Do you feel sad for people born today?
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Yup, the fossil fuel foundation that enabled us to reach 10 billion is going away. Sunshine and puppies won't sustain 10 billion eaters.
The carrying capacity of a renewable energy system is not the same as a system that uses massive amounts of surplus energy coming from the ground.
It's lower. Far far lower. And getting there will be ugly, and your time frame is correct IMO.
Renewable energy production is increasing exponentially.
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But the point is it is not about the situation today, it is about the situation in 20 years, heck just 10 years, of which these people will live into and experience very soon.
but society at large is getting better at the world scale over the long term.
That used to be true, it is no longer true. And it is not a natural law that this will happen, it is just something a lot of people who have lived in the golden period of the 1950s to early 2000s inferred, without actually considering a larger swath of history than that.
Year of the Linux desktop will be worth it
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Abortions should be legal at any term
I have a few politicians I would like to nominate
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
If you were born 20 years earlier you'd get to destroy the planet and die before there was any consequences?
The kids will be fine, they are smarter and more capable than those that came before them, every time. The real problem is people living so long they aren't making room for the young people. Think turnover at a restaurant, and all the diners finished eating and paid but won't leave.
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how good it was when they were young
Sorry did I miss a decade? My youth consisted of hanging chads -> 9/11 -> The War on Oil -> 2008 financial crisis -> the death of Hope via congressional fuckery -> Trump. When were things good...? I had hope for universal healthcare with Obama and hope for Bernie before Trump 1.0 but now I'm not sure what to look forward to. That said; can't stop won't stop.
I honestly and truly hope you and yours remain healthy and happy. I don't begrudge you that or wish you ill. But I haven't seen good times and at this point don't really expect to.
Yeah I was 14 for 9/11, for frame of reference. I'm somehow able to look back at the last 25 years or so and glean some positivity from it, because I'm unwilling to burden myself with global problems. And that doesn't mean they're not issues I'm interested in and care about, but I try to comparmentalize my life. I don't bring work home and I sure as shit don't bring politics to bed with me. I spend time with my friends, and now I have a family of my own, and we make memories, and we create glour own good times.
I just feel like it's useless to base my life on these big problems. I am not 9/11, though I live in Jersey and know many who were affected. I'm not the wars in Iraq, though I served and know people who came home unwhole or not at all. Even though shit is bleak, I'm not going to allow it soil my life, because then I become bleak, and then what's the point.
So yeah, I can't stop trying to positivity in my life, and I won't stop, because then I'm fucked.
And so I've said it many times here and on Reddit, that my fights are local. In my town, and county, and State (not that big) are the things that I can personally get involved in and see the fruits of my labor.
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Renewable energy production is increasing exponentially.
Electrical, yes. Oil is a feedstock for pretty much anything you can see in your house.
Please fertilize modern agri-business with electricity.
I'll wait.
In the meantime, try the trick of flying across the Atlantic in 6 hours with batteries.
No doubt we'll have electricity for as long as we can, but... the underlying civilization that uses it will not look a thing like what we have now.
Do you not already see housing supply issues, inflation, war everywhere?
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
I mean, I made a conscious decision not to have children, so...
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
I think the next generation is going to start feeling it hard. Current generation will slip by but barely. I'm not pressuring my kids to have their own. Just do you fam.
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Oh, only climate change. Well that's alright then. /s
Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.
and the world will keep on turning and progressing.
The world will keep on turning, but there is absolutely no factual basis for claiming it will keep on progressing. If anything that is one thing we can learn from history.
Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.
Cite the numbers that make you pessimistic.
If you don't have numbers, then keep your crystal astrology bad vibes to yourself until you have something to back them.
I'm fucking sick of leftists acting like being moody and pessimistic is a valid political stan stance that does anything.
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Why? They stand to inherit from up to 4 grandparents and there is a lot less competition for it these days.
Actually they'll inherit from tens of grandparents. You don't inherit your grandparent, except if your own parent has already died.
Typically, you inherit from your grandparents by your parents having.inherited from them and you later inheriting from your parents.
That is not a new phenomenon.
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Electrical, yes. Oil is a feedstock for pretty much anything you can see in your house.
Please fertilize modern agri-business with electricity.
I'll wait.
In the meantime, try the trick of flying across the Atlantic in 6 hours with batteries.
No doubt we'll have electricity for as long as we can, but... the underlying civilization that uses it will not look a thing like what we have now.
Do you not already see housing supply issues, inflation, war everywhere?
War everywhere? See WW1 and WW2. Although there is certainly a risk with a large war across Europe it isn't guaranteed and generally seems like most don't really want one.
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
My children are still very young, but oh are they happy!
They are enjoying their life and no future suffering will ever take that away from them.
I wouldn't want to deny those awesome humans their right to play as merrily as they do. To create, to enjoy life. They exist right now as well, in 2025 and 2026.
The end of life is always painful. Life is still worth it.
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Climate change is going to influence everything in our society for the worse: politics, economics, living standards, everything, including the amount of resources available to use for research.
Cite the numbers that make you pessimistic.
If you don't have numbers, then keep your crystal astrology bad vibes to yourself until you have something to back them.
I'm fucking sick of leftists acting like being moody and pessimistic is a valid political stan stance that does anything.
What kind of numbers are you going after?
I mean, probably you want numbers to prove that climate change is changing politics and economics, etc. for the worse, or maybe just numbers for proving that climate change is real.
But both of these seem like such trivial information that I'm probably just guessing wrong. But because of that, I'd be curious to know: what kind of numbers did you mean?
I can probably help digging up some for you, but not if you just meant "prove that climate change exists". But, numbers proving that economy will suffer from climate change should be easy to find. (And I think you could just search for them yourself...)
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
Absolutely I do. And I don’t understand what makes a person think that bringing a new life into this disaster is a good idea.
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I personally cringe when I hear a friend js having a kid. All I can think of is how bad theyre going to have it. Hell id definitely have been better off being born 20 years earlier, but these new kids are REALLY screwed unless they have super rich parents.
"Nothing new under the sun" I suppose!
Life will be harder but your kids might make it better for the others
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People are bad at estimating how long it will take to develop something, but everything I've seen indicates that we are getting closer to it being a real thing.
Though I'm skeptical about the safety, as it does sound like it could get pretty explody if the containment fields fail. Or if they fail in just one direction, I wonder if they'd shoot out a plasma jet that fucks up everything in its path.
Even the sun shoots shit at us from time to time, which our own magnetic field generally protects us from.
Not that I'm against fusion power, just not holding my breath that it's going to be all sunshine and no flares.
With a broken containment field, the reaction will simply stop. Fusion is hard because at small scales everything has to be perfect.
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How about sparing them from a life of working constantly to have job insecurity, no social safety net, and a bullet for a retirement plan? Birth is cruelty.
I think you may just need to talk to somebody this comment is out of my depth.
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Renewables have actually been making enormous progress, at least wind and photovoltaic (which is by far the cheapest source of new large scale energy production). I assume that’s why our current dear leader is going so far out of his way to stifle them as much as possible. He’s just following the Project 2025 playbook from the Heritage Foundation, which seeks to preserve the failing US hegemony that is dependent on the petrodollar as the world reserve currency.
But I think you’re right about everything else, including how great my life is right now personally. I just see us on the precipice of doom, like Wile E. Coyote having not yet realized he has run off the cliff’s edge. I understand that it’s hard for a lot of people to project into the future and accept the doom. That requires both a broad understanding that most don’t possess and the nerve to look into the void.
I recently reached more peaceful acceptance about our impending climate and societal collapse after I read Cadillac Desert and realized that even without climate change our water needs are unsustainable and we’re heading for an agricultural collapse.
In the mean time I’m trying to participate in activities that I love and help my children to find activities they love. Might as well get some good times in.
Idk why you're down voted, I'm 100% with you there
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Okay and how does people having children automatically force them into wage slavery? Its not a forgone conclusion by any means. Your kid could be the kid who picks up the pieces of capitalism and forges it into an equitable society. We just don't know. So why give in? Why give up on these children before they've truly had their chance? As I said in another comment, you might not have them but children will continue to be born regardless. Might as well foster some hope and kindness. Like Gandalf said, do the little things that keep the darkness at bay.
wrote last edited by [email protected]So are you implying that you'd only have kids if you could ensure they'd be bourgeoisie, exploiting others for their own benefits?
I think the society fixing angle is naive. I sure wasn't that kid, I don't know anyone else who is, and now there's some kids who seem to be doing the opposite.
"Kindness" is weapons grade copium. Think of it instead like your average CFD bet or any other financial investment - first the fundamentals must be sound, then you invest, not the other way around - you wouldn't invest in a failing business just in case it could turn around, unless you're private equity and have other private equity firms lining up for your sucker special suite of bang-em-and-bin-em retirement home joints.
I've never seen hobbit/lord of rings and I don't watch or care for fantasy. You don't keep darkness at bay - you stare right into the void and grab it by the balls, then you invest.
::: spoiler .
/s
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Housing prices? That's your argument? That's your bleak outlook? Dude, up until relatively recently you couldn't have a baby without it dying or dying yourself. Common cold? Deceased. There are people alive today who are being murdered because their existence maddens someone and your argument is that your housing costs have gone up.
Get some perspective. Your life isn't that bad.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Housing prices are everything. We all die. Now or in 50 years barely makes a difference in the grand scheme of things. But imagine dying and your family can't even grieve because your dead carcass fell behind on rent and was tossed out in the trash by your slumlord to get in an Indian family of 6 for twice the rent in your tiny attic. That's life.
I am trans and people have threatened to murder me for my existence before I started passing. In both my country of origin and my current country of residence there's a concentrated institutional effort to effectively extinct people like me from public existence by various forms of lawfare and propagandistic fearmongering.
Don't get me wrong, the rightoids will come for me, and after that, they will come for you, too, that's just conservatism for ya, but when they do come, I'd rather meet them in my owned house, filled with guns and ammo, and maybe a nice pet dog by my side that I'd look after and let escape before shit hits the fan, rather than a rented flat I can't even hang a poster up in without incurring some fine or fee.
And if they don't come, a house is an asset, the asset, the only productive one in reach now that businesses aren't viable anymore thanks to landlord and digital feudal lord wealth extraction - it's retirement and it's everything, pensions wont be a thing by when I retire, and trust me being a minority with money is much better than being a minority without.
