Slightly off-topic, but how should I as a person in late 20s deal with the fear that every piece of evidence suggests my generation (and subsequent ones) will be totally screwed in the future?
Global warming, economic inequality (like property prices), post-truth era, surveillance state and unsustainable social welfare (as explained in OP)?
Bit of wisdom that's an oldie but a goodie: Try not to be preoccupied with the outcomes of things that are outside of your control. Make the best choices you can in the present moment and then be ok with the chips falling where they may.
Future you may live through hard times, suffer, and die - it will be terrible. But that doesn't mean present you should live a life of preoccupation and anxiety. Good people are not (at least in my book) grim ascetic saints. Good people help those around them materially, and they also spread happiness, connection, and pleasure - things that you can only grant to others if you yourself are happy. So, be a happy warrior. If it all ends in disaster and you know you've done your best, you will exit in peace.
Gain some perspective. It's historically a very pretty common idea. People have been writing about how the world is going to shit since they could write, and yet most people's lives have been getting better most of the time. Why do you think you are better equipped at predicting the future than those folks?
> Frank Kermode, in his famous book The Sense of an Ending, elaborated on Cohn’s masterwork by suggesting that actually it’s very common for all of us – especially artists – to feel that we live at the end of times, and that our own demise means all the more to us because we’re not simply dying in the middle of the plot, in medias res. Our lives take on significance because as we decline we notice our society is declining all around us. It’s part of a yearning for narrative significance. As Kermode said, no one can hear a clock saying, as it does, tick tick. What we hear is tick tock. A beginning and an end. We impose this order.
I totally agree with this point, but there is an unavoidable anthropic counterargument, which is for the people who do in fact live in some kind of end times, this is exactly how it will seem to them too. We can't just rely on induction, you still have to at least attempt the deductive due diligence.
Although a good sentiment, the information age coupled with more advanced climate models makes us much better at predicting.
Additionally, it's only been within the last century where we've been technologically capable of causing a mass-extinction level event via nuclear weapons. Here's a fun list of close-calls [0]
Although gaining some perspective is good advice, there is a tacit assumption here that the world just happens and that the tide of history ebbs and flows as it will. Long periods of peace and prosperity happen partly from luck but also partly because key people make them happen. I think it is interesting to consider Bismarck [0] in relation to World War I. We need people like that in high offices trying to promote peace.
Times of stress are exactly the right time for people to stand up and say "wait a minute, I don't see how this can end well - lets try something different" and "if we keep doing this, eventually it will end badly - lets pick a different route". Or even "what exactly are we relying on and what are our options if something happens"; which can be surprisingly useful as a conversation starter. If people can't answer that one in the good times they certainly don't have a plan for when there is a crisis.
We've entered a really dangerous period where the people who remember WWII and the aftermath are dead or dying. A lot of quiet actors were shepherding the post WWII era - the last era of relative peace - and just assuming it works out from now going forward is not a strategy. And that is before even starting on the resources questions about how much of society can be sustained for 3 generations.
> People have been writing about how the world is going to shit since they could write
The first person I know to complain like that in writing was Socrates who lived to see the fall of Athens/Athenian hegemony in 404BC. He wasn't exactly wrong.
> The first person I know to complain like that in writing was Socrates who lived to see the fall of Athens/Athenian hegemony in 404BC. He wasn't exactly wrong.
What? Wasn't he completely, utterly wrong though?
Isn't life today incomparably better in general?
Now, of course, you could argue that for one particular group of people life will never be as good as it used to be at one particular point in history ... but that misses the point - overall humanity is much better off.
Humanity will figure something out. Humanity will be okay.
People in developed world retiring in 20 years from now however will heave zero support from state. Zero return on their investment. Will have to work full-time till they are dead basically to get healthcaretthey need.
That is definitely not end of the world, but neither was original ponzi scheme collapse.
I am still figuring out my retirement and "invest more" might not be the best answer
Where are the statistics proving overall humanity is much better off? I'm doubtful anyone can prove "overall" humanity is better or worse than "x" generation. Also how do we measure it?
> People have been writing about how the world is going to shit since they could write,
Yes, but they've mostly been writing about how the world's going to shit because of those crazy young people, who didn't actually have all that much power (yet). I think it actually is a bit different when the people whose generational mores have messed things up are already in just about every seat in Washington DC and Wall Street (and equivalents elsewhere), and likely to remain so for a while yet. Also, various forms of environmental degradation - including but not limited to climate change - are more objectively harmful and more likely to be permanent than any effects of younger people not going to church (for example). True perspective requires seeing larger things as larger, not just assuming they're a trick of perception.
There also have been plenty of collapses. The difference is that we live now in a world that is way more globalized, connected and we have a far greater impact on the ecosystem.
I'm in my late 20s as well and the replies so far are disgusting me.
I think we should expect that the previous generation won't help us to build the world we would like to see, and we should use all the tools and knowledge we have to change the world, even if it's against the will, interests and "happiness" of the previous generation.
We must organize ourselves, vote, protest, communicate and build towards what we would like to see happening.
Humans don't get to "change the world" to meet our imagination. All actions are contingent upon things we cannot understand. We are constantly acting into an unknowable future. The man-made world (which is a much thinner veneer than we tend to think) is the result of a roiling, chaotic process.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to "make the world better". It only means we have to think about what we are doing and stop believing that we know the solutions (or even the problems). Guess-and-check is the only way to learn things and all parts of that process (the guessing, the implementation, and the checking) are unreliable because of the unlimited contingency of the world. How can you measure the current if you can't step into the same river twice?
Anyway, the kind of utopian protest culture you're talking about is the exact opposite of what is called for. That culture is creating a generation of people who are shockingly easy to manipulate. And they will be manipulated.
As a person of your age I think this way: either we are screwed up so bad that the whole system will need to change and we will have to decouple pensions/healthcare/etc from the normal flow of economy, or else we are not so screwed up as we think and in some way we will be capable of fixing the system without a revolution.
In any way for sure an alternative will be found because else we are condemning a incredible big part of the population (and the voters) to die with nothing and that's not a viable political solution
> else we are condemning a incredible big part of the population (and the voters) to die with nothing and that's not a viable political solution
What makes you think this is untenable? For most of human history, most of the population have been peasants, slaves and serfs who died with nothing or less than nothing, leaving their children indebted to the same masters.
It's entirely possible that the last 200 or so years of relative freedom and prosperity are the unsustainable anomaly.
> In any way for sure an alternative will be found because else we are condemning a incredible big part of the population (and the voters) to die with nothing and that's not a viable political solution
That's the only reasonable thing to do. There are too many humans.
Younger millennials frequently start their public discourse with “how should I as a millennial...”. Always makes me chuckle.
The one thing you should console yourself with is that people are terrible at predicting the future. It will be nothing like you expect or fear. Admittedly, this could be good or bad.
In hindsight, yes, this may sound silly. Originally it was supposed to be "in my late 20s". Will correct it, if it's distracting from the point I make.
I'm a big G.K. Chesterton fan in general, but his Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy (chapter 1 of The Napoleon of Notting Hill) is one of my all-time faves. The opening paragraph:
> The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called, "Keep to-morrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.
This is antithetical to the core concept of American government: it literally is up to everyone what happens. Vote, campaign for others, lobby, run for local office, or bigger offices if you find yourself successful.
Look at AOC. People will be vile, they will mock you and attack you, but you can inch the world in the direction you think it should go.
In any given situation, it may not be clear how an individual can start to effect change. But we certainly, absolutely can.
If most people carried the world on their shoulders we might stand a chance but since most don't do that yeah. Just don't bother. (not sure if sarcastic)
Sarcasm aside, don't bother is great advice. There are many ways to approach improving the world, many of them cancel out and most of them do more significant damage in retrospect.
My own belief is to do as little as possible unless a lot of factors are known. Taking travel as an example, doing the least and cheapest is a good bet, it took me considerable research decide to pay more for trains than planes. Where is the additional money going? Even if trains vs planes are environmentally better there's a high risk of financing a military with the energy taxes only the train systems pay. A military can do more environmental damage with 10¢ than you can do with a dollar and then there is what they do with intention.
Governments are trying to game the world to maximum GDP all the time, but what on offer is mostly garbage and enough people turning down all offers forces them to rethink the total economy or (since they are simple folk,) go into recession. Recession is supposed to be terrible, but isn't it actually better than the fast road to a life in an inescapable mall?
That the bad actors of the 1980s are still attacking us and often seem to be back on track for their dream of shitting on the world is bad, but has not been as bad as getting there in 1990 and that is thanks to the path we took with lots of economic upsets.
We are like children who dream of a life of eating only cake and it is our good fortune that keeps us from the world we want long enough to understand a little about what is wrong with it and build some marginally better dreams.
I don't quite understand what your point is but I realise that I'm fully sarcastic. It feels very ovbious that the world would be better if everyone actually shared the responsibility instead of escaping it.
> Governments are trying to game the world to maximum GDP all the time, but what on offer is mostly garbage and enough people turning down all offers forces them to rethink the total economy or (since they are simple folk,) go into recession. Recession is supposed to be terrible, but isn't it actually better than the fast road to a life in an inescapable mall?
I think this is good advice. Who does it benefit to be constantly anxious about the fate of the world and second-guessing one's actions? I'd suggest it doesn't benefit the individual - in fact I'd suggest it's designed to harm and demoralise.
Stop spinning your wheels on this. Count your blessings and be thankful what you currently have, learn to live in the moment, turn off the news and social media (important step), and go on with your life and do the best you can.
Things can be hard enough as it is frankly, putting the weight of the world and it’s future possibilities on your shoulders like you are Atlas typically just leads to insane anxiety, depression, and burnout.
> suggests my generation (and subsequent ones) will be totally screwed in the future?
Invest in tangibles, don't expect any pension funds to exist 50 years later. Your generation is lucky enough to have deflationary cryptocurrencies.
You will not be screwed, and avoid making choices out of FUD. You 're living the most advanced technological age ever. Remember that technology is before politics.
There aren't many alternatives. Unless a cataclysm makes the whole world return to the pre-internet ages, or the whole world turns into some crime-less surveillance utopia, there will always be a use for decentralized cryptocurrencies.
And the benefit of their network effect will contaminate any pocket of freedom that may form.
So, while their relevancy may fade and fluctuate, it seems inevitable that one day, there will be a gap to fill and they'll "permanently" overtake centralized forms of money.
The only positive scenario I can conjure that also sees cryptocurrencies fade in relevance would be a shift to some kind of global "additive only" economy as Mark Nadal blurrily tries to imagine[1]. That seems farther off than 50 years, and even then some parts of the economy would always be better served by traditional cryptocurrency (maybe only the parts machines are left to handle).
I think that cryptocurrencies will become increasingly relevant but the most valuable ones will be completely different from the ones we have today.
Cryptocurrencies are currently technology-oriented but in the future, they will be community-oriented (based more on human principles) and coins will periodically upgrade the underlying technology to improve performance (so long as the wallet address system and account balances are the same).
Different cryptocurrencies will fluctuate in value relative to each other depending on the economic input and output of their communities. The input and output of a crypto-community will vary depending on the appeal of its human/social/political principles; the means of production will bind to cryptocurrencies which follow the principles of those who control them. A cryptocurrency which has an aging community and whose value is supported by legacy systems will slowly lose value.
A person will always have to keep moving their wealth between different cryptocurrencies in order to maintain it. They will have to know and adapt to all the economic trends and changing societal values in order to know which cryptocurrency/communities to invest in.
Staying rich will become difficult; it will require a deep understanding of changing social trends and principles.
^This. I weight my allocations based off market cap so 91% of my investments would go into index funds and no more than 9% overall goes into Cryptocurrency -- 6.5% of which goes into Bitcoin and 2.5% might go into non-Bitcoin cryptos.
I think the whole crypto market is pretty speculative. Either the ultimate Bitcoin replacement will be a nice fork or airdrop off of Bitcoin or the ultimate Bitcoin replacement will be something completely separate and will gradually render Bitcoin worthless.
the whole world turns into some crime-less surveillance utopia
Doesn't sound totally unrealistic to me. Also, maybe the only way to evade extinction through bio/AI tech proliferation. Not sure about the "crimeless" part, the big powers probably don't care too much about most crimes.
they 'll probably be superseded by some form of quantumly-entangled currency, since their crypto algorithms will have become obsolete. But there is a need for a stable form of wealth (like gold), and fiat currencies are increasingly being used as mediums of control , a form of power that is even unelected. I don't think future societies will put up with that.
A lot of people are losing it over this issue. Young or old.
I deal with it through a weird faith the coming issues will be impredictable, and the solutions too. Mostly due to reading about old techniques and science/engineering evolution. So often we don't see new options coming.
In any case, thinking too early is a waste of energy. Unless it's fun and productive (like ecology classes, farming etc).
I think the “tapping and sliding” might actually led to an increase in the engagement of politics from the masses overall. It’s just that it’s not what the the current neoliberal authorities (and the previous generation) want right now.
It helps to gain perspective. How did people in the great depression deal with those feelings? How did people in WWII deal with those feelings? How did people deal with those feelings when it seemed evident the world was about to end from nuclear holocaust? How did they deal with the feeling that the world would be catstrophically cold by the year 2000 (as my dad was taught in college)?
In almost every age of history that we can see, if you had put yourself in that time period, you would have been able to come up with plenty of plausible reasons to ask your question. But what happened? Sometimes, things got worse. Sometimes much worse! But often, things turned out far differently than you would have supposed.
I've observed two things in my relatively brief life: people in every age tend to think their problems are unique, and people in every age tend to be really bad at predicting the future.
> How did people in the great depression deal with those feelings? How did people in WWII deal with those feelings?
In many cases, they died.
There's a real survivorship bias among old people telling young folks to relax and everything will work out somehow because it did in the past.
Obviously, it did for the people telling us this, or else they wouldn't even be here to pat us on the head. The first time things go really really badly for the whole human species might also the be the last time.
> don't worry about that incoming asteroid; back in the 1970s they used to tell us about the overpopulation crisis
That’s a good point. Survivorship bias is hard to overcome. I’d say the best bet any of us has is to work, live below our means, try to improve the world around us, and be as resilient and resourceful as we can be. Worrying is not a useful pastime.
I've been an "apocalyptic" since I was about twelve years old: I believe these are the end times, and that our global civilization is about to experience some kind of drastic upheaval.
That was about thirty years ago. Before the weather went strange. Things have only gotten worse since then.
- - - -
These are the main scenarios to consider:
Apocalypse: civilization crashes and we are in a "Mad Max" world, if we survive at all.
Techno-utopia: science and technology save the day. Star-trek (if human nature is good) or N. Korea (if human nature is bad.)
Gaia: apply e.g. Permaculture to create an eco-uptopia. This is both science-flavored and Spiritual.
Spiritual transformation: e.g. what the "Mayan Apocalypse" of 2013 was supposed to be, or the Christian Rapture.
- - - -
Personally, I hope for the Eco-utopian version of the Gaia transformation -or- the Spiritual transformation (we all go to space-heaven.)
If you're interested in bio-mimetic economics, go watch Toby Hemenway's (RIP) videos: http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/ esp. "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture"
If you're interested in the Spiritual transformation pick a religion and practice it. Or meditate. Or use the Core Transformation process (a simple algorithm. https://www.coretransformation.org/ )
If the crash scares you the best thing you can do is move to the remote mountains, "three days further out than a hungry person can walk." Move now while you still can.
Last but not least, if you place your faith in technology then you should... Hmm, i don't know what you do then. Get involved in politics? To make sure the tech is applied in human-values-enhancing ways?
- - - -
Regardless of the external circumstances, the most efficient and effective thing to do is cultivate Self-awareness. It's the only true panacea and it helps both on the personal and societal levels.
It's really awful that people have encouraged this type of anxiety so much; I hear this sort of sentiment on a regular basis from intelligent, well-educated young people who are utterly demoralized.
I'd recommend turning the news off and buckling down to work at making your own life better. Firstly, things are not as bad as they are made out to be. Secondly, there are a lot of people trying to gain by inflating this sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Thirdly, if you take care of yourself and keep your shit in order, you'll be better setup to deal with anything that does come.
I'm genuinely curious, who do you think is "trying to gain" by pointing out the (really quite dire, IMHO) looming crises on several fronts?
From where I sit, activists have been trying to spur movement on major environmental and social problems for decades now, and getting basically nowhere. The people who are getting rich are the ones who have been doing well under the status quo.
Companies selling consumer products - the world is going to hell in a handbasket, you might as well drink a White Claw, buy a Prada bag, and eat a Popeye's chicken sandwich. Damn the future, spend now.
Politicians - if you can pump up a crisis, and present yourself as the solution to that crisis, gold and power flows into your hands.
Ok, I can maybe give you consumer products, but you could equally argue that they benefit as much from happy complacency as from despair.
Have any politicians in the West in the last three decades run successfully on a hard-environmentalism and anti-poverty campaign?
The crisis that's been political gold recently has been human migration, but it doesn't seem to me that the voters animated by that issue are feeling anxious and despondent. (Maybe they are, it's a little hard for me to relate to that mindset) They seem absolutely furious and enjoying their revanchist political power.
Journalists and politicians of course. Journalists because that kind of stuff drives eyeballs which result in ad clicks and subscriptions if they have a paywall and thus money. Politicians because it grabs people's attentions which hopefully then results in them getting voted into office.
Observing the rise of populism (from both the far-left and the far-right) from various parts of the world, I don’t think the current era of neoliberalism won’t last forever. Buckle up, I think the next fifty years are going to be fuckin wild. Enjoy the ride!
I'm with you there. I just try to reduce my news intake...no FB, no twitter, only check news sites once per day. If you limit yourself to what you see and control, it's not as bad.
If it makes you feel any better, our track record for predicting the future has historically been terrible. I highly doubt everything will play out the current evidence suggests.
Global warming, economic inequality, etc aren't the real problem.
The real problem is that the Eurocentric civilization has gone through periodic episodes of general warfare, starting with the Wars of the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars, and World War I&II. The last interval from Waterloo to the Guns of August was 100 years. Thus, the next now-global general war is scheduled to begin in the 2040 to 2060 time frame. Note that the geographic scope and the casualty counts have gone up markedly with each episode. The total death toll from 1914 through the 1949 end of the Chinese Revolution was probably over 200 million from war, famine (Ukraine, India), disease (flu, tuberculosis, etc) and genocide (Armenia, Jews, etc.).
Global warming takes too long. Financial and political systems are unstable on shorter time scales.
Current events are paralleling the late 1800s. Interest rates are very low, just as British Consol bonds were earning 2.75% in the late 1800s. The dominant British Empire was shifting from free trade to protectionism within the Commonwealth system as Germany rose, just as the dominant US is shifting from free trade to protectionism as China rises.
Don't worry. Save money so you can move if necessary. Its beyond your control.
>> economic inequality (like property prices),
Save your money. Read Ramsey. Take charge of your own situation.
>> post-truth era, surveillance state
Stay grounded in reality. Not sure about the later..
>> and unsustainable social welfare
It's not as unsustainable as some people think. Social Security is funded, Congress just doesnt want to pay back all the money they borrowed from it.
These issues are all beyond your personal control. Do what you can, but stop thinking the worlds problems are entirely on your shoulders. Take care of your own life first and the rest won't matter so much. Evolution did not stop just because we became aware of it.
Today, It's possible to purchase a VR Headset and be in a different reality and that's on Gen 1 hardware; Gen 2, with varifocal lenses, will change the way we compute and live radically.
For a modest expense, you can purchase a supercomputer capable of fitting almost every book, major production movie, and TV show ever made on its storage and you can download it with your internet connection over months or years. More than enough to last you a life time.
You can fit enough knowledge to educate yourself for the rest of your life on a piece of equipment the size of a bottle cap.
You can, tomorrow, go to an airport, sign up for a passport, and fly almost anywhere on earth.
You can call almost anyone on earth.
And, on that internet connection, you can find out about the myriad of challenges we humans face, including global warming and alternate forms of pollution like deforestation.
I'm in my 30's and I've come to the conclusion that the youth needs to begin investing in government en masse (special interest groups and also investing in their own livelihoods), but more importantly, moving to places that are younger or have a good balance of people. That requires passion and a lot of work, but its doable and if you do it, you can largely ignore all of the things you've stated. Furthermore, as more people realize this, a cultural change will happen, and that is inevitable.
You can already see that with the "OK Boomer" crowd; the problem has been recognized and that is the most important piece of dealing with it.
how should I as a person in late 20s deal with the fear that every piece of evidence suggests my generation (and subsequent ones) will be totally screwed in the future
Consider that late-teenagers and 20-somethings successfully "dealt with the fear" of the Great War, the Great Depression, WW2, the Cold War incl the Cuban Missile Crisis and others, assorted oil crises, acid rain, holes in the ozone layer, Chernobyl, more economic crashes in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000's... And every time, the world didn't end, and most of them lived to a ripe old age and life itself generally improved. I get that the things on your list seem terrifying but that's because it's the first time you've seen anything, in a few years you'll look back and realise that there's always some ongoing "end of the world" panic and when it doesn't happen, they'll dream up another one, either to sell you something or trick you into voting for them.
Global warming, economic inequality (like property prices), post-truth era, surveillance state and unsustainable social welfare (as explained in OP)?
It really can't get out of my mind.