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Capitalism faces several crisis, on top of Global Warming OP. 1. Stagnant wages in the western world continually being propped up by credit leading to huge amounts of people in enormous private debt (see Canada thread). 2. The potential of rising costs of petrofuels, meaning more expensive transportation, which is a problem since most of our wares are now shipped across country and continent. 3. The worsening conditions of labour due to globalism leading the electing of protectionistic governments leading to trade agreements being dismantled(Brexit, Trump, the 15 other countries were populist have power)... etc etc Given that Capitalist society's are built on top of the principle of infinite economic growth, these and other factors sure point that we are on our way to some kind of upheaval. Recession into Depression into civil unrest into "State of Exception" into ??? Who knows? Personally, i believe we will slowly drift towards a more facist technocracy, or revolution of some sort. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 4, 2017 12:28
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Define 'collapse'. The worst effects of climate change are a drop in precipitation, a shift in where the arable land is, a drop in total arable land, and water shortages. Rising sea levels aren't that big of an issue. That's bad, really bad, and if there's nothing that happens in the mean time to mitigate that (ie - someone invents soylent), then a lot of people will die. That'll have knock on effects with countries, stability, war & revolutions. But the idea of human civilization collapsing? Not likely. There's still a poo poo ton of fossil fuels, still waiting to be exploited, so that gives some more time for other energy sources to catch up. ITER is still being built. Push comes to shove, nuclear can still get a massive roll-out. Granted, what 'civilization' comes out the other end may not look like western liberal democracy circa the US in the late 1990s, but that sort of thing is impossible to really predict.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:53
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States far less durable than our own survived the Black Death, the 30 year's war, Mongol invasions, and more. We're talking 75%+ people in a country dying horribly and everything getting burned down. But they kept going. If medieval dynastic "states" could survive hammerblows like that, modern ones can survive far more.
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Apr 4, 2017 13:41
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I would argue that the springs came out of the current international system a little while ago due to a variety of pressures, it has already collapsed, but in a manner like a distant star, where what you perceive is what has already happened, a long ways away and a long time ago. That is, we're just waiting for the collapse that has already happened to fully manifest itself, which will take some years/decades. But nothing is going to get better from here on out.rudatron posted:Define 'collapse'. The worst effects of climate change are a drop in precipitation, a shift in where the arable land is, a drop in total arable land, and water shortages. Rising sea levels aren't that big of an issue. I'm afraid this is not true. A huge majority of the human population lives in areas that will be underwater in the future; we're talking forced migration on an unimaginable scale, as well as complete economic dislocation. If we go past 2C, as is pretty much guaranteed at this point, it's not going to stop warming at any livable temperature. There is nothing to keep the equatorial regions from becoming completely uninhabitable. We will careen from collapse to collapse. Mozi fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 13:47
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Regardless of whether or not society collapses nothing you learned on Reddit will ever be the least bit helpful towards surviving it.
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Apr 4, 2017 14:07
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Global warming is a real and actual problem but it's also the new thing people slotted 1 for 1 into all the nuclear war fantasy from the cold war and given people a really weird idea of what the issues global warming might cause are.
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Apr 4, 2017 17:12
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I like the term crumbling more than collapse. Imagine global human society is one of those glaciers you've heard so much about :iiaclimatechangeanalogy: Bits and pieces are crumbling into the ocean every day, and sometimes huge chunks rip off. But that thing isn't going anyway; it's going to get smaller and smaller until it feels weird calling it a glacier. Society works the same way this is almost certainly completely wrong about how glaciers work
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Apr 4, 2017 17:26
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rudatron posted:Define 'collapse'. The worst effects of climate change are a drop in precipitation, a shift in where the arable land is, a drop in total arable land, and water shortages. Rising sea levels aren't that big of an issue. Sea level rise is a massive threat to even developed nations. Not enough to cause anything that might be described as a "collapse," but basically all of the major economic centers in the US are vulnerable to knock-on effects from it. Miami is a dead city walking at this point and that's going to happen before sea levels ever get high enough to flood the streets. The cost of protecting, say, New York is going to be non-trivial.
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Apr 4, 2017 17:37
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The entire question depends on how you define "collapse". Mad Max and other apocalyptic scenarios will never happen without a pretty-much-impossible lever of nuclear war breaking out on a large enough scale to gently caress everything over forever. Physically speaking there are enough nukes on the planet to wipe out every urban center on Earth but most of those are aimed at just a few of them, plus all the other nuclear weapons that they'd wanna take out first. Human civilization as we know it on a global scale will certainly come to an end relatively soon, possibly or even likely within my own lifetime, but governments and societies are still going to exist. Whether or not they will be pleasant to live in or even resemble the world we live in now is entirely another question (to which the answer is almost certainly no, not at all). ChairMaster fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 18:15
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Paradoxish posted:Sea level rise is a massive threat to even developed nations. Not enough to cause anything that might be described as a "collapse," but basically all of the major economic centers in the US are vulnerable to knock-on effects from it. Miami is a dead city walking at this point and that's going to happen before sea levels ever get high enough to flood the streets. The cost of protecting, say, New York is going to be non-trivial. It's a sea level rise measured in feet per century. It does not pose an existential risk to new york city. It's not that kind of threat. Which sucks, because just by posting this the response is going to be "are you saying it's not serious, huh? are you saying it's FAKE" and that isn't what I'm saying. I am saying when new york city spends some money it could have spent fixing roads or whatever fixing seawalls people won't notice and will declare global warming a fake chicken little thing, and when 8 million people are starving in africa they won't distinguish that they are different people than the people that were starving before and just pretend nothing happened. and a lot of things will happen so slow they will just be the way things always were their whole life and "normal". But if the metric of "did this get bad" is if new york falls into the sea, no, it probably won't do that.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:28
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:It's a sea level rise measured in feet per century. It does not pose an existential risk to new york city. It's not that kind of threat. As usual, you really have no idea at all what you're talking about. NYC isn't going to sink and that isn't the problem. Even relatively small increases in sea level put parts of the city that were never threatened by flooding at risk, and combined with increased precipitation that makes the entire city significantly more vulnerable to severe weather effects than it has been in the past. This is an expensive and non-trivial problem to solve. For a city like Miami where seawater infiltration is the larger threat it is literally an unsolvable problem. For areas that are less economically important, policies of managed retreat are going to be the only real options. None of this is Mad Max apocalyptic fantasy. You're immediately jumping to this strawman argument about cities sinking when that isn't and never has been the problem. Miami and NYC are threatened by inches of sea level rise, not feet.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:38
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Paradoxish posted:As usual, you really have no idea at all what you're talking about. NYC isn't going to sink and that isn't the problem. Even relatively small increases in sea level put parts of the city that were never threatened by flooding at risk, and combined with increased precipitation that makes the entire city significantly more vulnerable to severe weather effects than it has been in the past. This is an expensive and non-trivial problem to solve. For a city like Miami where seawater infiltration is the larger threat it is literally an unsolvable problem. For areas that are less economically important, policies of managed retreat are going to be the only real options. None of this is Mad Max apocalyptic fantasy. The thread is about collapse. If you are talking about global warming you can talk about it without worrying if new york city will be destroyed. It won't. The things and the people that global warming threaten with nonexistence are mostly not well funded cities in western countries. It's not that kind of threat.
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Apr 4, 2017 19:41
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Furnaceface posted:Read the climate change thread for your daily dose of depression: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3750508 That thread is basically the "intellectual" version of the guy screaming about the endtimes on the corner with the crazy sign. Basically: Mustached Demon posted:People have been saying shits hosed for as long as we've had words to say shits hosed. Calibanibal posted:but to answer your q op, yes capitalism is unstable and will collapse. thats not a prophecy, thats science lol
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Apr 4, 2017 21:53
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:That thread is basically the "intellectual" version of the guy screaming about the endtimes on the corner with the crazy sign. Basically: "collapse" is basically a lazy way to not think about any problems having consequences it's better then ignoring the problem but it's basically just pretending that there will be a game over screen or end credits and everything dies and that is the end and removes responsibility for having to worry about actual negative effects things could have.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:24
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:That thread is basically the "intellectual" version of the guy screaming about the endtimes on the corner with the crazy sign. Basically: Hmmm... climate data is so damning that depression amongst the scientists who study it is a regular source of media fodder.. that IS exactly like the homeless man outside my metro stop who told me the beast of revelation walks amongst us.
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Apr 4, 2017 22:38
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I think we could have kept the mistake going a lot longer if first the the self-obsessed hippie-into-yuppie culture, then the internet, didn't happen. Both made entertainment, ease and pleasure even more monetizable than they already were, so our best and brightest flock towards making fun and convenient junk, or extremely "useful" life\professional apps and devices that help you be a better you or whatever. Think of what would have happened if they kept working on Big Science... we'd have space Capitalism, sucking the universe dry to keep itself going, by now. The third world would probably be doing a lot better too, since it wouldn't be worth loving with them for resources when you can just crack an asteroid, moon or empty planet in half to get what you need.
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Apr 4, 2017 23:06
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mysterious frankie posted:I think we could have kept the mistake going a lot longer if first the the self-obsessed hippie-into-yuppie culture, then the internet, didn't happen. Both made entertainment, ease and pleasure even more monetizable than they already were, so our best and brightest flock towards making fun and convenient junk, or extremely "useful" life\professional apps and devices that help you be a better you or whatever. Think of what would have happened if they kept working on Big Science... we'd have space Capitalism, sucking the universe dry to keep itself going, by now. The third world would probably be doing a lot better too, since it wouldn't be worth loving with them for resources when you can just crack an asteroid, moon or empty planet in half to get what you need. just lol @ thinking that the "best and brightest" spend their time making fart apps.
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Apr 5, 2017 01:35
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death is inevitable op
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Apr 5, 2017 01:49
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TheBalor posted:States far less durable than our own survived the Black Death, the 30 year's war, Mongol invasions, and more. We're talking 75%+ people in a country dying horribly and everything getting burned down. But they kept going. If medieval dynastic "states" could survive hammerblows like that, modern ones can survive far more. no they absolutely did not. their replacements claimed to be their successors, but each of those things destroyed the order that proceeded them
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Apr 5, 2017 01:51
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Wakko posted:Hmmm... climate data is so damning that depression amongst the scientists who study it is a regular source of media fodder.. that IS exactly like the homeless man outside my metro stop who told me the beast of revelation walks amongst us. That thread is full of suicidally depressed people whose understanding of the impacts of climate change is little more sophisticated than the film The Day After Tomorrow. Cease to Hope posted:no they absolutely did not. their replacements claimed to be their successors, but each of those things destroyed the order that proceeded them That's like saying The English crown was destroyed in the 19th century by Parliament's continued accumulation of powers. Cultural systems are always changing, both in crisis and in prosperity. Calibanibal posted:but to answer your q op, yes capitalism is unstable and will collapse. thats not a prophecy, thats science Unstable systems need not necessarily collapse, but can in some circumstances exist in an unstable equilibrium. See for example the old Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya, in which the King was compelled to continually devolve control of the serfs to subordinate princes and nobles at the expense of his own power, until reaching a point at which power was so devolved either the princes overthrew the king or he crushed them and seized back control of the serfs. The system is necessarily unstable, but crises tend to reinvigorate the system rather than disrupt it. According to Edmund Leach the the politics of the Kachin people in highland Burma also often followed a predictable oscillation between the Gumsa Gumlao systems of government, switching between hierarchical chiefdoms to egalitarian self-governing villages. Basically if you think that just because a system doesn't work it has to change, well history doesn't exactly bear that out.
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Apr 5, 2017 02:53
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The future is roughly Elysium OP. Also Mad Max depending on where you live.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:19
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reagan posted:just lol @ thinking that the "best and brightest" spend their time making fart apps. A very eloquent summation.
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Apr 5, 2017 03:50
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TheBalor posted:States far less durable than our own survived the Black Death, the 30 year's war, Mongol invasions, and more. We're talking 75%+ people in a country dying horribly and everything getting burned down. But they kept going. If medieval dynastic "states" could survive hammerblows like that, modern ones can survive far more.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:20
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Mulva posted: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. I didn't mean this was happening for anyone else. Just the OP.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:43
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Cease to Hope posted:no they absolutely did not. their replacements claimed to be their successors, but each of those things destroyed the order that proceeded them So continuation of laws, forms of government, tax structures, even keeping the same leaders doesn't count as a state surviving? I didn't say everything was wonderful and it was business as usual, but society survived in highly recognizable fashion despite horribly traumatic events.
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Apr 5, 2017 04:47
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Really, really bad poo poo that could have been prevented is going to happen. Hundreds of millions are going to die or be displaced. We are going to have to spend a lot of money that we otherwise wouldn't have had to to mitigate the worst effects. But global civilization is not going to collapse, no.
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Apr 5, 2017 19:56
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suburban virgin posted: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. Sounds like you haven't read much about what "maximum climate change" means, because if it happens you're not going to be OK just because you're in a "rich" country unless you're personally rich TheBalor posted:States far less durable than our own survived the Black Death, the 30 year's war, Mongol invasions, and more. We're talking 75%+ people in a country dying horribly and everything getting burned down. But they kept going. If medieval dynastic "states" could survive hammerblows like that, modern ones can survive far more. Yeah the thing is though, things got better after those blows. Climate change isn't getting better within human timescales. Owlofcreamcheese posted:It's a sea level rise measured in feet per century. It does not pose an existential risk to new york city. It's not that kind of threat. You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. The new WTC doesn't need to have its antenna fully under still water for climate change to pose an existential threat to NYC. The streets and subways would be fully underwater at 2 degrees C. call to action fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 20:07
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Yeah, basically every single coastal city is doomed, either in this century (Miami, New Orleans) or in the next couple. There's a delay of several decades between emissions and sea level rise, which makes the issue seem less dire than it actually is.
Tiax Rules All fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Apr 6, 2017 |
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Apr 6, 2017 01:35
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Not that sea level rise isn't a problem, but humanity has a lot of experience in holding back the sea from its efforts to take land that should by all rights be doomed by sea level. Florida is likely a lost cause, but given the financial interests tied up in NYC, it's basically certain it'll be given the infrastructure needed to cope with sea level rise. It's expensive, sure, but NYC is rich as hell and the financial center of the US.
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Apr 6, 2017 04:06
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Main Paineframe posted:Not that sea level rise isn't a problem, but humanity has a lot of experience in holding back the sea from its efforts to take land that should by all rights be doomed by sea level. Florida is likely a lost cause, but given the financial interests tied up in NYC, it's basically certain it'll be given the infrastructure needed to cope with sea level rise. It's expensive, sure, but NYC is rich as hell and the financial center of the US. Right, I guess what some of us are trying to say is that it's not like NYC is just going to cease to exist, we're just questioning how meaningful that will be in the aftermath of the social disruption caused by putting the surrounding metro area under water Like, this is a country that tore itself apart over 3,500 deaths and around a 10% unemployment rate caused by a self-inflicted economic crisis. LOL if you think we're gonna survive this without millions of American deaths in the next 50 years
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Apr 6, 2017 15:21
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Yes. In approximately 5 billion years the sun will expand and our oceans will evaporate.
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Apr 9, 2017 01:08
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You shouldn't read reddit.com...
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Apr 9, 2017 03:03
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Main Paineframe posted:Not that sea level rise isn't a problem, but humanity has a lot of experience in holding back the sea from its efforts to take land that should by all rights be doomed by sea level. Florida is likely a lost cause, but given the financial interests tied up in NYC, it's basically certain it'll be given the infrastructure needed to cope with sea level rise. It's expensive, sure, but NYC is rich as hell and the financial center of the US. There is no feasible infrastructure that can save New York City from future devastating storm surges. You're probably imagining NYC as a bunch of skyscrapers, and that's definitely a part of it, but the majority of New York is low-lying residential areas. Every 1/8 inch of sea level rise makes Hurricane Sandy level events more and more likely in the future, and one of those was enough to cost the city $19 billion. We can barely afford to repair the subway after Sandy, and we're still working on repairing the damages - the train I take to work everyday is about to get shut down for more than a year to fix a storm-damaged tunnel. That shutdown is going to cause a massive amount of economic pain to the city and gently caress over hundreds of thousands of commuters, and its just one train among a dozen. If five shut down for a year? Fughedddaboutit. Even if they manage to put a sea wall, or hell, a dome over the Financial District, that's just going to push the water into low-lying parts of the outer boroughs. Good luck doing fancy deals in those skyscrapers when none of the trains work to send the janitors in from Queens to clean the toilets.
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Apr 9, 2017 03:30
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the black husserl posted:There is no feasible infrastructure that can save New York City from future devastating storm surges. You're probably imagining NYC as a bunch of skyscrapers, and that's definitely a part of it, but the majority of New York is low-lying residential areas. Every 1/8 inch of sea level rise makes Hurricane Sandy level events more and more likely in the future, and one of those was enough to cost the city $19 billion. We can barely afford to repair the subway after Sandy, and we're still working on repairing the damages - the train I take to work everyday is about to get shut down for more than a year to fix a storm-damaged tunnel. That shutdown is going to cause a massive amount of economic pain to the city and gently caress over hundreds of thousands of commuters, and its just one train among a dozen. If five shut down for a year? Fughedddaboutit.
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Apr 9, 2017 10:23
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might it be possible to turn NYC into a giant floating ship, or barge?
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Apr 9, 2017 17:29
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Calibanibal posted:might it be possible to turn NYC into a giant floating ship, or barge? Depends. Do we have a Inuit Badass and an incredibly charming Scientology leader running around?
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Apr 9, 2017 23:42
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Calibanibal posted:might it be possible to turn NYC into a giant floating ship, or barge? Build a giant wall around Manhatten, dump all of our criminals there, let them figure out how to save the island
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Apr 10, 2017 01:58
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stone cold posted:there's your problem op
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Apr 10, 2017 02:45
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