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Comment by qubex | Hacker News Reader

I tried hard for a very long time to maintain my baseline “retro-futuristic” optimism for progress and a Jetson's Future but about a couple of years ago, probably owing to stress in my life (family business difficulties caused by my father with evident narcissism but that I cannot break away from) I basically ‘crumbled’ to your realisation: that all this unhappiness and anxiety I see everywhere around me is not some local bubble of despair but the actual preamble to dire things to come, the growing awareness, the creeping alarm as the effects start to ripple through. I think the last time humanity really had much of a chance to pull through with a close scrape (in economic, financial, social, and environmental terms) was somewhere back in 2010 or thereabouts. We collectively missed that turning and we've stuck to the road to perdition ever since.

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"probably owing to stress in my life" Sounds more like depression, hope you're in a better place now.

To more directly answer your point. Things always seem to be bad until they're not. And we are on virtually any measure you'd care to look at, better off than we were a century ago. The temperature may rise x celcius, empires may fall, there may be wars, but this has been an unusually peaceful period of history, wars happen anyway, and people probably wont mourn the non existent ice caps that they heard used to exist, just like we don't mourn the dodo.

If we say went back to something equivalent to 1918 Europe. Yes we would have lost a lot, both life and infrastructure, with Spanish flu still on the horizon, but we will rebuild and get on with life, would you expect climate change to be worse than that? And look where we are, a century later.

I know it’s not garden-variety depression because I’ve been treated for that. There’s several people around me that are subject to the same influence that are in remarkably similar emotional states, including my sister and some senior executives in the firm. Unfortunately, no, I am not in a “better place”. But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding.

Turing to your comparison between 1918 and now, I daresay global climate change will be a great deal more severe than the cumulative effects of both the First World War and the Spanish Influenza combined. The magnitude of geopolitical strife we have set ourselves up for is of an almost unimaginable scale.

"But I really appreciate the effort to be understanding"

The worst thing about depression is that you can't see a way out, until you are out, and then the path is astoundingly obvious, and the journey so easy. I could say it will get better, but you probably wouldn't believe me. Please do believe me when I say it doesn't take effort to be understanding though.

On to a sunnier subject. I can't see us going mad max, I think worst case doesnt interrupt civilization, which implies keeping at least our current know-how. Could there be a lower standard of living, yes. Lower than a century ago? (while keeping antibiotics, computers etc) Maybe. But that would still be a higher standard of living than we've had for the majority of human history.

You cannot compare a locally restricted war with the global disruption of the ecological, economical and social environment, which lies in front of us.

Why not? Genuine question, seems like a reasonable proxy, though you could disagree about scale of destruction etc.

Would you like to suggest a better comparison.

Because the World War 1 allowed recovery. The war caused trauma, but basically everything proceeded like before after that. Climate change has the potential to induce a bifurcation, making it impossible to revert back to the world we know today. Think about the Neolithic Revolution, but backwards.

What?? WWI was one of the biggest turning points in history. Virtually everything about global civilization for the last 100 years has been deeply influenced by that conflict. After WWI, nothing proceeded as it had before.

World War 1 (and 2) was a short sharp shock that was pretty highly localised geographically and represented no permanent change in global parameters. Global climate change is a total change in the rules.

This is only true in terms of climate change, and I doubt even that part. WW1 and WW2 fundamentally transformed our populations, our institutions, our countries, our economies, how all the above relate to each other, etc.

I agree, but population growth continued, technology advance continued, wealth accumulated. There was no necessity to doubt on the superiority of mankind (those doubts increased after WW2, facing nuclear annihilation). Now, in the worst case, climate change will lead to a massive population die-off on a global scale, due to starvation, drought and wars. And stall any progress in technology, wealth, society and culture, due to negative feedback loops, which are discovered gradually. This will finally crush the narrative of the superior man, which we all grew up with. I think the psychological effect of experiencing the limits of growth for the first time in modern history, is completely underrated. After WW1, people knew what mechanized slaughter is. After WW2, people realized the holocaust and the balance of terror. During climate change, people will experience the end of growth and expansion on a global scale, which formed the human mindset of the last 3000 years.

It's like watching a documentary about the last summer before World War 2. People enjoying themselfes, everything looks peaceful and fine on the surface. Some people suspect what is about to come, but don't dare to really watch into the abyss. Only a few really know. Those people of back then, we are today. If you ever wanted to experience, how people in the past were so clueless and stupid to change the course of the future for the better, now you've got an VIP-ticket for the live show.

Yes, it’s horrifying, isn’t it? I’m in Italy but I follow American and British (I’m half Italian, half British) and there’s a never ending display of constant hysteria.

I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure if the grim spectacle going on in the US is proof or refutation of my distaste. Does it show how easily dysfunctional evil can mesmerise the population into allowing it to govern, or is it proof that many people are putting up a damn tough fight to make sure that evil does not flourish and take root? I’m not sure.

> I used to be very harsh with Germans collectively for having ‘allowed’ Hitler to come to power and for having been complicit in the crimes he perpetrated. But now I’m not so sure.

As a German, so did I. But my illusion of control dissolved in the face of doom. There is nothing you can do but hope for the best.

The Germany thing, it’s odd... I’m of German descent too (my Italian father had a German father himself, so I’m a quarter German, a quarter Italian, and half English).

There’s something truly amazing of the enormity of what was done, and the knowledge that one oneself is somehow tethered or rooted in it, that just causes one to instantly condemn. The more nuanced view... it feels like weaselling out and making excuses, like apologists do.

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