How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can't sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it's 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I'm so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I'm ready. I've been ready. How about you?

How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don't work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it's worth it to you, that you're willing to get uncomfortable, that you're willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.

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[–] 225 points 3 months ago (26 children)

Historically speaking, the riots start when the bread runs out.

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  • [–] 22 points 3 months ago (20 children)

    Which IMO is going to happen in the USA before 2028. Their dependance on food imports and climate change interrupting the food supply is only half of it. The other half is that they've isolated themselves economically both trade and labour wise.

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  • [–] 56 points 3 months ago (10 children)

    The US is one of the biggest exporters of food in the world and while it would definitely change what we eat and when, the idea that the bread runs out anytime soon is actually insane nonsense. 2038, fucking maybe. But in a little over a year? We'd need multiple blights and animal plagues that sweep across the country killing everything, and that's more of a "global apocalypse" scenario. And yes global warming bad but also, the US has a lot of land and like 90% of it is not in use. There will be places to farm, even if the place changes.

    I think a more realistic prediction is like... 2045-2060 and honestly, I'm not sure it'll matter much.

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  • [+] -10 points 3 months ago (8 children)

    90% is not in use for a reason. Even if 5% can still be started for agriculture, nature doesn’t instant-produce food. Field cultivation often takes multiple years.

    You’re forgetting the US is no longer a democracy. This is the last emperor on the throne right now, running a kleptocracy to the tune of billions. To keep control he installed the certifiable most incompetent people in his ‘cabinet’. None of these care about the country or its people.

    They were installed by a foreign influence and their job is to dismantle the country. This level of burocratic incompetence will reign till the end of the nation, probably in less than 10 years.

    2045 is bad for the entire world, the US will be far sooner.

    They are an insanely divided nation in the middle of an empire level collapse. They are a violent people. Their civil war which has started with ICE wil only get worse, their oilgargy only making life less tennable for so many.

    You will have riots and strikes, and essentially just people shooting each other. It’s already happening but tuned out of the media for now. But it’ll get worse, and at some point a prolific tiktoker or youtuber will livestream something nearby and that will be an accelerator.

    There are already thousands of americans that have to choose between getting medical care or food. Thousands more that have to choose between feeding themselves or their children.

    There is no scenario in which the USA survives the next 10 years.

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  • [–] 27 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    I'm sorry but, this is all so fucking unrealistic and doomer its unreal.

    First of all, I live in the US. I have seen ICE and how communities comes together first hand. Fuck off with this "Americans are violent people" rhetoric.

    I'm not saying its gonna be sunshine and roses, but the scenarios you are describing are functionally impossible to occur without genuine global cataclysm and then we have bigger things to worry about.

    "There's no scenario in which the us survives the next 10 years."

    democracy in the us? sure, maybe, arguably its already gone.

    the us itself? Of course it'll be around in ten years lmfao?? Things would have to get so much worse in the next 10 years it would break records on how fast nations collapse.

    These are insane predictions that have no historical or factual basis for why they would happen at the speed you suggest.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Yeah my guy can't even spell bureaucrat or oligarchy, I don't think political science is their forte.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago* (4 children)

    The two often overlap. An oligarchy can become a kleptocracy if the ruling elite uses its power to systematically steal wealth. But they're not the same thing. A country can have an oligarchic government without widespread theft, and in theory a kleptocracy could exist even if power is concentrated in a single dictator rather than a small group.

    But billions? That's really low balling it. 40 trillion debt... Kleptomania! Watch and see it grow.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I think you responded to the wrong person.

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  • [+] -8 points 3 months ago*

    Being in the US isn’t giving you better data, if anything it makes you emotionally attached and blind to the obvious. Humans are the same. We often know our friends a lot better than they know themselves. I understand you don’t want this to happen, but not wanting it doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

    There is massive historic precedence. The roman empire to name one. Except never before has an empire collapse overlapped with the fastest recorded ecocide and environmental collapse.

    You may not be aware of all the datasets I’m aware of. It sounds like doomer, but it is data based so it unfortunately just is doom. Hard to grasp, I know, it’s why people with terminal illnesses also stay around as long as possible.

    The USA will be there in 10 years, but it won’t be called that, and won’t have any of the respect and glory it still has some of today. It’s not a country. It’s more like a european union that falls apart as soon as things start getting tough. Your very demented pedophile president is personally directing FEMA to withhold disaster relief to blue states. That can’t last another 10 years, let alone 5. Not with the disasters scheduled in the next 3 years. States will simple secede from the union, and as resources will be scarce, war will be inevitable.

    Never before in history has the ruling empire by both capital and military might waged a war against it’s own people, whilst very carelessly trying to light a match to the middle east and south america and soon parts of europe, whilst also diplomatically and economically alienate all its former allies with erratic tariffs, whilst ignoring both its own domestic rule of law as well as the international one. Smarter dictators started wars with foreign nations as a way to unify their people and bolster nationalism, this regime is only trying to make the oligarchs who installed it wealthier.

    10 years is a short time for a nation to collapse, true. But you didn’t start collapsing today either, my American friend. I wish you all the best.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I think you underestimate how much some countries are willing to support having a positive relationship with the US in spite of it being in their best interest to do otherwise.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Dependence on food imports? The US is a large net food exporter. And will remain so for a long time. Especially in wheat, corn and soy beans. Harvesting grains is incredibly labour efficient. The labour crisis is mostly in fruits and vegetables which are very labor intensive. Even if soy and grain yields would be unexpectedly badly impacted by climate change it will first impact the exports and lastly animal feed and agro ethanol. The yields would have to be unrealistically devastated for it to lead to shortages in human food like bread. So at worst we are looking at a shortage of meat, fruits and vegetables but we are extremely far away from any situation involving starvation. This also includes Canada, the EU and Australia. And it's not all vegetables either. Potatoes, carrots, peas and onions are machine harvested and won't get affected by a farm labour crisis and will continue to be available. No one is gonna starve for having to substitute broccoli and asparagus with carrots and peas. No one is going to starve when fruits gets expensive either, they are healthy but you can live without them.

    It's the part of the third world which currently relies on western food exports that will have food insecurity in a worsening climate crisis. The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    The west is at worst facing a more boring and monotone diet.

    That sounds like plenty of reason to start a riot!

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I agree. But it’ll come due to drought and the fact that Trump screwed over farmers with soy exports, which is an important cover crop for crop rotation.

    If farmers can’t make money on soy, they’ll take shortcuts, which will rob the soil of nutrients. That with drought will lead to another dust bowl that will be devastating.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Soy fixes nitrogen and doesn't affect the rest of the nutrients. Without soy in the crop rotation you have to simply buy more nitrogen fertilizer for the subsequent crop, which will make it more expensive to grow. Soy is good but it's not a looming disaster without it. The EU barely grows soy and is doing fine. And regarding dust bowl. Those areas of the US have already switched from plowing to no-till decades ago. Another dust bowl is unlikely even with drought because of it.

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  • [–] 50 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Don't look on the internet, you won't find the community you're looking for here. Find the coolest candidate running in your local area and volunteer for their campaign. Even if they kinda suck, show up for their events. You aren't there to meet the candidate, you're there to meet other people who care about their community. Talk to the other volunteers. You'll be surprised at who you meet.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago*

    This is the best advice for sure.

    Local action is the most approachable and effective for the average person. Unless you have tons and tons of money, its hard to move things higher up as an individual.

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  • [–] 76 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    If anything is done it's done offline. The best way to fight back is to build community and solidarity. Meet your neighbors, volunteer, get out there off the computer.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Computer can help with spreading the word for said meetups

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Universal basic income would be a huge way to facilitate this. When we have a bit of a safety net, we can afford to take a few weeks off for a general strike. We can leave that evil corporate job, or educate ourselves on issues that need our attention. Studies have shown that with a little more time each week, people tend to invest more in the community or mutual aid. Not to mention, we could compel billionaires to join and facilitate the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. There's a foundation (ITSA) attempting to start it's own UBI via an app I recently joined. DM me if you want the link :)

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  • [–] 26 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Smallscale you want a laugh?

    10 odd yrs ago we and a friend were exploring and abandoned building......had 13 squaddies and a chopper on us....had reportd we were stealing lead (we werent....obv) yet when our forests burn our gov cant send a chopper with water......shits been burning over a week now.

    Priorities!?!?!?

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 3 months ago

    I guess you don't live in an area surrounded by the wealthy. You and I both know that if you did, those choppers would be there a week ago. Our government doesn't serve we the people, and that's why we are in this mess and desperately need change.

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  • [–] 22 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    https://generalstrikeus.com/

    We need a general strike to start. It has to be big enough that is disrupts the ongoing social order, then revolution. Unfortunately many people are appeased by their treats and unwilling to commit to opposing the status quo in any effective way.

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I agree 100% and am all for a general strike, but without some sort of push I don't know when it will happen. It's like everyone is waiting around for The Signal, but is it even coming? Why should we give up our own autonomy and wait for someone else?

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago

    Quorum sensing is an important factor in processes of quantitative change reaching a point where qualitative change is possible. This is just how social dynamics work. You're welcome to encourage more people to join the push for a general strike or other local organizing groups and parties, but a mass of people will be necessary to bring about qualitative changes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_sensing

    https://quantumdialectics.blog/2025/05/22/change-in-quantity-leads-to-change-in-quality-a-quantum-dialectical-perspective/

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  • [–] 74 points 3 months ago* (5 children)

    I know I'll get downvoted for this, but...Lemmy and related are an "echo-chamber" of sorts. You'll find that a vast amount of people "in the real world" don't share this sort of imminently apocalyptic mentality. I really mean no offense in my phrasing and I'm not trying to shit on anyone here. It's just the way things are.

    I remember being almost surprised at how "normal" life was when I first moved to a place that had polar opposite political views than me. Life went on...in mostly the same way it did when I was surrounded by people who mostly shared my ideologies. Life goes on...especially in the western world. Even in different parts of the US, it's a far cry from some place like Somalia or Iran or Israel/Palestine or North Korea.

    Idk. Sorry I got a bit rambly. Suffice to say that I don't think you're ever going to find what you seek.

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 3 months ago

    I don't think that's entirely accurate. I try to talk to people every day about the greed of billionaires, the invasion of our privacy, the fascist takeover of the US government and the actions of ICE, and the horrible state of our climate. And I've yet to have anyone argue against me in real life. If anything, it's worse on lemmy. We can do something about this, but we have to do it together, and that doesn't happen without talking to people face to face. So many people know the situation is terrible, but feel completely helpless. We have to support each other so they see they aren't alone.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago*

    I know I'll get downvoted for this, but...Lemmy and related are an "echo-chamber" of sorts. You'll find that a vast amount of people "in the real world" don't share this sort of imminently apocalyptic mentality.

    Not really sure about the echo-chamber thing though, but I feel like most people outside the Fediverse only doomscroll “brain-rot” content on social media.

    Politics, climate change, science, Star Wars/Trek, programming, GNU/Linux, etc, are such niche topics that don’t drive that much interest, unless it’s rage-bait.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    For real. I have to travel often for work, which means driving through big cities, little towns and the countryside. If someone never got on the internet, they'd never think things are like the way they sound online. Especially in the rural areas but even in most areas in towns. Houses are all within 50 years of age, all the cars and trucks are new. Crops are growing, streets are being worked on, society is humming right along. Average people seem to be doing just fine.

    There's definitely a corrosion in the fabric of society but when people wonder how the "other side" can vote the way they do, especially in light of xyz, they don't realize that for many folks their perception of the current state of events is significantly reinforced by their day to day living, which is going reasonably well.

    Is it going to stay that way? Maybe. Probably not. But you can't convince people who are doing well that they need to change their outlook for some imagined future.

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  • [–] 14 points 3 months ago

    No one REALLY feels the threat posed by the polycrisis. It's all complex, intellectual worries about things that FEEL like they're still just a little ways out, not quite here. People are mostly focused on the here and now and the very near future. The riots happen when people literally can't feed their kids in the here and now. As long as it's just difficult, and not impossible, people will struggle on with their nose to the grindstone. Watch for rises in unemployment. CoViD showed what can happen when millions if people find themselves with mountains of free time to use on political action. When enough people are hungry and have no job to distract them, the fires will come.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Well, when the working class is organized enough to do it, so organize.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago

    Its when people have nothing to lose.

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  • [–] 34 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    I was ready in February 2025. But after 12 months of being surrounded by people who don’t know/don’t care, and the growing threat of illegal detention of my legal immigrant spouse, I packed my family up and left.

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  • [–] 12 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Looking at Gen-Z protests around the world, it's kinda already started, though the success rate/level in each case may be an issue. But yeah, for the US specifically I've been amazed things haven't really escalated to the same level yet outside of maybe Jan 6 and even that was running in the wrong direction

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  • [–] 41 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Rioting is illegal and usually it's poor people smashing the windows of other poor people's shops.

    The word you're looking for is "uprising" or "revolution"

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I see where you're coming from, but that's why we need targeted action and leadership. An uprising or revolution would be just as illegal.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 months ago

    Any group with a serious leader gets co-opted and the leader killed or imprisoned. Small underground groups of 10-20 people or fewer can do a lot. Many components of things like Patriot missiles are made in average workshops and factories with relatively little security. With a little know-how a small drone is relatively easy to construct as well.

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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Yes, that might have to happen. Historically it's how things tend to go. And in the mean time, boycott everything you can, hit them in the hip pocket, find groups with listings that make it clear what's owned by "the bad guys" unsubscribe, disengage and lock down privacy, they make money from you, by you just engaging. There's a creator who led a boycott on Kelloggs after the ceo said, when asked about the cost of living, how people should cope, he said people should eat cereal (which had recently doubled in price) I'm retelling it poorly, but it drove people to gather and start a boycott. And it was big.

    If we led instructors on how to unsubscribe, disengage and engage privacy, that would hit their hip pocket.

    If we figured out who sucks the most, and targeted them, one by one, boycotting, they'd feel it.

    Figure out and share reports on local candidates and politicians, because the news is owned by the billionaires.

    Remember that they want you to believe change isn't possible, they will fight you with big shows of how what you're doing isn't causing change and isn't worth the risk, by putting people in prison for ridiculous lengths of proposed time, and filming their own atrocities to keep everyone in fight or flight, (in a head space where you can't organise and fight back)

    A lot of their warfare against the public consists of driving you into despair, driving you into fight or flight, etc. You can see that, in some of the ansers here. People who have or are giving up and exasperated, thinking what they're doing isn't making a change. A huge way to prepare yourself for the fight is learning nervous system regulation tools and practicing them daily. You need your faculties about you. Let the turkeys around you gobble all they want, keep on your path.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    It depends where you live.

    I honestly feel bad for the doomers in these kinds of comment sections who feel confused and aimless, like nothing is happening. I live in Oakland, California, and it's clear to me that my community is not waiting around.

    If you're feeling adrift, let me know where you live and I'll make suggestions. This sense of idleness is situational, and you can get involved in planning a revolution is you know where to look.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 3 months ago

    I'm in the southeast, in a rural area, so networking is a challenge. I know some like minded people but we are spread out and most of them lack the courage to speak up. I don't begrudge them for it, it's a scary thing to put yourself out there like that, but I hope they find it in themselves. We need millions in the US alone, but we need a global movement to have a chance of halting the damage to our enviroment.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Universal basic income would be a huge way to facilitate this. When we have a bit of a safety net, we can afford to take a few weeks off for a general strike. We can leave that evil corporate job, or educate ourselves on issues that need our attention. Studies have shown that with a little more time each week, people tend to invest more in the community or mutual aid. Not to mention, we could compel billionaires to join and facilitate the greatest redistribution of wealth in history. There's a foundation (ITSA) attempting to start it's own UBI with an app called comingle if you are interested in getting started at the grass roots level.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    I applaud the initiative (because at least they are actively trying instead of just talking about it), despite the inevitably devastating outcome this will have.

    For anyone who would be interested in joining, be aware that not only will you lose everything you send there, the lawyers will strip you bare throughout the decades long legal battles, after what is basically an insurance company you helped to crowdfund goes belly up.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    https://youtu.be/0YFdwfNh5vs

    The issue is that the powers that be did learn their lesson and they learned it well. If you keep the masses JUST sufficient enough that they still have something "to lose" they'll be to busy chasing that to be able to mount any kind of resistance to their exploitation. It's the splash and dash mentality. It's also why they are so against abortion. they frame it as a moral issue, but it's really about ensuring a good crop of fresh people to exploit when the current crop wears out. It's a common fascist tactic: Concentration Camps were usually billed as "work" camps where people would be set to menial or meaningless tasks, so they would waste away on purpose, and the deaths could be logged as "by natural causes" and not murder. (only what the regime defined as "undesirables" were sent to be euthanized.)

    Competing Lords owned the land and extracted labor from the peasants, and this was feudalism. Then peasants overthrew the lords so they could seek ownership of those lands, but that only benefited those who already had the means to fill the vacuum left by the lords. Capitalism only shuffles the deck of Feudalism. it doesn't solve the underlying flaw in the game, namely that there will always be someone with more means than you extracting value from people whose only asset to sell is their labor and time. Eventually a group of gentrified individuals will emerge that fill the rolls that the old lords did, and given that nepotism is rampant in industry, it's not even really that different at all from feudalism. The idea that a CEO should be president of a democracy is such a perversion of the idea of public rule that it is anathema to it. Extreme wealth should be disenfranchising in of itself, as if you are that wealthy, you no longer need the protections of a popular government, but rather, you are what that kind of governance is supposed to be protecting against.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 3 months ago

    For years I've held the view that slavery never ended, they just made the entire country and most of the world of the plantation, with the illusion of mobility and free choice. All you are really free to do is choose what cog to be in their machine, and as soon as you are used up you are replaced with another. I agree with you on abortion, but I think it also goes deeper. Parents have even more to lose, and are more likely to be good little wage slaves to protect their children in the short term, unable to see the long term.

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