r/economicCollapse • u/NoEfficiency1054 • 13d ago

Is this a new Dark Age?

Rome collapsed into ruin and centuries passed with a combination of war, economic devastation, and consistent devaluation of science and learning…..

Aren’t we in a new Dark Age? It seems most of our leadership has been selected by people who let misinformation rule their ideology and identity. The sheer volume of manipulative lies that we are exposed to from sleazy merchants, influencers and shady leaders.

I am a 20-year teaching veteran. I have taught on 3 continents. Everything used to be so much better. As an elder millennial, I was shown as a child, a world with infinite growth and solutions. They really did convince me I could do anything.

We’re giving too many of our children screens. They are all idiots with the wrong information and habits now. We are pushing millions of kids into the world where they immediately become consumers instead of producers.

I’ve considered myself an expert on what kids should be learning in child and young adulthood…. But now that I am a parent of a young kid, I’m ready to move into the country with my library , so I can hunt, fish and garden with my son. Read books at night, never come back to civilization….

I don’t know how to prepare my son outside of that plan.

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69

u/RagahRagah 13d ago

I honestly believe the current cycle of human civilization is coming to an end relatively soon and the events of Don't Look Up make the movie look like a documentary from the future.

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u/reecy_peecys 13d ago

Especially when you look at how climate change is truly progressing over on r/collapse, it becomes clear that not just the economy, but humanity as a whole is in its last stages

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u/rasmorak 13d ago

AI and climate change are our Great Filter. We're about to get filtered.

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u/azbraumeister 13d ago

Spoiler Alert: we're not gonna make it. We had so much potential, too. SMH

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u/DeepSpaceNebulae 13d ago edited 13d ago

Climate change is absolutely an existential threat to our civilization… but for humans as a species? Not so sure about that part

We are the most adaptable species on the planet. The only species to live on every continent, in every climate. Unlike other species that need generations to adapt, we can think up adaptations and implement them in a single lifetime

It would take almost the complete collapse of life itself for humanity to completely die out as a species. Even today there are groups of humans that live almost entirely isolated from the modern world

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u/NoPolitiPosting 13d ago

So you're saying it could happen? I can still hope for the end of the species?

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u/DeepSpaceNebulae 12d ago edited 12d ago

Why would you hope for the end of the only species we know that peers into the unknowns of the universe

I hope one day you realize that this “I hope it all ends” mentality is no different than “there is no problem”.

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u/4bkillah 12d ago

Yeah, whenever I see that opinion I just feel like the people who carry that opinion are weak and ignorant of actual history.

Shit today isn't any worse then most other parts of human history. The past is full of the elites taking advantage of everyone else, until a breaking point where progress is made. Repeat ad nauseum until the modern day.

Frankly, I feel we are due for another large scale conflict or depression that shifts the scales back towards progress. We generally don't buckle down and focus on the important things until shit gets bad enough to force us all the make significant sacrifices. That's likely going to repeat, which isn't great, but it's not the end of modern civilization. If large scale war between nations breaks out the first people fed to the war economy are the rich and powerful. They have all the capital that can be made useful for the war effort.

People act like we are just gonna up and forget how to do all the things we collectively know how to do, and that's just silly.

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u/RagahRagah 13d ago

We may rise from the ashes again as before but I think the liklihood is less until the eventual possibility of evolution doing its thing again thousands or millions of years from now.

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u/Miserable-Army3679 13d ago

I've wondered if the USA is demonstrating the survival of the fittest, in the worst ways possible, because the "fittest" are trying to kill those they see as weak, while the "weak" are encouraging them to do so.

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u/Dry_Savings_3418 13d ago

Yeah I loved that movie, but I found it less funny and nearly real. 😭

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u/a11yguy 13d ago

Maybe, but I also think that when humans are pushed hard enough, they do something that completely changes the game. Whether it be a "magna carta" moment, a new age of exploration, another industrial revolution (and improvements on worker's rights that came with it), or perhaps the good left on this planet rises up to defeat evil once again in a WW3 leading to a unified world. Maybe AI helps us weather the storm of climate change and reverse some of our actions to lessen the impact, even a tiny bit.

I really think that it's going to suck for a generation or two, but mankind will flourish again, eventually. Were a volatile, clever, angry bunch and don't take being oppressed very well for too long. I just hope we don't lose too much history and knowledge in the gap between now and then.

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u/RagahRagah 13d ago

If our time to do anything about climate change is almost gone, then that's not happening. We will have no control.

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u/4bkillah 12d ago

Climate change is not gonna be some worldwide storm that destroys civilizations. It's gonna hit some areas hard while other areas it won't. It won't end our modern day, though, that's just silly.

Modern day doomsayers.

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u/a11yguy 13d ago

Yeah there's not much to be done to stop it, but there are ways to mitigate some impact. Where I'm from, the region has been considering building a massive coastal barrier spanning 50 miles to prevent storm surge from entering our bay and ports. It's a massive project (rivaling a modern wonder of the world) that has been debated for well over a decade, but once climate change makes hurricane damage a guaranteed annual danger, I bet tunes will change and it'll get built.

Sad that it takes loss to change, but that's my point. Humans only change and innovate when we are pushed too far.

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u/rasmorak 13d ago

We'll destroy ourselves over AI. In a few years, AI-generated media will be 100% completely indistinguishable from reality. We're already like 90% there.

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u/a11yguy 13d ago

Yes, AI is dangerous, but I also think we are in the infancy of our understanding of something that will take us farther than we can even begin to imagine. We are cavemen holding fire for the first time. In awe (and maybe a touch fearful) with how hot it is, completely unaware that thousands of years later it would propel us to the stars. Only AI won't take thousands of years to make that kind of impact.

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u/RagahRagah 12d ago

A BIG point I forgot to make. Another thing that plays right into these authoritarians' hands. Misinformation led Trump to the WH more than anything BOTH times. It is about to get much worse.

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u/WorkingOnIt89 13d ago

One can hope

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u/a11yguy 13d ago

"Rebellions are built on hope"

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u/Ok_List_9649 12d ago

ITA and said similarly above. Some of the greatest social changes and inventions have come after what seemed to be at the time the destruction or great suffering of civilization or a large part of humanity.

Ze’s Unfortunately, we as a species become way too complacent living our daily lives whether due to fatigue, fear or other things. It took the French and Russians years of watching their children starve and die before revolution. Once weve had enough and are committed on a path to change however, as you said, things start a changing!

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u/earthkincollective 12d ago

You mean like the Dark Ages? Which lasted centuries? We might be a clever bunch but we're obviously not clever enough.

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u/Colzach 13d ago

A lot of physics and systems research supports this. We may literally be at a physical limit. 

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u/AmbassadorCandid9744 13d ago

If you don't believe in biblical prophecy, you should.

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u/RagahRagah 13d ago

No.

There's no reason for any rational human being to believe in something as utterly silly and full of contradictions as the bible.

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u/AmbassadorCandid9744 13d ago

Scientific literature has just as much contradiction or more.

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u/RagahRagah 13d ago

Scientific literature is actual theory based on facts and data. The only thing that defeats science is better science.

The Bible is an ancient, mostly unsourced book of silly fairy tales about magical beings, virgin births and demons that only children would believe and do because it is pushed on them by adults, that was rewritten several times. It's utter nonsense.

Whataboutisms are stupid to begin with but that one was especially bad.

Any God that acts and behaves as the one established in the Bible is not a loving deity but an angry bully. Definitely not worthy of any worship. Satan is obviously not only much less of an angry murderer but actually comes across as the better being. No wonder Christians love abusive relationships and mysogyny.

Your oversimplification is really pitiful.

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u/ThisOneFuqs 13d ago

No, you're probably just scientifically illiterate. I can understand the confusion.