I was groggy and it took me a few minutes to figure out your second sentence lol
I think agitation is probably a good idea, but those who don’t have the means to move would still be unable to move. And I worry that if rich people are provoked into moving too soon, it could decimate what little savings disadvantaged people currently have tied up in real estate, making the situation that much more difficult for them.
Your second paragraph is where a lot of my concerns come from. It’s not fair that some people should have to uproot and that others don’t, that some should have to restart while others can continue accruing. That’s definitely true. Even if it would end up being more of an Underground Railroad than a Trail of Tears, we can’t overcome the reality of those fundamental problems (without seizing power). I’ve been a transplant, I know that it’s not as simple as picking up where you left off. And anyone relying on strangers to help them relocate is also going to be at a very heightened risk of exploitation.
This is why I don’t want to just start jumping into action with a half-baked plan. I’m very aware that the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
I would like to be able to survey relevant individuals, because I still feel like I would want the choice even if it were less than ideal - and that the inability to move is already an injustice - and if that is something others were sincerely interested in, then maybe it could be worth putting some more thought into. I figure I can’t judge what is best for others but perhaps I can listen to what people say they need and try to support them in that way, as appropriate.
I’ll put the idea back in the oven for now and let it bake a longer. Thanks again for your thoughts! The discussion was helpful for me.
Do insurance payouts require building/buying home in same place?
I’m not sure.
Thanks for the input.
I’m cautiously guarded about the feasibility of improving regulations, decarbonizing, and providing support in a fair and effective manner. Especially the feasibility of these making enough difference fast enough to keep areas like Florida habitable. Even before climate change really started impacting us, Florida was only widely habitable after the advent of air conditioning. Now there are millions of people situated to die from something as simple as an outdated and underfunded power grid going out. And the way Florida’s insurance is going, I doubt the whole US will be able to subsidize the costs coming out of the southeast over the next few decades. Things like saltwater intrusion and storm strength are only going to get worse and worse. Even the limited existing enrollment in Citizens’ is already enough to wipe out the state’s coffers if a large chunk of them were to file at the same time.
I think these solutions are generally worth pursuing as degrees of progress that will benefit the world as a whole. I just don’t think that they would realistically be implemented in a way that would do much of anything to save the people I am worried about. Which is what leads me to focusing on relocation - it’s a smaller scale and more actionable solution that can be implemented without political consensus. Like you mentioned, hexbear mutual aid efforts could potentially be expanded to organize real support (at a limited scale).
Do you have thoughts on this perspective? For example, it seems like you might disagree about the feasibility of large-scale projects. Which is totally fair of course. I’m just trying to broaden my perspective (and to work out any kinks that might exist in it).
Once again after this recent batch of hurricanes in the gulf, I can’t help but think that we should be organizing to get vulnerable populations out of areas that are going to be crushed by climate change or oppressed by reactionaries gaining more power. It’s going to be so much harder to help each other once a critical mass of people recognizes what is inbound. I just wish I knew what we could do, and how to do it.
Of course it would be much better to empower people to be able to thrive where they are but imho it’s probably way too late for that. And so if it’s down being sacrificed by the orphan crushing machine or relocation, I want to be able to offer people the choice to get out.
Thoughts?
“This unprecedented storm weakened just before landfall, but still knocked out power for 1% of all US residents.”
“Insurance companies left Florida and the backstop coverage is poised to bankrupt the entire state. Open up your pocketbooks because it’s time for everyone else to funnel more money toward the failed state.”
I can understand why they might want to keep a lid on the news coverage. Can’t look weak, right? Better to ignore the inconvenient problems and let them continue to grow worse.
I wonder how much southern real estate is owned by the upper echelons of the media moguls.
I’ve said for years that Florida’s mismanagement is going to implode the entire nation as the increasing costs to rebuild eat up too much of the GDP. Thankfully that projection remains on course.
That’s just projection of her own preoccupations onto the rest of us. (Which I suppose is extremely common among those who pursue seats of power.)
Excellent sleuthing. I had made a misinformed comment earlier in the thread which I’ve now corrected, thanks.
Those “blast” marks from heated or oiled tarmac from four engined planes.
Those marks are from normal operations? Not doubting, just inquiring.
I deeply appreciate your detailed responses, thank you.
Wow, look at the damage to the bays in the top left of the 1st pic on the AP News article. Talk about precision.
Edit: I’m not sure if these are really from strikes or if they are the result of normal operations. I thought they didn’t look uniform enough for operations, but @Staines has posted an informative comment here. It seems clear to me that they have a better understanding of what we are looking than I do, so if they say it’s not from missiles, then I have no reason to disagree.
Edit 2: The marks are present prior to the attack, see the comment here.
I had another thought that I wanted to share: Arrow and Sling AA systems can supposedly intercept Ghardr and Emad projectiles, but they are harder to intercept and those AA systems have limited bandwidth so they cannot handle large numbers of targets over a short period of time. The bottleneck for these systems is more severe than that of the Iron Dome (which cannot intercept these ballistic missiles to any significant degree).
Compared to most projectiles like we’ve seen (such as the rockets from Gaza) these missiles are still interceptable but it is harder, more costly, more limited, and they are still moving very fast relatively speaking. They’re just not as unbelievably fast as the Fattah-2. They practically look slow by comparison but they are not. When you see a missile that is not a Fattah-2 lit up by thrusters before impact, it’s because it’s using a terminal stage booster to actively ramp up the speed. I think these are Emads but I’m not 100% sure, it might also include the latest line of Ghadr.
I have so many questions I could ask. Here is a selection of them. I know it’s a lot, so please feel free to not answer any of them.
It might hurt but I’m sure it’s a step toward healing. Good luck.
Supposedly they used Emad, and Ghadr, and a limited number of Fattah-2 (hypersonic) missiles. The really fast ones in the videos are Fattah-2.
All of these are launched individually and none have MIRV capabilities iirc. Even if they are launched from across a large region, the trajectories can probably be set so they impact in rapid succession, which I think we witnessed.
I’m not much of a missile nerd so maybe others will have better info for you.
I’m going to take a different angle for my answer: Content.
There were a lot of people rallying around secularism but they had no guide post. The Intellectual Dark Web and similar groups of grifters targeted this unorganized group heavily with videos, posts, meet and greets, etc. They offered a direction to people who had no direction (in part because their cultures were predicated on members being traditionally religious). They made people feel heard, like they were special.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a large number of self-identified atheists at the time were being reactionary and hadn’t really detached from their religious programming - this was a huge talking point / criticism back in the day. It was true of many even though it was not true of all. When these reactionaries in particular chased after the IDW, it destroyed the fabric of the emerging community. How was a loose-knit, unorganized bunch of atheists supposed to survive half of its members becoming an army for religious cryptozealots?
The Islamophobia was obvious and disgusting. It was a mess of double standards. There was pushback against it - I gave quite a bit myself - but pretty quickly it had become too late to nip in the bud. We all fractured apart and the few existing spaces were absolutely overrun by reactionary ideologues. There was no longer a point to interacting with these groups. Inside of them, atheism was no longer even a common talking point. Instead it was the alt-right’s talking points that took over - and standing in my shoes, I have to say that I still believe there was a concerted and inorganic effort to make it that way. But ultimately their efforts worked and that’s all that matters.
I was already a Marxist (my atheism was also a big factor in my rejection of western hegemony) but I leaned more heavily into Marxist spaces as we all scattered in the wind away from the brigaded communities. I think I’m probably in the minority in that regard, but I know that I was far from alone.
I think this was a wakeup call for many of us about the continued strength of cultural religiosity and the challenge of actually deprogramming.
My takeaway was that there is serious work needed on the cultural and educational fronts before they can start changing the course of the material front. Or conversely, a massive material state change to provoke cultural adaptations.
However if part of the issue really was a lack of guidance outside predatory and exploitative grifters then I believe it reinforces the idea that more non-reactionary role models and content would help to counter those reinforcing the status quo. If there had been a coherent alternative to the IDW at the time, they may never have taken off.
This opinion is also a bit of self-criticism because I hate clout. I don’t want a platform. I despise influencer culture. I think dialectics among communities should guide us, not the half-baked ideas of “Great Men” on youtube. But these preferences are not highly compatible with countering the effects of influencers like the IDW on directionless individuals. My anonymous pushback might have been well-constructed but it didn’t move the needle even a single tick. Meanwhile the IDW was offering a pre-packaged and microwave-ready ideology that reinforced deep-seated biases and could be defended with “Just watch **** on youtube” instead of requiring individuals to personally explain their arguments. There was basically no contest.
I think music probably a part of it. Many people are pointing out that leftist commentary are ignored and just as many artists have not been lefties historically. I agree with this, but if the changes in music consumption really are a factor, then I think it boils down to how part of the music scene used to be the structural framework holding together a semi-coherent counterculture. Countreculturists are rarely well-read in theory but they do absorb and reinforce a lot of concepts if you give them enough time.
That’s the part of the industry that would have affected people, and it’s also (imo) the side of the industry that has disappeared in recent decades. I suppose the countercultural artists still exist, but it’s much harder for them to break out and develop fanbases now. Everything is streaming now and streaming numbers are highly correlated with artist/label budgets. The rumor is that you can buy top playlist placement on Spotify if you have the right connections and/or enough money. Often it’s labels dealing with placement and the trend in labels is that they want formulaic music - which imo explains why all of the playlists are so bland and soulless.
Other than that, I believe the right-wing pipelines (especially in topics young men populate) are in a very mature state at this point and are probably another factor.
I don’t expect any of this to get better without mass cultural changes. We’ve eliminated the feelings of belonging, community, and purpose. Or at least commodified them and put them behind paywalls. I think this is one reason why so many people are grasping at reactionary ideologies, to fill a sense of emptiness. And if those ideologies promote misogyny (which they usually do), then they’re going to lead to greater and greater divides and repercussions for everyone.
Getting out of the garage was one of the hardest video game challenges that I have ever attempted.
Florida has a lot of retirees but they don’t own most of the real estate value or act as the basis of the economy afaik. Many service workers rent but not all of them do, plus there’s things like potential inheritances (like family homes) to consider for those who have been in the area for more than one generation. There’s a lot of complicating factors that could cause things to take a turn for the worse imo.
Which is just to say, I’m not willing to put money on it all working out so simply and efficiently. But maybe it would. And maybe I’m over-thinking it.