Imagining the Future 05: 100 years ago many analysts looked at the trendlines and predicted catastrophe. It didn't happen.
Posted by TuneGlum7903@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 22 comments
WILL HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF?
A lot of people think the same thing is going to happen with the Climate Crisis. The 1% are betting BIG MONEY that history is going to repeat itself.
The “Smart Money” is betting that history will repeat itself. That the predictions of “Climate Doomers” will turn out to be, once again, another false alarm.
They see this as a repeat of a similar debate that was happening a century ago.
A debate that Charles Mann characterized as being between "Wizards" and "Prophets" in his 2018 book "The Wizard and The Prophet".
A century ago there was a growing fear that the earth would soon not be able to support the growing human population. Available deposits of fertilizers were being strip mined across the world and when they were gone, agricultural productivity was sure to plummet.
Not just that, dozens of other natural commodities were being "used up" faster than supplies could be expanded. Animals like the buffalo and the passenger pigeon had been driven to near or total extinction, in a single lifetime. The demand for ivory to make everything from piano keys to billiard balls had driven elephants to near extinction, just as the demand for lamp oil had done to the whales.
Human numbers were expanding but resources were NOT.
"Prophets" like William Vogt forecast DOOM. Preaching that humans should respect natural limits and develop customs and practices that "curbed" human numbers to live sustainably within a "natural order".
The "Wizards" like Norman Borlaug, the father of the "Green Revolution" viewed "hunger" through the lens of a technological worldview that seeks always to overcome Earth’s limits. He figured out how to breed wheat that combined high yields with resistance to the ancient plague of stem rust. The new varieties made full use of fertilizers and other inputs causing harvests to soar globally. Ending the growing threat of mass starvation events becoming commonplace.
Today, Techno-Optimism is OVERWHELMINGLY the dominant "faith" in modern America and perhaps the world.
There is a belief, grounded in past experience, that "science" can solve ANY problem. That when the "need" becomes GREAT enough, society will "throw money" at a problem and it will get solved. To MOST people, this is the "commonsense" attitude to take towards the current Climate Crisis.
It's getting BAD now, so REAL money will start going towards solving the problem. Just like "always happens" fixes will be found and "life will go on".
A century ago, plastics, synthetic fertilizers, and the "Green Revolution" solved the "population problem". Today's Techno-Optimists think AI, cheap fusion power, and genetic engineering of food crops will solve the Climate Crisis.
Are predictions of Collapse, "doomer hysteria"?
DoomsayerMoron1897@reddit
in 1925 can you tell me what analysts and trend lines there were and what they were saying? Do you have sources for the science they were using to predict catastrophe? Arguably of course in 1925 various collapses and catastrophes did happen in the following decades. WW2 being of course a pretty good example.
TuneGlum7903@reddit (OP)
Beyond specific economic predictions, broader philosophical and literary works of the 1920s also envisioned future collapse, often driven by technology and societal decay.
Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West: The second volume of this influential philosophical work was published in 1922. Spengler predicted that Western civilization was in a period of "pre-death emergency" that would end in its final collapse. His gloomy view of the West's deterministically limited lifespan resonated with a post-World War I audience disillusioned with traditional values.
Dystopian fiction: The decade also saw a rise in dystopian fiction that presented chilling, futuristic visions of societal breakdown caused by technological advancement and overpopulation. For example, Alfred Döblin's 1924 novel Mountains, Oceans, Giants depicts a high-tech future that ultimately succumbs to ecological disaster.
For all the millions of deaths it caused, WW2 did not put a dent in the rise of world population. It kept on rising, particularly in the third world.
This caused a panic among Malthusian scientists and economists as to the consequences. A growing population would surely lead, as Malthus predicted, to ‘misery and vice’, in other words, to famines, pandemics, dictatorships and wars as over-populated countries on an over-crowded planet fought bitterly for diminishing space and resources.
Over-population became one of the great bogey-men of the post-war era. Books like Our Plundered Planet (1948) by Fairfield Osborn Jr, or The Road to Survival (1948) by William Vogt, or The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul Erlich, or Blueprint for Survival (1972) by Edward Goldsmith painted the same terrifying vision of a practically inevitable collapse of civilization because of over-population and famine.
DoomsayerMoron1897@reddit
So you're saying there have been no wars or famines or pandemics or dictatorships since the 1920s?
Alarming_Award5575@reddit
We have short memories. Innovation is not a cure all. We didn't magically invent intibiotics to stave of the plague. Increasingly hard to believe we will onnovate our way out of a massive energy imbalance.
individual_328@reddit
Is this Crim, or somebody aping his, uh, "style"?
TuneGlum7903@reddit (OP)
SS: Are predictions of Collapse "Doomed Hysteria"? Is it "inevitable" that SCIENCE will save us?
Most of us have heard the saying that "human ingenuity is an inexhaustible resource".
It is usually trotted out by Techno-Optimists and Hopium advocates to explain "why" they don't think that Collapse is upon us. The argument being that "technology and science" will ALWAYS find a solution to our problems.
Throw enough money at a problem and a solution WILL be found.
AI will become "super smart" and solve fusion, direct air carbon capture, and gene engineering food crops for us.
Or, we will solve fusion on our own.
Or, renewables will solve our energy needs and gene engineering will make food cheap and plentiful.
One way or another, technology will solve today's problems and prime us for another century of peace and plenty.
That's the Optimists viewpoint.
If it feels like we are betting EVERYTHING on a "Deus ex Machina" save, then you are a Doomer.
patagonian_pegasus@reddit
Sounds like fusion is only 30 years away
Cyberpunkcatnip@reddit
Shoo shoo
tawhuac@reddit
It's all just bets. Nobody knows. Maybe we'll invent a new super tech which will clean all up. The optimists were right. Or we don't. The pessimists were right.
One thing is for sure, the future will look very different than our lifetime.
VenusbyTuesdayTV@reddit
We might buy some time again with SRM
InternetPeon@reddit
there was a catastrophe actually - see the dust bowl, global famines and the introduction of the state university system to solve the agricultural crisis caused by abusive farming practices
TuneGlum7903@reddit (OP)
Yeah, people's faith got rattled in the 30's.
WakaFlockaFlav@reddit
Oh just a tiny little bit. A lil hiccup.
mixmastablongjesus@reddit
You forgot the so called “green, clean” energy.
Techno-optimists think solar panels, wind turbines, evs and other electrification attempts will solve the climate and maintain modern industrial civilization when that likely will encourage even more overshoot and worsen the collapse.
krichuvisz@reddit
But William Vogt was right. The green revolution just bought some time but made the problem even bigger.
Canard_De_Bagdad@reddit
As someone with a background in economics, that's a point I like to bring actually:
Those catastrophes were predicted and they indeed happened. We found ersatz, that's all. Replaced everything lost with plastics, petrochemicals, and cultural adaptation ("who would like to eat pigeon or buffalo anyway?" ; "swimming in the river? Ew, gross!").
Tiny vestigial artifacts remain. I actually own an old chess board made of genuine ivory. People in Berne, Switzerland, are happy to swim in the river.
I'm pretty confident mankind will survive the incoming collapse one way or another. It will look like Blade Runner: real animals still exist, but they're something for the ultrawealthy. Etc.
The horrific part is that future humans, those born into that future world, won't miss our world. It will look gross and alien to them, it will look destitute and dangerous ("Eeww, eating fresh tomatoes? And risking E. Coli? Gross")
GlitteringDisaster78@reddit
Nope. It’s real. Sorry to be the one to tell you
mybeatsarebollocks@reddit
All those wizards did was borrow time. They kicked the can down the road so it wasnt their problem. Its now snowballed and rolled its way back as much bigger problem.
Synthetic fertilisers, high yield crops, faster growing, bigger livestock, etc. etc. has lead to.... Soil degradation, gluten intolerance, antibiotic resistance, hormonal imbalances, cancer risks, dependence on fossil fuels and their byproduct, microplastics, global shipping etc. etc.
aurora_996@reddit
We "solved" the fertilizer problem by using the haber-bosch process to turn oil into food. This led to explosive population growth in the in the second half of the 20th century. We kicked the can down the road with synthetic substitutes, leading to devastating unintentional consequences. Not only climate change and unsustainable growth, but also extreme nitrogen pollution and the destruction of soils by industrial agriculture.
One of the proposed "solutions" to climate change, aerosol masking, is a continuation of that trend. Running out of viable atmospheric conditions to support vital earth systems? Just add the right amount of sulfur or whatever to create a synthetic atmosphere with better albedo.. Even if that "works" by reducing global heating, we're just buying more time as the oceans continue to acidify, while the biomass on land is destroyed and toxified. Oh well, next generation is smart, they'll figure out how to deal with all the consequences and keep this plane flying..
Kulty@reddit
You mean the people building doomsday bunkers on private islands?
MoonlitInstrumental@reddit
technology will either be our deus ex mechina, or it wont and we are doomed. Richard has a good pulse on the realistic state of affairs and isnt known for being a hopium priest lol
TuneGlum7903@reddit (OP)
I mean the hundreds of billions going into AI, fusion power, gene engineering food crops, and space travel. From where the money is flowing you can see how society is "placing its bets" on technology.