You realize that European descent people are in the process of entering another dark age, after their dark age 476 - 1492 European calendar ?

From a historical perspective they now find themselves at the same position they were in 476 European calendar:

.

Former superpowers

1. USA

2. USSR

3. UK

4. Germany

5. France

6. Holland

7. Spain

8. Portugal

9. Turkey

10. Arabs

===> 1000 Years Dark Age for Whites (476 - 1492 European calendar)

11. China

12. Mongolia

13. Rome

14. Greece

15. Persia

16. Africa

.

.

Consider that, Europe's decline in 476 European calendar led to the rise of the Non-European world.

Europe's dark age from 476 - 1492 European calendar was a golden age for the Arabs, Africans, Turks, Mongols and Chinese.

I

Of course it would have worldwide implications, and the ultra wealthy would be inconvenienced but not missing any meals.

I’ll go first. It took police less than 3 weeks to catch the killer of a Fortune 500 CEO yet we’ve had Epstein’s list for 8 years and haven’t made 1 arrest.

What if we all got together, say at least 20%, ~60 million Americans, and said “we’re not paying our taxes until some real reforms are made.”

Outlaw corporate campaign contributions, lobbying/quid pro quo. Set a firm cap to both age and net worth for those who hold public office (logically, how can they be trusted to make public policy on behalf of the people, if they don’t know what it’s like to live like the people?) Stop corporations from pice gauging and hoarding wealth to a wildly unnecessary degree at the expense of the American consumer (the is no reason to be worth 200 billion dollars) Major farm reform. Make farming profitable again.

I’m not a lawyer/economist/politician so obviously these are just off-the-cuff examples.

When they go “well how would you like us to do that?” Honestly. You figure it out. That’s your fucking job. You all got together to ban an app pretty quick. Now deal with what actually matters.

So what if we collectively got together and refused to pay our taxes until a list of reasonable demands are met. Hit them where it really hurts, right in the wallet. What would happen? Not that I think it would be very difficult to get people on board… but say just 20%, ~60 million Americans joined in. They can’t possibly prosecute everyone. And we have a constitutional right to protest our leaders.

Though pessimism seems to be the status quo this decade, What do you actually think would happen?

I’m reading the r/sailing and r/MTB subreddits about the decline of the sport. Major bike brands are going out of business, and sailing clubs and boat makers are having a hard time attracting new participants.

Skiing and golfing also seem to be struggling with declining participation (although skiing participation seems to be up, but satisfaction is down).

What economic indicators are tracking all these things? Where can I look for a broad report on changing behaviors across the leisure/recreational industry in the US?

Spending $600m on a wedding while paying his workers minimum wage. https://nypost.com/2024/12/21/entertainment/jeff-bezos-to-marry-fiancee-lauren-sanchez-in-lavish-600m-aspen-colorado-wedding-next-weekend-report

Insane world we live in

Slightly misleading title - I’m not actually a dual citizen. But I do spend my life shuttling between 2 very different countries. And I’m in a circle of similar folks.

The US had always been, in my mind, the best country to live in. Wildly successful economy and hugely powerful military, and somewhat diverse in terms of immigrant communities.

Of course, after I began living here, I realized there are some terrible things about this country too. Like any other country.

But what I’m seeing in lately is not just bad, it’s scary. It’s pointing to an eventual economic and social collapse. American society is remarkably resilient, but it has been exploited to such an extent that it is no longer functioning properly.

People are angry, mistrustful, hopeless and divided. Especially after Covid. Not everyone of course, but that undercurrent is strong and only growing. Plenty of people are in much worse conditions across the world. But what I find remarkable is just how negative the sentiment is in America. There’s no faith in the system. Even faith in strangers is eroding. A lack of education and awareness, constant propaganda and social media bubbles, and a rigorous system in place for everything that forces humans to behave as machines has caused an us vs them mentality. Where the “us” is a really small circle for everyone - maybe just friends and family, or maybe just themselves.

To make a profit, a business has to bring in more money than it pays out. If all businesses do this, they should eventually drain the supply of money from the consumer base until all that's left to get is equal to what is paid through compensation.

At that point, some businesses will be unable to make a profit, and some will lose money until they go out of business. This should leading to a gradual contraction of the economy, and increasing unemployment, until there are no businesses and everyone is unemployed.

Since this doesn't appear to be happening, extra money is somehow being constantly supplied to consumers to account for profit margins. Some of it may come from welfare benefits, some from government payrolls, some paid with public debt, and the rest from consumer debt.

Debt is a loss, not a gain, so the debt is just snowballing until the rate of default wipes out the economy with a massive loss of wealth- bank accounts frozen, homes foreclosed, and cars repossessed. It's unsustainable.

The goal of a business should be to break even and sustain itself, not to profit and grow all the time.

Russia has been astroturfing our people through social media, finding kompromat on our wealthy and politicians, while China hacked a United States backdoor in our telecommunications, at the same time as Oligarchs alter our News for self gratification. There is an overwhelming attack on Democracy happening before us, including the minds of people who may think differently about how to change our country for the better.

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,”

Our checks and balances, are overwhelmed, lets lend them a hand! In order to further Democracy for all of us, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents, let’s follow people with different ideals, backgrounds, politically, and speak about these issues we’ve shared on r/economiccollapse . Remember, theres a person on the other side of that screen, write with kindness, compassion, and try to understand their perspective.

And with a little help from ALL of us, I am confident we can get this country on the right track, and curb the information age attack on our Democracy.

Some sources on citation page.

Hypothesis: Wealth inequality, Regan era tax cuts, and deregulation of news (community consciousness) [like a word cloud for popular keywords but for common knowledge, responses, and information used for decision making; partially due to recency bias] has eroded our public unity, decorum, and nation, giving fascism and oligarchs a vacuum of space to grow and our American dream close to its deathknell. It provides American Oligarchs a way to grow, which creates a national security issue with hostile foreign nations familiar with how to handle them, while also stealing wealth and power from the people. This turns our nation into an oligarchy, instead of a democracy. We should strive for American innovative ways to return power, diplomacy, and more of the GDP/wealth growth back to the people. The Flynn Effect is evidence they can handle it, and the Oligarch national security issue is evidence we need to [25]. Our militias have changed from gun wielding before our information age, to vote, critical thinking, and intelligence wielding in our information age. Strengthen the middle class, expand more so than ever before, and provide ALL people the diplomatic news airwaves we had with the fairness doctrine, so that we can all flourish.

Introduction: Cracks of gunfire sang through the air while a presidential candidate spoke, his words of division misleading our people were paused as an audience member and the candidates ear were connected with the violence created by our ailing system. Multiple assassination attempts on a person as divisive, and supported by adversarial nations, as Trump is, is not merely due to his actions; his needle in the haystack highlights the pain our nation suffers as a whole, and the same factors exploited by hostile foreign nations. Stagnant wages since major tax cuts in the 80's, overwhelming cost of living during stagnant wages, "nonliteral commentary" paraded as news, legal bribery in politics as PACs, Super PACs, and "tips" (Strengthened by Citizens United), steal our voices, dreams, and representation, a required component of our social contract. The pendulum has swung so far into wealthy peoples favor that we face other nations brainstorming actions to take if there were a second American Civil War, and oligarchs being formed as a natural byproduct of wealth stratification. It's time for the pendulum to take a new form, one that not only allows for revival of the American dream, expansion of the middle class, but also aligns a new goal: self-actualization for a broader part of the population than ever before. Our economy is largely one of innovations, knowledge based. Globalization has shifted manufacturing and physical wealth creation to other parts of the world. Lets take some burden off of C-suite level workers, uplift more of our populace, and empower our knowledge based economy with larger swathes of self-actualizing Americans than ever before.

"...that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. [...] It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." -James Truslow Adams (The Epic of America)

Wealth Inequity Beyond Motivational Means: Our American Dream has existed as a recognition of one of our countries largest motivators, upwards mobility through hard work, and achievable by most. Since the late 1970's, wages have stayed stagnant for the majority of Americans, as the cost of living has increased [1]. At the same time, while promising Trickle Down Economics as a means to improve our economy, we reduced taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans [2]. This caused significant inequity, which has impacts on motivation to work, productivity, increased our national debt to levels not seen before, and given a small number of Americans more power [1-3]. Some of those that gained power are now, as citizens argue on social media, and journalists report, a threat to national security due to hostile foreign nations as their handlers, and the American peoples best interest not the flutter in their heart [4, 5, 6]. Our news was deregulated to the point of some of the most popular shows used for news sources, like Tucker Carlson at Fox News, are even argued in court as "nonliteral commentary" that a "reasonable person" would recognize as not factual, while a large portion of those watching the show repeat sentiment as if it was news [7]. What is the impact on our people who consume such media? This causes a change in a big portion of our population, and can cause those viewers to be thrust into an environment (political topics), devoid of the critical thinking like they use at work [8]. Psychology observes a concept called environment, which can be places, smells, intoxicants, learning environments like our news, and topics of discussion, like politics [9]. When combined with repetition, our people can put into a type of thinking like those of their nonliteral news sources, that causes them to ignore critical thinking like they use at work, and fall into an easier ability to be manipulated to vote and speak against their own interests [10]. Many of our news sources have become oligarchy controlled entertainment, a la Neil Postman, and telling people how to feel, rather than providing tangible sources, hypothesis, evidence, inspiring critical thinking skills, and reminders that sometimes we make mistakes; thus the scientific method helps us to better understand the world, including when it comes to politics [7-10].

Imagine, how much more we could accomplish, if our people were given credible news, with sources, hypothesis, fair time like diplomatic debates, and diverse ideas like with college essays, and news when we had the fairness doctrine [11]? Like capitalism, this breeds stronger, more diverse, ideas, people, political capability, and community consciousness. Community consciousness is the sum of all of our collective topics of discussion, like a ven diagram, it is made up of all of our word clouds. Like a word cloud that shows popularity of topics or keywords for marketing, each citizens word cloud for news is made up of 3-4 sources and contributes to our community consciousness, meaning it impacts our lives and how we vote, interact with one another. When those 3-4 sources become manipulated it hinders democracies ability to act like capitalism and breed the strongest most beneficial ideas. Pew Research observes that the average American has 3-4 news sources, people are more likely to think and speak about topics provided by those news sources [12]. If those become oligarch controlled, corporate controlled, not diverse and supporting peoples need for critical thinking in a learning environment, like our news sources, they begin to slip into a habit of not thinking critically and become susceptible to astroturfing, and not being our new line of defense in our information age [4,13,14]. Our well regulated militia, in the information age, is our peoples minds and ability to think critically to defend against hostile foreign nations psyops. Adversarial nations, secured their own community consciousness through control (i.e. China's "Great Firewall" and social score, Russia controlling some of internet and news in the country, and killing people spreading ideas that dissent from the oligarchs), and at the same time invested in information war assets that infiltrated some of our wealthy Americans, communication outlets, and now politicians as evidenced by Trump and Musks closeness to Russian propaganda [15-17].

Additionally, Republican influencers parrot pro-russian propaganda, even to the point of falling for Russian intelligence operations that paid republican influencers to mislead Americans for the Kremlins benefit [18]. Reagan knew communism was a threat to Democracy, and worked hard to curb it globally [19,20]. He united us with that reason. Why would we stray from his message, and align with Oligarchies, which were birthed from one of those communist countries [21]? Shouldn't we curb Oligarchs in the US, as they are the result of one of those communist countries failing? At the same time, Democratic Party Politicians continue to support policies that create the very concentrations of power, American oligarchs, that are easily corrupted and take resources, voices, voting power, from the middle and lower socioeconomic classes. Neither party, Democrat nor Republican, has been thinking of our people for much of their legislative hours. Both have been distracted by our political games, rather than representing their constituents, whom are wealthy AND poor, which slowly changed their constituents to merely wealthy and corporation with the help of the Citizens United ruling.

Enshrined in our Declaration of Independence is the American founding idea that "...all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." [22] The American Dream encompasses that pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. It's a motivator which those that govern use to instill excitement, hope, that by working hard, a good life will follow. This is an important motivator, to ensure stability, attract talented minds, a competitive advantage which we are losing to other countries with more class mobility, and changes as technological advancements increase productivity. Increases in productivity should be reflected throughout our socioeconomic classes in salary and time too. Enabling that dream comes in the form of laws, legislation, ones that enable our everyday people to be uplifted when the country is uplifted, and protects them from those that seek to steal the dream as they sleep. We've seen this since the 80s as lower taxes on high income earners meant GDP and productivity growth shifted more of the profits to the top 5% earners [1,2}. Blue, red, white, green, the dream is a commonality for all of our people, no matter their origin of birth or political beliefs; it's a great uniter and common ground, we all think, feel emotions, dream of improvement, and uplifting others. It's an important motivator. Our own people seek to continue destabilization of the dream, as has happened for the last 40 some odd years [1,2]. We have solidly seen stagnant wages and increased cost of living in the USA, and the American Bar Association agrees it is due to intentional legislation and policy [1,2]. The impact of this effort, is to concentrate wealth and power with a smaller circle of Americans [23]. This concentration of wealth and inequity, impacts our society. It creates concentrations of power called "oligarchs," and those become corrupted and begin dismantling democratic processes for personal gratification. Gesiarz and colleagues studied the impact of inequality finding "...unequal opportunities have a negative influence on the motivation to work...suggesting they can trigger psychological dynamics that hurt the productivity of all involved" [26]. No longer can most households reasonably assume the American Dream of owning a home and raising a family with 1 person working. And yet, with this increase in expected work hours and load for parents, we give them suggestions of daily exercise and other things that take up time, in order to encourage them to raise a family [27,28]. Put yourselves in our peoples shoes, we teach them about the American dream in history class, how we use to be able to work hard, raise a family on 1 income, and own a home. Now when they work, dream of that dream, and seek it, they are met with an inherent inability to do it, without sacrificing family time, relationships, and their own physical and mental health [1,2,28]. How does that impact their motivation? Gesiarz and colleagues observed that it will impact that negatively, and quiet quitting, turnover, retail theft, violence towards CEOs, politicians, the wealthy, is a leading indicator of that impact on motivation to work. Stanford agrees and finds that "...only violent shocks...have substantially reduced inequality over the millennia..." [29] the assassination attempts and successes on politicians and CEOs by the public, and the publics general support of the acts, are the pitchforks of history.

We must change from our past habit of requiring experiential knowledge, like economic failures and violence, in order to make changes for the better. History repeats due to the loss of experiential knowledge, like the changing tides of generational experiential knowledge. Have faith in our ability to utilize conceptual knowledge. That is how we break the habits of our past.

New Way Forward (Natural evolution of Democracy) Our country was founded with a passionate stretch goal "all men are created equal." I believe deep in their heart, they knew that by "men", they meant all people. Why else would we be coming together in this amazing melting pot of cultures and ideas, fighting for change with the first amendment with each generation. We had slavery, patriarchy, and inequity between the sexes when these brilliant men planted that seed for us. We've nourished it and seen it sprout with eradicating slavery, segregation, better pay for women, the cultural push for opportunities for all of us.

With this goal in mind, this tree of life called equality for all people, planted by the founding fathers, and with the knowledge that deregulation can cause greed like the 2008 real estate crisis, resource inequities like oligarchs that inherently corrupt and erode our progress, break our social contract and the very fabric of democracy that which the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are written on, it is blatantly clear the way forward is to spread resources and power more equitably across the socioeconomic classes, and to consider their minds our new "well regulated militia" to defend from tyranny, and continue to light the flame of the Statue of liberty, for allies, democracies, and people enslaved by dictatorships. Our ability to lead by example, give hope, and provide resources to beourgeoning populations with Democratic aspirations, is due to our ability to continue nourishing that seed, tree, which now reads "...all [people] are created equal." It is earned by leading by example, not by force.

When will we change from the repetition observed by Stanford [29]? We have that opportunity now! "A peaceful remedy to economic inequality may start with what Scheidel calls “an understanding of historical context, because simply electing the right politicians who promise that everything will be OK is a short-term view.”[29]" I argue that with our technology, mental acuity, the nutrients below, and more unity, especially between both parties, to relight the beacon of hope and leadership for Democracies Globally which we use to represent and support better, THE TIME IS NOW!

Nutrients to nourish our Democracy:

+Spread resources more equitably between the socioeconomic classes. (Reduces power concentrations that corrupt and erode our Democracy) [Higher marginal tax brackets on wealthy, new forms of taxing unearned income when utilized, warren buffet tax floor for wealthy earners, public healthcare system helps start resource reallocation and follows other 1st world countries progress]

+New Fairness Doctrine regulation to ensure news sources instill critical thinking, with diverse ideas, with intent to stimulate discussion, understanding and growth, not spoon feeding emotive responses, to reflect keynesian capitalisms ability to create more powerful ideas.

+Reverse super PACs, citizens united (Keep corporations ability to enter into contracts), so that the people have a voice and can be heard. Because the people who work, own, the businesses, already have their voices and do not need more power by leveraging a corporation as if it is a "person."

+We must change from our past habit of requiring experiential knowledge, like economic failures and violence, in order to make changes for the better. History repeats due to the loss of experiential knowledge, like the changing tides of generational experiential knowledge. Have faith in our ability to utilize conceptual knowledge. That is how we break the habits of our past.

The productivity of the industrial revolution was enormous, if the productivity from computers in the early information age being allocated disproportionately created oligarchs which are demolishing democracy slowly, but ramping up speed more recently, the need to begin resource reallocation to save and evolve our democracy is ever more important. How little ideas, voices, American dreams will we have with an exponentially larger increase in productivity with AI, robotics, and automation, as it matures, if it continues to be allocated inequitably? What kind of world do we strive for our kids? If inequity in a system causes violence, and we're already experiencing leading indicators of violence with our current level of inequity, how bad can it get with the growth, and inequitable allocation, with the continued maturation of AI, automation, and robotics?

"--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among [people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

By, All of US, with the help of others work! Insta: @c.samildanach Our voices are POWERFUL!

Please send this document to our political representatives, add personal stories or feelings to the beginning, and DEMAND changes! Together, united, WE STAND TALLER!

Citations:

1. https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
2. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/wealth-disparities-in-civil-rights/americas-vast-pay-inequality-is-a-story-of-unequal-power/

3.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC#:~:text=The%20court%20held%205%E2%80%934,and%20other%20kinds%20of%20associations. 4. https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-oligarchs-investments-elon-musk-194258467.html? guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig= AQAAAIuUDhxLCWNEZ8UR372WmBPcjAgpiAqV547ySoya1eaPZuXNueqGTRuXPavr7zxnr MYhaFrp--Hap-_dFC6dn4Is2oISntvVslouqTRe0UhcvyJlbR06z42mfBfumeqUPRNNOimJEKVK_TCbLEjdvv0fdlEzXAZOzkpy13hXGb7q 5. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1fifqix/elon_musk_is_a_national_security_risk/ 6. https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1fig8n2/elon_musk_is_a_national_security_risk/ 7. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tuckercarlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye 8. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2025-10514-001.html 9. https://raccoongang.com/blog/what-makes-good-learning-environment/# 10. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234 11. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topicguide/fairnessdoctrine#:~:text=The%20Fairness%20Doctrine%2C%20enforced%20by,set%20a%20bias ed%20public%20agenda. 12. https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet/ 13. https://www.investopedia.com/billionaires-who-bought-publishers-5270187 14. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/25/jeff-bezos-killed-washington-post-endorsement-ofkamala-harris-.html 15. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/29/the-great-firewall-of-china-xi-jinpingsinternet-shutdown 16. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewardsexplained-2018-4 17. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/27/history-killing-how-russia-has-silencedputins-opponents 18. https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential-election-influencerstrump- 999435273dd39edf7468c6aa34fad5dd 19. https://www.reaganfoundation.org/education/curriculum-and-resources/resources/reaganhollywood-and-the-red-scare/?srsltid=AfmBOopLLk5BhcLfKOPS9cjIg5liYIQJntYGV3IJpbxtM4q-ZsvSIiaM 20. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zq63b9q/revision/6 21. https://crimereads.com/the-end-of-the-soviet-union-and-the-rise-of-the-oligarchs/ 22. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript 23. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/22/trickle-down-economics-has-failed-stiglitz.html 24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect 25. https://www.bakerlaw.com/insights/bribe-vs-tip-the-implications-of-snyder-v-unitedstates-for-companies/ 26. https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1664.pdf 27. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/16/why-more-americans-dont-want-kids.html 28. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/28/surgeon-general-parents-mental-health-advisory 29. https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/01/stanford-historian-uncovers-grim-correlationviolence-inequality-millennia 30.