the folks from r/collapse found out about it.

hi I'm one of them, and this is the world we live in now.

It's the climate change people who want to squash any optimism about the future. They believe that progress is what is killing the world, and the right move is to go backwards (to the 1930's I think) so obviously they are anti futurology and they actively sabotage the content here.

I gave my opinion about making peace with AI art and got downvoted for agreeing with the person telling me it's pointless.

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There is no future of tech if the whole world becomes climate migrants once all the major cities flood.

Its also very hard to post anything positive or hopeful without getting negative reactions.

Few people react to the positive stuff.

Oh show me any community nowadays with optimistic perspective on the future. In any regard

That isn't true. Climate change people are just watching problems grow. The planet won't sustain us if we keep at it. We just want the world to wake the fuck up and start being smart.

Quit driving your f350s and watching nascar. Start opting into energy programs and ev's. Literally we support future tech. The Fuck!?

Any community at all? If u think there are none you have a mindset issue. r/optimism

Didn’t even know that subreddit actually existed, there are many more but I think that gets the point across

Oh yeah, instead of posts on advances on fusion or carbon capture. Its all doom and gloom.

Well I can't say for certain but there's a combination of wealth gap and ignoring climate trends that make a lot of people pessimistic about the future in general and that spills over into a lot of content here. Well not content as much as comments, but kind of both. Also we've gained a certain impression about which private companies or people that seem to be in control of the planet's future and those parties are highly suspect. Just trying to give an idea as to why things get gloomed into oblivion sometimes.

I'm definitely excited for the future but I live in a first world country and am generally pretty positive.

Spreading fear seems pointless, but spreading uncertainty and doubt seems wise. No one should feel certain of anything, and one should always doubt what they think.

I think it’s a different group of people who want us to go back to the 30’s.

They don't get it dude. They think that the hurricanes and typhoons and the ozone and the pollinators and all is a big joke.

Idc. I am almost getting excited for the floods. Can't wait to see the stupid look on their dumb faces.

r/mademesmile r/humansbeingbros and I'm sure there are more.

Redditors hate their life and want the world to end.

I'm not sure why these posts keep showing up in my feed. I'll try to un-join but may have to mute it. Normally it was one a week and now it's multiple a day. And most of the stuff posted here is reposted on other subs and those pop up too.

6k members 💀

Well I meant communities in a sense of "futurology people", "tech people", "art people, "ecology people", "politics people" etc. Any community based on profession/interest and where making predictions about relatively distant future makes sense. I feel like everybody's worried about current and future crises.

Futurology is a challenging topic. What we know, concretely, about the future isn't usually all that exciting, and there isn't that much news about it on the daily. The real accomplishments are incremental, and the future prospects are fraught with risk. It's much easier to shoot down a novel idea than to construct a robust one. So the fight for discussions about the future end up stacked in favor of those who will use what we know at present to tear it down.

What you end up with is a stream of prognostications that are rampant speculation, and this is the realm of utopias and dystopias. Humans seem to prefer to read opinions that occupy the far ends of the spectrum. Reasonable, moderate viewpoints read like milquetoast punditry, so they don't garner interest. This creates a feedback loop that reinforces the negative behavior that we're here to complain about. I'm not really sure how to solve it.

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I agree so much with this lol

Go to r/singularity if you want more optimistic posts. Although they are a bit too optimistic at times, it's still better if you don't want doom and gloom.

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Hard to think about the far future when currently you might be in trouble

Do not avert your eyes from the tire fire that is society - just because it is unpleasant does not mean we should pretend it doesn’t exist - I think any rational futurism sub HAS to be pessimistic at this point, anything else is basically science fiction

I thought they cured cancer like 10 years ago on this sub

Go to r/singularity. It's pretty optimistic. Far more optimistic than this sub.

You know, if that is your opinion, there is already a sub for you called r/collapse.

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If this sub seems depressing, it's because our future looks depressing....

> Start opting into energy programs and ev's. Literally we support future tech. The Fuck!?

Posts about solving climate change with technology have always been futurology. That is not what the 'keyboard activists' are about.

It’s because this sub has become dogshit. That’s why.

I’m not hopeful for the future but I’m still curious. It’s a balance.

I am an engineer of 10 years so my opinion is as valid as anyones. It’s a real practical concern, if there is social instability due to mass climate migrations, then the first thing that gets sacrificed is investment, especially in the development of technology.

What about it are they going to regret? Does it make one's life worse to say "we need to address systemic issues before they become worse"? Does being optimistic protect you from the consequences of those issues?

Because it's a sub about the future and the future is pretty much doom and gloom. It would be a stretch to consider that FUD though. FUD is intentional. Just talking about things that are happening and scientifically predicted to happen isn't FUD.

You don't like to hear it, and that's fine. You can choose to see the world through rose colored glasses if you want, but sharing insight to what the future will likely look like isn't intentionally misleading information. It's the future reality we face.

You saying that the page talking about the future should stay away from doom and gloom is more FUD than the people posting/commenting about it.

For all we know you could be an Exxon shill going "hello fellow plebs what's all this climate change will destroy our planet talk that's kind of wack isn't it? Anyway let's all get back to work."

um. its about the future, and its pretty fuckin bleak, so... yeah pretty self explanatory. i think you're looking maybe for future fiction?

Because as it stands, the future is pretty gloom. Overpopulation of humans and capitalism apparently kills the planet. Who knew? A lot of people.

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People here mistake realism with pessimism. The world is much better today for humankind than ever before. Of course there are problems that must be talked about, but to the dismay of most people on this sub, it is not the end of the world.

People enjoy pointing at all the reasons they are doomed. That way, if they are right, they can say "I told you so" and if they are wrong, they lose nothing.

Nothing frees a person of the burden of responsibility better than being convinced that everything is doomed and therefore nothing matters.

>the future is pretty much doom and gloom

Hard disagree. The future is awesome and exciting!

It's such an obviously fucking answer it's funny someone needed to start another thread asking the question.

Social media also plays a huge role in this. Algorithms push negative news because "doomscrolling" increases engagement, and more engagement means more money.

This also shifts reporting as well. If your job is based around clicks and eyeballs, the gloomy story about how X is bringing about the end of the world is going to do that better than some hopeful news about how things can and are improving.

If all the average person sees is doom and gloom, that is going to reflect in their general attitude toward the future.

I have been trying my hardest to switch toward a more optimistic view of the future, and it is hard considering the usual things floating around. It's not about ignoring all the troubles we are currently facing, but about seeing them as challenges we have to overcome rather than impossible hurtles that will doom us.

You know what I am going to rant in a reply. There is this shit going around about whether you "believe" in science. BELIEVE? It's fucking proven. There are laws, unlike your stupid sped govenment makes, that say when you drop a feather it falls to the ground. But now there are people debating that saying "I don't believe in science" I hope I go down with the ship. All that fucking research and people say no. This is why I dont have kids. Who the fuck wants to deal with George Orwell's 1984 in real time?

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The name is a misnomer. It's not actually a study like biology, sociology, psychology, etc. It's more of a religion, like scientology.

Only 6 thousand people, smh.

They're bummed because they know the future is going to be amazing and they won't be alive to see it.

So they make up doomsday scenarios to make them happy.

some say depressing some say realistic. putting our head in the sand won't make the problems that will have a huge impact on future generations go away.

And those that do just talk about the negative implications of said post.

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A lot of what has been across my dash is clearly AI generated pro AI nonsense.

The moderators either don't exist or they just flat out refuse to do their jobs and i'm not sure which is worse.

We're in the 6th mass extinction and significant portions of humanity believe in crystals and horoscopes over medicine and science.

It's not FUD if the environmental and socioeconomic trend lines around the world are both imperiling democracy and the over all quality of life, if not survival, of our species.

Anyone that isn't ringing an alarm bell is an apologist, a denier, or ignorant of the state of the planet and society.

Yep, it's why I don't spend nearly as much time here as I otherwise would. I can't even challenge all the ridiculously negative posts stuck in a current perspective and unable to imagine the future without getting downvoted.

Far too many anti-Capitalist Luddites and Malthusians who don't even comprehend Capitalism and technological change... the very things every futurologist should understand more than anything else. While I am greatly concerned about our future due to climate change, I am also optimistic in technology and hopeful for fusion and other solutions. Why even talk futurology if you don't even believe we have a future?? Even if you don't, futurology sb the lens that looks out at situations where we DO survive: life on other planets after ours dies, life in artificial oxygenated environments, etc.

>I just think that a lot of the issues people speak about will be solved or at the very least will be nullified by future generations

Based on what evidence? Also, why leave it to future generations? Why not acknowledge the problems now and work to fix them?

>I said in my comment above "I think the future is gonna be fantastic" not "Bury your head and pretend things will be good when they are bad."

Based on our current situation, you have to do the latter in order to honestly claim the former. "The future is gonna be fantastic with no work required on our part" is a delusional statement.

Yeah I guess that's subjective. I'm not sad for the fall of civilization, either, so to me it's also not doom and gloom. I pretty much hate the civilization we've built on the backs of more deserving humans.

Reading about western economic collapse is basically softcore erotica to me. The ecological collapse makes me sad but the economic collapse helps me sleep easy knowing that humanity will, in time, get exactly what it deserves.

I said there is already a sub you can commiserate with everyone else who shares your opinion.

The future is definitely exciting, and we get to influence how awesome it will be for how many. My favourite discussions are when people are willing to look at how serious the looming issues are, while also looking at the awesome ways forward and how to choose the latter.

Well I have a theory but I doubt anyone is going to like it.

The problem with futurism is that eventually the future arrives and the predictions fall way short of reality. People get discouraged and "drop out" of the habit of believing the latest round of breakthroughs. This sub has gone through the full cycle at this point.

Mostly, it's a matter of the time it takes to commercially develop things. While that is going on, the headlines disappear and then if it manages to succeed, it is more interesting to the wall street types than the dreamers.

Another thing and maybe this is just me, is that I always objected to '-ology' as the best suffix. 'Futurism' is more sustainable because 'futurology' promises some sort of scientific rigor that will never happen on any sub.

If there's a fire in the basement, it's a pretty good idea to tell people on the top floor.

A billion snow crabs just cannibalized themselves into near extinction due to the state of the ocean temperature and lack of food resources.

Crabs around the world that aren't dead have their shells slowly dissolving alive as the ocean acidifies due to increased carbon dioxide dissolved into the water.

Coral reefs are dying, and will take the entire ocean food web down with them, which includes much of humanity. We're literally in Earth's sixth mass extinction.

You have a strange idea of awesome and exciting.

I would love to know your sources of optimism! I subscribe to the Future Crunch newsletter, which helps me stay optimistic. I'd love to plug into more sources of solutions.

it's all drone warfare, viruses, ai and police robots in the headlines who needs futurism when you have now

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And thankfully, we won't be around to be proven right or wrong.

this place is full of hope, then dashed by “realistic comments” that have little to know basis on reality

or

doom and gloom posts that are supported by people who don’t see any light towards the future.

OP if youre an optimist, stick around and make your voice heard. Its a bubble here that when left as it is, it becomes exactly what you say, depressed voices crying out for hope, then shoving it away when its given to them.

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There’s always going to be problems needing solved. A bad attitude does nothing to help.

Well make up your mind is it the climate activists or naturalists that you are complaining about and then use the correct term.

I am confused. Anyone else?

Reading the level of rose tinted delusion in these comments is disturbing. Amazing how a bunch of folks supposedly interested in the future don't understand that we build the future in the present; it doesn't just "happen".

Problems don't solve themselves. Thinking some later generation is going to magically reverse the dying of the biosphere is the exact kind of "kick the can down the road" willful obliviousness that got us where we are right now.

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It’s a bunch of Darias who are bummed being broody and sarcastic went out with the 90s.
That show was at least funny.

The 'climate change people' are not climate activists, or naturists.

The best label would be communists or the new fancy term, degrowth activists.

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Right but, why are you purposely mislabeling ACTUAL activism?

Also unless you are a billionaire you want communism. Its the only form of "government" that is actually ran by the working class. Dont say "what about china and russia?" That literally isn't communism. One is an oligarchy(mafia) and the other still lets the "divine" emperor do whatever they want.

If we weren't headed in such a desolate direction as a species, this would be a much happier place.

Regular people are not sufficiently in control of the new tech that's coming out. The political institutions that promised full democracy have woefully failed to deliver (see COVID safety, climate change, etc). Further, we all know the basic fact that if an endeavor is not profitable, it's taken off of the table as a possibility. As time marches on, more and more needs are unmet due to their inherent unprofitability.

I'm not a pessimistic person either but I can at least understand where this is coming from: a sense of powerlessness and the inability to enact changes over society to address this.

In short, the new tech isn't democratically owned or controlled in any way because private companies are mini tyrannies controlled by a dictator (CEO). Watching Musk and others waste $billions for no reason all while your friends and family work harder and smarter than he does and still can't make enough money, pessimism is expected.

The only alternative to pessimism I can see would be revolution/violence. Not sure most people are into that ... yet.

What's funny about this is that us collapseniks often pointed to r/futurology as being a hopium/copium sub, but that's waned away these days.

Also weird that OP is using "FUD" to describe a non-financial subreddit.

You sure do know how to describe it.

I think that this sub might as well be sci-fi realism, not necessarily reality but it could be.

magical realism through technology and although things may seem to shake out in a certain way (climate change, corpos taking over) its that assumption and beliefs in those things that make the terror real. The human capacity of creative powers has infinite capcity which some people with power use as leverage to make you believe in whatever they want.

This is mostly a mentals game. If you were swimming in garbage water for years, all you would think is that everywhere is garbage water . there are plenty bodies of waters that are pristine, untouched and waiting for people. People need only courage to cross over and the mindfulness to not pollute the next area

Thanks, sometimes the words just flow and I even enjoy reading them back to myself later. Other times I wish I had kept my mouth shut lol

FUD isn't a finance originated term.

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The truth is there is no future. Atleast for most of us.

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> why are you purposely mislabeling ACTUAL activism?

I have no idea what you are on about, but all you are doing is ruining a sub.

“Oh you sweet summer child…”

We're making breakthroughs in nuclear fusion which will me an amazing source of cleaner energy

We're making incredible advancements on AI, which will speed up progress in many areas including R&D

Clean Energy, VR, AR, medical improvements, this is all part of the future

disrupting the feedback loop incrementally? injecting enough of a counter argument to bring it back to center?

Its a tall, time consuming task, but centering the mind through ideas is meticulous and thankless often confrontational and aggressive but overtime youll see a shift and not have to sway things so hard to have a decent dialogue.

This is why I like debates, both sides are helping each other find the truth, not necessarily be right. Problem with social media, its become a battleground of perspectives and ideas none of which has any basis on reality other than a blurb of impact on an infinite news cycle. Its a distraction with no real purpose when it started off as a great tool to communicate with different minds across the globe.

"It's the climate change people who want to squash any optimism about the future. They believe that progress is what is killing the world, and the right move is to go backwards (to the 1930's I think) so obviously they are anti futurology and they actively sabotage the content here." - Sursur

Why if there is an actual term that you know of are you grouping all climate activist into "climate change people"

Stop acting like you don't know what I am saying.

One look at previous posts in the root makes me wonder why you think that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I have no idea how I got added to Futurology and now my feed is filled with doom and gloom nonsense.

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I think it’s because almost nobody has a positive outlook on the future of the world rn. I mean can you blame them? I can’t even begin to name all of the MAJOR problems with our society. I honestly think it’s depressing how crappy our country is. Obviously there’s worse but our political system is fucking trash with a majority of politicians being lying cheating scumbags. Our healthcare is seen as such a profitable industry that people refuse to take ambulances to prevent being bankrupt. Inflation is high while our wages remain the same. The cost of living is fucking outrageous. They aren’t kidding when they say the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I’m positively hoping to maybe see something here, first, that takes off and grows to save one or all of us (or accomplishes some grand goal/brilliantly solves some problem)…Then I can think to myself “that’s just like that one Reddit sub!!” So please know even if I comment negatively, my intention is the opposite of spreading gloom and doom.

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It isn't gloom and doom when it is based in fact.

What we know: Human society as it is today is not sustainable.

What are we doing about it: Very little.

What's the problem: We continue to kick the can down the road and we are very rapidly running out of road.

This isn't just about climate destabilization either. That's just one of many serious issues that we will be facing this century. There will be technological advances over the next 30 to 40 years that will completely upend our society, and they won't be happening slowly either. If we are not prepared to deal with them, the consequences will be severe.

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Other factors:

There was a global run of, on average, improving living standards from 1946-2008/2019 (depending on country). That ending puts us in a situation without a good frame of reference within living memory.

A lot of the more utopian scenarios have been foreclosed upon by either the limits of physics and finite natural resources or by the realities of human nature/the behavior of organisms in a large and complex society.

News media and social media highlight the negatives, because neutral events or gradual progress are the assumed status quo.

What political institutions promised ‘full democracy’? And what does that even mean? If you’re in US we are not a direct democracy as know and we never will be nor are designed to be.

Sheesharoni pepperoni! Ya gotta be your own master.

Also “Mudflood/Tartaria”

2020 and 2021 saw the first declines in global human development on record, fyi. So maybe there’s some hysteria, but there has been a real disruption in records going back at least to 1992.

I wouldn't worry about it to much. The world is ending in a fiery apocalypses soon. Just try to enjoy yourself.

Hmmm.... the first video is pretty good, but I wouldn't say it's reasons to be optimistic. I think more reasons to not give up hope... or to save space for optimism. I agree that doomerism and pessimism is toxic and counterproductive. If all the doomers would just join team yay-future, we'd turn things around much faster!

As far as technological solutions go, I think we absolutely know the way forward. It's social behaviour and political will that are holding us back, but that will probably change quickly if we experience some unfortunate climate shocks, which is likely to happen over the next few years. I'm just hoping those shocks won't be too bad, and the response will be strong!

Given that this is not a politics sub, climate change is their pretext always. They will come with climate-change-related "efficiency improvements" e.g. all cars should be banned in cities because of CO2, but 5 comments later, their real nature would be revealed.

Typo: prognostications => promasturbators

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Bro don’t waste your time, this person is just being disingenuous. Like this is the Futurology Sub and we haven’t even mentioned Fusion! This person can’t be convinced through reason.

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You sure know how to avoid saying "all the world's scientists agree we fucked up the whole planet, and no policy makers are listening, so realistically a futurology sub should discuss what is actually being predicted about our future based on the best data available, and not pie in the sky hopes and dreams from corporations selling robots to deliver tacos or whatever the fuck"

edit: not meant as an attack - just a reality check on why the sub attracts both users and content that appears "negative", when in fact it is just reality.

So well put bradland - and describes an ongoing issue with modern media in general. The more moderate and interesting discussion is often farther down in the thread.

2020 and 2021 were basically the first years on record where the world as a whole got worse, according to UN HDI stats dating back to 1992. Combined with Internet sensationalism and the tendency of humans to be averse to declines, you get a lot of dark thoughts even here.

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If there is a concrete positive development that unequivocally bodes well for the future of our species, planet, or any particular topic, it wouldn't be downvoted. The thing is, we are at a point in society where everything moves too fast for anyone to even understand what is happening, and we are at such a high level of material consumption that any new "innovation" that doesn't expressly reduce waste, emissions or resource use is actually probably a bad thing. An honest, science-based futurology sub would have daily discussions about tearing down all the status quo systems because they are creating a dystopian future. Reddit users won't be the ones getting the technology to become immortal or going to live on luxury spaceships.

Doomerism is a tactic of disinfo intended to depress and demotivate people from pursuing answers to climate change or attempting to change the status quo. And Futurology is regularly brigades by authentic and inauthentic accounts looking to sow FUD for their own ends.

Much like anti-science on r/science, disinfo is a problem on Futurology.

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I come here for a break. I don't post I lurk mostly and it's nice to read others thoughts. Don't get me wrong science is cool. What's happening with the climate and current technology rates is awesome to watch. But I like for others to thread it together so for just a minute I don't have to debate. Then I go out into the world that is not the Internet and you all make me sound smart.

My impression of this sub is rather different in that it looks to me a place where it gets posted about giving mice +1 month life in a blank laboratory environment and everyone here thinks someday we will unlock immortality for free for everyone, which is pretty detached from the actual realities of our world

This sub is one of the least intellectual I’ve ever been in lol

So, everyone here is a climate change person? And we are all bad cause we want to make rapid changes because we are running out of time? Because it is already too late? This shit needed to happen when Al Gore ran.

No one wants to go back to the 30s either. Idk what that's about.

Go to the Solarpunk sub. That's what I want. Eco cities, eco villages. Publicly funded, safe, public transportation.

I am sick of having to drive myself to slavery everyday shits getting real old.

Just my two cents here, but it might have a problem of overmoderation. It used to be much easier to share news posts and future-related videos. It's much harder these days since you have to write a paragraph summary so a lot of contributers (myself included) stopped contributing.

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Good call OP, just unjoined / muted this depressing ass FUD sub.

It used to be much much better. People on the internet are pretty negative in general, but it seems much worse as of late.

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You have a real way with words man

> So, everyone here is a climate change person?

Certainly if the hat fits, wear it.

> Publicly funded, safe, public transportation. I am sick of having to drive myself to slavery everyday shits getting real old.

It's never what you can do for others, its what they can give you for free.

well let you know when it is free rocketpack night

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Ah the old "optimism is almost always a lie sold to us by the people running society" problem.

>It's never what you can do for others, its what they can give you for free

Uh, what?

Check out solarpunk for a more explicitly hopeful vision but that doesn't have it's head in the sand either.

What do you do for fun?

People who spend a lot of time online tend to be depressed and not have great lives.

Those people also determine the content for subreddits.

So look at environmental reporting, not much gets done on remediation and improvements. There are a ton of hazardous substances that we were dumping into the water 40 years ago that we aren't anymore, but it doesn't drive nearly as much engagement so doesn't get reported on as much.

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People working in climate science are not optimistic, and they are now very vocal about it. Sometimes reality isn't positive. A species can be a negative force on its planet.

Utterly irrelevant. We could go zero green house emissions today and it wouldn't stop climate change. It's too late, the oceanic gyre effects are already destabilized and we can't unmelt Antarctica or the artic. Both poles will continue to shed/not form sea ice, further speeding up warming and desalination of the oceans, as fresh water alters ocean current cycles and destroys breeding and feeding grounds for the foundation of all life on earth, plankton.

The green house glasses already in the atmosphere (not to mention the glasses emitted by thawing permafrost that are so vast as to be incomprehensible) have passed the tipping point of irreversibility. The doesn't even touch on the methan hydrates frozen at the bottom of the sea floor all over the planet that are now melting and entering the atmosphere. There's enough down there to alter the air so much that the sky could literally catch on fire.

The species extinction rate today is 10,000% higher than Earth's historical base line. We are in a mass extinction and have lost tens, likely hundreds of thousands of entire species, forever. That doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of species so devastated by habitat loss, hunting, and poison environments that have left them with populations too small to be sustainable.

The things I've mentioned just barely scratch the surface of how screwed the planet is. I could spend all day listing what we've lost forever and what's irrecoverable. Almost all of the Gulf of Mexico is a hypoxic water desert, barren of essentially all life, where it isn't covered by the many oil spills that coat the ocean floor, invisible to us, but wrecking the sea flor for decades.

Anyone not depressed about the state of affairs is irrational or oblivious. There is no Chicken Little, this isn't being alarmist. Much of the planet is dying, if not already dead. Shop, work, and vote with that fact in mind, if were to mitigate these affects, at all.

Ignorance used to be bliss but now the stupid people are very depressed it seems.

You have it all wrong man. Its about what WE can all do for EACH OTHER.

Thats what kills me with Capitalist. Oh incentive incentives...ohhhh but, people just like to do things. We would all be bored af. We would build each other up as a community "Sursur just got married and they are expecting! Let go build their new home so they can have their own space now." Then you go do that as a community.

You have community gardens so everyone can have a space to grow food and you share it.

Fk how is this so hard for people to grasp? The only takers are the ones sitting in Office pretending to represent you.

Use chatgpt to create a summary lol. Future !!

Strangely there is a sub for your fetish called collapse. Who would have thought...

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Great post. Dealing with facts, and trying to project them into the future is hard. People are lazy and it's easier to repeat opinions, even if baseless

Thanks for proving OP’s point.

Well we all appreciate it! :)

Also, the practice of blocking the account of anyone who annoys you can clean up your home feed everywhere. It seems about 90% of annoying posts are created by 5% of the community. But I agree, the ill informed doom and gloom here is so pervasive, it kills the sun. Even the majority of replies here to op are blind knee jerk negativism.

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This is literally one of the extremes he's describing. It's all "just reality" to someone whose viewpoint aligns with such.

in the future were all going to die. that does not mean we cant enjoy the heck out of life.

What we fucked up is the way we've been living. Life will go on. It just won't be like it's been.

>... but the main reason is that bad news actually outweighs good news, at least as far as things like climate and environmental is concerned.

This is my point though. Is it? It is the different between feelings and facts. It feels like everything is negative and doom and gloom because that is all we see. That is all the algorithms seem to feed us. It's what we remember and what is reinforced by interactions with other people who are also getting the same gloom and doom we are.

A negative feedback loop where negative things drive us to click on more negative things, training our algorithms that we want to see more negative things.

TL;DW: Back when climate change was first being studied, climate scientists all were more or less convinced we were on an 'apocalyptic' trajectory. Today, we have made enough progress in the past few decades that most scientists agree we have likely avoided "worse case" scenarios. Still bad, but not end of humanity levels predicted before.

We aren't making quick progress, but progress is being made.

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Nobody doubts that life will go on. The discussion is about human society.

You just described scientists' estimates based on the best available information and data to be "an extreme". If you don't listen to scientific consensus, where does your basis for futurology come from? Please reevaluate your perceptions.

I was in my 20’s when I really had access to the internet. I loved it! I spent so much time researching things or visiting forums. Classic forum, jazz music forum, comic book forum, sports, video games. Whatever. I could discuss all my interests with people for the first time. That was the value of the internet to me. Bring able to look up the history of the Three Stooges or something. In 2009, a friend said I needed to get on Facebook. I didn’t really get it but I joined and got in touch with classmates that I’ve maybe interacted with 4 times since. I did enjoy FB because I could join various hobby focused groups but that was it.

By the time I looked into Reddit or twitter around 2016, being online was different. Now, going online is so draining to me. It’s not going to a forum where everyone is discussing “The Godfather”. It’s people sharing opinions on everything. Not a lot of positivity. Growing up without internet, I was blissfully ignorant of the world. I don’t think I fully realized how poor I was until I was about 17. I was always pretty happy & optimistic. Having access to the world is beneficially & I would never argue that my lack of awareness is a positive thing. However, I couldn’t imagine living most of my life with so much negativity right at my fingertips. I’m not saying it’s not warranted but I try not to immerse myself in social media too much. There are things that need changing definitely but I also want to enjoy my life.

>What political institutions promised ‘full democracy’?

I mean democracy that actually represents people, vs one that represents business in the majority of cases. Politicians have the job of pretending this isn't the case while also ensuring that this non-representation continues.

>If you’re in US we are not a direct democracy as know and we never will be nor are designed to be.

Direct or indirect isn't the issue I'm referring to. That's an implementation detail. I'm talking about who gets represented vs who really doesn't. I claim that most politics isn't about improving the lives of individuals so much as it is about trying to ensure markets are always ticking up or there's access to resources, etc.

I don't know what to say to you if you can look at the state of the world and somehow be optimistic about the future.

I find it interesting that you can't see the overlap between the sub about collapse and the sub about the future now that both are here.

Yes, it’s a fine line between doomerism and urgency. Climate change is going to get real very quickly, and hundreds of millions of people could starve. Urgency is critical.

Haha, I mean, you’re not far off. I am more of an entrepreneur, but I’m a proficient Rubyist. If I am on the spectrum, it is undiagnosed, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

I doubt you get many people optimistic about the future in r/collapse. Maybe all the pessimists can stay there and try not to overlap.

So ringing alarm bells (in the form of angry reddit comments) is the only thing anyone's allowed to do. Got it.

So can you explain something to me? Why is it that we can see all the awful shit going on, and yet when something new comes up that can mitigate it is proposed the more cynical act like it won't change anything and as such we shouldn't bother?