It’s Not OK
In an apologetic study, researchers have found that (just) 56 Percent of Young People Think Humanity Is Doomed.
It’s a low number to be honest, since young people will face the very worst of climate catastrophe. They will all seen first-hand the extinction of the habitable biosphere, so frankly I think that this number should be much higher. Perhaps they’re just not interested or paying attention to the news. Or perhaps the news is failing them miserably (more likely), and certainly climate science has failed to adequately warn the world.
Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the American media refuses to portray what is really happening. The stacked bodies, the choked hospitals and the thousands of dying patients. This should be nightly news, portray all the ugliness, all the evil, all the rampant stupidity and the refusals to vaccinate. Let Americans actually see first-hand what their obstinate stupidity is causing, including all the people now dying from other treatable health issue for a lack of a hospital bed or a doctor to care for them. Let us actually see it – splash this unfolding horror across the television landscape in all of its terrifying reality. Maybe then some of these rabid idiots will finally realize that this is a pandemic of stupid. Stupid people dying in huge numbers because of their stupid belief system and the incessant lies being spewed from even more stupid people.
Or maybe even this would not change any minds at all. Countless people have died now swearing that the pandemic “isn’t real” and countless more are entering hospitals at deaths edge proclaiming their “freedom” to avoid wearing a mask or receiving a free vaccine. It’s a plague of stupid unfolding in America on a massive scale.
I won’t miss the morons but I am taking my own life into my hands every time I venture out and do any shopping. I’ve been incredibly busy installing power, water systems and constructing a pump house. You need all kinds of approved parts when doing this type of project, which are increasingly harder to find because a lot of stupid people have killed themselves over refusing to get vaccinated, and they’re also killing other people because they got sick and didn’t stay home and infected countless others. Now all the hospitals are overflowing here and the nearby States are attempting to deal with the overflow of infected and dying (if there is a hospital bed). Cardiac patients and dialysis patients and all kinds of other patients are now dying because there is no medical services available to them. So stupid kills other people, again and again.
What does this have to do with the climate crisis? Everything. The same level of apathy and indifference that we are still seeing to the pandemic is infecting the climate denialists, the industrialized planet-wasters, the money-grubbing executives and business interests and the corporate monstrosities that poison the world. They only care about themselves and their own economic survival and the power and control that they exercise over everyone else. They erected a enormous apparatus to ensure that ever human on the planet was completely dependent upon their survival for their survival. They passed laws and fabricated legislation and treaties to ensue that their umbrella effect of control would encompass virtually everyone alive.
You exist precisely because they exist and provide your sustenance and everything else you need to stay alive. Without them, the vast majority of humanity would simply starve to death, so you’re forced to eat their poison-laden foods and their chosen artificial offerings that you can buy with your slave wages at the supermarket. Then you can go home to your mortgaged house and eat it while watching your televised brainwashing programs that portray all the “good” things you don’t have but now want. It’s a endless cycle of stupidity on a global scale.
Everybody is going along with this set of living arrangements and thinks this is a “normal” existence. Well, it’s not, it’s bizarre beyond belief, it’s deadly and it’s killing lots of stupid people now. If you don’t watch television you can tune into your favorite talk-radio hosts (if they’re still alive that is) and listen to them rant and rave about how vaccines are made from baby parts and how wearing a mask is an infringement upon your supposed “freedoms” and “God given rights” they’ve imagined. Lots of these guys are now dead, thankfully, ending their spew and lies to their audiences for good, but there are plenty of other ignorant morons willing to take their place in the halls of rabid idiocy. Maybe someday they too will win the Medal of Freedom from another traitorous President intent on destroying the country.
The point to all this is that even when dying, or facing climate extinction, humans remain pretty goddamned stupid. They’re unwilling to change their ways. They’re disinterested in their own survival, or the survival of anyone else. They’re mindless zombies stumbling through life seeking their next shot of endorphin through mindless “entertainment” and distractions, promoting false ideologies and hatred. Their polarized around really stupid shit that has no relevance or meaning, daily manipulated by dishonest media moguls and advertising executives, too stupid to extract themselves from this system of brainwashing and mind control. They lack critical skills and the ability to even think clearly, endlessly parrot talking points they picked up from social media platforms and anonymous sources.
What they are is goddamned stupid, so stupid that it still confounds me that some of these people are even still alive. They’re dragging down the entire weight of humanity with their asinine behavior and interference in real human progress. They go by many names that portray just how brainwashed they are. They think it’s important to belong to a tribe of like-minded idiots that believe and act like they do.
There are a couple of clowns nearby to me that are flying the “Fuck Biden” flags in the backs of their monstrous 4×4 trucks as if this personal sentiment actually means anything other then the rabid ignorance and hatred of the driver. A few others are still flying the Trump 2020 and Trump Won flags, along with bumper stickers and window stickers on their vehicles. These people are plainly stupid and in massive denial, unable to see the reality that is right in front of them. Their the same people who are not vaccinated, not wearing a mask in public places and refusing to take any precautions at all. They’re also filling up the hospitals and overwhelming all the first-line responders, doctors and nurses, and now they’re causing the deaths of other people that have medical emergencies from non-COVID conditions. This makes them complicit murderers in my book.
They’re also in the same tribal crowd of stupid fools that does not believe that humans are causing deadly climate change. They won’t read any of the science, don’t understand the tiny bits that is being pre-digested for them by some idiotic talking head, and refuse to acknowledge that things are changing for the worst very quickly now, even when their houses are being blown away, burned down or flooded out. They are part of the plague of stupid that has poisoned this country and even much of the world, bringing everything to a standstill. There are now millions of unfilled positions and vacancies for these wage-slaves who have either refused to return to work or are now dead. Desperate employers are offering all kinds of incentives and bonuses for anyone that will show up, but so far, that’s not worked out.
You’re goddamned right humanity is doomed. It’s self-destructing because of stupid fucking people embracing stupid fucking ideologies and endless lies. It’s been going on for a long, long time, but now it’s been weaponized and unleashed upon the world by the public at large and fanned into a raging inferno by corrupt politicians. We’ve always seen stupid ideologies launch pointless wars and engage in genocide, polluting and poison the planet, raping the very guts out of the Earth for endless human greed and profits, but now we’re seeing masses of humanity engaging in stupid ideologies and self-destructive behavior killing other people. It’s all culminating in a clash of survival and despair for all us.
Young people should be scared out of their fucking minds to be honest. Stop apologizing for this. This was inevitable. They should be absolutely terrified at what is happening. But they should also be doing everything they can to learn what they need to know and to take actions to help themselves, because it is brutally obvious that the so-called “adults” around them are too goddamned stupid to do it for even themselves. Humanity has abandoned the next generation in a selfish explosion of ignorance and escalating stupidity. Parents are literally destroying their chances for their own children’s survival. Grandparents are too distracted and far too greedy to care. Driving all this is the money-changers and big business that is capitalizing on the endless greed and voracious appetites they’ve cultivated over decades and generations. Complicit media and dishonest government and corrupt politicians all piled on top of this sordid mess that some call ‘society’ and ‘civilization’, but I call it a endless disaster and a dystopian nightmare.
I do not have words of comfort because that would be lying which apparently, everybody else is quite willing to do. There is nothing to look forward to except something worse, because humanity is infected with a disease of endless stupidity and greed, selfish actions and poisonous ideologies. The whole of humanity is being drowned in a sea of stupidity and selfishness, killing millions, faster and faster. We are witnessing the end of civilization, those of us that may survive this temporarily are in shock at how fast this is unfolding. Governments are paralyzed unable to act without offending their corporate masters. Astute observers are watching in daily horror as the crisis escalates non-stop.
Young people are should be terrified – we’ve abandoned them. They’re surrounded by an endless army of complete morons engaging in some truly stupid behaviors and rituals and they know it. They’re not blind to our insanity. I can’t apologize for the terribly bad behavior of the world or the people within it, I can only document the fact that I am keenly aware of it. It won’t do any good. As always, you are on your own and the longer you stay within this mindset of pretending that everything is going to be ok, the more you will contribute to the ongoing insanity. Everything is most definitely NOT going to be ok. We will never be “ok” again, it’s too late for that.
I couldnt agree more, humans have ruined the future. Rising levels of stupidity are ruining any chance we had. It’s going to get very, very ugly dealing with dumbfucks. Like you, I’m fed up totally. Tired of all their crap and all their whining. Wish they would all just shut the fuck up and mind their own damned business.
Betrayal is the byword of the age as far as governments go.
The latest snippet here is that the NZ government, despite having declared a ‘climate emergency’, just cannot get its act together and formulate policy that complies with its own timeframe. So they plan to alter the previously-passed legislation to be able to sit on the fence a bit longer. Not that they could EVER come up with any credible plan anyway. The Climate Commission proposals, promoted by Rod Carr (economist-lawyer) and company, are pure bollocks geared to kicking the can down the road a bit longer whilst pouring precious resources into boondoggles.
And, needless to say, they are all totally resistant to actual proper scientific analysis. As I and others have said many times, continuing to operate Industrial Civilisation is incompatible with maintaining the habitability of the Earth. But the ‘masters of the universe’, the banks and corporations simply will not allow sane policy to be implemented.
As for the stupidity of people, it pays to remember that people have been carefully trained to behave stupidly for many decades by both governments and the corporate media.
There is little doubt that the world is now populated by the most stupid and incapable people ever to have existed: in hunter-gatherer days if you were stupid and incapable you didn’t last a week.
Once civilisations arose from the growing and storage of grains, the rot set in and sociopaths were able to manipulate large numbers of people whilst generally incapable people could be kept alive via the surpluses generated by the capable.
Now we have a massive population overshoot of stupid people, kept alive in the short term via the use of oil to run the global industrial agricultural system. At the expense of the future, of course.
Young people should be rioting in the streets over the way they have been misled by governments and had their future stolen by banks and corporations. But that last time that happened (1968) the militarised industrial states used armed force to subdue anyone who disagreed with the way things were being run, in some cases shooting them dead, in others incarcerating for many years, i.e. Kent State University massacre and ‘The Weathermen’; riots and occupations in Paris.
Of course the illegitimacy of governments is becoming increasing apparent (as is their near complete disregard for the welfare of the masses) and this thing is going to blow soon.
‘The Government is planning to change the law to give itself another five months to come up with its much-anticipated plan for how New Zealand will reduce its carbon emissions.
Under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019, the Government is required to have published its first emissions budget for 2022 to 2025, as well as prospective budgets for the next two three-year periods, by December 31, 2021.
Under the Act, the Government also needs to have published an Emissions Reduction Plan before the start of the relevant budget period.
Cabinet has decided to change the law to give the Government until the end of May 2022 to publish this plan……’
https://www.interest.co.nz/index.php/news/112277/government-change-law-push-out-deadline-publication-carbon-reduction-plan-5-months-may
There is no such things as ‘Zero Carbon’ of course. Just more bollocks from the government.
Stupid doesn’t survive. Most people have been protected from stupid and stupid behavior. Not anymore. The stupid are dying in large numbers now.
If I was young, I’d be terrified, but then again, the young probably don’t know what I know now. It’s taken a lifetime to develop this knowledge. But I do wish they would listen, it is incumbent upon them to take actions to do something for themselves (I didn’t say “save” themselves, not at all sure that is possible). The industrialist can’t see the destruction they’ve unleashed. They’d never admit to it. Every drop of profit must still be squeezed out.
There is no plan, anywhere in the world that would pass muster (i.e., my approval) unless it ends the present living arrangements and way of life we now have. Industrial civilization will never be compatible with a habitable Earth. Deliberately perpetuating this ongoing insanity demonstrates their lack of real awareness, concern and protection for the future of humanity. They can’t see what is right in front of them.
There is no such thing as a carbon “budget”. This is a massive lie and gross deception being perpetuated by people that should rightly know better. If past emissions have brought us to the brink of disaster (and beyond), why would anyone advocate that there is still a budget left for more carbon emissions? Makes no sense whatsoever.
Seems to me that the qualifications to be elected to office include being either a psychopath or sociopath.
So much is wrong right now, not just here but globally, no real signs of things getting better anytime soon or if at all. It saddens me to think this is now most likely becoming the new norm, and it’s gonna be harder for those of us who’ve known the other life, the days of instant gratification having items readily available at keystroke, everything from under the rainbow to far reaching heavens of our imagination. All these desires of the former life, the things we all took for granted, yet never realizing, one day this too shall pass!
“Our personal consumer choices have ecological, social, and spiritual consequences. It is time to re-examine some of our deeply held notions that underlie our lifestyles”. David Suzuki
In the latest round of insanity Australia, the UK and the US have declared a new alliance- AUKUS- to restrain China from becoming a superpower. This insanity includes Australia leasing nuclear submarines, presumably to patrol the periphery of the Chinese zone. Maybe even intrude into the Chinese zone. The Australian submarines are reportedly not going to be nuclear armed but will carry hypersonic weapons.
We can see how this is going to pan out, since China is Australia’s major trading partner and purchases humungous quantities of raw materials from Australia. Tensions have been high for a while but this latest escalation in in a different league altogether.
It is said that Australia has not gone willingly into this madness but has been told to make itself available to the US…or else.
Just what ‘or else’ might be we can only guess.
So, with the world overheating like never before and ecosystems collapsing all over the place, the top priority is to fight yet another unwinnable war, either via trade and money manipulation or via actual military engagement.
Fortunately, NZ is too far south to be of much interest to the military at this stage. And the nuclear-free status does make for complications.
Oh, they’ll want NZ one day for sure, can’t have any country running around all independent and the like. I saw the news about the nuclear subs and wondered what that was all about. Humanity has yet to learn to cooperate with one another and work together, they’re going to be at each others throats soon enough, no doubt at all. Nothing like catastrophic climate change making large parts of the Earth uninhabitable to spark a resource war.
Here in these fucked up States of Slaves and Fees, China has bought up a lot of American farmland for food production. I don’t know how much is being shipped offshore. We are still experiencing ongoing supply issues here. Today I went looking for a circuit breaker, can’t find it anywhere. Even the little strain relief couplers are missing.
Numerous phone calls from would-be customers complaining about shortages. I know potatoes are going to virtually disappear fairly soon, none until sometime in 2022.
Charles Hugh Smith highlighted that very issue [of broken supply chains] a couple of days ago:
‘Setting aside the “transitory inflation” parlor game for a moment, let’s look at what happens when critical parts are unavailable for whatever reason, for example, they’re on back order or indefinite back order, i.e. the supplier has no visibility on when the parts will be available.
If the part that blew out is 0.1% of the entire machine, and the other 99.9% still works perfectly, the entire machine is still dead in the water without that critical component. That is a pretty good definition of systemic vulnerability and fragility, a fragility that becomes much, much worse if there are two or three components which are on indefinite back order.
This is the problem with shipping much of your supply chain overseas: you create extreme systemic vulnerability and fragility even as you rake in big profits from reducing costs. Speaking of costs, let’s look at the costs of having a large, costly, complex mechanism sitting idle in a non-functioning state due to some broken element for which there is no substitute available. Whatever productive capacity the mechanism, process, etc. had is now stuck at zero.
Buying a new replacement is extremely costly, and that’s not always available for all the same reasons that parts and components aren’t available. Finding someone to fabricate a new component is not easy due to the wholesale transfer of manufacturing moxie and capability overseas.
You might be able to find someone to weld a replacement strut, but try finding someone to fab a new bicycle derailleur or better yet, a multilayer semiconductor chip. What about 3-D fabrication? Doesn’t that solve this problem? If the part can be “printed,” yes, but there are limits on what can be 3-D fabbed. You can’t 3-D fab a complex thermostat or controller, for example. You can’t 3-D fab a rubber gasket, either, or a great many other bits of petrochemical-based manufacturing.
Scarcities are not limited to parts and components; skilled people can be scarce, too. For example, there is a limited supply of ICU doctors and nurses. The training required to work in an ICU is specialized and experiential; throwing someone with minimal training in is not a substitution that’s going to work. You can’t order an ICU staff from China or print one digitally the way the Federal Reserve creates currency out of thin air. It takes many years to train the staff to function at a high level in ICU.
A great many such labor scarcities exist for skilled workers who cannot be replaced except by someone with the same training and years of experience. This is one reason ICUs can break down: there is no replacement staff available, and no way to “print more.”
It turns out there’s also a scarcity of people willing to do the dirty-work jobs America needs done for wages that haven’t kept up with inflation. As I have explained here, the $1.65 minimum wage I earned in 1970, if factored for real-world inflation, is around $18 per hour, and arguably closer to $20 per hour.
The solution is to raise the pay to levels that attract workers, but then this requires raising prices on the good and services to the point that customers can no longer afford them.
But wait, can’t we automate all work and deliver full-gee-whiz free-money, no-work communism to everyone? I invite everyone who reckons this is in the realm of the do-able to design, program and manufacture an automated robot that can trundle out to the laundry room, pop open a broken clothes dryer, diagnose the problem, manage to find a new controller board, fit it correctly and properly reconnect all the little wiring bits, close it up, test it, lift the dryer back on the washing machine and do all that for the relatively modest cost of a human repairperson. When you accomplish fabricating and programming that robot to do all the work without instruction or oversight, by all means let us all know how much it cost to design, program and manufacture, what the payback of the development and manufacturing process will cost amortized over the (short) life of the robot and how reliable it is in the real world.
The point is, fantasies are nice but reality is far more demanding.
There can also be scarcities of competence. There may be replacements who claim competence, but when reality intrudes on the shuck-and-jive, their competence was illusory, and the net result is the entire institution can be described by President G.W. Bush’s memorable phrase, this sucker’s going down.
There can also be scarcities of institutional infrastructure and capacity. Once the institution, enterprise, state agency, etc. has been stripmined of redundancy, institutional memory and competence, then the first scarcity that cannot be replaced is the first domino that topples all the other dominoes of systemic vulnerability and fragility.
The Federal Reserve can print trillions of dollars and the federal government can borrow and blow trillions of dollars, but neither can print or borrow supply chains, scarce skills, institutional depth or competence. That nice shiny new semiconductor fab you reckon will resolve the chip shortage? You can print the billions of dollars needed in an instant, but the machinery, expertise and time can’t be conjured quite so easily. That fab is years away from completion no matter how many freshly conjured dollars you throw into the air.
When Critical Parts Are On “Indefinite Back Order,” the Machine Grinds to a Halt: that’s the U.S. economy in a nutshell.
A great many essential components in America are on indefinite back order, including the lifestyle of endless globally sourced goodies at low, low prices. That lifestyle is out of stock and cannot be replaced with financialization fakery.
Hey, Federal Reserve, can you conjure up a non-corrupt financial system, a domestic supply chain, and an economy of open competition, transparency, accountability and competence? If not, you are even more worthless than we feared.’
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept21/back-order9-21.html
On the matter of China buying up farmland, that has been a source of gripe in NZ for quite a while.
What is really interesting is that whereas US ‘powers that be’ are able to prop up markets waaay beyond all reason, China is unwilling or unable to.
Interest.co. nz is very much a business-as-usual organisation, and celebrates destruction of the future, describing growth as ‘impressive. But it is reasonably honest in its actual reporting of numbers.
So when ‘Interest’ says things are bad, you can be sure they are bad:
‘Here’s our summary of key economic events overnight that affect New Zealand with news China is being buffeted with some pretty major forces it is struggling to control.
First, their central bank has injected NZ$20 bln (¥100 bln) into their financial system overnight through seven and 14-day reverse repurchase agreements, the most since February, as the Evergrande situation seems to be getting worse there. Evergrande bond holders can’t find buyers, which points to sharp losses and ugly margin calls, both of which can cause a cascading impact and general contagion. The whole situation is starting to look like an uncontrolled crash.
Worse for China, a top analyst sees Q3 delivering zero growth as the overall economy slows fast now. One reason is that their carmaking industry is stumbling and for the same reason the US auto industry is too – a lack of computer chips.
This overall economic pullback has meant that Chinese firms are far more reluctant to invest overseas. Through August, the 2021 levels are more than -4% lower than in 2020.’
‘In the US, the closely-watched University of Michigan sentiment survey came in at the same level in September as it was in August – and that isn’t good because August was a sharp dive to a decade low. The worries all center around inflation. There is unease that it won’t be transitory, which for consumers could be self-fulfilling. A strong view is that now is not a good time to buy a house.
Singapore’s exports sagged in August and by more than expected. A good bounce-back from a weak July was expected but it didn’t happen, so this has been a big miss. In fact August exports were lower than for July and that ate into the year-on-year gains which are now pretty modest.
In Australia, they have approved a major expansion to coal mining, just before the United Nations Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, where Australia will be pressed to commit to tougher emissions reduction targets. It now seems likely Australia will ignore those calls.
Meanwhile, the cost of lithium is racing higher as the rest of the world moves away from fossil fuels. Technical and battery-grade lithium carbonate prices increased by over 20% in the first half of September and in China have doubled so far in 2021.
And back in Australia, there were another 1284 new community cases in NSW reported yesterday with another 1167 not assigned to known clusters, so still going backwards there. They now have 14,175 active locally acquired cases. Victoria reported another 510 new cases yesterday, so it is worse there too. Queensland is reporting one new case. The ACT has 30 new cases again. Overall in Australia, more than 45% of eligible Aussies are fully vaccinated, plus 25% have now had one shot so far. That is 70% who have been vaxxed and flat-lining. In New Zealand it is now 72% rising fast still. Kudos to the Herald for championing a 90% goal. At the +60,000 per day rate we are currently at, that is less than two weeks away.
The Friday session on Wall Street has traded lower since its opening, with the S&P500 now down -0.9% in early afternoon trade and falling almost -1.0% below where it ended last week. Overnight, European markets were mostly -1.0% lower. For the week, Paris lost -1.8%, London lost -0.9% and Frankfurt lost -1.2%. Yesterday the very large Tokyo market recovered +0.6% to end the week up +0.4%. And Hong Kong recovered +1.0% but ended its week down -3.7%. Shanghai rose a minor +0.2% yesterday but that left it -2.3% lower for the week. Evergrande isn’t helping. The ASX200 closed down -0.8% to end the week flat. And the NZX50 Capital Index closed up a strong +1.2% yesterday in a rally that built during the day, and for the week was up +1.3%.
The UST 10yr yield opens today at just over 1.37%, so up another +3 bps from this time yesterday. That puts the interim weakness during the week behind us. The US 2-10 rate curve is at +114 bps and marginally steeper. Their 1-5 curve is steeper too at +79 bps, while their 3m-10 year curve is steeper at +131 bps. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate starts today at 1.33% and also up another +5 bps. The China Govt ten year bond is at 2.91% and unchanged. The New Zealand Govt ten year is now at 1.88% and up +7 bps and back up to where it was a week ago, after falling to 1.79% in between.
The price of gold has fallen another -US$4 today and now at US$1753/oz which takes it back to about where it dipped briefly to in mid-August. It hasn’t been a good day for the yellow metal. Silver has fallen again and is back to year-ago levels.
But oil prices have drifted -50 USc lower overnight so in the US they are now just under US$72/bbl, while the international Brent price is now under US$75/bbl.’
The talk of the world moving away from fossil fuels is nonsense, of course.. You cannot make steel or concrete or maintain electricity grids or run a global industrial civilisation using lithium batteries.
This failure to understand the difference between a p[rime energy source and an energy carrier is at the bottom of many delusions.
What all this financial-economic means precisely for us poor mortals is not entirely clear, though it is obvious that the prices of gold and silver are heavily manipulated (suppressed), and it is clear that the long-expected global economic crash is underway. Not that gold or silver are going to be a lot of use when one is starving or dehydrated.
I am curious to know what exactly is happening at Lake Mead, since the water level has been more-or-less constant for many weeks at around 1067.
I managed to dump my remaining silver, I could care less about precious metals and find this to be a wasted exercise. The economy can only function ‘correctly’ if there is a constant demand, which means constant flow of resources to make products, and buyer to buy those products, all withing the age of abundance. Now that this is over, contraction and decline are inevitable (no pandemic needed). It’s a stupid economic model, but fits perfectly within the fiat banking system that fabricates phony ‘wealth’ out of thin air. A debt-based economic system deriving it’s ‘value’ on indentured servitude and interest. Absolutely nuts. Works until it doesn’t and then it falls apart with workers refusing to participate in both the labor market and the consumer market, a gigantic yo-yo effect sets in as contraction and then collapse ensues.
When you think about it, everything that is happening is actually our fault. Stupid humans.