The choices societies make now will determine whether our species thrives or simply survives
Uh, are we just not going to mention the third option?
the /r/collapse is coming from inside the biosphere
If you're under 35, ecological collapse is all but guaranteed before you reach retirement age! :ancap-good:
I always joked that instead of retirement I'd die in the climate wars. Turns out that might be more accurate than I expected :agony-consuming:
This is true so if you're under 35 your task is to form a group with people you trust to go loot rich people's castles with when their money isn't worth shit anymore and no one is listening to their entitled bullshit.
In Minecraft
I've been mentally preparing for it since high school (was really into post-apoc fiction and plants), though not always from a leftist lens.
Liberal institutions always become and bolster the thing they're supposed to fight against. For decades we had an argument over whether or not this was real. The oil guys paid to have their own science done. The only bastion of truth was the IPCC. If you got into an argument about climate change after 2000, then you probably cited it in order to prove climate change was a problem. So the IPCC was legitimized and became this respected institution on climate science. The credentialed and experienced and educated smart people always had our best interests in mind. But then you inevitably find out they too were biased and lying. Not doing it in some greater service to helping people, but in protecting the same fucked system that the oil guys are doing it for. We must preserve the economy because it is life itself. We went through this with covid and health organizations too. The trust science shit is always about blindly following liberal scientific institutions who will lie to save jobs but will collapse before they lie to save lives. It's never really about actual science outside of the post-enlightenment liberal institution.
People are actually smart. They see this shit and it just withers trust in institutions. It ends up bolstering the other side who claims they were lying all along. Because some university dipshit 10 years ago didn't want to upset the chamber of commerce by suggesting we not increase production as a solution. Eroding trust sounds great to accelerationists but if nobody trusts large federal institutions then it's kind of hard selling central planning where there will also be large national institutions. It's not just about the institutions it's eroding trust in the idea that groups of people can accomplish things. People begin to believe that every time you get a group of smart people together, they end up doing nothing or being corrupt. That's why libertarian bullshit has so much sway. It's not chuds being greedy fucks so much as people who have watched every institution fail and they think the only solution is complete atomization.
Because some university dipshit 10 years ago didn’t want to upset the chamber of commerce by suggesting we not increase production as a solution.
There's a lot of truth in your comment, but I don't think this part is quite fair.
How do you tell people the sky is falling? How do you get them to believe that the sky is falling, but it won't really start to fuck up their lives for a generation or two? How do you sell this to the United States in all the optimism and arrogance of the end-of-history 1990s? How do you -- at the zenith of capitalism -- get people to take a problem seriously when the only solution is dismantling capitalism? How do you do this in the face of a massive, coordinated propaganda effort to the contrary?
That's a monumentally difficult task with no obvious winning strategy. I can believe the "lead with the worst-case scenario" strategy would have failed, too, so I find it hard to judge them for not choosing it.
You tell them that the sky is falling. You just tell them. Because it is falling. There is no larger game here. You tell them the truth. Plus you can't separate that decision from its relation to capital. There wasn't a situation where they couldn't tell the truth because capitalism did propaganda. They were part of the capitalist propaganda. The scientific consensus stuff was part of it. People were never given the chance to take it seriously. The real group that needed to change was the industrialists who were doing the most emissions. But they couldn't tell all the wealthy fucks to stop living their lives like kings, they had to sell a narrative that made them feel better about their choices. They lied to normal people in that process. What you're saying is that they had to lie to us because we couldn't handle it. We could and can if we had gotten the chance.
Also, we know that history doesn't change based on how educated or rational the public is. The public wasn't the largest emitter of CO2. The public didn't have any substantial political power. It's not that people were too irrational to handle it. It happened because the material conditions were that they had to tell the wealthy to stop being as wealthy.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
I think the author is attempting to say "your kid, yes you, is going to have to deal with this shit early on in their adult life." If you say "by 2050" or "thirty years," that's easier to read as pretty far off.
If you're not posting at least 20-30% cringe, you need to tweak that posting dial. Vanilla posting is the worst.
It's meant to call attention to the future of today's children. "In 30 years" is factual but sterile, while the child introduces a human element that's hard to brush off.
30 years? What do you need 15 years for? 7 years should be more than enough for a fulfilling life. Now stop whining about the climate, you're wasting your 3 years.
I tried to read the article but after I finished the second paragraph - I just couldn't read any more...
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
what the fuck am I doing depriving myself of whatever brief pleasure I can find if we’re all going to fucking die of climate change
This goes through my mind a lot, too. The less-than-satisfying responses I sometimes talk myself into are:
- I'd rather stubbornly try to do something than give up, and
- Things can change fast and unexpectedly, and if we keep at it we might get lucky.
Have you tried psychedelics? Way better for your body than booze, not addictive, no hangovers (which is a big help if you're trying to get up the energy to grind through job applications), and cheaper than either booze or weed. They're a great way to take a little mental vacation and feel happy with fewer side effects.
Start smoking weed again
Last year I started to really worry about my job and about the money I'd saved up for retirement. I'll retire in about 10 years. I assumed the economy was going to crash and I'd be totally fucked. I was convinced we were headed for a second great depression. But I ended up shocked at how well the economy (and me) did.
At my peak last year I started to drink a lot. I got scared I was headed for alcoholism but my thinking then was "Fuck it - what does it matter? I'm a happy drunk and at least I feel amazing when I'm drinking." But I didn't actually feel amazing. I still felt dread.
To save money - whenever I could - bought a bunch of bottles of the cheapest Trader Joe's brands of bourbon or whiskey. I didn't keep track but at times I was surely drinking a bottle a week. I don't have an addictive personality but I realized that I very easily (and very quickly) succumb to temptation. And I didn't do myself any favors by having all that booze around.
Starting in March I got strict with myself. I've been keeping track and I cut down to one bottle every two weeks. It disturbed me how much I missed the booze. The middle of last month - I ran out. I bought and drank some beer but haven't bought any of the hard stuff. I'm in the process of deciding how much I will allow myself to drink. A bottle every 3 weeks is probably best. In any case - when I go grocery shopping - it'll be one of two things. One bottle. Or no bottles.
If I have to spend more because TJ's is out of the cheap stuff - so be it. More expensive Irish whiskey it is. I'm super-cheap but I only have one liver and one body. Also I can't have more than one bottle around. Next year will likely be a true horrorshow for America. December 10th will probably be the death knell for American democracy. If the dems haven't killed the filibuster and passed voting laws by then - we're fucked. But such is life. I have to focus on my own well-being. And not my own escapism.
we’re all going to fucking die of climate change
I wish I had helpful and hopeful news. But I don't and I can't lie to you. The future looks black as soot to me too. You just have to soldier on, entertain yourself, and laugh as much as you can.
and they were already planning to do the bare minimum for the existing and downplayed impact timeline
You ever seen that graph of ghg emissions vs year with Kyoto accords, Paris agreement, 2010 UNFCC agreement, etc. indicated? All those years of negotiations and shit never amounted to even a dent in ghg emissions.
It's the neolib cope for the future, we'll just maintain extractive capitalism and a framework of international competition and so long as all the right people get together in a room and agree with each other - and also actually magic profitable carbon capture tech is developed - then we'll be fine and can maintain the status quo. Well, heres to your monument of failure boug neolibs 20 years of inaction.
Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas -- these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
Vasectomies hurt less than tattoos or a life spent growing up under conditions worse than what drove us to our politics.
bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
They're painfully obvious TODAY
The Hopi prophecy of the fourth world ending by fire is coming true. That same prophecy also says that the indigenous people who have managed to maintain or learn their ancestors lifestyles will be the ones to move what remains of humanity into the fifth world. According to them, humans had once reached a level of technological advancement greater than what we have today before natural disasters wrecked them. Hopis believe that this is because the previous generations, and this one, have rejected spirituality in favor of materialism.
Never seen it. Only know the stories because we recognize the Hopi as the watchers of space while our Mayans are the watchers of time
