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I came to the realisation that human world is fucked about 3 years ago. Haven't seen anything in the last few years to change my mind. We might be able to push

I came to the realisation that human world is fucked about 3 years ago. Haven't seen anything in the last few years to change my mind. We might be able to push it a few decades into the future but there will be a reckoning as the real choice is to let a few hundred million die today or few billion in the future.

qubex 8y ago
I tried hard for a very long time to maintain my baseline “retro-futuristic” optimism for progress and a Jetson's Future but about a couple of years ago, probably owing to stress in my life (family business difficulties caused by my father with evident narcissism but that I cannot break away from) I basically ‘crumbled’ to your realisation: that all this unhappiness and anxiety I see everywhere around me is not some local bubble of despair but the actual preamble to dire things to come, the growing awareness, the creeping alarm as the effects start to ripple through. I think the last time humanity really had much of a chance to pull through with a close scrape (in economic, financial, social, and environmental terms) was somewhere back in 2010 or thereabouts. We collectively missed that turning and we've stuck to the road to perdition ever since.
- blastbeat 8y ago
  It's like watching a documentary about the last summer before World War 2. People enjoying themselfes, everything looks peaceful and fine on the surface. Some people suspect what is about to come, but don't dare to really watch into the abyss. Only a few really know. Those people of back then, we are today. If you ever wanted to experience, how people in the past were so clueless and stupid to change the course of the future for the better, now you've got an VIP-ticket for the live show.
  - qubex 8y ago
    Yes, it’s horrifying, isn’t it? I’m in Italy but I follow American and British (I’m half Italian, half British) and there’s a never ending display of constant hysteria. I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure if the grim spectacle going on in the US is proof or refutation of my distaste. Does it show how easily dysfunctional evil can mesmerise the population into allowing it to govern, or is it proof that many people are putting up a damn tough fight to make sure that evil does not flourish and take root? I’m not sure.
    - blastbeat 8y ago
      > I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure. As a German, so did I. But my illusion of control dissolved in the face of doom. There is nothing you can do but hope for the best.
      - qubex 8y ago
        The Germany thing, it’s odd... I’m of German descent too (my Italian father had a German father himself, so I’m a quarter German, a quarter Italian, and half English). There’s something truly amazing of the enormity of what was done, and the knowledge that one oneself is somehow tethered or rooted in it, that just causes one to instantly condemn. The more nuanced view... it feels like weaselling out and making excuses, like apologists do.
- benj111 8y ago
  "probably owing to stress in my life" Sounds more like depression, hope you're in a better place now. To more directly answer your point. Things always seem to be bad until they're not. And we are on virtually any measure you'd care to look at, better off than we were a century ago. The temperature may rise x celcius, empires may fall, there may be wars, but this has been an unusually peaceful period of history, wars happen anyway, and people probably wont mourn the non existent ice caps that they heard used to exist, just like we don't mourn the dodo. If we say went back to something equivalent to 1918 Europe. Yes we would have lost a lot, both life and infrastructure, with Spanish flu still on the horizon, but we will rebuild and get on with life, would you expect climate change to be worse than that? And look where we are, a century later.
  - qubex 8y ago
    I know it’s not garden-variety depression because I’ve been treated for that. There’s several people around me that are subject to the same influence that are in remarkably similar emotional states, including my sister and some senior executives in the firm. Unfortunately, no, I am not in a “better place”. But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding. Turing to your comparison between 1918 and now, I daresay global climate change will be a great deal more severe than the cumulative effects of both the First World War and the Spanish Influenza combined. The magnitude of geopolitical strife we have set ourselves up for is of an almost unimaginable scale.
    - benj111 8y ago
      "But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding" The worst thing about depression is that you can't see a way out, until you are out, and then the path is astoundingly obvious, and the journey so easy. I could say it will get better, but you probably wouldn't believe me. Please do believe me when I say it doesn't take effort to be understanding though. On to a sunnier subject. I can't see us going mad max, I think worst case doesnt interrupt civilization, which implies keeping at least our current know-how. Could there be a lower standard of living, yes. Lower than a century ago? (while keeping antibiotics, computers etc) Maybe. But that would still be a higher standard of living than we've had for the majority of human history.
imustbeevil 8y ago
You only need 50 humans to maintain genetic diversity indefinitely. We will survive. We won't all survive.
Kaiyou 8y ago
Your scale is off. It will be at least a few billions.
- xbmcuser 8y ago
  Yeah I mistyped as I meant few hundred million today or a few billion in the future.

qubex 8y ago

I tried hard for a very long time to maintain my baseline “retro-futuristic” optimism for progress and a Jetson's Future but about a couple of years ago, probably owing to stress in my life (family business difficulties caused by my father with evident narcissism but that I cannot break away from) I basically ‘crumbled’ to your realisation: that all this unhappiness and anxiety I see everywhere around me is not some local bubble of despair but the actual preamble to dire things to come, the growing awareness, the creeping alarm as the effects start to ripple through. I think the last time humanity really had much of a chance to pull through with a close scrape (in economic, financial, social, and environmental terms) was somewhere back in 2010 or thereabouts. We collectively missed that turning and we've stuck to the road to perdition ever since.

blastbeat 8y ago
It's like watching a documentary about the last summer before World War 2. People enjoying themselfes, everything looks peaceful and fine on the surface. Some people suspect what is about to come, but don't dare to really watch into the abyss. Only a few really know. Those people of back then, we are today. If you ever wanted to experience, how people in the past were so clueless and stupid to change the course of the future for the better, now you've got an VIP-ticket for the live show.
- qubex 8y ago
  Yes, it’s horrifying, isn’t it? I’m in Italy but I follow American and British (I’m half Italian, half British) and there’s a never ending display of constant hysteria. I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure if the grim spectacle going on in the US is proof or refutation of my distaste. Does it show how easily dysfunctional evil can mesmerise the population into allowing it to govern, or is it proof that many people are putting up a damn tough fight to make sure that evil does not flourish and take root? I’m not sure.
  - blastbeat 8y ago
    > I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure. As a German, so did I. But my illusion of control dissolved in the face of doom. There is nothing you can do but hope for the best.
    - qubex 8y ago
      The Germany thing, it’s odd... I’m of German descent too (my Italian father had a German father himself, so I’m a quarter German, a quarter Italian, and half English). There’s something truly amazing of the enormity of what was done, and the knowledge that one oneself is somehow tethered or rooted in it, that just causes one to instantly condemn. The more nuanced view... it feels like weaselling out and making excuses, like apologists do.
benj111 8y ago
"probably owing to stress in my life" Sounds more like depression, hope you're in a better place now. To more directly answer your point. Things always seem to be bad until they're not. And we are on virtually any measure you'd care to look at, better off than we were a century ago. The temperature may rise x celcius, empires may fall, there may be wars, but this has been an unusually peaceful period of history, wars happen anyway, and people probably wont mourn the non existent ice caps that they heard used to exist, just like we don't mourn the dodo. If we say went back to something equivalent to 1918 Europe. Yes we would have lost a lot, both life and infrastructure, with Spanish flu still on the horizon, but we will rebuild and get on with life, would you expect climate change to be worse than that? And look where we are, a century later.
- qubex 8y ago
  I know it’s not garden-variety depression because I’ve been treated for that. There’s several people around me that are subject to the same influence that are in remarkably similar emotional states, including my sister and some senior executives in the firm. Unfortunately, no, I am not in a “better place”. But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding. Turing to your comparison between 1918 and now, I daresay global climate change will be a great deal more severe than the cumulative effects of both the First World War and the Spanish Influenza combined. The magnitude of geopolitical strife we have set ourselves up for is of an almost unimaginable scale.
  - benj111 8y ago
    "But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding" The worst thing about depression is that you can't see a way out, until you are out, and then the path is astoundingly obvious, and the journey so easy. I could say it will get better, but you probably wouldn't believe me. Please do believe me when I say it doesn't take effort to be understanding though. On to a sunnier subject. I can't see us going mad max, I think worst case doesnt interrupt civilization, which implies keeping at least our current know-how. Could there be a lower standard of living, yes. Lower than a century ago? (while keeping antibiotics, computers etc) Maybe. But that would still be a higher standard of living than we've had for the majority of human history.

imustbeevil 8y ago

You only need 50 humans to maintain genetic diversity indefinitely. We will survive. We won't all survive.

Kaiyou 8y ago

Your scale is off. It will be at least a few billions.

xbmcuser 8y ago
Yeah I mistyped as I meant few hundred million today or a few billion in the future.