Are the best years of our civilization still to come?

[JGP]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Right. This is the reality of things. It's extraordinarily well-documented, so at this point anyone talking about the future without taking all this into account is deluded.

Deluded is a nice word for it. Unimaginative is too. That said, for many reasons it's extremely difficult to visualize the scale of disruption that will result just from the movement of climate refugees, ie: sea level rise, uninhabitable hot zones, agricultural and water insecure regions, etc. Even discounting everything else coming, the former alone will eventually devastate society as we know it, and ideological differences [nationalism, isolationism] will get reflexively worse [as you've stated-- walls, shoot on sight, et so on and so forth] Once the cascade begins collapse is inevitable, imo. It'll predominantly be dog eat dog, excepting as I said earlier, in places where community triumphs. 

I'll probably see some of it before I shuck the mortal coil. My daughters definitely will. It's the main factor why I bought on Vancouver Island. This place won't escape what's coming, but it'll be... insulated. Somewhat. For a while.

 

29 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

US rail network should be expanded, double tracked, and electrified.  Biden seems to have taken a few blundering steps in this direction.  Air travel and long range automobile travel probably go into decline (though with the new generation of electric vehicles....) 

Rail infrastructure will also be disrupted, barring discovery of some new material and/or technoolgy

---

I'm invariably surprised by the optimism.

 

edit: fucking formatting

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I'll add two cents, even if that is repeating what's been said before.

Short answer.

No.

To add some more meat to it.

The biggest issue humanity faces, and fails to address properly is the climate crisis. The steps needed to properly tackle it, would mean an immediate reduction of the living standards around the developed world (fill in more political correct phrasing) and would not really help elevate the living standards in poorer countries. Addressing it properly would mean reducing travel and impact supply chains signficantly. I have very little faith in humanity doing what's needed there. Usually people agree that something should be done about it, as long as it doesn't mean they can't fly to go on vacations anymore. I could proceed to go on a lengthy rant, about how that moron, who coined the phrase sustainable growth should be shot on sight. You can run an economy based on the principle of sustainability, or on growth. Economic Growth has always beaten sustainability. When you think of the carbon footprint of bitcoin mining, you can only conclude that those mutated apes, who by galactic some mishap, ended up as the dominant species of this planet, have gone completely insane. Democracy is ill equipped to find solutions to the climate crisis, because politics thinks in different measures of time. The relevant intervals in politics is the time between elections, not what happens in 15-20 years (when a good part of today's voters are dead gone anyway). Otherwise politics would have taken more drastic measures 30 years ago... 

To add insult to injury, the worst poluters, are the least impacted by climate change, so that adds another incentive for the G7 states, to kick that can further down the road. Which will cause more conflicts in the developing parts of the world and cause more migration into the relatively unaffected north, which will in turn give rise to more populist anti-migrants populism (who either deny that climate change is a problem, or don't think anything can be done about it), and again, telling people to vote for a reduction of their living standards today, to stop it, is not really a vote winner. That's still promise of continuing economic growth and prosperity.

[Zorral]

You know I've always believed in climate change because of overpopulation > the earth's carrying capacity for ever expanding manufacture and carbon emissions was obviously being reached when I was a kid.  This is why I have never had children and never owned a car, and own hardly anything material beyond books and boots -- and while I have no television, do I ever have computers. I have other digital devices, a/c, space heaters, travel a lot, or did, and much of it, if not most of it, via air, and / or rental cars. My waste output has shot up enormously too in these pandemic years of living my entire life just about within this small space.  Also I eat meat.  Ok, so not every day, sometimes without any for month, whatever -- yet I do consume a lot of diary. So I'm quite a sinner all on my own.  And I'm just one person who is doing all this, while there are billions who are doing far, far, FAR more in terms of going over the limit of what is sustainable. 

There is so much going on all at the same time in the environment to everything that humanity has depended upon for its entire existence.  Here's a single instance: the Gulf Stream Current, on which so much of the earth's weather patterns, seasons and marine life -- not to mention shipping -- have depended for thousands of years is slowing way down.  How do we reverse that?  And if it could be possible, how many centuries would it take? 

[HoodedCrow]

Which is why the right is trying to take away access to birth control? I was taught about birth control, family planning, overpopulation in high school! Only one girl vanished midterm.

[Starkess]

Yes, probably. I'd say that's basically been true at every point in history previously, and it's a bit conceited to think that your current life and civilization is the peak of what will ever come in the future.

But I'm not sure how meaningful of a question it is. The subject is so large and abstract (civilization) that it can obfuscate the actual people involved. And the timeline (any time in the future) is so permissive as to make the question a bit of a tautology.

[A True Kaniggit]

6 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Yes, probably. I'd say that's basically been true at every point in history previously, and it's a bit conceited to think that your current life and civilization is the peak of what will ever come in the future.

But I'm not sure how meaningful of a question it is. The subject is so large and abstract (civilization) that it can obfuscate the actual people involved. And the timeline (any time in the future) is so permissive as to make the question a bit of a tautology.

I learned a new word today!

Tautology. 

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Starkess said:

it's a bit conceited to think that your current life and civilization is the peak of what will ever come in the future.

Who said this was the peak?

[A True Kaniggit]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Who said this was the peak?

Isn’t that the question of the OP?

 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Isn’t that the question of the OP?

Nah, not to me at least.  Asking if things can still get better is not the same as saying things are best now.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

26 minutes ago, Starkess said:

Yes, probably. I'd say that's basically been true at every point in history previously, and it's a bit conceited to think that your current life and civilization is the peak of what will ever come in the future.

But I'm not sure how meaningful of a question it is. The subject is so large and abstract (civilization) that it can obfuscate the actual people involved. And the timeline (any time in the future) is so permissive as to make the question a bit of a tautology.

No it's not. Where are our God damn hover boards, Nora? How else are we to run marathons without knee pain?

[A True Kaniggit]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Nah, not to me at least.  Asking if things can still get better is not the same as saying things are best now.

You are technically correct. 
 

The best kind of correct.

[felice]

1 hour ago, Starkess said:

But I'm not sure how meaningful of a question it is. The subject is so large and abstract (civilization) that it can obfuscate the actual people involved. And the timeline (any time in the future) is so permissive as to make the question a bit of a tautology.

I would like to hope that there will be a better civilization at some point in the future, but I don't think it will be "ours" in any meaningful sense. It will be built on top of our ruins, if it does ever happen.

[Kalbear]

I'll go a different way. 

The short to medium term crises are going to exacerbate political and economic trends that already are existent - contraction of human rights, suspension of democratic norms, wealth inequality, educational access and downward mobility will all increase. For some countries this will likely make them more prosperous- China in particular is well positioned to react quickly and harshly to crisis after crisis, and with the withdrawal of most western nations to their own spheres of influence to deal with their own shit China has the ability to expand and prosper in ways it was restrained from earlier. 

But what most people on the board think of as civilization - urban life, democratic principles, high technology, some ability to improve their life generationally- will be put on the back burner in favor of dealing with disaster after disaster.

[DireWolfSpirit]

5 hours ago, Starkess said:

bit conceited to think that your current life and civilization is the peak of what will ever come in the future.

Who is arguing this is our peak?

To my way of viewing it, the Americas were a paradise before conquering powers turned a tide that has resulted in the paved over deforested, polluted tragedy it is now.

The saying was a squirrel could cross the entire Michigan peninsula from west to east without ever touching the ground. That was the peak, we are well in the aftermath and decline of that.

Eta: My highest idea of civilization is judged heavily on how well we do as stewards of the earth. Everything beyond that is a distant second.

[Arakan]

7 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Problem: neoliberalism is under attack from the Right, not the Left. The Left has abandoned class for identity politics.

And this is why the fight against climate change is mostly doomed. You will not mobilize the needed masses of people to fight for a „better future“ when those masses will remain poor in your scenario as well or you actually don’t give a shit about them. 

It’s like 2015 in German rail stations, with people clapping and applauding and holding up shields: refugees welcome. Afterwards they went back to their nice, wealthy enclaves and never saw a refugee/immigrant again in their lives. Meanwhile those who have to live their daily lives with masses of new immigrants didn’t clap or applaud, many of them immigrants as well. What they saw is more competition for already scarce low-wage jobs and more competition for already scarce residential space.  This is a reality many so-called leftists don’t want to acknowledge, even fight it angrily because they simply don’t live in that Reality. 

[Rippounet]

8 hours ago, Arakan said:

And this is why the fight against climate change is mostly doomed. You will not mobilize the needed masses of people to fight for a „better future“ when those masses will remain poor in your scenario as well or you actually don’t give a shit about them.

True now. Could change with a few catastrophic events.
At least by now we've reached the point where disasters are -rightfully- attributed to climate change. Which means even Westerners will feel its impact.
For now, it's a very moderate impact. But any major event (even with an indirect impact) should create a shift in public opinion - which has already started in many countries.
The risk here is that the shift fuels authoritarianism. That, as the world heads toward darker times, the model regime to fight climate change becomes... China. In other words, if "liberal democracies" like the US don't take the lead, then they lose a lot of credibility and legitimacy.

[Raja]

Well, Prometheus is supposed to take place in 2089 and it features an excellent Idris Elba accent so I'm going to go out and say that 2089 will indeed be one of the best years of our civilization.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

At least by now we've reached the point where disasters are -rightfully- attributed to climate change. Which means even Westerners will feel its impact.
For now, it's a very moderate impact.

I'd say what we've been experiencing for the last few summers and particularly this summer is anything but very moderate.  Food shortages are coming due to wildfires, drought and flood (not to mention labor shortages for all kinds of reasons, including the ongoing pandemic, and the utter insanity of about 30% of US residents regarding safety and mitigation behaviors). We may lose for good this time a major city, to Hurricane Ida. Entire towns have been wiped out by wildfires in the west, beyond any rebuilding.  In some ways there are those who will argue even the pandemic is the consequence of climate catastrophe in one way and another.

Food shortages in a country that has always produced surplus . . . .

[Inkdaub]

Possibly, yes.  I think it will get much, much worse and, if we survive, then will have the chance to get better.  I guess I feel like we will have to get better or we will not survive at all.  So, better or extinct.  My confidence is not high on this point.

[Arakan]

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

True now. Could change with a few catastrophic events.
At least by now we've reached the point where disasters are -rightfully- attributed to climate change. Which means even Westerners will feel its impact.
For now, it's a very moderate impact. But any major event (even with an indirect impact) should create a shift in public opinion - which has already started in many countries.
The risk here is that the shift fuels authoritarianism. That, as the world heads toward darker times, the model regime to fight climate change becomes... China. In other words, if "liberal democracies" like the US don't take the lead, then they lose a lot of credibility and legitimacy.

As long as „greed is good“ no fight against climate change will be successful. Neo-liberal Capitalism will be a race to the bottom. Just watched a documentary about „poor rich America“, actually unbelievable. Real third world country feeling. Richest country in the world.