Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Restraint needed

Catastrophes for our grandchildren because their predecessors (we) could not decide rationally to restrain their (our) appetites and share with descendants:

1)  Fossil fuels will be largely depleted and total energy supply will be insufficient for modern conveniences, like transportation, indoor comfort, mechanized farming.

2)  The atmosphere will have enough CO2 to render much land and water inhospitable to humans and human-supporting life: Too hot and too acidic.

3)  The demands of data storage (exponentially growing cloud: Google, YouTube, AI, smartphone, blockchain) will overwhelm energy-supply systems (fuels, grid).

4)  Excessive information technology will dominate the human experience, resulting in ennui, envy,  loneliness, meaninglessness and procreative insufficiency.  

5)  Tribalism (ethnic, religious) will result in more barbaric conflicts as the environment degrades.


Of these mega-trends, the only desirable one is procreative insufficiency, sad though it may be – desirable only in that it will diminish the energy shortage.


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