If you’re concerned about this, but still want to be a parent, consider fostering. That way, you’re not bringing a child into the world, just taking care of one that’s already here
Not that over population is really a thing but we have so many children not in a loving adult’s care we really need to focus on them.
Overpopulation is really a thing though
it’s a malthusian myth
We have enough resources to support the current global population and then some. To call the failure of our chosen economic system to distribute those resources rather than burn them or let them rot in warehouses “overpopulation” is misdirection.
It’s kind of like this: I have two sandwiches, I only need one, and you come up to me because you’re hungry. I tell you “Ah I see your problem. There’s too many of you! If you were fewer people, you wouldn’t need a sandwich.”
No, I get that the resources could be distributed better, but there is no environment wherein the current population is going to be supportable by the current biome esp considering climate change.
It’s wild to think otherwise, frankly.
Fucking more of a goddamn concentration of wealth and land in a few oligarchs, those fucking oligarchs trying to control the millions of people and including how they reproduce.
It’s extremely difficult where I live, and such organisations who manage it are basically all Christian so there’s a lot of discrimination.
It sure is something that they wormed their way into distributing so many children into conservative religious homes.
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And adopt older kids too, just because they carry some baggage with them doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of a home too. When I was 16, only one family in my entire district took age 14+ kids, otherwise they had to wait in group homes for placement, oftentimes aging out instead.
All the smart and empathetic people deciding to stop having children on ethical/logical grounds was a major premise of the film Idiocracy.
The film demonstrated it to be a very bad strategy.
Too late! We’re already there.
The opening of that film is one of the best pieces of satire ever created and I’ll die on that hill.
I’M GONNA FUCK ALL Y’ALL
America in a sweaty, horny nutshell
I’d rather have the bad strategy then to put a child into this world that is going downhill fast.
Because the bad strategy means my kid doesn’t have to suffer through it, I already consider 90% of my days a suffering and it hasn’t gotten better in the past 40 years. No amount of hard work, studying, gaining knowledge, doing the right thing has improved it.
And yet all it took was a few decades of indoctrination and disinvestment in education to get there in real life. Almost like we have more pressing things to worry about than the speed at which this effect - if real - could turn into an actual problem.
idiocracy is eugenics propaganda, not a prophetic vision of the future
Whu?
There is literally no eugenics in Idiocracy.
Eugenics = forced attempts to modify the genome since at least the times of ancient Greece via infanticide, murdering or sterilizing ‘low quality’ groups, paying desired groups to have more children, to modern literal selective breeding via government body mandates in Nazi eugenics etc.
New eugenics / ‘liberal eugenics’ = informed choice via technology eg scanning for downs syndrome in embryos and allowing parents the informed choice of termination, genome editing, etc. Which we are clearly not talking about within context, but also is not present or suggested in Idiocracy.
What doesn’t fit into any definition of eugenics is telling people “hey if only the dumb people keep breeding, that will not end well”.
The belief that intelligence is a heritable trait is a core tenet of eugenics, and is the very basis of the setting of Idiocracy. In the film, corporate capture and the gutting of the US government via bread and circus tactics didn’t create a “stupid” society; stupid people overbreeding caused a societal drop in intelligence, which then created the issues. The film gets cause and effect backwards, if only to adhere to the eugenicist pretext.
I think it’s less about stupid people breeding stupid people and more about the stupid people not teaching their children anything which then makes them also stupid.
Stupidity is not genetic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be passed down. Hence why the movie still works.
This world is ambivalent. There are both horrible and wonderful things, but I’m quite happy to be there.
Oh look someone who isn’t suffering
My life is far from perfect, I had and have my share of suffering. But I also, at the same time, feel joy and awe. I choose to concentrate on the good.
No one can blame you for choosing to go through life that way, but unfortunately it’s the very reason so many people are suffering.
“I’ve got enough good to focus on so I can disregard the bad” is basically the exactly desired result of “bread and circuses”. Personally it’s great. Societally? Awful.
I disagree. As I’m not despaired I can actually act to lessen the suffering around me, which I do by being socially engaged. Doomerism and concentration on the negative parts of life is what prevent us to act and in fact is the very reason why so many people are suffering.
Well I’m not really talking about despair am I? You said you choose to concentrate on the good. I’m saying that if everyone in society just concentrated on the good the bad would never be solved.
You say you can “act to lessen the suffering around you”. Doesn’t that imply that you’re actually concentrating on the bad, at least a bit? How do you disregard the bad and act against it at the same time? You obviously, self-admittedly care about the bad at least enough to do something about it.
You kind of changed your story and then held it against my argument… and ended it with an argument that the people who despair are to blame for the world’s problems, which is a bold and egregiously wrong thing to say.
Concentrating on the good doesn’t mean denying the existence of the bad. It means to put the good at the center, in this case of my life, finding in my family, my faith and my hobbies the strength to look calmly at the bad, which are at the periphery of my life but still exist and are always present in my consciousness.
an argument that the people who despair are to blame for the world’s problems
That’s not what I said. But the people in power want us despaired, because they want us docile.
(Doomerism and concentrating on the negative) is the very reason why so many people are suffering.
If you’re not referring to people in despair, what are you referring to?
I think we’re both not trying to talk about the fringes of this issue. But I take personal offense when “doomerism” is attacked like it’s some kind of illness. I spent almost two decades not being a doomer. And watched as complacency due to ignorance got replaced by complacency due to political indoctrination which is being replaced by complacency due to overwhelm.
You can’t fault a guy for arguing that maybe we should start acting like doom is impending. Or do you not think that it is? Cause if you understand the scientific method, have at least an average IQ and don’t have any significant mental disabilities, it’s pretty clear that we are, objectively, doomed on our current trajectory.
Exactly. Work to leave the world better than when you entered it through your words and actions. Even if it’s just one person that you positively impact. Sometimes shit fucking sucks and it’s a personal decision if you choose to wallow in it.
I mean I’m in the same boat as you but many people are either incapable or unwilling to learn how to be happy despite their circumstances, and basic things humans need to be happy/fulfilled like connections and time in nature are both far worse than when I was born. I recognize many people have objectively far worse situations than I do and are doing much worse mentally, and I feel like the causes of that are only getting worse day by day.
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Suffering is subjective experience.
Despite how bad you think the world is, its still in the top 1% compared to past history.
We are still doing very well on average compared to 200, 500, 1000, 2000… etc years ago.
Human lifespan used to be like 20-30, everyone used to be at war all the time, and simply getting drinkable water used to take hours of effort everywhere.
As easy as it is to say we have it shitty now, we do have countless comforts we take for granted.
Toilets? Showers? Tap water? Netflix?
Even those in our society who have it the absolute worst, homeless minorities with disabilities, are still substantially better off than what they would have endured in the same situation 1000 years ago.
1000 years ago they would not have had access to antibiotics, would likely not live past 10, would probably contract leprosy early or pox and start losing limbs at best, die otherwise.
They would not have any access to hospitals at all, because they didnt exist. Public transit did not exist at all. Mail didnt exist. And they’d be very likely just killed when a ramdom skirmish broke out if they didnt get killed by their city being raided and sacked.
The fact we arent constantly in fear of bands of raiders showing up and literally burning our entire city down nowadays should put in perspective how far we have come.
Yeah, its bad. CEOs control 99% of wealth.
But, tbh, thats actually humanities personal best…
Because how much wealth do you think was aggregated at the top in the days of actual kings, lol… you think our wealth aggregation is bad now?
Dawg you are allowed to own things, back then huge swathes of the population were slaves/serfs and couldnt even own the clothes on their own back
At least now the working class gets paid… at all
Could it be better? Fuck yes, for sure.
But is this the worst if times?
Not even a little bit. Its not the best either, we pissed away the big economic booms in the 80s/90s
But we are still soooo far ahead of our ancestors.
Dude we have fucking vaccines, do you not get how big that is?
Imagine for a moment what your ancestors 1000 years ago would have been willing to do for vaccines, antibiotics, etc.
A lotta shit we take for granted now would have been considered an incredible luxury by kings in the BC years.
Our chairs have cushions dawg… thats the type shit a king would have paid big money for… and now we throw that away if it gets old…
Things being shitty isnt about the cushioned chairs or AC or Antibiotics that separates us from the metaphorical jealous kings of yore. Its the isolation from power and the denial of a seat at the table. It’s the fact that we do have all these comforts and that they’re disposable, and we still have people that can’t afford these comforts because the capitalists at the top don’t want to let any of us anywhere near them. We make enough food globally to feed everyone and we’ll just dump perfectly edible food because having too much product on the market will lower prices too much. The kings of yore didnt have the luxury of being so isolated from the rest of their society that they were untouchable, peasant revolts were extremely effective throughout much of human history. If the peasants under a king’s watch were starving, well that king typically wasn’t long for the world, but we now we get to have news about the ass ugly Abercrombie and Fitch CEO boasting that they burn excess clothes instead of donating it or even just throwing them in the trash because he doesnt want ugly poors painting the brand with their ugly poorness and its met with… nothing… nothing of subatance anyway. Just handwringing articles about how immoral and shallow it is and then articles complaining about how that’s just capitalism bay-bee cope harder.
peasant revolts were extremely effective throughout much of human history
They still are.
The only separation between now and then is perceived isolation from power.
If even a fraction of the working class people rose up and wanted to, I dunno, kill trump (theoretically) in the US, right now, there is zero goddamn way the US gov could stop them. Theyd be outnumbered 10,000 to 1, easily.
The only thing stopping everyone from doing it is the notion that they cant do it.
Lord knows we’ve seen in other countries plenty of younger generations take down their governments with ease, so the capability is 100% still present.
My honest opinion is its just a case of Bystander Effect. As your population density goes up, the Bystander Effect spreads out beyond just immediate vicinity and to the entire city/state/country.
No individual state wants to be the one to stand up and fight directly, so everyone just stands by and watches.
No individual group of people wants to be “that” group in the US, so everyone just stands by.
If even a fraction of the working class people rose up and wanted to, I dunno, kill trump (theoretically) in the US, right now, there is zero goddamn way the US gov could stop them. Theyd be outnumbered 10,000 to 1, easily.
You realize this is the reason so many wealthy fucks are investing in heavily armedmegayacts and heavily reinforced bunkers and nuclear powered private jets like Air Force 1 that will run out of food long before it runs out of fuel. Yes we do outnumber them 10,000 to 1, how in the logistical nightmare do you gain access to the billionaire class when they’re behind several feet of reinforced steel or several miles above earth or isolated in the middle of the ocean away from all the problems tbey caused. Yes peasant revolts have been effective and the wealthy know this and thus have done everything they could to physically isolate themselves from us. I’m not saying it is impossible but its not like the oligarchs of todau live in stone castles that don’t move and can be starved out in a siege.
They’ve had a decades long head start on isolating themselves from us. That advantage isnt going away because a small portion of us have class consciousness and a significant number of people are lapping up what the oligarchs pump out on the airwaves and will defend the oligarcha to the death because one day, they might be rich too.
how in the logistical nightmare do you gain access to the billionaire class when they’re behind several feet of reinforced steel or several miles above earth or isolated in the middle of the ocean
Dude they fucking go to starbucks and shit.
They walk around in public everyday.
Getting at them is not the hard part, thats trivial
Its the next severalinutes after that usually result in you getting shot to death or arrested that is what stops people.
Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos all are in public all the damn time
The thing is, a person is 100% be on a suicide mission even attempting anything.
That is why people dont attempt anything.
Right now they do those things, while also surrounded by armed guards, but they’ve been building their bunkers and arming their megayachts and getting ready to bug out when things get too spicy for them. Peter “Saruman” Thiel is already fleeing to Argentina, probably because he’s starting to realize that his billions might not actually be enough to protect his “openly gay while raising a child” ass from getting thrown into the gulags with the rest of the underclass that he had a hand in creating and surveiling by the very political party he’s been aligned with and empowering.
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You contradict (or at least leave in a hard place) your first line saying suffering is subjective and then explaining why our current state of affairs means we are better off now. How can we be better off, I assume living happier lives with less suffering, if suffering is subjective?
If it is subjective, then maybe a 19th century woman (without many rights, without technology and in a monotonous life) felt more fulfilled and more joyful and more curious of her own life and less unfortunate than a woman today with all her rights, technology, free time, etc. And apply that to all individuals and you might find that maybe 18th century England was happier than 21st century England. Add religion to the equation, which gave them faith and hope even facing hardships; add the way they didn’t know all we do now (like the Epstein Files, the way colonization and imperialism work, etc.); add that they didn’t live overstimulated as often (e g., not so many opportunities to get addictions) or isolated (community was stronger then). Then maybe the happier 18th century is real. Then maybe you are right about suffering being subjective. And, if so, “progress” (about this) is a myth and new technology or food or money does not equal happiness.
But if you believe we should be happier and, if studies about this could be done, you believe that we should indeed find that we are happier today because “objective” or measurable benefits and privileges should equal more happiness and less suffering, then suffering is not that subjective, it has an obvious relation to these things you mentioned (long lifespans, shelter, healthcare, luxuries, etc.).
Haha Creampie go splat.
By only letting the psychos have kids we surrender the planet to the ones turning the earth to hell. We need to keep fighting.
Looks like rawdogging is back on the menu!
I do not have this thinly veiled superiority complex. I believe the environment they grow up in shapes a person more than their genes, so adopting would have double the impact as breeding since you not only give one more person a good environment, you also subtract one from a potentially bad environment.
And genetically related dark triad traits being passed down and dominating the planet gets prevented by…?
The Great Filter
At best, a necessary thing. Without people, civilization would simply not exist.
That said, civilization should be obligated to fully care for children and adults alike: Shelter, food, education, healthcare, entertainment, third spaces, transport, all should be fully provided for. If we are going to force people to exist, we should at least make sure their stay on the mortal coil is a pleasant one.
You throw that word “civilized” around like we stupid humans have grace or something. /s
Without people, civilization would simply not exist.
Don’t worry, ai bros are working on removing the people requirement.
Greatest source of guilt I have. I didn’t realize how shitty things were until after I’d had them. I also passed down neurodivergence and diabetes, I shouldn’t have done it. My kids are my only source of joy in the world and that’s not a good reason to have kids, it’s selfish. I hope they forgive me.
I’m glad you recognize this. I am shocked to find how many people say “I don’t know what I’d do if I never had kids” or something along those lines. It alludes to people having kids as a next step to adulthood or to avoid boredom. Or the ole “who would take care of me when I’m old if I didn’t have kids” - the most selfish one.
We’re not having kids and that is almost always the first thing people say, who will take care of you? What a selfish thing to thrust onto another human.
“Who will take care of me” should be the community you engage in and get invested in your life. I don’t know how humanity seems to have forgotten this is how things worked for most of human existance.
The world is the local, regional area in which you live. Everything else that is hemispheric and global is just noise, but it can consume you and make you think the world is a dark place. Having a kid is traditionally biological. Choosing to have a kid is a whole other kettle of wax. Can you raise someone to be good in a world full of bad examples?
The noise just dropped a drone on a building next door in Europe btw, random block of flats evacuated and kn fire, with fatalities. In an European country iT’s JuSt NoIsE
It’s been 33 degrees with high humidity in England for a week. In May
I should’ve stayed in the balls
My uncle said “yeah we can argue about politics but in the end it’s not really going to affect you or me” and my brother was like “actually my other brother will never visit us in the US because the customs and immigration is so screwed up from Trump that he’s afraid his Chinese girlfriend will be detained or denied entry/exit so…” Politics is just politics until it actually affects you.
You’d have to be completely devoid of morals and empathy to bring another human into this world.
This exactly. Nothing more needs to be said.
By that logic, you’d have to be completely devoid of morals and empathy not to kill yourself tonight. Whatever strain on the planet or human suffering we can prevent by never having children, you could prevent equally by suicide. It’s poor logic. You shouldn’t kill yourself, and mammals are allowed to give into their impulse to continue their species.
Someone regrets their crotch goblins
Do you mean me? It couldn’t be further from the truth. I looked into my child’s eyes earlier today and literally had the thought, “this is the meaning of everything.” My chest swelled with love i couldn’t have known possible and I thought, " Right here in front of me is the entire purpose of the universe. "
I’m not being facetious, that literally happened this morning. I had the thought at a separate time this morning that marriage and children is the whole and only point of life. You fall so deeply in love and finally understand all love songs. They become literal to you instead of metaphorical. And then you have a child, and the meaning of every love song deepens ten fold. Suddenly, “I have loved you for a thousand years, and I’ll love you for a thousand more” seems somehow literal. Like everyone in my lineage fought and lived and reproduced to get to this little toddler in front of me, and I will live and die for them, happily, and with any luck, that will get passed down for a thousand years beyond me. My familial connections are strong among my parents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my nieces and nephews.
People who aren’t lucky or privileged enough to experience this kind of deep, biological, animal love… I genuinely feel sorry for them. I don’t judge anyone’s choices, and if you think children aren’t for you, they probably aren’t. They’re a fuck ton of work. But I guess I believe that I’m just a mammal. And giving into my instinct to have a child is the most natural thing and my mammal brain rewards my giving into this instinct greatly.
That’s nice. Oxytocin is a powerful thing and all. But… no, that doesn’t mean procreating is a good or a bad thing. The answer lies beyond your lived experience and your anecdotes. It is an ethical question.
Anyway, I was commenting not because of that but because of the suicide comment you made. It’s not only a bit distasteful, it’s wrong because almost always you do not prevent suffering by committing suicide but cause it (e.g., survivors of suicidal relatives).
Also, the arguments for saying procreating is unethical are not always about reducing suffering (many are, but not all); some, for example, are about not gambling with others lives or with others wishes, respecting others future autonomy, etc.
So, in short, that suicide comment was not only a little bit distasteful, maybe even rude, it was wrong or at least incomplete or inaccurate.
I’m snipped
Ibn al Maari a famous 11th century philosopher/poet had the same view and wrote as his epitaph: “This is my father’s crime against me, which I myself committed against none.”
It will never get better if only assholes are having kids, then the world will just have more assholes.
I can assure you that people are capable of not being like their parents, for good or ill.
16 years ago there was still hope for a better future. The world wasn’t nearly this bad. Its shocking how quickly it changed.
If someone can tell me one way that kids are better off now than in my generation (mid 90s) then please let me know. The only way I can say that is pretty good is being more accepting in general, but in every other important way it’s worse. Climate change causing worse weather means it’s harder to start a garden, more time spent indoors, less enjoyable calm weather, and that’s just the readily noticeable effects.
Algorithms with websites are constantly trying to push people to be adhd and addicted, ai garbage. Don’t get me wrong I’m still happy to be alive in this day and age, but I am truly afraid of how I would feel/ who I would be growing up in the tiktok algorithm ai zombie era, and I don’t want to expose anyone to that, let alone kids that I would care about more than anything.
I mean despite that humanity is still ironically at one of the points with the most life quality. I mean I would prefer to be born today than the 300s so the time you’re talking about is generally really short.
Still rn if people decided to not have kids not much would happen, it would probably be better even if that sounds a bit harsh. Before it would kinda just make humanity go extinct depending on the time and all.
One argument for anti-natalism too, which is what this is, is that adoption is better since you not only not bring anyone to the world, which may not be wanted for well, diverse reasons, you also help someone.
Yes 100% agree with adoption. I agree it is a short time span, and might get better in the next 400 years (assuming people start looking long term after the climate disaster, which I doubt they will), but the time in between that my kids and theirs would have to suffer through still is very real.
I genuinely don’t know if you would be less happy living in the 300s compared to if you’re not wealthy living through freak weather heatwaves and massive shortages + algorithm addiction growing up 100 years from now.
tell me one way that kids are better off now than in my generation (mid 90s)
You could rattle off a bunch of childhood and young adult diseases we’ve eliminated, for starters. We don’t talk about the AIDS epidemic anymore, because it’s a treatable condition rather than a death sentence.
Aids was treatable in the late 80s, and we are getting other untreatable illnesses now like long covid, with america having just dumped 40+ years of research for being too woke. We are also seeing a return of measles because again the algorithm + media addiction pushing people to become antivax. idk it’s just like every conceivable way things are just getting more cooked.
Aids was treatable in the late 80s
Zidovudine could extend life expectancy marginally. But patients regularly built up a resistance to the drug and eventually succumbed to the illness.
HAART was only introduced in the late 90s and did not become commercially available until the 00s. It was also a cocktail of drugs with a YMMV performance. So you needed to regularly administer treatment and constantly follow up.
PrEP and the long lasting injectables didn’t arrive until the '20s.
We are also seeing a return of measles because again the algorithm + media addiction pushing people to become antivax.
We had antivax movements for as long as we’ve had vaccinations. This problem goes back over a century. You just don’t learn about the Anti-Vaccination League of America or the the UK National Anti-Vaccination League, so we treat modern vaccine hysteria as novel.
I can’t really argue that aids treatment isn’t better, but by around the 2000s it was a single pill, and Aids is also something we learned how it spreads and could massively reduce the risk of, which is not true for any of the new problems.
We have never had the head of the fda being antivax and actively cutting vaccine programs. About 20% of Republicans are antivax, and the majority of Republicans do not think vaccinations are important. And yes, that’s sort of what I mean, we’re going back to 1880s levels(if not worse) of “vaccines are unsafe,” despite 140 more years of research showing that they are unbelievably safe. That level of anti-science isn’t unprecedented, but it’s far far worse than when I was growing up. This is not contained to just the US either, but the US is the most extreme case.
Aids is also something we learned how it spreads and could massively reduce the risk of, which is not true for any of the new problems.
What?
We have never had the head of the fda being antivax and actively cutting vaccine programs.
We have had a number of administrations, following the official creation of the modern FDA, abuse the roles and advanced industry profits over human health and safety. Reagan very famously made light of the AIDS crisis specifically, accusing reporters and advocates of sodomy whenever the issue was raised. Bush restricted the sale of Plan B abortion drugs, restricted public school education on contraception, and banned embrionic stem cell research to pander to Christian fascists in his party. You can just Google the various scandals around the FDA. No shortage of corrupt and incompetent leaders, nevermind instances when a president would leave the office vacant indefinitely to obstruct its functions.
Aids was preventable with condoms or staying with people who didn’t have aids, the effects of climate change can’t be avoided (besides maybe being rich and moving).
Pretty much every bad thing you’ve mentioned is happening right now, but all at once. Abortion/ abortion drugs are banned in many states, Trump and ~70 million republicans made light of covid which caused far more deaths than aids and encouraged people to spread it, we have the most insane levels of corruption (j6ers got pardoned and paid 2b, Trump coin, literal insider trading by the president, supreme court saying something would be “inconvenient” in order to give unconstitutional readings). And the people supporting this are not some small whackjob minority, it’s 70 million people seeing an American on the ground not moving getting shot by ICE and saying “he was asking for it.”
Aids was preventable with condoms
Condoms also weren’t made widely available until the 00s.
Pretty much every bad thing you’ve mentioned is happening right now
I haven’t seen that to be the case.
I have 3 kids. They all seem happy to exist and we are having a wonderful time.
Sure the world isn’t going the way I prefer but it’s still chugging along and we have what we need. We even get to do fun stuff together. You all are missing out. Our kids are not doomed to some horrible apocalypse.
Same. Depends on your outlook IMHO and your capacity to learn and adapt.
There is no problem that can’t be fixed and no problem that won’t be fixed without youth on board. I’d have more kids and it would be a blessing if I do one day.
There’s a great saying though which I say a lot and applies to having kids. Having kids you will never be ready you just need to do it. After you rip off the bandaid it becomes “in for a penny, in for a pound” which is to say you’re fucked anyways might as well go for broke.
My theory on dropping birthrates stems a lot to the fucked up philosophies of Ayn Rand. People are way too full of themselves now and social media is a lot to blame.
I’d blame falling birthrates on the fact that everyone is poor and too busy working jobs to actually have a life. Dating is awful right now, and people can’t even afford living in a house. On top of that global warming threatens to plunge the world into chaos in the next 50 years and our government is falling into fascism at an alarming rate.
" There is no problem that can’t be fixed and no problem that won’t be fixed without youth on board"
There are absolutely problems that can’t be fixed; Even with youth on board. When those problems have already started before you were born and their ramifications will be felt for centuries, and you see earlier generations who caused it doing next to nothing to stop it, a lot of people lose hope for the future.
There are absolutely problems that can’t be fixed; Even with youth on board.
This makes me sad because it’s unequivocally false but for someone to believe this in their core is such a societal failure.
What if you were to say that to Nelson Mandela? Che Guevara? Stephen Hawking? Winston Churchill?
Humans are insanely ingenious and have it in their capacity to solve any problem. Your unwillingness to engage in that is individual and equally frustrating. Luckily I will argue people like you are in the vast minority and outside of The Internet discourse many of us are in the real world striving to make it a better place.
The problems we are facing are a magnitude larger than the issues any of those people faced. And I say that not to diminish what they have accomplished but to emphasize how big of an issue climate change is going to be. In the next 50 years we are going to see an unprecedented amount of suffering, as large populated areas start becoming unliveable. And this is already in motion. Even if we found a solution to these issues today the momentum of climate change means it is already too late to mitigate the disaster we are facing. I’m sure we will solve many issues to help us diminish the damage, but I still fully expect billions of people will be suffering from famine and climate related expulsion.
People like you who blindly say “oh we’ll get through this we can solve any problem!” ignore how big of a mess the prior generations have caused for our children. If I was becoming aware of the world I was born into in 10 years, I sure as hell would be really pissed that my parents are handing me an unsolvable crisis that their parents and then they ignored.
This makes me sad because it’s unequivocally false but for someone to believe this in their core is such a societal failure.
You’re right, our society DID FAIL US! And that is the core of the issue. If our society had actually given a damn about future generations 40 years ago we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Listen, and please listen. I’m 48. I grew up from birth listening to David Suzuki and Bob MacDonald on CBC. Since a small child I have known we are killing the planet. Oceans are acidifying and warming up. Coral reefs are dying. Species are in mass extinction. This has been 40 years my generation has personally experienced.
We are jaded as fuck. We are the smaller crunch generation. We had and have limited political power. We are stuck as the first generation to have to raise and support kids who can’t leave home and parents who are living longer and poor. I will repeat we are jaded as fuck.
But you know what? Life goes on because only a pussy gives up and the wheels are going to grind you down regardless so you may as well fight.
You will, in many ways rightly, highlight “well this is different!” and in many ways it is. Which is why I will repeat, are you a bitch who gives up or will you fight? Fight locally by supporting local businesses. Fight locally by working on influencing your friends and family to change their views. Vote for those who will change things for the better while being pragmatic that positive change takes time. Acknowledge what you can change and what you can’t and accept that.
I know it’s hard and it’s hackneyed but at lot of the youth and people in general need to get off their phones and talk to the people in their community. This online world is toxic and does not reflect reality. The world is going to survive with or without you.
Oh I’m not giving up for a second. But that’s not what this conversation is about. I just consider bringing a kid into this world that is already running into issues with a population running out of control as a move completely counter to what we need. I don’t think no one should ever have kids again, but I do think people should be far more choosy about how many children they are having. And society needs to shift to a model where having a declining population doesn’t completely ruin the economy.
Good luck with your future then. I appreciate your optimism but realistically the whole world needs to change and IMHO we are nowhere near that synergy yet.
