my friend's discord server has a "proof of touch grass" channel where they post pics of them doing regular activities outdoors/in public. i think many online spaces could benefit from such a thing
when i was super depressed - like struggling to eat anything barely able to get out of bed to pee depressed - my good friend asked me every day to send her a picture of me holding a leaf and a picture of a meal i was eating and it helped me significantly
(also, she was never judgey - if my meal was a single potato chip she would simply say good job eating a potato chip today <3 )
which is to say, i agree proof of touch grass is a good idea for online spaces
franz kafka’s writings are often analyzed in a trans lens the person who wrote that was almost definitely a trans person who related. people who call kafka a trans woman are almost entirely trans women. there is also a huge subset of literature shitposter girls who use kafka and the metamorphosis specifically to talk about their experiences with womanhood. so while i agree that the trope you are talking about is antisemitic i don’t think that applies here. he’s not being called a woman in a disparaging way.
It. Literally. Doesn't. Matter.
Spoiler alert: trans people can be antisemitic!
Franz Kafka was a real person who died not too long ago, and just because a trans person relates to his writings doesn't mean they can claim he's trans. It's not the same as relating to a fictional character. You can't 'headcanon' an actual person. I don't care how much you relate- he wasn't trans, don't call him a woman. He was an actual person, not a fictional character you can project on. An treating Franz Kafka like a fictional character you can project any label onto and separate him from his actual life is dehumanization and *also* antisemitic.
It's no different than queer people co-opting Anne Frank's memory and erasing her story to just herald her as a "bi icon" when she never had the chance to live long enough to label herself. Queer gentiles need to stop dehumanizing Jewish people and turning them into blank slates they can project onto.
Kafka's Metamorphosis and writings about his depression are from the viewpoint of a disabled Jewish man who was watching as antisemitism was slowly escalating around him and Jews were becoming insects in the minds of society. And "he's not being called a woman in a disparaging way" is the dumbest excuse ever- antisemitism is antisemitism. I've seen trans people infantilize Jewish men, calling them "different breed of man" or "scrunkly" and then insist they meant it positively. Intent doesn't matter. Calling a Jewish man, who never ever indicated having any gender identity otherwise, a woman, or implying he's somehow not a full man, is antisemitic.
I hope I'm not derailing here (please tell me if I am and I'll delete this), but I'd like to especially call attention to this line (which I love, btw):
I don't care how much you relate- he wasn't trans, don't call him a woman.
At some point relatively recently, people seem to have come to the conclusion that you can't empathize with a character (or real fucking person, in this case, and I cannot stress how gross that is) unless you're just like them. "Oh, I, a nonbinary person can identify with this cishet man? He must actually be nonbinary!" "Oh, I, an autistic person, can identify with this Ambiguously Quirky™ person? She must actually be autistic!"
Being able to relate to a person--real or fictional--who isn't just like you is a good thing. It's good that you see yourself in the writings of a cisgender man! Maybe it will teach you that cis people aren't the enemy. It's good that an autistic character resonates with NT people! Maybe they'll gain new insight into their autistic friends and family!
It's called empathy, and it's so important to understand that you are going to see your experiences reflected in people who are unlike you. Those connections are important. Deciding that Kafka must be a trans woman because you're a trans woman is missing the entire fucking point. It means that you do, in fact, have some things in common with a cisgender man, and conversely, it means that cisgender men have things in common with you. To flatten them out so they're just like you is missing out on so much of what they have to say.
People are beautiful and rich and layered and the fact that we can connect with other people and share experiences despite how different we are? That's the whole fucking point. That's what makes life worth living.
OP, I'm sorry I only spoke on being transgender and autistic. Those are the only two points that I could speak on from experience. Talking about real people like they're fictional pisses me off, and I sort of... got off on a thing.
I'm not OP, but one thing that's frightening about this from a Jewish perspective (especially in the context of discussing someone who was alive in the interwar period) is the recurring idea that Jews only matter as lenses for other people's stories. That we can be empathized with, but only if our narratives can be twisted to someone else's.
Because we've seen that before. We see it very often because it's a fundamental premise of some incredibly antisemitic forms of Christianity, and when it turns out that we're real people with real opinions and real beliefs and real feelings who don't just exist to validate someone else's perception of who and how we could be, people don't just abandon their pretense at allyship, they get violent.
It's also a common failing in how the Holocaust is taught. People like to present this lens of "it was random violence that came out of nowhere and could've happened to anyone. It could've happened to you! Imagine if you'd been one of the victims! That would've been a tragedy wouldn't it?" And the thing is, that's bullshit. If you were just a random German citizen at the time? You would've been one of the perpetrators. And it was a tragedy in and of itself; it doesn't become a tragedy by imaging a scenario in which people who were perfectly safe would've actually been potentially in danger (never killed, of course, because Holocaust education is also commonly sanitized, which is a different rant).
Edited to take out a rant that was in drafts and got added to this by mistake, but. Well, the Tl;dr, since that's been reblogged
Well. I'm a cis woman. GNC, perhaps, but cis. And I get misgendered (and degendered) a lot because of how people read Jewish features. And... when friends insist that any discomfort I have with feminine stuff is because I'm an egg... I get that they're trying to be helpful for a journey of self-discovery. But I've done that introspection. I check in with myself periodically just in case. And "oh, you're really nonbinary/a trans man because you're [insert list of stereotypically Jewish features//personality traits commonly ascribed to Jews [whether or not I have them]" -it hurts. Because not only are they minimizing my actual identity and my self-knowledge, and deciding that they're the experts on my life, rather than me, they're doing it in a way that's constantly used to hurt me.
another thing! Jewish men are (pretty often) seen as feminine/unmasculine and like they could never be 'true men'. In a lot of media they're the awkward nerds, the virgins, the weirdos. Point is this is not just misgendering anybody (which would be awful enough), this is misgendering a group that's known to be seen as less masculine than a white man for example
*this is a bit of derailing but it reminds me of how black men face the opposite issue of being seen as hyper masculine & in turn hyper violent. None of us can win in this racist ass society my g-d
I don't want to take away from @terulakimban's excellent point centering actual empathy. That is a BIG trend I see when taking about anything Jewish in popular culture (I cannot tell you how many times as a theater person I've heard "Fiddler on the Roof is a story about all of us, tradition vs modernization" NO! IT IS ABOUT A JEWISH COMMUNITY IN VERY ANTISEMITIC RUSSIA AT A TIME WHEN POGROMS WE'RE SO COMMON PLACE 250,000-300,000 JEWS FLED OR WE'RE KICKED OUT over the course of 40 years. The tradition aspect is uniquely Jewish - how do we maintain our identity when we keep getting scattered and settled elsewhere? It lasted this long but HOW do we keep doing it? Can it continue?)
But in the Kafka conversation there is an element I think so many non-Jews just straight up refuse to understand. That is the fact that Jews have our own culture.
The societal gender ideals non-Jews in the West grow up with ... Aren't really in Jewish communities the same way. (Though cultural osmosis means we've picked up a lot along the way).
ALL our masculine role models, the ones we're told to admire, are shepherds. That's important bc shepherds lead the heard from behind, not in front. It speaks to a different leadership mindset. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Solomon, etc. we're soft spoken, humble, slow to action, intellectually inclined. Even when they have tempers or are warriors, those aspects are critiqued or minimized. (It's why when Jews depict King David, he's playing his harp or herding sheep. When non-Jews depict him, he's fighting Goliath.)
Compared to the very Roman/Western ideal of masculine power might-makes-right, Jewish masculinity is inherently softer.
That's not to say we DON'T value male strength. But it's just one factor and mostly understood that physical prowess has a time and place. It's not the ultimate standard for our masculinity.
Especially when you consider femininity in Jewish communities. Our matriarchs were all outspoken, all defied their husbands/men at key moments without punishment (some were even rewarded by God.) Some were prophets, judges and leaders (Miriam, Judith, Devorah, Hannah) in their own rights. Jewish women certainly do not fit the mold of a Roman/Western quiet, docile, submissive woman.
And don't forget, while there very much is misogyny in Jewish communities, our traditions often challenge it. Men are expected to praise their wives every Friday night in front of the family (Eshet Chail), men are halacically responsible for their wives' physical pleasure, Rabbis have denounced marital rape as a sin far longer than it's been illegal in MOST modern nations and women are excempt from time based religious obligations as they are considered closer to God (though that comes with it own problems).
In short, religious or not, Kafka would have grown up with that different understanding of gender norms and what it means to perform gender. He would have understood gender completely different to how a modern non-Jew in the West would.
To erase his Jewishness from the conversation - to ignore the cultural difference between how you see gender and how he likely would have - is a pretty severe historical distortion. And makes this weird history AU even more problematic.
Its exactly why historians always say "there's evidence of this type of attraction/relationship/behavior but we cannot assign an identity to a dead person who would not have had our cultural understanding." We need to bring that back.
Also, "Franz Kafka is the only cis man to have a period," seriously?! Isn't saying that jewish men get periods an old jew hating libel?
[Image descriptions: All the images are tumblr posts.
The first one, by defaultknightmain, says "A friend and I were joking about Trans fem Franz Kafka, and it led up to me putting a picture of his face through one of those stupid apps, and honestly she's beautiful." The text is followed by two pictures side-by-side, a black and white picture of a young man in a suit, and a color picture with a "Pica AI" watermark of a very thin young woman with long blonde hair wearing bunny ears and a frilly black dress. Her features are vaguely reminiscent of the man, but I feel like the size of the ears, nose and chin has been reduced.
The second post, by manhatinghag, says "franz kafka is the only cis man to have a period."
The third post, by sebdoesnothing, says "Earnestly, genuinely, seriously, I do think that Franz Kafka could have solved a lot of problems by transitioning and sometimes thinking about him through that lens makes me want to curl up a little." The tags say "being an egg or repressed or closeted or openly trans... the whole shebang has to be one of the most Kafkaesque experiences ever right?? This is not just from his books I could point to some historical records that raise a lot of flags here, but fuck me his books as well dude."
The last post, from parkayquarts, says "'I only know about franz kafka through tumblr posts and I assumed they were a trans woman' is a real take I just saw and I'm so astonished I don't even have a joke or an indignant response I just want you guys to know about it."]
About the Disability Pride Flag
(its design & meaning)
Because:
A) I see it around the Internet where the proportions are off, and I think people are copy/pasting from different thumbnail images that come up in search results, and not clicking through to get the original. It's not a big deal, but it causes a hiccup in my brain whenever I see it.
and
B) There's been some discussion in the Disability Community here on Tumblr on what the precise symbolism should be, and it's changed a bit and gotten complicated. So I want to simplify and broaden it, so it can be explained to curious Normate folk -- without going into a 15 minute explanation of social constructs.
So I'm making a fresh post right now to put all that stuff together.
I'm gonna leave the detailed description of the flag design's proportions just in the alt text (so that people with screen readers know what they are, without having to listen to it twice)
The width of each colored stripe is proportional to the overall width of the flag, but I decided to leave the general proportions of the flag flexible (so it's easier for people to make one based on what materials they can find -- just in case there's a need for a protest sign for a pop-up rally).
The Meaning (Short Version -- what to tell someone who asks while you're waiting for the elevator)
6 colors represent how the Disability Community is Global
The 5 colors in the middle represent how diverse that community is
The black is inspired by pirate flags: rage at injustice, fighting back
The stripes are diagonal to represent cutting through barriers.
The in-depth reasons behind the meaning (Long Version -- If you actually want a 15+ minute discussion of social constructs and history)
The flag has all 6 'standard' colors recognized in international flags, to represent how the Disability Community is bound together by their varied, but shared, experiences, rather than geographical or political affiliation (borrowing that symbolism from Olympic Flag, which represents the global community of athletes -- also bound together by their shared experiences and aspirations).
The five colors cutting across the center of the flag represent the diversity of the Disabled Community, both in terms of physical conditions and in terms of the social-political-economic ways by which disability is understood in society. (No longer trying to assign a specific meaning to any of the individual colors)
The stripes begin centered in the top corner because that's where the "canton" of a flag is, and in flag code, that's the place of highest honor; this is where the stars are in the U.S flag, and also the stars in the flag for the People's Republic of China, and the Union Jack in Australia's flag. It cuts all the way to the end that flies in the wind to show our striving for freedom.
The field is black because Pirates!, yes. But it's also in recognition of the Black Triangle Badge (link goes to Wikipedia), which the Nazis used to mark out a wide range of people in their concentration camps, including the Disabled, that they considered "asocial." And it's in solidarity with the UK-based Black Triangle Campaign (link goes to deathbywelfare.org, from 2010), protesting cuts to disability benefits, and reclassifying disabled people "fit for work."
But these people don't think they're being antisemitic, they think they're arguing for a group of people being oppressed by an apartheid regime, which they are. The main issue at play is that the genocide in Gaza fosters antisemitism in people who are not antisemitic, because Zionists are belligerently intent on inextricably tying Israel to Judaism.
When the Zionist propaganda says Jews = Israel, and the news shows us that Israel = genocide, people will inevitably think Jews = genocide.
The only way to fix this is to stop the genocide and teach people not to conflate the Jewish faith with the actions of the Israeli government.
I love how it's always the fault of those darn Zionists who are tricking the hapless masses into being antisemitic, so those same people never have to take respinbility for their own bigotry
I love how even in your mealy-mouthed lukewarm defense of Jews you can't conceive that the people accusing random Jews of killing children aren't actually trying to innocently criticize Israel, and they're not only being antisemitic by accident
newsflash, dumbfuck, the people who come onto a post about Jewish customs and ask them how many babies they've killed don't "think they're arguing for a group of people being oppressed by an apartheid regime." they think they're attacking Jews whom they view as responsible for Israel's actions, not because of "Zionist propaganda" but because they're racist assholes who are looking for simple explanations to the world's problems. same as always
The fact that this person could say the sentence "fostered antisemitism in people who are not antisemitic" and still think that any of what they're saying makes sense is astonishing.
It's because that person agrees and is making excuses.
it's because the people who say this kind of bullshit think that antisemitism is okay so long as it is directed at the "right kind" of Jew. So many people do this shit- say that they don't hate Jews, but they're happily spewing the most antisemitic bullshit you've ever seen, but it's FINE because it's not directed at Jews, it's directed at Zionists!
Exactly!!! Just because you replace the word “ Jews” with another word , doesn’t make it less antisemitic . Also, they’re always misinterpreting/ misusing “Zionist”.
That last one is pretty good to deploy against people who insist on the uh. "I don't like pancakes/ WHy do you hate waffles?" style of response to Jewish-related shit I say.
Also y'all it's a meme free for all go right ahead and take these! I stole them all from elsewhere anyway.
yeah gotta be honest every time i think about how the dome of the rock was literally built on top of the holiest site to judaism and that jews are actually literally banned from going there i wonder how the jewish people haven’t set the world on fire with justifiable rage
and not only that but the people whose religious structure now sits on top of the temple mount have historically fear mongered about jews supposedly plotting to take over the site and used these misinformation campaigns to justify violence against jews — the hebron massacre for example — and yet the jewish community is expected to not be pissed about any of this
also i should be used to this by now but i think it’s wild how every fucking time i make a post like this validating jewish pain i IMMEDIATELY lose followers. some of y’all just plain disgust me.
the ad copy says it can be used on camels. imagine someone with a camel who is struggling with camel behavior problems seeing this and thinking "hot damn, the solution to my camel misbehavior problems is CERTAINLY this dog exorcism potion"
All animals you say? Try slipping it into the coffee of the insurance people, sounds like they need exorcism potion.
(To be clear, this is a joke, I do not recommend giving people food/drinks/drugs/whatever this is without their consent.)
My new comic arrived! Just in time for Comic Salon Erlangen. Visit me there in Hall D / Kubic on the second floor! I'll bring this and also my other comics and merch.
This new comic contains three short stories about different women. Check it out if you like witches, curses, women (both cis and trans) and WLW.
——
Mein neuer Comic ist angekommen! gerade Rechtzeitig für den Comic Salon Erlangen. Besucht mich in Halle D / Kubic auf dem 2. Obergeschoss! Ich bringe den neuen und auch meine anderen Comics mit, und natürlich verschiedenes Merchandise.
Der neue Comic beinhaltet drei Kurzgeschichten die sich um verschiedene Frauen drehen. Seht es euch an, wenn ihr Hexen, Flüche, Frauen (cis und trans) und WLW mögt.
When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*
most goyim hear “the vast majority of jews are zionists” and translate that to “the vast majority of jews are evil colonizers and genocidal maniacs” rather than the true meaning of that statement which is “zionism is a complex and multifaceted concept that every jew has a unique relationship with and it cannot be distilled into a single slogan-length description”
"The issue is that there's a FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding between the average "normie" Jew and the average antizionist. The Jew thinks Zionism = "Jews have a right to live there and call it their/our homeland," and they see antizionism as "you think we all should be kicked out, so of course I'm pro-Israel!" BDS types see Zionism as support of Israel the state in real time, so (1/2)
(2/2) when they hear those Jews saying "of course I'm pro-Israel," they hear "I'm in support of everything Israel does in the name of keeping its status as a Jewish state." Which makes the hardcore antizionist fling accusations of genocide apologism, which in turn makes the Jew double down on their belief that the antizionist wants their family expelled and support Israel even harder."
The thing is, Jews have explained these concepts to antizionist goyim, over and over again for literal years. And the antizionists' answer, almost without fail, is to scream at us that Jews have no real reason to fear because we're privileged white oppressors and we need to stop playing the victim card. Oh, and that the mere existence of Israel (or Israelis) is bad as the Holocaust.
So tbh, I don't think it's a misunderstanding. Jews understand perfectly well what they believe, because they've told us so—and they know perfectly well what Jews believe. They simply see it as more evidence against us.
It's a Kafka Trap. They regard (a priori) the explanation of what we actually believe as a deception - which only proves what they already believe about the nasty, tricky, evil Jews.
There also is no misunderstanding of what Zionism actually is. The way "antizionists" use the term Zionism relies on it having two very different definitions, a broad definition, when deciding who is a Zionist, and a narrow, deeply vile one, when deciding what zionists deserve. I have taken to calling this technique a pump label, because the two definitions are designed to suck people into the broad definition and pump them out into the narrow definition. This is not a technique of misunderstanding, it's bad faith.
The use of "zionist" in this way is designed to sort people, to move them from the unsorted mass of humanity into the category of "bad person" or "enemy". And once a person has been judged an evil enemy, they are presumed to be seeking to decieve, justifying the Kafka trap @unsolicited-opinions points to.
But of course for the people who use "Zionist" this way, it's almost always a way to justify their own Jew-hate to themselves, as evinced by just what can get you sucked into the label "Zionist", including "pointing out antisemitism unrelated to Israel" or "participating in Jewish observance" or even, for the particularly transparent, "being a Jew."
I developed the idea of pump labels here:
So I came up with the concept and term pump label because of what's currently going on with the word Zionest, and because I am a Jew who is
Thank you @sublime-linguist for giving such a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier with the concept of pump labels:...
the novelty of having pets really does never wear off i’ve had my cat for ten years and i still look at him strolling around like can you believe this. a cat. is everyone seeing this. he’s alive he has bones and all. unbelievable
Today, I will finally speak about the economic consequences of the war in Iran.
I will preface this longpost by pointing out that I am … a tad out of sorts. I tend to get that way when I think about what this will cause. I think many of you will be too once you read it. This is not a happy post, it is not hopeful, it is not cheery. I am also not in the mood to stuff the text full of my usual puns, dumb jokes and obscure references.
If you are in a difficult situation morale-wise, if you are facing bouts of depression, or graver situations, I would advise that you skip this post, because it’s not going to be good for you.
Content warning : , mentions of death and an upcoming famine, tremendous amounts of human suffering.
Now, to summarize the situation.
Since the 28th of February 2026, Trump and Netanyahu have started a war against Iran’s islamist regime for … changing reasons. Regime change and stopping the Iranian nuclear program are the two reasons most often quoted. This has resulted in terrible disruption to trade in the Strait of Hormuz. This is important because the Strait of Hormuz is among the most important waterways in the world. Nearly a third of worldwide oil exports and a fifth of worldwide LNG exports went through this strait. This has enormous consequences, not just in terms of energy price (both electricity and car gas) but also for the entire petro-chemical industries.
Using this war and disruption, Iran started to demand the creation of a Hormuz toll, quickly including Oman (the other coast of the strait) as a potential partner in that toll idea, and recently trying to reframe it as a « fee for services rendered, » because tolls on natural seaways are not compatible with international law.
Now that the context has been presented, lets see what the consequences are.
1 – Political : the regime change
There was a regime change. I know this may surprise some people, but yes, there was one. It’s not a complete overthrow, but rather a transfer of power between two branches of the existing regime. Power moved from the purely religious group (the Shiite clergy, the Mollahs) to the religio-military group (the IRGC). This changes things in ways I am … not educated enough about Shiite extremists to fully understand to be quite honest. What jumps to me first and foremost is that with the IRGC taking more and more power, we risk seeing an increase in the violence of the repressions against the dissidents. Right now, there’s a systematic rape policy against female dissidents to bar them from heaven, and executions don’t care for the age of whoever’s getting hanged or shot. I fear it will get worse.
Worse yet, the IRGC is made up of religiously fanatic military people, which means they think in military terms. I expect even more budget to be diverted to military endeavours, meaning even less for the already horribly deprived Iranians. Tehran ran out of tap water before the war, and I’m not convinced much will be done to remedy that. After all, you now have military leaders high on fanaticism in command, and they have a Holy War to wage.
2 – Political : a reinforced regime
The regime had a great many heads of agencies, high-rank generals and other officials killed, yes. This has hurt the regime, make no mistake, but … it is not dead. They have a hierarchy in place, and methods to transfer power, a chain of succession, for most if not all of these positions. Which means … the dead have now already been replaced a while ago. There IS a loss of institutional knowledge and experience, but not a system collapse.
On the most basic levels of the pyramid however, they have recruited and armed a lot of people, forming religious para-military groups and militias, which allow greater societal control of repression of any dissenting opinion. This means that, for all that the top was hurt, the roots of the regime have dug themselves deeper in.
Considering the regime is more than unlikely to fall without military intervention, as it has shown extensive willingness to slaughter Iranians to remain in power, this increase in manpower has, de facto, reinforced and stabilised the regime on the ground. Trump was never going to order a ground assault, and Israel’s force projection capabilities and local geostrategic position forbid them from trying.
3 – Economic : the toll
Like I said, tolls on natural seaways are not acceptable according to international law. It has, in fact, been that way for a damn long time. A change to the laws of the sea would upend so many established systems that it would drive inflation into the goddamn stratosphere as everyone hikes up prices to cope with the new uncertainty. Pro-tip about the economy : when shit gets uncertain, prices go up. The more uncertain, the higher.
Since Iran realised that this would never go over and might in fact cause an international coalition against them, they are now trying to switch their claim to a fee for « services rendered, » which is the exact same thing, but not openly against international law. Basically, they’re doing the same thing the US are doing with their seizures of ships : hiding in the grey zones.
The main issue here, is that if they do it, others will too. I have an article on it, actually, right here. Feel free to read it and replace « toll » by « fee. » The end result is the same.
4 – Economy : energy exports
Hormuz, as I pointed out, is the corridor for a LOT of energy exports. Energy exports go to specific places, and in this case, a lot of it goes to Africa and East Asia. That means a lot of countries now have to ration their consumption of energy and gas, which translates to government measures in favour of working from home, calls to reduce usage of air conditionning, limits on how much gas you can buy, etc. This is, of course, not good for the economic activity of a lot of these countries, who are still actively fighting poverty. Those countries that ARE developped issue the same orders and policies, but risk seeing vital sectors of their economies suffer, causing social tensions and instability.
And, we get to the first content warning : people will die.
In regions of the globe where summer temperatures now traipse over 50°C on the reg, the point at which sweating doesn’t cool you anymore, use of air conditionning is now restrained, and is likely to remain so for a long time due to market disruption. People will die from heatstroke and dehydration. It will start with the most fragile people, too. Elderly, children, homeless … They will die.
5 – Economy : petro-chemicals
Petro-chemicals are all the chemicals created from oil refining or oil refining by-products. That is … a LOT of stuff. The most obvious is plastics, but petro-chemicals are found in many, many, many fields, from medicine to agriculture. Let’s go over two of the most important products that will be impacted :
Plastics, especially in food industries, are used to ensure a degree of sterile storage. Most bacteria cannot proliferate on it, and unlike metal, it does not oxidise at any significant rate. That means that putting something sterilized in a plastic container that hasn’t been tainted by contaminants significantly extends its shelf life, and thus the food security of the people that consume it. But now, with the oil shortage, plastic production is going to be severely reduced. That means less plastic to keep food safe, which in turn means greater food insecurity across the board.
People will die. Because food gets contaminated and/or improperly stored.
Another important branch of petro-chemicals are fertilisers. Fertilisers are vital to our current population, if we don’t have them, we can’t produce enough to feed everyone. And considering we fail to feed everyone when we actually produce enough to, I am not optimistic on the consequences for humans when a fertilizer shortage suddenly means we don’t produce enough to feed everyone.
You see, a lot of fertilizer production happens in the Gulf States. For instance, Asia, India and China buy roughly 20 % of their fertilizer in the Gulf states. We’re at around a 3rd of Humanity losing access to a fifth of the fertilizers they need. There is not a single cell in my body that is optimistic about this.
Worse, Africa buys a lot of their fertilizer from the Gulf States, and unlike Asia, India and China, many African countries do not benefit from naturally fertile land and lush regions. A lot of African farmland is, in fact, sandy and arid, meaning it is extremely dependant on fertilizers. Fertilizers whose supply … stopped.
People will die, because worldwide fertilizer production cannot replace production lost in the Gulf States, the US has cut international aid, and neither Europe nor China will have the economic and agricultural leeway to compensate with emergency food aid, let alone the political will. There is a very high likelyhood that there WILL be a famine in subsaharan Africa.
And people will die of hunger. Die in conflicts for dwindling ressources. Die along the migrations routes. Disappear in human trafficking, either through the underground Maghrebi slave markets or through the European forced prostitution networks, only to die later of abuse.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’m exagerating. But I’m afraid I’ll be right.
Spent a ridiculous amount of time last night obsessively editing my hand written zines in Photoshop to take away any tiny blemishes so they were definitely readable.
