I’ve been in a weird mood when it comes to the Big Issues. I’m not exactly despairing or anything, but I am angry, and I’m not sure who I’m angry at, for what, or why, and the title (which, again, is deliberately provocative) is actually relevant in that it expresses part of the source of my anger. This. Is something I’ve alluded to before, but I’ve decided to go all-in,
So, okay. I know that America is inevitably going to collapse into a theocratic, dictatorial fascist state. And I know that shortly after, climate change will kill humanity. And there’s nothing anyone who cares can do about either of these things. So now I’m wondering what is still worthwhile about living. What’s the point of planning for the future? Shouldn’t I be spending my life savings on stupid shit that’ll make me happy now? Hell, maybe I should use it to massive contribute to the Republican Party, so I will be protected when the Gestapo comes marching in. Praise Jesus!
Then there are the young folk in my life. I guess I should be telling them not to have any plans or dreams for the future, because they’ll never get there anyway. (This is the basis for the, again, deliberately provocative subject line.) Maybe we should be sterilizing them, just to make sure no one else is born to suffer in this hellscape. (I’ve never, and still don’t, believe in antinatalism, but I at least see why it exists.)
Maybe I’m frustrated. Am I frustrated at the state of the world? At those who have given up, because I think truly giving up and making major life decisions based on it is the only rational response to that? At my own sense of powerlessness? At the world the young folks are going to have to face because of us/“them”? Maybe all of the above? But this is a rant, so I’m posting it anyway, to get off my chest.
And I’m not smothering anyone, just in case it needs repeating.
I take some comfort in the fact that I am unlikely to live to see either the end of American democracy or catastrophic, humanity-ending climate change, though it might be uncomfortably close on at least one of those.
See, that’s my entire point: if you (a general “you,” not you in particular) do think that way, what is the rational reaction? To me, it would be as I described above. Or else just go hermit and don’t do anything of significance until whatever The End is. I’m trying not to judge, but like I said, it’s frustrating to me for various reasons, and emotions aren’t rational. And hell, I’m not a saint; I’m as selfish as anyone.
Unless you’re prepared to step off a bridge, which I am not suggesting anyone do, you just gotta live your life. Try not to make things worse, do what you can when you can to help. It’s all you could ever do.
I know it can seem overwhelming, and it is, but just remind yourself, it’s not all on you.
Yes, and part of it is having an effect on others’ lives. Is telling my nieces to get their tubes tied and my nephews to get snipped because I don’t think their kids will have a good life a rational action or is it “making things worse”?
Do we really want our ideal status quo, where N America and Western Europe (coincidentally our place) calls the shots while millions of Asians make our stuff and Middle-easterners, S Americans and Africans STFU, and the lucky-sperm club of middle class and above enjoy more and better consumer culture/neoliberal capitalism will I get a warning for the analogy “as blissfully stupid as a Disney Princess’s orgasm?”
We need things to change, but hope to Hell not as violently as it tends to happen.
Sure, but if I had kids, and did believe this way, why would it not be a rational thing to do to raise them with that in mind? What else would I do? “Lie” that they could have a good life? Stand back and watch them pump out grandkids I know will become handmaidens or swelter to death under an unstoppable sun?
Yeah, I’ve given up on humanity. People are fucking stupid. And while it may be politics that has mostly soured me on humanity, it’s not just politics. I mean seriously, I stumbled across this video the other day which only confirms my belief people are fucking stupid.
I’ve been expecting, on some level, that Civilization As We Know It is about to come crashing to an end since approximately 1970.
It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought.
Which is not to say that it may not do so. It might. But it might not. And insisting that it certainly will is, IMO, one of the ways to increase the likelihood of bringing it about.
That is, CAWKI is bound to end, eventually. (Some chunks of what WeKnew in 1970 already have.) But it may not end with the kind of crash that destroys everybody. It may instead turn into something else, and the something else may not be a disaster.
The whole mess is too big for any specific person to fix, yes. But there are actually a shitload of people working on trying to fix it. Pick a corner; pretty much any corner that suits you. Work on that corner. We are in the middle of this mess, and there’s no way to tell from in the middle of it whether there’s a way out or what the way out is; or whether we’ll find it in time. But the chances are better if there are a lot of people working on a lot of corners.
Should your corner be telling your nieces and nephews not to have kids? I kind of doubt it. While it’s true that for some people having kids increases the tendency to try to benefit them at the expense of everybody else, it’s also true that other people will do their damndest to increase the chances that their kids will have a world fit to grow up in. And I’m pretty certain that telling them ‘we’re all doomed’ without tacking an ‘unless’ onto the end of it won’t help. If they become convinced that we’re all doomed anyway, where’s the incentive for them to try to reduce damage?
"Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight - brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal." Rust Cohle, True Detective.
As depressing as it is to think about what the next generation(s) will have to face, I think that has probably been the default for most people, in most places in the world, for most of history. Maybe it is overly optimistic, but I think people will eventually come up with solutions, just like we always have. To me, the real question will be how much misery will there be until we get there.
Really? I don’t know either of these things. Both the American political situation and the climate situation are bad, but I don’t see any reason to believe that they’re that bad.
Not so long ago it was normal for people to live in perfect bliss munching bugs & berries and the occasional carcass–maybe even cooked, but not necessarily. Electricity existed primarily in the sky, running water had fish in it, etc. Everything we have right now is more comfortable than all that, but there is plenty of debate to be had about whether it is better. So unless we manage to turn the planet into Venus, I expect the furthest humanity will “fall” is to a state of beast-in-harmony-with-its-environment. Nobody will know their place, because everyone will simply exist in it.
All the freedom from religion we experience is precisely because the freedom was absent for our ancestors. Similarly with our individual political freedoms. Point is, stuff’s gotta suck for an awful lot of people before those who remain will agree to fix it. It’s just cycles. Smothering the kids in their sleep eliminates them from the mass of those who must suffer the abominable conditions humanity eventually rises from. If it falls to them to suffer, then they will suffer. So what?
People are weirdly pessimistic about climate change. Yes, it’s definitely going to happen, and yes, it will cause death and devastation. But it’s not going to “kill humanity”.
Even the worst-case scenarios for anyone alive today are that the costs due to climate change will be something like 10% of GDP. You have to go all the way back to the hellscape that was 2016 to experience living in a world as impoverished as we’d be in with 10% less GDP.
The question I would ask is rather why don’t we kill the people responsible for the mess we’re in. Not your non existing kids, they are not to blame. I’m talking about the assholes.
I guess one reason is that we know that we could not get away with it. The assholes win.
Or perhaps we are the assholes too. Should we then not commit suicide?
Sadly, a lot of men do. First they kill their family, pets included, then they kill themselves. Not a happy thought.
And I don’t have kids either.
This. The consequences of climate change will be unequally distributed across humanity. It will really fuck things up for a lot of people, but it will not kill humanity by any stretch of the imagination. We as a species are hardy motherfuckers by virtue of fucking huge brains, opposable thumbs and bipedal perambulation, and we are demonstrably capable of eking out a living in any climate, whether it’s desert or arctic ice cap. The future will have more of the former, and a lot of our existing geopolitical arrangements will be stressed, damaged, or broken - but the species will grind on until a planet-killing meteor arrives or the sun dies and takes us with it.
I have less faith in the endurance of American democracy. In the 30+ years of my adult life I’ve watched the animosity between political factions grow and grow. More and more people seem to be espousing extremist ideals, and the internet gives them the ability to organize. Compromise is hard to come by these days in the halls of power, and the ranks of people who want to override the rule of law seem to be growing day by day. I worry about what will happen if (when) they succeed.
Even assuming good health I probably don’t have more than 40 years left on this planet. I hope things don’t completely go to shit before then. Until I’m done, I’ll continue to try to speak and listen with reason.
