We're all doomed! Curling up with a good read about the end of the world

[ttystikk]

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/31/george_monbiot_we_cant_be_silent

An excellent interview that cuts to the heart of the issues.

 

[Rob Roy]

I read somewhere that it happened about 75,000 years ago, right about the same time that the Toba Supervolcano erupted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

I don't know how well we'd survive such a bottleneck again; we're a seriously inbred bunch of primates at it stands...

Ahem.

 

[Gquebed]

Whoever said it first, it's still apt.

So now what?

'Collapse', by Dr Jared Diamond

In it, he runs a list of failed civilisations from history, large ones and small.

The conclusion is inescapable; our well be no different. It's a matter of when and how- and what's left afterwards.

I'm no longer trying to help our civilisation live forever; I'm trying to give our progeny a fighting chance to survive the coming crash and have any future at all.

I read that book. Also Guns germs and steel i think it was.

The fighting chance, i believe, is one in which we spend less time worrying about how to fight what we know is coming and start figuring out how to adapt what we know is coming.

This is the song politicians should be singing.

 

[Grandpapy]

Fear and Ignorance is our greatest enemy.

Song, someone say song? (sorry bout the crappy recording)

 

[ttystikk]

I read that book. Also Guns germs and steel i think it was.

The fighting chance, i believe, is one in which we spend less time worrying about how to fight what we know is coming and start figuring out how to adapt what we know is coming.

This is the song politicians should be singing.

Guns, Germs & Steel was his primer for Collapse, and I agree a great book. Also a PBS miniseries.

Our only hope is the end of accumulative neoliberal capitalism, replaced by collectivism.

The stories of people putting it all on the line to help strangers in danger in Houston gives me the hope that we can do it. Ted Cruz gives me the despair that we ever would.

Politicians only sing for money.

 

[ttystikk]

Fear and Ignorance is our greatest enemy.

Song, someone say song? (sorry bout the crappy recording)

So far, fear and ignorance are winning...

I'm hearing good things about that series.

 

[Fogdog]

So far, fear and ignorance are winning...

I'm hearing good things about that series.

15,000 in Boston and 7,000 in Berkeley showed the ignorant they should stay home. The violent right are teaching us that strength is in numbers and we have to show up. It doesn't have to end in violence. It can end by overwhelming numbers consistently showing up to tell haters and especially their victims that the majority of people oppose hate.

 

[ttystikk]

15,000 in Boston and 7,000 in Berkeley showed the ignorant they should stay home. The violent right are teaching us that strength is in numbers and we have to show up. It doesn't have to end in violence. It can end by overwhelming numbers consistently showing up to tell haters and especially their victims that the majority of people oppose hate.

And that's a great start.

But just being against something- even as awful as hate- is ultimately not constructive and leaves the initiative with the wrong side.

Having come out against the haters, it's now time to come out FOR the changes we need to see happen in our country and the world.

 

[tstick]

 

[ttystikk]

Yellowstone could still blow in my lifetime. It's overdue, after all.

 

[Fogdog]

And that's a great start.

But just being against something- even as awful as hate- is ultimately not constructive and leaves the initiative with the wrong side.

Having come out against the haters, it's now time to come out FOR the changes we need to see happen in our country and the world.

Meanwhile Bernie has tours planned in mostly white states and says things like: "people are tired of political correctness". We all know that by people he means white people. And you say we should just have sit ins around violent Nazis. Maybe carry signs saying "love is the only way" with pink hearts. While Nazis spit, insult and laugh at the protesters. And their movement grows.

Weren't you bullied in High School? Bullies didn't go away until the price they paid wasn't worth it. It didn't have to be a Van Damme type of beat down. In fact the bully gave better than he got but there was an element of physical harm and risk to him required to make the fucker leave.

So we just sing Kumbaya while Nazi movement grows and parades the flag under which six million jews were killed. Meanwhile the Bernie movement "kicks social justice warriors to the curb" because white people are tired of pc. From what I see in you rhetoric right now, change offered by Bernie bros is small change to African Americans.

 

[JaJaJaJa]

I'm going with a combination of overpopulation, resource depletion and climate change. None of these alone will cause a total collapse, but the combination of them will lead to war on a massive scale which will possibly go nuclear.

 

[ttystikk]

I'm going with a combination of overpopulation, resource depletion and climate change. None of these alone will cause a total collapse, but the combination of them will lead to war on a massive scale which will possibly go nuclear.

That's a very plausible scenario. The only way to avoid it is for people to have fewer children and over time we reduce the total human population to a level that can be sustained.

This is something that I'm not aware any human group larger than clan level has ever managed to do for more than a decade or two, in the case of China's one child policy. Even they weren't trying to actively shrink China's population, just slow its growth.

 

[JaJaJaJa]

That's a very plausible scenario. The only way to avoid it is for people to have fewer children and over time we reduce the total human population to a level that can be sustained.

This is something that I'm not aware any human group larger than clan level has ever managed to do for more than a decade or two, in the case of China's one child policy. Even they weren't trying to actively shrink China's population, just slow its growth.

I guess the question is whether Humans are really capable of being any smarter than microbes which kill their host. Unlike the microbes, we cannot just jump to a new host planet if we kill this one through our overpopulation. There's no scenario in which infinite population growth won't lead to ruin, outside of potentially colonizing other worlds (which seems unlikely at this point). Eventually I can possibly imagine the global elites engineering some kind of 'virus' or something to either kill or sterilize large parts of the population in an attempt to get things under control.

 

[ttystikk]

I guess the question is whether Humans are really capable of being any smarter than microbes which kill their host. Unlike the microbes, we cannot just jump to a new host planet if we kill this one through our overpopulation. There's no scenario in which infinite population growth won't lead to ruin, outside of potentially colonizing other worlds (which seems unlikely at this point). Eventually I can possibly imagine the global elites engineering some kind of 'virus' or something to either kill or sterilize large parts of the population in an attempt to get things under control.

I think your scenario bears careful consideration.

We can't endlessly expand without an endless frontier. Until we have interstellar travel, we won't have that, so maybe we need to keep our population in check?

As hard as it may be to do, it has been already been proven by the Chinese that it can be done.

 

[abandonconflict]

Our only hope is the end of accumulative neoliberal capitalism, replaced by collectivism.

Yet you oppose revolution...

You just never stop man. Such a fucking windbag. You support neoliberal capitalist politicians too. Now you're around liking comments by open racists... If there is ever a revolution, you'd be its victim.

 

[Padawanbater2]

I think that climate change will probably prove to be the end game for the human race, but
now whether it is caused man, or by an asteroid (we are do for one), that we will see.

But anyway, most people are too stupid and ignore the writing on the wall, so one way or the other
the human race is finite. It is written in the Bible, right?

"Most people are not party to the conversation, not aware that it is happening, and unaware even that such a conversation is warranted. Among those who are worried about the state of the world, most are content to pursue or support efforts to keep crises from occurring by working via political parties, religious organizations, or non-profit advocacy orgs on issues such as climate change, food security, and economic inequality. There is also a small but rapidly growing segment of society that feels disempowered as the era of economic growth wanes, and that views society’s power holders as evil and corrupt. These dispossessed—whether followers of ISIS or Infowars—would prefer to “shake things up,” even to the point of bringing society to destruction, rather than suffer the continuation of the status quo. Unfortunately, this last group may have the easiest path of all.

By comparison, the number of those involved in the conversation is exceedingly small, countable probably in the hundreds of thousands, certainly not millions. Can we succeed? It depends on how one defines “success”—as the ability to maintain, for a little longer, an inherently unsustainable global industrial system? Or as the practical reduction in likely suffering on the part of the survivors of the eventual crash? A related query one often hears after environmental lectures is, Are we doing enough? If “Enough” means “enough to avert a system crash,” then the answer is no: it’s unlikely that anyone can deliver that outcome now. The question should be, What can we do—not to save a way of life that is unsalvageable, but to make a difference to the people and other species in harm’s way?"

Anyway, this OP, is bringin me down, so it's definitely time for a joint

 

[schuylaar]

Fear and Ignorance is our greatest enemy.

Song, someone say song? (sorry bout the crappy recording)

i love kathy bates.

 

[schuylaar]

15,000 in Boston and 7,000 in Berkeley showed the ignorant they should stay home. The violent right are teaching us that strength is in numbers and we have to show up. It doesn't have to end in violence. It can end by overwhelming numbers consistently showing up to tell haters and especially their victims that the majority of people oppose hate.

finally a breakthrough! +rep

when someone tells you their vote doesn't count?

 

[SneekyNinja]

I think your scenario bears careful consideration.

We can't endlessly expand without an endless frontier. Until we have interstellar travel, we won't have that, so maybe we need to keep our population in check?

As hard as it may be to do, it has been already been proven by the Chinese that it can be done.

We don't need interstellar travel to expand into the rest of our solar system.

There's an unimaginable amount of materials in this star system alone, we wouldn't really need to venture beyond for thousands of years.