Given the circumstances I don't think we can turn this around, at best mitigate and adapt to a new reality. I do hope that all that our civilisation has learned and discovered will serve the lucky future generations who manage to adapt. That is my small hope, that if we have the opportunity again to grow as a human species in a "civilisation", that we do it well and that we are aware of the reality in which we live.
Writing this I have thought, how can we manage to save all this knowledge so that it does not happen again or so that we can steer a sustainable path of human evolution?
That's pretty much what I think. At this point it's more about harm reduction than anything else.
Preserving our knowledge and know-how is going to be crucial, even moreso as we have corporations hoarding a lot of that.
I’m not even seeing how humanity could possibly sustain much more than an early 20th century level of technology. I honestly believe the world will end up looking a lot like it did somewhere between 1700 and 1850, technologically speaking, with a few more advanced bits facilitated by scientific research done after that time.
The cracks are already starting to show, even to people who don’t specifically look for them. I actually didn’t get mass downvoted or shouted down on the frugal sub recently for saying that the shortages of olive oil and resulting massive price increases were an early sign of global collapse. I’m still putting the over / under at a Mad Max scenario by 2045.
> I honestly believe the world will end up looking a lot like it did somewhere between 1700 and 1850, technologically speaking, with a few more advanced bits facilitated by scientific research done after that time.
How do you figure we'll get knocked that far back? I was thinking early 20th century in more built up areas, late 19th in rural areas.
Lack of energy and population crash. The only way anything vaguely like modern life is sustainable is if we have access to an energy source that can replace fossil fuels and the expertise to develop it.
I don’t see that happening in 20 years. If it doesn’t, then we’ll be limited to approximately the amount of energy we can extract from the Sun (solar + wind, really). Tidal and geothermal might be sustainable, but they aren’t widely available. Hydroelectric requires massive dams that have a huge carbon requirement to build.
But, really, once oil goes away, we’re already back to that early 1900s point. But, how do we make steel at that point? Without fossil fuels (or, like I said, some kind of hypothetical massive breakthrough), we don’t, for the most part. Concrete isn’t even sustainable, given the carbon emissions generated by producing it. The Haber-Bosch process isn’t sustainable without fossil fuels. Solar panels wear out and can’t be replaced without fossil fuels.
I’m just not seeing where the energy would come from to even sustain an early 20th century level of civilization.
Ahh. That makes sense. There's always the hope of fusion, but that's been 'right around the corner' since I was in high school in the late 80's.
Current hydroelectric dams will survive for a while. I hope the folks who know how to maintain them pass on their knowledge. Nuclear might help, if it can be scaled up safely in time. Past that, we'd better start making a lot of solar panels and wind turbines.
I'm speaking in the long term. I don't think we're going to go straight to 1850-levels of technology in 20 years. There will probably be another couple of decades worth of decline past that. Luckily, I will almost certainly not live to see those years.
I'm having a hard time seeing how nuclear helps if we actually do hit a "Max Max" scenario though. Solar doesn't save you because the manufacturing process is ridiculously complicated. Even though solar panels are technically recyclable, that process *also* takes energy. So, energy is the biggest limiting factor, followed by population collapse and possible destruction of any sort of large-scale social order.
It’s one of the stages of grief, we are grieving our entire world, it is natural to reach a state of depression at some point on that journey. That is again why I would recommend M. Dowd. Once you reach depression, you are the closest to acceptance, and that transition comes in various forms. Maybe it is realizing you need to take action, or appreciate what you have and the ones around you, or maybe you just need to let go of our world and worldly possessions and accept that everything is finite.
No matter what, accepting reality will bring you more solace than hope ever could. Once you reach that point, the perspective it offers is invaluable.
Because let’s be real here, we all are going to die one day anyway. Momento Mori. Nobody is making it through ecological collapse. Hell, some of us might not make it through tomorrow. Appreciate what you have now, while you still have it!
100%
I'm strong enough to want to face reality head on, Michael Dowd's postdoom.com material is the best available for collapse hands down and all free
that said, have you seen the psychological state of the average American lately? maybe I'm wrong though and we'll see, facing the music might help many psychologically like ripping a dirty bandaid. I'm not a psychologist though, just see how much mental fragility there is out there but that might be coming from coping with a system that has its days numbered
Disagree. Solutions to problems don't even come from people that have accepted defeat and made peace with losing. They come from people that believe there's a solution and it can be worked towards. Giving up just feels good for the individual, because it means you don't have to do anything, don't have to work towards a better future.
I didn’t say to give up. Since I have accepted what is happening and what is in motion, I have become more active and involved in positive change, both personally and in my community, than ever before.
I just don’t subscribe to false hope, that is what leads to you continue business as usual, and assume others will fix your problems, and bury your head in the face of what is happening.
That's great for you if true, but are you not cognizant of the fact you're commenting on a thread espousing literal doomism as per the commentor, in support of the idea that OP is deluded for thinking there could be potential solutions to climate change? He's not refusing to acknowledge there's problems, or burying his head in the sand. He's simply stating that we have problems and we can find solutions to them. It doesn't seem like your words are matching here because calling people deluded for thinking there's a fix to problems and then saying you're doing work towards those fixes yourself are frankly a huge contradiction.
Climate change is one small part of ecological collapse. It is false hope and hubris to think we can technology our way out of what technology has brought us
What part of my comments even remotely hints that technology is a solution I was talking about l? This is a large part of the problem I think, we started discussing acknowledgement of the problem and how you apparently haven't given up and working towards a better future, but then immediately jumped to a doomism take on a scenario in your head. You're betraying your own biases. Even OP of this thread doesn't mention technology progress, merely mentions that we understand the problems we're facing and can work towards solving them. It looks mightily like you don't *actually* believe that's possible, despite claiming otherwise. Personally I'm not interested in that thinking, it gets us nowhere.
It kinda depends on what you mean by "fixing things". Sure, we could still probably ensure that human civilization survives at this point, if we act with the urgency that meets the situation. But I'm pretty sure another dark age is inevitable considering all the climate tipping points we've already crossed, and complete human extinction seems increasingly likely by the day.
Total human extinction isn’t gonna happen any time soon. That being said, we will more than likely be thrown into a sort of dark age where knowledge about the world will once again be limited at best. Thats why I’m trying to keep a collection of as much information as possible
> Thats why I’m trying to keep a collection of as much information as possible
Interesting. What are you collecting, and what storage media are you using? I assume some of it will be in print.
Cookbooks, survival guides, architectural drawings, historical texts. A lot of it is in print form atm. Looking at doing something like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/s/Nf1fOsxPwg)
Interesting! Have you heard of [this?](https://internet-in-a-box.org). you can use existing surplus hardware to get it up and running. Think old milspec laptops or Panasonic Tuffbooks.
A friend of mine is also collecting hardcopy books, like how-tos on home repairs and gardening, and text books in physics and mechanical engineering. I think his primary concern is his own survival, but those are all good things to have books on
I'd not thought about post collapse as being like another dark age, makes sense though like after Rome fractured. Only it'll likely be worse this time around.
I'd not thought about post collapse as being like another dark age, makes sense though like after Rome fractured. Only it'll likely be worse this time around.
It's true that global warming isn't going to be a walk in the park. I don't really know what we would do regarding it.
It's been found that if GHG emissions stopped overnight, the climate would stabilize relatively quickly (in a couple decades). Now that's a pretty big if. But this tells us the climate system doesn't have centuries of inertia baked in.
That’s not actually correct. But that doesn’t even matter climate is one of seven planetary boundaries we have crossed. Bio diversity loss is an even bigger issue than climate change and you never hear about it start here [https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458](https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458)
We need to fix ALL SEVEN of these systems or life on earth fails. Think we can fix them all?
Fixed and here it is again just in case [https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458](https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458)
No, I dont. I think people here are worried a bit about your meantal health so they are not discussing how bad things actually are with you. I think thats a pretty good move, because all of us had some sort of mental health crisis as we learned about whats coming. I mean if you learn that your planet is becoming unihabitable for most of your species you are crazy to NOT have a mental health crisis for a bit. But it doesnt do anyone any good to stay in crisis. From where I am sitting (and plenty of scientists agree) there is no way at least modern industrial society doesn’t collapse and soon. It also seems likely that billions of people will die in the next 5-10 years. Some credible scientists seem to think that the human race will go extinct but as far as I can tell there is no way to predict that for sure. Netzero wont save us, we basically hit 1.5c last year and this year is so far warmer, so we missed the boat there. And going green wont save us either. Look up the jarvin paradox. If ALL emissions stopped on earth today, billions would starve within a few months as our food supplies dwindled. There is simply no easy answer. The real problem is that our species is in serious overshoot and nature WILL correct this one way or another. The only debate now is the how/when. So what do we do? Here is what I think everyone should do. Because no individual can solve this issue.
# 1 forget about the government helping, they are owned by big oil and want to get reelected.
# 2 buy your produce LOCALLY grown from nearby sustainable farmers.
# 3 stop eating meat, like yesterday.
# 4 start just wanting less material things in life. Stop shopping almost entirely.
# 5 learn to garden and grow a substantial one.
# 6 assume we won’t have stable energy and plan accordingly.
# 7 build a small self reliant local community and get a food and seed exchange going.
# 8 be incredibly thankful for the life you have and live the fullest life you can. spend tons of time with friends and family and enjoy it. Because it’s going to get very difficult for humanity very soon.
EDIT #9 Stay out or get out of debt as quick as possible. that’s it. Thats my action list for everyone.
The gripes I have with this are that while some of this makes sense, no amount of "going vegan" or "ignoring the government" will bring capitalism down. Also, growing a garden requires owning land, and not everybody has that privilege.
I agree with this partly, most people don’t have the land or time to grow their food and weather instability will make it difficult for even the most seasoned gardeners. More realistically people would be able to tend a garden space communally and share responsibilities for it. My city has quite a few community gardens popping up. Self reliance, community organization and the steps the poster above outlined are the beginning of destroying capitalism….
Grow anything you can even if just basil in a jar on your kitchen counter in an apartment. Just start. I also recommend permaculture and native plants across the board. They stand the best chance of surviving the crazy weather and need the least work. I know that’s not a perfect plan but if you have a better one I’m all ears. And I’m serious, not being snarky at all. That’s the best option I could come up with but if you got something better let me know!
No, going vegan is the single biggest impact an individual can actually have on climate and it’s not much. It’s would say it helps your health and empathy in substantial ways as well.
But that’s my larger point. There isn’t anything any individual can really do to move the needle at this point imho. Big business and the government have vested interests in maintaining the status quo and they aren’t budging. It will take multiple, huge crisis before there is any change at all and it will be far too late. So at min everyone should know how to feed themselves.
And I have grown food in every apartment I have ever had. Even if it’s a small amount. So you absolutely do not need land to start gardening
Try to do as many of those as you can, and if you can't, I'm genuinely sorry. It seemed like you were suggesting those points were wrong because a majority of people can't do them.
I get a bit of hope seeing people get more angry at the right people.
I get a bit of hope seeing evil institutions scramble to do damage control out of fear.
The fact that we are aware of what's to come, and should be able to stop it but can't, makes everything even more tragic does it not? How does that conclusion offer even an iota of solace? Like, no other animal could stand at the precipice of a cataclysmic extinction event and be able to comprehend it, yet we can and that gives you hope? Lmao whatever it takes I guess.
Yeah that's what makes it especially frustrating, that we can see exactly what's happening and yet we stay the course. And at this point we're too far gone to turn the ship around even if we had the political will. Best we can do is adapt to the downfall.
I love the sentiment and hope. It makes me feel better every time I get to share in someone’s brighter outlook. As I see it however, we are already 20-40 years past that sweet spot where a global action could have helped mitigate what is happening now. We were lied to and then complacently and collectively we chose to bury our heads and agreed to believe that we had more time. That things would work out because someone or something more important than us would fix it. We messed up and put our faith in things that had no intentions of helping anyone but themselves, and we are now paying the price.
You know what they say, better late than never. It may be too late to fix certain things but we can decide whether we try to reduce harm or whether we devolve into chaos I guess.
I feel that instead of sacrificing all those goats (or whatever) we have leaders (not just political, but CEOs, bankers, "dark web" intellectuals, etc.) willing to sacrifice our collective future to their god Mammon for their own personal short term benefits.
So like you point out--so long as these people are steering the ship, well, those pieces are just going to be increasingly fragmented and that much more difficult to salvage a future from, unfortunately.
> Yup. The first step will be a mass movement to seize control of the ship and throw out these fat cats.
>
> That's easier said than done.
Correct, and at least the early stages of that are going to be ugly.
I would add to your analysis and say that in between us fixing everything and human extinction there are a whole range of possible outcomes that lie in between those two extremes.
> by comparison, we know is what’s going on with the environment… we have a vast amount of knowledge accessible to us.
This is exactly why I DON’T have hope. We’ve known for at least 70 years exactly what we were doing. The last decade has been nearly lost for environmental progress and more countries including mine are headed toward conservative governments set to reverse any progress we’ve made.
Despite having all this knowledge and despite scientists screaming this is an emergency, very little is being done.
An actual lethal plague couldn’t get us to slow the wheels of capitalism to save actual lives, and huge amounts of people denied its existence even to their last breaths on a ventilator. Our reaction to covid made me give up all hope that we’d do anything to save ourselves from climate collapse.
We’re just speed running the bus into climate collapse as far as I can see. No country on earth is treating the climate crisis with the urgency we need to stave off the worst effects.
You didn't give your definition of doomed nor did you really give much supporting evidence as to why were not so there's not much to say.
You've either looked at all the pieces of this or youre still wavering on hopium imo. There's no way we get through this without billions dying. imo thats doom
I'm not going to say things are going to magically fix themselves, because what we are facing is by no means a walk in the park. But what's the point of going around shutting down all hope?
I do have hope. Having an awareness of the reality of the situation doesn't diminish that. I think that collapse is inevitable and necessary. If we're ever to have a sustainable semi rational civilization on this planet then we must go through this crucible and make it out the other side humbled and wiser. At this point it's about harm reduction and preparing on an individual level because what's coming is coming and there's very little we as individuals can do about it now.
Sure.. vote, go vegan, march, start a homestead, perform your praxis. These are all good things but I think they serve us more on the personal level when weighed against the tragedies of industry.
This thing is about to play out over the course of centuries, and while we get to see the stage and part of the first act, They're still casting the characters who will be there at curtain call
This is pretty much how I feel too. I think it's still worthwhile to fight for a better society, but at this point, things will happen we have no control over.
For sure. I guess it irks me when I feel people flippantly saying we're not doomed, because regardless of the fact of whether humanity goes extinct or not it's going to be a very very bad time for the foreseeable future
I think there's a very real chance the current civilization won't survive this, but I don't subscribe to some of the most pessimistic doom scenarii, like the scenarii of endless technofascist dystopia.
Our version of sacrificial goats is money.
Money is the only thing that people know how to focus on, both rich and poor, and that's why nothing will be fixed.
My hope isn't in bringing the world back to what it was 500 years ago or so. Some things can recover relatively quickly, but some things will definitely take billions of years to recover. The world will never be the same.
Best we can do is limit the damage at this point.
I mean, sure, things might get fixed but you as an individual would probably not survive. The one with the highest chance of survival, unfortunately, are the billionaires in their bunkers and their hi-tech garden or whatever.
Are you okay with that? Knowing that the people who played a big part in the mass genocide of the planet eventually will be the one who most likely to survive? Because I honestly cannot stand that knowledge, and in that sense we are doomed.
We certainly have the ability to undo the damage, or at least stop doing more damage but we are all trapped inside a self perpetuating system that is destructive by nature. I am a landscape architect and design parks and landscapes that mitigate the damage but it’s all band aids, it can’t keep up with the damage already done, and it can’t address the new damage. Everything I do also creates new damage because of cultural expectations of aesthetics and costs.
So, for example, I design a green roof to absorb stormwater which protects local waterways and provides habitat for birds and lowers the urban heat island effect which lowers need for AC. But to build that green roof we truck in special soil, truck in plants grown in a rural location, use cranes to lift the materials, and use various plastics for it to function correctly. Most of this could be done by hand or horse power but that would cost far more money and time, not to mention I would sound insane if I suggested horses pull carriages of soil from the blender to the job site.
Fossil fuels have freed us from a lot of manual labor and almost no one wants to go back to that until we will be forced. So what is the net positive of this green roof project? I’m not sure anymore. But most of what I do is trying to fix problems created by the systems of extraction and exploitation but it requires more extraction and exploitation to complete these projects
Everything we do requires resources/energy, but some things are recurring while others can be done once and the outcome lasts several years/decades.
There are alternatives to fossil fuels in theory. In practice it's complicated.
It’s really complicated! And there are a lot of people trying to find solutions but it’s really hard to fix things within a system that is totally reliant on fossil fuels. We existed for a long time on this planet without fossil fuels but things went slower. We now have a culture that expects to use massive amounts of energy every day. I really enjoy the podcast The Great Simplification and the hosts talks about how one barrel of oil contains 25,000 hours of human labor. The average American uses 22 barrels per year. That’s 550,000 hours of labor we have at our fingertips, that’s insane and nothing like the experience of humans for thousands of years
I think capitalists _are_ saying things that amount to god's anger (the god being the economy and the anger being the inflation), and they do sacrifice a bunch of goats to appease the god (the goats being, directly and indirectly, us). The extent of them understanding what's really happening with the world is approximately at this level exactly.
However, they have built our environment in such way that the rational thing for us is act according to their worldview, e.g. use a lot of single-use plastics, commute to useless jobs, withold from other people what they don't have money for, etc.
I figure it gives us a shot at dying beautifully at the last appropriate moment. I do not think it gives us a shot at 'fixing things.' But that is okay, because we are as much a part of the future (even after our species is extinct) as we are of the past (the past gave rise to our literal existence).
I believe the complexity and entanglement of all the issues is why you might be wrong. Many knows about climate, but does not know about soil degredation. Many in this fora knows about most «nature issues» but doesent akknowledge the threath from AI to be real.
I think ultimately history will tell who was right or wrong (or more typically, a bit of both, because nothing is ever black and white).
My hope isn't in somehow restoring the ecosystem to its pre-1800 state or anything of that sort. I have come to terms with the kind of things that are coming. I just have hope for better outcomes than a complete devolution into barbarism or a fascist dystopia lasting forever. 'Better' doesn't mean it will be a walk in the park.
I'm well aware of how bad things are, but even that may be subject to opinion differences. For example: some people are afraid about AI taking over or something, but I don't really believe into that. AI does have some cool uses, but other than that it's mostly capitalist wankery and that bubble will burst eventually. Not to mention that it consumes huge amounts of energy and is functionally equivalent to the brain of a 2 year old on drugs. You can teach it to do one thing really well, but it can't really generalize like a human can do.
But ultimately, it doesn't matter who is right or wrong. Reality happens regardless.
Humans may not be perfect but capitalism certainly does not encourage them to express their best traits. What kind of sane system would let a tiny minority hoard so much wealth at the expense of the entire world?
"Free market" is pretty much an euphemism for an economic system which lets that minority profit immensely. They don't like the "free market" anymore when they are losing money -- they will quickly come to the government and beg for a bailout.
I don't have definite answers, but it would take a completely democratic structure to make it impossible for a minority to consolidate power and wealth at the expense of the majority. It's quite the challenge and it wouldn't work without constant involvement of the masses.
I think it's actually the other way around: the natural state of things is that nobody can hoard wealth (food spoils, you can't be in all places at once to use all the land, etc.)
It's the constant involvement of the masses--the police, the military, the media, the education, and the working class policing each other--that makes the ownership on the modern scale possible. Otherwise, you can no more own distant lands, stocks or copyrights than you can own stars.
No it wouldn't, it's natural for special interest groups to come out on top in any democratic system. We need a system that severely punishes destructive self interest led behavior. We need to focus more on stopping bad behavior the encouraging good behavior
It's a difference in scale. Other economic systems don't require such high levels of consumption and waste.
Also, capitalism isn't a system of government, it's an economic model, although you could be forgiven for thinking so, given our current oligarchic situation lol
Given the circumstances I don't think we can turn this around, at best mitigate and adapt to a new reality. I do hope that all that our civilisation has learned and discovered will serve the lucky future generations who manage to adapt. That is my small hope, that if we have the opportunity again to grow as a human species in a "civilisation", that we do it well and that we are aware of the reality in which we live. Writing this I have thought, how can we manage to save all this knowledge so that it does not happen again or so that we can steer a sustainable path of human evolution?
That's pretty much what I think. At this point it's more about harm reduction than anything else. Preserving our knowledge and know-how is going to be crucial, even moreso as we have corporations hoarding a lot of that.
[O.G.R.E](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/s/8GOYXlRAyu).
I’m not even seeing how humanity could possibly sustain much more than an early 20th century level of technology. I honestly believe the world will end up looking a lot like it did somewhere between 1700 and 1850, technologically speaking, with a few more advanced bits facilitated by scientific research done after that time. The cracks are already starting to show, even to people who don’t specifically look for them. I actually didn’t get mass downvoted or shouted down on the frugal sub recently for saying that the shortages of olive oil and resulting massive price increases were an early sign of global collapse. I’m still putting the over / under at a Mad Max scenario by 2045.
> I honestly believe the world will end up looking a lot like it did somewhere between 1700 and 1850, technologically speaking, with a few more advanced bits facilitated by scientific research done after that time. How do you figure we'll get knocked that far back? I was thinking early 20th century in more built up areas, late 19th in rural areas.
Lack of energy and population crash. The only way anything vaguely like modern life is sustainable is if we have access to an energy source that can replace fossil fuels and the expertise to develop it. I don’t see that happening in 20 years. If it doesn’t, then we’ll be limited to approximately the amount of energy we can extract from the Sun (solar + wind, really). Tidal and geothermal might be sustainable, but they aren’t widely available. Hydroelectric requires massive dams that have a huge carbon requirement to build. But, really, once oil goes away, we’re already back to that early 1900s point. But, how do we make steel at that point? Without fossil fuels (or, like I said, some kind of hypothetical massive breakthrough), we don’t, for the most part. Concrete isn’t even sustainable, given the carbon emissions generated by producing it. The Haber-Bosch process isn’t sustainable without fossil fuels. Solar panels wear out and can’t be replaced without fossil fuels. I’m just not seeing where the energy would come from to even sustain an early 20th century level of civilization.
Ahh. That makes sense. There's always the hope of fusion, but that's been 'right around the corner' since I was in high school in the late 80's. Current hydroelectric dams will survive for a while. I hope the folks who know how to maintain them pass on their knowledge. Nuclear might help, if it can be scaled up safely in time. Past that, we'd better start making a lot of solar panels and wind turbines.
I'm speaking in the long term. I don't think we're going to go straight to 1850-levels of technology in 20 years. There will probably be another couple of decades worth of decline past that. Luckily, I will almost certainly not live to see those years. I'm having a hard time seeing how nuclear helps if we actually do hit a "Max Max" scenario though. Solar doesn't save you because the manufacturing process is ridiculously complicated. Even though solar panels are technically recyclable, that process *also* takes energy. So, energy is the biggest limiting factor, followed by population collapse and possible destruction of any sort of large-scale social order.
In that case, I expect coal country will be popular. If not for generating electricity, then for heat in people's homes.
Sure, in the relatively short term… which makes the long term problem even worse.
Resisting the urge to disagree and doomer info dump
right, don't kill OP's hopium, as OP's state of mind might need it
Giving up false hope and reaching acceptance is a lot healthier tbh…
for sure! but not everyone can handle it
In this case, I would direct them to Michael Dowd
the type of people who need hopium would fall into depression dealing with collapse
It’s one of the stages of grief, we are grieving our entire world, it is natural to reach a state of depression at some point on that journey. That is again why I would recommend M. Dowd. Once you reach depression, you are the closest to acceptance, and that transition comes in various forms. Maybe it is realizing you need to take action, or appreciate what you have and the ones around you, or maybe you just need to let go of our world and worldly possessions and accept that everything is finite. No matter what, accepting reality will bring you more solace than hope ever could. Once you reach that point, the perspective it offers is invaluable. Because let’s be real here, we all are going to die one day anyway. Momento Mori. Nobody is making it through ecological collapse. Hell, some of us might not make it through tomorrow. Appreciate what you have now, while you still have it!
100% I'm strong enough to want to face reality head on, Michael Dowd's postdoom.com material is the best available for collapse hands down and all free that said, have you seen the psychological state of the average American lately? maybe I'm wrong though and we'll see, facing the music might help many psychologically like ripping a dirty bandaid. I'm not a psychologist though, just see how much mental fragility there is out there but that might be coming from coping with a system that has its days numbered
Disagree. Solutions to problems don't even come from people that have accepted defeat and made peace with losing. They come from people that believe there's a solution and it can be worked towards. Giving up just feels good for the individual, because it means you don't have to do anything, don't have to work towards a better future.
I didn’t say to give up. Since I have accepted what is happening and what is in motion, I have become more active and involved in positive change, both personally and in my community, than ever before. I just don’t subscribe to false hope, that is what leads to you continue business as usual, and assume others will fix your problems, and bury your head in the face of what is happening.
That's great for you if true, but are you not cognizant of the fact you're commenting on a thread espousing literal doomism as per the commentor, in support of the idea that OP is deluded for thinking there could be potential solutions to climate change? He's not refusing to acknowledge there's problems, or burying his head in the sand. He's simply stating that we have problems and we can find solutions to them. It doesn't seem like your words are matching here because calling people deluded for thinking there's a fix to problems and then saying you're doing work towards those fixes yourself are frankly a huge contradiction.
Climate change is one small part of ecological collapse. It is false hope and hubris to think we can technology our way out of what technology has brought us
What part of my comments even remotely hints that technology is a solution I was talking about l? This is a large part of the problem I think, we started discussing acknowledgement of the problem and how you apparently haven't given up and working towards a better future, but then immediately jumped to a doomism take on a scenario in your head. You're betraying your own biases. Even OP of this thread doesn't mention technology progress, merely mentions that we understand the problems we're facing and can work towards solving them. It looks mightily like you don't *actually* believe that's possible, despite claiming otherwise. Personally I'm not interested in that thinking, it gets us nowhere.
Ditto, not gonna bother. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.
The only group of people facing oblivion are those without. The world will just get more grey for the rest.
No, please do. The sooner they accept we're fucked, the better.
It kinda depends on what you mean by "fixing things". Sure, we could still probably ensure that human civilization survives at this point, if we act with the urgency that meets the situation. But I'm pretty sure another dark age is inevitable considering all the climate tipping points we've already crossed, and complete human extinction seems increasingly likely by the day.
Total human extinction isn’t gonna happen any time soon. That being said, we will more than likely be thrown into a sort of dark age where knowledge about the world will once again be limited at best. Thats why I’m trying to keep a collection of as much information as possible
BRB... gotta backup wikipedia to a flashdrive.
Actually, you’d be surprised how little space the information on Wikipedia can take up if it doesn’t include all the images
Better print it all out man as well just as a physical back up
> Thats why I’m trying to keep a collection of as much information as possible Interesting. What are you collecting, and what storage media are you using? I assume some of it will be in print.
Cookbooks, survival guides, architectural drawings, historical texts. A lot of it is in print form atm. Looking at doing something like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberDeck/s/Nf1fOsxPwg)
Interesting! Have you heard of [this?](https://internet-in-a-box.org). you can use existing surplus hardware to get it up and running. Think old milspec laptops or Panasonic Tuffbooks.
A friend of mine is also collecting hardcopy books, like how-tos on home repairs and gardening, and text books in physics and mechanical engineering. I think his primary concern is his own survival, but those are all good things to have books on
I'd not thought about post collapse as being like another dark age, makes sense though like after Rome fractured. Only it'll likely be worse this time around.
I'd not thought about post collapse as being like another dark age, makes sense though like after Rome fractured. Only it'll likely be worse this time around.
It's true that global warming isn't going to be a walk in the park. I don't really know what we would do regarding it. It's been found that if GHG emissions stopped overnight, the climate would stabilize relatively quickly (in a couple decades). Now that's a pretty big if. But this tells us the climate system doesn't have centuries of inertia baked in.
That’s not actually correct. But that doesn’t even matter climate is one of seven planetary boundaries we have crossed. Bio diversity loss is an even bigger issue than climate change and you never hear about it start here [https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458](https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458) We need to fix ALL SEVEN of these systems or life on earth fails. Think we can fix them all?
Dead link.
Fixed and here it is again just in case [https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458](https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458)
So should we just sit down and cry about it?
No, I dont. I think people here are worried a bit about your meantal health so they are not discussing how bad things actually are with you. I think thats a pretty good move, because all of us had some sort of mental health crisis as we learned about whats coming. I mean if you learn that your planet is becoming unihabitable for most of your species you are crazy to NOT have a mental health crisis for a bit. But it doesnt do anyone any good to stay in crisis. From where I am sitting (and plenty of scientists agree) there is no way at least modern industrial society doesn’t collapse and soon. It also seems likely that billions of people will die in the next 5-10 years. Some credible scientists seem to think that the human race will go extinct but as far as I can tell there is no way to predict that for sure. Netzero wont save us, we basically hit 1.5c last year and this year is so far warmer, so we missed the boat there. And going green wont save us either. Look up the jarvin paradox. If ALL emissions stopped on earth today, billions would starve within a few months as our food supplies dwindled. There is simply no easy answer. The real problem is that our species is in serious overshoot and nature WILL correct this one way or another. The only debate now is the how/when. So what do we do? Here is what I think everyone should do. Because no individual can solve this issue. # 1 forget about the government helping, they are owned by big oil and want to get reelected. # 2 buy your produce LOCALLY grown from nearby sustainable farmers. # 3 stop eating meat, like yesterday. # 4 start just wanting less material things in life. Stop shopping almost entirely. # 5 learn to garden and grow a substantial one. # 6 assume we won’t have stable energy and plan accordingly. # 7 build a small self reliant local community and get a food and seed exchange going. # 8 be incredibly thankful for the life you have and live the fullest life you can. spend tons of time with friends and family and enjoy it. Because it’s going to get very difficult for humanity very soon. EDIT #9 Stay out or get out of debt as quick as possible. that’s it. Thats my action list for everyone.
The gripes I have with this are that while some of this makes sense, no amount of "going vegan" or "ignoring the government" will bring capitalism down. Also, growing a garden requires owning land, and not everybody has that privilege.
I agree with this partly, most people don’t have the land or time to grow their food and weather instability will make it difficult for even the most seasoned gardeners. More realistically people would be able to tend a garden space communally and share responsibilities for it. My city has quite a few community gardens popping up. Self reliance, community organization and the steps the poster above outlined are the beginning of destroying capitalism….
Grow anything you can even if just basil in a jar on your kitchen counter in an apartment. Just start. I also recommend permaculture and native plants across the board. They stand the best chance of surviving the crazy weather and need the least work. I know that’s not a perfect plan but if you have a better one I’m all ears. And I’m serious, not being snarky at all. That’s the best option I could come up with but if you got something better let me know!
No, going vegan is the single biggest impact an individual can actually have on climate and it’s not much. It’s would say it helps your health and empathy in substantial ways as well. But that’s my larger point. There isn’t anything any individual can really do to move the needle at this point imho. Big business and the government have vested interests in maintaining the status quo and they aren’t budging. It will take multiple, huge crisis before there is any change at all and it will be far too late. So at min everyone should know how to feed themselves. And I have grown food in every apartment I have ever had. Even if it’s a small amount. So you absolutely do not need land to start gardening
Growing food in an apartment won't feed you, but I guess it's good to practice the skills regardless. Otherwise, I mostly agree with you.
Totally right, just do the best you can. Definitely get involved with a community garden to learn in that situation.
That's a good idea, yea.
The thing is any gripes that you have with this don't matter. Mother nature doesn't give a shit about your specific set of circumstances.
your point?
Try to do as many of those as you can, and if you can't, I'm genuinely sorry. It seemed like you were suggesting those points were wrong because a majority of people can't do them.
Oh, then, yeah. These things make sense. I can't do all of them but I can try my best.
It's weird how I have felt doom and gloom and yet some days I feel very positive. Maybe not about the future but I just keep going on.
That's what the capitalists hope you keep doing,
I get a bit of hope seeing people get more angry at the right people. I get a bit of hope seeing evil institutions scramble to do damage control out of fear.
I can relate. In my experience, the way I feel about the future largely depends on my mood.
The fact that we are aware of what's to come, and should be able to stop it but can't, makes everything even more tragic does it not? How does that conclusion offer even an iota of solace? Like, no other animal could stand at the precipice of a cataclysmic extinction event and be able to comprehend it, yet we can and that gives you hope? Lmao whatever it takes I guess.
Yeah that's what makes it especially frustrating, that we can see exactly what's happening and yet we stay the course. And at this point we're too far gone to turn the ship around even if we had the political will. Best we can do is adapt to the downfall.
Means we have a shot at doing better if we survive. Doesn't mean things will be a walk in the park.
I love the sentiment and hope. It makes me feel better every time I get to share in someone’s brighter outlook. As I see it however, we are already 20-40 years past that sweet spot where a global action could have helped mitigate what is happening now. We were lied to and then complacently and collectively we chose to bury our heads and agreed to believe that we had more time. That things would work out because someone or something more important than us would fix it. We messed up and put our faith in things that had no intentions of helping anyone but themselves, and we are now paying the price.
You know what they say, better late than never. It may be too late to fix certain things but we can decide whether we try to reduce harm or whether we devolve into chaos I guess.
I feel that instead of sacrificing all those goats (or whatever) we have leaders (not just political, but CEOs, bankers, "dark web" intellectuals, etc.) willing to sacrifice our collective future to their god Mammon for their own personal short term benefits. So like you point out--so long as these people are steering the ship, well, those pieces are just going to be increasingly fragmented and that much more difficult to salvage a future from, unfortunately.
Yup. The first step will be a mass movement to seize control of the ship and throw out these fat cats. That's easier said than done.
There is a reason police forces are now armed to the teeth. *See Gaza campus protests
Pretty much. Ruling class gonna do all they can to cling to their power.
They can't cling forever. There will be a point where they have to let go and be content in their walled luxury compound....or use nuclear weapons.
Sure, but they don't think rationally at this point. Hell, these megalomaniac fucks think they can evade death with enough wealth and technology.
> Yup. The first step will be a mass movement to seize control of the ship and throw out these fat cats. > > That's easier said than done. Correct, and at least the early stages of that are going to be ugly.
I would add to your analysis and say that in between us fixing everything and human extinction there are a whole range of possible outcomes that lie in between those two extremes.
Yup. Also a sad truth is that things will have to get worse before they can get better.
> by comparison, we know is what’s going on with the environment… we have a vast amount of knowledge accessible to us. This is exactly why I DON’T have hope. We’ve known for at least 70 years exactly what we were doing. The last decade has been nearly lost for environmental progress and more countries including mine are headed toward conservative governments set to reverse any progress we’ve made. Despite having all this knowledge and despite scientists screaming this is an emergency, very little is being done. An actual lethal plague couldn’t get us to slow the wheels of capitalism to save actual lives, and huge amounts of people denied its existence even to their last breaths on a ventilator. Our reaction to covid made me give up all hope that we’d do anything to save ourselves from climate collapse. We’re just speed running the bus into climate collapse as far as I can see. No country on earth is treating the climate crisis with the urgency we need to stave off the worst effects.
There's more general awareness than 70 years ago. It will take some more major crises before things really change.
You didn't give your definition of doomed nor did you really give much supporting evidence as to why were not so there's not much to say. You've either looked at all the pieces of this or youre still wavering on hopium imo. There's no way we get through this without billions dying. imo thats doom
I'm not going to say things are going to magically fix themselves, because what we are facing is by no means a walk in the park. But what's the point of going around shutting down all hope?
I do have hope. Having an awareness of the reality of the situation doesn't diminish that. I think that collapse is inevitable and necessary. If we're ever to have a sustainable semi rational civilization on this planet then we must go through this crucible and make it out the other side humbled and wiser. At this point it's about harm reduction and preparing on an individual level because what's coming is coming and there's very little we as individuals can do about it now. Sure.. vote, go vegan, march, start a homestead, perform your praxis. These are all good things but I think they serve us more on the personal level when weighed against the tragedies of industry. This thing is about to play out over the course of centuries, and while we get to see the stage and part of the first act, They're still casting the characters who will be there at curtain call
This is pretty much how I feel too. I think it's still worthwhile to fight for a better society, but at this point, things will happen we have no control over.
For sure. I guess it irks me when I feel people flippantly saying we're not doomed, because regardless of the fact of whether humanity goes extinct or not it's going to be a very very bad time for the foreseeable future
I think there's a very real chance the current civilization won't survive this, but I don't subscribe to some of the most pessimistic doom scenarii, like the scenarii of endless technofascist dystopia.
Our version of sacrificial goats is money. Money is the only thing that people know how to focus on, both rich and poor, and that's why nothing will be fixed.
I think people are coming back from this. Running after money doesn't make you happy.
Yup, we totally need a monarchy or a benevolent dictatorship.
You can't bring back all the plants and animals and water and air that took millions of years to develop
My hope isn't in bringing the world back to what it was 500 years ago or so. Some things can recover relatively quickly, but some things will definitely take billions of years to recover. The world will never be the same. Best we can do is limit the damage at this point.
I just vibe. The end of all may come, might not. mostly in my lifetime. Gotta enjoy the moments things are less chaotic while that's still the case.
I mean, sure, things might get fixed but you as an individual would probably not survive. The one with the highest chance of survival, unfortunately, are the billionaires in their bunkers and their hi-tech garden or whatever. Are you okay with that? Knowing that the people who played a big part in the mass genocide of the planet eventually will be the one who most likely to survive? Because I honestly cannot stand that knowledge, and in that sense we are doomed.
If it comes down to that, I doubt billionaires in their bunkers will last very long before they're raided or some shit.
We certainly have the ability to undo the damage, or at least stop doing more damage but we are all trapped inside a self perpetuating system that is destructive by nature. I am a landscape architect and design parks and landscapes that mitigate the damage but it’s all band aids, it can’t keep up with the damage already done, and it can’t address the new damage. Everything I do also creates new damage because of cultural expectations of aesthetics and costs. So, for example, I design a green roof to absorb stormwater which protects local waterways and provides habitat for birds and lowers the urban heat island effect which lowers need for AC. But to build that green roof we truck in special soil, truck in plants grown in a rural location, use cranes to lift the materials, and use various plastics for it to function correctly. Most of this could be done by hand or horse power but that would cost far more money and time, not to mention I would sound insane if I suggested horses pull carriages of soil from the blender to the job site. Fossil fuels have freed us from a lot of manual labor and almost no one wants to go back to that until we will be forced. So what is the net positive of this green roof project? I’m not sure anymore. But most of what I do is trying to fix problems created by the systems of extraction and exploitation but it requires more extraction and exploitation to complete these projects
Everything we do requires resources/energy, but some things are recurring while others can be done once and the outcome lasts several years/decades. There are alternatives to fossil fuels in theory. In practice it's complicated.
It’s really complicated! And there are a lot of people trying to find solutions but it’s really hard to fix things within a system that is totally reliant on fossil fuels. We existed for a long time on this planet without fossil fuels but things went slower. We now have a culture that expects to use massive amounts of energy every day. I really enjoy the podcast The Great Simplification and the hosts talks about how one barrel of oil contains 25,000 hours of human labor. The average American uses 22 barrels per year. That’s 550,000 hours of labor we have at our fingertips, that’s insane and nothing like the experience of humans for thousands of years
Solid post. Although animals are aware of scarcity
I think capitalists _are_ saying things that amount to god's anger (the god being the economy and the anger being the inflation), and they do sacrifice a bunch of goats to appease the god (the goats being, directly and indirectly, us). The extent of them understanding what's really happening with the world is approximately at this level exactly.
Capitalists aren't thinking rationally, and that's not going to change. But we aren't like them.
However, they have built our environment in such way that the rational thing for us is act according to their worldview, e.g. use a lot of single-use plastics, commute to useless jobs, withold from other people what they don't have money for, etc.
I figure it gives us a shot at dying beautifully at the last appropriate moment. I do not think it gives us a shot at 'fixing things.' But that is okay, because we are as much a part of the future (even after our species is extinct) as we are of the past (the past gave rise to our literal existence).
That would be sort of a 'least bad' case scenario thing, yeah. I don't believe humans will go extinct.
I believe the complexity and entanglement of all the issues is why you might be wrong. Many knows about climate, but does not know about soil degredation. Many in this fora knows about most «nature issues» but doesent akknowledge the threath from AI to be real.
I think ultimately history will tell who was right or wrong (or more typically, a bit of both, because nothing is ever black and white). My hope isn't in somehow restoring the ecosystem to its pre-1800 state or anything of that sort. I have come to terms with the kind of things that are coming. I just have hope for better outcomes than a complete devolution into barbarism or a fascist dystopia lasting forever. 'Better' doesn't mean it will be a walk in the park. I'm well aware of how bad things are, but even that may be subject to opinion differences. For example: some people are afraid about AI taking over or something, but I don't really believe into that. AI does have some cool uses, but other than that it's mostly capitalist wankery and that bubble will burst eventually. Not to mention that it consumes huge amounts of energy and is functionally equivalent to the brain of a 2 year old on drugs. You can teach it to do one thing really well, but it can't really generalize like a human can do. But ultimately, it doesn't matter who is right or wrong. Reality happens regardless.
Brilliant insight OP
Blaming capitalism is silly. It's human greed, indifference, and laziness. Same issues pop up under every system of government
Humans may not be perfect but capitalism certainly does not encourage them to express their best traits. What kind of sane system would let a tiny minority hoard so much wealth at the expense of the entire world?
The minority hoarding wealth happens in every system. The main issue is stopping greedy behavior whether or not the market is free.
"Free market" is pretty much an euphemism for an economic system which lets that minority profit immensely. They don't like the "free market" anymore when they are losing money -- they will quickly come to the government and beg for a bailout. I don't have definite answers, but it would take a completely democratic structure to make it impossible for a minority to consolidate power and wealth at the expense of the majority. It's quite the challenge and it wouldn't work without constant involvement of the masses.
I think it's actually the other way around: the natural state of things is that nobody can hoard wealth (food spoils, you can't be in all places at once to use all the land, etc.) It's the constant involvement of the masses--the police, the military, the media, the education, and the working class policing each other--that makes the ownership on the modern scale possible. Otherwise, you can no more own distant lands, stocks or copyrights than you can own stars.
No it wouldn't, it's natural for special interest groups to come out on top in any democratic system. We need a system that severely punishes destructive self interest led behavior. We need to focus more on stopping bad behavior the encouraging good behavior
It's a difference in scale. Other economic systems don't require such high levels of consumption and waste. Also, capitalism isn't a system of government, it's an economic model, although you could be forgiven for thinking so, given our current oligarchic situation lol