/lit/ - Literature

>>18916505
>I’m constantly reminded that my ancestors lived through worse and survived and even if a fatal collapse does come I’ll make it.
I get that sense reading about Chinese history because things regularly go completely off the rails and people start eating each other, but it works out okay from a long-term perspective. Do you know what I mean?

I think people today are afraid of stuff -- all kinds of stuff -- and they don't really know why. But what you're afraid of is probably not going to kill you, right? Or teenage Nigerian girls in Boko Haram territory are way more resilient and capable of evasive maneuvers than your average survivalist dude in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas or something. Remember when a couple of guys with Hawaiian shirts with a couple guns would go stand in front of courthouses in the U.S. and the media would take pictures of them? And that would ignite the whole internet. Like "oh, he's got a gun!" Oh no! He's a "threat."

Or, depending on your perspective, they're badasses! But there are only *three* of those guys. It's just not a big deal. Or the media says again that they're "Nazis!" But the Nazis had an actual army. My grandfather was in the U.S. Army in World War II. They got overrun one time by a Nazi-German attack and then reinforcement showed up so they were okay. The Nazis also had airplanes called Stukas that would dive-bomb you while making this screaming sound. Also, towards the end of the war, sometimes the pilots didn't pull up. So, people are afraid of the Boogaloos? Gimme a friggin' break. Boogaloo fires off a shot? Ahhhh! Everyone panic!!!

But also the Taliban. What are people actually afraid of? Some people are/were afraid of the angry bearded brown Muslims from a "stan" country who attack America while flying on a magic carpet waving a scimitar around. While others are afraid of the (brown, but don't mention that part) rednecks from the countryside who will be cruel to gay people and women. But then the Taliban actually take over and they're just standing around and waving at the CNN camera crew and "hey, we'll be over here if you need anything. Death to America!" And then they smile. "Yeah, Death to America to you, too! Have a good day, sir!" They executed some prisoner pulled out of a jail, but the prisoner turned out to be the local ISIS leader. I dunno, maybe they're not so bad. You meet them, and it turns out they're pretty normal people.