Ebooks for the book industry
Hmm good one.
Legalizing weed was supposed to create a bunch of new addicts and turn our towns into slums. Turned out just fine.
Similarly, legalizing gay marriage was supposed to usher in waves of people wanting to marry animals or something.
Good one
Climate change. We all thought we were gonna have to cut back on consumption, use less fossil fuels, and change our infrastructure entirely to renewable energy.
Thankfully it’s not a problem anymore at all. Our wise leaders just decided to stop talking about it and instead just decided we’d speed the process up, burn fossil fuels for glorified chat bots while draining our fresh water resources.
Thankfully it’s not a problem anymore. Because a problem would imply it’s something that has a solution. We’re far past that point. We’re essentially watching this generation of our oligarchs committing a mass global genocide of the upcoming generations.
Problem solved.
We were all panicking a bit about this one. Glad it turned out to be nonsense. Full steam ahead–er… full oil burn everything!
Don’t worry places like the Himalayas are only warming five times faster than the global average leading to apocalyptic mudslides that killed 1000 people in Nepal.
Climate change. We all thought we were gonna have to cut back on consumption, use less fossil fuels, and change our infrastructure entirely to renewable energy.
I feel like we were expecting this because we were expecting someone to be our parent and force us to make the changes, when in fact nobody is externally enforcing that we stay on a safe climate path, and we are stuck waiting for our own societal self-discipline.
In general, yes, the western world was under the false assumption that the leaders it had were, at the very least, aligned in the interest of self preservation. Many are still living with this false belief today.
I think it’s less about societal self discipline though; and more about the incompatibility of the societal hierarchy with working to solve the problem of climate change. The contradictions between the ruling and working class are in conflict when it comes to the priority of climate change. Climate change is an opportunity for further wealth concentration for the ruling class of our society; and that same ruling class has “drank their own Koolaid” in the idea of American and Western exceptionalism.
Capitalism is incapable of addressing the problems of climate change. It’s like trying to put out a fire and bringing a bulldozer instead of a firetruck.
What solution would you propose that could power the whole infrastructure humanity has built?
Sure. I’m not an expert and I’m only a single person. But I am smart enough to look and see what is working.
China is reaching renewable energy power surplus. Meaning their production of solar panels, windmills, nuclear power, etc is reaching a point at which it will exceed the power consumption of their entire country.
This is in “energy potential”. Meaning, it includes the production of renewable energy products, their energy production over their lifetime, and accounting for grown in demand over that time period. It’s a little bit different than saying that they are running on entirely renewable energy. They are not. They are unfortunately being forced to burn more coal right now due to the Iran war. A lot of their production of renewable energy is sold outside of China. I wanted to clarify though, since this is an important distinction.
The point being. China, has gone from a preindustrial peasant society post WW2, victims of a genocide, on the level of the Holocaust, from the Japanese fascist; to, now, being the first country in the world that is capable of replacing their entire energy production with renewable energy.
Whatever China is doing. We need to learn FROM THAT and quickly. We need to be mimicking their economic planning, at the very least, around the control of natural resources and energy production. Because there is no amount of cold war 2 propaganda that should overpower the threat of mass climate based genocide.
We don’t have to be “pro China”, we don’t have to “be exactly like China”. But we are currently pretending that there is not a major world power that IS planning for and capable of running a modern and cutting edge technological society that is capable of producing energy almost entirely without greenhouse gas production.
We don’t need to pretend there is some “future silicon valley tech” that will save us. There is literally already an example to follow.
If every country was producing renewable energy as China currently is, the world would have literally removed its dependence on fossil fuels.
Edit: Renewable Energy production is projected to exceed Chinas entire energy consumption by 2033 currently. Their industry is growing renewable production at 4x the rate that their domestic consumption is growing.
Wow, didn’t know that about China! Cool!
Discovery of the Higgs Bosen. People thought it would trigger the end of existence.
I went down quite a rabbit hole after reading this comment (not about the end of existence, mostly about Peter Higgs and the Higgs Boson). Anyway, thanks for that. The dude was way smarter than me.
TV was becoming too good, it was becoming impossible to keep up with all the great stuff coming out. Good thing we managed to avert that, now theres maybe 1 good season of tv every year.
There are some that were fixed, but fixed with great effort. The hole in the ozone layer for example.
My final answer will be overpopulation. Personally though I think the population should be about 1 billion just so I don’t feel quite as much existential dread at my own insignificance.
fixed
The hole in the ozone layer for example.
That my job is too easy. I having too much time to play video games, reading, travelling, watching TV, dating.
That my job pays too good. I having so much money that I not knowing what to buy.
That AI is too well developed and be morally used that I having nothing to do. (Well it kind of is given how easily I could be unemployed)
1. Obesity pandemic
Ever since semaglutide came on the market, it seems like we’re slowly getting a handle on it.
2. Overpopulation in Africa/Asia
Automation is causing them to stop having children as more jobs require higher education and there’s less jobs around altogether.
3. Poverty in Africa/Asia
Related to overpopulation. China has lifted itself up completely.
India is also doing better every year.
Famines in African nations have severely been reduced these days and all of them are now war related.[edit]
I’m getting some downvotes.
Is anything wrong here?Everything’s wrong on your list my dude.
Or everyone else is. How well do you do on this test?
https://upgrader.gapminder.org/t/sdg-world-un-goals/c/short-intro
Down votes probably because they’re less of a problem than expected they would be 15 years ago but still problematic. Very large regions in Africa/Asia still deal with overpopulation and poverty although India and China have made some massive progress in the last 15 years. For semaglutide it’s still early days, nobody expected there to be an actual general drug against obesity but more long term studies are still needed.
India’s gradual rise out of poverty is truly impressive.
I mean Iv’ve never been there, but I’ve been hearing good things.
I have not heard one good thing about India. Please share. As far as I can tell only China has blossomed and it’s incredibly striking. India? … I guess capitalism just doesn’t work. Let’s check back in maybe… 100 years? How long does it take for a capitalist nation to build itself up? 500 years?
How long does it take for a capitalist nation to build itself up?
Idk, look at development in Japan or Korea… Not saying that the culture in India is similar… at all… but capitalism doesn’t seem to be there blocker here.
