I think I have. I've been reckoning with it since I learned about entropy back in 7th grade๐ฌ We live in an Imaginary system based on extraction and destruction. We call it "development." Entropy is the force that breaks down solar systems. Just think what this force will do to our imaginary ones.
As I like to say, there are different types of collapse (that is, regarding different things) as well as multiple scenarios regarding how, when, and if a collapse happens. Some types of collapse, especially those who are inevitable due to strictly natural causes, I have accepted them and do not bother about them. Others, on the other hand, which, theoretically speaking at least, could be prevented or somewhat handled, I have not accepted โ even if I have evaluated that those, too, are in fact inevitable. So I end up wasting some of my time in trying to find ways to prevent them, instead of focusing only on my personal life.
I've accepted it. It feels a lot like the death of close family. It means that life will change forever. There's no going back to the way things were years or decades ago. That "person" (civilization, in this case) is terminal and will soon be no more. Most folks alive today can't imagine how that could be possible. What would the world even look like? How could humans live?
What helped me was looking back to the last time humans lived 100% sustainably. No extractive practices. No toxic emissions. Completely cyclical energy processes (within the bounds of entropy). The last time our ancestors did that? Before civilization. In fact, it was immediately before. Some societies were able to avoid civilization, and they remained completely sustainable. We modern folks have called them "undeveloped" or "savages."
How are these folks different from "civilized" folks? They don't rely predominantly on agriculture. They might encourage certain plants to grow that they prefer, but mostly they just hunt and gather what the planet provides naturally. They never over-populate because they only eat what's available to them. Unlike agriculture, there's no need to store up food surpluses for later, so there's no big fertility spikes (or exponential growths). They managed to live this way for a couple hundred thousand years before civilization, and they stayed stable and, from everything we know of anthropological and archeological evidence, happy.
So, the modern world is dying. I suppose we could try to preserve the fading "benefits" of civilization for as long as they last, or maybe we could retry a previous version of civilization (feudalism, slave systems, etc), but we've seen this movie before. We know that such systems are very destructive for the planet and for the lifeforms on it. We know they lead to exponential population growths, boom and bust cycles, and violence-based hierarchy systems. In short, we know that every version of civilization that we've tried over the past 10k or so years doesn't work.
Or, maybe we could do what our distant ancestors did. I mean, indefinitely sustainable and... happy? Certainly healthier than we are today. Seems like a no-brainer.
Anyway, looking into this stuff made me realize that the way we do things today wasn't inevitable. We aren't a broken species. We aren't inherently "evil." We're just trying something that really doesn't work. So long as we don't manage to go extinct, we can always try something different, even if that's just going back to what we know worked before (with some modern alterations, because genies don't go back into bottles).
This is all some wild notions, I know, but wild things are happening these days. Might be time we reconsider some fundamentals.
I see you are not familiar with my work. That is fine, of course, but I am curious why you assumed it is the collapse of modernity that I cannot accept.
I don't find it hard to accept the collapse of modernity. In fact, I consider its collapse inevitable. However, how and when it will collapse can vary greatly. The collapse I anticipate is much worse than merely the collapse of modernity, and many aspects of it are -- theoretically speaking, at least -- preventable (take human-caused climate change, among others, as an example). It is those preventable types of collapse that I find somewhat hard to accept.
The collapse and/or extinction of homo sapiens is no more preventable than our own individual mortality. We are all going to die; our species will go extinct or evolve into another form within a blink of geologic time. What is difficult to accept about that?
Mortality is what most people struggle with.
Iโm familiar with the doomasphere, hopium and endless hand-wringing.
I get the impression we are talking about different things... Out of curiosity, though, do you really think the extinction of homo sapiens is imminent? By imminent I mean 15-20-30 years.
I think I have. I've been reckoning with it since I learned about entropy back in 7th grade๐ฌ We live in an Imaginary system based on extraction and destruction. We call it "development." Entropy is the force that breaks down solar systems. Just think what this force will do to our imaginary ones.
Well said, Jasmine.
Thank you.
As I like to say, there are different types of collapse (that is, regarding different things) as well as multiple scenarios regarding how, when, and if a collapse happens. Some types of collapse, especially those who are inevitable due to strictly natural causes, I have accepted them and do not bother about them. Others, on the other hand, which, theoretically speaking at least, could be prevented or somewhat handled, I have not accepted โ even if I have evaluated that those, too, are in fact inevitable. So I end up wasting some of my time in trying to find ways to prevent them, instead of focusing only on my personal life.
Completely understandable.
Check out postdoom.com re acceptance
Thanks, Jan! Iโll check it out.
I've accepted it. It feels a lot like the death of close family. It means that life will change forever. There's no going back to the way things were years or decades ago. That "person" (civilization, in this case) is terminal and will soon be no more. Most folks alive today can't imagine how that could be possible. What would the world even look like? How could humans live?
What helped me was looking back to the last time humans lived 100% sustainably. No extractive practices. No toxic emissions. Completely cyclical energy processes (within the bounds of entropy). The last time our ancestors did that? Before civilization. In fact, it was immediately before. Some societies were able to avoid civilization, and they remained completely sustainable. We modern folks have called them "undeveloped" or "savages."
How are these folks different from "civilized" folks? They don't rely predominantly on agriculture. They might encourage certain plants to grow that they prefer, but mostly they just hunt and gather what the planet provides naturally. They never over-populate because they only eat what's available to them. Unlike agriculture, there's no need to store up food surpluses for later, so there's no big fertility spikes (or exponential growths). They managed to live this way for a couple hundred thousand years before civilization, and they stayed stable and, from everything we know of anthropological and archeological evidence, happy.
So, the modern world is dying. I suppose we could try to preserve the fading "benefits" of civilization for as long as they last, or maybe we could retry a previous version of civilization (feudalism, slave systems, etc), but we've seen this movie before. We know that such systems are very destructive for the planet and for the lifeforms on it. We know they lead to exponential population growths, boom and bust cycles, and violence-based hierarchy systems. In short, we know that every version of civilization that we've tried over the past 10k or so years doesn't work.
Or, maybe we could do what our distant ancestors did. I mean, indefinitely sustainable and... happy? Certainly healthier than we are today. Seems like a no-brainer.
Anyway, looking into this stuff made me realize that the way we do things today wasn't inevitable. We aren't a broken species. We aren't inherently "evil." We're just trying something that really doesn't work. So long as we don't manage to go extinct, we can always try something different, even if that's just going back to what we know worked before (with some modern alterations, because genies don't go back into bottles).
This is all some wild notions, I know, but wild things are happening these days. Might be time we reconsider some fundamentals.
I accept my own mortality. Why is accepting the collapse of modernity such a struggle?
Do you have children?
I see you are not familiar with my work. That is fine, of course, but I am curious why you assumed it is the collapse of modernity that I cannot accept.
I don't find it hard to accept the collapse of modernity. In fact, I consider its collapse inevitable. However, how and when it will collapse can vary greatly. The collapse I anticipate is much worse than merely the collapse of modernity, and many aspects of it are -- theoretically speaking, at least -- preventable (take human-caused climate change, among others, as an example). It is those preventable types of collapse that I find somewhat hard to accept.
The collapse and/or extinction of homo sapiens is no more preventable than our own individual mortality. We are all going to die; our species will go extinct or evolve into another form within a blink of geologic time. What is difficult to accept about that?
Mortality is what most people struggle with.
Iโm familiar with the doomasphere, hopium and endless hand-wringing.
I get the impression we are talking about different things... Out of curiosity, though, do you really think the extinction of homo sapiens is imminent? By imminent I mean 15-20-30 years.
I'm skeptical of near term human extinction, short of a nuclear exchange.