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Ive been reading the reddit subreddit called collapse. There they talk about how our civilization is unsustainable and consumes too many resources and destroys the environment. It's only a matter of time before something gives and our civilization collapses, unable to support itself. Solar energy wont save us, recycling wont save us, fanciful sci-fi technology wont save us, we are doomed. Is this true? we are definitely running out of rare earth metals, oil, coal, other fossil fuels, and fresh water.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:44
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Blue Star posted:Ive been reading the reddit there's your problem op
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Apr 4, 2017 02:45
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drat, i thought this was gonna be about my favorite fetish but to answer your q op, yes capitalism is unstable and will collapse. thats not a prophecy, thats science
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Apr 4, 2017 02:47
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Blue Star posted:Ive been reading the reddit subreddit called collapse. There they talk about how our civilization is unsustainable and consumes too many resources and destroys the environment. It's only a matter of time before something gives and our civilization collapses, unable to support itself. Solar energy wont save us, recycling wont save us, fanciful sci-fi technology wont save us, we are doomed. Is this true? we are definitely running out of rare earth metals, oil, coal, other fossil fuels, and fresh water. All true. Best to preach this truth on your nearest busy street corner. I recommend a couple stacked milk crates and a megaphone to really get your message out. Wear a placard too, it helps. If you're a dude then grow out a large beard so people know you have the authority of a prophet. If you're a lady then grow your hair really long and let it get wild and tangled like the wise women of old.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:50
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Lol yeah we are thank god...gently caress mankind forever
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Apr 4, 2017 02:50
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From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable?
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Apr 4, 2017 02:55
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poo poo is hosed. Just count yourself lucky that you'll be insulated from the worst of it (initially anyway) by living in a first world country. Hurry up and get rich and you may even survive.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:56
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Blue Star posted:From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable? Read the climate change thread for your daily dose of depression: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3750508
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Apr 4, 2017 02:58
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People have been saying shits hosed for as long as we've had words to say shits hosed.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:00
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posts are a finite resource. we're running out of posts. do your part to conserve, OP
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Apr 4, 2017 03:00
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Blue Star posted:From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable? The quality of your monocle is not up to our usual standards.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:01
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in all seriousness - yes we are running low. there are only two mineral fields left, and literally every vespene gyser on the map is depleted. poo poo is hosed just try to make sure you keep enough mineral on hand to rebuild ur command center. thats all u can do
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Apr 4, 2017 03:09
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I'd say there's a fair amount of evidence that the industrialized word is going to surpass the environments carrying capacity pretty soon. Combine that with increased polarity between political parties, rampant automatization, and the host of environmental issues that we are causing in addition to climate change and you have a recipie for disaster on a pretty large scale. It might not end the human race, but there's no way in hell people 100 years from now will be living as comfortably as we are today. Future generations are going to witness some real food security issues and a massive internal refugee crisis at the very least. RobotDogPolice fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 03:34
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Like every generation before you you are born in the last generation so you don't have to worry about the world continuing after you are gone.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:38
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Yeah. On the flip side we'll figure prominently in future tales and parables of our extravagant wealth and our ironic, inevitable downfall. Like, Atlantis * 911. If we're lucky that's the part they'll remember best, rather than the fact that we're totally responsible for their abject squalor and the permanent curtailment of their potential, and even knew it at the time but couldn't be bothered to give a poo poo.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:40
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Blue Star posted:From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable? D&D's primary problem is roundly recognized to be unfunny cliques lashing out from and retreating into the comfort of their mod-pet megathreads making the forum painful to read unless you really like cliques of vaguely-center-left dweebs, and it gets really obvious when people attempt to post topics more granular than "middle east war thread" or "eastern europe thread" or "climate change thread" Incidentally, because of the areas of expertise involved, the climate change thread is probably the best venue for this. Which is dumb, because resource scarcity in an economic model entirely loving predicated upon the mathematical constant of infinite growth is a different problem from anthropogenic climate change and you have no reasonable way of knowing that. But that is, generally, where you'll get the best responses to your questions/concerns. I'll let you return to getting tepidly "owned" (leased?) because you admitted to reading reddit like a normal person and not one of the cool and admirable folks who post in chat threads and their reregs.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:43
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Indeed it is D&D that is headed for collapse.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:48
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bad posting is, unfortunately, an infinitely renewable resource. which is kinda the problem, really.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:52
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I also like /r/collapse because it instills in me a sense of moral turpitude. Also I enjoy the one troll they have who is really really into the inevitability of cannibalism. That said I would place money on another Carrington Event being the main driver behind total collapse in the West.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:54
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Global Dimming is another fun one but to be honest it has a much more incremental effect and we'll probably all blow ourselves up because Trump insulted Kim Jung-Il again or something before it has any real impact.
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Apr 4, 2017 03:59
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Sure death is certain, but I'll be ok 
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Apr 4, 2017 04:07
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Willie Tomg posted:D&D's primary problem is roundly recognized to be unfunny cliques lashing out from and retreating into the comfort of their mod-pet megathreads making the forum painful to read unless you really like cliques of vaguely-center-left dweebs, and it gets really obvious when people attempt to post topics more granular than "middle east war thread" or "eastern europe thread" or "climate change thread" Okay, now correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying--and I don't want to jump the gun here or put words in your mouth--, but it sounds like you're saying that D&D posters are...dumb? Am I reading you right?
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Apr 4, 2017 04:15
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Willie Tomg posted:D&D's primary problem is roundly recognized to be unfunny cliques lashing out from and retreating into the comfort of their mod-pet megathreads making the forum painful to read unless you really like cliques of vaguely-center-left dweebs, and it gets really obvious when people attempt to post topics more granular than "middle east war thread" or "eastern europe thread" or "climate change thread" While i'd love if we posted more threads there's also not much to discuss here, as the subject of civilizational "collapse" is necessarily purely speculative and most perspectives on the subject are based more on genre fiction rather than anything real that can be debated. Films like Mad Max put this picture in our head of anarchic devastation in the aftermath of some cataclysm, but rarely is the process of getting from our highly organized and structured civilization ever explained. The requisite series of events is so implausible as to render any attempt to elaborate absurd. Institutions like the state and government exist first and foremost in the mind and as tradition, and therefore it is only when we choose to break with them that they can collapse. Real collapses look less like the Road Warrior than they do the French Revolution or end of the Soviet Union. The basic framework of most governments existed long before fossil fuels or capitalism and barring the literal extermination of their residents their future governments will probably remain relatively similar. I mean let's look at the most complete example of state failure from the recent past, the fall of the Somali Federal government in 1991. Although state institutions like the civil courts, schools and police ceased to function, the conflict can also be seen as the reassertion of authority by traditional Somali tribal society. Civil courts were replaced with Xeer and Islamic courts, order is kept with blood feuds instead of police, and the warlords relied on the ancient tribal networks to raise militias and control territory. The anarchy of Somali is highly structured and reflective of the old traditions and natural conceptions of power and governance held by Somali people. Any collapse in a place like the United States will also be so constrained, and not even famine and war should be expected to break society from established patterns.
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Apr 4, 2017 04:30
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Blue Star posted:From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable? Your OP boils down to "I saw this on a weird prepper reddit, is it true?". The sarcastic comments are because you're asking people to teach you about an issue you know nothing about while at the same time disproving a conspiracy theory you appear to have largely bought into. There are certainly significant resource issues and social issues that many large societies will have to confront, but the number of blatant conspiracy theorists posting openly on r/collapse should tell you something about the probability of outright total global social collapse. Just looking at one single thread there, I see a cold-fusion devotee, one confirmed bitcoiner and a couple more probable bitcoiners, someone who's convinced that electric bicycles will be the most important item of the post-apocalyptic world, and several people whining about how they won't be able to get their daily coffee fix in the post-collapse hellscape.
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Apr 4, 2017 04:46
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Blue Star posted:Okay, now correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're saying--and I don't want to jump the gun here or put words in your mouth--, but it sounds like you're saying that D&D posters are...dumb? Am I reading you right? There is no D&D poster. There are a few SA posters who post in as many as "a few" D&D megathreads, however. They're okay, but generally really bad at improv. Squalid posted:While i'd love if we posted more threads there's also not much to discuss here, as the subject of civilizational "collapse" is necessarily purely speculative and most perspectives on the subject are based more on genre fiction rather than anything real that can be debated. I think also "collapse" is a really lovely term which connotates a suddenness that will simply not happen on a societal scale, though it may occur on an interpersonal level. Just because The Age Of Trump has ushered in an era of $4 avocados to the detriment of my Texas restaurant doesn't mean that suddenly people won't be able to go out to eat in the state anymore, or the economics of the industry suddenly don't make sense. Just that it'll suck and will necessitate a period of navel-gazing whereupon if we're successful we realize we've been putting good avocados on mediocre food because avocados were cheap and doing a good job is hard, and if we're smart we make better food and if we're not the restaurant folds and we're a sad story in a world full of 'em and in either case life goes on. Until the next Trump Tariff. "Collapse" will be like that, on a macroeconomic scale, I think. Maybe "slump" is more evocative and accurate. Or "pachinko machine." Bouncing around and taking a while at it, making a lot of noise and light doing so, but ultimately travelling down.
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Apr 4, 2017 04:57
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Non climate-change collapse is forever out of reach; we have just enough fossil fuels to broil ourselves.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:17
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Willie Tomg posted:I think also "collapse" is a really lovely term which connotates a suddenness that will simply not happen on a societal scale, though it may occur on an interpersonal level. Just because The Age Of Trump has ushered in an era of $4 avocados to the detriment of my Texas restaurant doesn't mean that suddenly people won't be able to go out to eat in the state anymore, or the economics of the industry suddenly don't make sense. Just that it'll suck and will necessitate a period of navel-gazing whereupon if we're successful we realize we've been putting good avocados on mediocre food because avocados were cheap and doing a good job is hard, and if we're smart we make better food and if we're not the restaurant folds and we're a sad story in a world full of 'em and in either case life goes on. Until the next Trump Tariff. Collapse has a very clear definition and its definitely not "slump." Maybe a nuclear war could cause a real collapse, but even in that event I suspect a few years or decades beyond the initial disaster the lives of survivors would more closely resemble those of us today than that of our favorite characters from apocalypse literature. Nobody ever bothers to elaborate such scenarios in fiction though because its boring and doesn't accommodate violent fantasies.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:26
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No collapse, just a long slow slide into shittier environmental and economic conditions, affecting various regions differently at different speeds. Pro-tip: try not to live in Africa, India or the Middle East. Also try to be rich. That will really take the sting out of things. You can pretty much ignore the shittiness slide altogether!
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Apr 4, 2017 05:39
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Squalid posted:Collapse has a very clear definition and its definitely not "slump." Maybe a nuclear war could cause a real collapse, but even in that event I suspect a few years or decades beyond the initial disaster the lives of survivors would more closely resemble those of us today than that of our favorite characters from apocalypse literature. Nobody ever bothers to elaborate such scenarios in fiction though because its boring and doesn't accommodate violent fantasies. Collapse is something you can build a bunker and feel smug about, slump you never get the excuse to go all walking dead, bury your gold, pick up your rifle, and show the world you're not to be hosed with. You just keep working at Denny's and your dollar buys you a little less each day. So yeah of course no one wants to talk about the big slump.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:39
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OP: think about your life today. Now imagine tomorrow as a very similar day but just slightly worse in just about every respect. Then, extrapolate that pattern until the moment of your death. This is p much what it's going to be like.
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Apr 4, 2017 05:56
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When the collapse comes just know where you keep your katana, your leather jacket and your cool '80s mirror sunglasses.
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Apr 4, 2017 06:06
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Delthalaz posted:OP: think about your life today. Now imagine tomorrow as a very similar day but just slightly worse in just about every respect. Then, extrapolate that pattern until the moment of your death. This is p much what it's going to be like. Except worse!
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Apr 4, 2017 06:07
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There are a lot of problems (elephant in the room, climate change) but if you are taking a subreddit where individual events are taken out of context seriously, well then...
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Apr 4, 2017 06:27
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unlawfulsoup posted:There are a lot of problems (elephant in the room, climate change) but if you are taking a subreddit seriously, well then... ftfy
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Apr 4, 2017 06:44
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Delthalaz posted:OP: think about your life today. Now imagine tomorrow as a very similar day but just slightly worse in just about every respect. Then, extrapolate that pattern until the moment of your death. This is p much what it's going to be like. What if he's a sadist? Knowing that every single day of everyone's life is going to be worse and worse as time goes on might make every single day that passes better for him.
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Apr 4, 2017 08:34
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It's probably not going to destroy society, no. That doesn't mean millions won't die. poo poo will get more expensive though. We aren't paying the full price of a lot of stuff now because we get to basically treat the sky as a free disposal site. Everyone gets to externalize the true cost of their emissions. That won't last forever though. One way or another we're going to have to start paying the full price pretty soon. Hopefully through some form of carbon tax, but if not then when the bill comes due in terms of rising sea level making things more expensive for everyone.
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Apr 4, 2017 09:49
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"Resources" is a pretty catch-all term, but there's very few things we're in real danger of running out of. Nothing we use really disappears from earth, thanks to living at the bottom of a big gravity well. I've heard people hand-wringing about how reconstruction after a collapse will be impossible because there's no iron left to dig! All the iron ore available nowadays is really low % so we wouldn't be able to make any tools! THERE'S NO IRON! Except for the millions upon millions of tonnes of rusty iron we've already dug up out of the earth that we're not currently doing anything with, because it's part of old cars and rubble and junk. There's a lot of stuff like this, where the resource we're supposedly "running out of" still exists in enormous quantities but if we had to get more we'd need to be more efficient or energy-intensive about it. Energy and environment are the big questions, but even maximum climate change could be ridden out fairly well for the rest of your short gay life without too much disruption in rich countries. Even the US is getting pretty good about renewables and we STILL don't seem to have hit the dreaded peak oil (or peak fossil). So I wouldn't worry too much about "collapse". As far as disasters go you're far more likely to be killed as a result of terrible politics or murderous economic policy than anything mother earth can come up with. Unless ocean acidification causes a mass die-off of sealife within the next couple of decades, then everyone dies.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:26
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Blue Star posted:From the sarcastic comments I take it that you all feel the topic of discussion is beenath you. Is it because its not true? I;m acvtuallly being serious right now. Are we running out of resources? Are there no ways we can become more sustainable? It is nearly impossible to run out of fresh water on the macro scale, friend. By the time we reach that point, lack of food alone will have already killed the vast majority of all animal life that doesn't live in the oceans anyway. Desalinization is easy, if too energy hungry to be a practical solution to keeping major cities supplied. There are definitely ways to become more sustainable, and we should be moving towards them simply as a matter of best practices, but there is no imminent collapse of human society due to a lack of resources. At worst, we run short on rare earths and consumer goods prices skyrocket and the divide between the rich and poor widens further until major, bloody revolution and counter-revolution becomes a thing in the First World.
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Apr 4, 2017 10:58
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I'm the "death is certain" wizard.
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Apr 4, 2017 11:12
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the only way the world could ever possible descend into the thunderdome is if literally every single government/bureacracy in the world was destroyed simultaneously
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Apr 4, 2017 11:54
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