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Can the world be Fixed?

The Atheist said:
If you think you can see an exit point for the trajectory we're on, please state it.
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Sustainability. It's surprisingly easy to forget that everything that's unsustainable will eventually not be sustained. A case in point, the Islamic regime in Iran proved resistant to every cause of change: social activism, war, economic pressure, foreign destabilization... until there wasn't any water.

No, that's not a path back to the way things were. Quite the opposite. But it also means that extrapolating today's trends isn't a good way to predict the future. There are probably some billionaires who really expect robots will farm their food someday. It ain't necessarily so.
 
junkshop said:
“All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.”
- J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan

"And it will be at least as awful this time around, if we're lucky."
- not J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan
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The real difficulty is, isn’t it, to adapt ones steady beliefs about tribulation to this particular tribulation; for the particular, when it arrives, always seems so peculiarly intolerable. --CS Lewis, in a letter to a friend, 1940.
 
Sure it can be fixed. It's doing a heck of a lot better than it was only a few decades ago, in soo many ways. Jason Pargin's I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom hammered this home for me (I've been told he was paraphrasing Factfulness by Hans Rosling). For example, democracy is struggling in several countries, but 100 years ago, virtually no countries had democracy at all. Wars? We've always had those, and as far as I know there's fewer of them than in a long time. Climate change is a huge crisis and will do a lot of damage, but we're making a heck of a lot more progress than it seems.

Dark times are ahead for sure, but the world is progressing in so many ways, too.
 
"Plains of Giza. Two men are discussing what use could be made of this area."

1*: We could hold horse races?
2*: Or hunt hooved animals for sport?

T*: Or (This goes on four hours, quite tediously) we do something useful.

1*: Or we could build pyramids.

T*: Not been paying attention?

1*: No, seriously. Whatever we have at the start, plus our will to make things better, hell, it might even take us to the Moon!

2* And T* look at each other, then they kill 1*.

And intelligent life on Earth ended in 2391 BC.
 
The Atheist said:
Luckily, I'm already as far away as possible. NZ will be final domino standing.
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Says the man who supported the party which is pushing that domino over. The party whose goal is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The party which embraces libertarianism and is infested with foreign operatives. The party that killed sustainability and is pushing to drill baby drill. The party which was so concerned about the health of poor people that it nixed our world-leading smokefree initiative. The party that puts business profits over people's lives. The party that promised all this was worth it to get lower inflation - which didn't happen.

What sounds familair about that? The politicians in control of New Zealand's government may not be as crazy as the Trump administration, but they are headed in the same direction.

The Atheist said:
We're self-sufficient in food and electricity, so we'll be ok for the rest of this century I think.
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We'll be 'ok' until some other country decides to take it for themselves.
 
Trausti said:
I cannot believe people believe this. Just amazing.
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Belief isn't required. The evidence is overwhelming and its largely pointing in the same direction.

I get it, you don't want it to be happening. I don't want it to be happening either. But its long past time to face up to the reality that it is happening and will likely be the single largest force shaping our future. Continue to play make believe at your own peril.
 
LiteBright said:
Belief isn't required. The evidence is overwhelming and its largely pointing in the same direction.

I get it, you don't want it to be happening. I don't want it to be happening either. But its long past time to face up to the reality that it is happening and will likely be the single largest force shaping our future. Continue to play make believe at your own peril.
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There is no evidence of "climate change" causing refugees. None. But there's a bumper crop of evidence that folks use "climate change" as an excuse to get whatever they want.
 
Myriad said:
Sustainability. It's surprisingly easy to forget that everything that's unsustainable will eventually not be sustained. A case in point, the Islamic regime in Iran proved resistant to every cause of change: social activism, war, economic pressure, foreign destabilization... until there wasn't any water.

No, that's not a path back to the way things were. Quite the opposite. But it also means that extrapolating today's trends isn't a good way to predict the future. There are probably some billionaires who really expect robots will farm their food someday. It ain't necessarily so.
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As usual, I agree with what you said, but it seems like the recipe for more trouble. Look at the panty-twisting going on in Europe and USA over a few million refugees. Climate change will force billions to move.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Sure it can be fixed. It's doing a heck of a lot better than it was only a few decades ago, in soo many ways.
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Many decades ago, sure, but the '80s and '90s and noughties were paradise compared to the bucket of poop we have right now. Can you imagine Reagan or either Bush acting like Trump, actively destroying NATO and allowing the short-arse little man in the Kremlin to walk over the ruins?

Old Pinky, Stephen Pinker, wrote a book in 2011 saying how much things had improved and it seemed kinda true.

I'd say things have gotten significantly worse since then.
 
Trausti said:
There is no evidence of "climate change" causing refugees. None. But there's a bumper crop of evidence that folks use "climate change" as an excuse to get whatever they want.
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Like if climate change opens up sea lanes around Greenland so "people" want to get their little hands on Greenland.
 
The Atheist said:
Mate, I really appreciate your humour.

When civil war breaks out due to famine caused by climate change, the people who leave are economic refugees.
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That doesn't really make any sense. Civil war, where? And there's robust global trade in agriculture and other food stuffs. Indeed, when Vietnam tried communism it needed to import rice to keep its people from starving. When it dumbed its socialist economy, and allowed free enterprise, it became one of the top rice exporters. But, obviously, it wasn't bad economic policies that starved Vietnam in those years, it was climate change.
 
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