#civilization collapse

The weaponization of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems stands as one of the most plausible and catastrophic risks facing modern civilization. As AI capabilities accelerate, so too does their potential to destabilize the complex, interdependent systems that sustain our societies—namely, power grids, communication networks, and global supply chains. In a scenario increasingly discussed…

how is our civilization not going to collapse like the bronze age then?

how can we be so sure of the continuity of the future of our kind?

are later people going to tell the heroic and mythological tales of our time?

is one of us going to be the achilles or the odysseus of the 21st century?

I started this blog ten years ago to compile the growing evidence that our planet would not longer be able to sustain human life by 2050, thanks to our continued, capitalist-fueled efforts to destroy all the systems we rely upon to sustain life. The first thing I put up here was this essay, on February 20, 2014. Now, a decade later, I thought it might be "fun" to look at what's changed: 1) Earth Overshoot Day

In 2014, "Earth Overshoot Day" (the day that humanity collectively consumes more resources from nature than it can regenerate over a year) was August 19th. Now, in 2024, Earth Overshoot Day is August 1st, 2.5 weeks earlier. At this rate and assuming things don't accelerate (even though they are likely to), Earth Overshoot Day will be around June 17th by 2050. 2) Biocapacity Biocapacity is the amount of resources contained on the planet required available to sustain life, measured by area. In 2014, I calculated that the planet had a biocapacity of 1.7 hectares per person. By dividing the total available biocapacity today in 2024 with the current global population as I did then, it now appears that there are just 1.5 hectares of planetary resources left per person to extract all the materials needed to sustain life, as well as all the area available to dispose of waste. That's a 12% loss over ten years. At that rate, we can expect to lose another 30% of biocapacity by 2050, going down to just 1.05 hectares per person by then, and that's assuming that the rate of biocapacity loss does not accelerate further and that the global population suddenly stops increasing after a run of non-stop increases spanning five centuries. Oh, also a reminder that the average human requires 2.7 hectares of land to sustain its current consumption habits/levels. So. 3) Individual Conservation To illustrate the futility of individual conservation at this point in the apocalypse, let me give you an example: If you were: a fully-vegan localvore living in a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and using 100% renewably-generated electricity; who did not ever use motorized transportation of any kind or buy new clothing, furnishings, electronics, books, magazines, or newspapers and recycled all the waste you generated that was recyclable, you'd only require 1.4 hectares of biocapacity to sustain yourself. That is close to the kind of lifestyle extremism it would take to live sustainably. Deviate from that level of stoicism even slightly (say by living in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people instead of a one-bedroom apartment with nine other people and taking a single, four-hour roundtrip flight, once a year) and you're now consuming 1.6 hectares of biocapacity, which means you're using more resources than the world has available for you if everything was divided evenly among everybody. Of course, biocapacity, like all resources, are not divvied up evenly among everybody, which is why there are currently 114 different armed conflicts happening worldwide - the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946. 2023 was the most violent year in the last three decades. 4) Other Signs Of The End Times In my 2014 essay, I referenced the work of geologist Dr. Evan Fraser, who studies civilization collapse. In his book Empires of Food, Dr. Fraser noted common signs of a civilization about to collapse, which began to appear about two decades before it all goes completely to hell. Those signs were: -a rapidly-increasing and rapidly-urbanizing population We've added 700 million people to the planet since I began this blog in 2014. And where is everyone moving to?

-farmers increasingly specializing in just a small number of crops " "As farm ecosystems have been simplified, so too are the organisms that populate the farm.  A farm that specializes in a limited number of crops in short rotations does not, for example, look for plant varieties that do well in more complex rotations with intercropping.  A beef feedlot operation wants breeds that gain weight quickly on grain diets and does not want cattle breeds that digest well pasture grasses and thrive in all year outdoor environments on the range." The result? Recent estimates put the loss of global food diversity over the last 100 years at 75%. Over the 300,000 species of edible plants that exist, humans only consume about 200 of them in notable quantities, with 90% of crop plants not being grown commercially. -endemic soil erosion Climate change and the need to raise more crops have combined to increase the rate of agricultural soil erosion globally. Back in 2014, when I started blogging about the end of everything, the UN had already determined that there was only enough fertile soil left to plant 60 more annual crops. So, by 2074, we won't be able to grow food, full stop. This of course comes at a time when the global population continues to increase, and with it the need to grow more food. If projections are accurate, we will need to increase food production by 50% over the next three decades to feed everyone. -a dramatic increase in the cost of food and raw materials When I started this blog in 2014, I noted that 2011-2013 had seen the highest food prices on record. So what's happened since then?