re: #162 dangerman

they have to be able to find or even see a future, a way forward.

how is life in those places going to change, sustainably, for whoever lives there now and later? how do they 1)dig themselves out and 2)revitalize and 3)create opportunities. and that’s before considering how to attract other people to want to move and live there.

without a plan, there’s nothing left to hold onto but bitter grievance - the feeling of their way of life being eradicated by outside forces - when in actuality they’ve done it to themselves

you can sit in the mud and wallow over the way you wish things otherwise were.
or you do something about your situation.

It is outside forces that have changed their life. Technology, automation, outsourcing — all imposed on these small communities by the outside world. And these forces are moving ever faster while we humans are still the same creatures who lived in hunter/gatherer societies millennia ago.

It’s not so simple to adapt to these transformations at the breakneck speed they are arriving — your life is upended, with no real help to manage the changes — your skills are suddenly obsolete and, even when they aren’t, the job is moved to Asia to someone who earns a fraction of your salary — and the only positions left here also pay a fraction of your salary. It can take years to retrain and most of us who have family obligations don’t have the time. And as described in 1990’s magazine articles, many who retrained discovered that their potential new jobs got sent elsewhere too.

We need to rethink how to prepare our society to live in a period of constant upheaval. And psychologically most of us may not be able to handle that