Narz
keeping it real
Will civilization as we know it (with cars, airplanes, computers, huge cities, global trade, etc.) continue for many centuries to come or not?
Is modern industrial civilization sustainable?
- Thread starter Narz
- Start date
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
no
(I miss typing 5char)
giving it slightly more substance, literally all of industry is interwoven with rampant waste and emissions, which is sure to cause some kind of economic collapse, which will cause mass devastation while right wing think tanks high five themselves
civilization is a vague concept, but the consumer based economy is part of its foundational culture and industry. restructuring will literally change it to something else.
so either it ded or it ded
(I miss typing 5char)
giving it slightly more substance, literally all of industry is interwoven with rampant waste and emissions, which is sure to cause some kind of economic collapse, which will cause mass devastation while right wing think tanks high five themselves
civilization is a vague concept, but the consumer based economy is part of its foundational culture and industry. restructuring will literally change it to something else.
so either it ded or it ded
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
I don’t see anything on the horizon that seriously jeopardizes it.
Civilization has been constantly evolving for quite some time. It will continue to do. In 1950 the world had 2.5 billion people. To get back to that sized world you would have to eliminate 5.5 billion people. Now our tech world with only 2.5 billion people might be pretty sustainable. I suspect we will muddle through just like we have in the past.
Zardnaar
Deity
No at least with the population increases.
Around two billion humans maybe.
Around two billion humans maybe.
Your title and your post have different questions that don’t have quite the same answers.
“Is modern industrial civilization sustainable?”
Obviously (and trivially) not. I think there’s a potential path to sustainability that maintains nearly all the good parts of modern industrial civilization.
“Will civilization as we know it (with cars, airplanes, computers, huge cities, global trade, etc.) continue for many centuries to come or not?”
A better way to think about the answer to this question isn’t to think about sustainability, it’s to think about risks. As commonly understood, “sustainability” (or the lack thereof) isn’t the largest existential risk to humanity. However, taking a broader view, the aggregate of the anthropogenic risks that we’re currently taking is not sustainable in the long run.
I’ve previously linked, and it’s still a great read (even if I have some disagreements about some specific risks): The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
“Is modern industrial civilization sustainable?”
Obviously (and trivially) not. I think there’s a potential path to sustainability that maintains nearly all the good parts of modern industrial civilization.
“Will civilization as we know it (with cars, airplanes, computers, huge cities, global trade, etc.) continue for many centuries to come or not?”
A better way to think about the answer to this question isn’t to think about sustainability, it’s to think about risks. As commonly understood, “sustainability” (or the lack thereof) isn’t the largest existential risk to humanity. However, taking a broader view, the aggregate of the anthropogenic risks that we’re currently taking is not sustainable in the long run.
I’ve previously linked, and it’s still a great read (even if I have some disagreements about some specific risks): The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity
FriendlyFire
Codex WMDicanious
Thats because your in Japan, if you were too look at your neighbour China, then you wouldn't be so confident
Japan are well ahead of the recycling, pollution, sustainability and environmental issues, but outside Japan things dont look so rosy
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
In the long run, I don’t think their system of governance can be maintained: at some point, the CCP “miracle workers” are going to run out of infrastructure projects and real estate to sink money into to prop up GDP growth.
mitsho
Deity
Yes, but we have to act now.
Now, fossil fueled society with high use of plastics for sure isn‘t. But that‘s not the core, right? There are other methods of mobility, even ones that allow you to go around the globe for two-week holidays. And there are substitutes for plastics and everything needed to have entertainment, science, wealth and peace. But we might stop lighting our cities as bright as Las Vegas is. Some standards will be lowered, yes, but we are over the top anyways. And if we achieve those „sufficient“ standards, the task also is to make them available to the whole world. That‘s the bigger question I see, how to make this fair.
But we gotta get moving now.
Now, fossil fueled society with high use of plastics for sure isn‘t. But that‘s not the core, right? There are other methods of mobility, even ones that allow you to go around the globe for two-week holidays. And there are substitutes for plastics and everything needed to have entertainment, science, wealth and peace. But we might stop lighting our cities as bright as Las Vegas is. Some standards will be lowered, yes, but we are over the top anyways. And if we achieve those „sufficient“ standards, the task also is to make them available to the whole world. That‘s the bigger question I see, how to make this fair.
But we gotta get moving now.
Snowygerry
Deity
THAT may be a problem, but that was not the OP question, was it ?
mitsho
Deity
No, not at all.
The concept of Sustainability knows three pillars: „financial“, ecological and social. We mostly think of the middle one as all-encompassing. It‘s logical, as it is the one that is threatening us with the Climate Crisis at the moment. But the last one is as important, and is tied in to the ecological side. You have to give people a perspective (and save their lifes by the way), if you want them to be on board with saving our planet. (The first - financial - better applies to sustainability on a smaller scale, say for a company or a city, rather than the global one we are talking here).
Or are we talking about the global scale at all? Would „modern industrial society“ surviving, but only in say China, be enough for a yes?
Snowygerry
Deity
Think so yes.
18% of the world owns a car, less than 20% have ever travelled by airplane, 47 % of households worldwide own a computer or smartphone.
Surely by far most trade is still local instead of global etc.
Our current "modern industrial society" is by no means universal either.
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Gori the Grey
The Poster
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2009
- Messages
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No.
5char
5char
Senethro
Overlord
We have to kill modern industrial civilization before it kills us.
Narz
keeping it real
There's probably a Facebook group for that.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Obviously not. But Zelig wrote, including my desire to say "obviously not", all I needed to say.
I suspect for a very long time we will always be about 20 years out from apocalypse, if any given moment's steady state remains unchanged. But I do think we can build into our system a confidence and a certainty that we will stay committed to fixing the threats to our existence, so that things like global warming and nuclear annihilation are the same constant risks that dying of hunger is to a middle class American: a biological inevitability, mere days or weeks away, if you don't make sure you get up and feed yourself with the existing infrastructure.
What makes global warming different is that we have to act and we aren't. There's no mechanism for our America and the World, Capitalists system to rally ahead of time. So we will either wait until it's time to mitigate exciting crises consequent it all, or we system-exogenously choose to change, individually, all at once.
I suspect for a very long time we will always be about 20 years out from apocalypse, if any given moment's steady state remains unchanged. But I do think we can build into our system a confidence and a certainty that we will stay committed to fixing the threats to our existence, so that things like global warming and nuclear annihilation are the same constant risks that dying of hunger is to a middle class American: a biological inevitability, mere days or weeks away, if you don't make sure you get up and feed yourself with the existing infrastructure.
What makes global warming different is that we have to act and we aren't. There's no mechanism for our America and the World, Capitalists system to rally ahead of time. So we will either wait until it's time to mitigate exciting crises consequent it all, or we system-exogenously choose to change, individually, all at once.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 15,374
We won't because those handling the levers of power are invested in things-as-they-are. So some kind of collapse before change happens is I'm afraid inevitable. Polanyi was right
the class of people making up the upper strata of societies will rather rule over ruins that relinquish their position on top for the sake of general welfare. Class traitors among them are rare.Sometimes I think there are members of the upper crust who are actively working on that. But then I remember that technical incompetence and group dynamics selecting for psychopaths explains it all easily. They have neither grand plans not grand abilities to pull any off. They're petty and incompetent, experts only at manipulation to remain in power. Hence the regime of rule by propaganda under the appearance of "liberalism" is their only great achievement and the only thing necessary to keep the system together until some external shock makes it crumble.
A lesson on the collapse of past empires, this is.
I don't think the external shock will be climate exchange. Bigger problems brewing faster, a big hunger is upon us.
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