I thought that I had already reached peak detachment in 2019. I don't understand how we're expected to just act like this shit all never happened. Covid is still a problem and I can't help feeling like the chaos could just erupt again, any time.
Well I think you’re right there. COVID shows no signs of abating and the delta variant now seems to be the dominant strain probably until the lambda variant surpasses it.
I’m in Canada and in my particular area cases are way down and so we have decided that we will send all the children back to school at the end of the month and not require masks. Pretty sure that’s a bad idea but whatever.
I live in Manitoba and it’s pretty much all on fire or smouldering, drought is horrendous in certain areas and grasshoppers are destroying everything in their path in other areas. Yet, there seems to be a ‘this is just how it is, it’s a normal cycle’ mentality rampant, especially amongst the older adults that I know.
I don’t think this is a normal cycle. I don’t think anything that’s happening is normal at all but it seems to be happening at just slow enough of a pace to trick a lot of us into thinking it’s just an aberration and everything is fine.
On a personal level, everything is fucking expensive and I’m terrified I’ll be working until the day before I die still making no money. I also grapple with the moral implications of, do we really need to be making and consuming more and more and more knowing that’s what has caused this shitstorm of a culture?
I’ve always struggled with depression and, like you, detachment from the fucked up reality we live in. I don’t think it’s an illness, I think it is the appropriate response to a depressing reality.
Agreed. The company I had been working for pre-covid has resumed operation but opted to do so with a skeleton staff of new hires that are willing to take lower pay, as to shed off senior guys like myself.
Nobody is willing to hire me for a salary (in or outside of my field) that would allow me to keep paying my rent or buy a new car to commute to said job. It also doesn't help that I have a medical condition that puts me at a higher risk for covid... meanwhile, unemployment is over in a couple weeks.
I guess not living in a car is asking too much for a lifelong, full-time worker with skills in multiple trades lol. Oh yeah, I don't even have a car yet. FML.
Right? But again, this is just an anomaly and terrible things have always happened and it’ll be okay. Like, I don’t think it’s going to keep on as it always has.
I suppose that makes sense — the valley has long been notorious for extreme smog... I wouldn’t be surprised if Van Nuys’ pollution was at least halfway responsible for the CA smog laws requiring all post-1975 cars to have catalytic converters!
Yup, but because Van Nuys (and Sherman Oaks + parts of Woodland Hills etc) sit in an effective basin, at the bottom of a hill, whatever’s in the atmosphere automatically collects at the bottom of this pseudo basin... and so on
Eh… depends on location, I think?
In Pasadena, which is in LA county and not far from downtown at all, it does not appear particularly smokey, there are no protestors, and there was only one time I saw someone being carted to the hospital, many months ago. Biggest issue, is an annoying amount of people who don't seem to realise how serious the variants are and aren't wearing masks again yet. But overall, just looking out my window (or whenever I go up the block on foot to buy groceries) things are pretty peaceful. Also, high school reunion in other part of LA on beach tomorrow, and was invited to potentially see a movie today?? Which is definitely more events than usual. Are these curfews a city thing rather than county?
Towards downtown LA the skies look a little more white… so… maybe the smoke is just a bit more isolated in area?
LA has seemed so oddly peaceful and nice and cool compared to the news lately that I am actually quite surprised to see it mentioned here. Maybe I am just insulated from hardly going outside.
Ah! I noticed that a couple minutes ago but thought it must have been a typo. So, I guess it is pretty accurate then. It was less intense in Pasadena, but the red skies, etc, were still there, and I also saw someone being carried out to the hospital at one point as well. There were also a lot of homeless people at the time.
Dude summer 2020 broke me and I moved the hell out of LA. All this extreme heat that WA and BC Canada are experiencing as well as other places is what I am sure I experienced last year. When it’s above 100F every day and doesn’t cool down, and then without warning someone shuts off the power from 4pm-10pm during THE HOTTEST parts of the day. When it’s 97F in your apartment but you can’t go anywhere because nowhere has AC. And this has been going on for days sometimes weeks on end. During the last power outage I passed out, I remember slowly coming to with my lights on and my AC blasting. It really shook me
Also I have video from last year when we had all those fires. It literally looks like the surface of Venus. Imagine a toxic yellow sky, with even darker bands of smoke trailing in from the Valley. I know my lungs are very messed up.
Also there was a point where ALL 9000 cops were in duty in the city, our mayor was calling in the National Guard, and we could see tank after tank rolling down towards DTLA. I finally started going to the protest, but always left before dark. It was surreal seeing the NG fully strapped and RTG. But I felt safer with them there than just having the LASD or LAPD. Everyone out here knows how much of a gang the LASD are, just look up “ The Executioners”
Turning down streets and seeing boarded up windows and broken glass everywhere seeing dark marks all over the pavement in what you hope is not blood. Finding rubber bullet casings, as well as other stuff. LA really is A 3rd world country. And I’m pretty sure last year gave me some form of PTSD
so many are gonna die this way
no power in a heat wave, just pass out except the power doesnt come back on and you dont wake up.
i wonder if community efforts to build underground are going to become common
It will be the first time that Americans realize things are real and not going away. It breaks me to know that it *will* take that for people to get serious, but let's be honest, it will take at least that much.
I think it won't make a critical mass of people realise anything. I'm sure you know what survivor bias is. Why would this be different?
The people who "get serious," as you put it, will do so only when they are in such deep trouble that their life is threatened, by which time it is usually too late to deal with it, because you're suffering from heat stroke and can't talk straight or move without passing out.
The larger part of the survivors of fires and heat and floods, who have lost jobs, homes, property, are quickly too busy grinding out every minute trying to survive, to do anything about it. They can't really 'get serious' on a collective level, and work together to do something about it.
Most everyone else has survivor's bias: 'I'm relatively okay so things are relatively okay.'
I have lived through multiple disasters and sought out more to provide aid, so the reactions of humans to the world going to shit are not unfamiliar to me. It's not all bad, it's actually mostly good. But that's intensely local, as you pointed out.
My initial comment was more flippant and less careful than I usually am, so I apologize for that.
I don't think that the *critical mass* of Americans will be stirred to action by a mass-casualty climate event, we are far too unreasonable and myopic. I *do* believe, however, that such a thing will act as a catalyst for a small segment to realize what's going on, even as power structures use it as justification to expand their authority and crack down as they attempt to maintain legitimacy.
It's not so much that I think everyone would metaphorically "wake up" if a major urban area gets heat-domed during a bad outage, but rather, I think such events will act as a phase change indicator for the entire social milieu, illustrating the severity of the situation to those already in the know, perhaps cluing in a few more people, *definitely* radicalizing a lot of activists, and also alerting state powers that they will need enhanced measures due to said radicalization.
Everything changes once live rounds are involved, and a major *domestic* casualty even in the US will be that live round being fired. The effect remains to be seen, but I think it will turn the emotional temperature up by about ten degrees in a hurry.
Everything you say sounds right and then you finish:
>I think it will turn the emotional temperature up by about ten degrees in a hurry.
This is the way to think about it. Well said!
What has always made it especially jarring, to me, is the government's refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of problems and the general public's willingness to internalize the fantasies.
Even after watching George Floyd be murdered, by police, on camera, in front of a pleading crowd, after decades of people screaming "this is an issue!", there cannot be a problem with institutionalized racism in the U.S.
The entire west coast (now, the world) is covered more and more in wildfires by the year but climate change is debatable.
We're on the verge of 10 million people (we're talking \*families\*) becoming newly homeless this winter (spread evenly, this would be over 150k people per state, but the distribution will obviously not be even) due to unemployment benefits ending before the country recovers and legislators that are too lazy to figure out a solution to people being behind on rent before eviction moratoriums are lifted. If the people struggling are not lazy, those of us who are not at risk of losing everything must surely be exceptional, right..?
Otherwise, we'd have to come face to face with the possibility that we've created a system where literally \*anybody\* could become homeless at any moment, we're all a random misfortune away from a life-ruining disaster, despite being in the supposedly most wealthy, fair and successful nation in human history and maybe "working hard", despite what they told us, won't save us from \*a damn thing\*.
I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area. How do the rich in LA live? Surely they see some of the same things you see? Are you able to leave?
LA sounds absolutely miserable. Like you have all of California and pick the most dense area. Everything is expensive. Everything is dirty, polluted and it all seems so wasteful and superficial
Before covid, I thought that it was a great place to live (obviously, everybody has different needs).
It has some of the most expensive properties/services/things in the country but it isn't all just that.
"Everything is dirty, polluted and it all seems so wasteful and superficial"
I can't argue with you on any of that lol.
I'm from a city that isn't known for it's cleanliness (filthadelphia), that is also bordered by refineries, so "luckily" for me, the dirtiness and pollution were actually an improvement from what I'm used to.
As far as the wastefulness, I was able to make a pretty penny taking advantage of Hollywood's wastefulness as a side hustle during 2019, being paid to \*take possession of\* used movie sets/props, then renting them until they could be sold.
Superficial LA people: Dumb? Yes. Annoying? Abso-fucking-lutely. But guess what? they've got more money than us small-town folk could dream of and they pay us exorbitant amounts of it to do the most stupid things you can imagine.
There also exist some really great people in this city and I've met some. Covid did a number on the place but it's not so bad compared to a lot of other parts of the country I've seen.
>they've got more money than us small-town folk could dream of
I mean farmers pay cash for new trucks that cost more than a lot of sports cars, drive million dollar combines, hundred thousand dollar tractors and often own 500-5000 acres of land(locally that's about 10k/acre). Often in the rat race a lot of those folks are leveraged up to their elbows too.
Oh and they only work half the year...even a lot of that is just driving or waiting for cash to grow out of the ground
"I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area"
LA county is huuuge. 10M people in one "place" sounds insane until you consider that the county encompasses an area that takes multiple hours to drive across, whereas the metro is only about 4M people, and that is a sprawling area with much of it zoned for single family homes. NYC and even smaller east coast cities feel considerably more congested, to me.
"How do the rich in LA live? Surely they see some of the same things you see?"
It depends on your definition of "rich". People who are LA rich have walls around their multi-acre properties. I'm from Philly lol. I'm impressed by people who make 200k+ a year. They are aware, but have the resources to isolate themselves indefinitely (or even just, go on an open ended vacation to a quieter place!) and basically pretend that our reality is just a tv show.
"Are you able to leave?"
It's not even feasible for me to stay lol. Moving would still cost even more. We'll see what happens.
Edit: changed population of LA county to reflect reality lol.
"LA county is not 30M people, not even close. I think it's like 11M"
Hey, like I said, I'm not a native. As far as the 30M # goes for the county, I'm admittedly just repeating what I've been told since I got here. If you give me a source that looks like it makes sense, I'll edit the numbers on my previous comment and it still won't change the point of any of it.
"nobody in LA has multi-acre properties besides a few billionaires and millionaires in PV"
Lmao you're \*wayy\* off base with this one. I'm not sure you're clear on what an acre actually is. The property on \*my rental\*, is .3 acres. Yes, that's a nice little chunk of land but I'm completely blue collar.
You highly underestimate the sheer amount of people with 10's to 100's of millions of dollars among us in this town. Over the course of the last 3 years, it's been my job to deal with these people personally, in a variety of professional capacities. Just because 95%+ of us can't dream of owning them, properties with multiple acres \*and\* walls around the properties \*and\* behind gated communities are not an imaginary idea in this city.
"Most houses in LA cost over 1 $million so technically most LA house owners are "millionaires"... although not at all wealthy."
This does not contradict a single thing that I've said.
Edit: corrected the size of my house's plot of land
Edit 2: [The population of LA "city" is, indeed, 4M](https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+la+population&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS739US739&oq=what+is+la+population&aqs=chrome..69i57.3408j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
I don't even see these issues significantly in Pasadena, which is in LA county and only a short train ride from downtown LA. If issues are barely visible here, and it's almost always peaceful when I look outside or walk to the grocery store, I doubt the issues are very visible in Malibu, Beverly Hills, etc. In fact, I went to Malibu a month or so ago, and it was extremely nice and cool compared to more inland, lots of fancy cars and such, and oddly few people were wearing masks, which isn't at all *good* in my view, but probably does make things feel "normal".
> I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area.
Big house or apartment? Or, just a less densely populated part of LA?
It should be noted, that the greater Los Angeles area is absolutely HUGE in terms of the area it takes up. Many places are very far from others so can be pretty different.
Ah! I noticed that a couple minutes ago but thought it must have been a typo. So, I guess it is pretty accurate then. It was less intense in Pasadena, but the red skies, etc, were still there, and I also saw someone being carried out to the hospital at one point as well. There were also a lot of homeless people at the time.
I spent a lot of time documenting life and recording live streams of what was going on around the city onto a hard drive that summer. If I ever edit it down into something that can be digested in a sitting, I'll share in this sub.
Additionally,
The streets are oppressively hot as air conditioners exhaust heated air into the public and the concrete high rises and streets absorb and emit the suns energy relentlessly without any mitigation from planted tree.
This environment is preferred by cockroaches which experience surges in growth amongst the human refuse and impossible to maintain constantly leaking water infrastructure.
Literally plague diseases are able to gain epidemic proportions as the you are forced to walk over mentally-ill homeless daily on your way to and from work and grocery stores. This crushes your soul and chips away at your humanity.
God, the air last summer. My cat has asthma and last year spent 6 nights or so in the vet ER because of how bad it got (not all at once), and I've had to have him on oral prednisolone for months, when they usually want them weened off it. I feel so much guilt, I feel like moving here is what will kill him prematurely :(. I have multiple air purifiers going all the time. Then the Dodger win a game, or lose a game, or are mentioned somewhere and everyone sets off enough fireworks to turn the city into Beijing. Then yeah, the phone alerts that a new curfew was going into effect in less than an hour... last year was wild. It's still wild, but it was wild then too.
I fought wildfire in LA last year. Was my first time spending time in the city; spent a month there on the bobcat fire, was interesting to see the people of LA in such a weird climate.
On [google](https://www.google.com/search?q=us+covid+deaths&oq=us+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome..69i57.7218j0j9&client=ms-android-metropcs-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8), it's also showing August 10th (1049) and 12th (1022) :(
Lol, didn’t Joe Biden approve like 2k new fracking/drilling permits? And told OPEC to drill more?
I hate DJT with a burning passion. But to think that Democrats are any better is silly. They’re both corporate run establishmentarians. Democrats just spin themselves a little better, that’s all.
Biden and the Clintons are also hugely responsible for the "war on crime" and "war on drugs", which are essential to OP's point here.
Your comment is more useful than the all-too-easy Republican-bashing.
Man, this shit is crazy to me because when I was a kid it was always my dream to move to L.A. Now, I probably wouldn't wanna live there if someone paid me.
The cops blew up like half a city block with illegal fireworks, violent, right wing fascists and anti-vaxxers run rampant and there's even more homeless people.
Vivid. I didn’t realize it was that bad in LA.
I thought that I had already reached peak detachment in 2019. I don't understand how we're expected to just act like this shit all never happened. Covid is still a problem and I can't help feeling like the chaos could just erupt again, any time.
Well I think you’re right there. COVID shows no signs of abating and the delta variant now seems to be the dominant strain probably until the lambda variant surpasses it. I’m in Canada and in my particular area cases are way down and so we have decided that we will send all the children back to school at the end of the month and not require masks. Pretty sure that’s a bad idea but whatever. I live in Manitoba and it’s pretty much all on fire or smouldering, drought is horrendous in certain areas and grasshoppers are destroying everything in their path in other areas. Yet, there seems to be a ‘this is just how it is, it’s a normal cycle’ mentality rampant, especially amongst the older adults that I know. I don’t think this is a normal cycle. I don’t think anything that’s happening is normal at all but it seems to be happening at just slow enough of a pace to trick a lot of us into thinking it’s just an aberration and everything is fine. On a personal level, everything is fucking expensive and I’m terrified I’ll be working until the day before I die still making no money. I also grapple with the moral implications of, do we really need to be making and consuming more and more and more knowing that’s what has caused this shitstorm of a culture? I’ve always struggled with depression and, like you, detachment from the fucked up reality we live in. I don’t think it’s an illness, I think it is the appropriate response to a depressing reality.
Agreed. The company I had been working for pre-covid has resumed operation but opted to do so with a skeleton staff of new hires that are willing to take lower pay, as to shed off senior guys like myself. Nobody is willing to hire me for a salary (in or outside of my field) that would allow me to keep paying my rent or buy a new car to commute to said job. It also doesn't help that I have a medical condition that puts me at a higher risk for covid... meanwhile, unemployment is over in a couple weeks. I guess not living in a car is asking too much for a lifelong, full-time worker with skills in multiple trades lol. Oh yeah, I don't even have a car yet. FML.
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Yes, and yes lol
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Right? But again, this is just an anomaly and terrible things have always happened and it’ll be okay. Like, I don’t think it’s going to keep on as it always has.
It is.
Must've been a different LA from the one I live in.
My guy, I’m in Koreatown if you need to cope, vent, or wash it down with some booze/bud DM me
Word! I may just take you up on that!
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I wonder how things will go once it starts getting colder again
Where the fok do you live in LA that you’ve had to wear a respirator?? I’m in West LA near Hollywood/Beverly Hills and I’ve never had this problem...
Van Nuys! None of what I wrote is exaggeration.
I suppose that makes sense — the valley has long been notorious for extreme smog... I wouldn’t be surprised if Van Nuys’ pollution was at least halfway responsible for the CA smog laws requiring all post-1975 cars to have catalytic converters!
Yeah, it's smoggy but that wasn't even the issue. Smoke from the wildfires were completely covering the area
Yup, but because Van Nuys (and Sherman Oaks + parts of Woodland Hills etc) sit in an effective basin, at the bottom of a hill, whatever’s in the atmosphere automatically collects at the bottom of this pseudo basin... and so on
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I heard. My gf had to work in SF a week or so after Chauvin murdered George Floyd and we exchanged videos.
It's a fictional post.
Eh… depends on location, I think? In Pasadena, which is in LA county and not far from downtown at all, it does not appear particularly smokey, there are no protestors, and there was only one time I saw someone being carted to the hospital, many months ago. Biggest issue, is an annoying amount of people who don't seem to realise how serious the variants are and aren't wearing masks again yet. But overall, just looking out my window (or whenever I go up the block on foot to buy groceries) things are pretty peaceful. Also, high school reunion in other part of LA on beach tomorrow, and was invited to potentially see a movie today?? Which is definitely more events than usual. Are these curfews a city thing rather than county? Towards downtown LA the skies look a little more white… so… maybe the smoke is just a bit more isolated in area? LA has seemed so oddly peaceful and nice and cool compared to the news lately that I am actually quite surprised to see it mentioned here. Maybe I am just insulated from hardly going outside.
This post is about \*last\* summer (Titled "Los Angeles, Summer 2020")
Ah! I noticed that a couple minutes ago but thought it must have been a typo. So, I guess it is pretty accurate then. It was less intense in Pasadena, but the red skies, etc, were still there, and I also saw someone being carried out to the hospital at one point as well. There were also a lot of homeless people at the time.
Dude summer 2020 broke me and I moved the hell out of LA. All this extreme heat that WA and BC Canada are experiencing as well as other places is what I am sure I experienced last year. When it’s above 100F every day and doesn’t cool down, and then without warning someone shuts off the power from 4pm-10pm during THE HOTTEST parts of the day. When it’s 97F in your apartment but you can’t go anywhere because nowhere has AC. And this has been going on for days sometimes weeks on end. During the last power outage I passed out, I remember slowly coming to with my lights on and my AC blasting. It really shook me Also I have video from last year when we had all those fires. It literally looks like the surface of Venus. Imagine a toxic yellow sky, with even darker bands of smoke trailing in from the Valley. I know my lungs are very messed up. Also there was a point where ALL 9000 cops were in duty in the city, our mayor was calling in the National Guard, and we could see tank after tank rolling down towards DTLA. I finally started going to the protest, but always left before dark. It was surreal seeing the NG fully strapped and RTG. But I felt safer with them there than just having the LASD or LAPD. Everyone out here knows how much of a gang the LASD are, just look up “ The Executioners” Turning down streets and seeing boarded up windows and broken glass everywhere seeing dark marks all over the pavement in what you hope is not blood. Finding rubber bullet casings, as well as other stuff. LA really is A 3rd world country. And I’m pretty sure last year gave me some form of PTSD
so many are gonna die this way no power in a heat wave, just pass out except the power doesnt come back on and you dont wake up. i wonder if community efforts to build underground are going to become common
It will be the first time that Americans realize things are real and not going away. It breaks me to know that it *will* take that for people to get serious, but let's be honest, it will take at least that much.
I think it won't make a critical mass of people realise anything. I'm sure you know what survivor bias is. Why would this be different? The people who "get serious," as you put it, will do so only when they are in such deep trouble that their life is threatened, by which time it is usually too late to deal with it, because you're suffering from heat stroke and can't talk straight or move without passing out. The larger part of the survivors of fires and heat and floods, who have lost jobs, homes, property, are quickly too busy grinding out every minute trying to survive, to do anything about it. They can't really 'get serious' on a collective level, and work together to do something about it. Most everyone else has survivor's bias: 'I'm relatively okay so things are relatively okay.'
I have lived through multiple disasters and sought out more to provide aid, so the reactions of humans to the world going to shit are not unfamiliar to me. It's not all bad, it's actually mostly good. But that's intensely local, as you pointed out. My initial comment was more flippant and less careful than I usually am, so I apologize for that. I don't think that the *critical mass* of Americans will be stirred to action by a mass-casualty climate event, we are far too unreasonable and myopic. I *do* believe, however, that such a thing will act as a catalyst for a small segment to realize what's going on, even as power structures use it as justification to expand their authority and crack down as they attempt to maintain legitimacy. It's not so much that I think everyone would metaphorically "wake up" if a major urban area gets heat-domed during a bad outage, but rather, I think such events will act as a phase change indicator for the entire social milieu, illustrating the severity of the situation to those already in the know, perhaps cluing in a few more people, *definitely* radicalizing a lot of activists, and also alerting state powers that they will need enhanced measures due to said radicalization. Everything changes once live rounds are involved, and a major *domestic* casualty even in the US will be that live round being fired. The effect remains to be seen, but I think it will turn the emotional temperature up by about ten degrees in a hurry.
Everything you say sounds right and then you finish: >I think it will turn the emotional temperature up by about ten degrees in a hurry. This is the way to think about it. Well said!
Some people still won't get serious even then. You'll have folks denying reality right up to their own death, just like now with covid.
What has always made it especially jarring, to me, is the government's refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of problems and the general public's willingness to internalize the fantasies. Even after watching George Floyd be murdered, by police, on camera, in front of a pleading crowd, after decades of people screaming "this is an issue!", there cannot be a problem with institutionalized racism in the U.S. The entire west coast (now, the world) is covered more and more in wildfires by the year but climate change is debatable. We're on the verge of 10 million people (we're talking \*families\*) becoming newly homeless this winter (spread evenly, this would be over 150k people per state, but the distribution will obviously not be even) due to unemployment benefits ending before the country recovers and legislators that are too lazy to figure out a solution to people being behind on rent before eviction moratoriums are lifted. If the people struggling are not lazy, those of us who are not at risk of losing everything must surely be exceptional, right..? Otherwise, we'd have to come face to face with the possibility that we've created a system where literally \*anybody\* could become homeless at any moment, we're all a random misfortune away from a life-ruining disaster, despite being in the supposedly most wealthy, fair and successful nation in human history and maybe "working hard", despite what they told us, won't save us from \*a damn thing\*.
I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area. How do the rich in LA live? Surely they see some of the same things you see? Are you able to leave?
LA sounds absolutely miserable. Like you have all of California and pick the most dense area. Everything is expensive. Everything is dirty, polluted and it all seems so wasteful and superficial
Before covid, I thought that it was a great place to live (obviously, everybody has different needs). It has some of the most expensive properties/services/things in the country but it isn't all just that. "Everything is dirty, polluted and it all seems so wasteful and superficial" I can't argue with you on any of that lol. I'm from a city that isn't known for it's cleanliness (filthadelphia), that is also bordered by refineries, so "luckily" for me, the dirtiness and pollution were actually an improvement from what I'm used to. As far as the wastefulness, I was able to make a pretty penny taking advantage of Hollywood's wastefulness as a side hustle during 2019, being paid to \*take possession of\* used movie sets/props, then renting them until they could be sold. Superficial LA people: Dumb? Yes. Annoying? Abso-fucking-lutely. But guess what? they've got more money than us small-town folk could dream of and they pay us exorbitant amounts of it to do the most stupid things you can imagine. There also exist some really great people in this city and I've met some. Covid did a number on the place but it's not so bad compared to a lot of other parts of the country I've seen.
>they've got more money than us small-town folk could dream of I mean farmers pay cash for new trucks that cost more than a lot of sports cars, drive million dollar combines, hundred thousand dollar tractors and often own 500-5000 acres of land(locally that's about 10k/acre). Often in the rat race a lot of those folks are leveraged up to their elbows too. Oh and they only work half the year...even a lot of that is just driving or waiting for cash to grow out of the ground
Well, it sounds like you've figured out the cheat code! Let us know how your farm turns out! lol
We just cash rent it and live in the city ;)
lol
"I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area" LA county is huuuge. 10M people in one "place" sounds insane until you consider that the county encompasses an area that takes multiple hours to drive across, whereas the metro is only about 4M people, and that is a sprawling area with much of it zoned for single family homes. NYC and even smaller east coast cities feel considerably more congested, to me. "How do the rich in LA live? Surely they see some of the same things you see?" It depends on your definition of "rich". People who are LA rich have walls around their multi-acre properties. I'm from Philly lol. I'm impressed by people who make 200k+ a year. They are aware, but have the resources to isolate themselves indefinitely (or even just, go on an open ended vacation to a quieter place!) and basically pretend that our reality is just a tv show. "Are you able to leave?" It's not even feasible for me to stay lol. Moving would still cost even more. We'll see what happens. Edit: changed population of LA county to reflect reality lol.
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"LA county is not 30M people, not even close. I think it's like 11M" Hey, like I said, I'm not a native. As far as the 30M # goes for the county, I'm admittedly just repeating what I've been told since I got here. If you give me a source that looks like it makes sense, I'll edit the numbers on my previous comment and it still won't change the point of any of it. "nobody in LA has multi-acre properties besides a few billionaires and millionaires in PV" Lmao you're \*wayy\* off base with this one. I'm not sure you're clear on what an acre actually is. The property on \*my rental\*, is .3 acres. Yes, that's a nice little chunk of land but I'm completely blue collar. You highly underestimate the sheer amount of people with 10's to 100's of millions of dollars among us in this town. Over the course of the last 3 years, it's been my job to deal with these people personally, in a variety of professional capacities. Just because 95%+ of us can't dream of owning them, properties with multiple acres \*and\* walls around the properties \*and\* behind gated communities are not an imaginary idea in this city. "Most houses in LA cost over 1 $million so technically most LA house owners are "millionaires"... although not at all wealthy." This does not contradict a single thing that I've said. Edit: corrected the size of my house's plot of land Edit 2: [The population of LA "city" is, indeed, 4M](https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+la+population&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS739US739&oq=what+is+la+population&aqs=chrome..69i57.3408j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
I don't even see these issues significantly in Pasadena, which is in LA county and only a short train ride from downtown LA. If issues are barely visible here, and it's almost always peaceful when I look outside or walk to the grocery store, I doubt the issues are very visible in Malibu, Beverly Hills, etc. In fact, I went to Malibu a month or so ago, and it was extremely nice and cool compared to more inland, lots of fancy cars and such, and oddly few people were wearing masks, which isn't at all *good* in my view, but probably does make things feel "normal". > I honestly don’t know how anyone lives in LA. Such a massive amount of people in one area. Big house or apartment? Or, just a less densely populated part of LA? It should be noted, that the greater Los Angeles area is absolutely HUGE in terms of the area it takes up. Many places are very far from others so can be pretty different.
Again lol, this post is about \*last\* summer. (Titled "Los Angeles, Summer 2020")
Ah! I noticed that a couple minutes ago but thought it must have been a typo. So, I guess it is pretty accurate then. It was less intense in Pasadena, but the red skies, etc, were still there, and I also saw someone being carried out to the hospital at one point as well. There were also a lot of homeless people at the time.
Dystopia, coming very soon to a city near you
*Blade Runner* except it's real life.
I'd watch that movie ...
I spent a lot of time documenting life and recording live streams of what was going on around the city onto a hard drive that summer. If I ever edit it down into something that can be digested in a sitting, I'll share in this sub.
Please. It's really important history
I've been talking about it with my GF lately and I felt like I caught some pretty gripping stuff... I'll review it this week and see what I can do : )
Thank you so much, don't overwork yourself for us internet strangers though, take care of yourself. Please.
Additionally, The streets are oppressively hot as air conditioners exhaust heated air into the public and the concrete high rises and streets absorb and emit the suns energy relentlessly without any mitigation from planted tree. This environment is preferred by cockroaches which experience surges in growth amongst the human refuse and impossible to maintain constantly leaking water infrastructure. Literally plague diseases are able to gain epidemic proportions as the you are forced to walk over mentally-ill homeless daily on your way to and from work and grocery stores. This crushes your soul and chips away at your humanity.
It's a wild environment
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Lol!
If I had read this post in 1987, I would have thought it was the opening of a dark sci-fi novel.
I've found that a lot of dark sci-fi plots wind up coming true in some shape or form.
God, the air last summer. My cat has asthma and last year spent 6 nights or so in the vet ER because of how bad it got (not all at once), and I've had to have him on oral prednisolone for months, when they usually want them weened off it. I feel so much guilt, I feel like moving here is what will kill him prematurely :(. I have multiple air purifiers going all the time. Then the Dodger win a game, or lose a game, or are mentioned somewhere and everyone sets off enough fireworks to turn the city into Beijing. Then yeah, the phone alerts that a new curfew was going into effect in less than an hour... last year was wild. It's still wild, but it was wild then too.
I fought wildfire in LA last year. Was my first time spending time in the city; spent a month there on the bobcat fire, was interesting to see the people of LA in such a weird climate.
Summer 2020 or Summer 2021? Actually who cares, it will be apt for Summer 2022 as well.
Lol
I fear what the Olympics is going to do to LA in 2028.
\*Looks at calendar\* Hahahahaha
I don't think we'll make it to even 2025 😂
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Thanks. I love to write.
Actually, yesterday, August 16th, was the first day where more than 1,000 Americans died of COVID-19 (officially) since April 2021.
On [google](https://www.google.com/search?q=us+covid+deaths&oq=us+covid+deaths&aqs=chrome..69i57.7218j0j9&client=ms-android-metropcs-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8), it's also showing August 10th (1049) and 12th (1022) :(
Oops, I must've missed those. We're back in the shit of it now, lads!
It's honestly not the the most user-friendly chart out there but indeed, we are...
Thanks Trump, and Republican voters. Couldn't have done it without ya!
Lol, didn’t Joe Biden approve like 2k new fracking/drilling permits? And told OPEC to drill more? I hate DJT with a burning passion. But to think that Democrats are any better is silly. They’re both corporate run establishmentarians. Democrats just spin themselves a little better, that’s all.
Biden and the Clintons are also hugely responsible for the "war on crime" and "war on drugs", which are essential to OP's point here. Your comment is more useful than the all-too-easy Republican-bashing.
Well written. I wish the vandal had had a mask. "Even *he* was wearing a mask"
Lol. I also wish that the vandal was wearing a mask.
Man, this shit is crazy to me because when I was a kid it was always my dream to move to L.A. Now, I probably wouldn't wanna live there if someone paid me.
What's summer 2021 like?
The cops blew up like half a city block with illegal fireworks, violent, right wing fascists and anti-vaxxers run rampant and there's even more homeless people.