the Anti-doomer crusade some people have been on since before the subreddit feels pretty alienating, ngl. Like, for real, feel free to disagree with any doomer, but it becomes a crusade when your reaction is to forbid doomers and shutdown doomer threads. I remember one especially delusional episode on the old subreddit when Bernie ate shit.
I feel some people are using Doomer to mean a defeatist who is telling everyone to give up and wallowing in pity, i.e., When really it's just having a prediction of the future that is worse than is popularly imagined, particularly involving climate change and political violence. Some people call this pessimism, but again, I'd appreciate if you didn't reduce a rational and justified perspective with a pathological tendency.
I'd like actually if someone could look up how many times is a Doomer being obnoxious and telling everyone to give up, vs a doomer just frankly discussing likely futures and the perspectives and priorities these entail, and getting told to shut up and be more optimistic. You can be a doomer and still be putting the work. I'm a full member of a ML party, I'm on the streets at actions, I've taken the China-pill, and I have a 4.00 GPA this semester with 19 hours of classes, I'm studying to be an Engineer with a Minor in Chinese so I can assist the scientific and social development of China, and I'd appreciate it if after all of that I can come on here and not get pathologized by people who think talking about Collapse is Bad Vibes.
In full self awareness: :jesse-wtf:
Sometimes doomerism is kinda just a response to a lot of the overly optimistic shit people put out too. Like my mother who thinks that we'll just "solve" climate change like we did with the Ozone and there's never going to be any greater issues and problems that stem from this even though those issues are occurring right now!!!
There's a lot of people out there who really seem to think that there's just guaranteed future is going to be better no matter what happens and it's going to be just like how their parents were and they're going to have like the most amazing jobs and never worry about any resources and it's just like I mean maybe but you also have to be realistic. We need a sustainable future of public transport, reduced waste, less energy consumption and pollution with smart carbon capture programs and ideas that help to weather the impact of the changing climate, not bright eyed optimism. There's a good middle ground somewhere between full bloomer and full doomer to be found.
Just here to add that doomerism is about recognizing that all the available options as presented by the powers that be are woefully inadequate and will do less than nothing, if not outright worsen the conditions of the oncoming climate apocalypse. So called green new deals require an increase in production, which will result in a commensurate destruction of resources. Climate crisis is also an energy crisis, and in the face of this, carbon neutral energy production by means of nuclear are being shut down instead of upped proportionally, and no new cleaner techs are replacing them (thorium salts, etc). Renewables are great but unreliable, and often need technology that is not currently existing to implement (immense amounts of batteries for solar, etc). Doomerism recognizes these immense hurdles to cross, takes a realistic, material look at the current, real solutions on offer, realizes they're worth less than shit all, and concludes the entire system needs to be ripped out and replaced, and nothing short of full-blown, immediate global revolution will even begin to address the problems and solutions.
You and I both know how close we aren't to revolution. So what next?
https://i.imgur.com/d2kgAm0.png
spoiler
My Classmates all have similar loads, you can look up what the average hours for a four-year Bachelors in Engineering looks like. Summer Classes I do well in since It's divided into 3 terms of about a month each, so I have a smaller number of classes I can put all my attention towards until I'm at the acceptable level. I go out of my way to get whatever easy points and extra credit there is, and I have a good enough relation with my professors that I convinced one to reevaluate some of my grades when I was a few points short of an A..
I managed to pencil in my life between working 40 hours a week and schooling 40 hours a week. Slept 4-6 hours a night and got a couple hours to socialize or relax! It worked out great! I flunked out after a couple semesters because my body basically shut down for a week straight but it was fun while it lasted. Totally not bitter about still owing money for that experience, nope
That's pretty standard (if not a little low) in the Sciences here. 4 subjects a Semester/Trimester. Each subject with 2-3 Hours Prac, 2-3 Hours Lecture, and an hour Tutorial a week. It's equivalent to half a Full-Time job, and if you actually pay attention and take notes you only need to do 1-2 extra hours study for each subject.
Even with a part-time job on the side, that's plenty of social life from the perspective of a full-time worker.
and if you actually pay attention and take notes you only need to do 1-2 extra hours study for each subject.
I don't know about that. Huge YMMV caveat based on the kind of class and your background in the subject and how aggressively the teacher plans to curve.
4.0 GPA in Harvard is very easy compared to some State School where they want to prune out half the freshman class.
you should still live your life as if everything will be fine
Like, I agree bunker mentality is dumb and there's a real limit to "personal" solutions to climate catastrophe such that there's nothing I can expert to do.
But at a certain point, its almost like being told "hey, you're on the Titanic" and then politely asked not to start prying up floor boards to make a raft.
It is not doomer to say we are living in a world without hope or social justice
From a broad historical perspective, we've always been in that world. These ideas of a brighter future and a justice society are relatively new and tenuous, easily corrupted or co-opted, and not in easy reach of any generation to date.
And yet look to places like Cuba, like China, like Reconstitution America, like Tito's Yugoslavia, or Bolivia or post-Apartheid South Africa. It isn't as though people aren't trying to reach that world and even periodically making progress.
I think we fluctuate between panic and despair. But the frenetic energy isn't bad on its face. Neither is the sobering return to practicality and realism.
What matters, more than anything, is that we agree on the direction we want to be going and we together in concert towards that future.
I'm pretty convinced that a big part of why Americans aren't more concerned has to do with the whole Celsius/Fahrenheit thing (and this never gets brought up!)
Even well-meaning people hear "4 degree warming" and they think "what's the big deal."
To use a few examples: Room Temp (68F -> 75.2F, NOT 72F) Average July (High) Temp in Phoenix AZ (106F -> 113F, NOT 110F)
Those are real "feelable" differences...
Yea and all Bernie Bros were young males from frat houses. Because that's what bro means and obviously single words used as names are always entirely adequate to describe a large movement.
My point here was that the name doesn't matter because it will never be accurate.
Looking at the definition of the name and inferring everything about a movement is not gonna yield good results. A lot of titles are inaccurate and yet still they are embraced by those wielding them.
