How to Enjoy the End of the World
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 июн 2024
- UPDATE: This presentation is now being expanded into a video series with the same title, How to Enjoy the End of the World. New videos are being added approximately monthly. You can watch it at the link below, and you can support the creation of new videos in the series at buymeacoffee.com/bsidneysmith. Thanks!:
• How To Enjoy The End O...
This presentation was given at Virginia Tech for the Greens at Virginia Tech, March 26th, 2019.
“The only way to make the enemy, I mean the economy, use less energy”
The best Freudian slip.
"As prisoners of commercialized society we have been steadily robbed of agency in our own lives"
Sent shivers down my spine. What a talk this is.
The opening 80% of this speech is the sort of stuff I learn at university right now as a student of sustainability. As the facts pile up, it's become increasingly hard for me to stay optimistic. What my courses have been missing is the closing part of this speech - how to embrace collapse without being defeatist, how to be optimistic without being delusional. This is revelatory stuff, for me. I think those closing thoughts represent a really important idea that I hope gets further traction. Thank you!
It might not work for everyone but for me I found accepting collapse to be a kind of liberating relief in a way. It gave me clarity to focus on what I want to do with the time I have, before shit starts to really hit the fan, like learning important skills, spending time with my friends and family and just exploring myself as a person. When you realise there's probably not much point in saving for retirement maybe it gives some people the push to live more in the present and know that these could be the last, most comfortable years we can experience.
@Robert Bonneau Doesn't Skyactiv X (Mazda's SPCCI tech) have thermal efficiencies in excess of 40%? Or am I misunderstanding your concept of efficiency?
Optimism is just as uncalled for as passivity. Pre-industrial life was hard, and it could not support the vast population that inhabits the earth today.
This vid also helped me figure out my new purpose in life.
I look forward to becoming an energy dense fossil in millions of years that will be useful for new dominant life form on earth
@Robert Bonneau It seems that "kinda close," or facile, is true of other points as well. The claim that the advance of empire increases EROI, even temporarily, does not really make sense to me. It seems to me that EROI is a purely 'technological' phenomena, in the sense that technology refers to 'means of subsistence.' I make this point not because I endorse empire, but because "the devil lies in the details," and small errors across the board could lead to highly inaccurate predictions.
Also, the characterization of organized public protest, and demonstrations, as 'social disintegration' is facile.
Hands down the best one hour breakdown of Collapse Theory we're likely to get.
Agree! Every time I watch or read something, part of my brain is evaluating whether it would be a good resource to share with friends who are curious about why I’m concerned about our future yet not out picketing the government for more solar panels. This might become my go to.
For some reason it doesn't make me anxious, it somehow give me hope.
An end to this madness.
Something about knowing there are other sane people out there makes this insane civilization a little more bearable.
Raised to become indebted, to sell our labor at the buyers terms. That hits home for me.
I was terribly depressed after hearing this and then two days later I felt elated. Every flower, every sunset, every love bite from my kitten is incredibly precious.
I ❤mother🌎!
this talk is profoundly touching in a haunting way. I'm only 20 so thoughts of the future are quite unsettling, but the perspective with which to face it detailed near the end of this lecture is one i love. I don't think there's use in fearing inevitability so i hope more people come around to it. it'd be nice to share a bit of revelry in this present moment and do what good we can rather than living in isolation and ignorance, trying to hold on to a way of life that just can't remain
Like Gramsci said, "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will".
ive nothing to add to this comprehensive evisceration of the idea that industrial civilization is sustainable. collapse is inevitable due to laws of physics which underpin all complex systems. what goes up, must come down. the only thing left to debate is what might be left after the fall
And when collapse will come to your town, of course!
Don't worry, everything will convert to bots.
This was important. I feel like I already knew all of this information but had no way to really quantify it.
Not only did he thoroughly quantify it, he proved I'm not alone in thinking that we are standing on an unstable precipice as a society, and reinforced that my morbid optimism that we may in fact *need* a collapse to survive. We're so overextended, though, that we're guaranteed a mass starvation event; famine. It's gonna be famine.
I've long said (admittedly cynically) "the world runs on bullshit." His explanation of billionaire money and what its value actually is is spot on. "Those people are in for a hard lesson." Yes they are. Is it chilly in here?
One thing is certain to me. You will not want to be in a major urban area when that roller coaster picks up speed.
I almost never sign-in to RUclips to say how much I appreciate a video, but I'm making an exception for this one. Stunning and disturbing, this needs a much wider audience. It's not too late to mitigate some of the harm if only humanity -- that's us, folks! -- will wake up to what's happening. So let's start giving them a shake. Thank you, Sid!
Why are you not always logged in
1:00:47 One of the most powerful statements I've ever heard
This was one of the best lectures I have ever seen. Thank you.
Except you can't really sweep over geo-engineering in a 5-word sentence....
Read "Technological Slavery" and "Anti-Tech Revolution"
Ree geoengineering is a fantasy. we would have to do it, constantly, forever without stopping.
@@Ree1981 You can, if you fully understand what Dr. Smith was saying about "complexity."
"Geo-engineering" is simply a form of "complexity," no? The Odum brothers (particularly, Howard) have written VOLUMES on the equivalence of energy and complexity, or "emergy." You simply cannot make more of one by using the other. Entropy rules; "human creativity" drools.
And then, your next assignment is to read Tainter on the correlation between complexity and civilizational collapse.
While we're at it, go review a separate theory (Peter Turchin) that says the over-production of "elites" (like scientists and engineers) results in civilizational collapse.
Okay, you have your homework. I'm not going to do it for you. You have ample evidence that what you propose is actually a big part of the problem… Post back in a week with what you're learned!
Thank you Dr. Smith for taking the time to produce one of the most useful and informative presentations on RUclips. Some of us who have studied collapse have realized for a couple of decades that a "perfect storm" is approaching, and there's little we can do about it at this late date. Some aspects, of course, are already here, and others are rapidly approaching. Thank you for connecting all the dots in a very precise and professional manner.
Thank you.
I'm enjoying Smith's Freudian slips. A couple times, he's said "enemy," then quickly corrected to "economy," and there were a few other prescient slips that I did not record. Good work, Syd!
Hmmm. It was actually "energy economy", which makes it more portmanteau than 'Freudian'. He skipped the last syllable of the word he was reading and tumbled into the last syllable of the next word.
This presentation is increasingly relevant (mid 2021). Thank you for your informed perspective. Your closing statement is profound.
Amazing broad summary of “the terror of the situation”. It’s been clear, to me at least, that we are in serious trouble since the ‘60s. But finding people ready for thoughtful discussion of the reality on the ground is difficult. I’d love to hear from people who get it.
There are only a handfull people who get it. And we are mostly very deprest at the moment.
@@ConsciousnessRC That's a very sad way to look at human life.
The truth is not designed to please the ego; indeed, its effect is to destroy the ego by revealing its nonentity. Evolution by natural selection is going on, and nothing we can do now can stop it. Why not accept the facts and make a final effort to attain spiritual enlightenment before it’s too late?
I get it and like you hw e found it difficult finding others who do. Though I am working on a documentary, using excerpts from this talk with Sid’s permission, and interviews with other scientists who know a collapse is inevitable but it doesn’t have to mean our extinction if communities prepare, but most people don’t want to know the truth
@Essence of Dharma I would like to respond to your suggestion that people who understand the present situation should come in contact with each other. I would like to get in touch with you.
Well researched, comprehensive yet brief, and clearly put, this lecture is extremely thought provoking. Thank you for your work and thank you for making it available.
As someone who has spent the last decade learning to grow food and farm (and log, transport, etc) with horses, I can attest to the comment in this talk that it's not something you pick up overnight. I'm still learning loads, still making lots of mistakes. I started down this road primarily as a means of dealing with energy descent, though I'm beginning to see environmental collapse take the lead in terms of threats. I don't think there's much I can do to deal with that. Give me a year where we can't cut hay (2012 was close here), and localized horse-powered agriculture fails spectacularly.
Same here. My biggest fear is when the "day" comes when we can't make enough hay for the year. Now it has been raining for weeks and we should have been done with the first cut.
@@egyha1 So it seems agriculture is also too fragile and tiresome.
Only hunting, fishing and gathering then.
@@Scout887 You could have made the whole world into a permaculture forest. But no. Everyone had to 'own' everything else because you all love 'money'
@@inthegenes3600 Yes, but on the other hand the concept of ownership lets the guy with more stuff boss people around. Who doesn't like bossing people around?
@David Veale A great book about agricultural communities is "The Discovery of France". The greatgreatgrandchildren of adaptationists should they exist, will be inbred troglodytic retards.
Great lecture...the truth that grounds us to the moment is this relationship of energy input/output.
Date: April 2019. Amazingly prescient. Thanks Dr. Smith!
This is the great filter
@ayy lmao climate change doesn't really mean much really. Human will continue on no matter how much we damage the environment, Just look at China they have so much smog they live in a permanent haze of carbon. What will bring this civilization down is going to be an economic collapse, that will destabilize the system to the point civil wars start and it will be a snowball effect from there. People are genuinely selfish and only care about themselves and their immediate family. So you will see neighbors turn on each other, and chaos. We wont work together because of the social conditioning we've been living under thanks to capitalism for the past 60+ years. That will take time and unfortunately many will die off before that happens. That will be the real bottleneck. After that time of chaos passes the humans that are left alive will be growing up in a much different world and will hopefully work together to build a new civilization from the ruins of the old one. It wont be an industrial civilization but it might be some sort of agricultural civ. Some machinery and technology will be around but no more will be manufactured and eventually it will break down and be forgotten about as people transition back to older ways, Tractors will fall into disrepair and they will go back to mules and plows, City and well water systems will fail and they will go back to streams and creeks, etc etc.
Unsustainable complexity is the great filter.
Shut up Elon
Had the exact same thought. We leapt for the next rung and missed.
Ignorant statement. I'm always annoyed by people who do this - there isn't one great filter, there is likely dozens or thousands of different ones.
well this has rung entirely true a year later
I have been on such a journey for the past twenty years or so. It's a tough journey. Two spouses could not understand it, and abandoned me. It resulted in 43 acres with two houses, and plans for a dozen more, owned as a coooperative, for the purpose of collaborative farming.
This is something I think Dr. Smith misses - at least in this talk, which he admits is not all-inclusive.
Early in this talk, Dr. Smith mentions how excess energy has resulted in larger population, but more importantly, more *structured* population. Unfortunately, this has given us the illusion of personal independence, when in reality, our ties to others is simply hidden in civilization's complexity.
The survivors will not be "rugged individualists," not even with a cache of weapons and bags of seeds. It will depend upon small groups of "mostly related" collaborators, like the hunter-gatherers had, like villages, tribes, and clans.
Society is not ready for that. In over fifteen years of trying, we had some five hundred people involved in our co-op in various roles. No one would really venture "skin in the game." We even invited a number of them to participate in "sweat equity," but our mass delusion of personal autonomy makes this a really hard sell.
Then, cancer happened. This particular cancer (peritoneal mesothelioma) is a direct result of civilization, exclusively associated with asbestos exposure. We were at a point where "holding the space" with just a 60-something couple at the helm was impossible. We moved to a city, to be close to civilization's remedies for civilization's malady. We moved in with family, after failing to create a situational family. Blood runs thicker than the threat of civilizational collapse.
The ironically sad part of this is that, upon hearing that we were selling the farm and disbanding the co-op, two different parties that had earlier rebuffed our courting, contacted us and begged us take their money and keep on going! There is an emergy cost of having someone else "hold your space" so you can pretend that, if things get bad enough, you'll have them to fall back on. In our case, that cost was too much, and a realtor had already been signed.
Perhaps someday I'll put the website back up. In the meantime, you can read our story on The Wayback Machine: web.archive.org/web/20220122055053/ecoreality.org/wiki/Welcome_to_EcoReality!
If you REALLY want to do something like this, get in touch. Perhaps if Cleome recovers well enough, we'll give it another try… if it's not already too late.
Thank you for your comment!
That is a tragic and disheartening tale that bodes ill for our current endeavor and the dream that lies behind it. Having said that, we are looking down the barrel of the bazooka now as a species and I suspect the flight from the cities must begin in earnest soon, if it will have any chance to happen at all. We live on a mountainside in Colombia, but there are too few of us here to really thrive and any others like us are too scattered and distant to be able to function as a community when the energy bonanza has passed. We will "endeavor to persevere" nevertheless. Perhaps others will yet hear the call and join us here. Perhaps. Wishing you well on your journey in any case. Thank you for trying.
He absolutely called the transfer of wealth that happened not a year after the posting of this video. We see you. We hear you. We are ready.
I’ve listened to this talk enough now that I spout off a lot of his points to friends and family. Incredible we essentially have till 2030 to figure this out. And as of today there is no evidence shit will change until it’s too late. It basically is too late. The cycle from creation to destruction or in gen z millennial terms the fuck around phase and find out phase is a natural occurrence. It just sucks being a young person now seeing humanity fall from grace by our own hand.
This, and other talks, convinced me that I need to become self sufficient. I want to buy some land and learn how to grow all my own food. I know it will be intensely difficult, but it will be worth it.
I've been 'collapse aware' for a number of years and have gone through stages of grief. This is an excellent talk, summarising many of the issues which face us, but marred somewhat by the optimism about enjoying the pre-collapse times. Yes some of us may be able to do that to some extent, but anyone with a conscience will mourn the ongoing loss of species, will be horrified when fellow humans lose their habitat to rising sea levels, storm surges, droughts, fires and floods, and first just a few unlucky innocents drown or die of heatstroke, and then the numbers rise because of crop failures and UN relief supplies aren't available, and migrants are denied refugee status and die at walls and fences... all this will be documented, initially, and those 'insulated' from the crisis will watch.... and feel *enjoyment*? I doubt that I would. I am already unhappy about the widening gap between the haves and have nots, the rise of right-wing politics, the destruction of 'nature' which I enjoyed so much when I was growing up in the 1970s.
So, on one level I am enjoying my low carbon lifestyle, my knowledge about the current situation, and my broadminded approach to social and romantic connections... but I can't pretend I'm completely happy. I actually like people - and it is devastating to know that billions of us will die... and dieing is usually not voluntary, or pleasant. Good luck people.
compostjohn John, you spoke my mind and feelings exactly. I’d like to be in touch with you by email during the collapse, as long as we have internet. I’m starting a climate crisis, civilization collapse support group where I live. Saying “good luck”, to me, means wishing for an easy death when the shtf where I live. Might sound like I’m a morose individual... on the contrary. I do a fair amount of volunteer work, am attempting woodworking as a new hobby , and love living.... just with the constant awareness that none of it matters.
@@bobm6423 On a moral and spiritual level and on a physical world level everything you do and every choice you make matters. We are in this mess because billions of people don't believe or understand that.
I just went straight to the apathy stage and stay there.
@@everythingmatters6308yeah, people have a hard time being apart of something greater than themselves. I think this struggle will only get worse and worse.
Do Nothing and Be Kind is my current motto. Just how difficult and guilt inducing it is in our times I fully understand. If you're not busy doing something, you're a waste of space seems to be the current frenzied tenet that runs the world. I've withdrawn as much as that is even possible in an urban setting. I might be straddling the two worlds of being collapse aware and collapse accepting, day by day resigning myself to the inevitability of only outcome possible on this current trajectory.
Thank you Mr Smith! Well done.
I often think of this in the context of our information and communication systems. The internet is built on nearly-endless complexity and abstraction at every layer of the stack. Over time, as you show, the interconnectedness is made more efficient, creating endless possible single points of failure. Each point requires specialized teams, who depend heavily on these interconnected systems (and physical infrastructure) to even access the system itself. Dependencies become cyclical. This entire infrastructure can collapse at any time with so many possible root causes.
That's an outstanding example. I might use that in the next video (after the one currently in production), which will be about the mechanisms of collapse.
I'm not sure I understand what components you're talking about. It was my impression the routing structure had multiple redundancies precisely so it can keep routing your packets to their destination even if a few routers fail here and there. Major vulnerabilities are intercontinental connections in the form of subaquatic cables, and even those I think are backed up by satellite links. When we really care about keeping something on all the time we do have pretty good redundancy solutions for it. (But on a different note maybe we should find ways to give up these demands of "always-on" energy-consuming systems and to lower our costs with powering and maintaining them and all their redundancies. Could humanity still be humanity if we only had 2h of working Internet per day? I want to believe we could. We might even be far more human than we are now.)
After watching this a third time, though i admire this work and think most of the information and logistics are good, I think the well meant hopefulness is unrealistic.
Lady Ellah hello again Lady Ellah. Yes, hopium seems to be the new drug.
Thank you, one of the best talks I've ever seen, pulling so many elements together. I am in instant fan and am reading and listening to everything Dr. Sid has out there! I like the various authors referenced, I'm looking forward to exploring those too. :)
This is an amazing lecture! Thank you so much for your clarity. I love the way you've boiled everything down to simple and clearly understandable concepts. I've only just discovered this video, but I'll be eagerly awaiting your content on resilience and adaptation. I checked out the other 2 videos on your channel as well. Awesome stuff, thanks again!
It's amazing to watch this as the world is gripped by pandemic and under lockdowns. The detached perspective in the presentation and comments now eludes more and more people, as the decline becomes real in everyday experience.
I've been circling the drain in the bargaining phase for years, drawn like a moth to light by imagining "r-selected" human ecologies. What if we employed all the tricks to devise lifestyles of dramatically less energy use, local supply chains, sane policies and organization, scaled back our expectations. Well I can say, at the end of the day, even with pestilence knocking at my door, I cannot relinquish electronic music, computers and feasting. These are all way beyond the level the EROI is heading. Sustainable lifestyles are a noble pursuit, but like sandcastles they will offer no lasting refuge.
Abul Mogard - Staring At The Sweeps of the Desert
Leeroy beautifully said
Not gonna happen. I'm betting on extinction, and I'd say it's a pretty good bet. Just look at how poorly most countries managed the pandemic.
You know, I've put off planting my garden this year. Maybe I'll get that done tonight. Thank you, sir
Sid, I've been waiting for you to post another talk for over a year. I'm sure you have a lot to say about resilience and adaptation.
This talk has changed my life. I've spent the last several weeks digging up my front lawn and replacing it with a food and pollinator garden. Also been studying Brad Lancaster's "Rainwater Harvesting for DryLands" and will begin berms and basins next year. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you so much for your kind comments. The planned second talk was canceled by COVID. Consequently I've been planning a new series of videos with the same title, but divided into many chapters, with a separate video on each important topic. This is going to take a while, but comments like yours encourage me to be diligent in pulling it together.
Good luck with that garden! Mine is looking pretty good already this year.
Best, Sid
Good for you!!! I wanna do the same thing with my lawn too! We must deeply adapt to this situation
@@bsidneysmith PLEASE do your update, Dr Smith! IMHO, the root cause of the entire COVID PSYOP is the energy crisis of Peak Oil (which occurred Nov 2018).
The financialization of the world economy has increased greatly in the last 2 years.
Thank you so much for this talk.
😀 a great lecture that every one should listen too.
Beautiful speech. It perfectly summarizes all of my concerns in an objective manner void of emotional or opinionated baggage.
Really glad you mentioned Biomass. But the only thing you forgot is that we need every tree in the ground doing its job to suck up our emissions, Not making more emissions by burning them
Building a house using wood is actually a pretty smart way to capture carbon dioxide. The land where the tree stood can once again raise a tree and thus suck up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Maybe skyscrapers of wooden materials can be a way to clean up the environment? Could the skyscraper Mjøstårnet (in Norway) tell us something about the future of housing?
We need an updated talk. So much has changed for the world, but at the same time so little has changed since this talk was given.
Watch his new video series, linked in the description on this one.
lmao, seconds after I though about asking about hydrogen, he comes out and says it
this guy clearly knows his stuff
Boy oh boy! What a time to be ALIVE. Watching the decline of our civilization. Maybe it is all for the best. Maybe we haven't passed the great filter. Only the time will tell.
Not inventing fusion is the great filter.
@@aviads8439 Amazing how so FEW beings on this planet seem to understand this
@@aviads8439 We have perfectly good fusion. It's called the sun. The containment unit is space. So if you can't stick the fusion on earth and power a turbine with it because you blow a hole in the ground from the heat... then... bring the turbine to the fusion you already got going on. Stirling engines in space baby! LOL
@@aviads8439 Even if we invented fusion generators, it would be torn down and hushed by the already established profit motivated fossil fuels industry.
@@Yggdrasill8 i doubt it rich people dont want to die
This suburban circus needs to end asap...
Global unity would be the first step to solving the problem.
You think it's gonna collapse man?
Yes. It's inevitable.
Well how do you know? How can you be so sure?
It's a complicated process but easy to understand. Watch this video. He's lays it down pretty well.
No thanks man. I'm not watching a guy talk for an hour.
Exactly! It reminds me of a string of videos on YT featuring Al Bartlett (about 10-12 years) explaining the exponential function, and how humans have a hard time wrapping their head around it. The lecture was split into 8 videos. The first one was titled something like "The most important video you will ever see". That first video had millions of views obviously. Then with each succeeding video, there was less and less views, till you got to the last one that only had a few thousand views lolll....moral of the story: People have no desire whatsoever to go down the rabbit hole...no one wants to redpill it...99.999% of people are like Joe Pantoliano's character in The Matrix: IGNORANCE IS BLISS!!!!
@@brbr2854 That vid is still up so far as I know, but in my opinion it is far more interesting to listen to the complete lecture at once (which is also still up AFAIK). But, yes, most people seem to have a short attention span for any kind of serious topic. It is hard for me to fault them for that. There is a lot of variability in individual curiosity, focus, and working memory. I have accepted that people who are intensely interested in this sort of material are biological outliers, like people who can run the four minute mile or people who are extremely tall or short.
If you're aware that humanity is about to collapse or more curious about the topic, check out reddit.com/r/collapse
Huge thumbs up - very interesting and insightful talk.
Superb. Thanks so much for this.
If there was a powerful directive from the top to use what we have learned in the 100+ years of petroleum-powered plush times to get our ERoEI up as high as it can be raised without slavery (that of combustibles or that of other sapients), we could maybe eke out some kind of controlled collapse into a world that remains globalized in terms of our telegraphy and generally just, though has a lot more farmhands and less in the way of trade in goods. There is not that directive. Instead, we're pillaging what arable and so on that we have so people can live in unsustainable luxury for 5 more years. We're so hecked.
Great talk Sid, if a depressing subject. I have been trying to live more simply for some time now, with these expectations in mind. Every generation has had it's wars or plagues. We would be naive to think we are getting off Scott free in this one. Rapid degrowth is probably our most hopeful path. But most humans tend to need to hit the wall before changing things though.
Not correct. Not every generation has had to live through ecological collapse and possible extinction of everything. Not too many, at all.
@@mimosa27 No, we are not looking at a "possible extinction of everything." This sort of exaggeration is one of the key reasons that so many people have waxed cynical of environmental concerns. They get lied to so much by environmentalists that they become cynical across the board. Another issue is the huge amount of overlap that exists between environmental concerns (even those that are fully legitimate), resource depletion (which is related but not identical), and cheerleaders for Marxism; and this is a problem that has only become worse since the fall of the USSR, after which Communists and Communist sympathizers seem to have rapidly taken control of the environmentalist groups. The environmentalist movement needs to become nonpartisan, a big tent that welcomes people of all political, religious, and cultural persuasions rather than a little socialist sect; and as a prerequisite to this it needs to develop a genuinely scientific orientation that recognizes the necessity and desirability of trade-offs between environmental purism and human welfare. Trade-offs, not "choose one."
@@michaels4255 All I can tell you is I've been gardening organically for 30 years and I've been watching insects disappear for about 20. Not a few, a LOT. Only flies, mosquitoes, and squash bugs left in high numbers. I predict the insect die off is what will bring the jenga tower down. And soon.
@@everythingmatters6308 Pollinators gone = game over.
"The SOLE basis of optimism is sheer terror." ~ Oscar Wilde
Fantastic talk - spot on! Thank you.
Thank you !
Excellent!
I believe some things here were presented as always inevitable that do not have to be always inevitable. But if they're inevitable now, then the difference is not very important.
VERY GOOD SPEECH.
Incredible talk.
Great talk, thank you. Refreshingly honest. The last five minutes of so makes me think of "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. Humans moving to a new stage of consciousness, and leaving our egos behind.
true, the non dual stage could be the next step, worthy of being called a civ lvl 1 (Kardashev scale),
but unfortunately this kind of a result, synthesis, is (never?) going to be mainstream due to the rusted perceptual cycle the current civ is in, promoting competivity, inferiority, polarized conflict based and divide/conquer principles.
Just watch the media etc ... you see an endless soap of such practices being promoted, and exploited ...into the minds of the receiver, generating this perceptual cycle within most :/
We will be leaving ALL behind. Acceptance of fact is your friend.
Very good speech and info!!
I honestly wish I had watched this in 2019 as it could have been some real life changing stuff to better prepare me for where we are now and the imminency of our collective acceptance of our demise. Just look at hose housing prices soar! Shoulda gotten into a home while I could.
Welcome to the club newcomers. Glad you finally made it after finishing the video.
I want to bring up a point and variable not mentioned in this video.. that being the ancient webbed root of power accumulation by the elite that is and always has controlled or subverted the framing of worlds. The implications of this is dimensional and open to different perspective.
Unintelligent people are easier to exploit. Unfortunately, the more intelligent women (and usually this means their spouses as well) have been underbreeding since well back in the 19th century in the most advanced industrial countries. Inevitably, this makes it harder to check the growth in inequality.
Thank you so much for this talk
"but it's worse than that," ad infinitum.
Watching this on Boxing Day 2020, nearly 2 years since this was posted & about a year into the Coronavirus Pandemic...
Smile like a rifle, hot metal in the setting sun.
Thank you. Subscribed for any more if if give such. Love from England.
I've watched hundreds of lectures on this topic and this is clearly one of the best ones - maybe THE best one. (If you know of better - perhaps which I have not seen - please let me know). If I were an awards agency this would definitely be getting a huge trophy. STELLAR presentation, sir. Thank you. Sharing everywhere I can.
Also, is there a transcript of this available somewhere?
Hey does he say when the collapse will happen?
I would love some lecture recommendations if you have them. I loved this one. Another good RUclips video is There's no tomorrow (Limits to Growth) by incubatepictures and the podcast Breaking Down: Collapse. The podcast goes through a lot of great information the first 8 episodes.
@@ESTRID_lol over the course of a hundred years or so.?
@@Passionate_Potato Try TheGreatStory channel "Collapse In a Nutshell."
This is a pretty good explanation of the reasons for collapse, but then veers into the bargaining stage - "peak oil will save us from ourselves". That horse already left the barn - the amplifying feedbacks have passed tipping points, and it's too late for even a remnant of humanity to make a new start, because the earth will become so hot it will be uninhabitable. Also his nostalgic imaginings that people will learn to "do stuff like Grandma in the Depression" is as fanciful as the geoengineering he rightly dismisses as fantasy. Farming is really, really hard in the best of times, and people in the Dust Bowl LEFT because they couldn't grow anything. Anyone who could migrated out. How are humans to leave this planet for another when the entire thing (other than anoxic ocean) is either desert or flooded?
Some think my remarks here too optimistic; many of course think them too pessimistic. It may well happen that the climate feedbacks will bring about our near-term extinction. That is well within the range of reasonable projections. However, the climate is a profoundly complex system, which means that it cannot be reduced to any computable model. How climate disruption will play out in the next few decades is something we cannot know with any certainty. For this reason, it is reasonable to acknowledge that we may not survive at all, but also reasonable to acknowledge that we may. I think a thoughtful person prepares for both life and death, on large scales as well as small ones.
@@bsidneysmith Agree there is much uncertainty as to exactly how things will unfold, with untold variables however, there are multiple natural feedbacks that amplify heating which have occurred very rapidly in the geologic past and no negative process that sequesters carbon in human timescales. Plus we are venting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at far greater speed than has ever occurred before. Not only that, but our toxic polluting emissions (NOx/methane + VOC = ozone) is killing forests everywhere, which is destroying a crucial CO2 sink. Nothing like this has happened since the venting of volcanic traps in the end Permian extinction and it's much faster now too. ruclips.net/video/sn1Xy_j48k0/видео.html
@@gailzawacki Agreed; the situation is dire, far more dire than most people wish to face.
What if as collapse ensues, the powers the prevent you and your community from growing your own food, are no longer able to stop you? And communities all over are then able to stop destroying their environment? You might be surprised how quickly we can put carbon back in the soil. But it will take all of us doing it, so...we are still on the brink.
@@tylerehrlich1471 In the short term, collapse is likely to accelerate rather than stop the destruction of the environment.
Freudian slip at 32:26?
As much as i'd love to rag on that slip... I think it was a genuine Freudian slip; Enemy E(co)nemy
yep ; he said it didn't he?
Can't argue with you. Doesn't disprove what he's saying though.
Good observation! Perhaps you're right-maybe his subconscious mind does see the current economic structure to be a key adversity for progress.
@@XoJOHNoX96 If he merely skipped the 'co' in the spelling while reading his paper, doesn't that imply that this wasn't a Freudian slip? A Freudian slip occurs when a person utters a word by mistake, revealing a though/idea/emotion he actually had in ming but wasn't planning to express intentionally.
47:20 financialization of growth
I enjoyed your two speecches and you are right about what is happening. Deanna Loretta
Here we are.
That is a really good talk! It would be cool to have the references for the different facts Dr. Smith mentions. I would like to use them in other argumentations.
Thank you Martina. I'm working on a written version of this talk with all my references. I'll post here when it's done. Probably be at least a month or two.
The bulk of the talk provided little basis for the optimistic tone of the last couple of minutes.
Kirby Weller it seems that most of us just can’t accept that the human race has been run, it’s soon over for good. That’s too hard for most to accept. Even really smart and aware people like this guy.
@@bobm6423 I think it's very important from a psychological/mental health perspective to remain (cautiously and realistically) optimistic. I think it's in human nature to not go quietly into that goodnight and admirable to refuse to just lay down and die because people you never knew and had no influence over have royally screwed things over for you and everyone else you know.
BurningSky93 I would be cautiously optimistic if I saw something to cause me to feel that way. And who says we can’t go quietly into that good night? If that’s my way of dealing with the impending collapse, then it’s right for me. And still, I’m not just laying down and dying.... I do lots of volunteer work: visiting a home bound brother (70 yrs old ,like me), tutoring a 7 yr old in reading, wife and I deliver meals on wheels, she does volunteer work also. We are the managers of a clothing giveaway with our UU Fellowship. And I have stated a Climate Collapse Support Group. I am learning woodworking. And I’m getting spinal fusion surgery tomorrow. Sound like laying down and dying to you? I just think, and feel, that it’s all meaningless ( except for the fact that I’m, hopefully, making others’ lives better for the moment ).
It's more rationalised fatalism than optimism
No....I...think...we....have..to ..join.. the...dots. What do we want? War and Armegeddan, drought and starvation? Collapse of our civilization of omnicide?
First of all: Great presentation, it sumemrized everything so very well. I thought about a point that makes everythign also less bleak: Since society moves towards some george orwell scenario, the system collaps will destroy the controlling system like you said in the end. There won't be a dystopian future because there will eb no system to support it. Thats a good thing!
I not sure anarchy will be beneficial. Total anarchy is as dystopian as you can get. Only the strongest and meanest survive (temporarily).
Basically it means local warlords rule and you have the new dark ages.
It will not be a globalist dystopia, but we could end up with a feudal dystopia, or a Somalian-style anarchic dystopia. For sure, it will be a much poorer world in any event.
Freudian slip when he said the economy was the enemy at 32:25
The truth hurts.
funny story , while laying on my bed trying to entice sleep, the voice in my ears was voicing the thoughts in My head and i woke up to find an Algorithm had selected my thoughts to broadcast. A strange experience for sure , as sure as the times WE Live in.
the Earth is on fire because Rome is burning.
Thank YOU for this scintillating experience of synchronicity
Absolutely fantastic talk!
Late 20's at April 2021. And here I was maintaining retirement investment accounts.
What have you done since? Still investing?
Thank you ... Excellent and provocative.
This will give a new implementation to 'the law of the handicap of a head start'. People who live in area's where they are less dependend on technique, who live in little communities and know how to grow their own food, will have more chance to survive than the iPad generation living in cities where they live on take out food.
Man, weren't we all born in the shittiest part of the cycle... that part at the end... that won't be us. We will all die in a mass of idiots screaming for the last bit of corn flakes and toilet paper at Wal Mart...
Wow I really hit the nail on the head with the toilet paper prediction!!
@@Knaeben 😂
Great presentation
Excellent, and Thank You. Are you planning on releasing this talk in the form of a digital publishing, perhaps your lecture accompanied by you images ( and footnotes, of course ) ?
Thank you! Working on it. Many other obligations, but I hope it won't take too long.
Thinking as most everyone does that the current system will continue is accepting the bitter end. Most things people do are essentially useless so stripping down society to only essentials is the only solution.
Unfortunately capitalism and people in general are too short sighted so good luck.
Really interesting talk - thanks. I think you are going to see your views jump quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the written version. It would be helpful if you wouldn't mind creating more of a synopsis in the description. Also, although I am not one of your constituents, I'd be interested in learning more about your work. Do you have a web site or Facebook presence?
Hi Angela, thanks for your support. I will try to put a proper abstract in the description. I have a website at bsidneysmith.com, but it is more of a personal site, though there are some essays and other writings. My political work is for the Green Party of Virginia, of which I currently serve as secretary.
This is such an interesting lecture, really moving. Is there any way to get the slides? its difficult for me to make them out on youtube. @Sid Smith
Makes so much sense! answers questions ive had these last few years :)
Cute slip: 'economy' accidentally called 'enemy'
My thoughts exactly. Haha!
I noticed too.
Yeah, a real live Freudian sloop.
He's talking about you right there
yep us awful humans are all the enemy to these freaks ; but he is one of us too ! useless eater
Wondering where to find the EROI stats for lithium batteries that you mentioned once added to wind/solar have a return of 1/1?
Here is one of the more pessimistic analyses for solar PV: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516301379. EROI for wind and solar is particularly difficult to calculate because quite reasonable variations in one's assumptions result in extremely wide differences. The most optimistic analyses always seem to omit everything but the energy cost of building the turbines and/or panels. But it is intermittency and how it is dealt with that is the real problem. To maintain a 24/7 grid without a fossil fuel backup means having massive storage capabilities, at least 3-day backup locally, and seasonal back-up regionally. It also means that the system has to be overbuilt, with a peak output much higher than average demand. If, on the other hand, fossil or nuclear backup is used, then the cost of that backup capacity becomes part of the energy cost of the solar/wind capacity. At this point, anything remotely resembling the Green New Deal goal of going fossil fuel-free by 2030 seems to be little better than fantasy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't build solar and wind capacity. I believe we absolutely should. But we need to plan for dramatically reduced energy usage overall. So, there needs to be simultaneous investment in mass transit, regenerative agriculture, and so on. Our energy consumption per-capita is going to decline rapidly; better if we control how that happens. The alternative is a dangerous breakdown.
Thank you for this. @59:00 Given Covid-19 and the hell that is 2020, where is our “You Are Here” marker now on the adaptive curve?
This is the end of the world as we know it... And I feel fine.
Thanks Sid. Do you have a blog/site?
bsidneysmith.com
Do another update, please!
This is a great speech and while I'd heard of it, I'm surprised it took me this long to get around to listening to it. That's a good point that you can't simply seize Bill Gates' wealth and "solve world hunger" - it's not that simple. Like you, I'm not against the revolution either, and it *is* possible to soak the rich for a good percentage of their money to put into programs to eventually solve world hunger by making the little guy more self-sufficient.
.
I am trained as a philosopher not a biologist, or an ecologist or a naturalist. Consequently my view regarding climate change takes a broad overview rather than the view of the specialist. It appears to me that we (humanity) have perhaps ten more years of relatively stable societies in which to live. As the seasons disappear so does agriculture. It seems to me that human civilization is about to collapse.
This is a Greek Tragedy. We all know the fates of the actors. We know the innocence of the guilty. The actors do not seem to know their end, while the audience freely watches their fate. Herein the end of the human race. This species with no predator, other than himself, now eats his seed corn as the famine approaches. The trees are dying. The birds are far fewer. The insects are disappearing. And we humans are not and perhaps can not do anything about it.
In the story of the Titanic I am reminded of the capton stepping forward fulfilling his duty as the water came rushing in, the old couple who returned to their bed gently holding each other and the band, the band played on. May we play all these roles in our life. May we be found fulfilling our duties, sharing moments of love, and may we express the beauty of this amazing phenomenon: humanity.
My heart is filled with sorrow and loss, and with acceptance and forgiveness. Somehow love appears. It is my continuing experience that a life filled with empathy, forgiveness, and acceptance makes for a day of joy. I speak here of acts not of beliefs. I prefer to go extinct loving than to go extinct filled with anger, hate, and greed. For indeed we are soon gone and forgotten. It does seem that all we do amounts to nothing. Good luck in all you do. Absurd? Yes, absurd!
...and the band played on...
Or perhaps attempt to rethink current structures so we could get away in rescue boats on time?
1. Zero evidence that the seasons are disappearing.
2. There are no seasons (except for rainy and dry in some places) in the tropics, yet agriculture proceeds very nicely there.
If another civilization finds any remnants of humanity on earth, let it be this message.
just beautiful. densely packed, informative, taught me more in a hour than most do in a week, and i keep coming back to this to absorb it all. i wonder why Sid is not a Marxist/communist knowing all this
You can find my thoughts on socialism, capitalism, and their relationship to collapse in an essay I wrote for the Green Party in 2019: bsidneysmith.com/writings/essay/socialism-and-the-green-party
@@bsidneysmith thank u, will definitely read!
I am 14. I know the world is ending. That I have no future. It sucks living like that. Now I am here. Also, who's here from the collapse subreddit?
Hi Cyler. The world isn't ending. The world didn't end when previous civilizations came to the end of their natural spans. It just means you have been born in a time of great change. That means that you will have both opportunities and challenges that are very different from your parents' and grandparents'. This isn't a bad thing. It's something that it is good for you to know, and to be thinking about. But you should feel good about being alive, right now, in this moment, and cultivate hope for the future. After all, you'll be helping create it.
@@bsidneysmith Thanks for the response, I'll keep that in mind.
Hi there fellow human; I do too come from this subreddit. I concurr with Sid Smith. As a 30 yo dude in not so good shape, my main advice is : keep yourself in good shape. No one really knows what the future holds. Regardless of what happens, it will be interesting; certainly more so if you are in good shape and can act however you want, not limited by diseases/obesity. Enjoy !
You are living through the most fascinating 30 years of Earth's 4 billion year history.
Think of how an earthquake develops, Cyler. Nothing for along time, then pressures build to a very sudden change and that pressure is released. I think that is what will happen politically, and those who have power now will lose it. Then we can make the rapid change necessary. The question is how do we facilitate that to happen. Thousands, if not millions are working on just that.n
You know how the dinosaurs all went extinct before they could evolve into much human like smarter creatures. They all went extinct, but small life survived. That eventually evolved I to the life we see today, and we made it this far. I hope the small life that survives evolves into something greater than us. And looks at our ruins with wonder. And fear. Of making the same mistakes we did.
They should have reduced their carbon footprint.
@@dibdap2373 Ah yes, the "chicxulub asteroid was heat seeking" theory. Good taste!
Many dinos survived. We call them birds.