Do you think that our society is on the brink of failure?
Asked by
RayaHope (
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July 27th, 2022
With covid and prices hikes and supply shortages, are we going to implode? Everything is so expensive now I will never be able to continue my education let alone buy a car or house. Will things get back to pre-covid times?
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49 Answers
If you look at history, things have been much worse than this before. For example, the Great Depression and World War 2. Certainly democracy is in danger with the assault on fair elections but the economy will recover.
I understand how feel and have been dealing with quite a bit of hopelessness myself.
The Penguin is correct however. History shows that we have suffered and recovered from worse.
Hang in there.
Yes.
It’s been like that for 200 years.
I’m sorry that you’re scared and worried. For personal reasons, I’ve been desperately low for a week. Still, it’s temporary. I think it will pass, and I’ll feel better. I hope you find a way to feel better soon.
The pre-Covid times still sucked..
Will we return to pre-Covid times? Nope, not at least for a long, long time. We have to drive the car into the ditch first to start figuring out how it happened and how to keep from doing it again. Covid was just a symptom, not a cause.
According to a report I heard, the Earth’s human population just hit 8 billion. (It has doubled in my lifetime!) A UN report estimates the population will level off sometime after this century at about 11 billion. (With people continuing to have babies, what does it mean “leveling out?” How will that work??)
I have a chart I made and I think the population will level out at about 9 billion. Methinks the shit is just now REALLY starting to hit the fan!!
@kritiper That is scary. Kinda what I was thinking. I’m a bit fearful of the future, I won’t do well in an apocalyptic existence.
People have thought that for ages. Could have been much worse, you could have been living in Europe at the time of the Black Death, or you could have been a Native American living on a pristine continent at the time we Euros put in an appearance with our crud and diseases, and been forced to deal with with that. Times aren’t so bad really.
Global warming is the catastrophic failure that will destroy us all.
Things are not just going to go back to exactly like before Covid and be “normal”. There is no such normal. Things change. And, there are major aspects of modern societies which are not stable. Quite a few things will change about how people think and operate.
* Economies, and how people think about them, will change, in ways no one can predict with any certainty. Current ways of thinking aren’t sustainable and won’t adapt to major changes such as shifts in technology, extreme wealth & power concentrations, or even just disruptive crises like we’ve recently seen with the pandemic.
* The planet’s climate seems to be changing rapidly due to human industrial activities. That might wipe out humans (any most other familiar species) entirely, or at least cause massive problems that will get worse and worse for a long time.
* Political issues combined with the above may lead to major wars, which could become more or less apocalyptic quite quickly.
* Other political issues could lead to other serious political/social/cultural/legal “events” that could also be terrible.
* Other new terrible diseases could appear, though those hardly seem worth mentioning compared to much of the above.
etc . . .
I feel sorry for what your generations and others will have to go through because of global warming but I hold onto the hope that Nature will find a way to repair things in the long run. It may mean the end of the human race to do so, but hopefully, that is way after you lived your long life.
I try not to worry too much about it. I do what I can to minimize my impact on global warming and I vote for people I feel care about our environment. And I guilt trip people around me about being more conscious about the planet they will leave their children. The rest I leave up to God and or mother nature.
No sense in worrying excessively about things not in your control to change.
Adapt. Find ways to get what you want without stealing or hurting anyone. Cut coupons, squirrel away what you can into saving. Money only for emergencies. Cut back on buying unnecessary things.
Use to having the latest phone? Keep the one you have till it doesn’t work. Don’t buy the latest model, buy a model that is 2 to 3 years old.
If something can be repaired by you, don’t throw it out. Repair it. Need to get rid of something you no longer need or want, give it to goodwill so it can be used by someone in need and doesn’t end up in a dump.
My point is if you look there are ways to save money. Take an economics class. Learn what are your rights as a consumer. Saving money for the big things you want requires sacrifice.
Housing market will fluctuate all your life, so buy when you are in a buyers market. Not a sellers market.
You only have control over your life. Make it work the best to your advantage.
People are like dogs. If you leave a dog in a small room with some music, you come back to a dog that isn’t so stressed. You leave it to guard the whole house, you have a stressful dog. The world is the house, the room is your life. Guard your room.
Stress only can make you sick with time and helps with nothing.
Not failure but change. Hopefully for the better.
@Zaku I think your answer has scared me even more, but I fear you are right. @Pandora your answer has brought tears to my eyes, good tears and so insightful. I love your answers you are so wise.
Actually; in the long run, this may just turn out to be a good thing considering that Covid was relatively weak. It has exposed glaring weaknesses in our reactions to such things. It has shown just how delicate our supply chain is. If we make the proper adjustments to fix these issues the next time this happens we should be in a better position.
The expense thing you should be angry about, very angry. Companies are raking in record profits during this. Most of the price hikes for “supply chain” issues are nothing more than wide-spread gouging.
@RayaHope Congress has a bill now that will tax corporate profits and people making over $400,000. It has a good chance of passing now and should improve things.
@janbb I am all for improvement. I think things are getting out of hand.
I think what COVID did was reveal that many aspects of modern society are not stable or sustainable. Structures we take for granted were revealed to be weak and ineffectual and things will continue to break until we find alternatives that can hold up better when crises (of which a pandemic is just one example) occur. Political strife and conflict are usually symptomatic of more deep-seated anxieties (one thing that many people nowadays, on all sides of the political spectrum, seem to have in common is that we don’t see much of a future. We have the idea that things are only going to get worse, so all we can do is hold onto what we have. That tends to create a lot of trouble).
It isn’t that history is about shifting from crisis to crisis. In my lifetime, it seems that both the pace of their appearance and the magnitude of their severity accelerate beyond anything we might anticipate. But it is certainly worse than before, and I believe the factors dictating this go unacknowledged as they rear up to bite us. The population of the world has tripled in my lifetime, and that population is more mobile and interconnected than at anytime in the history of the world. The computer probably exceeds the printing press in its significance regarding the disssemination of knowledge throughout that population. But it appears now that the tug between the positives and negatives to what should be our “advances” now favor the pessimist. For example, that tripling of the population should mean 3 times the minds available to tackle the problems which threaten our very existence. The conversation thus far mentions a few of the things confronting us and let’s look at global warming and our reality concerning it. To begin with, it is now more or less acknowledged that it is already too late to avoid the horrendous consequences of things we have recognized as inevitable for better than 50 years. And there is no way around the horrors to come, including our own extinction minus the combined cooperation of those interconnected 7 billion and climbing souls. How likely is that in a world where the profit motive as the standard model is guaranteed even as the Hurricanes parade nonstop ever more violently up and down our coasts, Florida disappears into the ocean before our very eyes, and tornadoes churn up the towns and topsoil of the Midwest with unparralled frequency and ferocity. Then there’s covid, and what it teaches us. It is a marvel and testament to our advancement that we are able to so rapidly concoct vaccines to counteract the guaranteed swarms of contagions emerging due to that 7 billion and climbing ever more interconnected population, but the downside there is of course that it is not profitable to vaccinate that entire population. Who’s going to pay for it? And perhaps even worse regarding this subject, that miracle the computer so crucial to the enlightenment of us all, turns out a marvelous tool at fortifying our more egregious and alarming proclivities toward stupidity and crass misinformation. When I was a kid, it was unheard of for a prominent movement in this country to appear refusing vaccination, and I shudder to think of the implications in that when the equivalents of small pox and polio show up and (considering that interconnected 7 billion) sooner than we think. I guess what I’m saying is that the future looks really grim, and more than ever in our past, it hangs exclusively on the rational cooperation of us all. Look around and tell me how likely is that? What s0ould the elevation of Trump tell you when it comes to rational behavior and the population of the United States?
@HP Now I am fearful of the future for sure!
There is a path out of this mess. Unfortunately it is not the path we’re on. I see some mention of the plight of the Indians in our history but no mention of why or how that happened. It was the result of uncontrolled immigration. So what did we learn if our policy is to allow uncontrolled immigration? Our food production is phenomenal but it is the result of mechanical and chemical advancements. Shut down the fertilizers and tractors and we starve to death. Just ask the farmers in Europe. There are almost 300 million cars in the US that run on gasoline. We don’t have enough money to replace them with electric and even if we did we don’t have enough raw material to make that many batteries and even if we did, we don’t have the electric grid to support charging all those vehicles. We are in a recession, changing the definition of a recession will not fix it nor will spending more money we don’t have.
If I’ve learned anything in my time on this planet, it is that when you change things they get worse before they get better. That’s assuming the change you make is good. If it’s not things just keep getting worse. The bigger the change the worse it gets. It’s always wise to plan with an eye to the future but don’t lose sight of today. As mentioned by many, we’ve been here before and we have history to guide us. We need to work together to do the things that work, not the things that have never worked.
@Jaxk. I’m glad to attempt to suspend the bickering and discuss these issues so critical to whether we might persist in any recognizable form as a civilization. But let me suggest that the narrative of the Indians is far less about immigration and more about people living impoverished lives of desperation in overcrowded lands (does that sound familiar) dispossessing those actually better off than themselves. But that’s a sidebar aside from the corollary that those unwilling to share the wealth (which in nearly every case, the Indians in the main were at first willing to do), those unwilling to share that wealth need only await the day those deprived to the point of desperation rise to take it from them. And I must disagree that we have never been here before regarding immigration or anything else. 7 billion people, most with cellphones enabling dazzling portrayals of exaggerated and actual lives of prosperity and abundance in comparison to their own wretched hopelessness. I believe we will live to see the tallies of those turned away from the border shift to a list of those shot and killed in the attempt, a list that just as its predecessor grow as quickly and intensely as desperation propelling the “targets”. A border wall will be a bygone joke compared to the marvels of technology available, and the waste of precious materials in putting these poor souls out of their misery might well topple to the efficiency and terror inducing tales of killer machines wreaking death while invulnerable to the whims of such nonsense as compassion. I suppose it might be possible to construct a machine that would mimic a fisherman and “throw the little ones back”, but I digress. My point is that like it or not, desperate people in their billions are going to be on the move seeking refuge. And for more reasons than you can count, it’s going to be worse than this as climate change eliminates the coastal regions where the world’s population is concentrated? Ask yourself is there enough high ground available to sustain our coastal populations? How about Bangladesh? About 30 years ago, I decided that Alaska was a smart real estate investment, and I acted accordingly. But in the end, it is pointless. In a couple of generations, when only tropical fruits may thrive in latititudes South of Canada, the numbers of those arriving at my conclusion will find that state facing the border challenges of Arizona and Texas today. I know I’m a perpetual downer. And it goes on and on? And we can only attempt to isolate ourselves from the bulk of that suffering for so long? The big question is what will compel that 7 billion to solidify and reject our preference away from the myth of bootstrap survival through rugged individualism? It might have been a viable solution on the day this place was founded with the Indians as disposable pests equivalent to troublesome weeds, a world with a population, including those weeds of perhaps a few hundred million; it is no longer such a world. We haven’t been here before, though we may well be destined to witness those numbers again. I don’t want to be around for that.
I believe that we have to change our entire economic system. Develop a world not dependent on financial gain and have true equality among all people. Work for the greater good of all mankind.
@HP – The sky is not falling. Unless of course, you get the violent revolution you seem to be advocating.
@RayaHope – Socialism has always led to totalitarianism. Not the solution you’d want.
I certainly don’t pretend to know the answer but I just see the road we’re on is coming to a dead end. We can’t maintain this crazy train we’re on.
@Jaxk You won’t believe it, but I hope you are right. And to spite all my math teachers, now surely dead and unavailable to witness the heresy, I will now sally forth from my fortress to purchase my mega millions ticket. You want further evidence on the approaching collapse? While writing this, the doorbell rang, and I was at the window within five seconds to witness the back of the delivery girl waddling back to her van. And there on the sidewalk in front of the gate (as I feared)sat another fat tempting pkg. of my wife’s conjuring. I yelled “HEY” and she jumped with a start as I said “you can’t leave packages on the sidewalk in this neighborhood!”, realizing instantly that she had just demonstrated that I was wrong. Her reaction? Angry and indignant “you can’t talk to me like that”. So I asked “like what?” She says “You yelled at me. Don’t talk to me like that”. To which I replied “I yelled at your back to get your attention. Do you have a more reliable method?” She had no answer to that one, but in a voice piled with derision asked “So what do you want?” By now, I understood that I must be grateful she had the courtesy to turn around, and was only standing there because she was too angry and flustered to remember to dole out my proper punishment——ignore me and waddle on back to the van. Realizing that she might soon recover, I deployed my unfamiliar calm voice with “you see the youth club on the corner?” She shrugged her shoulders as I continued “what do you suppose happens to a package left on my sidewalk?“as three kids ambled right past her, eyeing the thing. I was now anxious and pleaded as soothingly as I could manage “I’ll buzz the gate within 10 seconds. Please leave the package inside and close the gate”. Then dashed through the house to the buzzer at the top of the landing, fearing all the way that she might recover her wit and ignore my pleading to simply walk away. I buzzed the gate and counted the seconds to the distant reassuring clunk of colliding wrought iron. It arrived at the count of 4.
@Jaxk Weird context to make an anti-immigration plug. If only settler-colonists had had their papers.
@RayaHope “Develop a world not dependent on financial gain and have true equality among all people. Work for the greater good of all mankind.” It sounds good, doesn’t it? But now evaluate a little bit. How do you conduct trade without some sort of financial method? Barter? That works on a small scale only. I can’t really picture barter being used in today’s world.
But there are other issues with that statement. What is “true equality among all people”? Everyone has the same amount? Or everyone has the same opportunities? We have a situation in the US where everyone has the same opportunities. But not everyone is created the same. They have different skills, have different things that drive them or inspire them, they have different levels of ambition, different backgrounds, etc. People are not the same at all from one to the next so how is it possible for them to be “equal”? And to make sure everyone has the same amount? Should we pay a doctor the same as someone who asks if you want to super-size that order?
People are ambitious. They are driven by the seven deadly sins: Greed, sloth, gluttony, lust, wrath, envy and pride. These all lead to strife in one way or another. It would be better if they were driven by the seven heavenly virtues: justice, prudence, temperance, courage, faith, hope and charity. The difference between the two is where you are looking…what your focus is. With the sins, the focus is on you. With the virtues, the focus is on others. You have to figure out how to change that focus to make the changes you are suggesting.
@Demosthenes – You missed my point, probably intentionally. By 1900 we had 76 million people in the US. In order to feed and support those people we needed land for farms and ranches. We grew at an alarming rate and the immigrants brought with them their culture, their diseases, and their weapons. The natives didn’t stand a chance with the tremendous population growth. The native tribes were forced to comply with the European culture or die out. There were simply too many people coming to America and they weren’t able or willing to acclimatize to the Indian culture. Seems like we could learn from what happened with uncontrolled immigration. Today we allow a million people a year to immigrate into the US. I don’t know if that is the right number but it is set to insure we can accommodate the influx with existing resources and provide time to blend into our culture. When we open the border we add another couple million per year which strains our resources and doesn’t allow time to integrate into society. We allow more legal immigration than any other country on earth. Nobody wants to shut down immigration, just control it so that everyone can live and prosper.
@HP – Interesting story, you’re a good author. However, I’m not sure how your security gate ushers in a collapse of society.
@Jaxk Depends on what is in said package
@seawulf575 I’m sorry for coming up with a silly notion like that, it could never work in our world. I don’t think humans can ever rise and develop to those standards. I just know how it is is very hard for many people and so unfair.
@RayaHope No apologies for voicing an opinion. Your notion is not bad. And sometimes throwing out something that initially seems patently silly actually leads us to great advancements. If it didn’t work that way, we’d still be the center of the universe and our world would be flat. But to understand what the obstacles are to reach a goal is 90% of the work.
@Jaxk The Indians are indeed a lesson on the implications of massed migration. But the greater lesson on the topic is in the history of mankind and the never ending attempt of dominant and powerful civilizations to regulate external population pressures. And all you need do is look to understand that while there is not a single one of those civilizations that did not recognize the necessity for regulating these migrations, not a one of them ultimately was successful at it. History was my primary interest in school, and military history has been a particular fascination to the point that the girls I was involved with always wound up assigning me such pet names as “war and death”. But I’m drifting again. Here it is. Pick a civilization—any civilization at the apex of its power and development and you will notice they were each undone by this basic conundrum. And in fact, it would be safe to conclude population pressures are at bottom the generator for the majority of military conflicts defining the world. I want to once again drift off topic to bring up the curious subject of the single actual great and powerful first world democracy most successful at resisting immigration pressures. I’m doing this now, because I would otherwise surely forget to mention it. That exception is Japan. And if the proud boys, American Fascists and Nazis possessed a nickle’s worth of intellectual competence they would look at the place to claim legitimacy. They could get away with it, because ignorant Americans are far less likely to know (or give a shit) about the atrocities the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese than Hitler’s treatment of their fellow white folks and relatives. But back to Japan, which lets NOBODY in, and astonishingly finds no need to apologize for it. They get away with it (I think) because of the society’s extraordinary politeness in its homogenity regarding never stated yet ingrained contempt for the barbarity of dirty uncouth foreigners. But back once more to the topic at hand and what I should have simply said in the first 2 sentences. The problem today that the Egyptians never faced with the “sea peoples, the Romans did not confront with the Huns and Vandals, the great wall Chinese, etc.—-all of it is a world of (once again) 7 billion (and growing) population on a ball with carrying capacity for drastically fewer people to lead what we consider tolerable lives. Our technological adroitness has allowed us to run ahead of Malthus thus far, but the consequences of too many us point to the inevitable conclusion that he must catch up. And the ONLY solution to maximize the delay in Malthus overtaking mankind is in the cooperation of us all. Again, how likely are Americans in particular to go along with that?
@HP – Remember that Malthus penned his theory in the late 1700s, before the industrial revolution and well before the technology revolution we’re in today. I’m not really ready for a tour down memory lane based on his crackpot theory (sorry but that’s what I feel) about population growth. Nor am I ready for a lengthy discussion Eugenics or forced sterilization which is where a discussion of Malthus will inevitably lead.
I’m a great believer in technology. and it’s ability to provide us with solutions. What I fear is governments ability drive us down the wrong path. It is curious that the greatest population growth is in the poorest and least educated areas. The areas least equipped to deal with the population growth. The exact opposite of Darwin’s theory, survival of the fittest. I have no doubt that Americans will support technological advancement and education for everyone if we can keep the government from derailing us. Limitations on farm land and fertilizers are not the way to solve this. Food can keep up with population growth if we embrace technology and education. Not really controversial action but the current state of government will not take us there.
Yes Malthus missed, or rather could not predict our technological agility. And no one disputes that we at least were in a position to move toward mitigation of the other consequences around 7 billi0on souls pushing us to catastrophe. And principal on that list is the question about the declining habibility of the planet itself, which clearly is no longer a matter of speculation. And for this one, the chickens are already coming home to roost. In fact, you need only turn to the daily weather reports to witness them flocking home in terrifying numbers. And you make a great mistake if you believe either Malthus or Darwin crackpots. You make an even greater mistake if you believe it will be governments that may force us down the wrong path. For it will be those who control the government, or in our case, those who OWN the government who will send us down the wrong path, or (more to the point) neglect the proper path in their own short term self interest. As I’ve said, I’m now old enough to understand that I’m not going to be here when as usual it is recognized and accepted (once again) that its too late. I’ve done what I pitifully can for my kids, and by no means envy their near certain situation when my age. But, here’s something I want you to think about regarding our government, and why it is futile to blame it for its failures. Actual power is no longer with the government, which is EXACTLY why the people who govern us these days are substandard and getting worse. Financial heft is now the undisputed man behind the curtain.
We are getting dangerously close to a political discussion where I know, we are polar opposites. If you believe as you say, our leaders are substandard, why would we continue to give them more power over our daily lives. This country was founded on limited government. We are moving closer to unlimited government and our government is being run by idiots.
You can believe this country was founded on limited government if you wish. This country was founded by men who believed government possible with consent of the governed. It then skillfully devised a system that deliberately isolated those governed from the levers of power. Do not misunderstand what I am saying. I agree that our Constitution is the one thing left worthy of the reverence I once held for the whole shebang. To assert that the land itself reflects the words asserted in that document is another matter. As for the idiots today pulling the levers, who benefits? To whose advantage is it to have idiots pulling the levers—the RIGHT idiots.
The left has all the power, have things gotten any better? They can’t solve even a single problem but they have certainly profited. The left has been pushing all power to the federal level for my entire life which gives the average slob, such as myself, less influence. they are driven by their ideology and the lives of those that live here aren’t even an after thought. I recall a line from the Terminator, “they can’t be reasoned with, they can’t be bargained with, they don’t feel pity or remorse”, I’m paraphrasing but close enough.
Do you believe that? Look around and notice who exactly it is that gets ahead REGARDLESS of who’s “got all the power”. And then consider that the class of men who designed the government to assure “the right people” control it still hold the reins, regardless of the left or right dance.
Let me throw a couple of thoughts into your basket of corruption. First who has the power? It’s not the corporations or the wealthy, it’s the politicians. The wealthy merely influence the politicians. Sometimes through campaign donations and sometimes with a freezer full of money but make no mistake the politicians hold the power. Why else would the wealthy try to buy favors. Look also at who benefits from centralizing the power in Washington. It is much easier to lobby one or two politicians in Washington than it is to lobby 50 state legislators. The left has been pushing power to Washington for a couple hundred years. I read a story once that detailed Apple’s rise to power. In the beginning Apple didn’t have any lobbyists. Then they began getting sued by the government for monopolistic practices. They were forced to hire lobbyists to ward off the attacks. They didn’t hire the lobbyists because they had the power, they did it because Washington had the power.
I’m not saying the right is much better but at least they pay lip-service to the idea of pushing the power down closer to the people.
Listen, you and I need to get past this bickering over left and right, because frankly it’s a smokescreen clouding the REAL issue. The idea that politicians have the power is equivalent to stating that is the sails or engine on a ship that determine its destination. Politicians are the tools of those who finance and enrich them. And forget about left or right in national politics, and examine what it is the most rancorous and hostile opposing proponents on any side of any issue ALL have in common. And it is this. They all somehow prosper ouutrageously on their comparatively meager government salaries. Those not outright accepting thinly disguised bribes they legislate as legal, are guaranteed scandalously lucrative jobs through simply leaving office for employment lobbying their former colleagues. It’s a closed loop, whereby it is ALWAYS the rich governing the rest of us. That is NOT a coincidence. It is EXACTLY what those founding fathers had in mind. And with regard to the left concentrating power in Washington, who cares as long as the money flows to the top? You can despise the Clintons and Obama for supporting Roe vs. Wade, but please notice that it was Clinton that pushed NAFTA which effectively made it impossible to earn a living in Rural America then Rural Latin America so desperate immigrants now pile up on our borders. It was also Clinton who untertook the export of our jobs to China, joined all of our other Presidents in the procession headed by Reagan and followed by every President since in the now sacred tradition of repetitive tax cuts benefitting guess who? Anf finally for the cherry on the sundae of wealth, it was the raving leftist Obama who bailed out the banks—and Wall street SCOTT FREE for instigating the worst economic crisis since the great depression. Forget about the smoke and mirrors aspect of politics and look at where the money goes.
We don’t disagree in principle but I can’t buy into some of your details. I disagree with your point that the government was setup to favor the rich. Remember that in the beginning the fedal government had very little impact on the average person and I doubt they could anticipate the way the commerce clause would be abused over the long term to move almost everything into the purview of the Federal Government. It simply has too much power which makes it ripe for corruption. “Power tends to Corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Reduce the scope of the federal government and you’ve reduced their power. Reduce their power and you’ve eliminated much of the appeal of corruption. People will do what they are incentivised to do. With all the power in one place people are incentivised to go there and persuade, by hook or by crook, to get their way.
@Jaxk bet ya your tax rate is higher the the tangerine turd’s !
@Jaxk The reason we agree is because we are saying the same thing. Only you are saying it is the government which ruins the country through concentration of power. I state that this concentration of power is in fact pursued by people of wealth to further enhance the wealth of their class—the ruling class. The illusion that it is the government running the show, is exactly that—illusion, the moment you recognize that with the government controlling it all, there is no possible explanation in an actual democracy for the wealth to constantly flow to the top to the detriment of the rest of us NO MATTER WHAT. When a man states openly that government isn’t the solution, then enacts tax cuts on billionaires and corporations, it becomes rather obvious that government is indeed the solution for some of us enriching our portfolios.
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