For me the most important story out of the LA fires was the fire hydrants. Because they show the enormous…

For me the most important story out of the LA fires was the fire hydrants. Because they show the enormous chasm between a politics focused on actual material need, versus the lunatic adolescent team sports we have instead. There’s little to no water to fight these fires. /1 https://t.co/it1UlxpH8B

It’s clear that’s happened because the magnitude of the fires completely overwhelmed the urban reticulated water system, which was never designed to have to fight fires on this scale. Of course the old conservative white men brigade did what they do with every disaster. /2

Immediately tried to use catastrophe to fertilise even more team sports, more fights, to generate more votes for themselves. Trump claims it’s because of some Greenie obsession with protecting species. /3

We see this in Oz every bushfire season now, every disaster is said to be the fault of Greenies not burning and chopping down enough bush between fires. But the male, pale and stale old men who generate these arguments don’t give a fuck about fires anyway. /4

They love catastrophes because they use them relentlessly to whip up more division, more team sports, and therefore more votes. The world needs to fix material problems. Not to turn the not fixing of them into platforms for eternal team sports status games. /5

This is history though, what always happens. The status games will continue right up until the point the catastrophes completely overwhelm us. That’s all that will sweep the status games away. Total, utter catastrophe. /6

Societies don’t progress through politics, or any form of discussion. Humans are simply incapable of agreement, on just about anything. They progress when external objective catastrophe forces a provisional unity, to fight threats. That is all of our history. /end