I'm not so much worried about another civil war

[cyclonefence]

as I am about another Dark Ages, when a majority of people scorned science and actively persecuted people engaged in things most people didn't understand. There are people today who believe the earth is flat; how soon will it be before someone points out that it's clear the sun goes around the earth, not the other way around.

A friend of mine believes the moon landing was a hoax "because it's impossible to maintain radio communication that far away." He is ill-educated yet basically intelligent (really!) and if I had the skills to teach him I would. But how soon before people who don't understand science (we already have creationists who have a foothold in some school districts) question everything we know about--oh, vaccines, say--because they don't understand how they work. So they make up stories about what's going on--vaccines are a way to implant chocolate chips for mind control, for instance.

I said to my friend the other day that he is living in the Matrix, where nothing is what it appears to be, and everything is controlled for some malevolent reason, like making your kids want to change their gender.

If Biden doesn't win, and Trump does, I truly feel we're heading down a road darker than anyone can imagine.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Reproductive rights are heading back towards my grandmother's time.

19th century.

[cyclonefence]

2. My grandmother actually had a legal abortion

around 1923. Her doctor told her her heart was too weak to sustain another pregnancy. (she wanted another baby and got pregnant again anyway--and lived to 86).

Back in the olden, *olden* days, abortions were a matter of medical care, not legislation, and were decided on, properly, by the patient and her physician.

[Irish_Dem]

5. That's interesting.

I wonder how common that was in 1923?

[Elessar Zappa]

11. That wasn't true everywhere.

[2naSalit]

3. If they win...

I have decided to sell everything and go on a world tour until I die. My passport is fresh and I would get a different one if I need to. I won't sty here, I wouldn't be safe.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. Not concerned with either

What worries me is a Fourth Reich where the State is used to regiment human behavior in the service of power hungry elites by restricting freedoms and confiscating labor, private property, and equity with the blessings of a right-wing SCOTUS.

[mopinko]

6. i'm not sure it's true, but i've seen a stat that 23% of americans believe

chocolate milk comes from brown cows. sadly, i wouldnt b the least bit surprised if this was true.

yeah, i’m right there w u.

[Ponietz]

7. Pollution is killing us

Wall Street gives us carbon, the plastics in our bodies, and the ubiquitous electro-magnetic smog.
Democracy cannot survive in these conditions. Autocracy will ascend until a mass die-off.

[Prairie Gates]

8. Many flat earthers believe the sun isn't even real, and certainly isn't a close star

[angrychair]

9. To be honest

Unless something changes, I don't see us even making it to the election in November.
Unless we get immediate military aid to Ukraine, they likely won't last the summer. This will, more likely than not, start WWIII shortly thereafter as most European nations would not be willing to sit idle as Russia slaughters innocent civilians and the refugees and humanitarian crisis it would cause in Europe would push them over the edge.

[Elessar Zappa]

12. That's not gonna happen.

Turn off the news and stop reading bad news. There’s plenty of good in this country still.

[angrychair]

13. Positive spin is nice

But reality is reality. No aid to Ukraine will absolutely led to world war. There is no other likely outcome.

[Johonny]

10. Much more concerned with America financial

Collapse. Trump has bankrupt everything he's touched and that includes the USA. The economy has had a long road to recover from Trump I. A second go around with him even older, lazier, and with less restraint in the system, full collapse seems possible.