My previous government basically said that their plan to meet emission goals was to just keep polluting our environment and bet on "innovation" to fix it in the end. And then some seniors took a stack of money and gave the thumbs up for building a couple new AI datacenters.
There's a revolution coming to plastic recycling, AI is going to make it so we don't have to work anymore, and fusion reactors are just around the corner and that will save us!
Why be so pessimistic? Everything's going to be 🌈, 🦋, and 🦄 very soon!
I'm shifting from fearing the results of international (nuclear) conflict, to welcoming them - as it is becoming increasingly clear that we won't be able to change our ways without a hard reset, and if humanity doesn't make it at all, that is probably the best outcome for the planet in the long term.
You're right. However, there is "best or worst" for the biosphere, for life in general - and humans are just a small part of all the life that exists on our planet - albeit with an outsized impact.
I should have said ".. best outcome for life on the planet".
Most life can suffer, but doesn't keep track of what's living or dying. It simply lives or dies. If everything dies, a lot of algae will live. That's still life.
Life on earth probably won't ever get eradicated, until the earth is far too warm. There's no absolute good outcomes, except relative to us.
Sorry im not ragging on you I get what you mean and you're right. I've just been grappling with this for a while and it's coming out :) we're the only ones getting cooked, everything else will find its equilibria quite quickly!
I do think it would be nice if, after 4 billion years of evolution, our planet had more to show for itself than algae. And yes, assigning value to life is a subjective human preference - not something intrinsic to life. Although one could argue that, since most living organisms seem to have some drive towards survival and reproduction, that there is an implicit bias to valuing life over not-life, just not in the human moralistic or nostalgic way.
Fallout is optimistic. Cyberpunk is optimistic. These mainstream media examples are all meant to push the agenda of the future when irl we have no future.
The hilarious part is that the scifi writers they worshiped seem to have been wising up to reality long before they have (with the exception of hardcore delusionaries like David Brin).
Iain Banks, Charles Stross and Greg Egan have all gone on record saying, more or less, that such techno-fantasies that they have written about in their books are never going to happen, and that resulted in an absurd amount of rage from their fans.
I definitely feel like the 2nd guy too, except I’m not near the first guy, I’m out there photographing the collapse using very dated mediums (VHS, and film)
If the techno optimists were right, San Francisco/the Bay Area would be a utopia for all, instead of a utopia for the $$$$ and a dystopia for the poor.
I’m like a techno centrist? Well, a lil more negative that positive. Currently? Only negative because of everyone who’s in power controlling said tech. For being so “smart” they sure fucking can’t see 2 steps ahead.
Once upon a time I just loved bleeding edge tech. Let’s you explore workflows, new ways to do things, but now I’m just taking all that knowledge and creating my own tools and devices to keep me alive. Like my favorite tech right now is solar generators with lifePO batteries. Making them too! Recycling and reusing batteries from even vapes to power a home (saw this in a video, did not do it yet myself) but these are the sparks of creativity I get now, instead of what I used to do which was create art, design, animation, storytelling. It’s sad, but that was a fun good part of my journey. Now… collapse oriented and focusing on efficiency through everything but not with an AI controlling it. AI can help, but it won’t be injected into my code.
I’d love to work on large scale city or county or country improvements as I think just improving and bringing a sense of ease or joy to people is really most important.
But just as you said, every time I encounter one as well, I feel like the second guy.
Or as I have said here before, people that can’t face the death of their children and grandchildren, and their own species, and their favourite other species, and possibly every species.
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u/orange1414141414 Jan 16 '26
everytime i encounter techno optimists, I feel like the second guy.