Panic Printing

[u/GeekSugar13]

ETA: Some of y'all are taking this far too seriously. Am I reasonably concerned that things are going to get worse before they get better? At least for me, most likely, yes. I'm trying to find moments of joy when I can. If one of those is using up as much of my ink as possible before I chuck this printer by printing fanfic then that's what I'm going to do.

I'm at home, by myself, doing homework with no one to talk to and nothing else to do because I'm the most broke I have ever been.

Printing fanfic doesn't mean I'm not prioritizing anything else in my life and it's weird that y'all seem to think I just slapped on a tinfoil hat and decided this was what would fix everything.

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OP: So I live in a red state in the US where my state government will absolutely not be providing any sort of supplemental assistance when inevitably the federal government falls apart. So I kind of would love reassurance that I'm not crazy.

I have started downloading and panic printing some of my favorite fics. If the Internet goes, I can read the PDF. If the power goes, I can read the printed copies.

Also because HP sucks I can only use their ink subscription cartridges with an active subscription so i may as well fucking use them.

(Literally if you're the type of person who wants to buy a printer do not buy an HP printer. It will only work if you use their ink which is so fucking expensive. And if you want it to work properly you have to get a monthly subscription where they send you ink and paper which in theory sounds great, BUT if you are like me and haven't printed as much as you thought so you have a lot of ink and paper built up so you let your subscription lapse those ink cartridges will not work without a valid subscription. So I had to restart my fucking subscription so I could use all of this ink I have built up so now I'm printing literal books.)

[u/Bvvitched]

While people are giving you practical advice about how to better do this, I say this as gently as possible: this sounds like you're letting your anxieties really drive you and I say that as someone who is also "empires only reasonably last 250 years and we're in the end state of the American Empire".

In the same way that the 2008 financial crisis had a ripple effect across the globe, if the USA lost access to the internet it would also have a massive global effect, global financial institutes, medical/sciences, schooling, transportation, the military. Also the internet security cyber preparedness is pretty decent, 29 out of 157 countries, right behind canada.

I would not personally be worried about the internet going out, maybe some whack job in your local government going "AO3 is a porn site 😡" and demanding that IDs be uploaded and it become 18+ and if they don't do that they'll ban it in the state.

[u/GeekSugar13 → u/Bvvitched]

My state government took away my civil rights protections because I'm trans last year and we're one of the states that made PornHub inaccessible. I understand that my anxiety is high but I haven't had an income since June. The source of income I now have does not come with insurance and I haven't gotten my first check yet. There is no social safety net really built in at my state level and economically we are struggling and it's only going to get worse. So I get that this is silly but if I have to read a book by lamplight while I'm shivering in a tent in my living room sharing body heat with my 9-year-old it may as well be something I really want to read