Pretty sure climate change is the answer.

  • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    I would say that people losing rights hand over fist would be the breaking point, but 50% of the population doesn’t care about that apparently.

    In reality my guess is cost of living as everyone has to buy groceries or deal with health insurance, and it’s something that everyone can agree on that it sucks.

    That, or death by a thousand cuts.

    • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.worldOP
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      5 days ago

      Us Americans have lots of rights. They’ve all been eroded at over the years. People like rights, I’m almost sure of it. I’m sure they’ll really regret losing them.

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Unfortunately for all the accelerationists here that are salivating over the idea, America is not even close to a breaking point.

  • soul@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    You never know what it will actually be. In fact, it’s likely that it’ll be too late before people realize it.

  • rodbiren@midwest.social
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    6 days ago

    No, it will need to get incredibly worse for anything like a revolution to occur. The only historical events I can think of to parallel would be the collapse of the Czar in Russia during WW1 and the end of the Soviet Union. The common theme is that it took huge stacks of dead people to actually motivate people to do something about their leadership.

    Until the state of things leads to basically all citizens knowing one or more of their own immediate family members dieing of being severely injured from something most people will carry on. Maybe a lot of starving people? Idk, I was surprised how suddenly the feds had money for people during the pandemic. I think they were a little scared their for a second. And of course they made hay of that being the reason for all the problems. Not PPP handouts or anything.

    TLDR, no. We need millions of dead before we are even close.

  • hightrix@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Nope. Most people in the country still live comfortably.

    Until that is not the case, nothing will happen.

  • 11111one11111@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Nope. We are in the wheel of a machine driven by corporate interests protected by a government with an unmatchable military complex financed by American tax dollars being paid by a society who follows whatever carrot network media decides to hold infront of our nose. The current state of America’s governing powers is assuming the formn.01% has always dreamed of. A world where the poor get poorer while the market and it’s investing parties get richer. All governing bodies dream of a constant state of too poor to change but not poor enough to risk life or threaten the controlling body’s prosperity. America will remain at this state until people realize the fight isn’t against an opposing political belief. The fight is between the American people and the American government. For as long as this political polarity goes on, there will never be a unilaterally directed body sting enough to foce change.

  • Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org
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    6 days ago

    There’s been numerous up to this point. I see Trump’s 2nd term as just punishment to the American Populace for not rocking the boat hard enough when the breaking point had been reached.

    Where were the Americans in 2020 when minimum wage workers had the whip cracked on their backs, given a bullshit label ‘Essential Worker’ and forced to work during the pandemic? Too busy crying at home about not going out to party.

    Where were the Americans during the 2024 elections? Sleeping at home thinking they got it in the bag.

    Where were the Americans during Occupy Wallstreet? The time Bernie Sanders was running? So many more things that can be pointed out but Americans be like “nah…I’m good”.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Historically, in the US at least, violent movements are a precursor to peaceful social change. People protest and protest peaceful for decades, and little to nothing actually changes.

    I mean think about it, do you think for example that an insurance company that is run by people freely willing to kill tens of thousands of people have any problem just ignoring any number of protesters? No one ever got any rights by asking nicely. Every social change we’ve experienced has had both peaceful and violent components.

    This doesn’t morally justify violence, but it does show that violence doesn’t just keep escalating until we go full on civil war. Whenever inequality or injustice gets to critical levels, some desperate people decide that nonviolence doesn’t work and that more extreme actions are needed. Suffragettes were involved in many arson campaigns. Slavery didn’t end until the Union army forced it to end. Unions got their rights to organize through armed battles and by torching factories with their bosses locked inside. The black civil rights movement required both non-violent resistance, but also violent groups like the Black Panthers waiting in the wings, offering a more violent solution if a peaceful one wasn’t found. Stonewall was a riot.

    America tends to go through periods of increasing wealth and social inequality. Things build up until some people feel so pressured, either by personal circumstance or ideology, that they believe violence is the only option. This doesn’t make this violence right or just, but it is simply part of human nature. It happens again and again and again. When the elite push the masses far enough, eventually they start killing elites and setting their property on fire. And there’s not a whole lot that can be done to prevent it, as these tend to be random crimes by detached individuals acting on their own. The elites will always overreach and respond with harsher criminal penalties. But when someone is willing to throw their life away for something, there’s really no penalties that will make a difference.

    And ultimately, that kind of violence, or threat of it, is usually what breaks the dam that previously prevented peaceful social change. Elites rarely give a single iota about the common man. In order to acquire that level of wealth and power, you pretty much have to be a sociopath in some form or another. That is as true now as it was in the age of hereditary nobility. But eventually the elite learn that something they actually care about - their own wealth or their own lives, are at risk. And even if the elite can hide themselves behind private armies, they inevitably find that their vast holdings of property aren’t so easily protected. Arson has historically played a huge role in these types of social inflection points.

    So pressure will continue to build, but society isn’t going to break. Rather, crimes against life and, especially property, will continue. I sadly expect to see a lot of arson carried out by incendiary drones in the near future. And these acts of violence will continue to grow ever more common until the sociopaths at the top realize, “wait, it’s actually costing me more money NOT to improve things for the common man, let’s throw the people some bones.”

    That’s pretty much how every right or liberty you enjoy today was achieved. Rarely does outright revolution completely overthrow the old order and bring out the literal guillotines. The French Revolution was the exception, not the rule. What we are seeing now is just the normal and inevitable course of history, that has happened time and time again. The people get pushed and exploited past a critical level, and the more unhinged among the population start taking violent action. This violence builds and builds, and eventually the elite realize it’s more profitable to accept some of those quite reasonable reforms that the non-violent folks have been politely asking for for decades.

    Take heart. This has all happened before. It is happening now. And in the future, it will happen again.

  • djsoren19@yiffit.net
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    7 days ago

    I mean, the fundamental breakdown of civility is going to be the answer, because widespread politically-motivated violence cannot happen without it. How long it will take for the country that keeps threatening to devolve into a civil war to actually do so is anyone’s guess.

    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      fundamental breakdown of civility is going to be the answer

      I mean, have you driven recently? Seems like it’s already started.

  • FeloniousPunk@lemmy.today
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    7 days ago

    The answer is ‘whatever you feel concerned about’ and multiply that by 300 million. Charles Bukowski said (paraphrasing) that it’s not the big things that will break a man, its the little things that drive men mad - like a broken shoelace.

    It’s not just going to be one big issue but an aggregation of all little issues. And boy, do we have issues.