Right - because authors never write "here's what it looks like when the world ends" they write "here's what it looks like when a more attractive future unfolds." "Attractive" is usually some form of empowerment of the underdog involving epic triumph that would not be possible under normal circumstances. This is not because they're stupid. This because people want escapist fantasy and they'd love to imagine a future in which they take every driver clogging the expressway, every sarariman clogging the elevator, every chav on the tube and murder them violently with a claw hammer. We'd much rather be Mad Max running around with a chainsaw and a supercharged Chevy Nova than Jason Robards picking over the remains of his porch while he dies of radiation poisoning. People cosplay Mad Max because it's fun. People advise against watching Threads because it is grindingly, hopelessly accurate down to the statistics typed as scene breaks. Here's Mad Max.
paging fanboi goobster I began this article with an "ugh, who cares about what pop culture thought", but my attitude turned around as she went on and as her writing resonated more. Been meaning to read Solnit's book about people coming together in disaster for a while now. Anyone read it perchance?It’s the end of the world as we know it, and everything does feel fine—not fine like chill, but fine like china, like glass, like thread. Everything feels so fine, and so fragile, and so shockingly worth saving.
I have a different take from the author. I don't see things as "fine" and "worth saving", I see 40% of my life one month ago being completely irrelevant and undesirable. Shit I'm going to jettison as soon as a I can muster enough care and energy to actually do something. I'm shit at keeping in touch. My wife is constantly telling me about conversations she is having with people I genuinely love, but haven't spoken to in a year or more. We will get together with friends and have a beautiful time... and then I never contact them again. That shit right there? That's gonna change. Buying stuff instead of making it? Like food? Yeah. That's gonna change. There is a LOT of Life Before Covid that is best left in the past. I'm looking forward to 6-9 months from now, when life is "back to normal" but "normal" is significantly different and more intentional than Life Before.
It was like Jacobinmag x Wired remix, right? The prose were so good though. Are there as clever rhetorics in right-wing schtuffs? Haven't seen it, but they could exist, I guess. You know, everyone's a hater, huh? No but there was a guns thread a long time ago (won't link) where I almost bought a gun, but then didn't. I've shot a lotta guns though, as a kid. As a kid. But that's only my pseudonym's homonym, anywayThe only people who do were already stockpiling [am_Unition].
Aww. Trolling the 96,000 round crowd is prohibitively easy. You should make art about it instead.
The French would say "ouf!". It is not for you that I ouf, it is because there are several things that I'm like "oh, same/similar". The "coming over to watch the game" is too real, in particular. Didn't watch a full 'murican football game last fall, but came in 2nd in my fantasy league. Fuck, that's like only a few months ago, and it seems so petty and stupid now, even though I put very little effort into it. That's over! Sports are over. Good! Let's rethink everything.