Don’t DIY your IUD while getting a DUI or you might become an IED.

It’s how we got Rambo III.

Our distant ancestors had just as much capacity for learning as we do, they just used it in different ways because that was what the nature of their daily lives demanded. Where we can recognize dozens of brands by their logo alone, they recognized plants by their leaves, useful stones, and scat. Our accumulated knowledge we pass on doesn’t make any one of us any “smarter”. Some of us alive today are not rocket scientists but have the capacity to be, just as there were people thousands of years ago that had that capacity but not the thousands of years of science and engineering that was needed to build on to take that last step and achieve it.

Solitary living is a luxury made easier by the abundance of technology we have, going it alone in a Stone Age state would be very, very difficult, then and now. Folks who understand things like tool making, agriculture, medicinal plant identification, bushcraft, animal husbandry, hunting/fishing/trap making, and clothing making would have a leg up. Those who have all that and the ability to form small cooperative groups would stand an even greater chance of success. I’d also throw out that despite the rise of digital storage, we have a lot, a lot of printed material in the world. Even if we forget how to read, there’s pictures and illustrations. Kids aren’t raised in isolation, knowledge (even diluted knowledge) gets passed on, and we wouldn’t forget where we once were, and the ruins of civilization would be all around. You’d almost need some sort of sci-fi level disease to wipe all of our minds to get us back to true Stone Age levels of living and prevent us from understanding how scavenged tools could be used. We might forget how to forge steel but we’d keep scavenging it for blades rather than revert to stone.

Billionaire sex predators are out of reach for most Americans to take direct action against. Display boards with inaccurate historical information and statues dedicated to the shitbags of history are easy to vandalize. Confederates have been crying about that second part for decades. And I’d imagine a fair amount of Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway signs already have bullet holes in them. It won’t thwart what they’re trying to do but you fight the battle by whatever means you have available.

I am no expert in theology either but I am a comic book/sci fi/fantasy nerd. The source material for any good work of fiction is just that; source material. Later authors can use it as a frame work for their version but frequently retcon any inconsistencies with the original. Think of Trumpageddon like A New Hope: Special Edition. Instead of God shooting first now Donnie does.

They’ll pass any loss on to the American people, whether that’s jacking up prices or the government bailing them out with our tax dollars. What remains to be seen is just how much his average supporters will tolerate and justify until the cost to them becomes unbearable. I hope more nations follow this lead; cut us off or get him to cut your nation off, strangle us economically and make us a pariah on the global stage. His loyalists and bots and foreign bad actors may be a loud minority on the internet, but they’re still a minority and getting a free pass to be a western male chauvinist isn’t going to keep party-line voters content when their businesses fail, their mortgages default, and their kids start dying in Iran.

My evangelical parents got wrapped up in this line of thinking in the 90s right around the time teenage me was becoming disillusioned with the indoctrination I’d been raised in. Classic “end of the Millennium” fears and the hope they could jumpstart Armageddon convinced them to send money to Christian charities who supposedly then paid to move poor Jewish people in former Soviet states to Israel. Sure God was going to destroy the Earth in 10000 years, but oops, guess y’all forced his hand!

I admire the coyote’s ability to adapt and survive, and like me it’s equally at home in the wild or in the city.

Nah. There has to be a twist.

Ready enough. Plan and prep for self-reliance but never forget we are social creatures and history has shown that in hard times most of us unite for survival rather than turn into post-apocalyptic war bands and cannibal biker gangs. Most people aren’t going to care that they had opposing views on Facebook a year prior when they’re sheltering from drones under the same husk of Walmart. And for the minority that are so truly, deeply, totally immersed in their bigotry that co-survival in the face of annihilation is not an option? That’s why I’m glad I stockpile in a state with incredibly lax gun laws.

There’s enough distrust and conspiracy theorist in me to question if the whole thing isn’t a good cop/bad cop publicity stunt to attract “conscientious” consumers.

“Hey all you anti-authoritarian, anti-AI, anti-surveillance types, we’re your friend; we’re the un-AI. Now be good idiots and plot your dissent on our service.”