Something I alluded to in a previous thread of mine that’s kind of at the heart of a lot of what I’ve been interested in here. A Pit thread inspired me to ask directly.
Suppose someone in your life who you care about deeply (hypothetical or otherwise) comes to you for advice. They’re looking at the state of the country/world right now and feeling vulnerable. They ask you for your thoughts on how to make major decisions about their future, family, finances, etc. You know that they’ll take your advice to heart, and that they really want an honest opinion. Specifics would be particularly helpful.
What would you say and how? If you have a person in mind, feel free to offer as much or as little context as you want. I’m especially curious about those who’ve already said here that they’ve given up on hope and life, but all perspectives welcome!
(And yes, I personally am feeling vulnerable and wondering if I have to be making major disruptions in my life. But it also comes down to my consistent questions about acting on one’s beliefs and convictions. And I think the answers are potentially thought provoking in general.)
“Don’t have children.” The future doesn’t look like it will be a place that you should anyone you care about to live in. The resurgence of fascism, resource depletion, climate change and environmental degradation in general don’t bode well, just for three examples off the top of our head.
The people running our present society have been burning though the world and ignoring rising problems of all sorts for decades now, and the bill is coming up just in time for them to die off and leave the smoking wreckage to their descendants.
Apologize? Tell them to flee to someplace in Western Europe, that’ll probably be where the collapse to dictatorship and eventual collapse of civilization takes longest.
If you can’t leave the US, then try to get out of the city. Get a small plot of land that you can grow food on. Even a half acre is enough to seriously supplement your family’s food options. Two acres is enough, a hobby farm will only attract thieves.
Grow native plants that will sustain you (lentils and beans, for sure). Add some commercial types that will taste good and cheer you. Plant fruit and nut trees even though it will be four years before you get big crops from them. You may be VERY glad you did by then. Learn how to can, dry, smoke, and otherwise preserve foodstuffs.
If you still have some money left, invest in back-up energy sources. A wood stove for the lowest level of the house. Pick one with a cooking surface. Then solar panels or a wind source of electricity if you can. If there is running water on the land a tiny stream can provide a surprising amount of generation.
Still have money? Look at your vehicles. Are they reliable? Are they tracking your every move and potentially reporting it to a fascist dictatorship? Get new ones if you can. It might be a long time before it’s possible again.
If you still have money at that point then start buying sheets of leather and fabric. Get a leather sewing machine and a fabric sewing machine. Buy everyone in the family a really good Winter coat that will last. Maybe get two and store one away. Get thick wool blankets for the beds, and Thick draperies for the windows that will both block heat transfer and prevent outsiders from seeing your lights at night.
Still have money? Open up the Vermont Country Store catalog and strategize over some of the Amish tools for garden, kitchen, and laundry. Which do you think you might need most?
Yes, I do think it’s going to be that bad. No, I don’t have the strength or the resources to do any of this myself. But I would if I could.
Just out of curiosity, how would you (nonspecific) get someone else to seriously consider your advice, if it requires such fundamental change? I mean, to you it’s (apparently) a sure thing, but you have to acknowledge that it’s a huge leap of faith to ask someone to take, to uproot their entire life and the lives of their loved ones to proceed on an entirely different paradigm of the future.
Like, I have the resources, I believe, to go agrarian or at least attempt to flee the country. But I would be committing fully to the new idea of normal, and anything less than that happening would screw me over permanently, especially if I even think of trying to take my nieces and nephews along, their parents’ wishes be damned.
People are overreacting. The world is not going to end. The U.S. is not going to end. Eventually “the other side” will assume power. That’s the way it has been for hundreds of years.
I wouldn’t. My rule about advice is that I release it like a butterfly in their presence. If they chase it, great. If they don’t, also great. It’s advice, not evangelism. If they ask for more info about how I reached my conclusions, I will tell them whatever I can, being as clear as possible about what is fact and what is opinion. Always the decision is theirs; the last thing I want is responsibility for other people’s choices.
If you have resources at retirement age seriously consider moving and retiring in another country that fits your lifestyle. Quit believing the lie that America is the greatest country in the world bar none. Its pretty good here, but not close to being the best in many aspects. Explore your options in your fifties and take your retirement as soon as it is feasible.
The world is going to unfold how it will. For each of us, we can worry about all that, or we can worry about ourselves & out teeny slice of everything. The more one in anxiety-prone, the more one needs in difficult times, to focus on what they can control. Even if that is merely their own breathing and how many minutes of news they absorb per day.
If your (any your) mental health cannot withstand watching all this 24/7, then don’t watch it. The choice is not between [head in sand and bad things happen] OR [watch all the news and your being informed and caring makes less (or none) of the bad things happen]. The choice is actually between [head in sand and bad things happen but you mostly don’t notice] OR [watch all the news and your being informed and caring makes zero difference in which bad things happen and meanwhile you’re depressed, scared, and perhaps suicidal].
Given that second set of choices, I know which one I pick every time.
The vast vast majority of middle-aged Germans in 1935 were still alive and plugging along in 1946. And they lived through something far more horrific than we will. First the rise of Nazis, then the Allies defeating the Nazis. Neither of those were fun to ride through, but the vast majority came out the other side alive, if a little battered.
“Let me tell you something you already know. Life isn’t all sunshine abd rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanately if you let it… but life ain’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”~Slyvester Stallone
Choose where you expend your finite reserves of energy and attention. You’re angry about [insert target here]? Good for you.
You want me to be angry too? How will it actually help? Will it actually help? It’s not that I don’t care, and if there are productive things I can do for a worthy cause, I’m all ears, but unproductive, unfocused rage, I don’t have time or energy for that.
(This comes after a couple of weeks of people telling me I should be angry at Microsoft, BTW)
Same here. Advising someone to move to another country or leaving the city to take up farming is a quick way of trading one set of irritations for a different set of unnecessary major life disruptions. Unless you already have family and a lot of connections in another country, or the skills and know-how of farming, you’ll be in for even more stress and likely to fail.
My advice is to go on a news diet. Disconnect from toxic national news - no reading online, and no evening news. Watch and read your local news only if you must, and in small amounts. You’ll get enuf national news there. Don’t let them live rent-free in your head by exposing yourself to the toxic craziness, and don’t let them manipulate you into a state of constant outrage every day for the next X years. Stop participating in online circle-jerks in social media about how awful things are now. Put the smart phone down and stop doomscrolling. Push back from the keyboard. Go outside. Read books. Walk the dog. Bake a pie.
You want to make an impact in the world? Focus your energy on making your local community better - that’s where you can actually make a difference in your life and that of others.
My advice is to live your best life given whatever circumstances befall you. If you are healthy, get out and enjoy the natural world around you. Why wait? Things may get worse in the future, or things may get better, nobody can predict with any certainty, so stop worrying about things you have no control over. Live your best life, and do what you need to do to be happy. If that means fleeing to another country, do it. If it means building a self-sustaining farm, do that. Those are both things you have control over. We’re all going to die sooner or later, so enjoy the time you have left as best you can. Life is precious.
Br prepared to escape the USA, by legal or illegal means, if at all possible.
Depending on what stage of life this person is at, go into medicine; doctor, nurse, nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant, pharmacology would be the specific careers I’d advise. That’s the only career feild I can think of that just about any country would accept for immigration
My advice would be more general: be prepared. Be prepared to move quickly in whatever direction seems the best. Get and stay out of debt. Husband your resources and make them easy and secure for you to get at from another place. Seek out means of income that don’t depend on a particular location or employer; diversify your knowledge and skills. Whatever else you can think of along those lines, to make a quick move viable and not too painful.
No-one, including me and you, knows any details about what is going to happen in the shorter term. But a lot more turmoil than most of us are used to seems very likely. We might have several years of relative calm; there might even be some (probably temporary) reversals of misfortune. My advice in the face of that is to not let your guard down. Keep your plans fresh, even if you may not need to use them. Start all this now, and be ready to move by the 2026 elections.
If you don’t have a strong local community you participate in, join one, or start one. A far-flung online community is only as good as the power supply/internet network.
Learning survival skills is good, finding people who already have those skills is a lot better. You do not need to move to start growing vegetables and keeping chickens and rabbits unless you live urban; suburbs are mostly wasted outdoor space. Start a community garden. Organize locally. Don’t shun people even though you find them difficult. Everyone has something to offer.
If you can’t think of what YOU have to offer, now’s the time to figure that out. Learn a practical skill, like plumbing, or butchering, or fixing tools. Something people really need.
If at all possible, join a church. Of course avoid the psuedo-Christian neo-nazi ones. Churches are built-in self-help communities. They feed the hungry, clothe the frozen, care for the sick and elderly, they look out for the lonely, the frightened, they give sanctuary to immigrants and refugees. Even if your local churches are ineffectual at some or all of these things, they know that this is their literally God-given mandate, and if things get hairy, they will already be organized and willing to take action.
If your community is full of hate-filled bigots who dominate and bully everyone and control the local government, well that’s a place to move from. They will take care of their own, but they will stomp you to death. Leave.
