[Plantagenet]

People are sensing that the institutions that maintain a functioning US society are breaking down. A nation that can't jail criminals, stop illegal immigrants, or curtail inflation has only a dark future ahead of it.

The problems you are describing aren't the fault of the American nation. These are the policies of the Democratic party which currently holds power in the USA.

With any luck the Ds will be roundly defeated in the coming elections, and hopefully when the Democrats are driven from power the Democratic Party policies of not jailing criminals, creating open borders for illegal immigrants and boosting inflation can be rolled back and stopped.



Cheers!

[C8]

Plant- glad to see you back. I got to wondering if you were OK with all the those wildfires.

[theluckycountry]

My career was in rail transit, governmental organizations, I have been watching this for decades. It occurs unevenly. There are many contributing factors. But humans short sightedness seems to me to be at the root. Heart breaking.

I wonder if observers back in the 1950's came to the same conclusion watching the "Rock~n~roll" music colonizing their children's minds? And of course they would have been right, because their children ended up on drugs, their daughters performing sex acts in cars at the drive-in, beginning the whole sexual revolution which brought us to today, a nation(s) of broken marriages, fatherless children, crime and homelessness.

The cycle of history, from Great moral Nation to depraved cesspool in a few short generations. Morals? What the fuck are they? They used to mean something once, not today.

[Plantagenet]

Plant- glad to see you back. I got to wondering if you were OK with all the those wildfires.

Thanks for asking.......actually, things are pretty bad and the fires are getting closer.

There are literally hundreds of separate fires, almost all of them lightning caused.



Our PM 2.5 levels (ie. the amount of smoke in the atmosphere) were over 400 yesterday. Not good. Not healthy.

Fortunately I've got several air filtration machines and I run them almost constantly.

And when things get dicey here at my cabin I drive through the smokey mirk down to my lake cabin, which has its own set of fires and its own smoke problems but at least its a change of scene.

On the bright side, this the time of year that the short Alaskan summer starts to wind down and the weather can change quickly.

We've had a big HEAT DOME sitting over Alaska for the last 8 weeks now.

We're up over 2.4 million acres burned in the state of Alaska now. The smoke gets worse every day. I've never seen anything like this before.

Hopefully we'll see some cooler temperatures and even some rain in a week or two....

Cheers!

[evilgenius]

Plant- glad to see you back. I got to wondering if you were OK with all the those wildfires.

Thanks for asking.......actually, things are pretty bad and the fires are getting closer.

There are literally hundreds of separate fires, almost all of them lightning caused.



Our PM 2.5 levels (ie. the amount of smoke in the atmosphere) were over 400 yesterday. Not good. Not healthy.

Fortunately I've got several air filtration machines and I run them almost constantly.

And when things get dicey here at my cabin I drive through the smokey mirk down to my lake cabin, which has its own set of fires and its own smoke problems but at least its a change of scene.

On the bright side, this the time of year that the short Alaskan summer starts to wind down and the weather can change quickly.

We've had a big HEAT DOME sitting over Alaska for the last 8 weeks now.

We're up over 2.4 million acres burned in the state of Alaska now. The smoke gets worse every day. I've never seen anything like this before.

Hopefully we'll see some cooler temperatures and even some rain in a week or two....

Cheers!

Wow, 400 is high. You just reminded me what it is like to live with that daily. I hope you are coping well.

[Plantagenet]

Wow, 400 is high. You just reminded me what it is like to live with that daily. I hope you are coping well.

We're down to 150 PM 2.5 today.

I go to the gym and play pickleball with friends every morning and then back to to my cabin ....I've got my air filters going here in my cabin so the air is clean here.

We've had a prolonged "heat dome" over Alaska for over 6 weeks now with "dry thunderstorms" sending down thousands of lightning strikes....some of which start fires. I'd never heard of "dry thunderstorms" before.....they produce lightning but little to no rain.

And Alaska is so huge and almost all of it is wilderness. Firefighters work to stop fires at the edges of towns or at cabins, but the vast majority of the fires are allowed to just burn and burn and burn...and the smoke builds up through time.

I'm a bit of health nut, and I spend a lot of time looking at air pollution data and looking at computer models that show how the smoke clouds are propagating.....and there isn't any good news to be seen.

Except we're getting towards August.....and normally we get a shift in weather towards cooler and rainy weather in August.

Of course this year.....who the heck knows what's going to happen next.



Cheers!

[Newfie]

No guns, no cops, no whites. Just Philadelphia.

Philadelphia juvenile brothers, 10 and 14, turn themselves in for beating death of 73-year-old man
Video released by Philadelphia police shows the 73-year-old man walking down a street before he's attacked by several teens

[C8]

This is worse than it looks, the US is aging rapidly. Older people commit fewer crimes and are more likely to be victims.



But the murder rate is rising- which shouldn't be happening in a rapidly aging society. The murder rate should have continued the downward trend it has had the last two decades



A high murder rate tends to be a characteristic of a third world nation

[C8]

The attackers killed the old man with a traffic cone

[JuanP]

What a horrible, senseless crime. I wish I could say I find it surprising, but I most definitely don't.

This is worse than it looks, the US is aging rapidly. Older people commit fewer crimes and are more likely to be victims.

But the murder rate is rising- which shouldn't be happening in a rapidly aging society. The murder rate should have continued the downward trend it has had the last two decades

A high murder rate tends to be a characteristic of a third world nation

That map is extremely inaccurate where Uruguay is concerned, and my guess is that is the case for many other countries, too.

"In 2021, there were approximately 8.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the country, down from a homicide rate of 9.3 a year earlier. In the past six years, the lowest rate in Uruguay was reported in 2014, with a number of 7.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants."

"Homicide rate in Uruguay from 2014 to 2021"
https://www.statista.com/statistics/984 ... e-uruguay/

That rate is very similar to the USA's:

"USA homicides
Number of deaths: 24,576
Deaths per 100,000 population: 7.5"

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Not that I'm saying that is a good thing. Most Uruguayans over 40 are thoroughly horrified by these numbers. Uruguay was significantly safer and more peaceful when I grew up down there. It's mind numbing to me that Uruguayan homicide rates are what they are today and comparable to the USA's. When I was little, every single homicide was a scandal that made the front-page news; that is not the case today!

[theluckycountry]

This is worse than it looks, the US is aging rapidly. Older people commit fewer crimes and are more likely to be victims.

The older people have all the skills, and when they retire, good luck finding a decent mechanic or plumber. It's not that they didn't train as many, and they didn't because of lot of tradesmen in the 1980's on went into business for themselves, chasing the bucks, and apprentices get in the way of that. But because the following generations are smaller it simply means less skilled workers.

Less tax payers too! The demographic collapse is quite an issue in western nations now and will only get worse.

[theluckycountry]

I was on reddit reading a story about the US involvement in the pacific and how they are partnering with Australia to beef up the area because of China's push into it. Anyway the redditors (mostly American) all commented that Australia should do it's own policing and they were sick of the US role as the savior of the free world. The mood has shifted to one of isolationism there I think. Everyone in the old empire pulling their heads in due to the problems at home.

The War drums are certainly beating across the globe. We have an interesting decade ahead before we come out of this kondratieff Winter, this Forth-Turning as Strauss and Howe named it. According to them the world will be a very different place when the dust settles and I think a lot of us older people will find it difficult to adjust.

[rangerone314]

My career was in rail transit, governmental organizations, I have been watching this for decades. It occurs unevenly. There are many contributing factors. But humans short sightedness seems to me to be at the root. Heart breaking.

I wonder if observers back in the 1950's came to the same conclusion watching the "Rock~n~roll" music colonizing their children's minds? And of course they would have been right, because their children ended up on drugs, their daughters performing sex acts in cars at the drive-in, beginning the whole sexual revolution which brought us to today, a nation(s) of broken marriages, fatherless children, crime and homelessness.

The cycle of history, from Great moral Nation to depraved cesspool in a few short generations. Morals? What the fuck are they? They used to mean something once, not today.

"Sex and Culture" (1934, J.D. Unwin). He studied 86 cultures and civilizations and determined that prosperity brings the loosening of sexual morals, after which a civilization will collapse within 2 generations. The Sexual Revolution was in the 1960's and 1970's, so America is right on schedule.

Then you have John Glubb and the "Fate of Empires" (1978) positing that most empires last about 250 years. So America is right on schedule there.

Cliodynamics of Peter Turchin predicted in 2012 that the 2020's would see major unrest in the US, so America is right on schedule there.

There are other theories I can't think of off hand right now and we seem to be in the intersection of them all.

[rangerone314]

I wonder if observers back in the 1950's came to the same conclusion watching the "Rock~n~roll" music colonizing their children's minds? And of course they would have been right, because their children ended up on drugs, their daughters performing sex acts in cars at the drive-in, beginning the whole sexual revolution which brought us to today, a nation(s) of broken marriages, fatherless children, crime and homelessness.

The cycle of history, from Great moral Nation to depraved cesspool in a few short generations. Morals? What the fuck are they? They used to mean something once, not today.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents ... 02-02-3102
(emphasis mine)

From John Adams to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798
To the Officers of the <, Start deletion,third, End,> first Brigade of the third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts
Quincy October 11. 1798Gentlemen
I have received from Major General Hull and Brigadier General Walker your unanimous Address from Lexington, animated with a martial Spirit and expressed with a military Dignity, becoming your Characters and the <, Start deletion,Place, End,> memorable Plains, in which it was adopted.

While our Country remains untainted with the Principles and manners, which are now producing desolation in so many Parts of the World: while she continues Sincere and incapable of insidious and impious Policy: We shall have the Strongest Reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned Us by Providence. But should the People of America, once become capable of that deep <, Start deletion,[. . .], End,> simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by <, Start deletion,[. . .], End,> morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition <, Start deletion,and, End,> Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

An Address so unanimous and firm from the officers commanding two thousand Eight hundred Men, consisting of such substantial Citizens as are able and willing at their own Expence, compleatly to arm, And cloath themselves in handsome Uniforms does honor to that Division of the Militia which has done so much honor to their Country. Oaths, in this Country, are as yet universally considered as Sacred Obligations. That which you have taken and so solemnly repeated on that venerable Spot is an ample Pledge of your sincerity, and devotion to your Country and its Government.

John Adams

MHi: Adams Papers.

If we believe that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.", then it occurs to me that it would be possible to manipulate the morals of a society deliberately in order to bring about either its utter collapse or to turn (by popular demand or "thunderous applause") a democratic society into a totalitarian regime.

[C8]

If we believe that "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.", then it occurs to me that it would be possible to manipulate the morals of a society deliberately in order to bring about either its utter collapse or to turn (by popular demand or "thunderous applause") a democratic society into a totalitarian regime.

It could well be that, according to the books that you mentioned in your previous post that a society already has the seeds of its own destruction and it ready to be sprouted once it reaches particular stage of development or age. Of course, the oldest adage about empires is that good times produce soft people.

I do not think China has to worry about taking on the US directly and any form of armed conflict. I think the Chinese simply have to wait for America to collapse on its own. If I were a leader in China, I think my top concern would be to get as many people from other countries into the US as possible. The amount of social discontent it would produce will weaken America from within and the extra social services will cause us to go into a final financial collapse. Many people are now coming to America to get some sort of free benefit from the government. No nation can sustain this for very long and it attracts a type of person who is not very innovative or educated- not a person that will make the country stronger.

Democracy has always depended on the quality of its citizens- it has no fallback if the masses degrade into vices. Once a nation reaches a certain percentage of givers vs takers then a tipping point occurs from which there is no coming back- it declines slowly, and then all of the sudden in breathtaking speed.

[evilgenius]

Wow, 400 is high. You just reminded me what it is like to live with that daily. I hope you are coping well.

We're down to 150 PM 2.5 today.

I go to the gym and play pickleball with friends every morning and then back to to my cabin ....I've got my air filters going here in my cabin so the air is clean here.

We've had a prolonged "heat dome" over Alaska for over 6 weeks now with "dry thunderstorms" sending down thousands of lightning strikes....some of which start fires. I'd never heard of "dry thunderstorms" before.....they produce lightning but little to no rain.

And Alaska is so huge and almost all of it is wilderness. Firefighters work to stop fires at the edges of towns or at cabins, but the vast majority of the fires are allowed to just burn and burn and burn...and the smoke builds up through time.

I'm a bit of health nut, and I spend a lot of time looking at air pollution data and looking at computer models that show how the smoke clouds are propagating.....and there isn't any good news to be seen.

Except we're getting towards August.....and normally we get a shift in weather towards cooler and rainy weather in August.

Of course this year.....who the heck knows what's going to happen next.



Cheers!

Last year, I lived a summer with numbers that were high. The monsoon has set in well this year. It has prevented the drying out that made such an impact last year. What it does is remind you how random these things can be.

[C8]

Groundhog Day For America’s Energy Grid
By Felicity Bradstock - Jul 15, 2022, 5:00 PM CDT

Texas and California are once again facing potential energy crises as their aging energy grids struggle to cope with soaring demand.
Despite promises from both the federal and state governments, the very same problems appear to be occurring in the United States.
Without rapid and heavy investment in the U.S. energy infrastructure, energy shortages and even blackouts can be expected to continue.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene ... -Grid.html

In a declining nation, infrastructure is neglected as elites enrich themselves at the govt. trough. Musk makes billions in subsidies while electric stations age and people go through blackouts. Check out Nigeria and Sri Lanka for a look at how our infrastructure will be in 20 years.

But don't involve groundhogs- they are innocent.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The cycle of history, from Great moral Nation to depraved cesspool in a few short generations. Morals? What the fuck are they? They used to mean something once, not today.

Yet in the real world, overall violence is decreasing as a long term trend. Just because traditional "church-borne" sexual ideals are changing (along with birth control technology) doesn't mean morals are universally disappearing.

I'd say that treating people decently re race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, etc. overall as a modern societal moral imperative for the majority of first world folks is a very positive moral development compared to how things were in the 50's, for example. (And I know, that upsets a lot of haters with a very narrow point of view).

[theluckycountry]

The cycle of history, from Great moral Nation to depraved cesspool in a few short generations. Morals? What the fuck are they? They used to mean something once, not today.

Yet in the real world, overall violence is decreasing as a long term trend.

It is from the peak in the 80's and 90's, but it's still way above the earlier decades of the 20th century.

I'd say that treating people decently re race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, etc. overall as a modern societal moral imperative for the majority of first world folks is a very positive moral development compared to how things were in the 50's, for example. (And I know, that upsets a lot of haters with a very narrow point of view).

Ahhh, anyone who doesn't agree with the experiment of socialism is a HATER, got it, got it.

Things were very orderly and peaceful in Russia after the revolution too, before the murder squads went out, before the gulags were set up. The whole political push to make people go against their natural instincts re: race, sexual orientation, etc, is merely the government and a bunch of childless, insulated, institutionalized professors, trying to fix problems created by former governments and institutionalized professors.

But it's actually much simpler than that. Societies grow corrupt with age, and as stated above, and collapse under the weight of their own excesses and bureaucracy.

[C8]

This one chart pretty much shows you everything you need to know about the future of the US financial system. In just 16 years the Fed has increased money creation by 10 times. This mainly goes into juicing the stock market and benefitting the wealthy who control our "elected" govt. This is unsustainable and will crush the working class with inflation. Notice the end of the chart showing how little quantitative tightening (QT) there has been. Nobody is going to stop the party and don't be surprised if inflation doesn't come down much.

Mass money printing is a characteristic of nations in systemic decline- it often leads to chaos.