• CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    3 days ago

    I may be an optimist in some ways, but I honestly expect civilization will persist through “all this”. Though of course, that isn’t really much comfort considering that doesn’t mean that it won’t absolutely suck for the people within it all.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Civilization is doing pretty well outside the US. If the US disappeared tomorrow, the rest of the world would do significantly better. I don’t know how the world will deal with climate change, but without the US it would be easier to make progress. The tech firms blowing up the AI bubble, and invading our privacy are nearly all American. A lot of the private equity firms destroying the world are also American. If the US could hurry up and finish collapsing, the rest of the world’s civilization could just move on.

      • tetris11@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        I put a lot of US’s problems as interfence from Russia and China to empower the far-right so that Russia has a customer base for oil, and China can race ahead in the green markets.

        I think a world without the US would just mean that Europe and South America are targeted in the same way

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          I think you’re overestimating the influence of Russia and China and underestimating the dysfunction in the US.

          • tetris11@feddit.uk
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            18 hours ago

            The dysfunction in the US has always existed, but it never spilled over into politics quite to this degree.

            Russia was found to be sponsoring the NRA, and the rise of evangelicals as a voting group seems to be a co-ordinated world-wide phenomenon.

            Whilst one can blame the techbros and robber barons for exacerbating this, I’d argue that those same elites thrived more under stable economic growth than an unstable one

          • tetris11@feddit.uk
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            24 hours ago

            I think also people forget how good the US was in being a stable pillar of free and open collaboration in the sciences worldwide.

            What is happening now is a major shift in that stability

    • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      The great thing now is that we are currently ending the world, so there won’t be anywhere for that civilization to be.

      Dont say space.²

      If you want a future, kill your masters.

      If you want to kill yourself and everyone else, get yourself some weed and eggs Benedict, and just keep doing what you’re doing¹.

      ¹assuming you’re not spectacularly cool. If you’re spectacularly cool a change in behavior may be required.

      ²Nobody who says that has ever allowed a serious expert into the same room as them. It may not be theoretically possible, we certainly aren’t within a century of unsupported space settlement. We haven’t even sent a person out of orbit yet.

      • Digitalprimate@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Agree with your sentiment internet friend, but might want to drop that last sentence. We, uh, did go to the moon, right? Right?

        • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Moon orbits what? Doesn’t count as leaving. Might be technically out, but kind of only supports my point.

          Also I don’t think we still have capacity to do that as a species, but am not sure where the Chinese space program is focused on so can’t say for sure.

            • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              2 days ago

              I’m saying it might technically be outside earth’s orbit, but it is orbiting earth pretty close. So maybe technically but having to reach for a ‘technically’ supports my point.

              And also I dont think we could get a person to the moon and back right now.