What do you think the end of Western civilisation will look like?

[curiousabouttheaesthetics]

Am hopeful it won't be for a good while yet

But with the whole world being so uncertain at the moment, with climate change and resource wars and mass migration on the horizon, I guess who knows what the coming decades could be like?

Hopefully though human ingenuity can find ways of muddling along as long as possible. If we can't, and if in 100 years high wet bulb temperatures and flooding and antimicrobial resistance has pretty much whittled down half or more of the world's population - do you think then the remaining people would set aside geopolitical differences? To get their smartest people working together to solve environmental problems? And with the rich everywhere pitching in resources?

Or do you think rich countries will just continue to try to hog resources until the bitter end of humanity?

We've got flooded fields everywhere around here, more water than we know what to do with.

A cheery thread indeed.

Agree with Hermione and have no problem saying that as someone not from the ME!

And believe the rich nations will play survival of the fittest.

Pre global everyday travel and pre internet seem like Eutopia compared to now.

😂

@Vegetus do you really actually believe things are getting better??

for the sake of my family and my sanity, I try and think like that. Perhaps I’m over dramatising the truth and we are getting healthier happier and more productive as a human race. And in some instances we are. Better medicine, less child deaths and longer life spans.

But. I doubt anyone can deny climate change and current political / religious mindsets and bias is happening and it’s bad. People are fighting and there is, as there always has been, wars over land and different beliefs.

when there is less habitable land due to climate migration - which is a fact not s rumour that less land will be liveable - how will people behave? Will we share and play nicely? Human history has never shown us to do this before.

@HermioneWeasley exactly what you said. For our family seen the marches this last month was the last straw. We are leaving not just the U.K. but Europe in the next couple of years. The amount of criminals and extremists that arrived in the last decade and with a supposedly right wing government. Really scary times so for me part of the West as we knew it is already gone. Also, people are so scare are to say anything. Mental!

I'm glad people feel comfortable to say this. It's so often dismissed as Islamophobia.

First half is almost right (I’d say you’re out by about 23 years, but only as long as we are talking about people living in the West and even then certainly doesn’t apply to everyone), second half is simply wishful thinking which current trends don’t support (again, if we are talking about the West, which seeing as that’s where my family lives, to be brutally honest is all that matters to me).

It wasn't Utopia though. There was mass unemployment , wars, idiots etc then too. We may not have known about it because there was no internet, but it wasn't Utopia by any stretch of the imagination, and if you go further back in time, not even that long ago children would die in childhood from diseases that have now been eradicated. Two world Wars that were hugely destructive, colonialism etc etc.
FWIW, I don't think the 'rich' countries now will be the rich countries of the future. India has a large young population and is waiting to take over as a global superpower. Nigeria also has a young population. China is going to have an issue in the future because of demographics. The Industrial Revolution was built on a huge rise in population and birthrate because you need the young to have new ideas and to work on those ideas. We have more over 60's than under 15 year olds. It will be the young programming AI, to wipe our bums, and probably not Western ones, because there aren't enough of us.

I have my fingers crossed for aliens.

I reckon climate change will wreak havoc in our world within the next 50;years, and rather than mad max, I think Kevin Costner’s Water World will be with us. I look at my adult daughter, and honestly hope she doesn’t have children, as I think we’re entering into a very precarious era, where law and order will break down, and multiculturism created by us mixing people up who have such different values will bite us on the arse and cause a lot of civil unrest in some countries, UK being one of them.

Well said. And 100% agree, as I suspect many do.

The UK does multiculturalism better than most; but we have problems now because of it. You need a joint identity to overcome this issue.

Well, take a look around you, we’re on the threshold of hell- barely civilised now.

“Do you think then the remaining people would set aside geopolitical differences? To get their smartest people working together to solve environmental problems? And with the rich everywhere pitching in resources?” Hahahaha! Not a cats chance in hell, we will fight to the death for resources, become more cruel, I honestly think we’ve seen nothing yet.

I think from some posts, people have different understandings of what climate catastrophe looks like. My understanding is its not literal extinction, but societal collapse. A breakdown of the social order like previous ones, but on an unprecedented scale which opens up the possibilities for rapid, radical, change that's not possible right now.

Change now is governed by the rules of an established elite, that preserves its position. This is what limits our ability to deal with the climate and ecological emergency. The elite powers only want it to deal with it under terms that preserves their privileges and hegemony. Change in wealth and resource distribution? Unacceptable. Radical changes to democratic governance? Sorry, not happening. And so on. Once their betrayal is crystal clear to citizens in the wealthiest nations, their grasp on power ends, rapidly. It's very scary, you all saw the selfish food grabbing during covid. Imagine that and a real shortage of food, it crossed my mind during 2020 and it terrified me. It still does

I think what’s lazy is you trotting out the same old lies because the statistics don’t bear out what you’re saying, and the statistics are clear that overwhelmingly it’s Muslims who face racism and Islamophobia in the UK, it’s not Muslims being routinely racist to white people.

How has multiculturalism caused you problems?

Is ‘you need a joint identity’ code for ‘you need a white country’?

Where are you going? Are your flights booked?

Having seen lots of comments by people like who think that bombing civilians is a good way to fight a war... I'd say western civilization has died

@wesurecouldstandgladioli - you got right down to it. No, I don't believe in a community of communities. You need a common identity to keep a nation state together. That doesn't mean you can't have others, but it's a condition of a stable society.

Yep, and she thinks saying she’s from the Middle East gives her carte blanche for bigotry.

Absolutely, I'm also not British born either.

I'm afraid you're basically right.

I do think the younger generation have a different outlook to current governments though so maybe they will want to do things different and collaborate?

I'm convinced there will be a big Internet blackout, caused by severed cables that will separate nations and will cause a big 'pause' in the way everything is going and bring about the downfall of many new tech based industries and the end of globalisation as we know it.

In 200 years I reckon we will be eating seasonal food only, growing at home as much as possible and living a simpler self sufficient life. People wil be horrified that we used to ship items from around the globe totally unnecessarily.

‘I’m not British born, but…’ seems to be the new ‘I’m not being racist, but…’

Just about now I reckon