
It’s 2020 and You’re in the Future - amacneil
https://waitbutwhy.com/2020/01/its-2020-and-youre-in-the-future.html
======
octokatt
What I'm surprised wasn't mentioned is that the year 2020 seemed really
futuristic to most of the people who are now reading this -- but from now on,
the year 2020 will start being in the past.

------
ncmncm
> _But the weirdest thing about kids today: most of them will live to see the
> 2100s._

If they don't starve when civilization collapses in 2030 or 2040. Or 2060 or
2080. (Opinions differ on when, and how many.)

~~~
maneesh
Intrigued how your comment seems to imply that civilization will collapse no
matter what before 2100. Am I reading that right?

You truly believe there is an extremely high probability that the world will
starve in the next 80 years?

~~~
ncmncm
It looks increasingly likely.

My go-to scenario is mass migration out of the tropics, as they become
(literally) uninhabitable, drives fascist governments into power in temperate
countries, which leads directly to world war, thence to thermonuclear
devastation. We already see the beginnings of this scenario unfolding.

The species will certainly survive.

I hope it does not go this way, but I don't know how to prevent it. Ideas
welcome. Downvoting me will certainly not help.

~~~
shadowprofile77
There's the basic fact that almost no hard data of any kind exists to back up
your apocalyptic claim. If anything, by all major metrics, human well-being is
dramatically improving, not just in the north but also in these supposedly
infernal tropics. And data indicates that this will in most ways continue, in
terms of reductions in the population explosion, better access to technology,
better health and welfare and even better environmental practices becoming
more common in the developing world, just as they did in the developed world
over previous decades.

You remind me of people like Paul Ehrlich back in the 70's. Predicting doom
and disaster because it was fashionable, extrapolating without good supporting
evidence or consideration for human development and innovation, then later
just shrugging off their nonsense when it proves to have been totally,
absurdly wrong.

The climate change crisis is a serious problem for our species and societies,
but it too has possible solutions that are already in development. It's not
simply a pre-ordained act of god.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
That is a belief, an opinion of yours. Another opinionon could be that the
development and innovation you are speaking of was in the ever more clever
externalizing of environmental cost to 'somewhere else' like in a giant
pyramid scheme, and thereby oversaturing several interconnected systems up to
their tipping points.

Where the 70ies doomsayers were wrong was the lack of anticipating those
pyramid schemes, and their superficial covering up of bad things 'gonna
happen.

Welcome to the Idiocracy, maybe in the Wall-E fanedit.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
errr ... oversaturATing

