Temperatures above 50C used to be a rarity confined to two or three global hotspots, but the World Meteorological Organization noted that at least 10 countries have reported this level of searing heat in the past year: the US, Mexico, Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan, India and China.
In Iran, the heat index – a measure that also includes humidity – has come perilously close to 60C, far above the level considered safe for humans.
Heatwaves are now commonplace elsewhere, killing the most vulnerable, worsening inequality and threatening the wellbeing of future generations. Unicef calculates a quarter of the world’s children are already exposed to frequent heatwaves, and this will rise to almost 100% by mid-century.
I thought the consensus was that it was El Nino exacerbating things, but I guess that’s not the only factor.
times like these, I feel pretty shitty about how the world and I have condemned my kids to suffer the water wars in a handful of years
Yeah, I feel the same. I was having a tough day already but reading this has made me particularly gloomy.
I feel as though we will look back at these days wistfully.
Here are some sites to remind you that not everything in the world is bad, friend:
Here are some sites to remind you that not everything in the world is bad, friend:
It is almost like we are stupid fucking monkeys with rockets and bullets
Rockets and bullets are a problem. But it is the desire to use them against a scapegoated group to cement our own power and status that is the bigger issue.
Impossible. Michael Crichton and the experts in Superfreakonomics assured us that scientists would be able to quickly implement geoengineering projects to reduce CO2 and cool the earth. /s
Technology is great! Let’s incite hatred through social media.
The new evidence that Greenland lived up to its verdant name in the not-so-distant past may represent an exciting scientific breakthrough, but it also heralds ominous possibilities for the future of humanity. Present-day atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher than they’ve been in millions of years; evidence of an ice-free Greenland in the more recent past means that it could take even less warming than once expected to deplete the continent’s all-important ice sheet. The frozen stronghold that covers Greenland contains enough fresh water to raise sea levels by 23 feet — a staggering volume that would reshape coastlines around the world.
23 feet sounds like a lot.
I found a visualiser which goes up to 30 feet / 10m: https://coastal.climatecentral.org/map/6/5.3311/51.8749/?theme=water_level&map_type=water_level_above_mhhw&basemap=roadmap&contiguous=true&elevation_model=best_available&refresh=true&water_level=23.0&water_unit=ft
Crazy stuff. And what I posted was just for Greenland thawing, so doesn’t include the Arctic/Antarctic thaws.
In the not too distant future the world will lose a lot of coastline.
In the not too distant future the world will lose a lot of coastline.
Which is where 80% of people live.
I see a lot of doom and gloom in the comments here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is not the main concern being that sea levels will rise and flood costal cities? Plus some parts of the world will be too hot to comfortably live? Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be. Right now most are overweight watching TV and worried about stupid unimportant things. But if the need arose to build new towns/cities in higher and cooler locations, we have the man power. Literally BILLIONS of humans, some smart ones to plan it all, and the rest to build it. I don’t see an “end of humanity” or “don’t have kids” as being reasonable. Humanity will adapt. Please correct me if I’m missing something here.
I agree that humans are remarkably creative, and I agree “don’t have kids” is reasonable. But the “end of humanity” might come through this. However, I agree that we might be able to survive this. But please take it seriously. The whole climate crisis is a complex challenge by itself, and the politicization of it, along with the capitalistic interests, are complicating it further. We need urgent global action if we want humanity to survive.
Consider: Not all those billions of people will survive the sudden shift in climate. The breaking points in climate make everything super difficult to plan for. It is not just about finding higher ground that is climatic for humans, the whole agriculture will be a big problem. The climate will be so different from what we have right now, we are not perfectly sure how which crops would work where. We need globally aligned tests, knowledge sharing at the very best, along with all the action we need to take along with carbon emissions.
This challenge, is our biggest yet. We need a global, aligned, focused effort. But, we are far from it. The stress is causing conflict everywhere. Our international order is not up to coordinate this global effort, unfortunately. And if COVID-19 showed us what we can have on a global scale as a response, it means every nation state will turn inwards, try to fight against it by themselves while also fighting against everyone else. This problem is the crux. Our systems, our worldviews, our doctrine are not up for this fight ahead.
There is hope. But there is also a lot to despair about.
And if COVID-19 showed us what we can have on a global scale as a response, it means every nation state will turn inwards, try to fight against it by themselves while also fighting against everyone else.
My money is on hot, stressed, scared people tending to vote for politicians who blame immigrants / feminists / queer people. Maybe there will even be sacrifices.
There is a lot more to it than rise of sea levels on the one hand and some places being too hot.
TL;DR: Climate change causes mass extinctions, ecosystem collapse, extreme weather, and life-threatening heat. Technology alone won’t save us; prevention is crucial. Ignoring climate action risks severe economic damage, comparable to a permanent Great Depression.
(Prepare for a great wall of fuck.)
In short (list is not exhaustive, there’s surely more which I also don’t know of or don’t think of right now):
- Mass extinction of several species, which can’t keep up with the pace of climate change. You might have heard already how insect popluations dramatically declined in the past decades.
- Extinction or even significant deaths and lack of offspring in various species leads to imbalance and collapse of entire eco systems.
- Humans are part of and relying on functioning and healthy eco systems. Without them our very basis of life starts collapsing, leading to numerous human deaths and a lot of misery.
- The occurence of extreme weather conditions as well as catastophes in consequence of climate change increases. The occasional summer storm might become less occasional, which is less of a problem. But so do floodings, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or forest fires increase. And those cost lives and do a lot of damage. We experience weather conditions in places today, which most common people would’ve deemed impossible or extremely unlikely at least. (Not every extreme weather condition is the result of climate change though. But a lot are. An entire field of attribution science has emerged to elaborate which catastrophe has been a direct cause of climate change.)
- Increased temperatures, but especially heatwaves, are already now costing more and more lives and that’s not just some particular places with extremely hot temperatures, but it’s also occuring in entire nations known for more temperate conditions. For example in the EU.
- Being “too hot” is only one side. You can survive 40°C or higher, if the air humidity is low. But due to global warming we can also observe time frames in regions where the air humidity plus temperature reaches such levels that people are exposed to life-threatening health risks already at 31°C. (See also “wet bulb temperature” in general.) Higher humidity makes it harder to cool ourselves by sweating, i.e., evaporative cooling. This is being observed more and more often in south-east asia and the middle east but also started to affect the USA in some regions (Texas, last year in 2023).
You might now understand a bit better why even a few degrees more around the globe incur existential threats.
Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be. […] if the need arose […] some smart ones […] plan it all, and the rest […] build it
(Sorry for quoting you a bit more freely here.)
Technology can do much, but it is not magic. (I’m an engineering scientist, because I realised at some point that I can’t become a magician.) Entropy is a bitch and current solutions or attempts I know of regarding carbon capture are a nice idea at best, but in practise currently not feasibe and therefore a money-pit at worst. “Building higher and cooler” seems a naive approach given the scale and complexity of human lives and disregards the problems we’re facing due to climate change. I don’t mean that condescendingly, rather to highlight how massively impractical that approach would be on the one hand and no solution for most problems caused by climate change on the other hand.
I absolutely think that it’s necessary to continue research in that area, but until we have developed solutions which can tackle the problems we’ve caused in a significant way (which can still take decades until we’ve got large-scale applicable solutions), I think it’s best to practise prevention. Avoid contributing factors to climate change at allmost all costs.
Don’t put all your money on the “technology will save us”-horse.By the way:
The people who think that climate and environmental protection are damaging the economy are short-sighted, as climate change is projected to cause a tremendous amount financial damage world-wide in the long-term. One of many many sources on this puts it like this:when the researchers added in the possibility of a moderate 2 degrees of warming before the end of the century, this led to a decline in future GDP of between 30 and 50 percent by 210 […] In the U.S. alone […] A 50 percent decline in 2100 GDP relative to baseline means a loss of $56 trillion each year, which exceeds the current GDP. Such declines would leave individuals with “a 31 percent drop in purchasing power relative to a world without climate change,” Bilal adds. Such losses are “comparable to living in the 1929 Great Depression, forever,” he says.
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2024/09/harvard-economic-impact-climate-change
Environmental protection is economical protection. They go hand-in-hand.
Human beings are remarkably creative when they need to be.
Yes! Humans say they think children are important, then create situations where children are hungry, abused, or killed in war. Then they create rationalisations for that being inevitable, or acceptable, or even deserved.
Humans also create technology to ‘make the world better’, then use it to convince people as a group to do things which make the world worse.
Aren’t humans creative? They’re going to create a lack of humans eventually - isn’t that imaginative?
Please correct me if I’m missing something here.
Those in power often use crises to invent reasons to take more power, and to direct it against scapegoats. The point is not often to make the world better for everyone, the point is very often to make the world better for those who already have the most.
Sea levels rising is only one of the concerns. I think the biggest concern is the reduction of ariable land due to climate change. I.e. the carrying capacity of the Earth will decrease (and I’m of the opinion that the human species has already greatly overshot Earth’s carrying capacity; hence the current degradation of our environment).
I think the species will survive, but may experience a population crash (i.e. mass death), and severly reduced quality of life. I think having 1 or 2 kids is fine for now, and hope I’m wrong in my Malthusian-like thinking.
Pretty spot on, except the part condemning only 1 or 2 kids to a horrible death is fine for now.
Yea I’m twisting your words around a bit, but really that’s the horrible reality I’m seeing.
It’s just very on point - too much to ask humans to stop procreating.
Nonlilnearity has begun
Thanks for using the term ‘nonlinearity’, I’m now reading about nonlinear dynamic climate systems.
I’d say “thanks, now I’m scared,” but I fully expect humans to be a self-limiting species, anyway, so I’m just ‘oh, okay’ about it all.
I’m now reading about nonlinear dynamic climate systems.
Do you have a tl;dr to the paywall?
I use “Bypass Paywalls Clean v3.6.3.0”.
Does it work on ISBNs too?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/nonlinear-climate-dynamics/82CA69FF3507BE781F5762B0CD8E5CF8
I found the 22mb pdf on Libgen. There are many mirrors for that site, there are recommendations online as to which mirror is best. Searching for “nonlinear climate dynamics henk” was enough,
Oh, thanks! I looked for the wrong thing in the wrong place.
Anyone who is “baffled” is either lying or hasn’t been paying attention.
I like to link this video when the subject comes up.
By definition, ideology is based on fantasy ideal. And the concept that ‘human economic growth is primarily good’ is a fantasy that can’t tolerate the reality of that economic growth harming our world.
The issue here is that leading climate scientists are saying our current models aren’t accounting for the actual reported climate, and they’re not sure why it’s off. They’re hoping the new NASA climate program will provide more data for the causes. Currently it’s not explainable by CO2 emissions, sulfur from boats, volcanoes, etc, all of which when factored in still don’t account for more than 90% of how much warmer it is getting.
Yes, human caused global warming is real and happening. The big concern right now is it’s happening much faster than expected and we have no good, proven theory as to why. That’s a problem.
This isn’t just climate deniers though - even those that were expecting significant climate shifts are still seeing higher than expected. This isn’t “huh, things are getting hotter, who would’ve thought?” This is “we knew it would get hotter, but we predicted it would take longer.” We thought we were fucked, but we’re actually double fucked.
Its cause none of these systems are static or by themselves in a vacuum. There are feedback loops in all parts of our environment. Its not a coincidence that the temperature started to accelerate after the recent series of MAJOR volcanic eruptions in the many parts of the worlds oceans. Throw in the absolute monstrosity that is human industry and well the feedback there is more heat from industry combined with greenhouse gases means the the heat in those areas rises. What does heat do? It rises and moves outwards until it reaches equilibrium. Where is it cold? The arctic and antarctic. What’s happening in those places recently? Oh yeah huge spikes in temperature that are causing shifts by over 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit or about 8-10 degrees celsius. Sure it’s technically still freezing over the arctic and antarctic for portions of the year. However the arctic has, for the last several years during summer, been almost entirely ice free. The North fucking Pole is ice free during the summer time. That’s fucking insane. Everything feeds into everything else with our environment and climate.
Until more people in power actually understand these facts, we are all going to suffer needlessly.
Plenty of powerful people know these things. The profit motive makes these things hard to care about. We will continue like this until options are gone.
“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair
The Guardian - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for The Guardian:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: Medium - Factual Reporting: Mixed - United Kingdom
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
While some argue that the world will soon pass the lower Paris agreement guardrail of 1.5C of heating above the preindustrial average, Schmidt says
Unless 2022 - present turn out to be an anomaly, we already have.
It’s okay. Remember the IPCC panel decided in 2018(?) that we’ll just go over the limit a bit and then figure out how to pull back down. With magic or something.
Giant ice cube in the ocean?
This’ll happen when the corporations causing this don’t do anything about it.
When we let them do it
First you have to stop capitalist government
lol yeah right
But really though humanity is doomed unless we figure out a way to actually reverse it, because we wont do anything to stop it until its too late to stop (decades ago), so then we wont do anything until it begins creating worldwide problems, which is soon, so by then we will have to have a solution to reverse it.
I think it’s capitalist hunting season.
The reason nothing will be done is because the only realistic option we have to save our planets ability to sustain life is economic degrowth.
We don’t have enough of the minerals we need to go fully nuclear or renewable and even getting close would use up vast amounts of the very same energy were looking to save in the first place.
As the record levels of equality directly after ww2 showed, economic degrowth due to nearly all the men being at war, only results in the loss of the super rich which is why they’ll never allow economic degrowth.
We all work too much, produce too much and pollute too much. Worse, we’re all forced to produce the very wealth thats used to force us into wage-slavery and kill our planet.
The answer is and will always be the strategic refusal of labour, above what we need to survive and have a good quality of life. This, by default, will result in economic degrowth.
Want to sit around and do nothing to save the planet? Well, now you can.
Uranium is extremely common on Earth. What minerals are we lacking to go nuclear? If you were arguing that we need to switch the type of reactors we use, I could see that. A lack of fissile material isn’t an issue.
Uranium is extremely common on Earth.
I wouldn’t be so uncritical about this. Depending on rate of consumption (and data source) the world’s Uranium supplies will last for about 50 to 200 years. (The latter a low demand scenario based on current consumption rates.)
Technological advancements may push these limits. Possibly even into 10.000 to 60.000 years, when filtering active substances from seawater, which is currently quite a timeframe to consider it long-term sustainable even for a limited resource. However, we’re not there yet.
We also use thorium which is much more abundant than uranium.
If I remember correctly, we don’t have enough of it to go fully nuclear with our current energy demands. More so, we’ve mined nearly all of the soil thats anything above 0.02% uranium. As such, not only do we not have enough on the planet, getting it and refining it would almost defeat the whole point of doing so in the first place.
It is a problem in that there might be plenty of it but that doesn’t mean there’s enough.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying we have to go back to the stone ages. Its just that we can’t afford the super rich anymore.
Pretty sure there’s enough weapons grade plutonium to run the US for 100 years in decommissioned nuclear weapons alone.
I think 100 years is enough time to build pumped hydro storage and renewables like solar/wind.
The problem is that there a major, major shortage of one of the isotopes needed to re-enrich weapons grade uranium (pu 238). Thats before you get to the vast energy inefficiency of doing it which isn’t a problem, if you’re just decommissioning them anyway and you don’t care about energy consumption. However, in this instance, you would need to worry about energy consumption as well as the isotope there won’t be enough of to convert even a fraction of it.
Again, even if you had 100 years, there aren’t enough of the specialist minerals needed for hydro storage and renewables.
Essentially theres" a hole in our bucket."
The only answer is degrowth.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/nuclear-waste-us-could-power-the-us-for-100-years.html
specialist minerals needed for hydro storage and renewables
What specialist materials are we talking about? Wind, solar, and pumped hydro use primarily copper, silicon, carbon, and concrete.
I’m not saying it can’t be converted or that the amount couldn’t, if refined, potentially fuel America for a number of years. So, I’m not sure what the link was for. I said its not feasible, due to the inefficiency of doing it on mass.
What about the energy transition materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt? We don’t have enough of those. All the windmills in the world won’t help, if you can’t convert motion into electricity.
Even then, copper looks to be facing an impending shortage. More still, refining enough silicone to supply the world with and keep up with increased demand of energy would have a colossal carbon footprint, almost big enough to cancel out the benefit. You’ll have to start refining soil thats 0.000000000001% silicone before you got even halfway through. Yeah, we have loads of these things but getting enough of it, in a pure enough form, to power the whole world simply isn’t realistic.
We can’t keep up with the speed that we increase our energy usage with the resources we have on the planet. Its a circular problem with only one solution. I’m not saying we have to go back to the primitive. We just have the treat the planet as though its resources are finite.
They’ll sell us any flavour of distraction other than “work less, do less, slow down and enjoy life more.” Whatever way you cut it, its the only answer.
They’ll sell us any flavour of distraction other than “work less, do less, slow down and enjoy life more.” Whatever way you cut it, its the only answer.
It’s really telling that this is regarded as such a terrible thing by almost everyone.
You seem to be trying to push a narrative that I don’t oppose as if I do. I support degrowth but your reasons are flawed.
Pumped Hydro, solar, and wind don’t really use lithium, nickel, or cobalt. Those are mostly used in NCM Liion cells that none of these use. Permanent magnets would probably be the biggest headache tbh.
Idk why we’d need silicone, we’re not making sex toys here. /s silicon is most common in sand and rocks, something there is plenty of basically everywhere.
I don’t care what you’re saying for this circular problem. I’ve literally not addressed it once because I agree with you, I just don’t agree with your reasoning.
What about the energy transition materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt? We don’t have enough of those. All the windmills in the world won’t help, if you can’t convert motion into electricity.
We literally don’t need any of those. Grid scale storage I don’t think has used Nickel and Cobalt for some time, as the best way is to use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries which need fewer replacements (longer cycle life) and are less volatile (explosive). Sodium batteries remove the need for even Lithium. Sodium is many times more abundant btw. As bad as they are Lead Acid batteries are also an option, as well as many other battery technologies made with less rare earth materials. Heck you could just do pumped hydro and not worry about batteries at all.
You also don’t need any of those materials to make electricity from motion. A generator is a fairly simple device needing only coils of wire and a few moving parts. Some need permanent magnets but even that isn’t hard really. Storing power was always the problem, not making it.
Likewise current reactors are a joke in terms of fuel efficiency. Basing any estimate on current reactor technology being used is kind of silly, as we already know we can do so much better. The majority of earth’s nuclear fuel is in fertile materials, not fissile materials. We have known this for a long time by the way. Decades ago countries like the USA and Japan were doing research into reactors using U-238, more than 100 times as abundant as U-235. It has been demonstrated that breeder reactors for Plutonium from U-238 are feasible even 50 or 60 years ago. The reason we don’t do this is because U-235 reactors were determined to be cheaper, and probably safer. I think sacrificing some safety and cost is necessary when up against something like climate change. With modern technology I am sure safety issues could be reduced or eliminated. Likewise Thorium is a thing, but that’s more experimental than U-238 to Plutonium technology.
If we are talking about solar panels: just don’t. Solar panels are mostly glass and silicon. I believe some rarer materials are needed to make them as efficient as they are now, but that doesn’t mean they are actually needed. In fact why bother with solar panels at all? They aren’t even the most efficient way of turning solar power into useful energy. Solar systems that work using mirrors to heat molten salt have their own energy storage built-in, and don’t require exotic materials, and are more efficient anyway. They might require more investment, or be more complex to deploy, but overall they are a great option.
Degrowth might be necessary in the short term. Long term wise though humanity very much has room to grow further. We haven’t even talked about mining the moon yet, and if we can’t do that we are very much screwed anyway. Being dependant on one planet is horrifically bad for long term survivability. You think climate change is an extinction level event? Try a gamma ray blast from a pulsar.
All you’ve really demonstrated is that you don’t understand technology specifically renewables and nuclear. There is a real concern with lack of rare materials, but not for renewables. The real issue is computers. Modern computers and especially smartphones need a lot of rare things. So constantly replacing your smartphone might not be practical anymore, and things like battery life and processing speed might actually get worse for a while as we are forced to use alternative materials. Not really a huge deal in the scheme of things though.
Also thinking the rich elite are the only people consuming things at an unsustainable rate is hilarious. They use more resources per person obviously, but the number of them is also really small. If you actually looked into it you would probably find that lost of the consuming of resources is to support the lower and middle classes. Don’t get me wrong oil executives are a real issue because of how they effect government policy and the behaviour of the rest of society. They do deserve a significant share of the blame. Not every rich person is an oil executive though. Having ultra rich people around is bad but this isn’t the reason why.
we need to get rid of them anyway, but do we have enough nuclear fuel, when combined with renewables+batteries, for base load?
Sure, I’m all for getting rid of them but it really seems to be the only option. It really won’t be that bad. It’ll just mean we can’t all take the piss with energy, lose the super rich, eat less meat and do a lot less work.
Its that we’ve all been made to see the idea of degrowth as something terrible because the rich would be the first thing to go. You just can’t have the rich without a vast amounts of excess production.
Please think about this: why shouldnt working less and polluting less be the first thing we should try, if we really wanted to save the planet etc.?
I completely agree, but I also think we should be pursuing every avenue of possible solution simultaneously, some of which might be energy intensive. I have the feeling we are far more climate-fucked than is immediately apparent.
Thats WAY too expensive and takes way to long to build. Renewables are the answer. Sun, wind.
Not enough rhodium and rubidium on earth to achieve that.
Since when do you need either of those to build a wind turbine? We are talking about very simple machines here, plenty of ways to build one.
Need those for solar. They specified sun and wind.
You don’t need photovoltaics to use solar power. Never heard of the solar power tower? Or the ones using molten salt for heat storage?
The earth receives just over 1 billion watts of raw energy from the sun daily. Using that energy to boil steam to turn tubines caps that energy generation ability to 105,566,992 watts of power if we capture all the solar radiation that hits earth.
Humanity currently uses 17.5 terrawatts of power daily. How do you make up the 99% shortfall? Little hint, wind and hydroelectric isn’t enough to make up that gap. Nuclear is currently our only option outside of asteroid mining.
Edited: I read the number wrong.
I kind of hate this kind of narrative here.
Yeah, capitalism is shit etc… but let’s get to the real root cause: we’re all still animals, and want our pack to be the best. The root issue isn’t money, it’s power. Many societies wouldn’t mind degrowth if it didn’t mean all the others would bury them & dance on their grave.
If one single country would actually degrow, all the others would dominate it financially, loot it for all its worth, and unless it can completely 100% sustain itself without outside trade (pretty much impossible in our globalized society), it would mostly collapse. And even if it could sustain itself, the power imbalance would be so huge we’d run in all other kinds of issues soon (hey, why not just conquer that country that is pretty much powerless now?)
Imo we’re all just animals knowing we’re headed for extinction, but at the same time it’s a big game of chicken on the road, the first to stray from this path will get fucked in so many ways by all the others who see their chance to improve their situation… And imo capitalism isn’t the cause of that, but one of the results of this. It’s just another way for us to compete and try to fuck eachother over like the animals we still are.
So either we get to some near global agreement on how to get out of this situation, or we just keep doing far too little since… what’s the point of trying to improve things if it just means you get annihilated by those that don’t, and things will remain the same despite your best efforts…
So either we get to some near global agreement on how to get out of this situation, or we just keep doing far too little since… what’s the point of trying to improve things if it just means you get annihilated by those that don’t, and things will remain the same despite your best efforts…
I feel like the way out is global and cultural in nature, and I think it’s in progress now, in fact we’re doing it now, talking about this on Lemmy. This wasn’t practical, wasn’t being done outside of “elite circles” before a decade or so ago. This global conversation is going to take some time and have bumps, but it’s happening, this is novel on this planet.
What I hope comes of this, and seems to be happening, perhaps slower than I’d like, is a paradigm shift in the way we think about ourselves, others, our communities, our situation, and our goals. We need a new “mythology” that allows us to live on this planet sustainably, and it only needs to be true enough and could even be done transparently and with purpose.
I feel like our species is in a existential battle and almost nobody (at least on the left-ish) is talking strategy. As if any valid strategy (e.g. “capitalism”, “communism”, “competition”, “religion”, “growth” “zero sum” etc) has been identified by the 1960s and we’re all just battling amongst 20th century ideas for domination.
I’m thinkiing stuff like this (sorry for the poor organization of my thoughts, to lazy to cleanup)
Define some axioms/statements that are mostly true and fairly agreeable, not based in faith, not limited by materialism.
- Most people would be happy to just live and thrive and don’t feel a need to dominate others or hoard resources
- There is a tiny number of people who do feel a need to dominate and/or hoard
- We are all vulnerable to propaganda
- Nobody is inherently better or more deserving than anyone else
- Nobody is entitled to the time or labor of anyone (except a child being entitled to their parents)
- Nobody actually knows the meaning of life or the nature of reality (not even materialists).
- Our own conscious experience is all we can be certain of, nobody knows any absolute truths
- The most logical assumption is that others’ experience is similar to my own
- I don’t want to suffer or be coerced, I don’t feel others are entitled to cause me to suffer or coerce my behavior
- It’s ok to defend myself against those trying to harm or coerce my behavior, dominate or hoard at my or my community’s expense
- If I cause another to suffer or coerce their behavior I should expect a response
–> The goal of these axioms is not to get everyone to agree to them, it’s to blaze a new path that can evolve into the way, to plant a seed that can inspire moving in new directions.
A set of explicit stated axioms allows taking the next steps and figure out how to evolve into a sustainable culture. Clear eyed strategy and goals are why the Heritage Foundation is making progress and the left is not.
Strategy like this could allow a better understanding of who and what the actual threats are and identify appropriate responses to them.
–> The “global agreement” will not be a formal inter-governmental thing, it will be loosely coupled set of cultural evolutions spurred by global conversations happening now.
I feel like the way out is global and cultural in nature,
I agree that it starts with a sense of a global community. Instead of people considering themselves a citizen of their homecountry, they need to switch to the mindset of being a citizen of Earth.
We now have the technology to get past the language barrier, so it is more possible to get people together, talking about our future as a species more than anytime in our history.
One thing that could help is some sort of globally available social media, or forum that automatically translate to the language of the reader. Imagine if a Chinese person could post something in Chinese, but English speakers could read and respond in English, and vice versa.
The answer is and will always be the strategic refusal of labour, above what we need to survive and have some quality of life. This, by default, will result in economic degrowth.
It’s at the point where I don’t accept the label of being human. Humans lack the logic and morality I identify with.
What are you then? A primate? A posthuman?
Is this the start of a furry fic
Autistic people identify as non-, or other-than- human in other ways than furry, e.g. Machinekin or Alienkin.
Me? I just don’t want the label of human, because I don’t respect human society.
You don’t have to be autistic for any of this. Also, never said the only other option besides human was furry. I merely ASKED if this was the start of a furry fic due to the romantic tension and pacing of the comments
I’m a living being who does not want to associate with humans.
Autistic people are more likely to be Therian (identify as partly non-human and non-humanoid animal): Therianthropy: Wellbeing, Schizotypy, and Autism in Individuals Who Self-Identify as Non-Human, Clegg et al., Society & Animals 2019.
Looking at some brief descriptions of the terms (I’m only mildly aware of them) there is also the related group of Otherkin, who identify as not fully human, but do identify full with human-like sapience. The personal experiences of a ‘Machinekin’ (identifying as part sapient robot) are presented in _ Exploring Other-Than-Human Identity: Religious Experiences in the Life-Story of a Machinekin _, Shea, S.C, 2020, published in Religions. Neve discusses the relationship between autism and feeling othered in terms of gender and non-human Machinekin identity first hand.
Searching for autistic and otherkin, I find regular discussions in autistic spaces about how people believe their otherkin and autistic identities and experiences overlap. Much of this is in Autism / Neurodivergence discords, which can’t be searched. However, these discords provide a managed group of fellow travellers with information that doesn’t leak out to search engines. Nevertheless, some discussion about this is searchable. Here’s one comment:
Alienkin. So much wrong planet syndrome. Hi, yes. Not alien, definitely relate to alienness though.
So much of my life spent asking “Why do neurotypicals do X thing?” only to later find out that they do it because it’s done, it’s their social identity. If their social identity mows the lawn, they mow the lawn. It doesn’t matter that there’s a cost of noise pollution and ecological destruction. They do it because their social identity does it. If their social identity revolved around jumping off of cliffs, they’d do that too. It’s why there’s so much “acceptable” ritual sacrifice, war, and other such horrific acts of atrocity throughout human history.
So I definitely relate to alienness. To do something “because it is done, the done thing” is the most utterly bizarre and strange concept to me. I understand to do something if it might be ethical, or kind, or clever, with an accompanying reason. But because “it is done?” It’s bizarre.
Another discussion is titled “Does being autistic feel like being a robot who is trying to learn how to be human?” Top responses agree to this, giving various explanations of why it occurs, or how it feels, including:
I feel more like I’m missing a sense. It’s like in every interaction in a group there is a second conversation only I can’t hear that tells people when It’s their turn to speak and elaborates on what the person means. I’m watching everything and analyzing everything to try to figure out what everyone else is getting that I’m not.
and
Yea kinda, or like an alien, who forgot his human handbook on scp147, if you have seen the show resident alien, I related a sadly large amount to the alien.
and
That’s why folks called me Dr. Spock growing up. I come from Vulcan, live long and prosper
There are questions about this on sites like Quora, with responses like “I’ve known since I was a kid that I had autism, so this might not relate to me. However, as a kid, I called myself an alien in this world. It’s probably common when it comes to robots, but I was an alien to this world.”
Unless you are legitimately an alien or a cat or something that somehow got on Lemmy (and I apologize if this is the case), then you are a human. You can’t identify your way out of being a member of this species.
The fact my fellow autistic people are disidentifying from humanity is extremely concerning. Even worse I can understand why given the behaviour of so many humans being what it is. Plus constantly being marginalized in human societies doesn’t help.
The solution though isn’t to stop identifying as being human and pretend to be something else. The solution is to re-evaluate what being human is. Too much emphasis in popular culture is placed on humanity or being human as some positive thing where someone who is truly human couldn’t be the villain or the mass murderer. The reality is the human race is broad and doing a genocide is just as human as inventing the vaccine for TB. Those things we can do because we are human, with human capabilities. Another animal wouldn’t think to make a vaccine, or to do a genocide, they do what they because of instincts, learned behavior, and survival.
Unless you are legitimately
I’m legitimately someone who has no emotional connection to humans as a group.
The solution though isn’t to stop identifying as being human and pretend to be something else.
Fun fact: a lot about what it means to be humans is also pretending to be human. Apart from the observable biological / genetic / genealogical classification differences, everything else about humanity is entirely created by humans, and they can disagree about many features of it.
I have no interest in that pretence. I do not identify with humans. If you want to change that, endorse society / the majority to attempt to feed all children. That’s my moral benchmark for when I will feel like I align with human principles.
Another animal wouldn’t think to make a vaccine
I am absolutely and completely sure that time and space are both infinite, and therefore the chance of us being the only intelligent life is zero.
I am also absolutely and completely sure that, given that time and space is infinite, and cosmological time involves the destruction and rebirth of the existence of matter itself in a cyclical process, that humans are - given an objective view of cosmological time - no more important than any other animal. We, and all our works, are just as transient.Fun fact: a lot about what it means to be humans is also pretending to be human. Apart from the observable biological / genetic / genealogical classification differences, everything else about humanity is entirely created by humans, and they can disagree about many features of it.
Humanity is a species. Homo sapiens. Anyone claiming otherwise has fallen into the trap set by movies and popular culture about inhumane actions, dehumanizing the other, and every other time people who are homo sapiens are not teated as humans.
I have no interest in that pretence. I do not identify with humans. If you want to change that, endorse society / the majority to attempt to feed all children. That’s my moral benchmark for when I will feel like I align with human principles.
There is no single moral standard for our entire species. In fact while I am here I will say there is no proof for any kind of morality even existing in the objective universe. It’s an entirely made up concept. If we ever encounter aliens of what have you there is a good chance they have radically different behavioral standards for their species than ours.
I am absolutely and completely sure that time and space are both infinite, and therefore the chance of us being the only intelligent life is zero.
I am also absolutely and completely sure that, given that time and space is infinite, and cosmological time involves the destruction and rebirth of the existence of matter itself in a cyclical process, that humans are - given an objective view of cosmological time - no more important than any other animal. We, and all our works, are just as transient.Well that escalated quickly. You went from plausible science to making up bullshit very quickly.
destruction and rebirth of the existence of matter itself in a cyclical process
Yeah you apparently don’t know much about modern physics.
Weather or not aliens do exist changes nothing about the fact you are human. You can’t escape that incontrovertible biological fact. Don’t even try. Stop listening to society cry “oh the humanity” and actually look at the facts. Humanity is just an intelligent species, not a moral standard to cling to or something to turn around and reject.
Thank you for telling me you don’t respect my Buddhist beliefs, it’s been very interesting.
Very good job at making me want to identify with humans more, as well.
the reason nothing will be done
nothing will be done peacefully. plenty could be done.
see, the ultra rich die either way. either they kill everyone, including themselves, and end all life, or someone kills them. those are the only two outcomes here.
I mean, i guess they could just fuck off and stop being super rich. fuckerberg could be a creepy robot man who lives above his kinda cringe MMA dojo or something, but they’re not going to do that. I don’t think they’re psychologically capable of it.
It’s not so much Zuck and Elon, it’s the people above them. If the oil companies, banks, or military industrial complex wanted Elon gone he would be erased in less than 24 hours. They are the ones controlling the strings, and all they want is more power.
Have you seen this person’s posts on Reddit?
https://www.reddit.com/user/backcountrydrifter/
They have some interesting sources and connections for how Elon maybe plays a part in all this. I don’t buy everything they say, but they do have good interviews and articles explaining Epstein, Trump, Putin, and MBS, and even Elon and how they relate. It’s worth perusing if you have time.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Elon is a little untouchable because of his Saudi connections (and yes I do think MBS would order a hit on him no problem, but he’s doing a service for them rn). And Zuck owns Meta which has the most users on its social sites worldwide iirc. Modern day currency isn’t always in capital- these days attention and clout are worth a LOT. Ad revenue is worth a lot. Less and less people are watching TV, so propaganda has to get in front of viewers in unique ways now.
just using them as examples because we know their names and a bit of their character. they COULD abandon their shit, stop fucking people over, stop trying to have control, and just be on the shitty side of normal people, and nobody who didn’t have to interact with their sleazy asses would fucking care.
except my argument is that they genuinely can’t. not because we wouldn’t let them, nto because it wouldn’t work, but because their brains are broken and they are incapable of letting go, and the only future we will ever get must be taken from their cold dead hands.
That makes sense. Thank you for responding.
Remember the Titanic sub? How those rich guys thought they knew more than scientists and engineers? When they died, I realized that was exactly what they were doing with our planet. They will kill us all for their ego and hubris. Quite clearly. That’s why they are building their bunkers and super cities and not allowing governments to actually address this issue - they think they’ll come out on top. And there’s evidence they’ve thought this since at least the 70s, so this implies a couple generations of them plotting to kill us.
then governments can;t be trusted with the future of humanity. which I think I agree with.
but it’s not just their ego and hubris; it’s also their paranoia and addiction.
What? What do you think a government is?
a monopoly on the use of violence, for the purpose of entrenching inequality. also sometimes they build infrastructure so we don’t kill them, because actually controlling people with violence is profoundly inefficient.
One point I have to disagree on is the point you made about nuclear energy. Its untrue. If we switched to primarily using nuclear energy we would be able to successfully power the majority of the species using that technology. Its fear that stops us. Everyone is worried about another Chernobyl or Fukushima. When the logical course of action would be to find tectonically stable sites for any nuclear facilities. That’d be number one to solving a lot of meltdown concerns. The other would be to use well researched and planned designs. Chernobyl was a faulty design for a reactor that should never have been allowed to be produced.
Lookup Thorium reactors. Those are the true future of nuclear technology. Thorium is also abundant when compared to Uranium or Plutonium. It does not have the same weaponization issues. It does not produce the same high levels of radiation. It is also safer to handle and store once depleted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle#Thorium-fueled_reactors "Using breeder reactors, known thorium and uranium resources can both generate world-scale energy for thousands of years. "
Literally with nuclear power we can power the whole world for the next 2,000 to 3,000 years. Possibly longer. It’s fear that holds us back on this.
nuclear energy we would be able to successfully power the majority of the species using that technology
But that energy will be used for what? To mine for more minerals, create more waste, destroy more land, and make more species extinct? Our problem is not a shortage of energy nor is it even a problem of the efficiency or cleanliness of the energy. It’s a problem of our species living far beyond the sustainable bounds of the planet.
For carbon sequestration, which also needs to happen. Not only do we need to not put out more carbon into the atmosphere, but we also need to sequester atmospheric carbon. A LOT of it.
We are living beyond several planetary bounds but if we made our energy not release carbon, it would be a huge start. Harm reduction is valid.
For carbon sequestration, which also needs to happen.
Agree, but I think virtually all methods typically talked about are nonsense. Using massive fossil resources to design, build, and maintain giant machines or many smaller machines will ultimately do little to slow ecological collapse even if it does reduce carbon somewhat after some years needed to break even on production. The only sequestration method I’ve ever heard about that makes any sense to me is neighborhood scale production and use of biochar (and avoiding buying any sort of purpose made biochar device that required fossil resources to produce and ship to you). I make biochar in my backyard fire pit (which is a low smoke design) with used coffee tins (i.e. trash) and use the resulting biochar and ash in my compost.
Harm reduction is valid.
Agree, Any and all scientifically backed methods to allow us time for degrowth should be considered. I’m not convinced nuclear energy should be a significant part of this though, too many downsides and risks.
Yes and majority of time and expense that goes into building nuclear reactors is due to regulations, espeically NIMBY/fear based regulations. They have to hire teams of special lawyers for these and cases last years. That’s why when you see people describing the cost and time of building these, they always start at the planning stage which can include years of legal battles.
And these lawyers are usually nuclear engineers who went to law school afterwards, so they are pretty expensive to staff.
Biggest thing against nuclear power is the cost associated with it. Other, sustainable sources of energy like wind and solar, combined with hydrogen and batteries, are way cheaper due to their simplicity. Thorium reactors are a nice idea but need so much development (costs) that they will take a while to become a reality, if ever at all. Probably nuclear fusion will be available sooner than thorium fission for power generation, which also needs decades of development. And then there’s still the problem of nuclear waste. Maybe not a huge problem, but still one without a viable solution.
“faster than expected” lol
Maybe, just maybe, if things are not behaving as expected, then maybe the cause isn’t what theory says. Look at that list of countries. All contain deserts. All of whom I was taught experience these temperatures when I was in school in the eighties. I’m fucking old with a long memory.
All of whom I was taught experience these temperatures when I was in school in the eighties.
If they only experienced those temperatures in the 80s, when you were at school, it wouldn’t be hot now. QED.
Maybe, just maybe, if things are not behaving as expected, then maybe the cause isn’t what theory says.
Yes. Maybe the cause is that you went to school in the 80s.
That is not sound logic whatsoever, it’s just mindless snark.
No, I was making fun of you, because I found your statement to be so poorly expressed, bizarre, and - where readable - so highly ridiculous to potentially indicate the possibility that your thinking (such as it is) on this issue is beneath contempt. Goodbye now.
LOL, what now? Are you claiming countries are experiencing significantly higher temperatures than forecasted due to having or being in deserts?
Dude, he remembers things being hot in hot places. I don’t know why we even measure things and keep records. This bloke just remembers!
Yeah it’s currently like 77 degrees in Florida right now at 8 am. pretty comfortable, so much for all the global warming talk!
Look at the list and fucking think.
Look at that list of countries. All contain deserts.
Think about what, the fact you might have early dementia?
All I’m thinking is that we recorded the highest temperatures in a desert in all human history. Almost whopping 10 degrees celsius above the previously recorded record. Sweet Jesus that’s a lot… That’s not fucking natural. What will it take for you to admit that a place known for being hot might be a bit too hot? Maybe once all creatures and plants in deserts cease to exist? Or does it all need to turn to glass before maybe, just maybe it’s a bit hotter then it should?
The problem is I am thinking and what you’re saying makes no sense. It seems like you’re also unable to explain this, so I suspect you didn’t think about it yourself.
