The state of the world.

Karl_ wrote:No, don't look away. Staring into the maelstrom of gooseberry fool that's about to hit the fan is the absolute least you can do. Make yourself sad and angry. Think about the hell the next generation will have to live through. Get radicalised.

Meh I dunno, that sounds like a lot of work and I'm super lazy.

Liberal!

Denster wrote:I think if you don't want kids that's cool. Many people don't. If your sole reason for not having them is because the world is too evil or bad to raise them in - that's pretty ridiculous. It's a hysterical reaction to a world where so many great things are available now and so many of the doom and gloom scenarios won't affect you or your kids in the slightest.

It's certainly not our sole reason (we just generally dislike kids) but I wouldn't criticise someone if they said it was.

OrangeRKN wrote:

Meep wrote:We have the dubious honour to be born into a transitional period in human history. In thirty to forty years capitalism, or at least capitalism as we know it, will have ceased to exist. If we continue growing even at current mediocre rates then the global economy will ballooned to several times the size it is today by the middle of the century. Clearly that is an absurd premise. The planet has reached a point were maintaining an economy that size is physically impossible without collapsing. It would be like saying a fish will grow bigger than the pond it lives in.

We're racing to widen the pond. We're literally on the cusp of a new gold rush into the oceans - the first large scale deep sea mining operation was carried out in 2017, the technology is on our doorstep. 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, and while ecologically we've already impacted it greatly, it remains mostly underexplored and underexploited - except for fishing and as a general waste dump. Deep sea mining will only be the beginning of late-earth ocean exploitation, and while disastrous ecologically it will provide a significant buffer for continued global economic growth.

Yeah I've always found this kind of thing interesting; if compare the oceans to land, you'll find that there's much more megafauna still present in them then there is on land. There used to a lot more terrestrial megafauna, but we started their extinction much earlier in our history which is why they only remain in africa (and to some extent asia) where the native fauna was used to dealing with us. If undersea mining truly becomes a thing we're gonna start seeing total food web collapse and the true start of the holocene mass extinction

Honestly we just have to hope that space industry growth becomes more and more exponential, or else we may well be in a lot of trouble

Tafdolphin wrote:My wife is involved in several think tanks studying and analysing theories on the future state of western society and one of their main findings/points of discussion is that technology is not advancing at a rate that is anywhere near the level needed to prolong our current economic and social state for any significant length of time. So-called advancements, often represented by the electric car, are simply a way of kicking the can down the road whilst the real sources for concern, in this specific case the increasing rarity of precious metals required to create the technology, are dismissed or glossed over. I haven't read Rosling yet, but it looks like he's very much a 'tech will save us' type of guy which, apparently, simply isn't the case.

hmmmm while I'm not as qualified as these people, I'm not sure I agree? Tech is advancing at a desirable rate but it always seemed to me that the issue is more cost, availability and implementation of the tech isn't there yet
With the technology we have now, we could go some ways towards fixing the environmental crisis while largely keeping the social aspect of most peoples' lives the same, but in a profit driven capitalist economy morality and ultra long term sustainability simply isn't enough impetus for the major players to invest in better gooseberry fool when the old gooseberry fool is much easier to make money from

VlaSoul wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:My wife is involved in several think tanks studying and analysing theories on the future state of western society and one of their main findings/points of discussion is that technology is not advancing at a rate that is anywhere near the level needed to prolong our current economic and social state for any significant length of time. So-called advancements, often represented by the electric car, are simply a way of kicking the can down the road whilst the real sources for concern, in this specific case the increasing rarity of precious metals required to create the technology, are dismissed or glossed over. I haven't read Rosling yet, but it looks like he's very much a 'tech will save us' type of guy which, apparently, simply isn't the case.

hmmmm while I'm not as qualified as these people, I'm not sure I agree? Tech is advancing at a desirable rate but it always seemed to me that the issue is more cost, availability and implementation of the tech isn't there yet
With the technology we have now, we could go some ways towards fixing the environmental crisis while largely keeping the social aspect of most peoples' lives the same, but in a profit driven capitalist economy morality and ultra long term sustainability simply isn't enough impetus for the major players to invest in better gooseberry fool when the old gooseberry fool is much easier to make money from

I'm not an expert either, but I've been shown convincing studies in this by my wife's groups. Far as I can see the basic problem is this: there are finite resources on the planet. This is a fact. New technologies, no matter how advanced, require resources to produce. The rate at which they are consuming these resources is greater than the rate at which they are lessening humanity's environmental impact. Take electric cars again. Although they create less pollution on a moment to moment basis they also require vast amounts of precious metals in their production, not to mention that the electricity they require is not produced sustainably either, so the idea of them somehow being better for the environment is at best an overestimation.

It's not the best example but hopefully you get my meaning.

You're definitely right in that the major players simply aren't interested in sustainable technology either though. Capitalism is short sighted in the extreme. There's also a huge social aspect; changing consumption trends will require a massive re-evaluation of what it is to live day to day and this is likely something that's going to be required to increase sustainability. Recycling is pretty common these days but what if electricity rationing came into effect? How many societies would accept that?

The issue isn't really that the resources are finite, it's that the cost of extracting them goes up (Helium being the notable exception in that it escapes the atmosphere and is lost to space, so on Earth it is finite in real terms).

I think recycling is going to see improvements not out of environmental concerns, but from an increasing economic argument for recovering raw materials like rare earth metals from places like landfill. Automation and machine learning is going to help hugely here - it's only in recent years that technology has got up to task in visual sorting, which is vital for searching through landfill at scale in search of recyclable components such as old phones.

The cost of doing that at the moment is still prohibitively expensive, but I imagine with tech advancement on one side, and rising costs due to dwindling supply on the other, at some point it must become attractive.

OrangeRKN wrote:The issue isn't really that the resources are finite, it's that the cost of extracting them goes up (Helium being the notable exception in that it escapes the atmosphere and is lost to space, so on Earth it is finite in real terms).

Well yeah, this is part and parcel of the idea of finite resources. As well as the landfill reclamation companies like Apple are now starting to offer increasingly attractive recycling initiatives in order to get these metals back into circulation as efficiently as possible. But still, no recycling scheme is 100% efficient (nor, I think, will one ever be) and that's the point I think I was making.

We can lessen the impact of technologies and progress but sustainability is impossible at our current level of consumption. Social change, possibly on national/international levels, will likely be required.

Isn't aluminium the poster child for recyclable materials? In that the material itself is 100% recyclable and the act of recycling it is less expensive than actually producing it in the first place?

Waste material in electronics is definitely a huge problem, we are creating so much stuff all of the time with the expectation that it will have a short lifespan before being binned and replaced with very little thought about the environmental cost and sustainability of that process.

Tafdolphin wrote:I'm not an expert either, but I've been shown convincing studies in this by my wife's groups. Far as I can see the basic problem is this: there are finite resources on the planet. This is a fact. New technologies, no matter how advanced, require resources to produce. The rate at which they are consuming these resources is greater than the rate at which they are lessening humanity's environmental impact. Take electric cars again. Although they create less pollution on a moment to moment basis they also require vast amounts of precious metals in their production, not to mention that the electricity they require is not produced sustainably either, so the idea of them somehow being better for the environment is at best an overestimation.

I think OR's point about recycling is really good response here; recycling at the maximum effective rate and greater responsible consumption would presumably go some ways towards mitigating the need for raw material harvesting. You bring up a good point about electric cars example, but I think like a lot of newer tech the idea behind them is that they're the beginning of a much longer road that will eventually lead to more environmentally friendly transport; though yes that cannot exist without industrial invest into green energy. So like, even if they aren't too effective now, the more civilians that invest in them the quicker the desired change will come about, and iirc more people have been investing into electric cars as time goes on

Tafdolphin wrote:You're definitely right in that the major players simply aren't interested in sustainable technology either though. Capitalism is short sighted in the extreme. There's also a huge social aspect; changing consumption trends will require a massive re-evaluation of what it is to live day to day and this is likely something that's going to be required to increase sustainability. Recycling is pretty common these days but what if electricity rationing came into effect? How many societies would accept that?

I don't think electricity rationing would be much of a problem for most of the world compared to what it would be for the rest, and even then I'm not convinced responsible consumption would require too much of a change from how we are now; the main impediments here are industry interests and education.

I think that brings us back to my kicking the can down the road thing. I don't think, and there is evidence to suggest this, that recycling and advances will be enough to sustain the quality of life most of us expect in the long term. The corporate motivation isn't there (as sustainable generally = less consumption and less profit), the budget isn't there (the rise in popularism and the rejection of regulations not helping here) and the uptake isn't there. Maybe it will be, but from what I've seen and read the longer road you mentioned is more likely to come to an abrupt end as there simply wasn't enough materials left to complete it, rather than running off into the sunset.

Related:

twitter.com/nytimes/status/1149260810222485504

Tafdolphin wrote:I think that brings us back to my kicking the can down the road thing. I don't think, and there is evidence to suggest this, that recycling and advances will be enough to sustain the quality of life most of us expect in the long term. The corporate motivation isn't there (as sustainable generally = less consumption and less profit), the budget isn't there (the rise in popularism and the rejection of regulations not helping here) and the uptake isn't there. Maybe it will be, but from what I've seen and read the longer road you mentioned is more likely to come to an abrupt end as there simply wasn't enough materials left to complete it, rather than running off into the sunset.

what you're saying is valid
but honestly man I just gotta hope it aint so and that the governments of the free world will start strong arming the major players into being better than they are
Maybe if an american democratic candidate is elected we might see some change

also yikes that water thing is strawberry floated

Are you prepared to buy shares of companies that turn off taps for needy users asks a newspaper in a country which capitalised healthcare.

Yes, I suspect they are.

The world would be in a much better state if everyone would just admit that Luton is the new Dubai .

Tafdolphin wrote:

Dual wrote:

Denster wrote:I dont worry about any of it tbh

Quelle strawberry floating surprise.

I mean yeah. Obviously.

I can't not care. Disconnecting from reality is not the answer here, at least not for me. Dealing with something =/= ignoring it.

You're not dealing with it though, you're just being told stuff. Stop listening to the stuff. Most of it's war propaganda anyway.

Abacus wrote:

Karl wrote:[...]

People have been worrying about these sort of things for centuries, and it doesn't happen like that.

You are right. People in the 20th century who worried about violent revolutions, world wars, fascist dictatorships, genocide, and mass stockpiling of nuclear weapons that could end all civisilation were proved wrong on all counts, because thankfully none of that stuff happened.

Even if some of that stuff did happen, luckily there's no re-emerging far right movement to kick it all off again or looming worldwide climate crisis to make it higher-stakes than ever before in history. No indeed, it's all in the past. Thank goodness for that.

Abacus wrote:[...] Why didn't I just go away and think about important things I could solve, like being nice to someone instead of ranting on and blaming everyone else for things that probably won't happen in the future but still being furious about it anyway.

You are asking a lot of things at once there.

You want me to be nicer to Taf? We are friends, I don't think I am being mean to him. He might be feeling down about the world, but I know for sure he doesn't want to be coddled. I think he should take the anger and sadness and channel it into something, rather than closing his eyes.

You want me to stop blaming "everyone"? Well I think that's a misreading of my ideology, I don't actually blame anyone in particular, I blame the system, society as a whole needs to be changed as much as we can to limit how bad things get.

You want me to stop being furious? No, I'm not going to pretend I'm not upset with the way the world's going, why should I?

You want me to solve real problems instead of talking on GRcade? Well that's an interesting point, I agree posting isn't really praxis. My career does help people and so I have a small impact that way. I guess I could do more activism IRL, but to be fair I'm limited in what I can do directly because I'm ill.

At least when I'm posting I'm not denying there's a problem, my posts might be useless but yours here is worse than useless.

Abacus wrote:I do think there are not enough women on this forum, as they would tend to sort this sort of thing out by metaphorically patting us on the head [...] even if we complained about being told what to do at the time. [...] Men do tend to worry about the 'big' things, such as how to solve the world's problems.

Did you come through a portal from the '50s? What a load of rubbish. I assure you I know plenty of radical women who are passionately trying to solve the world's problems.

Karl_ wrote:

The floodgates won't hold forever you know. We're doomed. Doomed!

Why do you think we're headed for fascism and that we'll be in a hellscape within ten years? Donald J is getting so much hate from liberal America and the media, so he's not going to bring about change as big as that and no one else in American politics is currently strong enough to do that.

Karl_ wrote:.

You want me to be nicer to Taf? We are friends, I don't think I am being mean to him. He might be feeling down about the world, but I know for sure he doesn't want to be coddled. I think he should take the anger and sadness and channel it into something, rather than closing his eyes

If anything, seeing someone who I know knows more about this stuff than me confirming my beliefs actually makes me feel better, not worse. No idea why given those beliefs are scary as all get out but still.

Probably an ego thing.

pjbetman wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Dual wrote:

Denster wrote:I dont worry about any of it tbh

Quelle strawberry floating surprise.

I mean yeah. Obviously.

I can't not care. Disconnecting from reality is not the answer here, at least not for me. Dealing with something =/= ignoring it.

You're not dealing with it though, you're just being told stuff. Stop listening to the stuff. Most of it's war propaganda anyway.

The very last thing we need is for people to stop listening to the stuff. The only way we solve any of the issues that we are confronted with at the moment is by having an informed public.

Moggy wrote:

pjbetman wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:

Dual wrote:

Denster wrote:I dont worry about any of it tbh

Quelle strawberry floating surprise.

I mean yeah. Obviously.

I can't not care. Disconnecting from reality is not the answer here, at least not for me. Dealing with something =/= ignoring it.

You're not dealing with it though, you're just being told stuff. Stop listening to the stuff. Most of it's war propaganda anyway.

The very last thing we need is for people to stop listening to the stuff. The only way we solve any of the issues that we are confronted with at the moment is by having an informed public.

What if the public are informed but very lazy?