#industrial civilization

[irradiate-space]

"we don't need industrial civilization; we can get by with local crafting"

Can our Village Blacksmith fulfill an order for 28 M1.2x1.4 Phillips screws, 22 M2x3 Phillips screws, 4 M2x5 Phillips screws, 3 M3x3 Phillips screws, 4 M2x2.5 Phillips screws with a 6.5mm head, and 3 M2x2 Phillips screws with a 5mm head? No? Then my primary means of computation is irreparable, and your civilization cannot replace it.

[whatifsandspheres]

One of the things I hate about these recent conflicts in cultural terms, not in terms of lives lost or inhumanity, is the fact that instead of getting more people to question and stop believing in countries and nations it's gotten people to double down on nationalism and statism. Especially for younger people I had hoped the result would be a shift toward a new paradigm where even more people would-- together with the help of technology-- realize how outdated and backwards, uncivilized and inherently divisive borders and nation states are and how the state needs to not only be ripped from the nation, but that all its contrived organs of government be vivisected from its tumorous parasitic bodies and washed clean, some put into use, others discarded. When I say things like nobody deserves to live in the "holy land" it's not because the Palestinians don't deserve and haven't proven they deserve to live in their ancestral land, no. I say it because I know the hate and the fervor that the Zionists have and how they will perpetuate a Nazi-like trans-generational animosity toward whoever stands in the way of their self-entitlement. Just like before the official formation of the state of Israel and the attacks on Jewish communities in other parts of the world in order to artificially create migration of Jewish people to Palestine-- the Zionist hate resembles the Nazi hate. The divisions between Ukraine and Russia have always been present from what I've read, but Western Europe seriously exploited them. After this I see polarization, not union as there could potentially have been before 2014. The way the UN is handling these situations in failing to enforce ceasefires without any conditions, unconditional ceasefires, shows it hardly serves the global interests at all, and it exposes itself as a farce of a governing body for all but USA and it's favored partners. The Congo basin and surrounding countries are overflowing with violence and the world leadership seems to be more interested in securing a slice of the mineral wealth that those people are being massacred and genocidally slaughtered. Nobody is casting into doubt the state? The nation as a concept which has only failed and failed and failed even if it managed to drag civilization this whole way limping and leeching off of humanity? It's a vestige, it needs to be euthanized. We are a global species. Borders don't protect diversity, they nurse hegemony that's too lethargic and weak to compete with how dignified our cultures can coexist with each other when we aren't artificially pitted against each other with excuses and false pretenses. I'm disappointed in the youth, but it's the older generations like mine which are truly to blame.

[whatifsandspheres]

The middle-class is partly to blame for inflicting this condition upon the lower classes. They don't want to be reminded of the inhumanities of capitalism by having to face a cold machine for their fast food. They want a warm and humble human servant that knows their place and upholds all their ideals as their own, making them feel validated and vindicated for their lot in life. Also, their techy middle-class kids don't want to have to program and design such hard roles as a food server that would ripple back to them in accountability should it cause food poisoning to a hundred people or more.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

[the-hopeful-realist]

Too Many Trucks: Consequences of Modern Culture

On a recent road trip of nearly two thousand miles up the Pacific coast of Mexico, I encountered more ‘big rigs’ than ever before. On many parts of the carretera, there were many more trucks than cars. And many more pulled two trailers than I had noticed in the past. Think NAFTA. It reminded me of a holiday trip from New Mexico to California on U.S. Interstate 40 a couple of years back, when I…

[whatifsandspheres]

I know I couldn't pick a worse possible time for this sort of First-World type rant, but that just makes it an even better time to do so, actually...

I've had this nagging and chronic complaint brewing in the back of my mind ever since the Fallout franchise was bought up by Bethesda after the collapse of the original company BlackIsle Studios that was formed under Interplay.

At the time it was being ridiculed as the omen of the coming of a "Oblivion with guns! XOMGbbqwtfsauce!!1"

I mean, they were right. But that's not the problem I had with Fallout 3 when it eventually did release. It isn't the problem I have now after the franchise carried on.

When I discovered the game it was already a few years old. I found it in a bargain bin, selling in a bundle pack, one box with two CD cases inside, boasting about being game of the year '98. It was selling in Staples? Or was it Walmart? Either way, back then I even needed to get ink for schoolwork, I think that was the only thing I needed exclusively for school that I couldn't also play games on or music and internet. Even using a scanner you could use for hobby. I was bound to at least catch a glimpse of the game. I became a fan. I loved it.

It echoed for me a sort of honest bleakness in the undertones similar to the sardonic eeriness of the happy upbeat and lighthearted tune playing in the background of an X-Files episode whilst something horrible was going on in the main scene. Except for the theme and setting it was the tune of the "American Dreams" of "normalcy" and the promises of the *new* and promising future, and the main scene was the reality of all the true colors of humanity bleeding through and coming out of the woodwork.

I feel like that was lost in the franchise.

They even developed an online version... Something that the original developers and old fans ridiculed the development of and nicknamed FOOL (FallOutOnLine). I recall rants on the forums about capitalist Frenchmen and horrible labor practices.

But anyway...

What became of the franchise after it was sold off to Bethsoft bothers me because of the direction I felt it was already taking versus what became.

What was becoming was a core body of fans that had been following since the releases of 1&2 and which had pretty much acknowledged those two games distinct from Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel, that was nicknamed POS (Piece of Sh*t). What I agreed with them on was that those two were canon, and that the "secretly" developing Fallout 3 project titled "Van Buren" while in development was their true successor.

I think it's important in times like these to note why that seems to matter to me. Why it matters to history in media, pop-media even or niche culture if you have to diminish what it's speaking about society. In that FO3 the main character isn't in a vault. They aren't a "Vault Dweller," or even a direct descendant or relevantly related of the "Vault Dwellers." They begin in a prison jumpsuit that resembles a Vault jumpsuit, but that's intentionally a reference to the other two games in the series. In the first the main character originates from Vault 13, in the second they're a descendant from the outcast from that same vault as well as some people from Shady Sands-- what eventually becomes the New California Republic under Aradesh's Sandy. Do you recognize the trend or direction? A pattern? Away from the culture of Vaults and the old world's entitlement, hubris and Yankee-Doodle gung-ho "sign me up for a World War" attitude.

When Bethsoft picked it up they clung to the Vault like it was the only thing that held the wasteland together. They needed and hoisted up the Vault Dweller to an elite status, almost like a purebred human superior in caste to the outsiders. Something Lynette in Vault City and even Richard Grey/The Master have in common-- much like the real world white supremacists, American Exceptionalists, and Adolf Hitler. They really went all-in with that whole cliche of "Oblivion with guns" and turned Vault Dwellers into the equivalent of "Pure Elves" or something.

And that's fine, right? It's fiction. It's for fun!

But is it so innocent?

To me it reflects something in society, a Zeitgeist that echoes the Baby-Boomer entitlement of wanting to be special, chosen, having a birthright to something that excuses class divisions and superiority. Something that's clearly visible in society now even in people who don't care about these games and have never heard of them, because those games borrowed from real history and society, and the undertones have evolved in a different manifestation than they were headed... It's... A bit disheartening.

In society the yearning need for people to feel a sense of security and normalcy even while genocides are occurring is like the fiction of "I Love Lucy" playing in the background while hundred of barrels of DDT corrode and leak off the coast of California in the real world; like the Andy Griffith Show intro whistling in the background while police and military spending increase and another civilian or journalist is brutally murdered or disappeared in a "democratic society." The smiles on the clothing commercials while microplastics tangle up and break people's intestinal lining, the doctors throw their hands up and prescribe them more drugs and double check the patient's insurance coverage before-- wait, they smoked cigarettes in their offices before, not anymore, right?

But the games? Turned that so gimmicky and kitschy. Where before they were one of the few available critiques in media about this social sickness they became little more than reiterations of other stories already out there in science fiction and other media, but with an extra thick layer of the Fallout 1&2 intros painted over their billboard. So quirky! So alternative! So... Fantasy. Such escapism.

So sad. And not in the ways that felt so much more real in the original two.

I know New Vegas was attempting to bring the game back to its roots but the damage has pretty much been done and... It doesn't matter much anyway, the real world is horribly worse than anything the games could have devolved into at their worst anyway. I just wish there were more well-structured critiques of this living nightmare than there really are. Instead everyone's just striving to secure a slice of that Quotidian Boomer-Normalcy.

[hussyknee]

Alt enabled on all images.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

From @theinnocenceproject:

This is it. We only have 48 HOURS to stop Missouri from executing #MarcellusWilliams, an innocent man.⁠

⁠

Every hour, every minute, every second is critical right now. And even though @GovParsonMO's office is closed today, we can’t let a single moment go by where we’re not urging him to take action. So today, we’re asking you to SHARE Marcellus’ story far and wide by creating your own post about him using the social media toolkit at the link in our bio, and include a call to action to sign our petition and call @GovParsonMO at 417-373-3400. ⁠

⁠

It is not too late for Gov. Parson to ensure that Missouri does not take an innocent man’s life.⁠

⁠

[sciderman]

Yk, I hate that adaptations keep making Peter a high schooler, and not just because it means he never evolves, but because the adaptations now also include wider Marvel, whitch usually (thanks to the MCU) is at the modern day stage with legacy characters and new age teen heroes, meaning that Peter is taking up Miles' spot and you can really tell when they put him next to someone like Kamala Khan or Sam Alexander who are Miles' pals. Tho Peter taking Miles' stuff is just a modern issue overall, just look at MCU whitch just stole and re-skinned Miles' personality, characters, story-beats, even the costume to an extent and then made it worse.

agree 👏

[whatifsandspheres]

This is a general overview of the world's current enslaved populations.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/]

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62877388]

[mapsontheweb]

European weapons and military service industries

by Civil-Sand-1633

[jupiterovprsten]

the ceiling

[whatifsandspheres]

Ahahaha. Love that. Yeah, basically a Faraday cage depends on the magnitude and the frequency of the EM that you're trying to block. This seems like it's par for the course of scientific illiteracy but image conservation the Edison Murk fanboys drool over. If they wanted to sell actual EM hardening, they would have built it into the design. Hardening around sensitive components, redundancies and spare parts like how spare tires have been. This is ridiculous.

Everyday this thing gets stupider.

[hussyknee]

History isn't a disparate collection of stories from long ago. It's the necessary context for the present moment and the forecast for the future. All histories are intertwined, and the narratives of power and privilege, oppression and resistance, adversity and triumph are as constant in their patterns as the laws of physics.

[mintytealfox]

Here have an OC that is an elven priest/cleric that believes everything is a sign of the last days/apocalypse

-a normal everyday thing just happened- OC: "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"