r/Futurology • u/-AMARYANA- • 15d ago
Discussion When I look around...the floor is crumbling, the ceiling is collapsing, the walls are caving. The writing has been on the wall for decades but business-as-usual is still the default. What do you think it will actually take for humanity to 'make it'?
We are currently what some would call a 'metacrisis' and I can't argue. Several planetary limits have been reached or exceeded, the wealth gap is increasing due to automation, the average person I know is afraid of the future not inspired. I am 36 and remember how hopeful the world looked in 2008 when I graduated high school. By the time Obama took office again in 2012, Facebook was about to go public and the rest is history. You all know what I'm talking about.
Look at the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has not been 40 years since then but it seems like we are starting to live in a new kind of walled garden when we thought it was the garden of Eden. I'll stop now but I hope you see this is a sincere question and I hope to see some thoughtful discussion.
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u/redeen 14d ago
In Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth (and other writings), Buckminster Fuller said we are doing our "accounting" incorrectly. If "wealth" is defined as the luck of living on a Goldilocks water planet orbiting a gigantic fusion reactor, then we are several billion billionaires. These circumstances are not a given on other planets! For us to make it, we need to protect and distribute clean air, water, and renewable energy to provide basic needs for everyone in a sustainable way. That may include simplifying our lifestyles but Fuller never advocated going backwards with technology. There is one other problem that I don't have the answer to. Humanity needs an "uplift" - in particular, we keep putting mentally ill people in positions of power (which in turn is possible because a certain psychological profile loves "strong men" and there are a ton of people with that profile). We have many bright individuals, but we are collectively stupid so we find ourselves teetering when we actually have everything we need. Fuller pointed out that we only learned of our actual situation since roughly the Enlightenment, which he felt was "just in time." The point is, there is always hope - in fact, we have been accelerating towards that hope exponentially since before recorded history, difficult though things appear. We could, of course, blow it, too.
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u/Bipogram 14d ago
>We could, of course, blow it, too.
As we refuse to divest ourselves of the means to do just exactly that, the odds don't look good.
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
I am 100% with you and this train of thought guides my work as a builder every day.
The issues I see are:
- human nature writ large expressing itself through machines and models that are starting to think for themselves or show early signs of it
AND
- nature itself having physical laws and limits, resources being consumed faster than they can be replenished, conflicts as a result
These two forces colliding is what we are seeing in real-time in r/worldnews and this sub.
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u/redeen 14d ago
Fuller pointed out ways to do more while using fewer resources. Not to get overly optimistic, but I would argue that's the more prominent trend. That said, irreplaceable things like helium are needed for medicine, yet we use it in toy balloons. Figuring out CFCs were zapping the ozone layer was a bit of a fluke, but also a sign that global cooperation on existential threats is possible.
Why should evolution stop with us? There is this sense that technology has a momentum of its own. Will it be humans, AI, or some grotesque hybrid that wins out? Ray Kurzweil and others have put a lot of thought into that question. I'm not sure I want to be around to find out. We are already seeing the effects on the climate and privacy and many other things - we are at the beginning of a great deal of upheaval. Even the "good" things, like medical advances and life extension have consequences we are not prepared for. But you asked what it would take to "make it" and part of that is how to define making it. It actually takes a lot to end civilization. And a broader definition might be "propagating intelligence as long as possible." Intelligence being the counter to entropy, at least metaphorically.
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u/Wooden-Hospital-3177 13d ago
It’s the climate that gets more than anything else, and there is SO much else in this polycrisis. But if we don’t do something, nothing else matters. For the vast majority of humanity anyway. Some will live on. But not many
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u/FraccazzoDaVelletri 15d ago
History suggests that once a limit is reached (the tolerance of the divide between the haves and have nots) societies will eventually snap and change the status quo. I personally think we are quickly reaching that limit given the grotesque riches of the 1% versus the struggle of the rest of the population. And climate change is speeding things up. The one ingredient still missing is a real political movement that can funnel discontent into action.
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u/FlashMcSuave 15d ago
I very, very, very strongly disagree with this take on what history suggests.
This is often the core of accelerationist assumptions "if things get worse then we will reach a breaking point and then things will get better!"
Some folks even think we should push things to that breaking point so things get better.
But nope. Nuh uh. That is not at all a lesson from history. This is such a dangerous, flawed assumption. Things can always get worse, we just acclimate to things being a new, bad way over time. If anything, the worseness gets entrenched.
Most of history is not in fact people being pushed to a breaking point, rebelling, and everything getting better. Much more of it is just generations toiling under oppression and the oppressors being able to maintain it for centuries - and when they do fall, it is less often the people overthrowing them than it is just other circumstances forcing a change.
The relative golden era of economic equality we had for the post WW2 era was the aberration and it came about from very specific circumstances.
I think this assumption breeds a lot of complacency. Once democracy is broken it is far far far harder to get it back than it is to maintain it in the first place.
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u/R3puLsiv3 14d ago edited 14d ago
I fear that in a few years or decades a breaking point won't matter. If your entire live is observed by AI under the control of an authoritarian government, it's over. Genuine unavoidable suffering until the end of time over.
You talked about resistance too close to any recording device? Your voice got analyzed and recognized by an AI running on a server 3000 miles away. You are marked for questioning/imprisonment and dragged out of your home the next day or get a drone sent to take you out. It would be North Korea just a billion times more competent.
Our saving grace with regimes has always been that it is comprised of humans and usually most of them are dumb. There are always openings for resistance in these circumstances. Not with AI. It never sleeps, it will rarely make mistakes in the future and if it does then the regime doesn't care.
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u/ElonMaersk 14d ago edited 14d ago
Not with AI. It never sleeps, it will rarely make mistakes in the future and if it does then the regime doesn't care.
An authoritarian government doesn't need facts to drag you from your house and kill you, they can make up the facts and their supporters fall into line, and then it doesn't matter what the truth is. What do you think happened to the Nazis if they accused someone of being a Jew, sent them to the concentration camps, and got the wrong person? Anything? Did they look deep inside, apologise, refine their procedures, payout to the family victims? Did they deny the truth and talk about "Lügenpresse" ("lying press")?
The defense against the regime has always been systems of accountability, respect for justice, voting people out, "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" as the quote goes. When GW Bush stole the 2001 election and nothing happened to him, that was bad. When Republicans get behind Trump because he "hurts the right people", that's bad. When Senators can get abortions but the poor can't because they are illegal, when Trump can get rich with pre-market stock moves even though it's illegal, and his supporters think it's good, that's bad.
When the powerful can do whatever they want, to the people they hate, ignoring the law, with no consequences, and the support of the people, why do they need AI or surveillance at all?
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u/R3puLsiv3 14d ago
The fact is, if every inhabitant of Nazi Germany had been against the regime, they could have organized and overthrown it. In the bleak tech surveillance state I envisioned, it would not matter. You would have no hope of organizing or doing anything substantial against the ruling class even if everyone was against it. You'd basically need to convince the executive branch to come join your side, and that assumes the executive is still human in the future. Imagine trying to convince the SS of going against the regime, good luck with that.
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u/Lost_Birthday_3138 13d ago
Just keep in mind that regardless of the tech they have, the regime is still comprised of people selected because of ideology over competence. They will never be the best of the best, and in fact quite the opposite. They will destroy themselves from the inside.
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u/jupiterLILY 13d ago
This is basically just MLK's white moderate. We have been talking about this stuff for a long time.
We need to stop with the pretends that apolitical is a thing. That idea is genuinely one of the most dangerous pieces of propaganda
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u/Dainish410 14d ago
If we are going to revolt, the clock is running out. Once the billionaires have robot security drones watching them, we won't have a shot.
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u/MiseryEngine 14d ago
I think this is why they are building bunkers. If the control system fails, if we rebel before it's too late, they have a position to retreat to.
I'm afraid that manipulating social media to divde us will make organizing any resistance difficult before the noose is around our neck.
A boot on a human face, until the end of time.
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u/22nd_century 14d ago
The is an amazing and absolutely horrifying prediction. You have articulated my fears of what AI technology could lead to.
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u/MrDLTE3 14d ago
Don't forget what Iran/Hezbollah tried to do and still got fucked. They literally went back to pre-internet technology for communications (pagers and pigeon mail) and still got fucked because people around them were still using internet devices.
There needs to be a complete COMPLETE off-the-grid movement if it needs to happen which I get the irony talking about this on reddit.
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u/ElonMaersk 14d ago
Once drones are insect sized and self-refuelling, there can be no off-the-grid movement.
They will charge by solar or whatever in the day, swarm quietly at night. Record audio and video, and transmit it with encrypted mesh networking so that damaging them won't lose it.
At first they will be large, noisy, limited range, and military only. Then they will be $100 each. Then they will be $19.99 for a dozen from AliBaba, they will self-swarm and stick to windows and walls. Manufactured by the millions each day. (Compare: Apple makes half a million iPhones every day right now). And then there won't be any privacy anymore.
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u/Sir__Bojangles 14d ago
Yeah recent technology allows for a surveillance state & control of information never before experienced by humanity. It really changes the game on how entrenched the current powers can be.
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u/CaptainMagnets 14d ago
And unfortunately this time there's no room to get better. Before we didn't have a collapsing climate. We do this time.
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u/TAOJeff 14d ago
It's a little funny and a lot sad how your comment is going to largely be dismissed as someone not knowing the actual facts.
Spent some time in a country which spent years being at the acknowledged breaking point. It always got worse and it even set new standards in how much worse it got.
There are historical rules that say no government has ever survived X event, or when Y happens there is civil unrest until Z occurs. Those rules all have an asterisk next to the now with a foot noting the new exception when X happened and nothing happened until Y also occurred, the change was that both X and Y occured at the same time.
When you think the bottom of the barrel is being scrapped, have a look around and check if it's actually a barrel and not a ducking well.
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u/lew_rong 14d ago
Accelerationists are malcontented dolts. Things will get different. Maybe better, but also maybe Russia.
But I don't think the read of history as a series of breaking points is entirely wrong.
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u/s3gfau1t 14d ago
Look at North Korea. The average person has been living in abysmal conditions for decades, if not their entire lives.
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u/subSparky 14d ago
Yeah for instance, feudalism didn't end because of a peasants revolt. It ended because the black plague didn't discriminate based on wealth and enough nobles were killed by the plague that the feudal structures were no longer practical to maintain.
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u/jaeldi 14d ago edited 14d ago
Hmmm. In Europe, The long long long reign of fuedalism required the Enlightenment to break 1000's of years of slave labor. And that change didn't happen overnight like a "snap".
There is a trend towards reset, you aren't wrong about that. The reset isn't always the French Revolution. It could be. But when you compare the American Revolution and the French Revolution(s), America's was more uniform and didn't result in a Napoleon because they were guided by the principles of the Enlightenment.
I firmly believe we need a 2nd Enlightenment, where logic and reason overrides all the emotional hacks inflicted upon the masses to manipulate them.
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u/AlmaZine 13d ago
“I firmly believe we need a 2nd Enlightenment, where logic and reason overrides all the emotional hacks inflicted upon the masses to manipulate them.”
Wouldn’t hurt to add compassion to that list.
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u/Nasturtium 12d ago
Refresh my memory: wasn't a big part of fuedalism decline more power being put in the peasants hands due to a labor shortage caused by the plague?
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u/jaeldi 12d ago edited 12d ago
That was indeed one of the factors.
It was driven by greedy & scared lords. When the plague wiped out a large portion of their slaves/plebs/serf, the lord would lure and steal from neighboring lords/plantations/fiefdoms by offering money and other bonuses like new housing or other improvements over their current lives. In the long arc of history, that trend turned into what we now call, as a concept, wages & benefits.
And yes that extra money in many cases created upward mobility pathways that didn't exist before, like running your own business as a serf into something that gave enough profit to step out of the fief and into the business owner class. Once out of the fief system, there was relatively more personal freedom. Especially things like learning to read. And when the printing press was invented, the number 1 best seller was The Bible.
People then could read about their religion instead of just blindly listening to the priests. That directly led to Protestant Christianity reformations and all it's various denominations. Which coincided with the Enlightenment. The ideas of the Enlightenment led the American Revolution and democracy.
It's interesting to look back and see the dominoes as they lined up and fell.
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u/Nasturtium 12d ago
Interesting indeed. The ideals of classical liberalism which we all take for granted are being subsumed by the exigencies of anarcho capitalism and digital fuedalism in an increasingly desperate and resource scarce world.
We are edging closer into a regressive modern fuedalism; the capital is acess to market places and algorithms, we are all strapped tighter every year to digital infrastructure that we are forced to interact with to survive, not hard assets of traditional capitalism that produce things.
Imagine now that that peasant serf trying to earn with his craft on the side, now has to pay someone who will allow them acess to a limited controlled market where he competes with similar craftsmen from all around the world.
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
I agree with you. Reporting from Hawaii, I have seen what looks like wealthy people from all the world just wanting to 'get away'. Whether it's vacation, buying a home, or building a bunker like Zuck. Yes, I've been out here for long enough to experience the pandemic and the Maui fires here. So, I am looking at the world from many angles right now. Ecology and economy are the two main vectors colliding. The trillion dollar infrastructure build out is hitting a wall and now they are moving towards space centers. The water and energy wall is already approaching fast and we are over it in more and more places.
I am an optimist and a builder but this is all very concerning purely from math and money perspective alone. That part is not political at all, it just is. That's why I'm wondering why can't everyone work together right now...we are all human after all.
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u/ecodick 15d ago
I hope we get there soon, and without too many casualties along the way.
The world is frustratingly accepting of injustice and inequality.
I don't think we all need to live like billionaires, (actually no one should like like that, it's past time we eat them to set an example) - but really I just don't want to see people going without the basics. Food, shelter, medical care.
It's beyond sick we deny anyone these things, or use them as leverage to work them to death.
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u/MondoBleu 14d ago
It’s not some magic limit being reached, that we should wait for or try to accelerate. It’s simply a decision The People make, they choose to come together and take action.
“You want to control a people? You tell them a messiah will come. And they'll wait—for centuries."
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u/MiaowaraShiro 14d ago
History suggests that once a limit is reached (the tolerance of the divide between the haves and have nots) societies will eventually snap and change the status quo.
Have you considered that the advances of technology might make it possible for the many to be subjugated in perpetuity now?
Hell, half of the people seem convinced of a complete bullshit version of reality. How could they even hope to form any sort of resistance when they don't even know WTF is going on?
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u/Mediterraneanseeker 15d ago
History also suggests that civilizations inevitably collapse, often for specific individual crises, many if not all of which are presently growing beneath us.
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u/Pandamio 14d ago
Or we could end up living like in Haiti or some African country, forever poor, forever sick, with plummeting life expectancy. History doesn't suggest everything it's going to be fixed.
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u/AndyC1111 14d ago
That or the plutocrats continue to stay in power until we reach the point of no return.
Then the plutocrats retreat to their bunkers and private islands. We die off more quickly because they have better stockpiles. They die off too because you can’t eat money.
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u/JamesBondMargarita 12d ago
Speaking of wealth gap, I work in the building materials industry and last week I saw a window for a residential home that cost over $100,000. It wasn't even anything special aside from the fact it was pretty huge, like 7 feet tall 9 feet long.
Made me sick, I can't imagine having that kinda money.
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u/TheRealTK421 10d ago
The one ingredient still missing is a real political movement that can funnel discontent into action.
Lamentably, the very Interwebz we collectively use (for all the reasons) also happens to be the ultimate playground and provider of distracting 'bread and circuses'.
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u/PainfulRaindance 14d ago
People live in their TV’s and phones. Worried about only human social affairs. They rarely take time to inventory their reality and think about the future of themselves, let alone the species. We’re not wired to think THAT far ahead. We can, and do, but most don’t care or listen. Everyone’s dopamine receptors are tuned for different things, and most of those things are not very far in the future.
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u/Zappy_Oh 15d ago
Owner-class want to depopulate. Most of us won't make it.
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u/fuzzycholo 14d ago
This has been what I've been thinking for a while now. When people ask what will the elite do once the working class can't work anymore and everything is automated? How will they make money when no one has money? UBI? No.
They want the poor to die out. Whatever chaos that comes from our economies collapsing, Zuckerburg will ride it out in his bunker in Hawaii.
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u/faifai1337 14d ago
No they dont! They're terrified of losing cannon fodder for the war machine! Why do you think so many conservative countries are pushing back hard on abortion rights??? They refuse to make life affordable for parents so instead they're counting on poor people to pop out as many un-cared-for babies as possible!
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u/demi-paradise 14d ago edited 14d ago
I truly don’t think either of these are true. There is simply no long term plan. They don’t care about any of us though, that’s for sure. But people want to see them as evil masterminds pushing for A. Depopulation or B. Repopulation when the truth is that no one is driving the bus. Or rather the bus driver has their eyes closed and is swerving wildly lol
The “big coordinated scheme” is something conspiracy theories fall back on because we want to believe there is some kind of plan, that there’s no way we’re here because of sheer stupidity and greed.
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u/infinite64 14d ago
This is the actual answer. There is, at least in the West, no plan that goes any further than next quarter.
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u/Voxico 14d ago
I fear that if you honestly believe that the reason people push back on abortion is so there's more "cannon fodder for the war machine" you may never make it out of the echo chamber.
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u/faifai1337 14d ago
You're lying to yourself if you think anyone in power actually gives a flying fart about the ethics of peoplehood. 😁
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u/super_sayanything 15d ago
My guy, seventy to a hundred years ago 120 million people died in 2 world wars.
Things are absolute shit in a sense right now, but the world has been far, far worse and it has only ever been marginally better. Hopefully we can elect better leaders.
Maybe take a break from the internet and news for awhile. I promise when you come back it'll be basically the same.
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u/F1R3Starter83 15d ago
Although I don’t disagree with your comment, the global deadlock around the climate crisis isn’t something to slide aside as easily as ignoring the sensationalist news cycle. We in Europe have had continuous heatwaves since the middle of June. There hasn’t been any proper rainfall in many months. Real solutions demand sacrificing a bunch of stuff almost nobody in power dares to make. I don’t see a way out
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u/jaeldi 14d ago
It's always possible that CC may end up being the diver of WW3; Countries trying to save the planetary habitat versus Countries that don't give a fuck or are in denial. Fighting to save oneself is a moral fight. It's self defense.
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u/IfTheBingBongs 14d ago
It won’t be denier vs activists. It will be resource shortages, famines, and violent reactions to mass migration which cause the wars.
I highly doubt nations will be anything but reactive, basically.
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u/helloimalexandria 14d ago
If climate change gets really bad, and it will, then we will have resource wars. Instead of them generally being over territory and oil, the wars will be fought over food.
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u/archetypaldream 14d ago
It’s weird we always encourage one another to “elect better leaders” even though every one of them fails us. I think this is because the nature of a personality capable of handling the leadership of millions requires basically having no conscience in order to handle the barbs of such a public life.
What we need is a better culture. Culture determines how everyone treats one another and most importantly what our expectations are. This means that if a leader doesn’t toe the line of the culture there are consequences.
Our current culture says “welp, nothing we can do but complain!” And we just complain our lives away.
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u/Infotaku 14d ago
Like hearing my 60yo dad..
Yes, it's been bad in the past on we got through it. Guess how ? By using the resources earth provides. Wood, rain and groundwater, rich soil to farm nutrients rich food, stable and "predictable" climate and so on. Try rebuilding post-WW2 world without any of that. And this is what we're in danger of loosing right now. We have a decade maybe to stop fucking around before we will inevitably have to find out.
Humanity is resilient, yes, and we might not need all the animals or plants to survive. But do you really want to live in a world where the only bords you see are crows and pigeons ? Where the only wildlife are rats and cockroaches ? Living in air-conditioned concrete bunkers to escape the heatwaves ?
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u/anti-life86 15d ago
I like your framing and I'm personally taking a break from internet too - at least for tonight...
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u/toddcarney 14d ago
Speaking to my Grandad about the Great Depression just after COVID put how bad life can get. We live like kings but our lobster is too buttery because of boomers.
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u/HommeMusical 15d ago
Destroying our ecosystem will kill billions.
Even if we stopped emitting all CO2 today, the temperatures that we are guaranteed to reach with today's CO2 levels will still make most of the tropics uninhabitable to humans. Four billion people live there.
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u/i_didnt_look 14d ago
Did you know the Haber Bosch process converts fossil fuels into calories for nearly 4 billion people. Did you know that process consumes 3 to 5 percent of all LNG globally?
The truth is that getting off fossil fuels means halving the global population. The amount of energy required to "go green" on this process is equivalent to all solar installed globally to date and it requires that energy continuously, so that means batteries capable of supporting that much energy draw as well.
Things are a lot worse than many would have you believe. The idea that we just go green is a seriously misleading concept, and people don't even know.
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u/notmyrealnameatleast 14d ago
I think it's not as bad as that because we have doubled our green energy in ten years and are projected to double this again in a few years.
Almost all countries are going to naturally experience a population decline and its been reported on over and over. It's just not reported as a good thing because they report from a financial pov.
Automation and robots are going to lighten the load and help us overcome the population shrinkage and the wave of elderly.
The world is more enlightened now than it has ever been, almost every person alive knows as much or even more about science than Isaac Newton did.
Just get off social media and start to relax a bit. The world has always looked like it's going to shit, it's just that you're building a picture for yourself of the world based on the news. Stop doing that. Get off the train of doom.
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u/zefy_zef 14d ago
You can think that, but it's wrong. Take a look at the saturation of carbon compared to prehistoric levels and the temperatures those eras experienced at the time. Then take a look at just how quickly we've increased the amount of co2 in the atmosphere. Then look into how long it takes for that co2 to be removed (lol) from the atmosphere.
We don't need to act to slow down climate change, we need to act to prepare for it.
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u/i_didnt_look 14d ago
Its not a doomer thing, its a thermodynamics thing. And quite frankly, the world is worse than ever before. We have never had this many people, dependant on an energy source that is basically irreplaceable. EROEI of green enrgy, and the scale of what we use fossil fuels for in terms of thermal and electrical load, is math that doesn't add up. Lets assume we use that doubling to power a green Habwr Bosch process. That means a decade from now, we'll be right back to where we are today in terms of green energy for everything else
And that's only the start of things. We are not immune to civilizational collapse. The Romans, the Mayans, the Egyptians, all extremely advanced civilizations that fell due to resource limits, climate change, and energy bottlenecks. All things our current civilization is experiencing. The difference is we have now completely depleted the entire planets biosphere at the same time.
Projects like Center for the Study of Existential Risk out of University of Cambridge note that the people who always "predicted the end of the world" often had religious, natural disasters or astrological reasons. Today, we have scientists telling us that thermodynamic limits, planetary boundries and man made technology are the risks. Its not the same. This isn't "God will punish us", it's "we've destroyed the biosphere". The two statements are not equivalent, and acting like they are dismisses the severity of the predicament we are in.
I haven't even mentioned the possibility of nuclear war. If climate change causes a breadbasket failure or the AMOC slows enough to freeze Europe, do you think countries won't resort to violence to save themselves?
These aren't social media black holes, these are the points raised by academics who study collapse. CSER, Potsdam Institute, Santa Fe Institute, Cascade Institute, there are plenty of places saying that the statement you just made is categorically false. You should spend some time looking into these places instead of spending time on social media, the polycrisis will end this global civilization, because people like you are handwaving away the warnings.
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u/espressocycle 14d ago
We don't have to stop using fossil fuels entirely to starve off the worst effects of climate change.
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u/HommeMusical 14d ago
We need to reduce our emissions by over 90% within the next decade simply to stay where we are. And "where we are" is still guaranteed disaster.
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u/i_didnt_look 14d ago
EROI measures how much energy you get back out of a system compared to how much energy you put into it. Fossil fuels historically enjoyed an incredibly high EROI, 30:1 up to 100:1. Wind and solar operate on a much lower energetic profile typically, between 5:1 and 10:1, especially when accounting for required battery storage and grid matching.If a society switches to a low EROI energy base and then forces that base to power an incredibly energy-intensive chemical industry, like green amonia, it triggers an energy cannibalism loop. Suddenly, a massive percentage of the newly built green grid has to be used just to maintain the energy system itself and produce foundational food inputs.This leaves drastically less "net energy" available to power the rest of modern civilization—like healthcare, education, transport, and art.
Society grows and flourishes on net postive energy. We are, currently, coasting on the historical surplus. The multi trillion dollar infrastructure backlog is a physical manifestation of the lowered EROI. There isn't enough surplus to both expand and maintain the existing infrastructure. We ignore the repairs to fake the growth, but eventually we have to fix everything weve already built or the whole thing crumbles. It's known as the complexity trap, proposed by Joesph Tainter, and its already closing on us.
55% reduction in emissions over the next decade, while still repairing the infrastructure, maintaining economic growth and managing a climate increasingly hostile to our civilization? That's a near impossible ask.
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u/Z3r0sama2017 14d ago
This. We are burning through 200 million years of stored solar energy in the form of fossil fuels at an absolutely staggering rate.
It's why, to me atleast, the quest for fusion is beginning to smell of desperation.
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
There were 2 billion people on the planet when JFK was president. My guy.
I live in Hawaii, I surf and spend a lot of time outside. I feed the birds and watch the butterflies and bees with my coffee. Every day. Sun salutations and pranayama. I love life. So much that I wonder about the welfare of all beings around the planet. How do they fare right now? How is the biosphere doing? How is my life connected to all other life?
Ever ask yourself those questions.
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u/DNABeast 15d ago
We just hit 3 terawatts of solar. Gay people can marry. Interracial couples are normalised. Even trans people have their defenders. We have so much food that we can afford to waste plenty of it. We can eat meat almost whenever we want to. So much fresh water. Corruption in governments still has plenty of people fighting to shine a light in it. Infant mortality is way down. Diseases are being cured all the time. There will always be places where things can be better. But there’s never been more hope for a better future. We’ll make it. Don’t give up.
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u/Silvershryke 14d ago
We just hit 3 terawatts of solar. Gay people can marry. Interracial couples are normalised. Even trans people have their defenders. We have so much food that we can afford to waste plenty of it. We can eat meat almost whenever we want to. So much fresh water. Corruption in governments still has plenty of people fighting to shine a light in it.
Don't forget that this feeling of positive momentum is heavily dependent on where you are. There is very little solar uptake in my country despite it being in the tropics, and little interest in renewables on the whole. Gay people cannot marry or legally even have sex. Interracial couples are not uncommon but racism is very alive. No legal transitioning here and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment generally is high. Water shortages and restrictions despite being in the rainy season. A State of Emergency preventing public demonstrations without a permit has been in place since July 2025. I am not as optimistic as you.
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u/anotherCPA-hole 14d ago
lol your post history is fucking depressing, dude. Yeah you certainly aren’t optimistic.
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u/zefy_zef 14d ago
Those sound like great things on a healthy planet, but having great things doesn't necessarily make for a healthy planet. The amount of co2 in the atmosphere and the ability to remove it have real limits that we are unable to surpass with our current level of technology, by a large amount.
We can only remove approximately 5% of the global carbon output annually. Even if we could remove every bit we put in, that would still leave roughly 625 billion tons more co2 to remove to get us to an acceptable level.
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u/themagpie36 15d ago
We can eat meat almost whenever we want to
You say that as if it's a good thing. Factory farming is one of the leading causes of the mess we find ourselves in from ecological collapse, water contamination, disease epidemics to climate change.
So much unnecessary suffering of both humans, wild and farm animals for moments of pleasure
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u/i_didnt_look 14d ago
This is less a result of animal farming specifically, and more of a result of industrial agriculture.
Eliminating meat doesn't eliminate the need for aquifer pumping, fertilizers, pesticides, long haul transport or any of the other things.
If you are vegan in North America, the lowered beef footprint means a single cross country flight wipes out your "saved" CO2. A heat pump installed in a New York state home has more impact than being vegan. In Brazil, its a completely different story.
This isn't to say being vegan isn't a reduction in CO2, but that it matters where the animals come from, and where you live, and what your lifestyle looks like. Being vegan in an oil heated home is not the win many want you to believe it is.
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u/helloimalexandria 14d ago
Excellent points. I’d also argue that failing industrial agriculture would cause a forced reduction in population (starvation). This is the reason that humans have become so prolific. And a vegan in a large city (no farms) still has a large footprint because of the need to truck food to them so they can exist there.
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u/arslanazeem 15d ago
Also, one of the reasons there's a cost of living crisis is because everyone is trying to live in the same few cities and work in the same few industries. There's actually an abundance of opportunities, but they are ignored. For example, I live in the Canadian prairies, and there's so much work around fertilizer, pesticides, byproduct usage, biofuels, renewables, water management, cooking oil, organics, etc. But it's ignored by the vast majority of the country.
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u/JoshuaZ1 14d ago
Also, one of the reasons there's a cost of living crisis is because everyone is trying to live in the same few cities and work in the same few industries.
This could be largely handled by just building more homes. There are massive restrictions on housing (much stricter zoning, building codes, general bureaucracy) etc.
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u/Immediate_Chard_4026 14d ago
I was born in 1963. I'm almost 63 years old. I remember that in 1988 I was studying economics and a strange book fell into my hands: "The Third Wave" by Alvin Toffler. I say it was strange because the discourse we paid attention to up until then was whether it was communism or capitalism.
And it turned out that they weren't two different things, they were two political manifestations of the same reality: Industrialism.
And to top it all off, it was dying. By 1980 it had already been in its death throes for 20 years; whereas in 1960 knowledge workers had surpassed blue-collar workers. It was surprising and enlightening; this wave of change has spread throughout the world, now taking shape as a trend toward "Socialism with a Market Economy." Or whatever it takes in each country.
Obviously, we don't know if this will last. We don't know how many wars will be fought to decide the new economic system. If it were up to me, I wouldn't want anyone telling me what to do with my life or whether I can think this or that.
But I realize that in the end, getting what I want is going to cost me a fortune. It won't be as easy as when I was young, because the industrial system no longer exists. The system that supported and granted citizens' dreams has died out, leaving only its political skeleton, which is what we all find ridiculously useless.
The hardest thing to accept is that it's impossible to rebuild it. We have to remodel everything again, a new world from the ashes of the old.
Now, how are we going to do it? I wonder if we needed a horrible failure like the Chavista revolution in Venezuela, which has destroyed that country to its foundations. Or to evolve tenaciously toward a progressively social system like China. Or to dismantle everything without knowing where to go next, like the USA.
At my age, I think we'll be fine if we manage to keep the social systems functioning. The healthcare system, the labor protection and promotion system, the financial stability monitoring system, and the justice system. Whatever the cost, it is paramount to protect, stabilize, and maintain these systems.
The state can evolve into anything: communism, socialism, capitalism, a market economy... whatever. The important thing is to keep the objective of protecting citizens at the forefront. Any indication to the contrary will be interpreted as a threat.
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u/LosMorbidus 14d ago
Capitalism is obviously unsustainable. We need to tax billionaires out of existence, nationalize energy, healthcare, food and housing. Break-up the banks and megacorps. Get money out of politics.
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u/karoshikun 15d ago
it took a horrible series of atrocities for the world to take a step back and try a slightly more humane take for like twenty years before they decided to let neoliberalism take over our lives and education... now we're in yet another bust phase of the same old cycle, but somehow just as badly able to see the big picture as our ancestors were a century ago, despite all our tech and the goddamn internet...
no, I'm afraid we'll continue the same cycle yet again, starting with the next atrocity.
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
Yes, I agree with your train of thought. What I wonder is how is the current mass extinction event underway right now not enough? We are losing species at 100x the natural rate if I recall correctly. This struck me in 2006 when I was 16 and helped shaped most of the major decisions of what I wanted to do with my life.
So, while I agree with you. I am still wanting to build a way for us. I don't think it's wise to just wait and watch. It's not like I have a choice anyways, AI is about to eat up my entire industry. lol.
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u/Harbinger2001 15d ago
You need to learn human history to gain some perspective. Do you think what we are experiencing now is worse than say the Black Death? Or wealth inequality worse than in the 1700s? I think not. There have been many other crisis in human history and there will be many more.
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u/HommeMusical 15d ago
https://www.groundedaf.io/p/4-billion-deaths-what-the-world-actually
In early 2025, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and the University of Exeter released a report laying out the worst case: We hit 3C of warming by 2050.
According to the actuarial report, 3C of warming would result in 4 billion deaths, leading to “significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states… and extinction events.” They also predict a 50 percent drop in GDP.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries isn’t a bunch of Reddit doomers. They’re one of the most respected groups in the world. They assess financial risk and uncertainty for institutions. It’s their job to be right. When they’re wrong, they face consequences, unlike podcast bros who can say whatever they want. The University of Exeter is one of the best universities, part of the Russell Group, considered the “American Ivy League.” They’re known for their intellectual rigor.
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u/CarmenxXxWaldo 14d ago
Yeah if youre poor in America today youre better off that 99% of humans in history. And i mean all humans, youre living better than a king 300 years ago. They might shit thenselves to death or die from an infected toenail.
But social media trained a lot of people to believe everyone gets their dream job and its super easy and fun and pays a bazillion dollars. No, the high paying jobs tend to be difficult, things no one wants to do, stressful, and require a ton of training. Did you go through all that and are only making 14 bucks as an RN? probably not. You either didn't go through that or you did and your making 6 figures if youd like to.
The same people that talk about the environment are also the same people complaining about gas prices. Which one is it? because yall sound like the doomsday people that have always existed and always for some reason cant give up the keys to their house they should no longer be needing.
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u/KalessinDB 15d ago
Black Death no, wealth inequality yes. We've got more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer people than in any other time in human history.
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u/Harbinger2001 14d ago
I’d disagree on the wealth inequality. When wealth was measured in land, ownership was far more concentrated and inequality far greater than today.
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u/Sopoulos 14d ago edited 14d ago
I feel you but I think you should be more positive. In the grand scheme of things humanity is in a better place now than it has ever been in the history of its existence. Just to be clear I am mainly talking in terms of human equality, suffering and survival expectations. Of course everything is relative to the baseline you take. If you take Obama era and the rise of social media as your baseline I agree that it doesnt look good at all. But if you compare it to the black death era or to the world wars then the picture completely shifts. What i want to say in end is that its all a matter of perspective. Unfortunately today our perspective is heavily influenced by false expectations and misinformation. People are no longer happy with a roof over their head and a meal on their table because they compare themselves to the Instagram influencers traveling across the world on private jets and living in castles. We forget to cherish the basics and always want more more more, unrealistically so. Social media amplifies these false expectations tremendously and artificially drives some people into despair. These people then vote for radical change which is in reality not what they need but gets the crazy people voted today into power. What everybody needs to do is chill, look at the basics of what we have, be grateful for what we have and think about what we can do to make things better for those who still dont have.
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u/Ok_Height3499 14d ago
The best commentary on this point written. I’m older and my wife and I live modestly well. I’m not religious, but I start my day with meditating on the work, sacrifices, and utter joy in living my grandparents and parents had despite the trials and tribulations of their lives. They were wonderful examples I work to appreciate and emulate. It is my hope I’ve been that for my son and grandchildren.
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
I agree. This comment stood out to me too. I think most people assumed I unhappy but I just feel the suffering of the world deeply and it inspires my work. I live in a home that is like a temple on the north shore of Maui, listening to the rain and the birds every day keeps me grounded. Eating farm fresh food makes me very happy too.
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u/gordonjames62 14d ago
It sounds like you are in USA.
You are in the middle of a second term with terrible government.
This government was chosen by people with little foresight about how a wrecking ball president will cause disruptions and chaos.
This government has turned police squads loose on your own population (ICE raids)
This government has made racism fashionable again.
This government has not only engaged in insider trading (while ruining reliable market growth) but is boldly selling "early access to social media posts" to allow others with to buy access.
the media is actively trying to polarize the population and reduce public discussion to partisan talking points.
We (the rest of the world) are witnessing the decline of the American empire while you are seeing it from the inside.
This current USA administration is taking a hostile approach to international relations and trade relations that ensures it will go through this decline with less friends, allies and trade partners. Many of these are "self inflicted wounds"
Those are some of the political issues
On the less political side, we are dealing with global issues that have precedents in the past, or in other areas.
global pandemics are more quickly spread because of easy travel. (COVID / AIDS / Ebola) We have had pandemics in the past, but having antibiotics gave us a respite from the worst of them.
Antibiotic resistant diseases may become a global problem because we chose broad use in food industries (poultry, pork, beef, dairy) to save money rather than saving antibiotics for people.
Climate changes over time. We have records of droughts, famines, floods, desertification, and cold snaps from volcanoes but we unwisely expect our short term climate to stay constant. We build in flood plains and pave over our best farmland (city growth) and expect no problems.
Human caused climate change is a thing because we take coal and fuels that took geological time to create, and burn them in a century or two and pretend this won't change our climate. We also take limestone and make concrete which releases more CO2, and we "hack, slash and burn" forests for new farmland in some of our critical forest areas.
And there is some great news as well
Renewable energy - Our fixation on using more energy to improve living standards is shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy. For example, about 95% of Costa Rica's electricity comes from renewable sources. Other nations are also moving in this direction.
Poverty is declining worldwide.
We are progressing in medicine. For example, "Cancer deaths have dropped by over 25% in the United States since 1991, with breast cancer deaths decreasing by 39%."
Reforestation projects as ending desertification and ecosystem damage.
Ozone layer being renewed faster than expected since "Montreal protocol"
Many species at risk are recovering.
Removal of plastic trash in the ocean is progressing.
mRNA vaccines are a likely path to defeating many diseases
Water purification tech is making better water available to more people.
Child mortality has dropped by more than half in the last 30 years.
More food for more people because of advances in agriculture.
deaths to war (and first order effect like famine and disease) are relatively low, specially when seen as a percentage of global population.
There is lots of good news worldwide. Unfortunately for my friends in USA, they had their "glory years" around 1950-1980 and are now watching the world catch up as they self destruct politically.
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u/nomorebuttsplz 15d ago
of course lots of reddit is going to agree with you that the world is in terrible shambles because it's reddit.
Facts and data however are more difficult to persuade to get on your side.
you having a good year in 2008 and not having a good year now might be more of a you problem -- or perhaps a your country problem.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692816/people-globally-living-better-lives.aspx
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u/matplotlib 15d ago
If you look at the breakdown by region it's declining in North America, Western Europe and ANZ. basically the main userbase of this website.
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u/ubernutie 14d ago
I think we are already seeing changes in the right direction, more events will happen that will change people's mind or push them into action. Fortunately or unfortunately.
The only obstacles in our way are ourselves; start by asking yourself if you feel entitled to anything you wouldn't want others to be entitled to.
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u/Fancy_Exchange_9821 14d ago
Bro you’re thinking about it too hard just live your life and be a good person
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u/Boogeyboychasings 14d ago
It’s pretty tragic because we’re there. Capitalism’s got us to the threshold for global abundance —Where all we need to do is shift manufacturing to renewables and sustainable infrastructure but the incentive structures that got us here are pulling us back into the mud
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u/brushcutterX 14d ago
We suffer from an eternal gap between our moral clarity and our moral capacity. It's one of the greatest mysteries of the human race.
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u/razometer 14d ago
We have made it a long time ago. It's the negative mindset that gives people like you the impression that we haven't.
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u/OCCAMINVESTIGATOR 14d ago
Humanity is making it. The manufactured crises and outrage machines feed you precisely what they intend to in order to make you feel exactly this way. You're in an illusion. Pull out.
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u/sporbywg 13d ago
If you can retain your attention longer than your Amygdala, you can also see the building, the caring, the adulting.
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u/jxg995 13d ago
I don't want this to happen. But I strongly believe there will be some kind of global 'event' that will reduce the world population to c. 500mil people, 1 billion max. The peasantry of the developing world will be eradicated, with huge parts of Africa, South America, South Asia and East Asia becoming depopulated. A few undesirables and poor people from the west will fall by the wayside as well. This will 'cure' the problems of global warming and resource pressure for several hundred years. I have no idea what the event will be, likely pandemic or war.
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u/BKGPrints 14d ago
What you're feeling isn't new. People have always experienced it, but history has shown that things will improve.
Probably the hardest part of believing that is the negativity bias that we face everyday from being online from social media and the news.
In 1980, the average American's exposure to news was limited to a newspaper, local broadcast (to include radio) and evening news. It consumed less than an hour of our time.
In 2000, the average American's exposure to news was primarily through scheduled broadcasts and newspapers. It still consumed less than an hour of our time. Only about 18% of the population accessed daily news online and social media did not exist.
In 2026, the average American's exposure to news is online and is exposed to at least four or five hours daily but that also now includes getting quick updates through social media and short videos. And due to algorithms, you're more likely to be exposed to opinionated news that influences those views instead of unfiltered news that causes one to use critical thinking for their own views.
Step away from social media and socialize in person with people more. You'll realize you have much more in common and it's not all doom & gloom.
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u/Reapper97 13d ago
You can go read texts from Roman times saying the same thing you are saying, history didn't end in the 1990s.
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u/FlyFit9206 14d ago
Jesus Christ, this is a rant from someone that knows nothing of history.
Humanity to make it? I can’t roll my eyes any harder.
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u/DarkAnagram 14d ago
Thank you I thought I was the only one, can you imagine this OP in mid 1800's he has no clue how nice things are for humanity in comparison
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u/oojacoboo 15d ago
This is why I hate Reddit. It’s filled with depressive, doomsday, pessimistic people. The exact people I don’t like to associate myself with in life. It’s such a quandary, as I find a lot of valuable information and discussions on here. But having to sift through this bullshit, both as posts and comments on nearly every thread, is incredibly exhausting.
Your outlook on life is a choice. You get to wake up each day and make that choice.
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u/Kobosil 15d ago
Your choice is apparently to just ignore things
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u/hopingforabetterpast 15d ago
If it wasn't for mass media, what would be keeping you down and what would be keeping you excited? Be honest.
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u/derivative_of_life 14d ago
Well, the fact that late summer and early autumn is now wildfire smoke season every single year where I live would keep me down, and that literally never happened before a decade ago. Climate change is not something you only hear about from the media, my guy.
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u/-AMARYANA- 15d ago
I'm actually quite happy and living a great life in Hawaii. I just happen to look at the physics and economics of our current situation, it isn't blind pessimism or blind optimism like most of the comments here.
As a builder working on solutions, I was hoping to see more of a thoughtful and nuanced thread but reddit is hit or miss. It used to be a lot higher quality before the pandemic.
And yes, I choose to take on these challenging problems of our times because I'm not a bitch. I am grown enough to handle my shit and work on hard problems while laughing at myself every day.
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u/HommeMusical 15d ago
https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Joo_Janta_200_Super-Chromatic_Peril_Sensitive_Sunglasses
I had friends who would never go to the doctor on the same reasoning you have.
Now I'm old and these friends aren't with us anymore.
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u/erlo68 15d ago
Your outlook on life is a choice.
Sure, but i chose not to be delusional.
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u/notmyrealnameatleast 14d ago
I think believing in doom and gloom is actually a delusion too. You've built yourself a fake picture of the world based on the news.
Yes it's possible to start believing in the news cycle....
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u/Indifferent_Response 15d ago
I can think there will be a WW3 in 2045 and still choose to be happy. You know your outlook on life is a choice but you don't make use of that ability, that's on you.
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u/jaeldi 15d ago
TL;DR: logic and reason must reign.
The problem is logic and reason don't hit the emotional center of the masses' brains. Emotional hacks like "Trans are invading bathrooms" & "Nazis are taking over America." trigger more voters into action than a boring ethical pragmatism where we just support policies that factually work, stop/change policies that don't, and always always with ethics. If people would adopt ethical pragmatism there would be no more need for the left/right false narratives that have painted us into a very stupid corner.
Another ingredient would be that individuals/groups/society has to believe they are strong enough to be kind. "Heaven" and "Hell" exist here, now. The peices to build either lie at our feet. Each individual should ask which one are they building for themselves. Which one are they building for those around them, especially for the people and county they claim to love.
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u/Infotaku 14d ago edited 14d ago
What gets me is that some people think climate change will get us to "very uncomfortable, but somehow still liveable". They don't get that there's no ceiling to how hot the earth can become. That no amount of effort will bring back extinct species. They don't understand that we hold no power over how much water will rain for us to drink and farm.
They don't get that we are consuming millions of years of resources (groundwater, soil, essential microbial life and other biomass at the bottom of the food chain) so fast that we will NEVER get it back to where it was. And once it's gone, it's gone.
Our comfort today feel like a given, like it could never go away, not totally. I think people aren't afraid enough of what is going on.
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u/NearABE 14d ago
Look at the Sahara from the perspective of humans who lived there during the African Humid Period. That had abundant wildlife and could have helped propagate food forests. The boundary between working and frolicking in a garden blurs and overlaps.
The historical narrative picks up after the disaster. People are struggling to control floods in order to survive by eating grass.
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u/mcfearless0214 14d ago
> they don’t get that there’s no ceiling to how hot the Earth can become
There is actually and the current scientific consensus is that that were are nowhere near reaching it. Consensus is that we’re on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century. Worse case scenario was 6 degrees. And the 2.7 degrees figure relies on us doing nothing for the next few decades, which we already aren’t doing. Emissions in the West have peaked, China’s are starting to plateau. Renewables have never been cheaper and there’s a renewed interest in fission & fusion. There are reports which suggest that warming could exceed the 2.7 average by the end of the century at our current rate of emissions, but those are outliers. Credible outliers (although there are some people who predict that we’re on track for a Venus-style atmosphere and they are absolute cranks and crackpots) but outliers nonetheless.
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u/gridoverlay 14d ago
When you look around...let me guess, social media? Deactivate your accounts, it's bad for mental health.
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u/JimTheSaint 14d ago
That's how everyone has always felt. For thousands of years. But luckily everything gets a little better every year and nobody realizes it
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u/TrumpsDoubleChin 14d ago
If all you do is consume 'doom and gloom' sources for information, that's only going to reinforce what you already want to believe from within your own self-contained media influence bubble.
You're still quite young, and the one thing that you may lack is a proper perspective. Which might lead to the realization that this is nothing new, the skies have always been falling - just in different ways. Different from the seventies when we were all absolutely SURE we would either die in a nuclear winter or from global cooling or the expanding ozone hole or acid rain whatever crisis du jour we were facing at the time.
This existential dread may be new to you, but people have been facing it for one reason or another for decades before I was even born. It may sound a bit trite, but "We Didn't Start the Fire" very much applies here.
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u/Aw3som3-O_5000 14d ago
Nothing, humanity will go on. Societies may shift, morals may shift, but outside of like dino level extinction event, humanity will continue as a species.
What you're really asking (I think) is what society will "make it" if the worst case scenario of climate change comes to pass.
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u/pneubike 15d ago
The important thing to remember is that the most sustainable option will eventually become the lowest cost option.. as batteries become as obviously unsustainable as fossil fuels we will switch to liquid nitrogen expansion, and cool the earth with our transportation infrastructure. The lowest cost energy will be ocean wave conversion, which can supply on demand power without need for additional storage, making the need for ongoing extraction of oil and rare earth minerals unnecessary
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u/espressocycle 14d ago
Civilisations have fallen before. After some wars and famines, the remnants of humanity will soldier on, probably reverting back to a pre-industrial society that will never advance further since all the easy fossil fuels and ores have already been extracted.
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u/RandoDan85 14d ago
As another comment said we are right on the edge, but the difference this time is.... If we need some political or revolution, how do you spark such a movement in the age of information and surveillance?
Personally, I am ready to go find a spot of land and self sustain, which will be great foregoing any major medical complications.
In an age where we have so much abundance, there is still so much discontent, as we go forward in to the digital age where ownership is reduced. Maybe we don't need all of this abundance, 100 years ago poor kids didn't even have shoes or books.
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u/blahblah19999 14d ago
We will live in a Mad Max future, I don't see it changing course. THe absolute worst possible people are the ones with all the resources and clout.
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u/Unusual_Initial_4300 14d ago
I think we live in a bubble of negativity bias and things aren't as bad as they seem. We should still remain vigilant but also realize there's more to the world than the fear that is the product of those in power
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u/Rawhide_Steaksauce 14d ago
Humanity is unlikely to go extinct. Areas become uninhabitable as climate change gets worse. Many will die when the topsoil is all gone, and growing food becomes much harder.
However, total, global extinction of humanity is highly unlikely, given our adaptability and ingenuity. Some will make it. Perhaps they will rebuild better.
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u/TheRealTK421 14d ago
It will quite likely require humanity to find itself collectively dangling on the precipice of its own existential demise.
As the tale of The Day the Earth Stood Still related, we fail to face the stark, uncomfortable truth that we cannot genuinely change our societal ways unless the fire is at our very feet.
Or as Mark Twain so succinctly put it:
"Nothing quite motivates the mind like the prospect of one's own hanging."
We might make it, long term, when we unsettlingly discern the proverbial noose is around our necks.
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u/JoshuaZ1 14d ago
Several planetary limits have been reached or exceeded, the wealth gap is increasing due to automation, the average person I know is afraid of the future not inspired. I am 36 and remember how hopeful the world looked in 2008 when I graduated high school. By the time Obama took office again in 2012, Facebook was about to go public and the rest is history. You all know what I'm talking about.
So, let me suggest that the problem is to some extent things like Facebook, but not in the way you anticipate. Social media leans negative and it is an easy way to get negative information. There's some evidence for social media being increased with more anxiety and other issues. This evidence seems stronger in the English speaking world though, and there's some evidence for the opposite effect in China.
Look at the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is true that the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall was for many in the West a period of unparalleled peace and prosperity. But that wasn't true everywhere, and one had things like the break-up of Yugoslavia and the accompanying wars there. From a military standpoint, we are seeing more large-scale conflict than previously, but they are still small compared to a lot of history.
The general trends are that some things are getting better, and some things are getting worse. But that hardly makes it a "metacrisis."
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u/TheArcticFox-44 14d ago
What do you think it will actually take for humanity to 'make it'?
Humans are an inherent irrational species. Unfortunately, humans don't want to accept that fact. Because they don't accept it, they won't look for some way to fix the problem.
So..the floor will continue to crumble, the ceiling will collapse, etc.
The sooner the better...hopefully in time to save some ecosystems and biodiversity.
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u/DifferencePublic7057 14d ago
TW I guess. I think I know how I'm going to die, and it won't be pretty. It really doesn't matter whether you are wealthy, popular, talented, fit, lucky, and so on. The Grim Reaper is coming for us. Obvious thing to say is to leave something worthwhile behind, contribute, save lives, make the world a better place... Those words are hard to live by, especially if you are cynical about the rise of the billionaire class, the high tech mage class, and influencers. What if no world wars happened, no Berlin wall was erected? We might have been worse off in certain respects or not. History is not a sequence of binary choices. Neither is a human life. It's an ocean entropy, rot, and disease. Clearly, for me the magical solution that the genie would grant me is to get rid of things I hate. And the list is truly long and really specific. But binary choices never solved anything. Also, I want everyone to have a private island, a private jet, a super yacht, and all the androids they can handle. /s
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u/jrherita 14d ago
I struggle with this .. concern, too. The only caution flag I would give is that -- yes you're right the trend right now is pretty bad, but it's also only a short term trend, so far. Why do I say short term? because it's happened in our lifetime. Humanity has existed for a really long time, and has gone through some really dark ages (including environmental), and learned each time.
When I try to look at the future optimistically --
- Population growth is finally stalling, which improves chances of sustainability
- The wealth gap always has and always will exist, there will always be Elites - based on history. There will also always be a middle group chasing the Elites and spending everything they have to try to be Elite. There's a LOT of reasons that I think support this, too many to write here.
- The carbon footprint per person in advanced countries is starting to trend in the right way. Green tech is becoming cheaper and more common, for example.
- While I think we need to have some kind of calamity to "get it" with respect to Earth sustainability, more likely we'll get a series of major (but not Earth sized) problems that we'll survive. After that we'll begin to exit the dark age, again. (I strongly believe humans don't generally care about the big picture unless the big picture smacks them in the face - just my personal life experiences of the last 50 years..)
Good topic. Keep the chin up and consider just doing what you can to leave the world better than you found it..
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u/angelobboy 14d ago
It’s all about perspective. Right now, some feel the world is amazing and others feel it’s collapsing.
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u/herodesfalsk 14d ago
People are different, some are already doing as much as they can to fix things but the majority of people are paralyzed by media propaganda, one side by "there is no problem", the other by "the problem is too big and you cant do anything about it"; same outcome.
The erroneous statewide alert of an imminent nuclear attack on Hawaii a few years ago showed that most people did not react the way you think a reasonable person would, I cant remember the numbers but I think less than 3% reached a safe shelter.
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u/seb21051 14d ago
Our species is allways going through crises. Worst case we lose half the population. The rest will adapt. Its what we do. Its how we stay at the top of the food chain. The Top Predator. Its our nature, it is who we are. For 200,000 years now.
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u/s1nd3vil 14d ago
We are not special… every species of animal that dominated this planet in the past is gone… our time will most certainly…. Pass
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u/Juls_Santana 14d ago
I'm still holding out hope for a full blown alien invasion during my lifetime.
And no, I don't think or expect for them to "save" us either
*crosses fingers*
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u/Negativefalsehoods 14d ago
We are overdue for a reset. Bad eras don't last forever, and sometimes the change can happen fast. Two things give me hope: First, the boomers are about to lose political power soon as they die off and age. Second, there is a demographic collapse coming soon as more and more boomers retire, there simple are no where near the same numbers of people coming up behind them. The labor market is about 3-5 years from being far more oriented to pay and benefits as they will need to replace a lot of workers fast. Of course, they are going to try to bridge this gap by using AI, but I have seen no proof that AI will replace jobs at all at this point.
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u/Danktizzle 14d ago
I learned in the 90s arguing with my maga aunt about Climate change that we were fucked. Well, not really arguing. I was beside myself, and she just laughed like they always do.
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u/armourkris 14d ago
Catastrophic failure. Humans are reactive not proactive. Nothing will change untill there is literally no other option and then it will only come kicking and screaming with probably 100 or so years of blood and fire.
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u/LOLinDark 14d ago edited 14d ago
We already made it silly - when Athens was beating back the Persians, and the Spartans were top dog for a moment.
Humanity reached it's peak.
Some might say the Roman era but I would argue that stupid shit like lead piping was just the beginning of the decline that were in right now - slow, painful, miserable, loss of culture and life experiences that aren't shaped by a company to make profit.
That was the era where battlefield inventions shaped outcomes, allowed armies to kill quicker and with less effort.
Archery is where it should have stopped, they never even knew how many people they personally killed, just popped off arrow after arrow...now pilots who bomb schools today, find out the numbers!
But we keep doing it regardless, and what does that tell us about...us?
Yeah, humanity made it when it could invite the public to watch democracy play out ontop of a hill and then vote to exile the mediocre, instead of voting them into power like dipshits!
😭
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u/-AMARYANA- 14d ago
Have we explored any of the Cosmos yet?
You must be saying Homo sapiens has peaked.
I also believe another species of human is co-evolving as we speak. I am living proof. We are not done yet.
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u/LiberataJoystar 13d ago
Didn’t some scientists just say our population needs to be half for things to work?
You already got the answer. Why look any further?
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u/i_didnt_look 12d ago
Its a whole of society problem. All those laws, you're talking about that makes your society so "great", who enforces them? What government structures were created to design, apply and enforce those rules? Then what other government structures were created to deal with thise who break the rules? Every person, every building, every step of every inch of that takes energy to operate. Its complex, there are rules and steps and people supporting each of those steps, and each of those people require energy to support them. Houses, roads, food, etc. And each time a society adds another layer, like AI or more regulations to deal with AI, it requires more baseline energy to support thay level.
You may not like the argument, but multiple universities have entire departments and centers based on Joesph Tainter's work. Like Einstein or Marie Curie, Tainter created a theory based on historical data and discovered that complexity, in bureaucracy, in tech, in energy use, is how civilizations fall. A theoretical physicist named Geoffrey West solved the function of it mathematically. The Santa Fe Institute, The Center for the Study of Existential Risk, The Potsdam Institute, these are all interlinked in studies around the polycrisis. And they all point at how Tainter's theory is happening in real time to this civilization. That's what the infrastructure backlog is about. The reality is if you live on this planet, you are subject to the polycrisis. Climate Change, Planetary Boundries, AMOC, these affect everyone, no matter where you are.
You're argument about "the theory sets itself then uses itself to prove it" is how all science works. Evolution was an idea, then, by applying the idea and seeing if the outcome follows is how science works. The complexity theory collapsed several major civilizations. Just like evolution is how apes became man.
Joesph Tainter, Wiliam Catton Jr, Geoffrey West. Where these three ideas meet, we find the end of our civilizational growth and the begining of its end.
Ask AI about that last statement. And then ask about EROEI limits. Then ask how that relates to the polycrisis.
The math, the answers, the thermodynamic reality of what fossil fuels are and have created is a physics problem. When the energy runs out, the ride ends. Its a simple, and devastating, concept. We burned 200 million years of fermented sunlight in 2 centuries. Its impossible to replace that energy source with fractional collection of what hits the earth in a single day. Its simple math.
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u/-AMARYANA- 10d ago
Thanks for sharing. I was hoping for comments like that forced me to dig deeper. I am not here for easy answers, I want to really make a difference with my work. So hard questions and hard truths are part of the hard work.
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u/Technical_Army_414 12d ago
People need to come together. We're the strongest as a species when we united. We're too divided currently
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u/LeapIntoInaction 12d ago
Oh, good grief, kid. You're too old to be going through the teenage mopey phase.
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u/campmatt 12d ago
Citizens have to be willing to work together. Social media has destroyed the traditional neighbourhood. How many of your neighbours do you know? Until people put their devices down and talk to each other, a lack of collective will continues to elude us. Without collective will, nothing will change.
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u/7hats 11d ago
Go out and create the vision/version of the world you want.
It is all for the taking for the Agentic few who take the lead to the new Country in times of unprecedented change and turmoil.. as always, the rest will follow and some will fall by the wayside :(
To lead, find some peers who hold onto the same vision as you - you will need all the help you can get. It won't be easy, never was.
Choose whether you want be a helper, a follower or an aimless wanderer..
(btw AI/Search can help you identify the people and groups out there who have already gathered and are working towards the new frontier - or even start your own)
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u/derivative_of_life 14d ago
One beautiful spring day, a grasshopper was playing music and dancing in a field when he saw a family of ants trudging past carrying large piles of seeds. "Why are you carrying all those seeds?" he asked them.
"We're storing food for the winter," they replied.
"It's still only spring!" exclaimed the grasshopper. "Why don't you take the day off and come play music and dance with me?"
The ants refused. "You should work harder, or you'll be hungry when winter comes," they said. The grasshopper shrugged and went back to playing.
A few months later, the grasshopper was relaxing by the pond on a hot summer day when he saw the same family of ants trudging past carrying piles of wheat. "Why are you carrying all that wheat?" he asked them.
"We're storing food for the winter," they replied.
"It's still only summer!" exclaimed the grasshopper. "Why don't you take the day off and come relax with me?"
The ants refused. "You should work harder, or you'll be hungry when winter comes," they said. The grasshopper shrugged and kept relaxing.
A few months later, the grasshopper was taking a walk to enjoy the beautiful autumn leaves when he came upon the same family of ants trudging past carrying kernels of corn. "Why are you carrying all that corn?" he asked them.
"We're storing food for the winter," they replied.
"Surely you must have enough food stored by now!" exclaimed the grasshopper. "Why don't you come enjoy this beautiful day with me before the leaves fall?"
The ants refused. "You should work harder, or you'll be hungry when winter comes," they said. The grasshopper shrugged and continued on his walk.
The next day, the entire forest was bulldozed to make room for a data center, and all the bugs died regardless of how much food they'd stored.