There is some research that says the traditional tipping point for revolution is hunger. It seems people put up with a lot of shit, perhaps with misplaced optimism, until their stomach is affected.
Maybe there's an analog to other tipping points, like price of internet service, but food seems pretty emotional and primal.
I'm sure there's nothing that can go wrong with a population that has three hundred million guns getting short of food with an ideology that says they have a right to overthrow the government.
The kind of injustice that has more or less always been there (e.g. the financial system favoring the rich over the poor) seems less likely to provoke this kind of sudden and violent response. The shooter’s anger was over a sudden change in policy that she perceived as unfair. Loss and loss aversion are powerful psychological drivers. If her videos had always been handled the way they are now, she probably never would have shot up their office because she never would have had the opportunity to feel she lost something she was previously entitled to.
Outside of me (NYC) there's homelessness and pollution. I guess that's not so bad? Also, it's not that I think things are bad, it's that I think the increasing concentration of wealth is resulting in increased potential for some event. What event? I don't know, but I doubt it'll be good.
Homelessness in the United States has been, slowly but steadily, declining over the last couple of decades, although it's up about 1% this year. It's not getting better fast enough, but the general trend has been slow movement in the right direction. In 2007, there were 647,000 homeless, and by 2016, there was down to 549,000 homeless.
That said, you live in NYC, and so for you the homeless rate has gone WAY up over the last year, to around 4000 people from just 2800 or so last year.
Many people really do not want to think about these things and the potential consequences. History has shown things can break down hard and quickly when there are a multitude of seemingly small bit widespread grievances. This is likely exacerbated now by mass dissemination of information and the sheer complexity of our social and economic system. I am not saying it is likely to happen soon, but I think it is worth being aware of. No society is immune.
You superimpose inequality on the national mindscape and out comes a radical extremist on the mentally unstable subset of the map, and you infer that that is a signal that the rest will cascade into an occupy style phase shift? Alarmist much?
I think the matter is subtler than plain inequality. What do you do when there's a mass distribution channel controlled by a private entity? Radio, press, they've been criticized, protested against, and in most democratic countries have ways to be held accountable to its citizens. We're largely living in a world where this isn't the case anymore. How do citizens demand accountability over a private service?
Maybe there's an analog to other tipping points, like price of internet service, but food seems pretty emotional and primal.
https://www.salon.com/2014/05/09/real_life_hunger_games_soar...