Recent comments

hollyhoppet OP wrote

but like like... when large government structures fail, local structures rise to take their place. you end up with petty tyrants but you also end up with small equitable social structures too.

so uh... move to a blue state if you can and you're not already. and if you can't i wouldn't be surprised if we see a rise of aid groups to get vulnerable people out of the worse locations, and incentives for skilled workers as well.

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hollyhoppet OP wrote (edited )

i'm a little tired today so this is going to be kind of rambly, but i can't imagine the united states lasting more than another 200 years lol. as far as i'm concerned we're living through a collapse. the question is whether it's going to be partial or complete. my guess is in the gap states, or alliances of states, will take over what the federal government fails us in.

like when you think about it, voter turnout for the presidency was less than half. only a quarter of americans actually voted for trump. the administration is growing less popular by the decade. it's pretty clear to a lot of people that it's completely ineffective. the loudest voices are always going to be flag fuckers but then we end up with folk heroes like luigi mangione so it's not like confidence in the system is very high in general.

we'll probably see at least one quasi-militarized social aid group crop up, similar to the black panthers. i don't know if the current government will have the finesse to squash them like it could during raegen's day, but that probably won't be pretty whatever happens. probably will result in police becoming more militarized at least in red states. at the end of the day though that'll just result in further public discontent.

whatever the case, it's a process that'll take decades or centuries. rome wasn't unbuilt in a day, after all.

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hollyhoppet wrote (edited )

even if the us were to begin a process of balkanization, the irs is how the federal government extracts value from its citizens, so i imagine it'll be the last to go. in many empires, one of the last bodies to stick around has been the tax collecting arm, long after any actually useful offices are closed.

even the ottoman empire, whos dissolution was pretty fast, took about ten years from what is considered the start of its dissolution. the mongol empire, considered to have begun collapsing after kublai khan's death, stuck around for several decades, and that was also considered relatively quick

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Jenheadjen OP wrote

Haven't forgotten about this btw, just haven't had much time/executive function to work on the post in a while. Currently up to Section 0.5 of it. Will probably post it in f/yourpersonalblog when it's done because it's turning into less of a concise game review and more of a rambling stream of consciousness.

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