Don't Be a Doomer
noahpinion.substack.com
noahpinion.substack.com
The fundamental stance of doomers as far as I have understood it is fundamentally Malthusianism - infinite growth cannot occur on a finite planet. The majority of people alive today are only able to eat because of synthetic fertilizers. Phosphates in particular are mined and are being lost to the ocean via soil erosion due to industrial farming practices. Freshwater is being depleted unsustainably all over the world. The EROI of oil is consistently declining. This post totally ignores the Hubbert curves that are fundamental to much of doomer thinking, and doomers only have to be right about one of them for there to be a massive population and living standards collapse.
This post also largely ignores that doomers acknowledge the mainstream climate models but believe they don't properly account for feedback loops such as the clatharate gun hypothesis. It is especially egregious that the IPCC numbers are cited, when so much of doomer discourse surrounds criticisms of the IPCC and its consensus-based methodology resulting in excessively cautious claims.
I have stopped being convinced we're doomed, but that's not because I think doomers are wrong, I just think we really might pull off the technological miracles required to kick the can down the road far enough not to worry about it. Better to look forward to space mining and virtually limitless energy than spend my days feeling angry we didn't do something sooner.
If you read Overshoot by William Catton (one of the most important doomer books), you know that there's nothing we really could have done. We will always grow into the size of container we have. So the best we can hope for is a galaxy sized container, and that's what I choose to do.
But at the same time, there are very serious improvements in the world. It is equally not good or realistic to ignore those.
The safest (but certainly not surefire) way to predict the future is to say it will resemble the past. And in the past, as far back as we can look, we've always been facing very serious problems. Then we deal with them until they're less serious and they get replaced with a new set of very serious problems.
That's probably what will happen again.
I'm reminded of two things here...
the first is, as MLK said, the arc of history bends toward liberty. That's not just true about liberty! The arc of history bends toward improvement of man's condition overall. If you had to choose a time in history to be alive, the best time is right now, all things considered. And if you're reading this a hundred years in the future, the best time is your "right now", too.
The second is something my grandfather told me: every generation thinks both that they invented sex, and that they are the last generation before the collapse of society. Every generation (so far) has been wrong on both counts.
So, pay attention to your blessings, worry about the things you can affect -- and work to affect them -- and try to let go of the rest.
Your personal happiness is also an important ingredient in making tomorrow better.
But totally agree about looking at the good shit, helping people out, and laughing.