this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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I don't think things are getting worse in everyway. I see things changing and I'm optimistic about the future.
My chosen apocalypse of personal belief is that of climate change. Even if we create a general peace on earth, do every single thing right regarding climate change, at this point, we're likely to only skirt absolute disaster. Some countries won't even admit it's a problem, much less take action to prevent it.
Climate change is not one of the things I see getting better. The only people who care about changing seem to be the people who don't contribute much in the first place. The largest polluters are still polluting more and more.
Then it's hard to be optimistic about the future - if we don't make a drastic alteration to energy then we are heading for rises in temperature that are going to make some parts of the planet inhabitable,. leading to water wars and huge displaced populations moving north. This will play into the hands of right wing populists and the political system will be under the kind of strain we haven't seen in a century. That's for as long as we can keep what might still pass for civilisation limping along.
We have time. I may not be optimistic about the outcome now but in 5 or 10 years I expect the political landscape to be very different. I can already see that many many many people care about the issue and are working every day to change things.
We had time 20 years ago. We no longer have time.
Yep, it's the reason I don't have kids. It feels selfish to have something for myself that will spend most of its life suffering.
It all depends on where the tipping points are, and there’s still a lot of uncertainty. If we can stop making things worse before we hit major irreversible changes to our environment, we can eke it out
Permafrost is already melting in alarming amounts. We'd probably have to take drastic action immediately. I don't mean in a few years or a decade. Now like, this year. But that's not going to happen.
Thanks a lot: you made me look it up. The Wikipedia article has more potential climate tipping than I was aware of, and near the beginning they talk about fears of a tipping point cascade. I think that’s the end of my internet tonight
We don't have time - we had time 15-20 years ago and did less than the minimum required, so we will hit +1.5 degrees C very soon, which itself is bad, but we are easily on track for +2C and probably worse. That's disastrous. And this isn't factoring in other feedback loops that might kick in and make this irreversible, like widespread melting of the permafrost or the methane hydrates in the deep ocean (both of which have already started and will only get worse).
In the developed world, we have made gains in medicine and technology, but that just means this could be as good as it gets.
Is there hope? Sure. If China switched off all its coal-fired power stations and used gas, nuclear and renewables we'd be back on track for only hitting +1.5C and it would possibly buy us enough time to build renewables, make viable fusion reactors, etc. However, they already know this and aren't making any moves to change when no-one else is - for example, Germany are looking to bring their coal-fired power stations back online this Winter.
If there can be a silver lining in the heavy dark clouds of war, it’s that many countries are speeding up deployment of renewable energy to reduce their dependency on unstable or unfriendly nations
Like what? Literally everything I can think of is getting worse all the time. People on the internet moving further and further to extremes, technology getting more and more dumbed down and taking control from the user in favor of spying on the. My friends and family aging, getting sick, and dying. Everything is more expensive than ever and my wage isn't keeping up.. I could go on.
Younger people are more political active and engaged than ever. They are shifting policies towards the left. Unions are become more popular throughout the west and are achieving improvements in workers rights. People from all around the world are engaging with each other regularly on the internet which reduces us vs them mentality. Climate change is at the forefront of political discussion and is backed by the largest investment funds in the world. Technology is getting better, easier to use means it's accessible to more people. Your family and friends aging is unfortunately part of the human condition. The fact that we are talking about wages not keeping up with cost of living is a good sign it means we have identified it as an issue and politically the issue is already bring tackled.
There's a lot of bad things to dwell on but to say everything is getting worse is unhelpful and demoralizing. If everything was actually getting worse I can honestly say I would kill myself. I believe there is a future for us all to work towards.
With the exception of climate change, most of these issues have always existed to varying degrees, you're just constantly bombarded by the news of it now. Block all news sites and communities for a few weeks and see how you feel. I promise you will miss nothing. Anything important enough will slip through your filters online or in the real world.
Now check this out, we're seeing meaningful movement towards fair wages in places like California, and pretty much the entire world, across every industry is on strike this year. That's not bad news, that's great news! It means that people have been pushed too far and are finally pushing back.
Everyone gives the Boomers shit for problems they presumably created, but they were fucking active in politics as kids, man. They were constantly out protesting, fighting for improvements and changes. As a result their kids and grandkids had things pretty great for most of their lives and were complacent. That complacency led to companies and governments seeing how far they could push the limits and they've found those limits. People are fighting back now.
--Frederick Douglas
I wouldn't suggest this for extended periods. Imo, it's how people don't know and become apathetic about politics and only hear the highest airplane level that seeps through.
Modern technology recently resulted in incredibly fast development of multiple vaccines to control a worldwide pandemic. Even just a few years earlier vaccines would have taken years and resulted in many more deaths
% of people living in extreme poverty.
Violent crime is going down for a long time now. So there's that.
People are also much more accepting and open to different people. Still a long way to go but I think we can appreciate the progress.
Taking lead out of gas did wonders for that, though there's enough lead in urban soil that it's probably not good to eat eggs from urban yard chickens, or some root vegetables like carrots, turnips, radishes, and beets if grown in urban soil. That said, other than some root veggies, garden veggies do not take up lead in the soil.
Or tomatoes. Our pediatrician said for older houses you need to expect soil near the houses to be contaminated by lead paint so vegetable gardens (unless separated soil) are not a good idea, especially tomatoes
Edit: apparently lettuce too
https://www.soils.org/news/science-news/lead-contamination-garden-soils/
How many tomatoes would you have to grow to purify the soil
That doesn't seem true but I will believe you and not check data.
The only way to know is to check data, since the media is incentivized to report on it as much as possible to drive views.
Yeah but if I check it and is not true then I will feel sad again .. I prefer to believe what the parent commenter said in this case 😂
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/WLD/world/murder-homicide-rate
I worked in environmental analysis and projection for a mutli-national engineering company and I have bad news.
I don’t think things are getting worse in everyway. I think the prevalence of optimism bias has stayed relatively constant.
This isn't optimism bias. Optimism bias is personal ("smoking causes cancer, but I should be fine.")
What you're referring to is not optimism bias, but optimism viewed as a bias.
For me it's important to be optimistic because it allows you to keep working on an issue. If you think it's over and everything is fucked you won't work on the issue. You need to believe the issue can be fixed to take the steps to fix it.
Right wing politics will destroy our planet.
Ah, so you must be a political enemy.
Everyone is a political enemy to someone.