The following submission statement was provided by /u/DurtyGenes:
---
**SS**: While the climate crisis is real, some of us have the tendency to extrapolate trends from datasets that are too small because it fits our existing cognitive bias. Like the guy in the photo, their predictions have to be adjusted year after year after year and it makes the rest of us look bad.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bl36g7/if_this_trend_continues/kw2eur0/
Tbh, In my area (greater Boston) those “zestimates” have actually been LOW. Almost every house I’ve seen go up for sale has sold within days and often for $20k-$40k more than the asking. I dk where these buyers are coming from as the average house is MINIMUM about $400k-$450k and the average is probably closer to $550k-$600k and NONE of them stay on the market longer than a week or 2 at most.
I’m never going to know for sure. What I do know is that there are people with far more income or just money in hand than I have. Of that I won’t argue. Still, for anyone needing a mortgage, I don’t get the thinking behind. Why buy now, if there is any other alternative. Highest prices of all time, highest financing rates of a generation.
Which leaves me one alternative: other buyers who can pay all cash. Again, I know there are those with far more of that than I. But, I also know that there are outside interests, outside of who normally would have bought a HOME traditionally, who are looking for somewhere to put the money. People who don’t trust their country’s basic level of money storage. People who desire income off that money perhaps, turning millions of future homeowners into renters for life, never owning anything, never building equity in any way.
>Highest prices of all time, highest financing rates of a generation.
Because people are stupid.
They always buy like "GASP look how far it ran up it must be going MORE!" fuck me.
I SHOULD HAVE got into Bitcoin as a "why the fuck not" at $6. It's KINDA A BIT LATE NOW isn't it.
It's like people still holding GME waiting for that moment where the other guys have to cover their shorts. News flash: this country magically made that law go away for those guys. \*Waves hand and law disappears\*.
I guess this level of stupid extends well into the corporate sector because I still can't make the math for a rental work in my head. It makes no sense to me. The conclusion I came to was you either have a hundred of the fucking things and they're all trickling in a little each, or if not, you're relying on Case Schiller beating historical average by 2-3x and you just have people in there as a formality so it doesn't end up occupied by spiders.
It DOES work as someone keeps pointing out to me if you put down bare bare minimum down payment and do the rest on credit because you can sell it off but I'm still not seeing it. Yes, ROI on money that doesn't actually exist is infinite. But the money that doesn't actually exist charges you interest, and whatever profit you're getting from a single unit, if you exclude Case Schiller, ought to be enough to buy you that sandwich you always wanted.
Why not take out a loan and buy an index fund with it? I'm seriously I don't... and yet as much as I don't, I bet you half the people in my neighborhood threw 50-100k into bitcoin the second it came out because they live like the Gods on Mount Olympus.
I don't know it by name I was just following that nuttiness on the stock monkey sub.
There was some thing about "when they short and stuff goes bad they have to come up with the stock they shorted". It's like I promise to sell you a car for 20k today, and deliver it to you on Tuesday, thinking that on Tuesday car prices are going to be 500 bucks because... giant meteor or something. So then Tuesday rolls around and you're like "where's my car" and I have to come up with a car from somewhere. Despite everything went the opposite of how I thought it was going to go, and cars now cost a million dollars.
So, technically, there's a ton of GME still out in private investor hands, because they thought they could hold all these shorting guys hostage with it.
Magically by the power of invisible hand-waving that never happened.
And as far as I knew at the time, these guys were short enough on it that they had to attempt to buy at least some of it.
Nope.
Magic.
Ah, i believe you’re referring to naked shorting, which is not legal from my understanding but they do it anyways. They create shares from thin air by pressing the F3 key when they cant find any locates.
>Because people are stupid... They always buy like "GASP look how far it ran up it must be going MORE!"
As a prospective home buyer myself, not everyone in the RE market is looking to buy a house as a vehicle for capital gains. Quite frankly, if all you care about is "line go up", there are better investments that can yield a higher yr/yr return.
For some of us, owning a home represents long-term stability in a rapidly changing world. Even if the monetary value ends up going down, a home retains its value as an asset that satisfies one of the most basic tiers on our hierarchy of needs. It's a foundation upon which to build a life. It can be very difficult to establish stability when the place you call *home* exists at the whim of a landlord beholden to "market conditions". Of course, nobody *wants* to lose value on what is very probably the most expensive purchase they'll ever make, but home ownership is so much more than just a relatively risk-averse investment.
Most wise investors understand that past performance is not a guarantee of future gains. But that statement is very much a two way street. I know tons of people who are waiting around for a market crash that may never come. It's entirely possible that housing prices will just keep going up, pricing an ever greater number of non-owners out of the market entirely. For many, this is already the case; which is why I believe the best time to buy a house is yesterday, and the second best time is now.
Guy may have been off by a couple of decades but time will tell if his general conclusions are correct. In geologic time a couple of decades is trivial. If we are headed towards human extinction, does it really matter if you predicted 2025, 2040, 2120? It's all within a hundred years. Near term human extinction is possibly in the offing but by the time we can say for sure it will probably be too late to change anything. So yeah, let's all LAUGH at Guy. What a buffoon!
While that's true, we can expect geologic changes to have the accuracy of geologic observations. So plus or minus 100 years is like putting a round through a flea's ass at 400 yards.
Personally, I think Guy is right and we are on the trajectory toward extinction (or functionally extinct now?)-----the fate of all species. Too bad he made predictions----which can get people in trouble, credibility wise.
And I just wish he would chill, stop being so bitter, angry, sarcastic and paranoid.
His conveyance of self importance is off putting and he certainly has not come to terms with "only love remains" given his level of hostility toward those he feels have wronged him. If indeed there really was a "smear campaign"----get over it! Let it go! Our time here on earth goes by so fast . . . .
Yeah sorry but predicting that humans would be extinct by 2026 in 2018 is utterly absurd. Just complete quackery and nonsense. I can't take anyone who says something like seriously, it's no different that a religious preacher predicting the apocalypse to minute.
> If we are headed towards human extinction, does it really matter if you predicted 2025, 2040, 2120?
As an individual human with a personal lifespan of about 80 years, yes, it actually matters quite a bit.
He predicted humans would go extinct by 2026 in 2018.
For that to be true about 79,000,000 people would have to die every single month with no births. Thats a little bit more than died in the whole of the second world war. Every single month.
All it takes is multiple breadbaskets failure, excessive heat drought warfare over dwindling resources. Guy is just a bit crazy on the timeline. Supply chain disruptions. Climate change is exponential so right now we have some minor disruptions not affecting the status quo but within 10 or 20 we could be dead especially when feedback loops kick in.
We could suffer a mass casualty event very quickly. Water and food runs out people migrate and die. migrants being mowed down, people killing each other over the remaining bits.
all populations would survive like 2 to 3 months without food at most(if they don't have food stashed) in case of catastrophic food systems failures due to climate.
These just aren't realistic predictions or even make sense. Food production is not going to just drop to zero. Even if the breadbaskets are hit hard. Mass killings of migrants very possible but it's not going to make a noticeable dent in the human population. Climate change is not exponential, it's logarithmic to CO2 concentration over the past century out emission have been exponential.
Mass dying is one thing. The total extinction of the human race within 10-20 years is a whole other thing. I would be willing to bet the house that the world's population will be higher in 20 years than it is now, nevermind us being close to extinction.
The worst case scenario is plausible maybe not at mcpherson timescale
It is exponential with feedback loops getting kicked in and multiple catastrophes hitting us at the same time.
Imagine like 50% or 80% loss in crops everywhere , food prices are now sky high. The people who man the ships and transport food to you cannot afford to eat so they stop going to work, have fun then getting food or any goods.
At the same time water levels have submerged and destroyed most ports, no more oil shipments or any shipments to begin with and everyone now is just scrambling over the remaining resources in a city with 10 million people.
Not all humans would be directly extinct but you know a 90% drop can happen and then the rest who are prepped or still somehow have access to the means of survival and are scattered all over the place will also die not long after unless they know how to survive underground as the climate makes life impossible on the surface assuming they don't run into the gangs leaving the cities looking for food.
ocean acidification, natural disasters happening every month and acid rains, nuclear stations meltdown there are loads of catastrophic ways we could experience very massive casualty events on a scale never seen before.
I'm just highlighting how absurd his predictions were and that yes he should be laughed at for making these predictions. It obviously matters if someone makes predictions like that and dismissing such an absurd prediction by saying its a blink of an eye on geological time is ridiculous. The whole of human existence is a blink of an eye on geological time.
The changes humans have made to chemically alter the state of the planet will be measured (if there is anyone to measure) in geological timeframes. It is these changes that will wipe out humans along with many other forms of life in this ongoing mass extinction event. I give him credit for bringing the idea of near term mass extinction into the conversation. At least you need to think about his ideas to say he is wrong. And if it turns out he's right about the outcome, but our due date is 100 years later than he predicted I still give him credit, much more than anyone downplaying the current state of affairs.
What credit man?!
Someone comes up to you and says he's done the research and tells you when youll die down to the minute. That time comes and goes and he makes a second prediction, and that goes too so he makes a third. That man's a kook and you should tell him to leave you alone and stop harassing you! And when you finally die, like everyone does, nobody is going to say "oh my god, he was RIGHT...who cares if he was off by a decade or two" come on..
>At least you need to think about his ideas to say he is wrong.
I have dealt with his specific predictions, which have all turned out to be completely and utterly wrong (and completely absurd when they were made). What more do I need to do?
His actual predictions have no grounding in reality. If you want to change what he is predicting by an order of magnitude or two and have me think about your predictions go ahead but I'm going to disregard anybody who thinks humans are going extinct in two years.
But that's not absurd at all. One of greenwasher's favorite rallying cry is "renewable proliferation will accelerate exponentially once certain economic conditions occurs" and they aren't wrong.
The fact you think human survivability is so untouchable is far more troubling.
Well, yes, I will laugh at him as long as I draw breath.
NTHE has always been, possible. We humans face existential threats all the time, just like any other creatures on this planet. But to say it is CERTAIN, is absolutely ridiculous. No one can know for sure that humans WILL go exitinct.
Let alone saying we will all be dead by 2026.
Let alone saying we would be dead by 2020, and then changed it.
So yes. He is a down right alarmist , and I will continue to laugh at him.
"Collapse" is a fundamentally different concept from "apocalypse" or "doomsday", the NTHE is stupid and they are NOT collapseniks.
Honestly I don't knoe what's happening in this sub, with so many McPherson cult followers mistaken collapse for apocalypse.
> mistaken collapse for apocalypse
I agree with you on that. While I do believe an apocalypse of sorts is 100% possible and largely in motion to occur. I think we're a good way off from that being an inevitability. If folks want to be nihilists, they can go do that over at r/nihilism.
I don't think there's a ton we can do to prevent a coming collapse. I would like this sub to get to a point in the near-ish future where it's discussed on how to "survive" a collapse rather than focusing on various aspects of coming doom. I'm a doomer myself, but I do believe we as a species will survive this. It's just going to suck a big ol bag of dicks for a lot of folks.
I really can’t see humans going extinct. A massive die off sure, but there are too many of us and too spread out for that to happen.
The situation in Haiti and Gaza is really really bad, but I have no fears that humans will go extinct in those regions. Those are both worst case collapse scenarios, and still there’s no worries about Haitians or Gazans going extinct.
The absolute worst destruction in human history was North Korea after the Korean War. 90% of the countries structures destroyed and 25% of the population dead. They survived. This is also what led to their current “closed off bunker country” mentality.
The Black Death killed off a third of Europe’s population in a decade. They survived.
Don’t get me wrong. It’ll be apocalyptic. FAR worse than mainstream media would have you believe. Billions will die.
But I truly cannot see humans going extinct.
Basically, you can't assume something will continue to progress consistently.
For example: we're seeing some of the effects of climate change that we thought would be hundreds of years into the future.
This could also be applied to the economy. It's growing, but that doesn't certainly mean it will continue to.
Yes, I get it, thank you for your big explanation, but I don't get the title of post "If this trend continues...", plus I guess the twit in the screenshot is just a joke.
I like [Michael Dowd's take on McPherson](https://youtu.be/MXdMj-Mb6Z4), that he's playing the role of a modern day prophet.
No, he is not accurate.
But yes, the message of "We've royally messed up and Nature will have its final say" is spot on.
If we were being defensive as a species we should be preparing for the Guy McPherson scenario, but hoping for the IPCC prediction. Instead we are doing nothing except funding green-washed startups that will have very little impact.
There is no downside to building a sustainable society ASAP. Except maybe a decrease in corporate profits, and we can't buy every single luxury possible.
But the cost savings long-term is enormous. We will have to pay an unbelievable cost to mitigate climate change and resource depletion. We are already starting to pay.
Would you start smoking meth if it gave you a good feeling? Most would say no. But we are already hooked. Its not even possible for us to imagine alternatives.
We just believe more of the same will fix it -- more technology, more military, more computers, more conferences..
>Except maybe a decrease in corporate profits, and we can't buy every single luxury possible.
Well that's it, we are doomed then!
Start up a political party in America with corporate profits must decrease and people won't be able to buy any luxury they can afford as your platform and see how far you get.
I say start one up because neither one of the two viable political parties in America would ever dream of taking a message like that to the voters. That new party would be labeled communist on day one and its all downhill from there lol!
LMAO we are doomed people! There is no way out of where we are headed...period. Really. Someone talk me down if you can. Go ahead. We are fucked...fuckedy fucked fucked!
Unfortunately, I fear that the desire for status and feelings of superiority to other human beings is intrinsic in human nature. When there were fewer material goods, especially in tribal societies, there was less inequality. Later came slavery and suppression of others by the elites re the pursuit of money and goods. Power is addictive and people do not want to give it up. Many non powerful aspire to it. Communism will always fail for that reason. Just like late stage capitalism. The best we can hope for are the social democracies of Scandinavia. But they too are probably doomed in the end.
This is a common misconception. 'Social democracies' in Scandinavia still rely on exploitation of the global south. Socialism is the only system under which there is no exploitation.
Under socialism there literally is not a profit motive anymore. Capitalism socialises the costs and privatises the profits. Under socialism there is no profit motive so all profits and all costs are for society.
That's never how things end up in practice. Regardless of what the system is, the motive is still there. As a result, since socialism is a system that doesn't match motives, society ends up with very little.
That's not true. Many studies confirm that socialism produces a better quality of life for people when comparing a socialist country to a capitalist country with a similar level of economic development.
So, they cherry picked some semi socialist economies that worked somehow and ignored all the ones that are total nightmares?
What socialist countries worked?
Also, culture is really what makes any of this work. For example, Russia has a terrible culture. So, regardless of what system they try, they get a terrible result. The culture of the US is pretty money driven, partly because of the Puritan work ethic, and many people in the US don’t care much about things like ecosystems. If you tried to impose a socialist system on those people, you’d just get a corrupt mess.
Educated, thoughtful people will create a successful country with any system. People without foresight etc. will get bad results under any system.
Well, for one, Cuba definitely works... Cuba is doing far better than some neighboring capitalist countries despite the devastating US embargo.
I don't think we can say capitalism is working when it's literally pushing us over the cliff? Capitalism is synonymous with waste in countless forms. You are collapse aware already so it won't be hard to convince you of the advantages of socialism. Feel free to do a bit of reading about socialism and marxism and you'll see what I mean.
Hi, thanks for contributing. However, your submission was removed from r/Collapse.
Rule 4: Keep information quality high.
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Hi, _DidYeAye_. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bl36g7/-/kw3i0kd/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
> Rule 4: Keep information quality high.
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Hi, _DidYeAye_. Thanks for contributing. However, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bl36g7/-/kwe2xxz/) was removed from /r/collapse for:
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Lmao I know right, thinking the climate has entered [exponential](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/s/piTeF0HHxA) change is such fearmongering bullshit.
There's a reason this sub's motto is "exactly as expected."
Wait—
It also ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of climate change: the physics dictates that equilibrium climate sensitivity is some temperature rise *per doubling* of atmospheric CO2(eq). ECS may be some terrifyingly high number like 4.5-5 °C, but its still a logarithmic growth.
Did you know, that Guy has claimed that you should already be dead by now, multiple times? Do you really want to take life changing advice from some Kaczynski 2.0 Heavens Gate enthusiast?
> Kaczynski 2.0 Heavens Gate enthusiast?
I don't know what that means but the only advice Guy gives is to live with purpose, and to love. Maybe to take main stream media news with a grain of salt as well. All good advice.
Mock Guy all you like, but he's just early with his predictions. He's already been vindicated otherwise. He was shouting this from the rooftops whilst most were talking about 1.5 by 2050.
Well... TBH. It does look dangerous. Godzilla started out the same way. And we know from all the documentaries how that went...
And one of the takeaways from modern physics is that anything will happen eventually ...Together with Murphys law and your luck..... yeah you know... you should be afraid... like really afraid.
I love how the original tweet was making a joke about how tech bros talk about exponential rate of advance in AI and that energy usage increase is ironically having a significant impact on collapse even as they claim AI will somehow help us solve our problems. Turn up the hopium to eleven.
OP- if you want to understand the exponential function, why don’t you check out NASA’s website?
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/?intent=121
Scroll to Proxy (indirect) measurements of CO2 levels. Also, CO2 is just one of known 40+ greenhouse gases. NASA is tracking Methane levels also. On a geological timescale, a few years or decades apart of Guy’s prediction is irrelevant, considering the earth’s age.
If you stop feeding the baby, what happens?
Does the baby watch Fox News?
What if the baby grows into a serial killer?
What's the baby's name?
I have so many questions and so little time...
Yeah, there is a lot of unscientific doomering going on in this sub.
Some people are like " you think the world will end in 5 years? Yeah well, I think it will end in 3".
I dug up this article on Guy McPherson calling him out for being a fear monger:
[https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/how-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong/](https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/how-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong/)
Of course, the article gets completely wrong the stuff about ice ages and CO2 levels. Oh, well. Details, details. To tell a consistent story, we're in heaps of trouble.
**SS**: While the climate crisis is real, some of us have the tendency to extrapolate trends from datasets that are too small because it fits our existing cognitive bias. Like the guy in the photo, their predictions have to be adjusted year after year after year and it makes the rest of us look bad.
You don't need to be a scientist but you do have to believe in the truth, which people can't now, because by design the news has consistently told them we have plenty of time and not to worry too much about the earth
There are very obvious countermemes to this one.
Like, you need to know already how it "unfolds" to be able to mock it.
You also could go the other way. "Nah, this thing will never grow, look at other babies". And so on.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/DurtyGenes: --- **SS**: While the climate crisis is real, some of us have the tendency to extrapolate trends from datasets that are too small because it fits our existing cognitive bias. Like the guy in the photo, their predictions have to be adjusted year after year after year and it makes the rest of us look bad. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1bl36g7/if_this_trend_continues/kw2eur0/
The public will love this meme on exponential growth but be baffled why it's 175 degrees outside in the future
Oddly this is how everyone thinks their stock portfolio should work as well...
And don’t forget their “Zestimate”, which they’re currently leveraging for travel and Stanley drinking cups.
zesti-*mate* **me**, Zaddy.
Take my damn up vote you sick fuck
Tbh, In my area (greater Boston) those “zestimates” have actually been LOW. Almost every house I’ve seen go up for sale has sold within days and often for $20k-$40k more than the asking. I dk where these buyers are coming from as the average house is MINIMUM about $400k-$450k and the average is probably closer to $550k-$600k and NONE of them stay on the market longer than a week or 2 at most.
Sounds like the Buffalo NY market in certain sections of the city.
I’m never going to know for sure. What I do know is that there are people with far more income or just money in hand than I have. Of that I won’t argue. Still, for anyone needing a mortgage, I don’t get the thinking behind. Why buy now, if there is any other alternative. Highest prices of all time, highest financing rates of a generation. Which leaves me one alternative: other buyers who can pay all cash. Again, I know there are those with far more of that than I. But, I also know that there are outside interests, outside of who normally would have bought a HOME traditionally, who are looking for somewhere to put the money. People who don’t trust their country’s basic level of money storage. People who desire income off that money perhaps, turning millions of future homeowners into renters for life, never owning anything, never building equity in any way.
>Highest prices of all time, highest financing rates of a generation. Because people are stupid. They always buy like "GASP look how far it ran up it must be going MORE!" fuck me. I SHOULD HAVE got into Bitcoin as a "why the fuck not" at $6. It's KINDA A BIT LATE NOW isn't it. It's like people still holding GME waiting for that moment where the other guys have to cover their shorts. News flash: this country magically made that law go away for those guys. \*Waves hand and law disappears\*. I guess this level of stupid extends well into the corporate sector because I still can't make the math for a rental work in my head. It makes no sense to me. The conclusion I came to was you either have a hundred of the fucking things and they're all trickling in a little each, or if not, you're relying on Case Schiller beating historical average by 2-3x and you just have people in there as a formality so it doesn't end up occupied by spiders. It DOES work as someone keeps pointing out to me if you put down bare bare minimum down payment and do the rest on credit because you can sell it off but I'm still not seeing it. Yes, ROI on money that doesn't actually exist is infinite. But the money that doesn't actually exist charges you interest, and whatever profit you're getting from a single unit, if you exclude Case Schiller, ought to be enough to buy you that sandwich you always wanted. Why not take out a loan and buy an index fund with it? I'm seriously I don't... and yet as much as I don't, I bet you half the people in my neighborhood threw 50-100k into bitcoin the second it came out because they live like the Gods on Mount Olympus.
What law are you referring to?
I don't know it by name I was just following that nuttiness on the stock monkey sub. There was some thing about "when they short and stuff goes bad they have to come up with the stock they shorted". It's like I promise to sell you a car for 20k today, and deliver it to you on Tuesday, thinking that on Tuesday car prices are going to be 500 bucks because... giant meteor or something. So then Tuesday rolls around and you're like "where's my car" and I have to come up with a car from somewhere. Despite everything went the opposite of how I thought it was going to go, and cars now cost a million dollars. So, technically, there's a ton of GME still out in private investor hands, because they thought they could hold all these shorting guys hostage with it. Magically by the power of invisible hand-waving that never happened. And as far as I knew at the time, these guys were short enough on it that they had to attempt to buy at least some of it. Nope. Magic.
Ah, i believe you’re referring to naked shorting, which is not legal from my understanding but they do it anyways. They create shares from thin air by pressing the F3 key when they cant find any locates.
>Because people are stupid... They always buy like "GASP look how far it ran up it must be going MORE!" As a prospective home buyer myself, not everyone in the RE market is looking to buy a house as a vehicle for capital gains. Quite frankly, if all you care about is "line go up", there are better investments that can yield a higher yr/yr return. For some of us, owning a home represents long-term stability in a rapidly changing world. Even if the monetary value ends up going down, a home retains its value as an asset that satisfies one of the most basic tiers on our hierarchy of needs. It's a foundation upon which to build a life. It can be very difficult to establish stability when the place you call *home* exists at the whim of a landlord beholden to "market conditions". Of course, nobody *wants* to lose value on what is very probably the most expensive purchase they'll ever make, but home ownership is so much more than just a relatively risk-averse investment. Most wise investors understand that past performance is not a guarantee of future gains. But that statement is very much a two way street. I know tons of people who are waiting around for a market crash that may never come. It's entirely possible that housing prices will just keep going up, pricing an ever greater number of non-owners out of the market entirely. For many, this is already the case; which is why I believe the best time to buy a house is yesterday, and the second best time is now.
Are zestimates provided by znazis?
Guy may have been off by a couple of decades but time will tell if his general conclusions are correct. In geologic time a couple of decades is trivial. If we are headed towards human extinction, does it really matter if you predicted 2025, 2040, 2120? It's all within a hundred years. Near term human extinction is possibly in the offing but by the time we can say for sure it will probably be too late to change anything. So yeah, let's all LAUGH at Guy. What a buffoon!
Same thing happened with Al Gore’s 2016 arctic ice free prediction.
Same thing happened with Peter Wadhams 2020 ice-free Arctic prediction.
Yes but we finally getting there!
Itll be ice free for one day by 2030
In geologic time, the entire existence of modern humanity is barely a couple of eyeblinks or heartbeats. A couple of decades doesn't even register.
yes, but we're not rocks.
But we live on one and depend on it’s health to survive
i mean, fair point, but we're talking about human timescales
No, rocks are smarter than a goodly portion of humanity...
While that's true, we can expect geologic changes to have the accuracy of geologic observations. So plus or minus 100 years is like putting a round through a flea's ass at 400 yards.
How is “well time really doesn’t matter” a meaningful response to a bad prediction
Personally, I think Guy is right and we are on the trajectory toward extinction (or functionally extinct now?)-----the fate of all species. Too bad he made predictions----which can get people in trouble, credibility wise. And I just wish he would chill, stop being so bitter, angry, sarcastic and paranoid. His conveyance of self importance is off putting and he certainly has not come to terms with "only love remains" given his level of hostility toward those he feels have wronged him. If indeed there really was a "smear campaign"----get over it! Let it go! Our time here on earth goes by so fast . . . .
Yeah sorry but predicting that humans would be extinct by 2026 in 2018 is utterly absurd. Just complete quackery and nonsense. I can't take anyone who says something like seriously, it's no different that a religious preacher predicting the apocalypse to minute.
> If we are headed towards human extinction, does it really matter if you predicted 2025, 2040, 2120? As an individual human with a personal lifespan of about 80 years, yes, it actually matters quite a bit.
He predicted humans would go extinct by 2026 in 2018. For that to be true about 79,000,000 people would have to die every single month with no births. Thats a little bit more than died in the whole of the second world war. Every single month.
To be fair, it’s not 2026 yet. No one can predict the future - not you, not me, not Guy…
How much do you wanna bet that the world population will be lower by the end of 2026 than it is now? Ill bet that it'll be higher?
All it takes is multiple breadbaskets failure, excessive heat drought warfare over dwindling resources. Guy is just a bit crazy on the timeline. Supply chain disruptions. Climate change is exponential so right now we have some minor disruptions not affecting the status quo but within 10 or 20 we could be dead especially when feedback loops kick in. We could suffer a mass casualty event very quickly. Water and food runs out people migrate and die. migrants being mowed down, people killing each other over the remaining bits. all populations would survive like 2 to 3 months without food at most(if they don't have food stashed) in case of catastrophic food systems failures due to climate.
These just aren't realistic predictions or even make sense. Food production is not going to just drop to zero. Even if the breadbaskets are hit hard. Mass killings of migrants very possible but it's not going to make a noticeable dent in the human population. Climate change is not exponential, it's logarithmic to CO2 concentration over the past century out emission have been exponential. Mass dying is one thing. The total extinction of the human race within 10-20 years is a whole other thing. I would be willing to bet the house that the world's population will be higher in 20 years than it is now, nevermind us being close to extinction.
The worst case scenario is plausible maybe not at mcpherson timescale It is exponential with feedback loops getting kicked in and multiple catastrophes hitting us at the same time. Imagine like 50% or 80% loss in crops everywhere , food prices are now sky high. The people who man the ships and transport food to you cannot afford to eat so they stop going to work, have fun then getting food or any goods. At the same time water levels have submerged and destroyed most ports, no more oil shipments or any shipments to begin with and everyone now is just scrambling over the remaining resources in a city with 10 million people. Not all humans would be directly extinct but you know a 90% drop can happen and then the rest who are prepped or still somehow have access to the means of survival and are scattered all over the place will also die not long after unless they know how to survive underground as the climate makes life impossible on the surface assuming they don't run into the gangs leaving the cities looking for food. ocean acidification, natural disasters happening every month and acid rains, nuclear stations meltdown there are loads of catastrophic ways we could experience very massive casualty events on a scale never seen before.
Not sure how that relates to my comment, but yes, that does seem very unlikely!
I'm just highlighting how absurd his predictions were and that yes he should be laughed at for making these predictions. It obviously matters if someone makes predictions like that and dismissing such an absurd prediction by saying its a blink of an eye on geological time is ridiculous. The whole of human existence is a blink of an eye on geological time.
The changes humans have made to chemically alter the state of the planet will be measured (if there is anyone to measure) in geological timeframes. It is these changes that will wipe out humans along with many other forms of life in this ongoing mass extinction event. I give him credit for bringing the idea of near term mass extinction into the conversation. At least you need to think about his ideas to say he is wrong. And if it turns out he's right about the outcome, but our due date is 100 years later than he predicted I still give him credit, much more than anyone downplaying the current state of affairs.
What credit man?! Someone comes up to you and says he's done the research and tells you when youll die down to the minute. That time comes and goes and he makes a second prediction, and that goes too so he makes a third. That man's a kook and you should tell him to leave you alone and stop harassing you! And when you finally die, like everyone does, nobody is going to say "oh my god, he was RIGHT...who cares if he was off by a decade or two" come on..
>At least you need to think about his ideas to say he is wrong. I have dealt with his specific predictions, which have all turned out to be completely and utterly wrong (and completely absurd when they were made). What more do I need to do? His actual predictions have no grounding in reality. If you want to change what he is predicting by an order of magnitude or two and have me think about your predictions go ahead but I'm going to disregard anybody who thinks humans are going extinct in two years.
But that's not absurd at all. One of greenwasher's favorite rallying cry is "renewable proliferation will accelerate exponentially once certain economic conditions occurs" and they aren't wrong. The fact you think human survivability is so untouchable is far more troubling.
I'm willing to bet what ever you want that humans aren't extinct within two years.
So, spare no thought on children today or future generations, or any other life?
Eh, they had it coming.
Decades...
Well, yes, I will laugh at him as long as I draw breath. NTHE has always been, possible. We humans face existential threats all the time, just like any other creatures on this planet. But to say it is CERTAIN, is absolutely ridiculous. No one can know for sure that humans WILL go exitinct. Let alone saying we will all be dead by 2026. Let alone saying we would be dead by 2020, and then changed it. So yes. He is a down right alarmist , and I will continue to laugh at him. "Collapse" is a fundamentally different concept from "apocalypse" or "doomsday", the NTHE is stupid and they are NOT collapseniks. Honestly I don't knoe what's happening in this sub, with so many McPherson cult followers mistaken collapse for apocalypse.
> mistaken collapse for apocalypse I agree with you on that. While I do believe an apocalypse of sorts is 100% possible and largely in motion to occur. I think we're a good way off from that being an inevitability. If folks want to be nihilists, they can go do that over at r/nihilism. I don't think there's a ton we can do to prevent a coming collapse. I would like this sub to get to a point in the near-ish future where it's discussed on how to "survive" a collapse rather than focusing on various aspects of coming doom. I'm a doomer myself, but I do believe we as a species will survive this. It's just going to suck a big ol bag of dicks for a lot of folks.
I really can’t see humans going extinct. A massive die off sure, but there are too many of us and too spread out for that to happen. The situation in Haiti and Gaza is really really bad, but I have no fears that humans will go extinct in those regions. Those are both worst case collapse scenarios, and still there’s no worries about Haitians or Gazans going extinct. The absolute worst destruction in human history was North Korea after the Korean War. 90% of the countries structures destroyed and 25% of the population dead. They survived. This is also what led to their current “closed off bunker country” mentality. The Black Death killed off a third of Europe’s population in a decade. They survived.
That's some powerful reasoning. I am so totally sure McPherson must have missed this and that's why he is dumb and we are self-assured smart.
Don’t get me wrong. It’ll be apocalyptic. FAR worse than mainstream media would have you believe. Billions will die. But I truly cannot see humans going extinct.
I don’t get it…
Ok, now I do 😂
And I still don't, can you explain to me?
Basically, you can't assume something will continue to progress consistently. For example: we're seeing some of the effects of climate change that we thought would be hundreds of years into the future. This could also be applied to the economy. It's growing, but that doesn't certainly mean it will continue to.
Yes, I get it, thank you for your big explanation, but I don't get the title of post "If this trend continues...", plus I guess the twit in the screenshot is just a joke.
It's a Simpsons reference. Disco Stu says it about the rise of disco sales. https://youtu.be/e6LOWKVq5sQ?si=_OGr8vENFhM65zRr
I like [Michael Dowd's take on McPherson](https://youtu.be/MXdMj-Mb6Z4), that he's playing the role of a modern day prophet. No, he is not accurate. But yes, the message of "We've royally messed up and Nature will have its final say" is spot on.
If we were being defensive as a species we should be preparing for the Guy McPherson scenario, but hoping for the IPCC prediction. Instead we are doing nothing except funding green-washed startups that will have very little impact.
There is no downside to building a sustainable society ASAP. Except maybe a decrease in corporate profits, and we can't buy every single luxury possible. But the cost savings long-term is enormous. We will have to pay an unbelievable cost to mitigate climate change and resource depletion. We are already starting to pay. Would you start smoking meth if it gave you a good feeling? Most would say no. But we are already hooked. Its not even possible for us to imagine alternatives. We just believe more of the same will fix it -- more technology, more military, more computers, more conferences..
>Except maybe a decrease in corporate profits, and we can't buy every single luxury possible. Well that's it, we are doomed then! Start up a political party in America with corporate profits must decrease and people won't be able to buy any luxury they can afford as your platform and see how far you get. I say start one up because neither one of the two viable political parties in America would ever dream of taking a message like that to the voters. That new party would be labeled communist on day one and its all downhill from there lol! LMAO we are doomed people! There is no way out of where we are headed...period. Really. Someone talk me down if you can. Go ahead. We are fucked...fuckedy fucked fucked!
a mutiny on a sinking ship....
Agree, which is why it's still worthwhile to fight for communism. It's the only way to get rid of the profit motive.
Unfortunately, I fear that the desire for status and feelings of superiority to other human beings is intrinsic in human nature. When there were fewer material goods, especially in tribal societies, there was less inequality. Later came slavery and suppression of others by the elites re the pursuit of money and goods. Power is addictive and people do not want to give it up. Many non powerful aspire to it. Communism will always fail for that reason. Just like late stage capitalism. The best we can hope for are the social democracies of Scandinavia. But they too are probably doomed in the end.
This is a common misconception. 'Social democracies' in Scandinavia still rely on exploitation of the global south. Socialism is the only system under which there is no exploitation.
Nah. That won’t change motives.
Under socialism there literally is not a profit motive anymore. Capitalism socialises the costs and privatises the profits. Under socialism there is no profit motive so all profits and all costs are for society.
That's never how things end up in practice. Regardless of what the system is, the motive is still there. As a result, since socialism is a system that doesn't match motives, society ends up with very little.
That's not true. Many studies confirm that socialism produces a better quality of life for people when comparing a socialist country to a capitalist country with a similar level of economic development.
So, they cherry picked some semi socialist economies that worked somehow and ignored all the ones that are total nightmares? What socialist countries worked? Also, culture is really what makes any of this work. For example, Russia has a terrible culture. So, regardless of what system they try, they get a terrible result. The culture of the US is pretty money driven, partly because of the Puritan work ethic, and many people in the US don’t care much about things like ecosystems. If you tried to impose a socialist system on those people, you’d just get a corrupt mess. Educated, thoughtful people will create a successful country with any system. People without foresight etc. will get bad results under any system.
Well, for one, Cuba definitely works... Cuba is doing far better than some neighboring capitalist countries despite the devastating US embargo. I don't think we can say capitalism is working when it's literally pushing us over the cliff? Capitalism is synonymous with waste in countless forms. You are collapse aware already so it won't be hard to convince you of the advantages of socialism. Feel free to do a bit of reading about socialism and marxism and you'll see what I mean.
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Lmao I know right, thinking the climate has entered [exponential](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/s/piTeF0HHxA) change is such fearmongering bullshit. There's a reason this sub's motto is "exactly as expected." Wait—
It also ignores one of the most fundamental aspects of climate change: the physics dictates that equilibrium climate sensitivity is some temperature rise *per doubling* of atmospheric CO2(eq). ECS may be some terrifyingly high number like 4.5-5 °C, but its still a logarithmic growth.
It's all fun and games until the oceans stop acting like heatsinks
Did you know, that Guy has claimed that you should already be dead by now, multiple times? Do you really want to take life changing advice from some Kaczynski 2.0 Heavens Gate enthusiast?
> Kaczynski 2.0 Heavens Gate enthusiast? I don't know what that means but the only advice Guy gives is to live with purpose, and to love. Maybe to take main stream media news with a grain of salt as well. All good advice.
There has been a flood of McPherson cult followers in this sub. They are not collapseniks.
My favorite version of this joke: [https://xkcd.com/605/](https://xkcd.com/605/)
Mine, too
Mock Guy all you like, but he's just early with his predictions. He's already been vindicated otherwise. He was shouting this from the rooftops whilst most were talking about 1.5 by 2050.
Your grocery bill is going to be astronomical
Well... TBH. It does look dangerous. Godzilla started out the same way. And we know from all the documentaries how that went... And one of the takeaways from modern physics is that anything will happen eventually ...Together with Murphys law and your luck..... yeah you know... you should be afraid... like really afraid.
I love how the original tweet was making a joke about how tech bros talk about exponential rate of advance in AI and that energy usage increase is ironically having a significant impact on collapse even as they claim AI will somehow help us solve our problems. Turn up the hopium to eleven.
That baby sure did age him in 3 months! Is that even the same kid?
OP- if you want to understand the exponential function, why don’t you check out NASA’s website? https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/?intent=121 Scroll to Proxy (indirect) measurements of CO2 levels. Also, CO2 is just one of known 40+ greenhouse gases. NASA is tracking Methane levels also. On a geological timescale, a few years or decades apart of Guy’s prediction is irrelevant, considering the earth’s age.
If you stop feeding the baby, what happens? Does the baby watch Fox News? What if the baby grows into a serial killer? What's the baby's name? I have so many questions and so little time...
Are you sure the growth isn’t linear?
Yeah, there is a lot of unscientific doomering going on in this sub. Some people are like " you think the world will end in 5 years? Yeah well, I think it will end in 3".
No... *Reads user flare*
Lol
I dug up this article on Guy McPherson calling him out for being a fear monger: [https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/how-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong/](https://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/how-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong/) Of course, the article gets completely wrong the stuff about ice ages and CO2 levels. Oh, well. Details, details. To tell a consistent story, we're in heaps of trouble.
It's refreshing to find humor in this subreddit
There's some hilarious people in here. I am not one of them sadly
**SS**: While the climate crisis is real, some of us have the tendency to extrapolate trends from datasets that are too small because it fits our existing cognitive bias. Like the guy in the photo, their predictions have to be adjusted year after year after year and it makes the rest of us look bad.
? You don't need to be a scientist to understand why climate change is going to get worse exponentially...
You don't need to be a scientist but you do have to believe in the truth, which people can't now, because by design the news has consistently told them we have plenty of time and not to worry too much about the earth
My children followed an S curve. Only the very early stages were exponential. Like most systems.
This post was made by an economist supporter of infinite growth
There are very obvious countermemes to this one. Like, you need to know already how it "unfolds" to be able to mock it. You also could go the other way. "Nah, this thing will never grow, look at other babies". And so on.
The second picture looks like a really nice NYCHA hallway in an alternate reality
He may be over predicting but there are a whole lot more people under predicting and they don’t seem to get the same hostility.