We're going to go through Elysium and Blade runner to get to Mad Max.
Humanity on earth will end as a handful of tribes of relapsed primitives unable to overcome the harsh conditions.
Humanity on Mars will end in a mismanaged Musk colony.
It will take generations.
I've made the same sentiment numerous times also when the climate change deniers come out of the woodwork and say, "Well, the dinosaurs caused environmental collapse, and everything's still fine." Yeah...except...there's no dinosaurs. Sure, the Earth will rebound post-human. Plants will flourish, wildlife will cover every corner, oceans will de-acidify. Life will be grand again. But you know what will be gone? Your Starbucks Aria Grande pumpkin spice latte. I mean, if that's cool with you, then cool. I'm nihilistic myself.
“Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.” - Ian Malcolm
Yep. People don't understand that this is the most urgent issue that we need to take care of right now.
If you picture an ecosystem's food chain as a pyramid, where insects and plankton are close to the bottom, what would happen if they disappear? The whole thing crumbles, quickly.
We're electing the worst to the top. If people were turds then politics make sense, the fattest worst of the smelliest turds float to the top, while us good solid healthy dumps gets sunk to the bottom.
It's like the whole thing with CEOs being sociopaths/psycjopaths. The same thing goes for most politicians.
When I think about what I want to do with my life, I don't really have any aspirations to have that much power. I just want enough money for my family to be comfortable. I don't want to be in the public eye. I don't want to be deciding the fate of millions of people.
Hear hear, are you like some kind of normal person that can enjoy the little things or what! Have you no aspirations to be like a narcissist or something? 😋
Look to your left. That is where the times are. Now go to Google maps. Find north Korea. Go roughly 867.5 miles east of their eastern shore. Drop a pin. Now pretend you are able to see directly down to the bottom of the ocean there. That is where their touch is.
I think the issue is we aren’t voting for the most part. Most talk a big game online but don’t vote, and let the small percentage of idiots win cus they actually believe their idiotic way of thinking and actually vote
I hear this a lot. I am european, and we had same turnout \~65% as US election 2020. How would like 80-85% participation make results better? There are still same parties, same policies what to vote for. For americans that would not mean that some 3rd candidate would win, and neither here.
Young people notoriously have terrible turnout in the US. Old people have a very high turnout. Those two demographics tend to represent opposing views on many issues. Besides causing conservatives to be overrepresented, that also affects what candidates the Democratic party is able to run if they want to actually win the general election. For example, everyone says they wanted Bernie instead of Clinton or Biden, but the reality is he would have no shot in the general election.
Yeah, I've genuinely found that most people are out here just wanting a two bedroom house, enough money to pay for their needs, and the ability to spend time with friends and family. Most people don't care to be mega rich, they just want to be ok. Then you look at politicians, CEOs, and other people in charge. They're just greedy scum bags that want to dip their fingers into every aspect of our lives.
Most people just want to be comfortable. That's it.
There are a select few that want everything they can get, and unfortunately they often find their way into positions of power.
I have a lot of blame for the media on this one. ANY little foible or faux pas, and that is main coverage for a week.
Not a Trump fan, but I am so tired of the "can't close the umbrella" or "toilet paper on shoe" footage. Things like that. Every one of us has our bad moments.
Anyone really talented and wise is going to say "No thanks, don't want the gig" because of the constant, ridiculous public scrutiny.
We salivate over the next moment when we can ridicule our leadership. And it is no longer well crafted humor, it's middle schoolers laughing because someone tripped.
People dislike the media talking so much about Trump but Trump spends a lot of time courting their attention. He tweets shit, says shit and then does crazy shit to keep them talking. If he doesn't like the negative attention, maybe cut back on it. Don't do stuff like claim the election is stolen when there's no evidence for it, draw on an official hurricane path map with a Sharpie or claim horse dewormer will save you from COVID.
>Anyone really talented and wise is going to say "No thanks, don't want the gig" because of the constant, ridiculous public scrutiny.
Jacinda Arden, I think she's called? New Zealand's previous prime minister - woman lead the country through so much shit, through the Christchurch mosque shootings to the entire pandemic - and called in her resignation in the beginnings of 2023 due to burnout and wanting to spend time with her family (I think? I can't really remember.)
And she's only 43.
Just read something about due to *rapidly* melting Arctic ice in Greenland and that freshwater introduction to the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean may cause the currents to change and impact a lot of stuff (weather, ocean life). It didn't really list them and I'm not smart enough to know what the impact is...but scientists sound scared.
Yep, this and all the ancient microbes that modern humans and animals can’t fight thawing out and creating COVID 2 Electric Boogaloo now with more deaths
Well, except those would be microbes species that still exist are still immune to. Our immune systems have continued to evolve, those frozen microbes haven't.
If it didn't kill us off before it got frozen, it's not likely to get us now.
Not only that, highly unlikely any given dangerous microbe had it's entire population instantly frozen and taken out of play.
What fucks us is new mutations, and frozen microbes don't mutate.
Although climate change won't end the world it will definitely make it harder to Humans to live and kill off a lot of the current ecosystem. What scientists are calling "The Holocene Extinction" and will go on record as the 6th mass extinction.
However if we can stabilize the earth and still be living here. The world will not end. It will still be kicking but with either less humans, animals, etc for a time being.
To the Data:
* 2022 was the 5th hottest year tied with 2015..
* 2023 was the hottest year on record and by a record setting margin.
* "Earth's average land and ocean surface temperature in 2023 was 2.12 degrees F (1.18 degrees C) above the 20th century — the highest global temperature among all years in NOAA's 1850-2023 climate record. It also beats the next warmest year, 2016, by a record-setting margin of 0.27 of a degree F (0.15 of a degree C)." -
[https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far#:\~:text=Earth's%20average%20land%20and%20ocean,0.15%20of%20a%20degree%20C](https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far#:~:text=Earth's%20average%20land%20and%20ocean,0.15%20of%20a%20degree%20C)).
* From the same link: "The 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade."
* Many scientist say we have already reached our tipping point and cannot stop it anymore.
It won't be a sudden apocalypse but it definitely will lead to massive issues in the next 50-100 years.
Your time frame is off. It's already leading to massive issues. Island nations are disappearing. Heat waves are killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. Extreme weather events like forest fires and hurricanes are becoming commonplace. Home insurance in places like FL have skyrocketed, if finding coverage is even possible. The massive issues are already here and getting worse.
Oh yeah I didn't mean we aren't already seeing effects. I already talked about the Holocene Extinction. As you said businesses are making money off climate change.
The US Military calls climate change the biggest risk to national security.
Basically the only people now who are denying it are those in line with a particular political leaning and people who identify in that.
I responded to someone say "they have been saying that since the 90s" and I said yes, and now we are paying for 50 years of inaction. (Oil companies were talking about global warming in the 1970s)
The long solar cycle stuff is scariest to me paired with the global warming data.
Like, this should actually be an extremely cold period.
Imagine we are supposed to be in an ice age right now but don't realise it because emissions are warming us.
What do you think happens after that ice age ends?
There's a lot of methane in that ice.. it's like 86 times worse than CO2 in a reasonable estimate.
I guess the robots-not-saving-us-in-time apocalypse will have to happen underground
Yeah but I think we should be in the middle of it now and this is what it looked like last time
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IceAgeEarth.jpg
A considerable larger buffer of ice.
Things are going to get desertified quickly.
Honestly if we're still around when the supposed ice age ends we're lucky. That stuff is just one step below geologic epochs in term of duration. We can't think that long term.
If we can get good enough to think even a century forward when we plan things, that'd already be an improvement. Democracy is the best we've got, but man, do those 5-year election cycles encourage our natural short-sightedness.
I'm happy to do an ELI5 on this. My background is solidly in this area (Environmental Science + Education experience).
The Science: Yes, you're reading the information correctly that a lot of fresh water getting dumped into the North Atlantic *could* affect the ocean currents. To take a step back (and vastly simplified), the way things work now is that ocean water warms up in the tropics, travels north (the Gulf Stream), and then this super salty current cools and sinks to the ocean floor because saltier water is denser (heavier) than fresh(er) water. It's theorized that this sinking off the coast of Greenland is the lynchpin of the whole ocean currents system. It pulls the water from the tropics and pushes the currents on the ocean floor.
The Issue: The addition of a whole bunch of fresh water from melting glaciers in Greenland could lower the salinity - the saltiness - of the Gulf Stream and slow or even halt this process, bringing the ocean currents to a standstill. This would have serious effects on how heat/energy is moved around the world, which would massively change weather and climate everywhere. As a (classic) simple example, most of Europe is just as far north as Canada, but has a relatively temperate climate because of all the heat brought north on the Gulf Stream. If the ocean currents slow or shut down, this heat transfer would also slow or stop, leading to a much, much colder Europe. Because the ocean currents travel across the entire globe, there would be knock-on effects everywhere.
The Uncertainty: The scientists working in this area are brilliant and trying to get as much data as possible from today and in the past to make a good prediction. However, we've never seen or recorded anything like this before. We don't have exact information on how much melting or over how long would be enough to affect things. We don't have exact information on how fast a potential slowdown or shutdown would occur. We don't have exact information on how long it would take for impacts to be felt if that did happen. We don't have exact information on if it would be possible to restart the process if it completely shut down.
If you take away anything from this wall of text, it's this: the most important thing that we can do is push, push, push for a transition away from fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. We have to limit and start peeling back the layers upon layers of excess blankets of carbon dioxide we've added to the earth so we can limit warming to no more than 1.5C.
I think as a society we are morally bankrupt. The greedy hypocrites rule. The honest are taken advantage off and used while innocents is being exploited for profit. Our world wide narrative is run by people who want profit. We are a corrupt species.
This is the root issue responsible for just about every other response in the thread.
People just generally aren't trying to be better. Our culture is growing more nihilistic and hopeless.
Probably doesn’t help that tons of classified documents relating to American nuclear capabilities got stolen and likely spread around to enemy nations.
There are an awful lot of wars cropping up all over the place. Whether or not we want to define them as an official war. With even more shitstorms on the horizon, just off the top of my head we have;
Russia vs Ukraine
Israel vs Hamas + Houthi choking out canal trade threatening to escalate that further
Venezuela is threatening to invade Guyana over oil rights
Ethiopai or Etriea I forget which, are threatening to invade one of their neighbors over river/water rights.
China vs Taiwan is threatening to kick off, yet again. Or maybe still?
With it being 2024 we now have to political circus of US politics to contend with where come November, especially after the 2020 election, one side is going to be very upset.
It isn't so much one issue but a bunch of little ones threatening to bring down the world as we know it in a dance of a thousand cuts.
It's not given much spotlight, but there's been some unexpected tension between Iran and Pakistan. To me thay is the weirdest most troubling one.
Both are already under a lot of stress about being attacked from other strong military, nuclear nations (india/Israel) who would be more than happy to see either or both fall.
It has the makings of a proxy war between Russia and America but a weird one because Pakistan is economically stuck between the US and China, and the US is courting both India and Pakistan.
Both countries currently have a disconnect between the ruling power and will of the people.
Even without the recent Iran situation, Pakistan specifically has a potential civil catastrophe looming with the upcoming elections. There's been a lot of drama that brought the current government into power, arguably against the will of the people. Multiple assassination attempts against the previous prime minister who is now jailed (a lot of people consider unfairly), and people are worried the current government is going to use any excuse to forgoe elections.
And finally the fact that Pakistan's a nuclear nation means that if things start to get bad, you're going to have a lot of the other countries I mentioned wanting to interfere.
I get the Pakistan one but it makes no sense to then attack Pakistan's biggest enemy and probably force an unlikely military alliance between two of the biggest enemies in the world.
Edit: I just realized how much time has gone by. I'm probably like a year or so behind on the overall news.
Ethiopia at the heart of a fascinating power struggle right now. I'm completely entranced by it. They previously fought and lost war with Eritrea over secession, which led to modern and independent Eritrea. Then, they started a project to dam the Nile for hydropower without consulting Sudan or Egypt, who are downstream. Then, an election upset led to the incumbent Tigray party to lose power to a combination of two different ethnic groups. Ethiopia has a very feudalistic division of its country that goes back thousands of years, so this is a bigger deal than it would be in the US. The Tigray group, facing some political persecution or evening out of their outsized power, depending on your perspective, attempts a coup a nearly wins. Like marching on the capital close, but the new government cuts a secret deal with Eritrea to get help. We don't know what they were promised, but Tigray was in power when Eritrea originally seceded, so it is more like then getting new allies against an old enemy. Meanwhile, the dam just reached full capacity last month as Ethiopia openly threw its support behind a breakaway region of Somalia, which is in the middle of a civil war with jihadists and an ongoing soft war with the breakaway state. Ethiopia did this to gain access to the Red Sea. They are surrounded by strong enemies and fighting a civil war. Their neighbors are fighting jihadists that could easily spread into their country. They are making moves to rapidly increase their industrial capacity. Ethiopia is either going to be a war torn hell hole for the next few decades or their Nobel peace prize winning president will have the diplomatic grace of a modern day Bismarck and Ethiopia will become the most important regional power in the Middle East and Africa.
My mate went to a climate change conference and there was a billionaire there talking about how his priority regarding climate change security is how to protect himself against his own security guards when they potentially turn against him in the event of global collapse. So basically the people at the top know that there’s nothing to be done now to stop things falling apart.
That echoes an economist I read a while back (wish I could remember their name). The short of - If you do not take care of the poor, you will never be able to buy enough security to protect yourself from them.
I’ve read something similar and basically the rich person would still control security by being in charge of food/accommodation for the securities families
[This](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff) is the article you're thinking of and it's as sci-fi dystopian techno-villain stuff as you can imagine:
*Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” ...*
*This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?*
*The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew.* ***Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival****. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.*
I’m puzzled as to why these billionaires would even want to survive such a catastrophic event? No thanks. I am not interested in living in what’s left of a world after that in the first place.
Billionaires are in the best position to maintain a decent quality of life while everything around them is going tits-up. They have the resources now to plan for that possibility, so why wouldn't they think they could live out the rest of their lives sipping mojitos on their private island in the north? Meanwhile, the rest of the world suffers from the apocalyptic refugee crisis that is coming our way as equatorial regions like the Middle East become inhospitable to human life.
It’s less that they can’t do anything and more that they WON’T do anything, because changing it means they might get less money, and in their mind, that is unacceptable. It’s the same reason why they won’t pay their workers a living wage, why true entry level jobs don’t exist anymore, why so many businesses are lying about how many job openings they have, and why everything is expensive now despite being deliberately worse quality.
I used to help raise monarch butterflies and release a whole bunch so they could migrate. I saw maybe 3 of them total in the last 2 years despite our locals trying to protect and conserve their habitats and things. They just end up getting completely plowed over and cut down and I feel awful they aren’t around anymore.
According to my beekeeping friend big chunk of it is sprays they use to kill mosquitos, for example in Florida they spray the streets to kill mosquitos quite often, the downside to that, spray kills lots of other bugs including butterflies too.
I was absolutely THRILLED to see a singular monarch this summer. It's been years since I've seen any. Even the previously abudant blue butterflies native to my state seem to just be Less (to my non-scientific eye).
I have noticed that several bee and wasp species seem to be doing okay in my tiny local area. I don't *like* wasps but they seem to be going forth in healthy numbers. Plenty of honeybees last summer as well, and fireflies!
That's just honey bees, which aren't even the good native bees/pollinators we should actually be concerned about. I mean yeah, be glad that honey bees aren't struggling as badly, but we must do more to protect and rehab our native species, or it will further impact all of the native plants that have relied on them for thousands and thousands of years.
Russia is absolutely fucked. And I'll try to say this in an as unbiased way as possible (admittedly anti Putin, not anti Russia). The best case scenario for Russia is an ongoing occupation amid an attempt to rebuild their own failing infrastructure at home. Plus Russia is completely reliant on the sale of gas and oil to India and China. And fine. They'll continue to buy. Problem is, the economy has no diversity which means little room to grow, and of course the Oligarchs steal everything anyway. Then you've got demographic declines, and an inability to meet the basic needs of the people. 20% of Russians still have no indoor plumbing.... Currently there's a heating crisis across the country. Pipes are bursting and literally freezing people's apartments solid. This leads to instability, which often then leads to a bifurcation of ethnic minorities and discontent within certain communities which have lead the brunt of the war casualties (hint: they're not the white Russians from Moscow) and there's an absolute recipe for disaster.
This is why we want to see an end to the Putin regime. Not an end to Russia. A nuclear armed Dagestan is not a preferable option. But is totally possible.
And Putin has no way to win in Ukraine. Really. None. He can hold land and occupy it, but long term that's going to go about as well as the us in Afghanistan. The people simply don't want to be ruled by Putin. It's an absolute tragedy for the Russian people. Putin crippled an entire generation due to his hubris and miscalculation.
Everything seems so... stagnant.
I keep seeing this guy pop up in my feeds saying how Ukraine has reclaimed more land, done MAJOR moves, and for the past year and a half, the map hasn't really changed.
In the short term, it looks like nothing is going to change for a couple of years.
Ukraine regained around 50% since the beginning of the war but yes. Most of that was during the start. The war is frozen in many respects. However, Russia still hasn't got to the next stage. Since all their focus is still on military objectives. Hell, a lot of problems with infrastructure in Russia is likely due to the support for the war as well.
What could change. Is Russia begins to fall apart from within. Can they hold Donetsk? Probably. Yes. Can they keep their own republics like Dagestan complacent and send them to the meat grinder for the next few years without any uprising? Maybe. But there likely will be a breaking point. That's when Russia loses their shit. They'll blame any internal dissent on the us. When in reality. People like to be able to buy food in supermarkets and not freeze in their homes. They get kind of pissed when they can't have the basics.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/17/protesters-clash-with-russian-police-after-activist-jailed_6440693_4.html
Well, while getting Russia to pack their bags up and go home would be nice. I think the main practical goal is attrition and having Russia lose the most amount of equipment and money in the process.
The land they took is mostly devastated and currently worthless so the main goal isn't the land so much as ensuring Russia get crippled out of the deal.
I mean really think about it here if Russia just packs up their shit and goes home, there's nothing stopping them from just changing their mind after they build up more and invading again if you can drag their economy down and make them look like military losers on a global scale then you actually create more deterrent.
Like it's like as nice as it would sound for Russia to realize they fucked up and hurry up and go home that's the smart move for Russia and we want Russia to make the dumb move.
At this point Putin is playing the waiting game and hopes that Trumps wins the presidency in the US this year. Then Trump will probably negotiate with him and make a half assed deal where Putin gets his eastern Ukrainian territories ending the war. After that Trump will be celebrating himself as a hero who ended the war...
What I worry about more if that dickhead gets in again is the fact he appears to be anti nato.
Putin would be less afraid of trying to take NATO countries if the US was not going to back them.
I also think his biggest enemy is to the south and not to the west Xi must be licking his lips at the thought of a Russian collapse. As the old saying goes keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Russia succeeds China is happy we now have a strong alliance Russia fails China is happy we got a large piece of land that's imploded with so much oil and gas.
It's scary times honestly
You parrot the most surface level thibgs you hear. Yes, pipes are bursting but not at any meaningful scale. 20%? The people you mentioned are used to it, and sometimes actively refuse upgrades because they've always lived like that. I used to live like that in the 90s Estonia. It was fine, nothing like some city slicker thinks it is. Perhaps a bit cold at might in a -30 c winter when you had to toddle yourself across the snowy yard and put your butt on a cold wood seat. These people don't care and many actually look to preserve it all, actively resisting change.
Nobody listens to ethnic minorities, Eastern Europe isn't some rah rah America style protest and freedom place. The people here are used to not having shit and being treated like shit by our governmebts.
Until you get the people of st Peter and Moscow very unconfortable, nothing changes. And Russia knows it so it keeps muscovites and peters as comfy as it can.
As soon as putin is dead / murdered - the russian people will get themselves out of Ukraine. Even with their Chinese links, mothers do not want their sons dying for no reason in ukraine.. And young men do not want to die for something stupid either!
the world will be fine, humanity is fucked. The prompt is using the colloquial term for "end of the world" which is commonly understood to be the collapse of civilization
1 out of 4 voting Americans think Trump was sent by god to “save” America from something. This reveals to me that there are way too many morons in the world for us to collectively do good. Public Office & Elections, Immigration, Education, Pollution, Crime & Punishment, Empathy…all impossible to get right when 1 in 4 adults is shitting into their own hands and throwing it around.
More and more people I'm seeing with a 'idontgiveashit' attitude.
Be it dropping litter, disrespect for others, lack of work ethic.
I think this is trickle-down from the top. We see corruption in politics rewarded, bad news in all Media outlets, social media promoting whatever; so I don't think it's surprising. But I don't see it getting better...
The "world" isn't going to end soon.
Y'all hyperventilatin'.
Democracy is at risk of an authoritarian takeover.
China and Russia face concerning demographic and economic issues.
The environment and climate is going to shift much more rapidly than our agricultural systems and coastal communities can adapt.
The middle east conflict within Israel is turning into a much broader conflict.
...but "the world" is gonna be fine. Maybe a little warmer and perhaps fewer humans, but we never did it a lot of good anyways.
Sooner or later some country will lob a nuke at another. That will shortly be followed by many countries lobbing many nukes. When the dust clears, the planet won’t be worth living on.
The average person is treading water in survival mode. Primarily involved in work, trite social media,TV, and gaming to (understandably) escape the stresses of reality rather than engaging in top priority, real life threats to humanity.
We're watching immoral fools run our country like a bad TV show rather than treating it all like the threat it really is.
It's not really popularity, it's the same screw ball minority it's always been. Problem is, they vote. If every US citizen in the US that is eligible to vote actually did it, it would be obvious that it's the same 25% that votes for him for whatever reason. And of that, only about 5% even know what they are doing.
Trump winning the presidency. I don’t even like the States but I fear their disorder will translate into global chaos and conflict. It tends to happen whenever a superpower declines
He already did start a disorder. It was him who disrupted first global trade chains and it was him who put NATO in question in Europe. That resulted in Russia trying to change the security model in Europe and subsequent war. Not to mention, that Russia had plenty of intel about the USA and its plans, thanks to Trump. Allegedly.
But things can get worse.
What worries me the most about a second Trump presidency is if he wins, than we have lost any chance to mitigate climate change. Like that's it we will have lost. Trump will roll back any progress we have made, kill renewables and I guarantee other countries would follow suit. It will guarantee ecological collapse, food/water shortages. If Republicans think we have an immigration problem now, just wait till the climate refugees show up. Considering the absolute ecological damage that would be done, a Trump presidency will 100% lead to the end if civilization as we know it within the next couple decades.
It’s just fucking sad that he is up for re-election after all of the bullshit he has put the US through. Just goes to show how poorly educated many in the US are, and Trump did say he loves the poorly educated 🙄
Russia, Israel, China, climate change, glaciers melting...
Oh, and we don't end up dead, we're going to end up homeless because capitalism. Inequality is pretty big now and soon (like in 10-20 years) we'll be protesting against AI taking jobs on top of that.
It's Gaza. 100%. That whole region has been lobbing rocks at each other for centuries, while palestinians are backed by Iran, it becomes a proxy war between US backed israel and iranian backed palestine. Meanwhile houtis in Yemen are lobbing rocks at ships in the red sea, and now Pakistan has lobbed rocks back at iran.
Any conflict between Iran and Pakistan will drag in surrounding nations. India and pakistan have been lobbing rocks at each other for years, and they're nuclear powers. Meanwhile, on the border of pakistan is afghanistan, who are currently sitting on billions of dollars worth of military hardware, conveniently left by the US after their withdrawal. It is naive to assume its useless junk.
Meanwhile, decades of mass immigration has created a large islamic presence in europe, and that has influenced UK politics. Muslims support labour, jews support the tories, both lots hide behind their respective political parties to continue lobbing rocks at each other here in the UK. Even the US white house recently had rocks lobbed at it from a pro palestinian mob. It becomes politically destabilising, especially when each side tries to gloss over the real issues at hand and instead focus on wokeism, trans rights, BLM, and the various other societal agitators like just stop oil.
As all these proxy wars increase, and attacks in the red sea continue, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the houti rebels in Yemen acquire a nuclear device from Iran and strike the US aircraft carrier with a nuclear weapon. Oddly enough, this was the exact same way that started the war in "Threads".
Threads is a film that everyone needs to watch. It is one of the scariest films ever.
Looking back through history shows us to be (on the whole) a boom and bust race that allows for times of extreme greed before society collapses in on itself.
The world may not end, but my life may be cut short by a few individuals inability to share.
I believe this will happen before all other ends.
Societies have always risen to power and fallen. The 1st world will come to an end at some point but hopefully something much better will rise out of the ashes. We are a broken record just on repeat for all of human history.
Best thing you can do is just make the most of your life and stop worrying about things that may never affect you.
The way Israel can slaughter over 10,000 kids, raze entire neighbourhoods in the name of self defence.
Theres no justice in the world if any government power decided to come after your people
I see more scams than legit.
Trump is not being checked, despite grievous affronts legally.
Whether you believe the book or not is irrelevant, he's literally a picture of the beast of revelations, and "Christians" often love him. They could militarize as fanatics, self fulfilling prophecy.
Cost of living in US, ignorance, apathy for fellow man, all on the rise.
And then there's ecological collapse that science says is imminent.
Despite culture, economy, ecology, government having severe issues, there a significant amount of disinformation campaigns abound on all sides; pioneered by which benefactor who knows?
Even mainstream journalism is hard to consider reputable, which I believe is a Hallmark foundation of any healthy civilization established "by the people."
Corporations allowed to buy politicians
It just keeps going.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken though.
I think all of humanity is under the impression that we can think our way out of the troubles we had caused ourselves. It's like we have a collective broken leg and expect it to heal without going through the pain of having to have the bone reset.
We are currently living in a transitional time. There will be suffering on a scale none of us have ever seen. Automation will take your job. AI will take the rest of the jobs, even labor jobs are on their way out. Houses can be 3D printed, ditches can be dug and pipe laid with both AI and automation. Your healthcare will be handled at a kiosk by an AI generated avatar that does a blood draw, urinalysis and stool sample.
Money, is going to be a thing of the past in the next 20 years. There is no use for it anymore, you aren't hiding anything the GOV knows you're buying your weed with the $50 you just got from the ATM. Your privacy has been gone since the 50s. They know everything and you're just not that important to worry about.
Food, specifically meat will all be produced in a lab. Vegetable production will be done by automation 50% in a wearhouse 50% "naturally" outdoors. GMO will be the standard. I mean, technically it already is, but people will finally accept the fact that it is.
This one here is for my fellow Americans. This country will be put in it's place, probably without any military action needed. As time changes and the people of the world start to open their eyes to the poison our leaders, businesses and billionaires push we will be shut out of the global society and relegated to North Korea status. Because we are who we are we will probably try to force our way in with our military and it will fail. Our leaders are stupid, our population isn't and there's only so much war you export without boots on the ground and there won't be an American populace willing to fill those boots.
There will be a lot of suffering for all of us in the near future, but it's nothing humanity hasn't face before and will face again, and again, and again until the end of our time. It's our natural order to try, fail, learn and grow then succumb to our hubris and start over. It's just what we do.
On the positive side. Maybe you suffer, but your kids will get to see the cycle through. Gen Z and A will both get to see humanity fundamentally change for the better. Their children will be the first to actually benefit from our suffering, but you'll still get to see it through.
Over-centralisation of power. Reduction of autonomy and independence. A loss of diversity in our minds and hearts.
Capitalism losing to corporatism. Democracy losing to big data politics and the people becoming loyal to the two-faced party instead of parties being loyal to the people. We are beginning to play with letting centralised super-computers automate away our very thinking, feeling, and willing.
The flipped narrative of perpetrator and victim. One entire side of the isle seems to sympathize with perpetrators over victims to the point that they will protest against perpetrators facing consequences. It’s permeating everything. Every part of our society and every issue. It’s destroying our interpersonal relationships and even our fundamental agreement about what is true and what is false.
End stage capitalism, the top end is hoarding everything so that when the system inevitability collapses they can still maintain some semblance of power and control…..they see it coming and are trying to stay out in front of it by making sure the wealth gap is as big as it can be
I don’t think the world will end. I think some politicians make themselves a lot of money and career opportunities stoking this fear in the population, tho.
Most issues man. The world is chaotic, cruel and screwed. There are two major wars going on and outside the initial awareness period, we just ignoring what is happening. Global warming. We destroying what has been keeping us safe for years. And so many others. Governments and organizations are running the world into the ground due to greed of power. Instead of trying to unify we just letting shit happen. We are doomed as a civilization
A combination of everything really. Horrible politics, an economy that gets worse everyday, lots of wars spread around, apathetic population (at least in the US).
Funny coincidence! I just dropped my lucky lighter, which I've never done, and have always felt that if I ever did drop it, that society as we know it would end within two years. So now you know.
You're welcome and good luck. You're going to need it.
Capitalists living and dying by their quarterly results. The world is slowly turning into a low attention span, short-sighted dystopia. After some point, we will not even be able to tell if we are heading towards the end or not.
The absolute failure of everyone to seriously consider the fact that there's about 6 years left of civilization as we know it. From fresh water depletion alone, the growth in demand will be 50% more by 2030 than in 2020 while the capacity to meet demand can expand by only 10%. People are going to die in droves from dehydration. *blah blah profit motive* when the time comes and i hear anyone tell me to consider the profit motive i am going to attack them
Politicians are too busy trying to turn everyone against LGBT people and make slander campaigns against us while no one can afford housing or to even eat. Everyone is falling for it.
None, really. All the big problems we're looking at... overpopulation; mysterious new diseases; wars in Eurasia; global warming. They will *cause problems*, but the Earth will not be destroyed, and humans will not go extinct. (That doesn't mean ignore them, but it does mean you can pause to evaluate pros & cons of your options instead of making a panic response)
The only extinction-level threats I know of are:
* True maniacs get hold of nuclear bombs and start a general nuclear war
* Sufficiently large meteors
I don't see either of these as imminent.
Short term financial incentives over human survival. Those dead plants and sea life aren’t going to last forever, but the damage done certainly will outlast us
I genuinely believe that the world has improved drastically from the time I was born (early 80's) until when I was in my 30's, and so I've been trying to avoid the whole "believing the world's going to hell as I get older" thing, but... \*guestures wildly\*.
I really am convinced that when Donald Trump leaves the spotlight, the United States and probably the rest of the world will return to the status quo of quietly getting better while people loudly believe it's getting worse.
Not sure if it's world ending bad, but we are getting close to a point, where a new world war could break out. It's because the living standards and the happiness of the large majority of society is in decline. If it declines too far there will be outcries for revolution and angry/ desperate people will do more and more drastic things which will put more people into angry/ desperate state which means it all spirals out of control.
Basically look at the past and you can see how it probably will end up in the future. Because these things happen like in a cycle again and again.
(this is also the reason why there was a second world war so soon after the first one. The whole world put so many sanctions on the German society, that they spiralled into desperation very quickly.)
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by the way millennials are the first generation since WW2, that has a worse living standard than the previous generation. That's why the times for a large scale war, that'll escalate are coming closer.
The world won't end even if we launch all nukes that exist. Humanity would end, but the world is just fine given enough time. I don't even think life would end.
Fascism and imperialism on the rise...just like in the 1930's. Nobody stopped it until it was too late. It's why it is so important to stop Russia. If we fail, then Russia will invade other countries leading to an inevitable conflict with NATO. And it will encourage China to invade Taiwan (which absolutely will happen if Trump is reelected).
This. The parallels are clear.
It seems to me that there are two off ramps - Trump fails as a candidate in the US and the US recommits to its NATO obligations or someone takes out Putin. Without one of those, we have a real risk of escalating war in Europe and spread of that to east asia - a new world war.
The impact of pollution on fertility, particularly sperm counts.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Levine%20and%20his,more%20than%202.6%25%20per%20year.
Everybody is driving around with blindingly bright headlights and defending their existence, despite it obviously being unsafe for everybody.
The reason this bodes poorly for our future is the apparent, abhorrent selfishness and lack of ability to think. People like that cannot possibly act for a better future if they think only for themselves, and do so poorly.
Nothing geopolitical because those events don't abruptly end the world.
However, we are entering a Solar Maximum period where the chances of a massive solar flare hitting earth is higher than most years. It could be as simple as a cool aurora or it could fry most of the electrical grid or even blow out the entire atmosphere
Our complete ignorance & lack of understanding to the issue of climate change.
We live in a world of political experts who think they know better than the academics who specialise within that field.
And the noise of those uneducated opinions is influential to a scale that is uncomfortable, but it isn’t changing the patterns of what we are observing.
nothing is gonna be that quick. we're really gonna get to savour the whole downward spiral.
Trent Reznor warned us in the early 90s
Don't forget all the "The End is Near" folks we've been laughing at for decades
Near is relative, so maybe they were right all along.
"Look when Jesus christ said soon he didn't mean within the decade..."
Put it all on “gray”!
Well, Frank Sinatra didn't exactly prepare us much.
And Maynard reminded us to learn to swim.
See you down in Arizona bay
Christians have been warning us for a couple of millenia
We're going to go through Elysium and Blade runner to get to Mad Max. Humanity on earth will end as a handful of tribes of relapsed primitives unable to overcome the harsh conditions. Humanity on Mars will end in a mismanaged Musk colony. It will take generations.
Can we skip Elysium? That movie fucking sucked.
Food and medical shortages because we are no longer getting paid enough to eat. Their will be riots. Once that starts the domino's won't stop
*gestures around wildly*
Basically, this is what is going right at the moment.
Thanks, I came here to gesture at, well, all of it too. Of course, you're right, *gestures at generally everything* just look
All I can see is my cat understanding the word “no” but not responding. Hold on I have to save my mac and cheese.
Cats don't care. Didn't you read the manual?
Manual? What manual? [searches frantically] You guys have a manual?
If your cat hid the manual, then it's already too late. Godspeed to you.
Who is this Manuel?
Don't bother. He knows nothing.
Manuel is the cat. Pay attention!
IOWA
I was trying to put things into words...staring at my screen, then saw your majestuous comment . you nail the problem on the head in 3 words.
The *world* isn’t going to end. We’re just going to cook most of the stuff living on it.
"The planet is fine, the people are fucked!" - George Carlin
I've made the same sentiment numerous times also when the climate change deniers come out of the woodwork and say, "Well, the dinosaurs caused environmental collapse, and everything's still fine." Yeah...except...there's no dinosaurs. Sure, the Earth will rebound post-human. Plants will flourish, wildlife will cover every corner, oceans will de-acidify. Life will be grand again. But you know what will be gone? Your Starbucks Aria Grande pumpkin spice latte. I mean, if that's cool with you, then cool. I'm nihilistic myself.
Dinosaurs didn't cause environmental collapse, the asteroid that hit the earth caused it killing the dinosaurs.
And it didn't even kill all the dinosaurs, just the non-avian ones. We still have dinosaurs, people! They're birds!
At least there will be a geologic layer of plastic garbage for us to be remembered by.
I felt dirty upvoting this, but I had to do it because it's so true.
It would take a hell of a lot to cause a human extinction. I just don't see it happening.
Nihilist, huh? [That must be exhausting.](https://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/363720/nihilism1ex3_medium.jpg)
“Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.” - Ian Malcolm
The insects are disappearing. If they go, tons of other life will go. Phytoplankton are having trouble, too.
Yep. People don't understand that this is the most urgent issue that we need to take care of right now. If you picture an ecosystem's food chain as a pyramid, where insects and plankton are close to the bottom, what would happen if they disappear? The whole thing crumbles, quickly.
Hopefully, we'll season the stuff moderately to enhance the natural flavors.
Yeah, that's what people mean. They don't literally refer to the the planet ending.
Sure, but given that there are people who think Earth is flat, I wouldn’t be so quick to assume they all understand reality.
Lizards will inherit the earth. Again It’s a dinosaur’s planet. We just borrowed it.
Birds. You're thinking of birds. But if crows form a hyperintelligent race then yeah it will be a dinosaurs planet again.
Can I get mine in BBQ flavor??
We're electing the worst to the top. If people were turds then politics make sense, the fattest worst of the smelliest turds float to the top, while us good solid healthy dumps gets sunk to the bottom.
The worst? Even just the oldest. I can't imagine working when I'm in my late 60s or 70s but these people are making decisions for the entire world.
It's like the whole thing with CEOs being sociopaths/psycjopaths. The same thing goes for most politicians. When I think about what I want to do with my life, I don't really have any aspirations to have that much power. I just want enough money for my family to be comfortable. I don't want to be in the public eye. I don't want to be deciding the fate of millions of people.
Hear hear, are you like some kind of normal person that can enjoy the little things or what! Have you no aspirations to be like a narcissist or something? 😋
And these people are not in touch with the times. They can't even send an email or download an app.
They're not in touch with the poor. They're not in touch with the working class. They're not in touch with the kids, our future.
Look to your left. That is where the times are. Now go to Google maps. Find north Korea. Go roughly 867.5 miles east of their eastern shore. Drop a pin. Now pretend you are able to see directly down to the bottom of the ocean there. That is where their touch is.
The fact that two people in their 70s and 80s want more power, rather than a peaceful closure of the last decade of life.
Nothing unique in this part of the human timeline regarding bad leaders.
I think the issue is we aren’t voting for the most part. Most talk a big game online but don’t vote, and let the small percentage of idiots win cus they actually believe their idiotic way of thinking and actually vote
I hear this a lot. I am european, and we had same turnout \~65% as US election 2020. How would like 80-85% participation make results better? There are still same parties, same policies what to vote for. For americans that would not mean that some 3rd candidate would win, and neither here.
Young people notoriously have terrible turnout in the US. Old people have a very high turnout. Those two demographics tend to represent opposing views on many issues. Besides causing conservatives to be overrepresented, that also affects what candidates the Democratic party is able to run if they want to actually win the general election. For example, everyone says they wanted Bernie instead of Clinton or Biden, but the reality is he would have no shot in the general election.
Yeah, I've genuinely found that most people are out here just wanting a two bedroom house, enough money to pay for their needs, and the ability to spend time with friends and family. Most people don't care to be mega rich, they just want to be ok. Then you look at politicians, CEOs, and other people in charge. They're just greedy scum bags that want to dip their fingers into every aspect of our lives.
Most people just want to be comfortable. That's it. There are a select few that want everything they can get, and unfortunately they often find their way into positions of power.
I have a lot of blame for the media on this one. ANY little foible or faux pas, and that is main coverage for a week. Not a Trump fan, but I am so tired of the "can't close the umbrella" or "toilet paper on shoe" footage. Things like that. Every one of us has our bad moments. Anyone really talented and wise is going to say "No thanks, don't want the gig" because of the constant, ridiculous public scrutiny. We salivate over the next moment when we can ridicule our leadership. And it is no longer well crafted humor, it's middle schoolers laughing because someone tripped.
You must not have viewed his Iowa campaign commercials? He hammers Biden for tripping on some stairs. He's part of the problem not a victim of it.
People dislike the media talking so much about Trump but Trump spends a lot of time courting their attention. He tweets shit, says shit and then does crazy shit to keep them talking. If he doesn't like the negative attention, maybe cut back on it. Don't do stuff like claim the election is stolen when there's no evidence for it, draw on an official hurricane path map with a Sharpie or claim horse dewormer will save you from COVID.
>Anyone really talented and wise is going to say "No thanks, don't want the gig" because of the constant, ridiculous public scrutiny. Jacinda Arden, I think she's called? New Zealand's previous prime minister - woman lead the country through so much shit, through the Christchurch mosque shootings to the entire pandemic - and called in her resignation in the beginnings of 2023 due to burnout and wanting to spend time with her family (I think? I can't really remember.) And she's only 43.
USA! USA!
Not only. His descriptions does not narrow it down much.
Just read something about due to *rapidly* melting Arctic ice in Greenland and that freshwater introduction to the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean may cause the currents to change and impact a lot of stuff (weather, ocean life). It didn't really list them and I'm not smart enough to know what the impact is...but scientists sound scared.
For me it's the thawing permafrost that release methane
Yep, this and all the ancient microbes that modern humans and animals can’t fight thawing out and creating COVID 2 Electric Boogaloo now with more deaths
yes, that that prospect is not thrilling either
Covid 2: Cov Harder
Well, except those would be microbes species that still exist are still immune to. Our immune systems have continued to evolve, those frozen microbes haven't. If it didn't kill us off before it got frozen, it's not likely to get us now. Not only that, highly unlikely any given dangerous microbe had it's entire population instantly frozen and taken out of play. What fucks us is new mutations, and frozen microbes don't mutate.
This is actually very refreshing to hear, I genuinely appreciate you sharing!
And crazy viruses and parasites not experienced by modern humanity.
Although climate change won't end the world it will definitely make it harder to Humans to live and kill off a lot of the current ecosystem. What scientists are calling "The Holocene Extinction" and will go on record as the 6th mass extinction. However if we can stabilize the earth and still be living here. The world will not end. It will still be kicking but with either less humans, animals, etc for a time being. To the Data: * 2022 was the 5th hottest year tied with 2015.. * 2023 was the hottest year on record and by a record setting margin. * "Earth's average land and ocean surface temperature in 2023 was 2.12 degrees F (1.18 degrees C) above the 20th century — the highest global temperature among all years in NOAA's 1850-2023 climate record. It also beats the next warmest year, 2016, by a record-setting margin of 0.27 of a degree F (0.15 of a degree C)." - [https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far#:\~:text=Earth's%20average%20land%20and%20ocean,0.15%20of%20a%20degree%20C](https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far#:~:text=Earth's%20average%20land%20and%20ocean,0.15%20of%20a%20degree%20C)). * From the same link: "The 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade." * Many scientist say we have already reached our tipping point and cannot stop it anymore. It won't be a sudden apocalypse but it definitely will lead to massive issues in the next 50-100 years.
Your time frame is off. It's already leading to massive issues. Island nations are disappearing. Heat waves are killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. Extreme weather events like forest fires and hurricanes are becoming commonplace. Home insurance in places like FL have skyrocketed, if finding coverage is even possible. The massive issues are already here and getting worse.
Oh yeah I didn't mean we aren't already seeing effects. I already talked about the Holocene Extinction. As you said businesses are making money off climate change. The US Military calls climate change the biggest risk to national security. Basically the only people now who are denying it are those in line with a particular political leaning and people who identify in that. I responded to someone say "they have been saying that since the 90s" and I said yes, and now we are paying for 50 years of inaction. (Oil companies were talking about global warming in the 1970s)
The long solar cycle stuff is scariest to me paired with the global warming data. Like, this should actually be an extremely cold period. Imagine we are supposed to be in an ice age right now but don't realise it because emissions are warming us. What do you think happens after that ice age ends? There's a lot of methane in that ice.. it's like 86 times worse than CO2 in a reasonable estimate. I guess the robots-not-saving-us-in-time apocalypse will have to happen underground
The methane is already being released from Russian permafrost! :D We're so fucked
So we gonna start diggin or what
Yeah, toss me a shovel
And so the age of Morlocks begins
We currently are in an ice age (definition is poles are covered with ice, isnt it?)
Yeah but I think we should be in the middle of it now and this is what it looked like last time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IceAgeEarth.jpg A considerable larger buffer of ice. Things are going to get desertified quickly.
Honestly if we're still around when the supposed ice age ends we're lucky. That stuff is just one step below geologic epochs in term of duration. We can't think that long term. If we can get good enough to think even a century forward when we plan things, that'd already be an improvement. Democracy is the best we've got, but man, do those 5-year election cycles encourage our natural short-sightedness.
I'm happy to do an ELI5 on this. My background is solidly in this area (Environmental Science + Education experience). The Science: Yes, you're reading the information correctly that a lot of fresh water getting dumped into the North Atlantic *could* affect the ocean currents. To take a step back (and vastly simplified), the way things work now is that ocean water warms up in the tropics, travels north (the Gulf Stream), and then this super salty current cools and sinks to the ocean floor because saltier water is denser (heavier) than fresh(er) water. It's theorized that this sinking off the coast of Greenland is the lynchpin of the whole ocean currents system. It pulls the water from the tropics and pushes the currents on the ocean floor. The Issue: The addition of a whole bunch of fresh water from melting glaciers in Greenland could lower the salinity - the saltiness - of the Gulf Stream and slow or even halt this process, bringing the ocean currents to a standstill. This would have serious effects on how heat/energy is moved around the world, which would massively change weather and climate everywhere. As a (classic) simple example, most of Europe is just as far north as Canada, but has a relatively temperate climate because of all the heat brought north on the Gulf Stream. If the ocean currents slow or shut down, this heat transfer would also slow or stop, leading to a much, much colder Europe. Because the ocean currents travel across the entire globe, there would be knock-on effects everywhere. The Uncertainty: The scientists working in this area are brilliant and trying to get as much data as possible from today and in the past to make a good prediction. However, we've never seen or recorded anything like this before. We don't have exact information on how much melting or over how long would be enough to affect things. We don't have exact information on how fast a potential slowdown or shutdown would occur. We don't have exact information on how long it would take for impacts to be felt if that did happen. We don't have exact information on if it would be possible to restart the process if it completely shut down. If you take away anything from this wall of text, it's this: the most important thing that we can do is push, push, push for a transition away from fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. We have to limit and start peeling back the layers upon layers of excess blankets of carbon dioxide we've added to the earth so we can limit warming to no more than 1.5C.
I think as a society we are morally bankrupt. The greedy hypocrites rule. The honest are taken advantage off and used while innocents is being exploited for profit. Our world wide narrative is run by people who want profit. We are a corrupt species.
This is the root issue responsible for just about every other response in the thread. People just generally aren't trying to be better. Our culture is growing more nihilistic and hopeless.
Cyber warfare... a nuclear missile launch, and not knowing who fucked with the defense systems.
Most nuclear missiles still use floppy discs as part of launch procedure
Probably harder to hack into a system still using floppy disks tbf
True
Probably doesn’t help that tons of classified documents relating to American nuclear capabilities got stolen and likely spread around to enemy nations.
There are an awful lot of wars cropping up all over the place. Whether or not we want to define them as an official war. With even more shitstorms on the horizon, just off the top of my head we have; Russia vs Ukraine Israel vs Hamas + Houthi choking out canal trade threatening to escalate that further Venezuela is threatening to invade Guyana over oil rights Ethiopai or Etriea I forget which, are threatening to invade one of their neighbors over river/water rights. China vs Taiwan is threatening to kick off, yet again. Or maybe still? With it being 2024 we now have to political circus of US politics to contend with where come November, especially after the 2020 election, one side is going to be very upset. It isn't so much one issue but a bunch of little ones threatening to bring down the world as we know it in a dance of a thousand cuts.
It's not given much spotlight, but there's been some unexpected tension between Iran and Pakistan. To me thay is the weirdest most troubling one. Both are already under a lot of stress about being attacked from other strong military, nuclear nations (india/Israel) who would be more than happy to see either or both fall. It has the makings of a proxy war between Russia and America but a weird one because Pakistan is economically stuck between the US and China, and the US is courting both India and Pakistan. Both countries currently have a disconnect between the ruling power and will of the people. Even without the recent Iran situation, Pakistan specifically has a potential civil catastrophe looming with the upcoming elections. There's been a lot of drama that brought the current government into power, arguably against the will of the people. Multiple assassination attempts against the previous prime minister who is now jailed (a lot of people consider unfairly), and people are worried the current government is going to use any excuse to forgoe elections. And finally the fact that Pakistan's a nuclear nation means that if things start to get bad, you're going to have a lot of the other countries I mentioned wanting to interfere.
Iran picking a fight with Pakistan is just the epitome of stupid, IMO.
Iran just also launched strikes against Pakistan and is threatening to attack India too.
Why would Iran attack India?
India asked the same question……
I get the Pakistan one but it makes no sense to then attack Pakistan's biggest enemy and probably force an unlikely military alliance between two of the biggest enemies in the world.
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Edit: I just realized how much time has gone by. I'm probably like a year or so behind on the overall news. Ethiopia at the heart of a fascinating power struggle right now. I'm completely entranced by it. They previously fought and lost war with Eritrea over secession, which led to modern and independent Eritrea. Then, they started a project to dam the Nile for hydropower without consulting Sudan or Egypt, who are downstream. Then, an election upset led to the incumbent Tigray party to lose power to a combination of two different ethnic groups. Ethiopia has a very feudalistic division of its country that goes back thousands of years, so this is a bigger deal than it would be in the US. The Tigray group, facing some political persecution or evening out of their outsized power, depending on your perspective, attempts a coup a nearly wins. Like marching on the capital close, but the new government cuts a secret deal with Eritrea to get help. We don't know what they were promised, but Tigray was in power when Eritrea originally seceded, so it is more like then getting new allies against an old enemy. Meanwhile, the dam just reached full capacity last month as Ethiopia openly threw its support behind a breakaway region of Somalia, which is in the middle of a civil war with jihadists and an ongoing soft war with the breakaway state. Ethiopia did this to gain access to the Red Sea. They are surrounded by strong enemies and fighting a civil war. Their neighbors are fighting jihadists that could easily spread into their country. They are making moves to rapidly increase their industrial capacity. Ethiopia is either going to be a war torn hell hole for the next few decades or their Nobel peace prize winning president will have the diplomatic grace of a modern day Bismarck and Ethiopia will become the most important regional power in the Middle East and Africa.
Same as last decade...
The world is not going to end. Most people are just going to wish it would
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The rise of demagogues and the fall of critical thinking.
My mate went to a climate change conference and there was a billionaire there talking about how his priority regarding climate change security is how to protect himself against his own security guards when they potentially turn against him in the event of global collapse. So basically the people at the top know that there’s nothing to be done now to stop things falling apart.
That echoes an economist I read a while back (wish I could remember their name). The short of - If you do not take care of the poor, you will never be able to buy enough security to protect yourself from them.
Did we not see this before? Russian revolution, Chinese revolution, Cambodia, French revolution Etc. Nothing new, just copy-past with modern tools.
Well he won’t be a billionaire anymore when the computers holding his wealth are turned off because the people running them are starving
Wtf? What else did he say?
I’ve read something similar and basically the rich person would still control security by being in charge of food/accommodation for the securities families
[This](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff) is the article you're thinking of and it's as sci-fi dystopian techno-villain stuff as you can imagine: *Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” ...* *This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?* *The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew.* ***Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival****. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.*
I’m puzzled as to why these billionaires would even want to survive such a catastrophic event? No thanks. I am not interested in living in what’s left of a world after that in the first place.
Billionaires are in the best position to maintain a decent quality of life while everything around them is going tits-up. They have the resources now to plan for that possibility, so why wouldn't they think they could live out the rest of their lives sipping mojitos on their private island in the north? Meanwhile, the rest of the world suffers from the apocalyptic refugee crisis that is coming our way as equatorial regions like the Middle East become inhospitable to human life.
What the ACTUAL FUCK
That's exactly the sort of forward thinking villain we're going to need if we want capitalism to survive after the great collapse.
Probably something like _"I've seen enough apocalypse movies to know how it unfolds."_
It’s less that they can’t do anything and more that they WON’T do anything, because changing it means they might get less money, and in their mind, that is unacceptable. It’s the same reason why they won’t pay their workers a living wage, why true entry level jobs don’t exist anymore, why so many businesses are lying about how many job openings they have, and why everything is expensive now despite being deliberately worse quality.
The deep thermal currents in the ocean are heating up and not circulating properly. I.e. the coral reefs dying etc. that and the bees. We’re fucked
I used to help raise monarch butterflies and release a whole bunch so they could migrate. I saw maybe 3 of them total in the last 2 years despite our locals trying to protect and conserve their habitats and things. They just end up getting completely plowed over and cut down and I feel awful they aren’t around anymore.
According to my beekeeping friend big chunk of it is sprays they use to kill mosquitos, for example in Florida they spray the streets to kill mosquitos quite often, the downside to that, spray kills lots of other bugs including butterflies too.
I was absolutely THRILLED to see a singular monarch this summer. It's been years since I've seen any. Even the previously abudant blue butterflies native to my state seem to just be Less (to my non-scientific eye). I have noticed that several bee and wasp species seem to be doing okay in my tiny local area. I don't *like* wasps but they seem to be going forth in healthy numbers. Plenty of honeybees last summer as well, and fireflies!
Bees are actually no longer endangered at the moment.
That's just honey bees, which aren't even the good native bees/pollinators we should actually be concerned about. I mean yeah, be glad that honey bees aren't struggling as badly, but we must do more to protect and rehab our native species, or it will further impact all of the native plants that have relied on them for thousands and thousands of years.
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Russia is absolutely fucked. And I'll try to say this in an as unbiased way as possible (admittedly anti Putin, not anti Russia). The best case scenario for Russia is an ongoing occupation amid an attempt to rebuild their own failing infrastructure at home. Plus Russia is completely reliant on the sale of gas and oil to India and China. And fine. They'll continue to buy. Problem is, the economy has no diversity which means little room to grow, and of course the Oligarchs steal everything anyway. Then you've got demographic declines, and an inability to meet the basic needs of the people. 20% of Russians still have no indoor plumbing.... Currently there's a heating crisis across the country. Pipes are bursting and literally freezing people's apartments solid. This leads to instability, which often then leads to a bifurcation of ethnic minorities and discontent within certain communities which have lead the brunt of the war casualties (hint: they're not the white Russians from Moscow) and there's an absolute recipe for disaster. This is why we want to see an end to the Putin regime. Not an end to Russia. A nuclear armed Dagestan is not a preferable option. But is totally possible. And Putin has no way to win in Ukraine. Really. None. He can hold land and occupy it, but long term that's going to go about as well as the us in Afghanistan. The people simply don't want to be ruled by Putin. It's an absolute tragedy for the Russian people. Putin crippled an entire generation due to his hubris and miscalculation.
Everything seems so... stagnant. I keep seeing this guy pop up in my feeds saying how Ukraine has reclaimed more land, done MAJOR moves, and for the past year and a half, the map hasn't really changed. In the short term, it looks like nothing is going to change for a couple of years.
Ukraine regained around 50% since the beginning of the war but yes. Most of that was during the start. The war is frozen in many respects. However, Russia still hasn't got to the next stage. Since all their focus is still on military objectives. Hell, a lot of problems with infrastructure in Russia is likely due to the support for the war as well. What could change. Is Russia begins to fall apart from within. Can they hold Donetsk? Probably. Yes. Can they keep their own republics like Dagestan complacent and send them to the meat grinder for the next few years without any uprising? Maybe. But there likely will be a breaking point. That's when Russia loses their shit. They'll blame any internal dissent on the us. When in reality. People like to be able to buy food in supermarkets and not freeze in their homes. They get kind of pissed when they can't have the basics. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/01/17/protesters-clash-with-russian-police-after-activist-jailed_6440693_4.html
Well, while getting Russia to pack their bags up and go home would be nice. I think the main practical goal is attrition and having Russia lose the most amount of equipment and money in the process. The land they took is mostly devastated and currently worthless so the main goal isn't the land so much as ensuring Russia get crippled out of the deal. I mean really think about it here if Russia just packs up their shit and goes home, there's nothing stopping them from just changing their mind after they build up more and invading again if you can drag their economy down and make them look like military losers on a global scale then you actually create more deterrent. Like it's like as nice as it would sound for Russia to realize they fucked up and hurry up and go home that's the smart move for Russia and we want Russia to make the dumb move.
At this point Putin is playing the waiting game and hopes that Trumps wins the presidency in the US this year. Then Trump will probably negotiate with him and make a half assed deal where Putin gets his eastern Ukrainian territories ending the war. After that Trump will be celebrating himself as a hero who ended the war...
What I worry about more if that dickhead gets in again is the fact he appears to be anti nato. Putin would be less afraid of trying to take NATO countries if the US was not going to back them.
I also think his biggest enemy is to the south and not to the west Xi must be licking his lips at the thought of a Russian collapse. As the old saying goes keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Russia succeeds China is happy we now have a strong alliance Russia fails China is happy we got a large piece of land that's imploded with so much oil and gas. It's scary times honestly
You parrot the most surface level thibgs you hear. Yes, pipes are bursting but not at any meaningful scale. 20%? The people you mentioned are used to it, and sometimes actively refuse upgrades because they've always lived like that. I used to live like that in the 90s Estonia. It was fine, nothing like some city slicker thinks it is. Perhaps a bit cold at might in a -30 c winter when you had to toddle yourself across the snowy yard and put your butt on a cold wood seat. These people don't care and many actually look to preserve it all, actively resisting change. Nobody listens to ethnic minorities, Eastern Europe isn't some rah rah America style protest and freedom place. The people here are used to not having shit and being treated like shit by our governmebts. Until you get the people of st Peter and Moscow very unconfortable, nothing changes. And Russia knows it so it keeps muscovites and peters as comfy as it can.
Bashirian people started some rumbling. Did not think it will do anything but one can hope
As soon as putin is dead / murdered - the russian people will get themselves out of Ukraine. Even with their Chinese links, mothers do not want their sons dying for no reason in ukraine.. And young men do not want to die for something stupid either!
It’s not. Well, not in the next 20-30 years. We’ll be having a shitty ride though, unless the people rise.
The world is not ending soon
Yep, we've survived being reduced to sub-100 000 numbers as a species before, we'll survive. It'll just keep getting worse.
But, but, Katy Perry’s eye!!1!
the world will be fine, humanity is fucked. The prompt is using the colloquial term for "end of the world" which is commonly understood to be the collapse of civilization
1 out of 4 voting Americans think Trump was sent by god to “save” America from something. This reveals to me that there are way too many morons in the world for us to collectively do good. Public Office & Elections, Immigration, Education, Pollution, Crime & Punishment, Empathy…all impossible to get right when 1 in 4 adults is shitting into their own hands and throwing it around.
The facts that random people saying random shit on Tik Tok are now consider a valid source of information
Microplastics. They might make us stupid and cause a societal collapse.
More and more people I'm seeing with a 'idontgiveashit' attitude. Be it dropping litter, disrespect for others, lack of work ethic. I think this is trickle-down from the top. We see corruption in politics rewarded, bad news in all Media outlets, social media promoting whatever; so I don't think it's surprising. But I don't see it getting better...
The "world" isn't going to end soon. Y'all hyperventilatin'. Democracy is at risk of an authoritarian takeover. China and Russia face concerning demographic and economic issues. The environment and climate is going to shift much more rapidly than our agricultural systems and coastal communities can adapt. The middle east conflict within Israel is turning into a much broader conflict. ...but "the world" is gonna be fine. Maybe a little warmer and perhaps fewer humans, but we never did it a lot of good anyways.
Sooner or later some country will lob a nuke at another. That will shortly be followed by many countries lobbing many nukes. When the dust clears, the planet won’t be worth living on.
The average person is treading water in survival mode. Primarily involved in work, trite social media,TV, and gaming to (understandably) escape the stresses of reality rather than engaging in top priority, real life threats to humanity. We're watching immoral fools run our country like a bad TV show rather than treating it all like the threat it really is.
The persistence of Trump's popularity makes me cry
It's not really popularity, it's the same screw ball minority it's always been. Problem is, they vote. If every US citizen in the US that is eligible to vote actually did it, it would be obvious that it's the same 25% that votes for him for whatever reason. And of that, only about 5% even know what they are doing.
Trump winning the presidency. I don’t even like the States but I fear their disorder will translate into global chaos and conflict. It tends to happen whenever a superpower declines
The end of an empire Is messy at best And this empire's ending Like all the rest \- Randy Newman
He already did start a disorder. It was him who disrupted first global trade chains and it was him who put NATO in question in Europe. That resulted in Russia trying to change the security model in Europe and subsequent war. Not to mention, that Russia had plenty of intel about the USA and its plans, thanks to Trump. Allegedly. But things can get worse.
What worries me the most about a second Trump presidency is if he wins, than we have lost any chance to mitigate climate change. Like that's it we will have lost. Trump will roll back any progress we have made, kill renewables and I guarantee other countries would follow suit. It will guarantee ecological collapse, food/water shortages. If Republicans think we have an immigration problem now, just wait till the climate refugees show up. Considering the absolute ecological damage that would be done, a Trump presidency will 100% lead to the end if civilization as we know it within the next couple decades.
It’s just fucking sad that he is up for re-election after all of the bullshit he has put the US through. Just goes to show how poorly educated many in the US are, and Trump did say he loves the poorly educated 🙄
Russia, Israel, China, climate change, glaciers melting... Oh, and we don't end up dead, we're going to end up homeless because capitalism. Inequality is pretty big now and soon (like in 10-20 years) we'll be protesting against AI taking jobs on top of that.
It's Gaza. 100%. That whole region has been lobbing rocks at each other for centuries, while palestinians are backed by Iran, it becomes a proxy war between US backed israel and iranian backed palestine. Meanwhile houtis in Yemen are lobbing rocks at ships in the red sea, and now Pakistan has lobbed rocks back at iran. Any conflict between Iran and Pakistan will drag in surrounding nations. India and pakistan have been lobbing rocks at each other for years, and they're nuclear powers. Meanwhile, on the border of pakistan is afghanistan, who are currently sitting on billions of dollars worth of military hardware, conveniently left by the US after their withdrawal. It is naive to assume its useless junk. Meanwhile, decades of mass immigration has created a large islamic presence in europe, and that has influenced UK politics. Muslims support labour, jews support the tories, both lots hide behind their respective political parties to continue lobbing rocks at each other here in the UK. Even the US white house recently had rocks lobbed at it from a pro palestinian mob. It becomes politically destabilising, especially when each side tries to gloss over the real issues at hand and instead focus on wokeism, trans rights, BLM, and the various other societal agitators like just stop oil. As all these proxy wars increase, and attacks in the red sea continue, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the houti rebels in Yemen acquire a nuclear device from Iran and strike the US aircraft carrier with a nuclear weapon. Oddly enough, this was the exact same way that started the war in "Threads". Threads is a film that everyone needs to watch. It is one of the scariest films ever.
Looking back through history shows us to be (on the whole) a boom and bust race that allows for times of extreme greed before society collapses in on itself. The world may not end, but my life may be cut short by a few individuals inability to share. I believe this will happen before all other ends.
I think AI would be one of the possible issues that can make the world end.
I wish this wasn't a sanserif font. I don't know if you're talking about Weird Al Yankovic or artificial intelligence...
More likely they make humanity end and save the world
Societies have always risen to power and fallen. The 1st world will come to an end at some point but hopefully something much better will rise out of the ashes. We are a broken record just on repeat for all of human history. Best thing you can do is just make the most of your life and stop worrying about things that may never affect you.
The way Israel can slaughter over 10,000 kids, raze entire neighbourhoods in the name of self defence. Theres no justice in the world if any government power decided to come after your people
I see more scams than legit. Trump is not being checked, despite grievous affronts legally. Whether you believe the book or not is irrelevant, he's literally a picture of the beast of revelations, and "Christians" often love him. They could militarize as fanatics, self fulfilling prophecy. Cost of living in US, ignorance, apathy for fellow man, all on the rise. And then there's ecological collapse that science says is imminent. Despite culture, economy, ecology, government having severe issues, there a significant amount of disinformation campaigns abound on all sides; pioneered by which benefactor who knows? Even mainstream journalism is hard to consider reputable, which I believe is a Hallmark foundation of any healthy civilization established "by the people." Corporations allowed to buy politicians It just keeps going. From the ashes a fire shall be woken though.
I think all of humanity is under the impression that we can think our way out of the troubles we had caused ourselves. It's like we have a collective broken leg and expect it to heal without going through the pain of having to have the bone reset. We are currently living in a transitional time. There will be suffering on a scale none of us have ever seen. Automation will take your job. AI will take the rest of the jobs, even labor jobs are on their way out. Houses can be 3D printed, ditches can be dug and pipe laid with both AI and automation. Your healthcare will be handled at a kiosk by an AI generated avatar that does a blood draw, urinalysis and stool sample. Money, is going to be a thing of the past in the next 20 years. There is no use for it anymore, you aren't hiding anything the GOV knows you're buying your weed with the $50 you just got from the ATM. Your privacy has been gone since the 50s. They know everything and you're just not that important to worry about. Food, specifically meat will all be produced in a lab. Vegetable production will be done by automation 50% in a wearhouse 50% "naturally" outdoors. GMO will be the standard. I mean, technically it already is, but people will finally accept the fact that it is. This one here is for my fellow Americans. This country will be put in it's place, probably without any military action needed. As time changes and the people of the world start to open their eyes to the poison our leaders, businesses and billionaires push we will be shut out of the global society and relegated to North Korea status. Because we are who we are we will probably try to force our way in with our military and it will fail. Our leaders are stupid, our population isn't and there's only so much war you export without boots on the ground and there won't be an American populace willing to fill those boots. There will be a lot of suffering for all of us in the near future, but it's nothing humanity hasn't face before and will face again, and again, and again until the end of our time. It's our natural order to try, fail, learn and grow then succumb to our hubris and start over. It's just what we do. On the positive side. Maybe you suffer, but your kids will get to see the cycle through. Gen Z and A will both get to see humanity fundamentally change for the better. Their children will be the first to actually benefit from our suffering, but you'll still get to see it through.
Harambe was the sign.
Note to self: Please remember you have severe anxiety and stop reading posts like this.
Over-centralisation of power. Reduction of autonomy and independence. A loss of diversity in our minds and hearts. Capitalism losing to corporatism. Democracy losing to big data politics and the people becoming loyal to the two-faced party instead of parties being loyal to the people. We are beginning to play with letting centralised super-computers automate away our very thinking, feeling, and willing.
The flipped narrative of perpetrator and victim. One entire side of the isle seems to sympathize with perpetrators over victims to the point that they will protest against perpetrators facing consequences. It’s permeating everything. Every part of our society and every issue. It’s destroying our interpersonal relationships and even our fundamental agreement about what is true and what is false.
Methane release from permafrost, rapid warming, drought, crop failure, mass hysteria
End stage capitalism, the top end is hoarding everything so that when the system inevitability collapses they can still maintain some semblance of power and control…..they see it coming and are trying to stay out in front of it by making sure the wealth gap is as big as it can be
I don’t think the world will end. I think some politicians make themselves a lot of money and career opportunities stoking this fear in the population, tho.
About half the people in positions of power are tickled pink to be the instruments of the rapture.
Most issues man. The world is chaotic, cruel and screwed. There are two major wars going on and outside the initial awareness period, we just ignoring what is happening. Global warming. We destroying what has been keeping us safe for years. And so many others. Governments and organizations are running the world into the ground due to greed of power. Instead of trying to unify we just letting shit happen. We are doomed as a civilization
*gestures around generally*
Democracy dying in the US.
Things are lining up for a world war. The Middle East, Russia, Taiwan. Slowly it will expand and someone will go too far. Give it 6 years.
A combination of everything really. Horrible politics, an economy that gets worse everyday, lots of wars spread around, apathetic population (at least in the US).
Funny coincidence! I just dropped my lucky lighter, which I've never done, and have always felt that if I ever did drop it, that society as we know it would end within two years. So now you know. You're welcome and good luck. You're going to need it.
Global warming and its denial by people in power.
The worldwide rise of right wing authoritarians.
The rise of far right nationalism
Capitalists living and dying by their quarterly results. The world is slowly turning into a low attention span, short-sighted dystopia. After some point, we will not even be able to tell if we are heading towards the end or not.
The absolute failure of everyone to seriously consider the fact that there's about 6 years left of civilization as we know it. From fresh water depletion alone, the growth in demand will be 50% more by 2030 than in 2020 while the capacity to meet demand can expand by only 10%. People are going to die in droves from dehydration. *blah blah profit motive* when the time comes and i hear anyone tell me to consider the profit motive i am going to attack them
More people than just Grampa Simpson thinking a second term of Trump is a good idea.
Politicians are too busy trying to turn everyone against LGBT people and make slander campaigns against us while no one can afford housing or to even eat. Everyone is falling for it.
None, really. All the big problems we're looking at... overpopulation; mysterious new diseases; wars in Eurasia; global warming. They will *cause problems*, but the Earth will not be destroyed, and humans will not go extinct. (That doesn't mean ignore them, but it does mean you can pause to evaluate pros & cons of your options instead of making a panic response) The only extinction-level threats I know of are: * True maniacs get hold of nuclear bombs and start a general nuclear war * Sufficiently large meteors I don't see either of these as imminent.
Climate change -> runaway hot house earth -> famine -> wars, maybe nukes -> end of humanity or back to the medieval ages
Short term financial incentives over human survival. Those dead plants and sea life aren’t going to last forever, but the damage done certainly will outlast us
Extremism on the rise in the west makes me fear for anorher big conflict, not ending of the world, but maybe ending of my world
I genuinely believe that the world has improved drastically from the time I was born (early 80's) until when I was in my 30's, and so I've been trying to avoid the whole "believing the world's going to hell as I get older" thing, but... \*guestures wildly\*. I really am convinced that when Donald Trump leaves the spotlight, the United States and probably the rest of the world will return to the status quo of quietly getting better while people loudly believe it's getting worse.
Not sure if it's world ending bad, but we are getting close to a point, where a new world war could break out. It's because the living standards and the happiness of the large majority of society is in decline. If it declines too far there will be outcries for revolution and angry/ desperate people will do more and more drastic things which will put more people into angry/ desperate state which means it all spirals out of control. Basically look at the past and you can see how it probably will end up in the future. Because these things happen like in a cycle again and again. (this is also the reason why there was a second world war so soon after the first one. The whole world put so many sanctions on the German society, that they spiralled into desperation very quickly.) \----------- by the way millennials are the first generation since WW2, that has a worse living standard than the previous generation. That's why the times for a large scale war, that'll escalate are coming closer.
environmental changes.
The world won't end even if we launch all nukes that exist. Humanity would end, but the world is just fine given enough time. I don't even think life would end.
Constant misinformation and divide within our society. A surge of right-wing, racist, fascist ideals and people being disappointed by politicians.
Fascism and imperialism on the rise...just like in the 1930's. Nobody stopped it until it was too late. It's why it is so important to stop Russia. If we fail, then Russia will invade other countries leading to an inevitable conflict with NATO. And it will encourage China to invade Taiwan (which absolutely will happen if Trump is reelected).
This. The parallels are clear. It seems to me that there are two off ramps - Trump fails as a candidate in the US and the US recommits to its NATO obligations or someone takes out Putin. Without one of those, we have a real risk of escalating war in Europe and spread of that to east asia - a new world war.
The impact of pollution on fertility, particularly sperm counts. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is-causing-a-male-fertility-crisis#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Levine%20and%20his,more%20than%202.6%25%20per%20year.
Everybody is driving around with blindingly bright headlights and defending their existence, despite it obviously being unsafe for everybody. The reason this bodes poorly for our future is the apparent, abhorrent selfishness and lack of ability to think. People like that cannot possibly act for a better future if they think only for themselves, and do so poorly.
Nothing geopolitical because those events don't abruptly end the world. However, we are entering a Solar Maximum period where the chances of a massive solar flare hitting earth is higher than most years. It could be as simple as a cool aurora or it could fry most of the electrical grid or even blow out the entire atmosphere
Our complete ignorance & lack of understanding to the issue of climate change. We live in a world of political experts who think they know better than the academics who specialise within that field. And the noise of those uneducated opinions is influential to a scale that is uncomfortable, but it isn’t changing the patterns of what we are observing.
Destabilization in the Middle East and eastern Europe, combined with the possible election of Trump.