Even if you can't vote, you can still email/call your representatives, go to local government meetings, explain the issues to people you know and ask them to vote, volunteer, etc.
I'm not saying you have to, but any of those is a helpful contribution.
It's a problem, but I don't think it's as unsolvable as that. Figuring out how to overcome the strategies being used to divide us could rapidly repair the damage. Education, both in and out of school, is a crucial element of that. The ones frothing over "liberal tears" clearly don't want to find common ground, so we would need to learn how they communicate and why they won't listen, then find a strategy to break through that barrier and help them on their way to broader skepticism. In essence, once we cure the disease, we need to vaccinate them to mitigate the next outbreak.
There's been some focus on this area of research. We have evidence that "strong men" rise to power by capitalizing on fear and anxiety. They set themselves up as a savior who will get rid of the scary problem by blaming someone/some group that is innocent but unknown (and therefore a suspicious stranger) to their base. They start with (comparatively) small lies and build trust among their following. Once the more suseptible slip into this form of groupthink, they'll fall for bigger and bigger lies, and are very difficult to recover. The question is, how do we wake up they who scream of "sheeple" without an event so tragic it traumatizes an entire generation? The last few times involved massive wars or similarly harrowing events. Events so massive they dissillusioned the followers and forced them to confront the fact that they got played by a charismatic (to them) narcissist with a superiority complex.
Unless we can figure out how to snap these people put of it relatively peacefully, we're most likely going to be in for a really, really bad time before it gets better. With any luck, at least in the US, maybe Trump will get thrown in prison and the Republican party's leadership will turn on Trumpism or collapse before they can take control. Maybe if their chosen authority figure is imprisoned and disowned by their team they'll be able to see clearly again.
I'll have you know it's perfectly unnatural when I invert my corporeal form to assimilate my terrified victims into the eldritch void where my soul used to be.
But in all seriousness, agreed. It's not possible for something that's part of nature to be unnatural. All behaviors are natural. Some behaviors pose a threat to the individual or society at large, and that's the only case where any action should be considered, but only as a harm reduction strategy rather than punitive. An individual's sexuality, gender identity, etc., definitely don't qualify as dangerous.
Fair enough, regulating the specific ways that people speak is challenging and prone to either overreach or being ineffectual. The only way I can think of to attempt it would require a law that is algorithmic. Speech that matches a specific pattern, and whose reach is sufficient to be a threat to our democratic process, would be analyzed in court with a team of linguists and psychologists doing their best to explain the problematic bits to a judge and jury.
I don't think the general public (or probably congress, for that matter) would accept such a high profile a law that was algorithmic and only understandable to a small subset of the population though, so this isn't really feasible. And new charlatans would find a way to work around it anyway.
Yeah, that would be crucial too. Antibioitics and the risks of antibiotic resistance need to be included. But to create and purify effective antibiotics, you also need to start with the scientific method, then branch into chemistry, biology, etc. Glassware and procedures to minimize contamination would be important to effectively extract helpful ingredients from potentially harmful molds/other sources.
Depending on the starting scenario, it might be possible to skip much of that at first if we had leftover supplies from a prior civilization. If this site is to be believed, it sounds like making penicillin at home is quite a process, but doable if you're able to get the right supplies. I don't see any efficient pathway from here to there if we had to start from zero though.
I read it as "what do you have enough knowledge of that you could aid in the birth/advancement of a new civilization?" Doesn't matter if you have it fully figured out, just what knowledge can you provide that would be highly valued if all knowledge were otherwise lost.
If we must tolerate healthcare being tied to work, the least we could do is require employers to pay part of healthcare for all workers based on the fraction of full time they work. 10hrs/30? You get 33% of a full time worker's healthcare benefit. Either as cash or with you covering part of the cost. Work multiple jobs that total 30 hrs? Pick your favorite employer plan and your other employers pay towards it.
But yeah, universal is long overdue, and this would be one of the worst tolerable ways to impelment improvement
It sounds like since we can clearly articulate the types of strategies used to rile up the masses and bypass critical thinking, it should be possible to create a law that would make this type of rhetoric illegal. While I'm generally opposed to limitations on speech, I would make an exception for limiting the tactics that allow the rise of fascism, particularly since it doesn't limit sharing of ideas, and simply limits the same type of behavior as shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.
Next time the opportunity arises (next time we have a major event that snaps the zealots back to their senses), we should be pushing our representatives to implement an amendment that bans this behavior. It's a necessary restraint on freedom of expression to protect the democratic process. This should specifically be an amendment because:
I agree with you in some ways, but I think there's a communication barrier here. In short, yes, we need to be united in our approach and we need to focus our efforts in the areas that matter most, but individual action is not a united front; it's the opposite.
We've solved other problems through collective action. The climate accords resulted in the Montreal Protocol, which resulted in bans on freely releasing ozone-depleting chemicals like CFCs. This ban resulted in a resounding success--the hole in the ozone over Antarctica, which had been growing rapidly and threatened to leave us with much less protection from solar radiation, has now basically recovered to pre-industrial levels.
We need government action, and we as a people need to hold our governments accountable to these demands. That means demanding that corporations must implement effective strategies to reduce emissions and resource usage in general. It also means individuals must be pressured towards these changes, but that can only work if it's economically feasible for the average person. I'm in my mid-20s working full time and I can't even afford housing for myself, nor could I find a modest, truly eco-friendly home if I wanted to. How am I supposed to dedicate the energy to find more eco-friendly options when they're sparse, poorly supported or actively resisted by the structure of society, and most of my energy is already taken up just fighting to survive at all?
I hope your new diagnosis helps you. Learning more about how you think, what motivates you, and what holds you back can help a lot with choosing realistic and satisfying goals. If you keep at it, I think you'll figure out how to achieve something you can call success.
And for what it's worth, I don't think it's possible to be a failure, but I do understand the pain of defeat. Thinking more about it, defeat seems like the pain of wanting something, believing (correctly or otherwise) that it's impossible, and then continuing to hold onto that desire. It's the gap between what we believe to be possible and our expectations, not all that different from grief.