Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[Higgenbotham]

A year or two ago, I used to write something here called Dark Age Chronicles every few days, which had anecdotes about evidence of the coming dark age, subject to interpretation of course. Nowadays, it's literally every day that I see everyday evidence of a coming dark age, sometimes several times per day. Whether it's the cartons of milk going from 64 ounces to 59 ounces even as prices increase, $65 or $79 per person ("just" $39 for kids under 12!) being the most common cost of a Thanksgiving buffet dinner in this area in 2025, failed name brand equipment that is less than 3 years old that a few decades ago would have been trouble free for 10 or 20 years, or what have you, the evidence comes in steadily, loudly and clearly.

[FullMoon]

I remember when John thought your concept of a coming dark age was extravagant. But nowadays even a normal person wouldn't think so. Because the world we live in has become so obviously extravagant. Maybe this show how hard it is to get a clear grasp on the conditions we live in while we're living in them. Like the frog coming to a boil analogy. If it's obvious now to even an average person, then I think we're just about boiled.

[spottybrowncow]

Camille saw it coming long ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8BRdwgPChQ

[Higgenbotham]

viewtopic.php?p=34265

Anecdotally from this location, in...

...2017 the discussions were brief and along the lines of, "Do you think it's going to collapse?"
...2023 the discussions were along the lines of, "Here are some preliminary signs of possible collapse."
...late 2025, "What has collapsed lately?"

After I posted earlier today, a parent of one of my daughter's classmates was saying all but 2 of the public elementary schools in Pflugerville, Texas have basically collapsed and aren't worth sending your kids to. According to her, school after school has collapsed in that district over the past 10 years. Then she went on to say that in one school, there is a child who has hour long tantrums and everyone is told to stand back and do nothing until the tantrum plays out. So twenty some kids are basically on standby doing nothing for an hour. They are told that every child has a right to learn as the reason for allowing this. She said, therefore, for her it is either the private school our kids are going to or home schooling. Public school is now out of the question for her family. We then carried on with a discussion of how we have to pay for this nonsense, the amount of money public schools waste and how high our taxes are.

[Higgenbotham]

In an accelerating collapse, there are some silver linings. Also during that conversation, we talked about how truly excellent the school is that we send our kids to. Many of the teachers there are what I call "public school refugees" who are experienced teachers and administrators who have left the public schools in disgust so they can now do what they are called to do, albeit for less money. We traded stories about how the teachers there discipline to a higher standard than what we as parents expect. Therefore, we know that things are in good hands and we don't have to babysit situations we hear about from our kids. Of course, as those highly competent teachers and administrators flee the public schools, the collapse of the public schools accelerates.