This is not a good sign.

[Anti Federalist]

I can speak for myself and some others I know, in my line of work: oil exploration and production.

We've gone Galt.

The government says we're the single greatest threat to mankind.

The government says it's going to jail us for providing a product that keeps everybody alive and fed.

Well, fuck you then: I am no longer risking my life and health in a dangerous, stressful job to provide the lifeblood of modern civilization only to be thrown in a GULAG for a reward.

May every Marxist prick freeze to death.

 

[cjm]

We've gone Galt.

A completely reasonable response.

 

[sparebulb]

Doesn't "going Galt" imply that there is some mysterious utopian movement that welcomes useful dissidents?

The closest I could come to "going Galt" would be to live in a refrigerator box down by the river and rounding up carts at walmarx for the 'gubmint food and health card.

My only choices seem to be to work for the Man at a high level or a low level.

The elites have shown that there is an endless supply of people with skills close enough to replace each one of us. All the better for the Man that this country looks more and more like the countries from which our replacements originate.

Opting out means homelessness, cold, and hunger.

Depressing.

 

[CaptUSA]

Doesn't "going Galt" imply that there is some mysterious utopian movement that welcomes useful dissidents?

Not really. I think it means not allowing the masses to exploit your productivity while demonizing and stealing from you. So you stop producing for them.

What you do after that is up to you.

 

[Slave Mentality]

Doesn't "going Galt" imply that there is some mysterious utopian movement that welcomes useful dissidents?

The closest I could come to "going Galt" would be to live in a refrigerator box down by the river and rounding up carts at walmarx for the 'gubmint food and health card.

My only choices seem to be to work for the Man at a high level or a low level.

The elites have shown that there is an endless supply of people with skills close enough to replace each one of us. All the better for the Man that this country looks more and more like the countries from which our replacements originate.

Opting out means homelessness, cold, and hunger.

Depressing.

We all now find ourselves ensnared by a trap set long before our births. The trap is now being sprung. Many of us have our heads down hoping it wont wash over us, but we know it eventually will. I believe I would prefer homelessness, cold, and hunger, than living in this quickly rising beast system. Unfortunately, I believe we will all have to make that hard choice. Give up your soul for comfort, or live like a free man in squalor? May they all be drawn and quartered for this culling.

 

[belian78]

Opting out means homelessness, cold, and hunger.

Depressing.

Not necessarily. I've not actually done it, but I've studied up on making everything from immediate shelters to brick and mortar homes, using nothing but what's in nature. I've studied and taught myself how to make different structures for food/hygiene/etc, also using nothing but what's around you. I am confident that when the time comes that I'm put in that situation, I can walk into the hills and survive pretty comfortably. My only issue is deciding whether or not all that effort would be worth it to live completely alone. Because as of now there are zero people around me that have these abilities that will even consider the option of opting out of the system completely.

 

[CaptUSA]

We all now find ourselves ensnared by a trap set long before our births. The trap is now being sprung. Many of us have our heads down hoping it wont wash over us, but we know it eventually will. I believe I would prefer homelessness, cold, and hunger, than living in this quickly rising beast system. Unfortunately, I believe we will all have to make that hard choice. Give up your soul for comfort, or live like a free man in squalor? May they all be drawn and quartered for this culling.

As long as there are people around you that need your value, then you will never live in squalor. It's not a binary choice between freedom and comfort. BUT... You need to be valuable to people.

 

[Slave Mentality]

As long as there are people around you that need your value, then you will never live in squalor. It's not a binary choice between freedom and comfort. BUT... You need to be valuable to people.

In a natural state of affairs I would 100% agree with you. What is happening now is not natural. I can make it outside their system because I have practical skills. My level of comfort under such circumstances would be squalor comparatively speaking. Just keeping fed, warm, and dry is a 24/7/365 job without modern day conveniences. You can't even get utilities turned on without a checking account around here....

 

[oyarde]

Havnt been too many good signs in the past 13 years ( or maybe the 95 before that ). Overall the majority of the country are dirty marxists that plan for everyone but the kremlin to be poor and stupid . Because of this they are nothing more than economic terrorists. Once you accept this as the truth it makes life decisions easier. Until then your just part of the problem.

 

[TheTexan]

Havnt been too many good signs in the past 13 years ( or maybe the 95 before that ). Overall the majority of the country are dirty marxists that plan for everyone but the kremlin to be poor and stupid . Because of this they are nothing more than economic terrorists. Once you accept this as the truth it makes life decisions easier. Until then your just part of the problem.

Yup

 

[CaptUSA]

Mike Rowe follow-up...

 

[Brian4Liberty]

People wonder who is really in charge. It’s President Camacho.

 

[Voluntarist]

I represent one facet of the "not a good sign" problem; and it was a problem even before the pandemic and shutdowns. I'm an old engineer that retired in 2020. I had been employed at the St. Louis site of a large national corporation. In St. Louis, the company had been bleeding a net loss of 15-20 engineers a month to retirement for at least the last five years. By and large, the young engineers you would expect to replace the old guys with aren't interested in settling in the MidWest - they're drawn to the coasts. And the problem was exacerbated by the fact that the company was attempting to host new work in the less-expensive MidWest rather than the higher-cost coasts.

I'd be interested, for grins, to see what those labor stats are on a state by state basis rather than nationally. Which states have the most jobs to fill on a per capita basis? Which states have the worst job participation rates? Which states have the jobs to fill and which states have the workers? Where are the imbalances the worst?

 

[GlennwaldSnowdenAssanged]

Inflated costs are great for government. Housing goes up and people and business pay more property taxes. Items go up and people pay more sales tax. Businesses struggle to not raise prices to keep the customer but the state always gets their cut.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Doesn't "going Galt" imply that there is some mysterious utopian movement that welcomes useful dissidents?

Nope. There was a "Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged, but that was an invitation-only special case.

There wouldn't have been enough room there for everyone who "went Galt".

The closest I could come to "going Galt" would be to live in a refrigerator box down by the river and rounding up carts at walmarx for the 'gubmint food and health card.

My only choices seem to be to work for the Man at a high level or a low level.

The elites have shown that there is an endless supply of people with skills close enough to replace each one of us. All the better for the Man that this country looks more and more like the countries from which our replacements originate.

Opting out means homelessness, cold, and hunger.

"Going Galt" doesn't mean quitting your job and becoming homeless (or a backwoods survivalist, or whatever) - although I suppose that's one way you could go about it, if you wanted to do it that way. It doesn't mean removing the product of your body's labor from society. It means removing the product of your mind's labor from society. IOW: "going Galt" is essentially just a "brain drain" tactic - it doesn't require anyone to become a self-isolating hermit.

It's been a while since the last time I read Atlas Shrugged, so I don't recall exactly how it was put, but in Galt's (in)famous speech, he didn't tell people to just quit their jobs - not unless they were reasonably able to do so (by retiring early, for example). He told them to stop putting any effort or ability into their work and to do the bare physical minimum needed to keep their jobs and adequately maintain themselves and those they cared about. He suggested that if their work required any particular intelligence, creativity or special talent that they get some other job that doesn't require any of those things (à la Hugh Akston working as a fry cook in a roadside diner instead of as a university philosophy professor, for example). The product of any efforts of their minds or talents should be kept secret and not shared with the world for its benefit (and at the expense of the creators) - not until the world was finally willing to fully acknowledge the value of the "men of the mind" (and recognize the brutish, vicious, and parasitical nature of the "men of the body").

 

[A Son of Liberty]

Nope. There was a "Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged, but that was an invitation-only special case.

There wouldn't have been enough room there for everyone who "went Galt".



"Going Galt" doesn't mean quitting your job and becoming homeless (or a backwoods survivalist, or whatever) - although I suppose that's one way you could go about it, if you cared to. It doesn't mean removing the product of your body's labor from society. It means removing the product of your mind's labor from society.

It's been a while since the last time I read Atlas Shrugged, so don't recall exactly how it was put, but in Galt's (in)famous speech, he didn't tell people to just quit their jobs unless they were reasonably able to do so (by retiring early, for example). He told them to stop putting any effort or ability into their work and to do the bare physical minimum needed to keep their jobs. He suggested that if their work required any particular intelligence, creativity or special talent that they get some other job that doesn't require any of those things (à la Hugh Akston working as a fry cook in a roadside diner instead of as a university philosophy professor, for example). The product of any efforts of their minds or talents should be kept secret and not shared with the world for its benefit (and at the expense of the creators) - not until the world was finally willing to fully acknowledge the value of the "men of the mind" (and the parasitical nature of the "men of the body").

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Occam's Banana again.

//

 

[Anti Federalist]

Doesn't "going Galt" imply that there is some mysterious utopian movement that welcomes useful dissidents?

The closest I could come to "going Galt" would be to live in a refrigerator box down by the river and rounding up carts at walmarx for the 'gubmint food and health card.

My only choices seem to be to work for the Man at a high level or a low level.

The elites have shown that there is an endless supply of people with skills close enough to replace each one of us. All the better for the Man that this country looks more and more like the countries from which our replacements originate.

Opting out means homelessness, cold, and hunger.

Depressing.

I have, thank God, stayed relatively debt free, therefore I am not shackled to a huge nut every month.

My skills right now, which are very narrow, very specialized in the field I have spent the last thirty years in, would be worth over $200,000 a year in a realistic market.

I collect a private insurance company disability payment for a severe arthritis condition in my knees, brought on by decades of tossing, pitching decks.

When that runs out I'll either fully retire or deliver pizza or dub around in my forge blacksmithing.

And good luck trying to get oil out the ground in ten thousand feet of ocean water.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Nope. There was a "Galt's Gulch" in Atlas Shrugged, but that was an invitation-only special case.

There wouldn't have been enough room there for everyone who "went Galt".



"Going Galt" doesn't mean quitting your job and becoming homeless (or a backwoods survivalist, or whatever) - although I suppose that's one way you could go about it, if you wanted to do it that way. It doesn't mean removing the product of your body's labor from society. It means removing the product of your mind's labor from society. IOW: "going Galt" is essentially just a "brain drain" tactic - it doesn't require anyone to become a self-isolating hermit.

It's been a while since the last time I read Atlas Shrugged, so I don't recall exactly how it was put, but in Galt's (in)famous speech, he didn't tell people to just quit their jobs - not unless they were reasonably able to do so (by retiring early, for example). He told them to stop putting any effort or ability into their work and to do the bare physical minimum needed to keep their jobs and adequately maintain themselves and those they cared about. He suggested that if their work required any particular intelligence, creativity or special talent that they get some other job that doesn't require any of those things (à la Hugh Akston working as a fry cook in a roadside diner instead of as a university philosophy professor, for example). The product of any efforts of their minds or talents should be kept secret and not shared with the world for its benefit (and at the expense of the creators) - not until the world was finally willing to fully acknowledge the value of the "men of the mind" (and recognize the brutish, vicious, and parasitical nature of the "men of the body").

Exact a mundo!

Having just re-read Atlas, it was refreshing to realize that was the point of "Going Galt".

I have worked my whole life to acquire a skill set that not one in ten thousand people can do, indeed fully 75 percent of people can not even stand a life at sea due to sea sickness affecting roughly that number of random people.

Not only is the system going to tax and regulate me now they are going to criminalize me for providing the substance that keeps their miserable asses alive.

Fuck them.

Go get some purple haired lesbians and soy boy fagggots to pull that oil out of the ground, I'm out.

See how far they get.

Hope they fucking starve to death, the miserable pricks.

And every trucker, and pilot and farmer and plumber and electrician and carpenter and welder and on and on...every single one should do the same goddamned thing.

GENERAL STRIKE!

Let the pansies and the damaged assholes who are pushing Communist revolution because they think they will become Comrade Academicians, in the new regime, tenured at some Marxist citadel teaching critical queeer theory...let them go out and fly themselves round and grow their own food and wire their house and fix their car.

Assenholes every one...may they fucking freeze to death in frostbit agony.

 

[69360]

We've gone Galt.

I did. I stopped working and live off the government cheese now. You can own a nice home and one car and that does not disqualify you. It's easy and I'm happy with my life. If everyone did this, no way it is sustainable. IMO this is how you take down the government.

I used to run a sucessful business that actually helped lots of people. This covid nonsense opened my eyes a lot. Why work hard when you can just enjoy life.

 

[Indy Vidual]

... It's easy and I'm happy with my life. If everyone did this, no way it is sustainable. IMO this is how you take down the government.....

Congrats on being happy! When the starving mobs hit your town, will you still be safe and happy?