by Higgenbotham » Sun Aug 09, 2026 11:58 am
I discussed the precursor problem which set the stage for what's described in the post above in this Dark Age Hovel a few years ago.
Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Dec 25, 2022 6:28 pm
Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:32 pm
Another thing that relates to that is there is a moral code in rural areas versus a moral code in urban areas. I witnessed this conflict as I grew up. My grandparents spent their entire lives in a rural area; my parents spent until age 18 in a rural area and 34 working years in a city. They couldn't wait to get the hell out. As kids, my sister and I went back to their home every year and were immersed in rural culture for a week. I think part of the huge divide in this country has to do with the fact that more and more families have spent several generations in the city and have not been exposed to rural culture in any meaningful way at all, as my sister and I were.
Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Dec 25, 2022 1:06 am
Now instead of my sister feeding me information about "Q" or something similar, she asks me questions like, "You've been here (the acceptance stage of collapse) a long time, what do you think about...?"
When someone moves along from denial to acceptance of collapse, I think it is natural to start looking at the quality of connections around them. A couple months ago, my sister asked me why I thought she didn't have any true friends. Previously, she had only said that people she knew had changed and she had lost contact.
I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.
I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.
I would also add that high tech is making people more and more into transactions versus customers. Google is the best example I can think of.
Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Feb 02, 2023 9:49 pm
During the descent into a dark age, it seems the social breakdown comes first, followed by the economic breakdown. One of the catalysts to the recent social breakdown was to uproot people from their established places and make their existence nomadic. This was promoted by slogans such as "you need to go where the opportunities are" or "get an education and a better life", things like that. This process sort of fed upon itself; for example, people are uprooted and, as a result, spend more dollars with corporations whose business models are indirectly based on uprooting people, which in turn results in even more people being uprooted. As an example, let's say you own or work for the general store in a small town, a unique store. You are probably going to be working and living in that small town your whole life. But if Wal-Mart comes into town and uproots that store, then you are likely to become one more corporate nomad moving from place to place and frequenting businesses whose names you recognize. I referred to that process a bit here:
Higgenbotham wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:32 pm
Another thing that relates to that is there is a moral code in rural areas versus a moral code in urban areas. I witnessed this conflict as I grew up. My grandparents spent their entire lives in a rural area; my parents spent until age 18 in a rural area and 34 working years in a city. They couldn't wait to get the hell out. As kids, my sister and I went back to their home every year and were immersed in rural culture for a week. I think part of the huge divide in this country has to do with the fact that more and more families have spent several generations in the city and have not been exposed to rural culture in any meaningful way at all, as my sister and I were.
Higgenbotham wrote: Sun Dec 25, 2022 1:06 am
I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.
I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.
During the early stages of this breakdown, many of the new corporate nomads gathered together in suburbs of large cities and, being first generation nomads, attempted to re-create the kinds of social bonds that were present in the places they came from. This worked pretty well for a time, until those people died off and the second and third generations stopped doing this. I think this was described best in a book called Bowling Alone and thought it had been discussed here, but don't find anything offhand. I'll continue to look for that.
Also, during the early stages of this breakdown, there were economic losers and beneficiaries. The beneficiaries were the corporations who could cookie cutter their outlets across a previously interesting and varied landscape, producing the forlorn, bland, and ugly architectural landscape that now exists across America. McDonalds perhaps being one of the first and best examples. During the heyday of the expansion of McDonalds, along came the "great investors" who realized they could make a lot of money investing in this concept, people like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. Lynch described what he called the "ten-bagger" which was a stock where you could invest a dollar and that investment would multiply quickly to 10 dollars as these corporations cookie-cuttered their outlets across the country. Expanding in this way made a corporation hungry for capital and there was a class of people who got rich providing it, including many corporate nomads who recognized what was happening from observing their own lives. However, many more missed the boat, even though it was somewhat obvious.
It now appears this stage has been winding down for some time. Again, there are those who recognize this. I posted this awhile back for another reason, but will repeat it here with the relevant part underlined:
Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Dec 29, 2022 6:05 pm
Trump-supporting billionaire Home Depot founder says 'nobody works anymore' because of 'socialism'
Many reasons have been thrown about as to why the U.S. is still in the midst of a historic labor shortage, including a decline in fertility rates, older workers retiring in droves, the lingering effects of COVID-19 infections, and of course, worker demands for fairer pay and more expansive benefits.
But Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, says it’s really simple: People just hate capitalism now. Because of “socialism,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work—I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.’’
In today’s business climate, Home Depot may have been able to only open 15 or 16 stores, Marcus said, compared to the 2,300 locations the retailer currently has scattered around the U.S. For Marcus—an unabashed supporter of former President Donald Trump, often to his own company’s chagrin—the reasons behind today’s unfavorable environment include the current administration and the “woke” establishment’s involvement in business.
In the wide-ranging interview, where Marcus—worth over $5 billion according to Bloomberg—touched on everything from his reputation as a prolific philanthropist to his inclination for Milton Friedman’s business-first interpretation of economics, the former CEO lamented capitalism’s slow demise in the U.S. while criticizing the “woke people” he thinks are eradicating free speech.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/ ... 259be365f6
The question is, given the end of this era, what has been coming and is now well over over the horizon? I think for the answer to this we have to look at the early history of Bill Gates and Microsoft.
I discussed the precursor problem which set the stage for what's described in the post above in this Dark Age Hovel a few years ago.
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76611 time=1672007296 user_id=100]
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76363 time=1671071573 user_id=100]
Another thing that relates to that is there is a moral code in rural areas versus a moral code in urban areas. I witnessed this conflict as I grew up. My grandparents spent their entire lives in a rural area; my parents spent until age 18 in a rural area and 34 working years in a city. They couldn't wait to get the hell out. As kids, my sister and I went back to their home every year and were immersed in rural culture for a week. I think part of the huge divide in this country has to do with the fact that more and more families have spent several generations in the city and have not been exposed to rural culture in any meaningful way at all, as my sister and I were.[/quote]
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76603 time=1671944774 user_id=100]
Now instead of my sister feeding me information about "Q" or something similar, she asks me questions like, "You've been here (the acceptance stage of collapse) a long time, what do you think about...?"[/quote]
When someone moves along from denial to acceptance of collapse, I think it is natural to start looking at the quality of connections around them. A couple months ago, my sister asked me why I thought she didn't have any true friends. Previously, she had only said that people she knew had changed and she had lost contact.
I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.
I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.
I would also add that high tech is making people more and more into transactions versus customers. Google is the best example I can think of.
[/quote]
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=77720 time=1675388952 user_id=100]
During the descent into a dark age, it seems the social breakdown comes first, followed by the economic breakdown. One of the catalysts to the recent social breakdown was to uproot people from their established places and make their existence nomadic. This was promoted by slogans such as "you need to go where the opportunities are" or "get an education and a better life", things like that. This process sort of fed upon itself; for example, people are uprooted and, as a result, spend more dollars with corporations whose business models are indirectly based on uprooting people, which in turn results in even more people being uprooted. As an example, let's say you own or work for the general store in a small town, a unique store. You are probably going to be working and living in that small town your whole life. But if Wal-Mart comes into town and uproots that store, then you are likely to become one more corporate nomad moving from place to place and frequenting businesses whose names you recognize. I referred to that process a bit here:
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76363 time=1671071573 user_id=100]
Another thing that relates to that is there is a moral code in rural areas versus a moral code in urban areas. I witnessed this conflict as I grew up. My grandparents spent their entire lives in a rural area; my parents spent until age 18 in a rural area and 34 working years in a city. They couldn't wait to get the hell out. As kids, my sister and I went back to their home every year and were immersed in rural culture for a week. I think part of the huge divide in this country has to do with the fact that more and more families have spent several generations in the city and have not been exposed to rural culture in any meaningful way at all, as my sister and I were.[/quote]
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76603 time=1671944774 user_id=100]
I said there are two opposite modes of living in the United States. The first is an expectation that you will spend your entire life in one area with other people who will spend their entire lives in that area. The second is an expectation that you will go to high school in one place, college in another place, then career in several places (no longer at one company) with sole focus on that. Everything else is something in between. The first mode engenders real connections while the second mode engenders transactional relationships. An example of a transactional relationship would be something like, "I have a buddy who is also 420 friendly. He finds me really good dope cheap and I fix all his computers." The best example of a transactional encounter I can think of is prostitution. Also, in a big city, encounters are briefer. That's not to say there isn't some overlap.
I told her in the second mode of living, people are taught from an early age to look to the next step in their progression and to primarily engage in transactional relationships as a means to get to that next step. A high school kid might be told to be friendly to the teachers because they will be writing college recommendations or whatever. They would not be encouraged to be friendly to teachers they genuinely like and not be friendly to teachers they genuinely do not like. And so on when the kid gets to college. I should add as an aside that girls are better at that than boys. I told her that while coping with the stress of getting from step to step, people who find themselves in the same boat will bond somewhat. But they know those bonds are likely temporary and will be broken when they get to the next step unless there is a practical reason to keep them. I also told her that people who have lived in transactional relationship mode for several generations do not even know how to live differently and can't. Many do not understand what a real connection is.[/quote]
During the early stages of this breakdown, many of the new corporate nomads gathered together in suburbs of large cities and, being first generation nomads, attempted to re-create the kinds of social bonds that were present in the places they came from. This worked pretty well for a time, until those people died off and the second and third generations stopped doing this. I think this was described best in a book called Bowling Alone and thought it had been discussed here, but don't find anything offhand. I'll continue to look for that.
Also, during the early stages of this breakdown, there were economic losers and beneficiaries. The beneficiaries were the corporations who could cookie cutter their outlets across a previously interesting and varied landscape, producing the forlorn, bland, and ugly architectural landscape that now exists across America. McDonalds perhaps being one of the first and best examples. During the heyday of the expansion of McDonalds, along came the "great investors" who realized they could make a lot of money investing in this concept, people like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. Lynch described what he called the "ten-bagger" which was a stock where you could invest a dollar and that investment would multiply quickly to 10 dollars as these corporations cookie-cuttered their outlets across the country. Expanding in this way made a corporation hungry for capital and there was a class of people who got rich providing it, including many corporate nomads who recognized what was happening from observing their own lives. However, many more missed the boat, even though it was somewhat obvious.
It now appears this stage has been winding down for some time. Again, there are those who recognize this. I posted this awhile back for another reason, but will repeat it here with the relevant part underlined:
[quote=Higgenbotham post_id=76700 time=1672351520 user_id=100]
[quote]Trump-supporting billionaire Home Depot founder says 'nobody works anymore' because of 'socialism'
Many reasons have been thrown about as to why the U.S. is still in the midst of a historic labor shortage, including a decline in fertility rates, older workers retiring in droves, the lingering effects of COVID-19 infections, and of course, worker demands for fairer pay and more expansive benefits.
But Bernie Marcus, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, says it’s really simple: People just hate capitalism now. Because of “socialism,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times published Thursday, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work—I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.’’
[u]In today’s business climate, Home Depot may have been able to only open 15 or 16 stores, Marcus said, compared to the 2,300 locations the retailer currently has scattered around the U.S.[/u] For Marcus—an unabashed supporter of former President Donald Trump, often to his own company’s chagrin—the reasons behind today’s unfavorable environment include the current administration and the “woke” establishment’s involvement in business.
In the wide-ranging interview, where Marcus—worth over $5 billion according to Bloomberg—touched on everything from his reputation as a prolific philanthropist to his inclination for Milton Friedman’s business-first interpretation of economics, the former CEO lamented capitalism’s slow demise in the U.S. while criticizing the “woke people” he thinks are eradicating free speech.[/quote]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-supporting-billionaire-home-depot-founder-says-nobody-works-anymore-because-of-socialism/ar-AA15MKp9?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=097865b9bc144dbeaa552e259be365f6
[/quote]
The question is, given the end of this era, what has been coming and is now well over over the horizon? I think for the answer to this we have to look at the early history of Bill Gates and Microsoft.[/quote]