I know some of you will feel dread all day and I just want you to know that we’re rooting for you.
Now it’s the free world’s turn to feel dread.
All day?
Last time it was 4 years.
It’s such a weird precipice we’re standing on, we either take a step back and go back to the status quo, which arguably isn’t fantastic, but it’s livable. Or we jump off the edge into a fascist dictatorship where someone with brain worms is trying to ban vaccines, remove fluoride from the water system, Ukraine possibly falls against Russia, the US becomes a third world banana republic, civil rights are vastly curtailed, and likely the environment takes a huge nosedive and life on earth becomes a nightmare hellscape.
Like, how the fuck is this even a close election? Hopeful based on some reporting I’ve seen, but it’s not even noon, so no idea where things go from here.
Like, how the fuck is this even a close election?
Accelerationism. That’s how I… understand? interpret? rationalize? it.
If you think things are shit, which is an understandable view depending on the “things”, and you don’t see that changing, you just say “fuck it”. Now if someone calls your candidate “crazy” or “unhinged” you just go, “Of course, that’s what I want”.
Add to that, no one who supports accelerationism thinks it will affect them. A crazy new world will fix their world and only hurt the “bad people”.
And I say all this knowing that it doesn’t really make sense.
The “caravan” of scary South American migrants that Trump fear-mongered about back in '15 (Jesus, has it been a decade?), they were largely subsistence farmers that were forced off of their lands by multi-year droughts that were demonstrably an effect of climate change. In just the last few years, it’s almost comical how dramatically present the effects of climate change are. Whether or not we’re able to admit it to ourselves consciously, I think everyone feels it. We’re about to hit a dozen different asymptotes, and we’re clearly not ready. So, turns out, fear-mongering is a particularly successful strategy in this kind of zeitgeist.
But it’s not just the status quo. If we don’t jump off the precipice, things were starting to turn around in. Several ways.
For me it’s the environment. I grew up when concerns about the environment were getting real, we were hearing about the scare of global warming, etc. we all started recycling and there were some big wins: clean air act, clean water act, ozone hole treaty, etc, but it’s coming up on half a century and we’ve just gotten worse in so many ways. But the infrastructure act is finally showing results and might be a turn around. EVs are starting to enter the mainstream, EV trucks are coming. I’m not so positive about BEV trains but at least they’re a thing. Renewable energy is the cheapest choice and finally growing rapidly. We have huge amounts of grid storage in place…… things are finally happening
Thanks. Gonna be a long day.
