[bshirt]

I can't imagine how the current "welfare check in every mailbox" policy in the US being sunk wouldn't have drastic changes in values nationwide.

The "liberated" and "empowered" gals will be shocked when they don't get free housing, dental, medical, food stamps, etc just for getting knocked up repeatably. And/or divorce their husband and get the kids, house, cars and child support for forever.

It'll be huge.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bshirt', 'I') can't imagine how the current "welfare check in every mailbox" policy in the US being sunk wouldn't have drastic changes in values nationwide.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bshirt', 'I') can't imagine how the current "welfare check in every mailbox" policy in the US being sunk wouldn't have drastic changes in values nationwide.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bshirt', 'H')ow about adding other federal entitlements (2005 numbers) like medicaid (53.4 million people), medicare (42.3 million people), food stamps (25 million people) and child nutrition (32.3 million people).
Then there's various disability programs, HUD, etc, etc.
So yeah, hilarious or not, I do indeed think the change will be huge.

[gg3]

All hail Barbaria! Land of manly virtues, where men are free, women are not, and sheep are scared!
OK, I'm going to call out this BS for what it is.

Torjus, in general I admire you but right now I'm going to hold your feet to the proverbial campfire in your yurt. Does your fiancee have the right to say No to sex? If she does, you're living with feminism. If she doesn't, you're a rapist.

And as for despising vegetarians, watch where you point your hunting rifle, you just shot yourself in the foot. Every vegetarian is one less person competing with you for a dwindling meat supply. Smarten up and encourage vegetarianism: more meat for you.

All this anti-feminist stuff is a bad cover story for men who either believe that each erection carries a God-given right to use it any way they choose, or that each erection may be their very last.

Real men do not fear real women. Strong men do not fear strong women. And free men do not fear free women.

Bshirt, do you get two days off from work each week? Thank the commies for that one, the 5-day week was the invention of the dreaded IWW, the Wobblies. And I say that as a small business person with a major libertarian streak for whom the word "regulation" is right up there with "indigestion," and who agrees with Reagan that the Soviet Union was an evil empire.

How quickly free people want to give up their freedom! How quickly they retreat into the certainty of various forms of tyranny!

Think back to the last time Western Civilization faced an active threat to its very existence: World War Two. Here in the US, sexist roles went out the window as Rosie became a riveter. Racism went out the window as black soldiers and white soldiers performed with equal courage and valor, and in the aftermath of the war, the evils of Jim Crow were defeated one after another after another. Conservation was the order of the day, and Victory Gardens provided enough of a supplement to the national diet to enable us to get through the shortages.

Those who clamor for neo-feudal tyranny would have been defeatists in WW2. "Make peace with the Nazis and Imperial Japan!" they would have shouted from their rooftops. Total lack of spine. Cowardice in the face of crisis. In Europe they would have been, and likely were, the collaborators who, after the Wehrmacht caravan rolled through their streets, would have gone around hunting down Jews in their neighbors' attics. In America and the UK they would have been, and probably were, the appeasers, the advocates of surrender.

Our grandfathers roll over in their graves at such things, while we enjoy the freedom they fought and died for, and take it for granted like yesterday's toy that's left in the toy box in favor of something more "exciting."

Frankly, that's disgraceful.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'A')ll this anti-feminist stuff is a bad cover story for men who either believe that each erection carries a God-given right to use it any way they choose, or that each erection may be their very last.
Real men do not fear real women. Strong men do not fear strong women. And free men do not fear free women.
Bshirt, do you get two days off from work each week? Thank the commies for that one, the 5-day week was the invention of the dreaded IWW, the Wobblies. And I say that as a small business person with a major libertarian streak for whom the word "regulation" is right up there with "indigestion," and who agrees with Reagan that the Soviet Union was an evil empire.
How quickly free people want to give up their freedom! How quickly they retreat into the certainty of various forms of tyranny!

[mmasters]

Don't forget the metrosexuals. Let em vanish back into hole they came out of.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'H')ow quickly free people want to give up their freedom! How quickly they retreat into the certainty of various forms of tyranny!

[PrairieMule]

Honestly I think our bellies will be growling so loudly it's not going to matter who is queer,christian, left, right, black, white, brown, etc . I think the two new classes will be those that work and those that don't.

At least that's what John Titor says.

[Ludi]

Egalitarian/non-hierarchical societies have comprised the bulk of human societies. Hierarchical societies, such as feudalism, are the tiny minority.

[Iaato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', 'A') crucial question about the more or less imminent post-collapse society will be its dominant ideology and value system.
Since the 1960's, liberal social values have continued their triumph in nearly all Western societies. Think feminism, open homosexuality, individualist lifestyle choices, free sex, liberal secularism and the general "let all the flowers blossom" attitude. Of course there has been some reactionary backlash (in the form of social conservatism), but its successes have been mostly limited in scale and endurance.
In my opinion, it's no coincidence that all this individualism and pluralization has happened during an age of an unforeseen economic and technological progress. Not only has technology and the ensuing prosperity freed people from constant worry about daily bread, they have also given them possibilites to enjoy and express themselves in ways unimaginable a hundred years ago. They have substantially increased tolerance for lifestyles and behavior that would have been considered illegitimate in more austere times. This correlation between welfare and tolerance is mirrored by the fact that poor and undeveloped societies are usually very conservative and patriarchal in their values and practices.
The question is, what will happen to the modern liberal individualist value system when its economic and technological basis collapses?
My guess is that in a time of desperation, famine and anarchy, people will cling to any available ideology or religion that gives them security and hope for the future. This in itself may strengthen conservative social views.

[Ludi]

We learn from biology that diversity in life systems leads to greater chance of survival. Cultural diversity - tolerance - could be seen as a survival mechanism in a rapidly changing world.

[128shot]

probably a herd to religion-religious nuts always gain followers in times of social hardship and collapse "God willed this because our sins-repent!" kinda thing.

Those who remain free spirited and don't throw away their individuality totally will prosper, because they will still hold a entrepreneurial mindset to do what they can with the resources around them. These will be the people who set up the successful trading posts etc

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'E')galitarian/non-hierarchical societies have comprised the bulk of human societies. Hierarchical societies, such as feudalism, are the tiny minority.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', 'B')ut how will we deal with those who don't want to work, but still eat the food others have grown with great effort? Or with those who constantly harass their neighbors? Thieves, killers etc.? Right, we need someone to bring them to respect the rules, or execute penalties against them, or or to forcefully expel them. There, we need a "police force" with special authorities to protect us.
And how about those outsiders that steal our crops during the night, causing famine for our children? Right, we need a defending militia. In fact, we should start one with our neighboring villages, to have more manpower. And to function effectively under stress, military organizations need a rigid and unquestioned hierarchy... so it will be the largest and strongest village of this "confederation" that will set the leader from among them.
And what about those people who believe in a religion that exempts them from certain duties necessary for the community? Or a religion that permits them to act in a manner harmful or offensive to others? They say that their god would be angry if they didn't. So can we tolerate their religion? ...And so on.

[SevenTen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fredrik', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'E')galitarian/non-hierarchical societies have comprised the bulk of human societies. Hierarchical societies, such as feudalism, are the tiny minority.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SevenTen', 'A')ctually, Ludi is referring to most tribal cultures being egalitarian. It's a common misconception to think that a tribal "chieftan" or shaman had actual authority to make laws, force people to do things, etc. In a community of 50 to 150 people, this doesn't happen. Hierarchies in tribal cultures are temporary, and dependent on the situation.

[gg3]

So easy to forget that we've been down this road before and lived to tell the tale.

Consider the 1920s depression. The so-called "Great" depression, as with the so-called "Great" War before we started giving them numbers; perhaps we should call it WD1 for World Depression 1, to be followed by a WD2 in the near future.

The years leading up to WD1 were known as the Roaring 20s for good reason. These were economic boom times, the early creation of a middle class with expanding consumption levels, and widespread popular access to comforts & conveniences unheard of in the previous generation or even the previous decade. Electric appliances started becoming common, automobiles multiplied like rabbits across the countryside, and Joe Workingman started investing in the stock market.

When the bottom fell out, the twin evils of fascism and communism reared their ugly heads as the paradigms of the future, united in the common bond of tyranny so complete that it spawned the new word "totalitarianism." Long before the world became aware of concentration camps and gulags, genocides and pogroms and purges, the world was well aware of the ruthlessness of these regimes. But that ruthlessness was thought by most to only be applied against those who dared dissent against the regimes. It was accepted in much the same way as mainstream opinion presently accepts the ruthlessnesses of present-day pragmatically-useful dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia (we tut-tut as rape victims are stoned to death for adultery, and then we fill our tanks and smile).

In the mid 1930s, as Germany under Hitler was pulling itself out of WD1, and the USSR under Stalin was demonstrating that it was basically immune from WD1 altogether, it was also acceptable to suggest that democracy's days were numbered in the face of these examples.

And yet...

A decade is a long time by the standard of an individual life's experience, and longer still in a far more slowly-paced era where mass communication was limited to the radio and the newspaper.

As WD1 dragged on it appeared that it might be a permanent state of affairs. Today we anticipate WD2 as if it too will be a permanent state of affairs, and the best available science even says we're right.

And yet we somehow managed to deal with the radical downsizing of consumption, the instant disappearance of lifetime savings and equity, and the very real hunger in the belly, without reverting to barbarism.

During the worst years of WD1 it appeared that it was the beginning of the end, and that Hitler and Stalin were the shape of things to come. And yet we did not give in and we did not give up.

Looking back on WD1, we do not see evidence of a massive increase in predatory or parasitic behavior. What we see is that competition continued within defined rule-sets, cooperation increased, and rule-sets were changed over time to rectify the known causes and effects of the depression.

To say that we can't do it again is to say that you believe the human species has, in a very physical and evolutionary way, regressed irretrievably during the span of less than a century. On that point the science says you're wrong.

But if you truly believe that, you've already Darwinized yourself in spirit even if not in the flesh.

And if you don't truly believe that, then roll up your sleeves, as there is much work to be done, and a new world to be built.

www.thefosl.org
We are building the new world. Join us.

[Fredrik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'D')uring the worst years of WD1 it appeared that it was the beginning of the end, and that Hitler and Stalin were the shape of things to come. And yet we did not give in and we did not give up.
Looking back on WD1, we do not see evidence of a massive increase in predatory or parasitic behavior. What we see is that competition continued within defined rule-sets, cooperation increased, and rule-sets were changed over time to rectify the known causes and effects of the depression.
To say that we can't do it again is to say that you believe the human species has, in a very physical and evolutionary way, regressed irretrievably during the span of less than a century. On that point the science says you're wrong.

[Iaato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'L')ooking back on WD1, we do not see evidence of a massive increase in predatory or parasitic behavior. What we see is that competition continued within defined rule-sets, cooperation increased, and rule-sets were changed over time to rectify the known causes and effects of the depression.