Yes, we’ll be dead. The OP’s question was about “the future.” I’ll live to see 30 years of future, if I’m lucky. So I’m assuming ‘the future’ under discussion continues and mostly will happen after I die.
The survivors? Well, ultimately the survivors will all have grown up in that world. But there will probably be multiple generations that will live during the transition from the advanced world we’re in now to whatever sort of long-term state the human race reaches after everything settles out. It’ll suck to be them. And we’re probably talking tens of billions of people, since we’re starting with a world of eight billion.
Yes, it is something I’m concerned about that I alluded to in my OP: how a lot of folks just seem to be shrugging and deciding that nothing they do makes a difference. That’s a big reason I was inspired to ask about this.
Like, I’ve always wondered what kind of response I’d get if I asked something like the following:
“Okay, I want advice on how to advise the kids in my life, whom I care about deeply, about their futures. Their safety and happiness are my top priority. I value your opinion, so I want your honest advice on how I should guide them if they ask me about my thoughts on their future plans. I’ll take anything you tell me to heart.”
Tell those kids how wealthy they really are. Youth is the most valuable of traits and many a billionaire would exchange places with them just to be young again. Live life for the moment, value all that is good and spread such love and compassion as possible. I cannot offer much hope for the big picture, but the small one can still be amazing one day at a time.
Yeah. I would wager American democracy, and our favored place in the world, is heading downward - FAR more likely than not. Sure, there is SOME hope that the ship will right itself and the damage over the next 2-4 years will be correctable - but I sure wouldn’t place any money on that.
It is not unreasonable to opine that Americans really didn’t deserve our elevated standard of living. And we didn’t care to do what little it would take to keep that up. We certainly weren’t willing to make any sacrifices to further fairness internally. We just hoped some deus ex machina would keep us on top of the heap forever.
So even with global warming, as long as the US doesn’t go down in a nuclear inferno, I’m not sure the decline of our political system and privileged standard of living will matter to the billions of people living less privileged lives.
As far as global warming is concerned. Sure, it will suck to live in Micronesia or in some areas that will become uninhabitable. But most of the world will just struggle along with crappier conditions than we have been enjoying. Who knows how far things will devolve. Pick your dystopian portrait. I dunno that we will be wearing still suits and gas masks, living in armed fortresses. But I imagine it will be much more unpleasant in so many respects.
And that is just so depressing and unfortunate. Because it didn’t have to be. But I’m 64, and will be dead before the worst occurs. Damned impressive how quickly we trashed the joint, tho, isn’t it? How many billion years of life on earth, a few million years of hominids, maybe 100k years of modern humans, maybe 15k years of civilization beyond hunting/gathering, and in 200 years, we OD on fossil fuels and cause damage that will last for millennia.
So in terms of US democracy and climate - no, I pretty much have no hope. But I’m relatively healthy, financially secure - heck, might as well say privileged. I have some close friends and family, a couple of interests, and have every reason to hope for a relatively comfortable and enjoyable personal life. Much of how I live my life is within my control. For me to give up hope that that can be enjoyable, would pretty much mean I had no reason to go on living.
So I voted no.
The only thing I would adise them is to live their lives as best they can. Try to be what they consider to be “good people.” Do not take any future for granted. And do not stay silent when confronted with ugliness.
It isn’t much, but it is the best I’ve been able to come up with.
I answered “no”, but I wish there were more options.
Go back 20 years and I was very optimistic. I felt that some kind of technological singularity was on the horizon – whether I’d live to see it or not, it was inevitable. And in the meantime, any problems that faced mankind we could solve; we went from the first flight to landing on the moon in a human lifetime FFS.
Instead, I’m living through an anti-enlightenment. Technology has ironically allowed prejudice, ignorance and superstition to become supercharged. Not only do people dispute that the world is warming – despite year after year of record-breaking temperatures – but now they doubt the germ theory of disease or whether the frickin world is round. Stupidity on all levels. It’s all so depressing, day after day, and I’m not sure if I should even be rooting for this current civilization.
I’m thinking “giving up hope for the future” in terms of listening to my dumb-ass inlaws prattle on about something they half-remembered on Fox News or Facebook friends bickering like it’s 2017 for the next four years.
Maybe the apocalypse will happen, but the problem with living like the end of the world is going to happen tomorrow is that you’re kind of fucked if it doesn’t.
So if I “had no hope” for “US democracy and climate,” would that involve advising serious efforts to emigrate? Advising them to not have children? Would college actually help or hurt in the future fascist state? There’s a lot of room there that I’ve asked about before, but people just seem to ignore.
So… what drives someone to lurk in a forum for 7 long years, reading maybe two or three posts a year, only to suddenly reemerge with a long rant about the genitals of other people’s kids?
It’s such an odd topic to suddenly feel passionate about.
And the transphobic post above is what (amongst other issues) has driven me to despair about the future. I’m not American, but the Trump-virus spreads its tentacles far beyond your borders, and I fear that the extreme RW agenda is no longer contained.
That, and I’m getting older and experiencing more medical issues than I care to deal with. I’m not confident that I shall live as long as my parents, partly due to genetics, partly poor lifestyle choices, but whatever. I hope that I am burning in the crematorium before the worst of the New World Order comes to be.
I despair for my kids and grandchildren, especially the kid who is trans. I despair for their economic futures, their right to choose their own partners, their right to exist!
A pox on the marauders raping and pillaging this planet. Fuck you all.
I answered “Yes” because of the instruction “It means what you think it means. Go with your heart.” I feel more hopelessness than I remember feeling at any other time.
Some qualification is needed: my life is pleasant and I spend a lot of time doing things that are fun and interesting, often with friends I love. I’m secure, retired, and pretty healthy. I live in the United States and am free to leave or to move to any other country that will have me.
That said, this doesn’t feel like my country anymore. It’s never felt so hateful and ugly before (though this is partly because I happen to belong to no significantly oppressed demographic groups and only got impressed with how dominant my unawareness was a dozen years ago or so). I keep wishing I lived somewhere else, yet also see the rest of the world tending in a similar direction. I’ve always voted Democratic in every election, and donated hundreds of dollars (though I think elections involve too much money already and feel foolish battling billionaires with my pathetic stake). I will continue voting and, probably, donating.
What has changed in my life plans is withdrawing into my personal world. I think visibly standing up for what I feel is right is more likely to get me physically hurt than it is to make a difference. I spent the last decade of my professional life very visibly involved in civil rights, especially for LGBTQ+ interests and racial and gender interests, and I felt confident enough to be so visible. I’ve lost that confidence. When I’m in some safe environment I speak out, but not so much in public anymore. There are Trump flags and signs throughout my county and I feel vulnerable.
You know why AI won’t help? Because it runs on electricity. Which runs on fossil fuels. Which depends on a huge global network of wells, mines, refineries, and extremely elaborate delivery systems that require constant highly-skilled maintenance. If you imagine that this system will persevere through calamitous social and ecological collapse, you dream. It’s the very first thing that goes out. Computer networks may linger a bit longer, but not much.
I had the opportunity to experience the inauguration with my wife’s conservative family out near the PA/NJ border. It’s only 90 minutes from Manhattan, but feels like a completely different world.
The thing is, they (at least my wife’s family) ARE ignorant. They aren’t particularly well educated. I can maybe count on two, possibly one hand the number of times any of them have travelled more than an hour from home for something other than a family event. The town itself is resistant to any sort of change or development or new business going in. In fact, anything outside of what they are familiar with seems almost pathologically terrifying.
I occasionally meet other people around town and a lot of them are similar.
By most accounts, I’m a pretty bright guy. So I don’t really get them. It’s hard to actually discuss their political views with them because they can’t put coherent, logical thoughts together. Nor do they care to. It’s kind of like conversing with a small child or a golden retriever. They have very simple, specific views of the world and how people should be in it.
It’s not just dumb yokels though. I know plenty of well educated tech/finance bro types who support Trump. That is perhaps a bit more understandable to me. They make a little bit of money so they have the means and now someone is telling them they are justified in acting like selfish jerks. Maybe they feel attacked because everyone else resents/envies their position and they’re still borderline “incels” because they don’t make THAT much money by NYC or San Francisco standards (or they’re still charmless trolls).
I guess that’s maybe what frustrates me. What feels to me like a glorification of the worst aspects of humanity. Trump is just a symptom of this. But there are other symptoms as well, like “ghosting”. Whether it’s for a date or a job interviewing, ghosting is just another way of saying “I’ve decided you can’t do anything for me so there is no longer a benefit to interacting with you.” Or the whole “creator economy” for that matter. Like how is there an entire economy around posting mindless drivel on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc?
So that’s my hope for the future. A world full of mindless, socially retarded idiots endlessly entertained by each other’s stupidity. At least until the power goes out and half of them starve without access to GrubHub.
My mom and I moved out of central Illinois when I was 15. To Denver. I went on to college and the beginning of a very lucrative computer career. My horizons where widened like I never thought possible.
I had a break (layoff from a company) a decided to make a quick trip to see my dad. ~1990. The family owned a mobile home park. 230 lots. All of the accounts receivables and payables where on index cards in a little box.
I convinced my dad to update, bought a computer and proceeded to write code (dBase at the time), to manage all this, send out statements to renters and all that crap. I was NOT an accountant type of guy. But it sure beat index cards.
Oh, what I’m getting at is the highlight of the day. Dad would go to the local coffee shop and drink coffee and smoke cigars with farmers, for hours. The entire atmosphere (besides smoke) was “if it was good enough for my gran-papy and papy, it’s good enough for me.”
Thank you mom for getting me the hell away from there.
Sure, that’s generally true, and sure, we could argue about the feasibility of keeping an isolated cluster alive in some rogue nation running on nukes/solar/geothermal/whatever… but that’s not really the point. I didn’t mean to derail us with a whole thing about the Borg. That was just one possible outcome.
My main point (my own fault for not being clearer about this) was just that people (humans, more specifically) don’t have to be the end-all-be-all of life and evolution.
It’s not blind faith in AI that gives me hope, but rather, the hope that life itself will continue to evolve and thrive in some form, with or without us. It may be AI, it may be a fungus, it may be some annoying alien, it may be some combination of all of the above or something I can’t even begin to understand. I mean, I still don’t even really understand whatever the hell RNA is. Or siphonophores, for that matter.
I just don’t think a monocrop of stressed homo sapiens is particularly good for this planet or any other habitat. There is so, so much more to life, intelligence, and adaptability than humanity as we know it today, especially the post-industrial 9-5 working-dead kind.
I agree with you that it is unlikely that humans will kill off every single species including themselves. As long as there’s algae, something will be born. And that is reason for hope for the future. Just not ours.
I voted no; however, I’m deeply worried. My husband is brown and naturalized only during the Obama era. I think constantly about how he could be taken away from me, even though he naturalized 100% legally.
Even more than that, I think about this guy we met during my husband’s naturalization ceremony. During the oath-swearing, there was a man, a Ukrainian refugee, who broke down and cried when he swore to protect the country as a citizen. He said, “I have never had a country call me theirs and today I am so proud to call the United States mine.” He hugged the judge so tightly and was so very, very happy. That scene never, ever left me and I constantly wonder if that man feels as betrayed as my husband does. I wonder if, like us, he’s afraid that his family can be torn away on a whim under this current administration, despite the fact that every person in that room naturalized legally. And I think of my grandfather, whose family naturalized from Poland, who felt such disgust and sorrow over the friends and family they lost due to the Holocaust and I’m relieved he didn’t have to live to see this.
But I’ve got hope - if it is allowed to do so, the pendulum swings the other way. But only if allowed to do so.
