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In this instance, it just seems vanishingly rare to me that folks are capable of recognising the collapse of civilisation is probably less than a couple of decades away
Snotty already summarised this more pithily, but millenarianism is nothing new. This doesn't mean we aren't facing an apocalyptic event, but is it decades away or a century or more? Will it be a catastrophe or a decline? Is radical change the only solution, or would that make it worse and incremental improvement lead somewhere better? Well, maybe start a thread on it. But while you're at it, consider the psychopathology of millenarianism, where people give themselves a messianic sense of self-importance by dismissing any other concerns as irrelevant and themselves as lone visionaries. Ask yourself if you're really that visionary, or just another asshole pissing on other people's real concerns to make yourself feel better. Because you're coming across as just another asshole.
Even if you're right, is telling people on a cycling website how trival their daily concerns are going to stop it, or just make you the asshole who made other people's last two decades of "civilised" life less pleasant?
itsbruce-
Yeah, I've come across that Pollyanna line before.
I actually have a bunch of ideas regarding a way out of the mess, but they require discussion with folks on the same page to advance one iota...
'Cycling website' is perhaps a tad disingenuous; bike forums.net, for instance, locked their politics sub forum, probably because it's mostly yanks and you know how a lot of them roll. There's a pretty solid lefty slant here, so I thought maybe one or two folks might figure there's a better way forward than trying to enjoy the band under half a dozen swords of Damocles.
I never intended to become a dad, but here I am at fifty trying to kindle some hope from a bit of fluff I found in my pocket.
Kimmo
Hang on a sec - no. I may well be in the habit of making some faulty assumptions, but certainly not in bad faith.
that anybody talking about anything else is implicitly making that argument
Sorry, I don't quite follow; would you mind expanding and clarifying that? You seem to have a pretty strong impression you're trying to convey there. Seems to me that it's probably somewhat mistaken, but then again, that's how it would seem to me in either case. And I dislike being mistaken so much, I'll freely admit when I realise I am.
In this instance, it just seems vanishingly rare to me that folks are capable of recognising the collapse of civilisation is probably less than a couple of decades away, and that truly radical action is required to avoid the worst. I want to discuss the nature of that action, but it seems very difficult to find others who agree that we've hit the iceberg and there aren't enough lifeboats.
I'm super curious in what other contexts you see an echo of the underlying dynamic there. It's hard for me to imagine that I've cooked my whole impression of humanity's impending doom in order to play some dismissive psychodrama on others...