this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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Same argument was already made around 2500BCE in Mesopotamian scriptures. The corruption of society will lead to deterioration and collapse, these processes accelerate and will soon lead to the inevitable end; remaining minds write history books and capture the end of humanity.
...and as you can see, we're 4500 years into this stuff, still kicking.
One mistake people of all generations make is assuming the previous ones were smarter and better. No, they weren't, they were as naive if not more so, had same illusions of grandeur and outside influences. This thing never went anywhere and never will. We can shift it to better or worse, but societal collapse due to people suddenly getting dumb is not something to reasonably worry about.
Almost certainly not, no. Evolution may work faster than once thought, but not that fast. The problem is that societal, and in particular, technological development is now vastly outstripping our ability to adapt. It's not that people are getting dumber per se - it's that they're having to deal with vastly more stuff. All. The. Time. For example, consider the world as it was a scant century ago - virtually nothing in evolutionary terms. A person did not have to cope with what was going on on the other side of the planet, and probably wouldn't even know for months if ever. Now? If an earthquake hits Paraguay, you'll be aware in minutes.
And you'll be expected to care.
Edit: Apologies. I wrote this comment as you were editing yours. It's quite different now, but you know what you wrote previously, so I trust you'll be able to interpret my response correctly.
1925: global financial collapse is just about to happen, many people are enjoying the ride as the wave just started to break, following that war to end all wars that did reach across the Atlantic Ocean...
Yes, it is accelerating. Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock 45 years ago, already overwhelmed by accelerating change, and it has continued to accelerate since then. But these are not entirely new problems, either.
Yes, my apologies I edited it so drastically to better get my point across.
Sure, we get more information. But we also learn to filter it, to adapt to it, and eventually - to disregard things we have little control over, while finding what we can do to make it better.
I believe that, eventually, we can fix this all as well.
There have been a couple of big discontinuities in the last 4500 years, and the next big discontinuity has the distinction of being the first in which mankind has the capacity to cause a mass extinction event.
Life will carry on, some humans will likely survive, but in what kind of state? For how long before they reach the technological level of being able to leave the planet again?
I mean, Mesopotamian scriptures likely didn't foresee having a bunch of dumb fucks around who can be easily manipulated by the gas and oil lobby, and that shit will actually end humanity.
People were always manipulated. I mean, they were indoctrinated with divine power of rulers, how much worse can it get? It's just that now it tries to be a bit more stealthy.
And previously, there were plenty of existential threats. Famine, plague, all that stuff that actually threatened to wipe us out.
We're still here, and we have what it takes to push back. We need more organizing, that's all.
In the past our eggs were not all in one basket.
In the past it wasn't possible to fuck up so hard you destroy all of humanity. That's a new one.
With regard to what has been happening the past 100 days in the United States, it's not even trying to be stealthy one little bit. If anything, it's dropping massive hints of the objectionable things it's planning for the near future.
There are still existential threats: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
The difference with a population of 8 billion is that we as individuals are less empowered to do anything significant about them than ever.
Well, it doesn't have to get worse, AFAIK we are still headed towards human extinction due to Climate Change
Honestly, the "human extinction" level of climate change is very far away. Currently, we're preventing the "sunken coastal cities, economic crisis and famine in poor regions" kind of change, it's just that "we're all gonna die" sounds flashier.
We have the time to change the course, it's just that the sooner we do this, the less damage will be done. This is why it's important to solve it now.
Are we really preventing it? Seems like the track toward that change is mostly unabated. Sure, it's a couple of generations out before it gets serious, but what are the signs that the track has improved?
I'm reading hopeful signs from China that they are actually making positive progress toward sustainability. Not that other big players are keeping up with them, but still how 1 billion people choose to live does make a difference.
Yeah, China is doing rather well in transition to Renewables and Nuclear, though it might be concerning for the future when we will have to buy everything Solar and SMR related from them
The only thing driving solar panel production development to China is cost. Cost of labor, cost of environmental regulations, maybe cost of raw material acquisition... All that investment there for the past 20+ years driven by cost is "paying off" now with their production capacity. We're getting TMSC plants in Arizona, we've already got BMW, Mercedes, Toyota etc. production plants in the US, nothing stopping us from building solar panel factories, except international corporate profit optimization.