apocalypse cocooning

APOCALYPSE COCOONING
Lately it seems that most of the media is ignoring the meltdown. At first it was all fun and games and everyone had a real fun time. Oh, look, a minor recession. Nothing to see here, move along. Not as bad as the 70's because we've given the Federal Reserve Bank all the taxpayers money, the tax revenue for the next 347 years and just in case that isn't enough stimulus all the global revenue until the sun goes super nova. Then, as the economy kept contracting it suddenly got a lot harder to make up happy news for the great unwashed masses. How do you make it sound good that Obamma doubled our debt that took two hundred years to accumulate in a mere six months? He spent more than a couple of world wars, a civil war, a depression and the New Deal combined and the only thing to show for it is more executive bonuses. Anyway, not to get bogged down or anything. I wanted to veer off on another tract today. My point was that the media is now 100% celebrity news ( new national hero molested boys! ) and the only economic news to be squeezed out of their tight asses ( the CEO's that run the media ) is 100% spin. As in, the decrease in the rate of collapse is treated as a recovery.
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So, I only expected spin as I was listening to National Pravda Radio this morning. And I wasn't disappointed. The latest and greatest news is that fat people are going online to lose weight rather than going to face to face meetings. Well, you would think I would just make a snide comment about rolly pollies or heifers and complain about the media and move on to other topics. But my brain has a mind of its own. I'll hear the most insignificant piece of trivia and build a complex and unnecessary tangled web out of it. So here goes, the cocooning trend during the collapse.
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Faith Popcorn was around in the early 90's if I'm not mistaken ( go ahead and Wiki it, I'm on a roll here and can't be bothered ). Her book, The Popcorn Report, was a favorite of mine. I must have read that three times or so. Your basic Ten Trends In The Future book. One was Cocooning, where people increasingly stayed home. Retreating into the safety of their cocoon. I don't remember why. The nineties were a pretty happy time. Unless that was during the recession at the beginning of the decade when folks thought we were headed back into an early eighties hell. Anyway, I think the trend was forecast a bit early. Starbucks and granite counter tops lured out people for a time. Now we are all set to embrace the trend to its fullest. We are dead broke and Starbucks are closing faster than California state facilities. There are no more manufacturing jobs. I love how Michigan is just now panicking within the last few weeks as GM was bailed out ( read: reorganize to screw the retirees and Union workers so the CEO's can get a few last bloated bonuses ). You couldn't see this coming years ago? What a bunch of stupid pukes.
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Without jobs making stuff, there is the fall back of creating financial paper out of thin air. Oops, the rest of the globe is broke from the last batch of derivatives we suckered them into buying. Forget about the financial sector. Well, we can all go to work selling each other retail goods from big box stores. Oops! We ran out of credit from China to buy any retail goods. And businesses are closing faster than houses are being shuttered. That leaves...government jobs and welfare. Paid for by printing money. We all make noises about sheeple and government oppression, but the simple fact is that 99% of the population will vote for a Hitler/Obammy ticket as long as the cable keeps broadcasting Big Brother and there is enough corn syrup food shapes on the table to eat. Why even worry about revolt when those idiots will turn you in to the thought police? The government knows this. The government is good at a few things, one is staying in power. They will keep nationalizing and creating new welfare as long as possible. The total collapse will be preceded by a massive welfare state. Central to that will be government make work jobs from home. From your cocoon. You can compile worthless data from the Internet part time in return for food stamps and a government subsidized home. Then you can slowly adapt to the degradation of services in comfort. Brownouts, food shortages, soylent replacing meat, Internet outages ( don't worry, you'll still get "paid" ), gas rationing, etc.
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I don't think the news report on online dieting is a government plant or trial run. It is a genuine report just documenting the gullibility of idiots that were indoctrinated in the public schools ( look, documenting calories will help you lose weight, no need for exercise or peer pressure ). And, no, I really don't have issues with overweight people. I actually like curves on women ( I just draw the line at Pear People ). And carrying weight around is a sound survival strategy ( as long as it isn't heart attack weight ). I have issues with stupid ( even though I'm one to talk ) and lack of discipline. The basic point here is that people are eagerly, voluntarily embracing cocooning. They want to stay at home and relate to others on the Internet. You can forget about redesigning communities, living in walking distance to work. Condos surrounded by organic gardens. That is all tree hugging wet dreams. We don't have the energy or the materials to rebuild ( or the finances ). What you see, from the soon to be torched Detroit downtown to the soon to be flooded Sacramento delta suburbs, is what you get. The best strategy for prolonging our society is to restrict travel and keep people home.
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But wait, what about tent cities, you ask. What about the shuttered homes? What about the Hillaryvilles? This won't be that pretty, everyone safely cocooned, waiting for their government tit chit. There is still going to be plenty of casualties. Crime will explode, homelessness will explode. Unemployment has only just started to get bad ( remember, declining energy inputs means total system breakdown ). I'm just talking about the lucky ones that somehow remain in main stream economic society a little while longer. This is just a short phase of treading water before we all drown. Enjoy it while you can.
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