the end of the world - and how to avoid it

Are there people here who have always known this?

Yeah, but I enjoy our pointlessness and still want to try and make other people's pointlessness better rather than worse, despite it being pointless in a biggest picture way, it's the tiny little connections that make the pointlessness better and more enjoyable.
I don't think self awareness drives over consumption or displays of power though.

If we didn't have self awareness would we buy so much stuff?

I agree that pointlessness is enjoyable and that we might as well try to make it pleasant for others and ourselves. I don't know whether this counts as absurdism. Does it have some other label?

Maybe the zen and yoga types?

For many part of the journey is realising thier is no self, only awareness
If you're interested you can look up nondualism and yes there are places you can stay with people living these values and it's very enriching in my experience

I completely agree with your regarding value of the continuation of humans on this rock,

While my view like yours is that in the scheme of things we are a blip and likely to disappear well before this lump of rock explodes. And so what?

This does not take away from trying to extend the longevity of humans and to aim collectively to keep as many people as possible content and pain free for as long as possible, an approach our health professionals take for individuals (a philosophical take as you suggested)

I agree wholeheartedly with trying to extend lives and make them pleasant. What I'd like to know is why so many people run around causing chaos by overconsuming. Why don't they settle for eating and procreating like the other species? Is it because they want to give their life meaning?

I think your point about being self aware (though we don't know the degree other life forms are self aware) may lead to (over) consumption as a signifier of meaning.

We may also be simply a hierarchical species, mostly patriarchal hierarchy, like other species and those at the top able, with force, to ensure they get all the best things.

Objectively, the only way to know whether or not humans can be anything other than destructive consumerists would be to try various ways of not being that. And if it could be conclusively shown that this had failed because it would always fail, the biggest value of there having been people who saw great value in proclaiming from the start that this was alway going to be the case would be that we'd know who to eat first, as we watched all the other food sources disappearing.

We've been 10 years away from usable fusion reactors, but SPARC is expected to have net energy production by around 2034. That really could be a game changer.

Could being the operative word.

Some interesting data here on global energy use and sources. China / coal looking a bit scary.

https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels

this is the part where i struggle. maybe there is a theoretical collectivist / ecological / socially just future, but i just can't see how we get there. it appears to me that the only things that will change behaviour on a societal or global scale are large shocks and / or the things we rely on becoming unavailable so that the option not to change is removed.

'We' is a broad category - I figure there's some small percentage of us who feel a century or two before their time, who have always been aghast at business as usual, and are absolutely busting for a chance to try some better ideas.

How to get from here to there is the rub tho innit. I have a couple of angles on that... (haven't read the thread yet so I may echo some stuff already said)

So how about this - there are these quaint notions of the social contract and the consent of the governed and so on, but after close to half a century of neoliberalism all those promises are looking conspicuously empty; the bells and whistles are falling off the whole brutal charade.

So where is the organised system for finding a more optimum system of organisation? And who dares to say we don't need one? Surely a number of politics nerds, tired of watching the shitshow and having stupid arguments with folks stuck in the matrix, would be keen to get that ball rolling?

Presumably there are a number of small groups I've never heard of already working towards something similar; there must be some way to avoid a People's Front of Judea situation and federate them...

It seems apparent that if you want to be above the law, you need to be a large corporation. So let's defeat capitalism with its own instrument. Forget the political system, mired in corruption - corporations do just as much or more to determine our way of life, with very little standing in their way. Especially the corporation you work for. So why couldn't we have a co-op, dedicated to maximising the potential of its members and finding that optimal system of organisation, employing all the relevant facts and tools which are barely utilised elsewhere?

Facts about human nature, like how much more effective intrinsic motivation is than extrinsic motivation. That we evolved and have spent almost all our time as humans in flat, cooperative structures rather than hierarchies of dominance. Tools, like those afforded by the communications revolution - which Salvador Allende was keen to utilise before I was born, but the CIA was having none of it. Today those tools are abused to hypnotise us and pit us against each other to drive engagement to get those all-important ad clicks, but what if our phones could talk to each other without relying on cell towers, and were the infrastructure of a future government which involves everyone?

The corporate structure enveloping all this could be like a cell membrane, inside which, money is subject to as much de-emphasis as possible, insulating members from the sort of crap which precludes actualisation, like having to be somewhere five days a week. Capitalism relies on a zero-sum arrangement in which human potential is more or less minimised; what if the structure is geared towards synergy and maximising potential? Maybe such a corporation could eventually outperform all the other corporations and swallow everything up? What if a billionaire or two could be sold on the idea of going down in history as one of its greatest heroes rather than just another obscene glutton? I can see this idea possibly snowballing.

Or at least, it could set the stage for those compelled to find better ways after this dumpster fire burns to the ground. There's probably no averting the litany of catastrophes industrial capitalism invites, but what happens afterwards in the wreckage? Do we just have to learn archery to fight over the scraps, or can we devise a framework robust enough to carry us through the looming hellscape?

personally I can't wait to never have to go to work again

Don't forget to balance that against having to find fresh water every day, wiping your arse on whatever you can find, etc

populations have grown the most in the past century in areas where there is comparatively little technology (understood in the modern sense; I guess you could also interpret traditional modes of sustainable agriculture like in India and China as technology).

I hate the way the term technology is used to mean just stuff with transistors in it, or worse, just whatever has a screen. Technology is a set of techniques. Cooking is technology. Language is technology.

Culture is technology. Technology is culture. It's something we should all own.

Check out the Preston model, a kind of co-operative/mutual municipalism:
https://renewal.org.uk/the-road-to-municipal-socialism-the-present-and-future-of-the-preston-model/

that’s all now complemented by an expansion of economic democracy through new worker-owned firms, through cooperative housing projects, through new community land trusts; through insourcing; through work towards the establishment of a regional cooperative bank

Or further afield you've got the Mondragon Corporation, a network of co-operatives in the Basque region of Spain:
https://theconversation.com/the-mondragon-model-how-a-basque-cooperative-defied-spains-economic-crisis-10193

What arose in 1956 as a handful of workers in a disused factory, using hand tools and sheet metal to make oil-fired heating and cooking stoves is today a massive conglomerate of some 260 manufacturing, retail, financial, agricultural, civil engineering and support co-operatives and associated entities, with jobs for 83,800 workers, and annual sales in excess of $US20 billion.

And a transition toward that would include something like a right of first refusal for employees of a company to buy it when it’s being sold:

And I think, potentially, if something like a Marcora law could be introduced centrally, and with support from local and regional government, that could encourage working people actually to have ownership of companies when they are sold. That kind of central government support for a more democratic economy could make a real difference.

the Marcora Law – this is the provision we see in Italy that would provide an opportunity for the workers within a within a firm to buy-out that firm if it were changing hands, or if it were in in danger of being closed down.

(From the first link, above)

It's a sad paradox that self-awareness, which we think of as our unique advantage, is driving us to consume excess resources and extinguish ourselves.

Ever read Escher, Gödel, Bach? Self-awareness isn't either/or, it's a continuum. Self-referential feedback loops are what give rise to intelligence, and the more of them you have, the more intelligence you have. Metacognition is how we avoid being manipulated via our primitive drives.

What I'd like to know is why so many people run around causing chaos by overconsuming. Why don't they settle for eating and procreating like the other species? Is it because they want to give their life meaning?

Before agriculture, our mythology served to keep us in harmony with our environment, but once we started amassing a surplus, a culture of dominance emerged to control it for the benefit of a minority; colonialism and capitalism have descended from that dominion, and marketing is devoted to perverting people's natural drives, including the search for meaning, into consumerism to feed the obese few at the top.

Why don't people settle for a simple and meaningful existence? Because it's not available - who's there to welcome them into a sustainable way of life? We swim in trickle-down piss, and take it for water.

Objectively, the only way to know whether or not humans can be anything other than destructive consumerists would be to try various ways of not being that.

We managed it for a hundred thousand or a few million years, depending on how you count it... The trick is how to come up with a sustainable way forwards which includes agriculture and industry.

We've been 10 years away from usable fusion reactors, but SPARC is expected to have net energy production by around 2034. That really could be a game changer.

Aside from the significant uncertainty that Fusion will ever be practical (the fact we're running out of Tritium being just one problem), I really wouldn't advise looking to tech for solutions. Relentless consumerism takes any new invention and finds ways to be more destructive with it. Your new invention makes a lot of things more energy efficient? Well, fossil fuel stores that were previously too marginal to exploit just became viable; the drilling starts tomorrow. And so on.

Ever read Escher, Gödel, Bach?

Gödel, Escher, the Eternal golden braid, brilliant book with lots of theories about AI and consciousness.
I recall it compared our brain and consciousness to either an ant nest or beehive I can't remember. Worth a read, especially the meta, Lewis Carroll influenced introductions to each chapter

Ever read Escher, Gödel, Bach? Self-awareness isn't either/or, it's a continuum.

I really wouldn't cite that book as proof of anything, although cognitive science is one of the very few subjects in the book he knows a lot about. It's a speculative exploration of ideas based on some things he has observed in those topics he knows well, extended into areas he knows much less about. Even he wouldn't say it's proof of anything.

Before agriculture, our mythology served to keep us in harmony with our environment

Was this the result of the mythology, or was that mythology the result of having to live like that?

We managed it for a hundred thousand or a few million years

The fact that our distant ancestors lived differently at a time when they had very little choice doesn't mean anything about what we're capable of when we do have power and choice (on a social group/species level, before anybody starts). I sincerely hope we can find our way to better ways of thinking and living that last, but what our ancestors were doing in the last Ice Age and earlier is objective proof of nothing at all. We aren't facing their challenges, and they weren't facing ours.

You keep citing as absolute facts things that aren't proven. One problem with that is that any progress to better ways of doing things really does need objectivity.

I'm trying to keep this simple. What I've noticed recently is that if I think of the goals I used to have, of big house, wife, kids, friends, in the lap of luxury, I feel miserable if I compare myself with people who have achieved that. I used to hang out with people who were on 300-700k per annum years ago. They also had a plan for a multimillion payoff from private equity or a partnership or property development or something. By now some of them are top consumers, private jets and all that. One of them has a stately home with a staff of 75. I'm a virtual shut-in who has done 2 years' work in the last 30, buying the marked down food in the supermarket. If I think about absurdism and brownian motion, I feel fine about it.

used to drink water enriched with shit

What do you mean "used to"?

egoist, selfish, aggressive men?

Nah, I'm that and I'm well aware we're fucked. I'm also well aware what I can do amounts to fucking nothing based on what else is happening on this planet. I waste my time riding to work, sorting recycling, trying to avoid buying plastics and the whole reduce, reuse, recycle but at the end of the day, some cunt in the USA is probably just gonna lean on a button after some cunt in Korea does the same and we're all dust.

I waste my time riding to work, sorting recycling

I blame your parents. Most of the members here have a Porsche.

I don't have a car. Go me!

At least when the nukes hit, I won't be looking for a fucking parking spot.