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halfanothersdozen t1_it7frgl wrote

Realistically society isn't going to "get it" until a severe catastrophe knocks out like, I dunno, 20% of the population or something. SARS 3 or a supervolcano or a really big solar flare.

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RestlessAmbivert t1_it8f97t wrote

We've had that happen, though. Bubonic plague, 1918 flu, and a few other instances across the world of mass die-offs. Not that we don't correct some of the issues, but overall we just sit in the same cycles once things somewhat return to normal.

Odds are for that very reason we'll see a resurgence of a very strong Covid strain, more will die, and we'll rinse & repeat.

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magnetar_industries t1_it8bsz2 wrote

Just a couple years of heat/drought-induced crop failures in 2 or 3 of the world’s “breadbasket” farming zones will be enough to starve millions of people, and lead to a bunch of knock-on effects like financial markets seizing up, ultra fascism, resource wars. I mean we are having just one small regional war right now and the whole world experiences just how little resilience we have in our global systems.

And it won’t be just a single event that we can bounce back from. Now that human civilization and earth’s ecosystems are so fragile, and the rot is so deep, there will be wave after wave of civilizational and earth collapse.

It’s gonna get ugly but hopefully the rapaciousness of human civilization is strongly and quickly curtailed before the near complete extinction of all life on earth.

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Trantor_ablaze t1_it8t2fj wrote

You are right, but thats being "doomer", and we don't like doomers in this quarter to quarter looking society, we like techno-positivism, i only wish people dont realize too soon because I'm not ready to deal with mass hysteria.

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magnetar_industries t1_it8vs0x wrote

Maybe this is the premise behind the whole billionaires in the bunkers mentality. No one can bunker down indefinitely. But it might be possible to ride out the initial wave of hysteria, which will be insanely dangerous for any civilian caught out in the open.

I used to be full scale doomer, but now think if nature plus human nature quickly knocks out human CO2 generating capacity, ecosystems and whatever bands of highly resilient hunter gathers remain, might have a shot at rebuilding a decent planet. Even if it takes a mere 200K years to recuperate.

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oldnuthammer t1_itcif4m wrote

It will need to be a lot more than millions of people starving before you will see action, millions of people are already starving. 20 million people are food insecure in Yemen. Millions of people are currently food insecure in the U.S. There is a high rate of food insecurity in Europe. Billions of people will have to die from starvation in a short amount of time, in order for humanity to act...and even then it is uncertain that it would.

We are already seeing poor crop production due to climate issues, Instead of addressing these issues we have decided to compound and make these issues worse.

The only real solution is population reduction, which goes against our very biology as a species. Globally as a species we would need to reduce the amount of our offspring, reducing our population by billions.

A lot of people had kids who should not have had kids...Population explosion pretty much doomed the human race, there is no logistical way to solve this issue. The lucky people are going to die before things get bad, If you have any heart at all you will not be having children.

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FerociousPancake t1_it8g1yl wrote

If there was a really big solar flare that knocked out the world power grid for a year or so, it would be absolutely chaotic. Even knocking it out for 90 days. Or imagine a virus with a 10% death rate this time? Chaos.

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WestguardWK t1_itckllk wrote

I agree that is the most likely type of thing to “galvanize” humanity. But there might be others..

Perhaps first contact?

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StarChild413 t1_itaofey wrote

What if a supervillain-type engineered that but made it so not as many died as looked like did and any of the 20% that were sympathetic to their cause just got their deaths faked and themselves moved metaphorically and literally underground to assist the effort to make society "get it" from the shadows

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