

Roger Ebert's bleak assessment of the next 100 years - tptacek
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/things_fall_apart_the_centre_c.html

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tom_rath
He was with me until he started bringing earthquakes and volcanoes into the
mix. What's bringing that about? Too many fat people pressing on the Earth?

Sure, there's a lot of crap going on right now but sometimes it comes in
bunches. When that happens, folks start noticing the old plaster crack over
the sofa and the basement sink that's leaked for years, and everything starts
looking like a disaster.

It sounds like Roger just sat down to write on an 'off' day. That would have
been me about a week ago. Things are bad (they're _always_ bad to someone) but
they're not '100 years' bad.

Pour yourself another eggnog and add a bit more rum to it than usual. We'll
resume tackling our difficulties tomorrow.

For now, we could all use a moment's pause to collect our wits. Let's pull our
way out of this in 2009.

~~~
jrbedard
well there's a lot of earthquakes at Yellowstone park these last few days,
which is on top of a supervolcano:
[http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowsto...](http://www.seis.utah.edu/req2webdir/recenteqs/Maps/Yellowstone.html)

~~~
sdurkin
Yeah, but the Yellowstone volcano blowing its top is one of those "so bad and
unlikely its not worth worrying about" scenarios, like asteroid impacts.*

*That's not to say someone shouldn't worry about asteroid impacts. It just shouldn't be us average Joes.

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TomOfTTB
I've always been a fan of of John Stossel and a while back he had a special on
"10 foolish myths". The number one myth was "Life just keeps getting worse".
Here's a summary I found on-line, written by Mr
Stossel(here:[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-12_28_05_JS....](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-12_28_05_JS.html))...

"Life getting worse is myth No.1 because in TV newsrooms, I hear a constant
whine about life getting worse: avian flu will kill us if terrorism doesn't
get us first; crime and pollution keep increasing, and the poor are suffering.
But in truth, life keeps getting better. We live longer than ever, and with
less pain (think about dental care in the 1960s). Crime is down. In America,
even poor people have homes, cars, and access to music and other entertainment
that was once only available to royalty. Pollution? The air and water keep
getting cleaner. I jumped in the Hudson River not long ago to illustrate the
point. There I was, swimming away and looking up at the Empire State building.
Despite eight million people flushing nearby, the health department says
swimming in the Hudson is now perfectly safe."

To me that pretty much says it all. Desepite the nay-sayers the world has
gotten better and better. In no small part thanks to technology.

In fact, I think it's oddly appropriate that this shows up on Hacker News
because Mr. Ebert's outlook is exactly what technological minded people should
be fighting against.

Only through optimism can we realize all the good we are capable of doing.

~~~
brandnewlow
Stossel for the win!

I too am a bit of a fan of his. A few years back, I actually got the chance to
be interviewed by him for a 20/20 piece. I was pretty excited to get to meet
the guy and tell him I liked his work...never happened. He couldn't have been
less interested in talking to me and the other people in our group interview
and flew out of the room right after it was over. Still think he does good
work though.

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sutro
That article wasn't Ebert's bleak assessment of the next 100 years. It was his
review of the new Jim Carrey movie "Yes Man."

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z3r0p4r4d0x
How come everyone in the media is reporting such dire consequences? Do they
plan to scare people? Why can't they just motivate people. Suggest things that
need to be done, what changes need to be made, instead of criticizing
everything? I think it's not the time to go over the same things over and over
again, it's time to try and get back on our feet again. And the media should
be ashamed of not playing an integral part in it.

~~~
tptacek
Ebert isn't "the media"; he's an esteemed American writer writing what he's
thinking. Do you think that people called Mencken "the media" last century?
Maybe.

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larryfreeman
There is a rising cynicism today that reminds me of growing up in post-
watergate America (I was born in 1967). We survived that previous wave of
downspirit and this wave will also pass. There's no guarantees in life that
our world will survive a 100 years but there's no reason to give up hope
either.

Still, I'm a big fan of Ebert and appreciate his essays. As always, I take his
opinions as food for thought.

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gruseom
I like Ebert's writings on movies a lot. But in this case, I get the sense
that old age is a factor. Or more precisely, a certain rather distinctive kind
of pessimism that sometimes afflicts old people. It happened to a professor of
mine that I love. And earlier this year I heard an NPR piece about the 100th
birthday of Claude Lévi-Strauss that talked about how he had lost all hope for
humanity. As I said, there's a kind of distinctive quality to this that makes
me think it isn't really about the state of the human race... it's rather more
self-centered than that (which sounds more judgmental than I'd like).

~~~
unalone
Yeah. To be fair to the poor guy, he's gone through a pretty miserable last
few years. Lost his voice, disfigured his face, saw the most hated movie
critic in the nation replace him at his flagship show. I'm guessing it's not
easy.

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lionheart
And maybe aliens will invade and enslave us all. That sounds about as likely
as anything else he's saying.

I can't stand things like this. Instead of analyzing potential problems,
looking for solutions, and encouraging people to work toward them, why do
people proceed to assume the absolute worst case scenario for everything
simultaneously and then sit back and say "it's so bad that there's nothing we
can do to stop it"?

I hate it. It does nothing but depress you and make things worse, instead of
making anything better.

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davi
Let's turn to someone with (possibly) more credibility than Roger Ebert.
Michael Hayden, the director of the CIA, thinks number one issue facing us on
this time scale is population growth:

[https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-
testimony/land...](https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-
testimony/landon-lecture-series.html)

"Today what I’d like to do is spend a little time with you not on the close
fight, but on the deep fight, and to look at three global trends that point to
a 21st century that will undoubtedly be quite different from the century just
ended. ... In thinking about the future, one of the most important things that
our analysts brought to ... my attention was world demographics. ... Today,
there are 6.7 billion people sharing the planet. By mid-century—by mid-
century, the best estimates point to a world population of more than 9
billion. That’s a 40 to 45 percent increase—striking enough—but most of that
growth is almost certain to occur in countries least able to sustain it, and
that will create a situation that will likely fuel instability and
extremism—not just in those areas, but beyond them as well."

He goes on to talk about demographics in different regions of the world and
how this will affect Americans.

I kind of buy it.

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byrneseyeview
I know it's human to turn these issues into stories, but:

 _One partner has been laid off, the other fears the same._

This implies an unemployment rate that is, at a _minimum_ , twice that of the
Great Depression at its _worst_. If we hit 10% unemployment, we're still at
90% employment -- the majority of us will have jobs (that don't pay as well as
we'd hoped, that don't move along as fast as we'd like).

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DanielBMarkham
What a depressing bit of hang-wringing.

As a movie aficionado, I've been watching Ebert for a long time. Ebert makes a
great point to somebody else's counterpoint when it comes to movie reviews.I
like him, and I like watching him.

I don't share his view of reality, and I'll put a hundred bucks down that his
vision of the next 100 years is wildly pessimistic. That's not saying that bad
things won't happpen -- it wouldn't surprise me to see a nuke used in
terrorism within the next 30 years -- but overall the next 100 years will be
as great as the last 100.

~~~
randomwalker
Anyone with a pessimistic view of the world should watch this TED talk by
Steven Pinker: it's possibly the best TED talk I've ever watched. It
completely demolishes the notion that the world is getting worse with a
barrage of statistics that will blow your mind.
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html)

~~~
brl
Yeah, that talk is excellent. For a double dose of optimism about the human
race, follow it up with the Hans Rosling TED talks. First he shows you some
visualizations of economic data to convince you that we're not hopelessly
fucked, then he swallows a sword. I love that guy.

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pmorici
People have lamented the dismal and rapidly decaying state of society since
the beginning of time and yet here we sit.

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tptacek
I share his politics, but not his outlook.

Not Hacker News? Well, more so than some of the other political stuff here:
Ebert is probably one of the best "blog" writers working today, and it's been
fascinating watching him acclimate over the last year.

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Tichy
Typical case of watching too many news on TV. Cure: stop watching (or reading)
the news.

Although I admit I also feel a bit uneasy about living so far removed from
food production.

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gcheong
Well it was nice knowing y'all. I'll be in my underground bunker until all
this blows over...

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Allocator2008
He brought up every "doom and gloom" scenario except the feared and scarce-
mentioned-aloud "man-bear-pig".

Neither the Pakistan-India nor the Israel-Palestine situation is beyond hope
of being solved.

The planet is resilient, and with proper policy making, the Arctic ice will
return.

The economy is in recession to be sure, but recessions have happened before,
and a good Keynesian approach to it should work - as Nixon said, "we are all
Keynesians now".

So while Mr. Ebert continues to warn us about the perils of man-bear-pig and
the like, I think the rest of us should think about good, practical solutions,
to real, solvable problems. Hysteria doesn't get us anywhere. Smart policy
does, and frankly I think the President-elect is on the right track so far.

