Caith
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300,000 Brits facing increased risk of heart problems? Haha. What do you think our government might be planning to do about that?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/01/gps-in-england-may-stop-monitoring-vulnerable-patients
“Ministers may allow GPs in England to halt regular monitoring of millions of patients with underlying health problems as part of the urgent new blitz on delivering Covid booster jabs.
Sajid Javid and NHS bosses are locked in talks with GP representatives at the British Medical Association (BMA) about relaxing rules which mean family doctors undertake checks on people with diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions that mean they are at higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke.”
You couldn’t make it up.
“Carbon offsets” don’t work if the forests burn.
I’m in the UK. You turn up at the polling station; you tell them your name and address; they cross you off the list; you vote. No ID expected.
I stopped heating the house. Mostly.
They threatened to evict us. Apparently it’s not socially acceptable to have a cold house. The letting agent complained that it was uncomfortable to visit. I am under explicit instruction to keep the heating on *all the time*. They tell me this is going to be cheaper than never putting the heating on at all, because the house won’t cool down and then I won’t have to pay for the energy to warm it up again.
(Now they’re evicting us anyway. We’re not the kind of tenant they want. I guess I get to find out whether this is universal behaviour or if I was unlucky.)
We’re not allowed to grow salad in windowboxes either.
I chose not to have a car, and to live within cycling distance of work. That traps you in a competitive housing market where landlords and agents can over-rule your life choices. I think you’re fucked every which way. I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford independent living before TSHTF. Land values are too high.
This happened when communism failed too. I think middle aged men find it particularly difficult to adjust when the assumptions that have shaped their working lives evaporate.
https://joh.sagepub.com/content/39/3/461.abstract (Lawrence King paper on significant rises in suicides and deaths from substance abuse and alcohol in post-communist states)
Is it even possible to rebuild the Middle East to support its current population as the oil runs out and the climate changes? I think this is what ecosystem overshoot looks like.
I was idly wondering about the possibility of a consumer boycott of Germany, to focus their minds, and I realised I have no idea what I buy from them. Food and clothing have their origins marked (I’m in Britain), but not much else does. What is it that they’re exporting? Beer and cars? I don’t buy those already.
Ilargi,
I work the job and pay the rent and feed the kid. If I stop working the job and paying the rent and feeding the kid child poverty goes up right now, in my household. I can see the problem. I’m first generation poorer than my parents; my kid will be second generation. What I can’t see is which way to move. I can’t even vote for the good guys, because the way the voting system is set up here the good guys come nowhere and voting for them means you’re not voting against the worst of the people who may actually win. I can’t quit the job because it pays the rent. I can’t take the kid out of school because I’m not home to homeschool her because of the job. I can’t keep chickens because the landlady doesn’t like the idea. I can’t grow salad in the windowboxes because the landlady doesn’t like the idea. I can’t move because the job isn’t secure enough to get through letting agency verification. I can’t move significantly far away because the kid has to stay in touch with the father. We don’t have a car, and I try not to heat the house but the landlady complains that it isn’t good for the house not to be heated. Every damn direction, any move makes it worse. So we’re stuck.
You’re talking to the generation above us, I think, with houses and pensions. Or maybe the top half of our generation, with mortgages and employment contracts. I’ve got casual work and rent. That’s better than unemployment and god-knows-what, which is clearly coming (how is my kid going to be able to live at home, if there aren’t jobs, if I haven’t got a home? my brother can do that, because he’s first generation poorer, but second generation poorer won’t).
Talk to us. What can we do? We can’t fix up our housing; rental contracts forbid it. We can’t grow food. We can’t vote usefully. We can’t stop running. I can’t be a revolution on my own.
‘The key question is not whether there is “collectivism” or “individualism”, but whether the individuals in society are primarily motivated by their obedience to moral/ethical principles and their concern for others. If the latter is true, then the collective good will necessarily follow.’ […] ‘Once the individuals and communities transform, entrepreneurial activity will work for the collective good.’
It’s not going to happen. You can’t make people transform like that. You may be able to transform yourself, but that’s all.
Here’s John Michael Greer on the pitfalls of trying to transform societies:
https://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/plutos-republic.html
Great site 😎
I think best practice is not to require a gender identification at sign-up (can we have an “unspecified” option, please) and not to make the mapping between real names and user names public. And *certainly* not to send passwords in plaintext by e-mail! But quibbling aside, it looks good.
