memes

Accelerationists and bigots make up a large chunk of that bloc, and “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” make up the rest.

(The oligarchs that bought him don’t count in the same group as the plebeians.)

There are a lot of us who've been paying close attention, though, and are doing all we can.

I was 17 when 9/11 happened and I've been watching and learning. Now is the time to move

You may be able to survive the shakeup. Maybe a loved one doesn't end up in Lubbock or Alcatraz or CECOT. Maybe your neighborhood looks like it always did.

Maybe your state plays nice with the feds. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe shit gets hairy. The people pulling Trump's strings want Christian Nationalism and they'll get it, at least here in the South. We fought em before and we'll fight em again. We may lose, though.

The time for action is here.

I also appreciate the restoration of our ozone layer. I remember there was a time (when above a certain latitude at least) my skin would fucking burn in less than 5 minutes under direct sun, it's a lot better now but it seems weird we all just kind of collectively forgot about that time when we all nearly ended the world to such a degree that we could feel it outside, then we all reversed course and fixed it mostly.

I wonder if we would be more motivated to fix our current issues if they caused skin burns.

Both can be true.

"Shouldn't have wished to live in more interesting times" -Tav, Baldur's Gate 3

That's the point though - it wasn't a good thing

economic collapse, hyperinflation, dictatorship, economic collapse, war, revolution, y2k, global economic crisis, end of the mayan calendar, semi-dictatorship, (self-imposed) exile, brexit, covid, war v3, climate crisis getting real, revolution again?

We didn't start the fire.

End of mayan calendar ? Now that would be interesting...

Was it really still an official calendar system? In what country?

I vote for "the screaming twenties" to be the official name for this decade. Brilliant.

Seen it all happen from a "safe" distance. Damn you're unlucky in a way.

There's a few genocides in there too. Also I sleep in an abandoned house for like 6mo after the housing bubble burst. Whole neighborhoods where a light never turned on. All speculation market.

I thought it was the dotcom crash and great recession, in addition to the ones you mentioned war on "terror" and pandemic.

I mean... per the meme, very much not our first time.

We had a lot of things pretty good. Since we don't have TV, I've spent the last year every weekend creating a 2.5 hour block of tailored programming to recreate the experience of Saturday morning cartoons for my kid, with selections from ~60 of the best (and some bad) cartoons from the last several decades, animated music videos, unearthed funny old clips, and modern indie animations, often with seasonal themes. Halloween is the most fun.

My toons are objectively better than the Saturday morning block ever was, and it takes hours every week to gather clips, edit, and manage where we're at with every show. I sometimes wish I could share it with a larger crowd but it's really not worth the expense, legal exposure, or effort - not to mention it's more special since it's just for my kiddo. I get to share the culture with him, with the crusts cut off. They don't have to put up with commercials, bad reception, or the constant ear-splitting blare of homophobia that was the nineties.

All that to say, that's the big picture too. Every generation we try to make things a little better for the young ones. Sometimes we're pretty envious of them, but we'd be failures if things were completely better when we were kids - and they'll have to work hard too, because in some ways we have been failing.

Which isn't a lot because inflation is getting out of hand.

And squandered the shit out of it.

The idea that people before us lived worse lives is one often used to obscure the clinical nature of standards we attribute to quality of life such as lifespan, infant mortality, food security, and housing. This is because it allows corporations to trivialize the impact of doubling the workload by normalizing the 40 hour work week and housework and child care, what used to be two people's worth of work, into one.

Are we living 'better' lives? On paper, sure. Are we living happier lives? That's hard to say.

I remember people following Harold Camping's doomsday predictions. They sold their houses, bought RVs, preached that The End is Nigh, etc. The day came and went like any other. He revised the date a couple of times, but of course world didn't end. I just can't believe people are that gullible.

You could afford a house and got a free or cheap education

The state has sold off everything in your lifetime to keep your taxes low, including housing. Which you bought and now own.

Millennials are generation rent with a government renting back what it sold as taxes rise.

And the cold war is still going on, what is it about Gen X that makes them think it stopped. Putin is at war in Europe right now. The cold war only ever paused.

Proxy wars didn't stop with Vietnam, the cold war didn't stop with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

You get to experience the events of the world while being comparatively rich.

You got to experience the only decade or so without a cold war threat while millennials experience the threat of Russia and an increasing threat from China.

And millennials were told as children the world would burn if we did nothing. Gen X and the Boomers did nothing.

Yes it sucks.

But you had it good, and politically you've fucked us recently. After being previously politically apathetic.

We've got a world to repair and it remains to be seen if Millennials will actually move past apathy into fixing it with Gen Z or continuing to fuck it up like Gen Z.