Life Circa 2050 Will Be Bad.

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/climate-future-disasters/

by makerofspoons • 5 years ago

32 52 5 years ago

thenation.com

0xb0565e4864• 5 years ago

Why do pessimists think they know it all?

cityzen• 5 years ago

did you read the article?

0xb0565e4864• 5 years ago

Yes I did.

icedchai• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure things peaked in the late 90's.

tsol5• 5 years ago

Because the only thing harder for a person to deal with than bad news, is uncertainty.

flooow• 5 years ago

Pretty soon it is going to become a very difficult decision whether to have children. I would argue we are already at that point, however this idea has not really gone 'mainstream' yet. But I fully expect the birthrate to have plummeted by 2030.

The question we are going to have to answer: "What happens when there is no future?"

jarpschop• 5 years ago

Sure, as more time goes on and the thing starts to become more evident. It will become clearer that bringing a human being into a dying world is a deeply immoral thing to do. It will not be soon though.

2III72• 5 years ago

The world is not dying. It is only changing for the worse for us. Not making children right now or in the future is a suicide for mankind which doesn't solve the problems we have created.

adamrezich• 5 years ago

what happened in the past few years to get so many people, especially ostensibly smart people in tech circles, to buy into this death cult nonsense? I genuinely do not understand what can lead to such a mindset.

tsol5• 5 years ago

bringing a human being into a dying world is a deeply immoral thing to do

What does this actually mean? What is a dying world, exactly?

Historically, the world has been an awful place to be. Most of Human history, 200k years or so, we were essentially nomadic tribes killing and eating each other(sometimes literally*). Since civilization has begun, we've been ostensibly more moral-- yet the majority of humans who have existed in the past 10,000 years were laborers we know very little about.

When you read about what people in Greece and Rome were like? That's mostly the well off nobles. Rarely did anyone bother to write about the lives of slaves, and subsequently we know next to nothing about them except that many of them had very harsh lives. We don't know what day to day life was like for the majority of Roman, for example.

Countless kingdoms have fallen-- Cesar had a book he published about some of his expeditions in genocide(or read another way, in conquering the enemy). When a city was sacked by the enemy; all resistance was killed, women were used, and then those remaining men women, and children were sold into slavery to fund the winning kingdom. Their stuff was sold too, as you won't be surprised to hear. If they really hated the other side, like when Rome felled Carthage, they would salt the earth after. While expensive, it guaranteed nothing would grow there for a long time after-- a testament to the power of the conquers to eliminate any opposition.

My point being.. I don't know why it's more unethical to birth humans into this world, than any of our ancestors. Logically, every human experiences unhappiness. How is it ever moral to birth humans into a world when humans experience pain? Human existence itself isn't purely logical and cannot be understood like that

* https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/06/prehistoric-...

anonnyj• 5 years ago

Many have already decided to pull the trigger and be dog moms. Earth will just be left with the non-suicidal / those that don't fall for this particular brand of propaganda.

0xb0565e4864• 5 years ago

I’m bullish on life.

AnimalMuppet3• 5 years ago

Yeah. The future belongs to those who believe there will be a future. (And to their children, because they're going to have children.)

2III72• 5 years ago

As if there hasn't been terrible periods in human history. Multiple plagues, little ice age, Toba catastrophe, WWII etc.

As shitty as it is going to be for us, we'll adapt and survive.

ncmncm• 5 years ago

Badly.

ianunruh3• 5 years ago

Without these doomsday scenarios, it would be very hard to sell the prospect of a central world government that can override the sovereignty of every nation on Earth. Europe already fell for it, but it's going to take a lot more to get the rest of us involved.

idiotsecant3• 5 years ago

Yes, over time humans form larger and larger social groups as we are able to use technology and trade to form a more abstract and inclusive idea of the 'us' and reduce the 'them' outgroup. That's how it works. If you asked a bronze age libertarian your current idea of a 'nation' would be wildly antithetical to his idea of a free and sovereign tribe. As social groups get larger and larger we also get, on average, more and more peaceful and prosperous.

It's a good thing.

tsol5• 5 years ago

No one is saying awful things haven't happened. It's just that humans, no matter how logical they are, still respond emotionally to awful things. They're awful, and it'll be hard for us, and to be honest that makes a lot of people really scared for themselves or their kids. I don't know many people making the argument that humans won't survive the next 30 years

Jtype• 5 years ago

What a bunch of ridiculous doomsday porn. It's just silly.

DonBarredora• 5 years ago

On the contrary, it will be better than ever before.

actually_a_dog8• 5 years ago

You've got... evidence for that, right?

da-x2• 5 years ago

OP does not consider substantial effort of widespread geo-engineering that will take place to scrub CO2 and Methane from the atmosphere. Why be so pessimistic, when we are at the cusp of finally starting to address these real issues?

There are beginning carbon tax efforts by legislators and governments that will greatly incentivise further developments in reducing ecological harm along with emerging eagerness by big corporations to become zero footprint. This is not only by word and regulation but by actual doing. There's a monumental change happening right now.

actually_a_dog8• 5 years ago

So, you're claiming a bunch of things that don't exist right now are going to save us? That sounds like magical thinking to me.

marc__1• 5 years ago

"Most people underestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years". Over the past 20 years, we have the following mind-blowing breakthroughs, so there is a lot of reason for optimism:

- the FDA has approved about 190 new cancer treatments for adults, we have the Human Genome Program and CRISPR;

- graphene was isolated in lab and it is used in many applications (from solar cells to HIV diagnosis);

- bluetooth officially launched in 1999;

- we are on Mars with Curiosity and reusable rockets are a reality;

[1] https://www.fda.gov/media/122693/download

[2] https://www.drugs.com/newdrugs.html

[3]https://fee.org/articles/the-20-biggest-advances-in-tech-ove...

tuatoru• 5 years ago

The article's language is hyperbolic and it focusses on outlier predictions, but life will be worse than it could have been, in large part because of the context in which this weather will be happening.

First, weather effects. A larger percentage of GDP will have to be spent on repairing weather damage. That means higher insurance premiums, one way or another. More will also have to be spent beefing up infrastructure and structures against weather and sea level rise. Harvests are likely to become more volatile because of more extreme weather events, so food prices will be higher than they would have been.

Conflict will rise because of the inability of many governments to deal with these issues, so more will also be spent on military force and internal security.

All of these are manageable with other things being equal, but they're not. Non-renewable ground water is being drawn down. China will find as Arabian Gulf countries have, that desalination is not without its downsides. Its south-north water projects will be vulnerable to weather too. I have no idea how inland South Asia will get its water if, as predicted, the Indian Summer Monsoon becomes unreliable.

At the same time we will in the process of trying to eliminate fossil fuels, which currently provide 80% of our primary energy and which are currently essential for producing steel, cement, fertilizer, and industrial chemicals at moderate prices. More of GDP will also be spent on the substitutes as well as the structures and equipment needed to produce them.

The main bit of missing context, though, is demographic. Working age populations will be shrinking during this time¹, and the proportion of the old elderly (older than 75) in populations will increase. The latter almost certainly means that healthcare will take an increasing fraction of GDP also². The former means that these burdens will fall on a smaller group.

With more spent on insurance premiums (one way or another), more expensive infrastructure, more spent on health (one way or another), and higher food prices, people will have less disposable income than they would have had otherwise.

1. Outside sub-Saharan Africa, a region which is not noted for effective government.

2. There's an interesting paper on the UN DESA population web site, describing how over the 20th century two things have happened to lifespan. Life expectancy has increased, and the variance of age at death has reduced dramatically. Currently most people can expect to live to 90 ± 5 years compared to 75 ± 20 in the mid 20th century.

Crucially, though, death is preceded by about 15 years of ill health, and this period is not shrinking. People now have a "healthspan" of 75 years, followed by 15 years of increasing demand on the medical system.

-----

3. The above is all predicated on the assumption that our political class can deal effectively with the situation, and wants to act in the interest of all citizens. It's a best case.

Life Circa 2050 Will Be Bad.

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