We’re going straight from “we don’t really know if something is happening” to “it’s too late anyway so why bother” without going through the troublesome “we should try to stop this” phase.
The earth and climate are already driving each other. We disrupted a delicate balance, creating these positive feedback loops.
Usually positive feedback loops run until they exhaust the resources, unfortunately the amount of greenhouse gases sequestered in the oceans, permafrost and glaciers is absolutely massive, when these feedback loops exhaust their resources it’s going to be vastly different planet, and it’s going to happen a lot quicker than anyone expects, we are seeing the acceleration already.
The only thing that disrupt these feedback loops is a global event, like a super volcano erupting, or a huge meteor strike, but both would have devastating impacts to the current life on the planet.
But increasingly, I just look around, see the news, see the social media, and think why bother? Humanity will never be anything more than this. Things seem to be wrapping up, don’t have kids, don’t try to save the world, just savor what is left till it’s gone.
In the coming decades we will begin to see a loss in the knowledge of mankind, as people become more dependent on machines and fewer and fewer people know how to work them. Progress will begin to slow down, wealth will continue to consolidate, and people will be left working hard back-breaking jobs to sustain themselves. The world of the future will have more farmers and less engineers, and even fewer people who even understand code and how to write it.
I look at my children and their experiences growing up and it’s far better than mine ever were. If I had the choice I’d be born today.
The US has seen a sharp decline in children earning more than their parents. 90% of people born in 1940 earned more than their parents, compared to just 50% in 1985, a trend that we simply aren't doing enough to correct[0]. We're on our way to a new gilded age, but perhaps your kids will among the fortunate and not of the "useless class", as Yuval Harari would say.
As technology and AI continue to progress, it's going to become harder to educate and train the workforce, and perhaps more importantly, re-train them as human skills continue to fall into obsolescence. I look at my baby nephew and hope that he'll be able to find solid-paying work one day, but that just isn't a given anymore.
0: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/504989751...
Regardless of how hopeless our current position might seem to some, there is an absurd amount of sheer panic and terror that you just happen to be exposed to because you are on the internet.
It is a wild gnashing of teeth with little productive thought taking place.
Right now I see some fat kids with necks bent at 90 degrees staring mindlessly into a tablet watching some YouTube video of other people playing video games and shouting nonsense. Or babies and toddlers watching whole playlists of AI generated crap trying to get ad revenue.
These kids are not getting a good start in life. Wouldn’t be surprised if the end of their lives doesn’t look much different from the beginning.