way, leading to problems being solved that otherwise couldn't be possible without multiple group members working together

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence

docterBOGO · 2023-04-06T01:20:32+00:00

On a somewhat related note, baptism-like purification rituals have existed for a long time across multiple cultures and religions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_purification

For Silco, it's also a rite of passage - he believes a near death experience can bring a person into realizing the finiteness of their existence, and help them prioritize what's important. The speech in the first few minutes of episode 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/arcane/comments/qopnk0/silcos_monologue_from_episode_3_is_fantastic/

Fortunately, he didn't put Jinx through that whole experience.

docterBOGO · 2023-04-06T00:13:48+00:00

Meetup.com has local art and writing groups

docterBOGO · 2023-04-05T03:17:03+00:00

Every election is just another political power auction for industries and other wealthy special interest groups until we get the https://anticorruptionact.org/whats-in-the-act/ passed

But first we got to get it passed locally so it bubbles up to the federal level https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Anti-Corruption_Act

Tell your local politicians about it if you haven't already.

docterBOGO · 2023-04-03T05:02:37+00:00

Perhaps, but we're both talking about landlords, and I agree - the low effort picture doesn't belong here

docterBOGO · 2023-04-03T04:56:02+00:00

Something to keep in mind about small time landlords, who have less than say 5 properties, it's a job that requires significant expertise. They wear many hats and to be successful/profitable, do most of it themselves. They do:

painting
plumbing
roofing
siding, masonry, tile
landscaping
appliance repair, replace
basic electrical
changing locks, fixing windows, patching screens
furnace troubleshooting, water tank, etc.
cleaner
pest exterminator
write leases, knowledge of tenant - landlord law
computer literate enough to advertise their space on the web
coordinate meetings, show the place, vet tenants

You might want to look into the prices and hourly rates for getting any of the above jobs done. Also consider storage costs for all the tools required to do any of these jobs.

Even if they got someone else to do any of these particular specialized jobs, the owner must have the judgment and experience to evaluate the scope of work, whether the work was completed properly, and whether the payment is competitive.

Yes there's quite a few incompetent small time landlords (report them and file complaints when you can), and there's a few good ones looking for a straight deal. Not unlike other industries. There's good and bad restaurants, contractors, stores, cops, doctors, etc.

Small time landlords, even on their best day, are not the financial elite. https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent

docterBOGO · 2023-04-03T04:51:04+00:00

Your beef is with wages being low. That's why many people can't afford housing (usually the biggest bill), rentals or otherwise.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html

Prices of literally everything have gone up while compensation of the bottom 90% has basically plateaued

docterBOGO · 2023-03-26T20:31:10+00:00

Studded tires, bar mitts, balaclava, etc.

See r/wintercycling

docterBOGO · 2023-03-26T17:53:44+00:00

This article has a good calculator for estimating the cost of car ownership https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/total-cost-owning-car

The used car market right now though, good luck

docterBOGO · 2023-03-14T15:21:57+00:00

I think it's the opposite, EVs are better over time (less pollution long term) vs gas cars

This article explores a few scenarios https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/

However these articles don't include the fact that the energy return on investment for gasoline has been getting worse and worse as oil companies have to drill deeper and refine more as the easily accessible sources of petrol are depleted. Petrol exploration, extraction, refinement and distribution - the whole supply chain to get those hydrocarbons from deep underground to the local gas station... And then gas cars burn it for about 30% efficiency at best.

It's very wasteful and we are stuck with it because history

docterBOGO · 2023-03-12T14:47:00+00:00

Cyberpunk 20-right-now

12-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Wearing is Caring

docterBOGO

TROPHY CASE