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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Yeah that feeling hit me hard when I was playing with web SDRs. To keep it simple and not boring people can set up an antenna, hook it to a computer and you can go to their website to remotely listen to anything the antenna can hear. A univeristy in the Netherlands has one set up. You can hear regular radio, cell tower data, morse code, you name it.

    So I was able to listen to a Cuban propaganda broadcast, that somehow skipped between the ocean and atmosphere just right to get picked up by that antenna, turning into digital data sent through their website, going through cables under the ocean to my isp, through wifi, to me in near real time. Bonkers.





  • I think the difference is size. The US has states the size of European countries. Getting a country/state to pull together is a lot easier than the whole EU/US because the culture and goals are similar. Right now the Carolinas are pulling together to deal with flooding and Florida is dealing with a rocking hurricane season.

    But I agree with another comment that the real divides would be city vs rural.

    Cities tend to think that government is the main answer to problems since their lives are surrounded by roads and buildings and public transport and people have a lot less of their own to work with. You can’t easily have a garden in an apartment for example.

    Rural doesn’t have as much government influence since so much focus is spent on the cities. Power outages last longer, stores are few and far between, side roads are often an afterthought and police and fire are 10 min away if you’re lucky. So people use the land and neighbors and have the ability to be mostly self reliant.

    So you can see where the divides come from on a lot of subjects



  • The Rand corporation made a paper on what they call the “neomedieval era”. They get paid to research and write a bunch of analytical stuff for the US Govt and other big picture people.

    The idea is that the last 200 years has been an anomaly. Big central governments, industry, media etc. They make the case that a shift has started since about 2000. We are gradually sliding back to how things have worked for most of human history, decentralized societies, greater divides between rich and poor and governments trying their best to get by. Less chance of massive conventional world wars and more chance of messy regional ones (Syria, Lebanon etc). It’s an interesting read. So no it’s not just you!

    Anyway what we should all try to do is focus on what you can locally. Make friends, build skills and do stuff with them. Be involved and help each other. Yes there are always bigger fish to take things but building up is better than being helpless in difficult situations. It can be fun AND fufill a bigger purpose. No need for constant doom and gloom to do better.

    If I can get to a level my grandparents were with gardening, canning, sewing, diy repairs etc I’d be pretty well set. Back then it was a norm, but we offloaded those skills on companies and governments. Now it could be seen as homesteading or prepping but in their time it was common sense for a society that made it through world wars and the depression.