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There was an absolutely phenomenal piece written recently: "How the news took over reality" [1] It goes into some degree of depth about why it is exactly that e

by rjf72 7y ago

There was an absolutely phenomenal piece written recently: "How the news took over reality" [1] It goes into some degree of depth about why it is exactly that ever more people are increasingly feeling every pulse of every issue. And why it's not necessarily a great thing. Consider something. Today, by most metrics, is by far the most stable and safe time that we've ever lived in during humanity's existence. This seems contradictory to how many feel. But consider that it wasn't that long ago that literal imminent nuclear annihilation was just a regular part of life. As a child we had fire drills. Go back just a couple of decades prior and school children were having nuclear explosion drills. And there was absolutely no end in sight. The Cold War started around 1946 and ended around 1990. Imagine 44 years of fear of nuclear annihilation. You had a generation of people that grew up knowing nothing except this reality and for it to last long enough for them to reproduce and yet another generation to live through this, onto adulthood, as well. It's difficult to even imagine this. And it's not like that was some extreme example. Right before the Cold War we had a couple of very not cold wars. In World War 2, some 3% of the entire world's population was directly killed in 6 years. It's impossible to understand that scale of loss directly. So let's measure it in terms of 9/11 attacks, where 2,966 were killed. Given today's population a 3% global loss would be the equivalent of 77,882 consecutive 9/11 attacks. That's 213 years of a 9/11 attack happening every single day. If you have a child at age 25 that means you're great great great great great great grand children would get to live their life with a 9/11 attack happening every single day. And now take all that misery and despair, and compress it into 6 years. And of course we weren't fighting over the petrodollar. We were facing an opponent who had every open intent of enslaving and/or engaging in genocide against the losers. And for some time it looked like he may very well win. Now let's consider climate change. In the worst case scenario we're looking at extreme weather conditions and having to deal with coastal regions (where most people tend to live) becoming less habitable and uninhabitable in some instances. And this is assuming we completely fail at transitioning away from carbon producing systems and also completely fail to develop mitigating technological measures - many of which already exist (such as amine based scrubbing), but are too expensive to deploy. Climate change is of course very relevant, but when you frame it in comparison to issues people of previous generations have had to face... Suffice to say I'd happily take climate change over imminent nuclear annihilation and genocide. Not exactly a high bar I'm setting, but that low bar is exactly the sort of circumstance that defines what we've had to live through for centuries. [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-took-over-reality https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/may/03/how-the-news-to...

turk73 7y ago
The above is why I said that 9/11 was really nothing in the grand scheme of things, but a lot of people got mad at me. Were we not the nation that faced down the Germans and the Japanese at the same time? And then a few years later, a couple planes hit a couple buildings and everyone lost their minds and let the government take away most of their rights. Makes no sense. And yes, they dug deep--look at all the spying they do on us now, all the rules for bank accounts, drivers licenses, the TSA, the PATRIOT Act and the absolute dragnet put on the Internet. 9/11 was the biggest bunch of nothing (yes, it sucks if you were victim or the family of a victim). We let the big gov statist MIC get such wonderful mileage out of it! Then that bastard Chertoff with the shoe bomber got his naked body scanners sold, too. Never forget! The people who run the US since the 1950s are such pieces of shit. We the people deserve better and we need to do better at stopping this scourge.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
The issues faced by previous generations were temporary. Wars end, new treaties are signed, etc. Climate Change is irreversible if we don't act ahead of time.
- rjf72 7y ago
  How would they know they would be temporary? The Cold War lasted more than 40 years without stopping and no clear way out. People grew up knowing nothing but the Cold War. They had children who knew nothing but the Cold War. Each and every day people woke up realizing there was a very real chance this could be their last one on Earth. And in several instances we came extremely close to that becoming true. For instance a single man, Stanislav Petrov [1], is likely single-handedly responsible for stopping nuclear war at one point. We certainly wouldn't be here concerning ourselves over climate change had there had been a lesser man in his role! And wars of time past were not like today's proxy wars or petrodollar warring. See Generalplan Ost [2]. Hitler planned to colonize central and eastern Europe by engaging in the mass genocide of native Slavic peoples, people who numbered in the hundreds of millions. And it's extremely unlikely he'd stop there. This is the sort of war where if you lose, the suffering has only just begun. And this was the reality of life for people in one way or another, for centuries. 'Irreversible' is somewhat misleading as used in climate discussion. It's used in the same sense as saying that the above consequences would be irreversible. And in that sense it's completely true. But many people interpret it, as you seem to be implying, to mean impossible to ever reverse. What it really means is that the expected return to a climatic equilibrium, through entirely natural processes, would take a length of time outside the scale of a human lifetime - hundreds to thousands of years. It does not mean permanently irreversible nor does it mean we go full Venus. And perhaps most importantly, technological changes such as carbon scrubbing [3] - which already exists but is not yet economically viable as a solution, altogether negate the notion of 'irreversible'. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber

by rjf72 7y ago

turk73 7y ago

The above is why I said that 9/11 was really nothing in the grand scheme of things, but a lot of people got mad at me. Were we not the nation that faced down the Germans and the Japanese at the same time? And then a few years later, a couple planes hit a couple buildings and everyone lost their minds and let the government take away most of their rights. Makes no sense. And yes, they dug deep--look at all the spying they do on us now, all the rules for bank accounts, drivers licenses, the TSA, the PATRIOT Act and the absolute dragnet put on the Internet. 9/11 was the biggest bunch of nothing (yes, it sucks if you were victim or the family of a victim). We let the big gov statist MIC get such wonderful mileage out of it! Then that bastard Chertoff with the shoe bomber got his naked body scanners sold, too. Never forget! The people who run the US since the 1950s are such pieces of shit. We the people deserve better and we need to do better at stopping this scourge.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

The issues faced by previous generations were temporary. Wars end, new treaties are signed, etc. Climate Change is irreversible if we don't act ahead of time.

rjf72 7y ago
How would they know they would be temporary? The Cold War lasted more than 40 years without stopping and no clear way out. People grew up knowing nothing but the Cold War. They had children who knew nothing but the Cold War. Each and every day people woke up realizing there was a very real chance this could be their last one on Earth. And in several instances we came extremely close to that becoming true. For instance a single man, Stanislav Petrov [1], is likely single-handedly responsible for stopping nuclear war at one point. We certainly wouldn't be here concerning ourselves over climate change had there had been a lesser man in his role! And wars of time past were not like today's proxy wars or petrodollar warring. See Generalplan Ost [2]. Hitler planned to colonize central and eastern Europe by engaging in the mass genocide of native Slavic peoples, people who numbered in the hundreds of millions. And it's extremely unlikely he'd stop there. This is the sort of war where if you lose, the suffering has only just begun. And this was the reality of life for people in one way or another, for centuries. 'Irreversible' is somewhat misleading as used in climate discussion. It's used in the same sense as saying that the above consequences would be irreversible. And in that sense it's completely true. But many people interpret it, as you seem to be implying, to mean impossible to ever reverse. What it really means is that the expected return to a climatic equilibrium, through entirely natural processes, would take a length of time outside the scale of a human lifetime - hundreds to thousands of years. It does not mean permanently irreversible nor does it mean we go full Venus. And perhaps most importantly, technological changes such as carbon scrubbing [3] - which already exists but is not yet economically viable as a solution, altogether negate the notion of 'irreversible'. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_scrubber