Opinion Western civilization is heading to a great reset ?

[Unknown Pleasures]

There is a reason 5 entities own 90% of US media. They keep the Rubes bitching at each other over chicks with dicks, immigrants and Homer Sexuals, all the while the government is actively transferring wealth to the Elite. Most people are too stupid and think some 3rd generation trust fund baby is after their best economic interests. The US deserves what is coming. I am just sad, my kids wont have the same chance I did, because we let politicians sells us out.

Agree. Things go in cycles. But what's beat-you-over-the-head obvious is that ethics and trust is at a horrible low point. Virtually all our major instituions, which ought to be protecting and serving the population are increasingly being viewed as what they, increasingly selling out to the average person. I've mentioned before, Labor Union can't even endorse a Presidential candidate because they know they have no real representation as both parties have sold out and the game in town is Corporate Party vs. Oligarchic Corporate Party.

Confidence in Institutions

Now I am going to read you a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one -- a great deal, quite a lot, some, or very little?

news.gallup.com

The TL/DR of the tables -- Great deal/quite a lot of faith changes 2002 to 2025

Church 45 --> 36%
Military 79 --> 62%
Supreme Court 50 --> 27%
Banks 47 --> 30%
Schools 38 --> 29%
Newspapers 35 --> 17%
Congress 29 --> 10%
TV News 35 --> 11%
Organized Labor (actually up!!) 26% --> 29%
The Presidency 58% --> 30%
The Police 59 --> 45%
Medical system --> 38 --> 32%
Criminal Justice System 27% --> 17%
etc etc

 

[NickNick]

Not all immigrants are illegal. Many do come over with lots of $

Well this administration is rounding up illegal immigrants, so that effort will have no change to the cost of homes which is what I was getting at. I wouldn't put it past them to try to start booting legal immigrants as well but we all know they sure as shit won't touch the rich ones.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

Eh, I think "western civilization" is kind of a bullshit term since Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand are all part of it as well, but the American hegemonic order is obviously on the precipice of collapse. How catastrophic this collapse will be depends on how much countries in that sphere manage to disentangle themselves from American hegemony before it happens, but if they don't, I reckon the best case scenario is that it looks like the fall of Rome, but more likely, it looks something like the Bronze Age collapse.

It's not all clear cut, "western civilization" I would consider different than "western world".

Japan and South Korea obviously have more cultural differences to Europe and North America and ANZ than the latter 3 have with each other.

But I foremost consider "western world" in terms of political economy, very much politically (liberal democracies with separation of church and state) and economically in bed with each other, and in any sort of like WW3 type scenario would all definitely align as allies. It's more of a "passport visa" type thing.

 

[Cole train]

The assumption is the elites are actually smart, capable of rational long term planning, and cognizant of the higher order effects of their policies & actions. They're not. The vast majority of them are much like Trump; pure hypemen jumping on the next hot tech and swindling everyone to make a quick buck. I think RDJ said it pretty well:

Lmao at the guy with phones on each ear

 

[The XL]

They said not so long ago that you'll own nothing and be happy by 2030. That's basically an admission that they're trying to collapse everything, and fast.

 

[Scerpi]

Well this administration is rounding up illegal immigrants, so that effort will have no change to the cost of homes which is what I was getting at. I wouldn't put it past them to try to start booting legal immigrants as well but we all know they sure as shit won't touch the rich ones.

Legal immigrants on average make a lot more than average Americans. I suppose that's a result of them being able having the means to actually make it through the system.

I know that few large Canadian cities have experienced massive inflation in Real Estate for the same reason

 

[White Whale]

The United States of America is at stage 4 in the 6 stage revolution cycle.

 

[Fluffernutter]

I know the only thing we should fear is fear itself.
But, I feel like the general uncertainty in our society is going to lead to a fracture of society.

There won't be a single moment or event that will be a catalyst, just the overall feeling of uncertainty.

Why invest long term?
Why start a family?
Why take care of yourself?

 

[Tatra]

But you can make the EXACT opposite argument just as easily. A diverse society is too wild and wieldy and will cause a nation to collapse. In fact, I've heard white nationalist, anti-immigration types claim this a thousand times. The Roman Empire was great until it stretched out too much and became too diverse. Same with the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Yugoslavia, they all collapsed because they were too diverse. Too many different groups pulling in all sorts of directions and the state couldn't satisfy everyone. So the US is doomed because it's too diverse.

As idiotic as that sounds, it has a bit more logic than yours. If excessive ethnic strife can destabilize a country, why would the elites purposely bring in groups that will jeopardize the stability of their country and their own elite standing?

The obvious answer is, they're not. They're bringing in immigrants strictly for economic/labor reasons. Of course they'd love to bring in white immigrants that are culturally similar to them but there just aren't enough around. Whites are doing so well that there just aren't enough of them poor enough to be willing to do the shit jobs that capitalist economies require. Lots of brown and black people to do that though.

I never said they don't want to collapse everything - they absolutely do, but the collapse will be far easier for them to manage because of all the diversity preventing the populace from opposing them in any meaningful way. That's not the exact opposite argument. They're NOT jeopardizing their "own elite standing" from their perspective. Societal disintegration doesn't mean they'll lose power.

You just named empires. Individual European countries aren't empires. They haven't expanded their borders. The diversity that exists within them is entirely due to immigration. That wasn't the case with those empires.

You're not really disagreeing with me here.

They're not bringing in immigrants for labour reasons dude, come on. Don't be ridiculous. The economic output of Somalis, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Afghans, Syrians etc is awful. Both first and second generations (and beyond). And if you're so desperate for immigrants, why wouldn't you go to countries with more cultural compatibility like Latin America? They're Christian and don't bring with them any backwards cultural baggage like cousin marriage, tribalism, FGM, honor killings etc. In many cases, it's just a bunch of Europeans born in Latin America returning to their ancestral homelands (loads of Italians down in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru etc for example). There's no way Latin American countries are doing as well/better than Europe so you can forget that argument.

I'd actually have some kind of respect for politicians if they were just honest on this issue. Stop insulting my intelligence by trying to feed me this bullshit that diversity is a strength and I have so much to gain from living in a neighbourhood crawling with Somalis and Pakistanis. No sane person believes it.

 

[nostradumbass]

Mass immigration is the reason for expensive homes because they are taking away many housing options from young people in the west.

I don't think people understand or think through how a lot of this shit works, and just get caught up in emotional arguments and scream "racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe" to cram through damaging whims.

It's not just immigration, but that is possibly the biggest of several factors, but that's a bandaid for problems they already caused that just made it worse. Population growth is supposed to happen from citizens having kids, which spaces it out appropriately and there is a little overlap where dad and son are both working age before the dad retires the kids have their own families, but it's mostly families sharing a house, and as one enters the workforce, the other is filing out. Now it's just a shitload of single adults and broken families all living alone and flooding the labor market.

50 years ago, 34% of the population was under 18, 76% of the adult population was married, now it's less than half are married and 21% are under 18, and the population is almost double. How the shit was that supposed to work? Oh great, we talked women into doing taxed labor instead of getting married, and killing their kids, then just replaced the kids they didn't have with 28 year old Guatemalan dudes. Increase the number of households by 70 million while only increasing the number of housing units built by 50 million, a larger percentage of which every year are apartments instead of single family houses. What could go wrong?

 

[The Diplomat]

If there's a vacuum being left open, China will gladly take it.

That used to mean irregulations regarding businesses, antitrust consolidations, megacorps, and the lack of a constitution that guarantees freedom.

At this point, I'm not seeing a major difference between that and what's going on here.

 

[The Diplomat]

Mass immigration is the reason for expensive homes because they are taking away many housing options from young people in the west.

Immigration is a symptom, but not the cause.

Quite simply, there's too many people on this planet for any rational and empathetic system to comprehend.

We're past the point of return, regarding balance. And yet abortion is considered evil.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I never said they don't want to collapse everything - they absolutely do, but the collapse will be far easier for them to manage because of all the diversity preventing the populace from opposing them in any meaningful way. That's not the exact opposite argument. They're NOT jeopardizing their "own elite standing" from their perspective. Societal disintegration doesn't mean they'll lose power.

You just named empires. Individual European countries aren't empires. They haven't expanded their borders. The diversity that exists within them is entirely due to immigration. That wasn't the case with those empires.

You're not really disagreeing with me here.

They're not bringing in immigrants for labour reasons dude, come on. Don't be ridiculous. The economic output of Somalis, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Afghans, Syrians etc is awful. Both first and second generations (and beyond). And if you're so desperate for immigrants, why wouldn't you go to countries with more cultural compatibility like Latin America? They're Christian and don't bring with them any backwards cultural baggage like cousin marriage, tribalism, FGM, honor killings etc. In many cases, it's just a bunch of Europeans born in Latin America returning to their ancestral homelands (loads of Italians down in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru etc for example). There's no way Latin American countries are doing as well/better than Europe so you can forget that argument.

I'd actually have some kind of respect for politicians if they were just honest on this issue. Stop insulting my intelligence by trying to feed me this bullshit that diversity is a strength and I have so much to gain from living in a neighbourhood crawling with Somalis and Pakistanis. No sane person believes it.

I'm absolutely disagreeing with you because I think that politicians actively seeking the "social disintegration" of their own societies is ridiculous. What would they have to gain? Are you telling me that Europe pre-mass migration (let's say before 1990) was this cauldron of activism and protest because it was all white, but now that it's more diverse, people are calm and passive?

And great point in bringing up those countries as empires that annexed regions and people different from them. In that case, there's at least some historical precedent for that to cause social disintegration. There is zero historical precedent for countries to purposely bring in immigrants with the purpose of creating instability in their own societies. Completely unbelievable that they'd start now.

And Europe doesn't bring in more Latin American immigrants because humans aren't products at a grocery store that a shopper can pick out based on which they like best and which one costs more or less. Culture, geography, history, politics all play a role. Latin American immigrants go mostly to the US because it's in the same hemisphere, shares a colonial history, and even shares contemporary history (almost 1/2 of the western US used to belong to Spain and later Mexico, Puerto Rico still belongs to the US, Cuba effectively belonged to the US until 1959, etc).

Meanwhile, Europe brings in mostly African and Asian immigrants because Africa and Asia looked like this just a century ago:

So the political and historical ties to Europe are much stronger. And of course, the economic factor is the main one. Only a small number of Romanians and Albanians are going to be willing to do the shit jobs in Germany or England. But a ton more Somalis and Moroccans will.

So yeah, I'm sure European politicians would rather bring in a ton of white, Westernized Europeans instead of Somalis but that's just not in the cards for them.

 

[Alpha_T83]

This is not true for the most part. It's just Russian propaganda.

Russia is desperate to upset the New World Order, because despite what they say, the Western dominated economy does make sanctions bite against countries like Russia. The Kremlin can't compete and can't return to the "Iron Curtain" because their people want access to the internet, travel, and foreign goods. Their only hope is to upset the New World order so they pump out non-stop propaganda to undermine the confidence of Citizens in the West about their governments.

 

[SurferH2O]

My insurance premiums doubled after Obamacare was implemented

The best healthcare plan I ever had was a HSA plan that had low premiums and you put in extra money that went into a savings plan (tax free) that you used to pay for medications and office visits. Usually the employer matches that money you put into it. My premium was only around $100 per month and I'd put around $300 extra for the savings plan and my employer would match it.

My company back then (around 2001-2008) offered HSA's and I jumped on it since I never go to the doctor. My savings plan grew to several thousand dollars quickly. You can also use it at pharmacies to buy OTC medications. My company also showed us how to shop around online pharmacies for generics instead of going through CVS. Then use your card to pay any medications you needed.

People don't realize that typical office visits only cost around $100 if you just pay cash instead of insurance. So that Co-pay means you're paying $25-$30 dollars with insurance covering the rest. But the savings in your monthly premiums more than offsets that... unless you're the kind of person who's habitually in the doctors office.

The problem is that most of the people didn't understand how HSA's were supposed to work. They hated paying "cash price" for stuff. They wanted the discounts for the full insurance plans, even if that meant they were paying through the nose for it. And they're actually getting screwed in the end through higher premiums.

And in case you had a severe issue, the HSA plan kicks in after it's deductible amounts... I think it was $5,000. Then it acted like a normal insurance plan. Which is what anyone has to deal with any insurance plan during any major procedure. However, you're paying your deductable with pre-tax money, which means you're saving around 20%-30% if you're paying your deductible with taxed money.

lol... Add insurance to another topic everyone needs, but no one teaches in Grade School or College

^^^ This.

I had an HSA and it was amazing. I was building up a war chest for medical as were everyone in my company, and then Obama crushed it. It was the best healthcare plan I ever had.

Now... I am getting hit with a $1,500 deductible each and every year and my plan costs have skyrocketed. When they are all crying that Obamacare is going up up up I am thinking, welcome to the party. Obamacare was NEVER going to work.

The Republicans need to either create a real plan or bow out and let healthcare go full Socialized and we can all take a bite of the crap sandwich that will be inferior healthcare and long waits.

 

[Hdfi]

If there's a vacuum being left open, China will gladly take it.

That used to mean irregulations regarding businesses, antitrust consolidations, megacorps, and the lack of a constitution that guarantees freedom.

At this point, I'm not seeing a major difference between that and what's going on here.

There's a big difference.

China is much safer.

 

[italiamusica]

I don't know what's going to happen, but things can't continue the way they're going, at least in the USA.

COVID, prices of everything went up and never came back down. Tariffs, prices of everything going up even more and aren't going to come back down, either. Things are getting more and more expensive, but no one is getting paid more, the average person isn't getting raises at work, so it's harder to afford basic life necessities. The average person can't do anything to bring happiness into their lives, no vacations, no extra money to do anything fun, just work and bills and that's it.

I know many families where one or both of the parents have to work two jobs to make ends meet, and so many others that have to live with their parents or other family members to have cheaper rent and be able to have a tiny bit of extra money. A studio apartment here in Portland is around $1200 a month, for a tiny place 350sqft, and that's fucking insane.

If you're not a privileged rich kid, then living has become really hard and is just going to get worse. And privilege isn't just money, it's having parents/family/someone that cared about you and your success in life, your future, and doing everything they could to help you succeed and gave you the tools to grow into a successful adult, and end up with a good paying job. Most people have parents that don't give a fuck about their happiness or success in the future, just nothing but negativity and bringing them down until they move out.

 

[eddymotto]

What do people mean by "a great re-set"?

 

[panamaican]

I don't think people understand or think through how a lot of this shit works, and just get caught up in emotional arguments and scream "racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe" to cram through damaging whims.

It's not just immigration, but that is possibly the biggest of several factors, but that's a bandaid for problems they already caused that just made it worse. Population growth is supposed to happen from citizens having kids, which spaces it out appropriately and there is a little overlap where dad and son are both working age before the dad retires the kids have their own families, but it's mostly families sharing a house, and as one enters the workforce, the other is filing out. Now it's just a shitload of single adults and broken families all living alone and flooding the labor market.

50 years ago, 34% of the population was under 18, 76% of the adult population was married, now it's less than half are married and 21% are under 18, and the population is almost double. How the shit was that supposed to work? Oh great, we talked women into doing taxed labor instead of getting married, and killing their kids, then just replaced the kids they didn't have with 28 year old Guatemalan dudes. Increase the number of households by 70 million while only increasing the number of housing units built by 50 million, a larger percentage of which every year are apartments instead of single family houses. What could go wrong?

Well, it could have worked except that corporations kept shifting jobs and profit centers overseas and politicians worked with those corporations to gut organized labor.

By gutting the wage base, we essentially made it impossible for singe income households to be sustainable. We never talked women into working instead of getting married. Women have always worked, at least in the lower half of the income bracket families. Cooks, maids, nannies, teachers, nurses, etc. What changed isn't the women working, it was the drop in the husband's income making the woman's income more important to the household. I suppose you could blame abortion and no fault divorces for allowing women to not be economically forced to remain in bad relationships but that's less about the economics.

Also, opening up the economy to true competition didn't work out. Turns out that when you can prevent a large chunk of your population from competing within the economic space, it's easier to maintain an economic advantage.

The real problem is much, much simpler than most of the complaints. Politicians partnering with corporations to prioritize corporate global growth instead of prioritizing the economic health of individuals and their families.

 

[Misfit23]

these numbers of kind of binary, are they not? leftists all over the world are begging for bigger, more bloated governments to rule over them. btw, small parts of the right are doing exactly the same, and i don't support them at all either, but my point is that democrats in general are 100% corrupt, republicans only 50% (and climbing).

"climate change" is what's going to fuck us and the grift will last forever. expect climate policies to be tied to digital ID, CBDC, and their true end goal.....social credit.

I wonder if there would have been a different tone among skeptics if people would have said environmental degradation or something similar instead of saying climate change.