
We bought a new Subaru Outback last year. Nice car … but. If I get too close to the white line on the shoulder, it ‘nudges’ me back toward the center. The headlights dim automatically, even if I don’t want them to. The engine cuts itself off at traffic lights. If I turn my head a bit too much to the right or left a voice tells me to watch the road and if I yawn it tells me to pay attention. After two hours it tells me to stop for a break.
It has GPS, but it’s crappy compared to Google. Heated steering wheel, seat heater and cooler, backup camera and forward looking camera, I could go on, but one should ‘get the picture.’ My issue is that I don’t want most of that stuff, but I have to pay for it anyway as it comes with the car. Aside from the obvious direction we’re being pushed, that being driverless cars that will ultimately be ‘controlled’ by the ‘authorities,’ all those bells and whistles need to be maintained at a cost, and one would have to spend an inordinate amount of time studying the owners manual in order to use many of the features the car offers that I don’t really care to have to begin with and don’t use. So I’m paying for and paying to maintain ‘features’ that go to waste.
So what’s my point? There’s a black pill here, but one that perhaps we should embrace. I’ll let the folks at Imperium Press explain. They do a pretty awesome job.
Human societies tend to produce more than they can maintain as they grow more complex. But the problem is that as complexity increases you get a) increased maintenance costs, and b) decreasing marginal returns. So eventually the costs of maintaining infrastructure outweigh the benefits, and the obvious solution is to let some of this infrastructure go to waste—and then go back to producing more shit. This solves the problem, at least for a while. This is a normal social cycle and not necessarily fatal, but what is fatal is when society meets its maintenance costs with non-renewable resources, whether this be slave labour from an empire too big to maintain, or half a billion years’ worth of sunlight in the form of finite tree juice. Even so, collapse rarely happens all at once. Decline is not usually catastrophic but a kind of ratcheting down effect. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was it dismantled in a day—Rome fell and then got back up and fell and got back up for centuries. Each collapse lowers maintenance costs by throwing out some amount of infrastructural capital, so maintenance costs are reduced. Collapse is not total, but nor is the problem really solved—the next crisis is inevitable. This is Greer’s “stairstep” model of collapse, which he calls “catabolic” after the mechanism whereby cells harvest energy by metabolizing large molecules into smaller ones.
We Europeans (and those of European descent) are what we are because our ancestral environment forced this long-term planning on us. We are what we are only because our ancestors never got black-pilled, got on with the job, and started planning for winter long before it was here.
We nationalists talk a big game about how the folk matters more than the individual. Right now, our folk are suffering runaway degeneration both moral and genotypic. The heroic view is the amor fati view, the view that not only does not fear but cherishes the purifying fire, if fire must come. You may not see the open horizon on the other side of it. Your family may not see it. But your folk will. After winter, spring.
[…] ← Winter Is Coming […]
One of the car manufacturers should produce a ‘back to basics’ car to sell on the car market. I would love to buy a car without all the unnecessary bells and whistles.
That is how cars started out. Then, the public demanded more: Air conditioning, automatic transmissions, cruise control, power windows, etc. Yes, some of these things are nice. And some are superfluous. They are marketing gimmicks. Certain things on cars, such as alternators, disc brakes, fuel injection, etc. are definite improvements.
The trend to market a car without all of the bells and whistles may have a lot of merit in the near future. This is why the used car market is still booming. I learned to drive on a 1950 Chevrolet sedan, manual transmission. You signaled by sticking your arm out the window. For “air conditioning” you had wind wings. But it had a generator instead of and alternator and drum brakes instead of disc brakes. Yet it ran and was well-maintained up until the time dad sold it.
The Subaru is the wife’s car. I drive a 1999 Jeep Wrangler and a 2000 Ford F-250 Powerstroke. Both manual transmission. Neither annoys me. The only draw-back is neither have the headlight dimmer on the floor. You old codgers like me will remember that.
Thanks. I forgot about the headlight dimmer switch on the floorboard. Also, right under the headlight knob on the dashboard was an identical pull-out knob with a “T” on it. It was an actual throttle control.
You could put in the clutch, put the column stick shift in neutral, and coast. Some models even had a lever on the dash for overdrive. And there was always the dashboard clock and the push-button AM radio, with the Civil Defense Channel indicators over certain frequencies. Do you remember “Brody Knobs”?
Engine shut-down EPA, that ABS and seat belts, NHTSB…….
Unfortunately it’s only going to get worse. Just look up “Software Defined Vehicle “.
Our ’24 VW randomly turns on the ‘nudging’ effect. Were a cop behind me with that feature on, I would get pulled over for ‘weaving.’ The car wants to drive itself until you let it, then it gets mad, slams on the brakes and tells you to put your hands on the wheel after 1/4 mile of driving itself. I have to go into the setup to turn it off, although sometimes it will just quit on its own. It doesn’t track as well as my ’04 Chrysler (don’t laugh.) When the day comes I have to have a car help me drive, I’m going to stop driving since it will mean I am too feeble to be driving. And people wonder why folks are investing serious $$ into older normal vehicles w/o all the bells and whistles.
You didn’t want that stuff, yet you bought it. Quit whining.
Did we have a choice? Perhaps not whining, but complaining is justified.
things will get progressively more interesting for the 2026 model year. the grubmint will mandate a remotely controllable kill switch for each car. there was actually a vote in congress to reject this mandate made by some grubmint agency. more than enough “ republicans “ voted to keep the kill switch. it’s for your safety : )
any questions ?
I as well own a 2022 Subaru outback of which I purchased new and it has all the bells and whistles of which i don’t want nor need, in my car I can switch off things from the computer screen, but if you take your hands from the steering wheel for a short time t will flash and warn you to put hands back on the wheel and it will tell you to take a break after an hour or so on the road of which I completely ignore. I will never purchase another new car again because they are monitoring everything you do in the vehicle and this is why I am going to purchase an old vehicle from the 1970’s with a rebuilt engine or a new crate engine dropped in. there are many old cars out there where they are like brand new, this will be the Safest way to go in the future without the government spying on you.
Automation breeds complacency
IMO, the next major, manual labor, business to crop up will be a chain of pre-2000 restoration shops. Independents are commonplace.
On an interesting note, in NC anything over 30yrs doesn’t require state inspection.
Rubber manufactures say they stand behind there products for four years. So a restoration would require replacement of all rubber, and in some cases plastic, parts.
I drive a 10 yr old 2500HD diesel truck. It’s been a beast for hauling heavy farm equipment around. It has 178,000 miles on it. Bought new.
All the DEF crap is going to”bad” now.
Sensors and valve stuff to the tune of 5 grand over the last 2 years. Not getting rid of it cause I know what I have.
My regular driver is a 1986 military K5 Blazer.
6.2 Detroit diesel, 10 bolt axels, an automatic transmission. I can work on it. No electronics whatsoever. Not many around, but a great solid truck. EMP proof and all that. YMMV.
Chris(CIII)
So, I understand the point of your post is not that you spent a small fortune for a new Subaru that has a bunch of features you don’t want, and you clarified in another response that you have an F-250 (that you better plan on keeping forever). It appears that the point of the article is to NOT be blackpilled by the state of the world, and that our “folk” will endure. I agree with that, but not before millions suffer and die (perhaps billions if you believe in catastrophism, and I do).
Back to your part of the post. You cannot undo what you have done re: the Subaru Outback. It sounds like a nice car, filled with wonderful safety features that help compensate for the fact that people no longer pay attention to where they are or what they are doing. THAT is the problem.
I imagine that car cost you a minimum of $30K, perhaps a lot more. For about 1/4th of that, a ten year old Outback could be had that, although it is not new and shiny, it’s probably still shiny, and Subarus are notoriously reliable. Worst case scenario, you have to spend $5K for a new motor, $600 for a new stereo, and $2K for a complete interior redo. Maybe throw in some fresh brake pads and ball joints, and you’re good for another 250K miles without even blinking. Having said all of that, hopefully you will be able to keep this current vehicle well-maintained and never have to replace it. Synthetic motor oil every 5K miles and complete transmission flush every 50K with a 100% fluid replacement.
I bought a new truck in 2003, an F150 Lariat. I still have it, 600K miles later. Is it new and shiny? No. It’s neither. Does it steer for me? Nope. Does it yell at me if I do a bit of sightseeing (safely)? Nope. Does it run quite well? Yup. Will I keep it for the rest of my life? Yup.
What’s MY point? We need to be preparing for the very scenario(s) outlined in the article you posted. It’s easier to do that if we haven’t spent money we don’t have on things we don’t need. Even if we have the money, which you obviously did, I imagine that extra $20K might have been used to pay off something else, buy a bit of land, save for a medical emergency, build a bunker or a shop, buy more ammo or go off-grid. The more money we don’t spend lining the pockets of people who absolutely want us dead, the more people of European descent will survive.
This is important.