3 ms·

I mean, I was asking you to supply the "what happens then" part. That's my point, most doom prophecies seem to take the form of: 1. Scary event 2. ??? 3. Colla

by jrowen 1y ago

I mean, I was asking you to supply the "what happens then" part. That's my point, most doom prophecies seem to take the form of: 1. Scary event 2. ??? 3. Collapse I think it does just kind of come down to an innate optimism vs. pessimism. Nobody really knows how any given scenario plays out, it's too complex to predict and could hinge on some tiny little detail or singular event. I look at the Texas thing, or Covid, as evidence of, no big deal, we kept on truckin, pretty much business as usual. What was the cause of the agricultural issues? How do we know there isn't a solution? We do rationing, we curb new births, we find alternate ways to produce, we optimize the system that was lazy when there was excess, we mobilize everything we have to solve the problem. Yeah it becomes kind of a wartime effort, things aren't exactly 100% as they were, but cultural expectations normalize and adapt and go in new directions. Sometimes it just feels like a fear of change, of the unknown, if you ask anyone today yeah they would not choose to give this and that up but when necessity calls for it you adapt pretty quickly. I still don't see how we get from "food is more scarce right now" to "state apparatus falls apart." And just to be clear, I am all for efforts to prevent these outcomes. I'm not saying fuck it who cares. I'm just saying fear is the mind-killer.

M95D 1y ago
There is no 2. There is: 1. Scary events (plural) 2. Collapse > What was the cause of the agricultural issues? Weather. Possibly weather + water. > How do we know there isn't a solution? There is, we can't afford it: Hurricane-proof greenhouses for all crops everywhere. > We do rationing, we curb new births, How? Like managing COVID, only for food and sex this time? OMG! You'll have civil war in every city, town and village, which will cripple production even further => faster collapse. > we find alternate ways to produce Yeah, it's called subsistence agriculture [1] after 99% of the population dies of famine and crime (killed for their food). > we optimize the system [...] What system? There is no system anymore. > we mobilize everything we have to solve the problem Guns, we mobilize lots of guns. Those damned farmers won't work hard enough! We'll make them work! Let me paint a more clear picture: Adverse weather events => lots of crops destroyed => news inflated scary, as they usually are => huge price increase even before harvest time (of what remains) => hoarding => less food to buy, even higher prices => more news => desperate hoarding => even less food to buy => crime for food from warehouses/stores => even less food to buy => crime for hoarded food => people killed => more scary news (for real this time) => cities run out of food => mass migration from cities to farm country => pillaging of remaining crops, harvest by non-farmers in destructive/wasteful ways => even less food => even more desperate crime for food => mass death Somewhere in that chain, the army intervenes, which hoard food for themselves first, are unable to manage efficient distribution of food to everyone, kill and get killed by hungry mobs => more death and news. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture
- jrowen 1y ago
  I do appreciate this. There is, we can't afford it: Hurricane-proof greenhouses for all crops everywhere. We can definitely afford it. We can cut out the livestock trophic level for a huge reduction in need. We're eating a lot of basic hardy crops. Are we talking about a scenario where this happened suddenly? If it's just climate change we will have so much time, we're not just going to wake up and be in an inferno. Will we be underprepared, will there be unfortunate decisions and conflicts, yes, but I think Covid was evidence that a lot of people are willing to come together for humanity and that was't ever an existential threat, deaths were low and largely already immunocompromised people. We proactively manufactured a crisis to avoid the real crisis. How? Like managing COVID, only for food and sex this time? OMG! You'll have civil war in every city, town and village, which will cripple production even further => faster collapse. This is where it's like...I can't prove you wrong, but what evidence is there of that? The evidence we have from Covid and previous epidemics and wars, is that people didn't descend into chaos. You can point to brutal savagery in all cases but by and large society pitches in for society and manages to triumph over bad actors. "What happens if it's worse," sure, but there's just not a lot of basis to assume this asymptotic anomaly that doesn't have any true priors (have parts of civilization broken down or gone backwards or gone through tragic periods? 100%).
  - M95D 1y ago
    I don't belive that government reserves anywhere in the world are enough for a really bad year if it ever happens globally. It doesn't have to be a global hurricane or meteor hit. It's enough for floods in some places, drought someplace else, plant pathogen somwhere else, etc. A combination of factors, just all in the same year. Sure, some people come together in a crisis, but new generations are more "me first" than older people. I belive that somewhere there is threshold where people forget their altruism, the snowball starts rolling and then nothing can stop it.
- jrowen 1y ago
  99% of the population dies of famine and crime (killed for their food). This is just irrational. What precedent or basis is there for this? There have been any number of disastrous crop seasons from ancient Egypt to the US Atlantic. Why didn't any of them result in 99% of the population dying? Today our knowledge and capabilities around food production are astronomically better. Honestly any kind of major food shortage seems farfetched. As soon as there is any serious trouble, we'll be spinning up whatever we need to, wherever we need to. Our capacity for food production far outstrips our needs, even with our wasteful and luxurious ways. Early settlers in the US were just straight freezing and starving and dying en masse because they did not have the capacity to produce more food, and they managed to keep going and not kill each other. Why didn't law and order meaningfully start breaking down during Covid? There were incidents of bad behavior here and there. But the vast majority of people took a stance no worse than "let's just get through this." The runaway chain reaction of violence is not supported.

by jrowen 1y ago

M95D 1y ago

There is no 2. There is: 1. Scary events (plural) 2. Collapse > What was the cause of the agricultural issues? Weather. Possibly weather + water. > How do we know there isn't a solution? There is, we can't afford it: Hurricane-proof greenhouses for all crops everywhere. > We do rationing, we curb new births, How? Like managing COVID, only for food and sex this time? OMG! You'll have civil war in every city, town and village, which will cripple production even further => faster collapse. > we find alternate ways to produce Yeah, it's called subsistence agriculture [1] after 99% of the population dies of famine and crime (killed for their food). > we optimize the system [...] What system? There is no system anymore. > we mobilize everything we have to solve the problem Guns, we mobilize lots of guns. Those damned farmers won't work hard enough! We'll make them work! Let me paint a more clear picture: Adverse weather events => lots of crops destroyed => news inflated scary, as they usually are => huge price increase even before harvest time (of what remains) => hoarding => less food to buy, even higher prices => more news => desperate hoarding => even less food to buy => crime for food from warehouses/stores => even less food to buy => crime for hoarded food => people killed => more scary news (for real this time) => cities run out of food => mass migration from cities to farm country => pillaging of remaining crops, harvest by non-farmers in destructive/wasteful ways => even less food => even more desperate crime for food => mass death Somewhere in that chain, the army intervenes, which hoard food for themselves first, are unable to manage efficient distribution of food to everyone, kill and get killed by hungry mobs => more death and news. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture

jrowen 1y ago
I do appreciate this. There is, we can't afford it: Hurricane-proof greenhouses for all crops everywhere. We can definitely afford it. We can cut out the livestock trophic level for a huge reduction in need. We're eating a lot of basic hardy crops. Are we talking about a scenario where this happened suddenly? If it's just climate change we will have so much time, we're not just going to wake up and be in an inferno. Will we be underprepared, will there be unfortunate decisions and conflicts, yes, but I think Covid was evidence that a lot of people are willing to come together for humanity and that was't ever an existential threat, deaths were low and largely already immunocompromised people. We proactively manufactured a crisis to avoid the real crisis. How? Like managing COVID, only for food and sex this time? OMG! You'll have civil war in every city, town and village, which will cripple production even further => faster collapse. This is where it's like...I can't prove you wrong, but what evidence is there of that? The evidence we have from Covid and previous epidemics and wars, is that people didn't descend into chaos. You can point to brutal savagery in all cases but by and large society pitches in for society and manages to triumph over bad actors. "What happens if it's worse," sure, but there's just not a lot of basis to assume this asymptotic anomaly that doesn't have any true priors (have parts of civilization broken down or gone backwards or gone through tragic periods? 100%).
- M95D 1y ago
  I don't belive that government reserves anywhere in the world are enough for a really bad year if it ever happens globally. It doesn't have to be a global hurricane or meteor hit. It's enough for floods in some places, drought someplace else, plant pathogen somwhere else, etc. A combination of factors, just all in the same year. Sure, some people come together in a crisis, but new generations are more "me first" than older people. I belive that somewhere there is threshold where people forget their altruism, the snowball starts rolling and then nothing can stop it.
jrowen 1y ago
99% of the population dies of famine and crime (killed for their food). This is just irrational. What precedent or basis is there for this? There have been any number of disastrous crop seasons from ancient Egypt to the US Atlantic. Why didn't any of them result in 99% of the population dying? Today our knowledge and capabilities around food production are astronomically better. Honestly any kind of major food shortage seems farfetched. As soon as there is any serious trouble, we'll be spinning up whatever we need to, wherever we need to. Our capacity for food production far outstrips our needs, even with our wasteful and luxurious ways. Early settlers in the US were just straight freezing and starving and dying en masse because they did not have the capacity to produce more food, and they managed to keep going and not kill each other. Why didn't law and order meaningfully start breaking down during Covid? There were incidents of bad behavior here and there. But the vast majority of people took a stance no worse than "let's just get through this." The runaway chain reaction of violence is not supported.