• SpaceDwarf@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    The assertions in the article are the same baseless assertions of an inevitable collapse that have been cited time and time again both before and after Trump’s presidency. They weren’t right about the predictions then, and aren’t right about the predictions now. It’s the same as any doomsday prophet pushing the year back once again. This expert will be analyzing our red flags 20 years from now. Once 2025 hits, the new right-wing coup alarm will sound in 2030. Then 2035. Then 2040. So on.

    The USA is tribalistic, has high wealth inequality and poor labor conditions. Like throughout our entire history. We are in a state of stagflation as we have been in the past. We are not in a civil war. I’ll take speculation about a right-wing coup or an economic meltdown seriously when we hit that point.

    Technically, doomsday speculation has to be right if you do it long enough.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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      3 years ago

      There is nothing baseless about these assertions. In fact these assertions even provide references to research they’re based on. For example, it’s pretty absurd to claim that this is somehow baseless

      As returns to labour have stagnated and returns to capital have soared, much of the U.S. population has fallen behind. Inflation-adjusted wages for the median male worker in the fourth quarter of 2019 (prior to the infusion of economic support owing to the COVID-19 pandemic) were lower than in 1979; meanwhile, between 1978 and 2016, CEO incomes in the biggest companies rose from 30 times that of the average worker to 271 times. Economic insecurity is widespread in broad swaths of the country’s interior, while growth is increasingly concentrated in a dozen or so metropolitan centres.

      Arguing that something isn’t going to happened because it hasn’t happened yet is a logical fallacy. It’s like saying that you must be immortal because you haven’t died yet.

      I’ll take speculation about a right-wing coup or an economic meltdown seriously when we hit that point.

      You’re literally living through an economic meltdown as we speak. 20% of all dollars were printed during the pandemic. US inflation is going through the roof right now.

      As somebody who lived through a collapse, I can definitively tell you that you’re living through one right now. Whether you choose to accept reality or not is your choice. However, I guarantee you that reality will come barging in sooner than later.

      • Ravn@lemmy.ml
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        3 years ago

        Out of curiosity and if you don’t mind me asking, what collapse did you live through?

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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          3 years ago

          I was born in 1979 and caught the tail end of USSR. Once the collapse started it was pretty subtle, small things started getting worse, you’d see shortages of stuff, public services not working as well, and so on. And this process goes on for a while where life seems normal for the most part, but things are just getting shittier all the time. And then things start getting worse very rapidly.

          One of my memories is of food shortages. And getting food was like going to a black friday sale. Everyone would gather and wait for the store to open, and then they’d just wheel out a cart with whatever food they had that day. And people would just rush to grab what they could. Me being a small kid, I was able to squeeze between people easily. Looking back at it though, I was basically risking getting trampled just to get bread and milk for the day. And we go to that point from everything seeming mostly normal in under a year.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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              3 years ago

              I grew up in Moscow, and from what I’ve heard things never got that bad there relative to many other places. So I can only imagine what things were like for people in smaller towns.