In the show "3 Body Problem" (I haven't read the book) the statement was made 'our civilization is no longer capable of solving its own problems'. Would you agree?
The show's good btw...
FWIW, book three is basically "a feminized society is incapable of making the hard but necessary choices". I like the series for its concepts, but not its themes or characters. It has a lot of Incel-adjacent stuff going on.
That said, when we're being so half hearted about global warming, it's hard not to be cynical. People want the solutions to keep everything the same, but without carbon output. It's not going to work that way.
We're having a hard time convincing people that they don't need an EV with 600 miles of range if you're just willing to rest for 20 minutes every two to four hours of driving. Which would be a good idea, anyway. That's a relatively minor change compared to the status quo.
The real solution is high speed rail and bikes. How do we get people to go along with that if we can't even go so far as small changes to road trips?
Thank you, I have been saying the same thing about the books for a while now. They are incredibly misogynistic and the characters are pretty badly written. And yet I still keep seeing them recommended. They remind me of the old scifi novels like Niven and shit where its just a few cool scifi concepts and then a heaping load of sexism.
I listened to them on audiobook, most books I read more than once, don't plan on going back to them though. A good series I recently listened to was the wayfarers by becky chambers, very good characters.
Honestly, I love driving so, so much, and I cannot fathom a road trip where we don't make a pit-stop at least every four hours. In fact, you kind of had to do that back in the 80's, because fuel economy was total shit back then. My little Mazda fuel sipper had a max range of a bit over 400 miles, and if we had to use my parents' van, it was closer to 250-300.
Also I'm old and I need to pee regularly.
Who the fresh fuck needs an EV that goes for a billion miles?
and I cannot fathom a road trip where we don't make a pit-stop at least every four hours
yall must be roadtrip spartans if you can go 4 hours without a pitstop
FWIW, book three is basically "a feminized society is incapable of making the hard but necessary choices".
That is one way of reading it. Another is that the vast majority of humans will do the decent thing even if it ends up backfiring on them. Which, if anything, is wildly optimistic. I would also point out that of the two species in conflict, the one that played decent went on to become a galactic civilisation, while the other died out.
Just an anecdote: Any bike I’ve ever owned, got stolen or if it was well locked, wrecked and hacked to shit for no apparent reason. I have ADHD so it’s difficult for me to go through the motions of carrying the bike with me to the office and back, each time I leave, and at home I haven’t the space to bring it up with me. Most grocers or markets or shops don’t allow me to wheel it along with me inside.
It would be amazing if that was an option, but I’m not rich enough to replace a bike every few months, and I do move enough to warrant having a good bike, not just any cheap and rusty one. So it’s a pickle.
I am still very much in opposition of unnecessary cars in cities, so I do not own one currently, and instead of bike, I move about with buses and trains. It’s okay, but I’d love to have the freedom some days, that a bike provides.
But it is simply impossible for me to own one. It makes no sense whatsoever, since for some reason, the cities are not even close to safe to keep one for someone like me who’s not so great with self-execution and routines. And I live in one of the safest countries on earth, that has been declared the happiest country on earth for 7 years in row now… I can’t imagine how bad it is elsewhere…
Sometimes reality does not fit well with ideals.
Luckily, I have the option of public transport. But I don’t even know what I would do if I didn’t…
That's surprising. I own a bicycle too, as does practically everyone here. Never got it stolen.
A tip is to not have an expensive looking bicycle, but one that looks shoddy. Locking can also happen in multiple ways, and at different places. You might need to bind it to a street light for example, through the wheel and the frame.
A foldable bicycle is also an option.
I disliked the books and haven't tried to watch the show.
But I think I disagree that our civilization is no longer capable of solving it's own problems. Rather, I think our civilization is going through one of the crappy parts of common cycles that civilizations go through. Frighteningly, this part usually comes right before really scary crappy parts.
Civilizations aren't static and the patterns don't always happen the same way, but I think we can predict that
These steps aren't exact. They're trends. Lots of things can disrupt them (including famine, plague and barbarian invasions). But in step 1/4, we (humans) are actually REALLY good at collectively solving problems. In step 2 we're TERRIBLE at collectively doing anything. In step 3 we (collectively) are trying to solve all the WRONG problems... then back to step 1/4.
We seem to globally be right at the tail end of step 2. Which SUCKS.
tl:dr; This has all happened before and will surely happen again. Hostile aliens are just a modern take on the "barbarian invasion" disrupter. Beware of strangers bearing gifts.
Theorists and futurologists refer to it as the 'Great Filter' .... a series of challenges that civilizations go up against which determines if they make it past the filter or not.
Our current filters are climate change, nuclear war and artificial intelligence ... will we use nuclear tech or AI to benefit ourselves? Will we work towards dealing with climate change? or will us acting negatively with all this be the cause of our regression ... or destruction?
We have equal capability at this point ... we are just as capable of collectively solving these problems .... or using them to destroy ourselves.
Our collective futures are most definitely in our own hands ... whether or not we use those hands for good or ill is up to us.
Capitalist realism. Human society has always been able to solve its problems. The issue is capitalism — our current society — can't solve the problems it created like massive wars, hunger, regular economic crisis, and global warming.
Capitalism hasn't existed forever, and it won't exist in the future. Our civilization will solve the problem of capitalism by seeing to its abolition.
Capitalism hasn't existed forever, it literally started in the late 1700s during a period called The Industrial revolution, when factory machining started the first cottage industries that pushed out previous modes of hand crafting.
At that point, when machines and cottages to hold them started to be required for mass production and hence competition in the market (pushing out hand crafting as a competitor) CAPITAL became a requirement of mass wealth accumulation... because one needed large sums of Capital to buy the machinery, rent the building, and hire and train the workers to exploit. So it became the limited province of the already well off to do.
That's when Capitalism was born, and why it's named CAPITAL-ism. Because it has Capital requirements if you want to join the Capitalist class. It was created in the British Industrial Revolution.
That you're unaware of this change in the mode of production and what it represents, and believe that "oh Capital has just existed forever" is what some Marxists refer to as being in a state of "false consciousness".
The system wasn't always this way, and doesn't have to necessarily be this way (eg. Marx offered the model of workers owning the machinery or "means of production" as his alternative, and there are likely others). Capitalism is a product of a technological "change of epoch" of the "mode of production."
...and it's defined the age we live in, and how we think. Which is what the later Frankfurt School neo-marxists discuss.
P.S. It's also worth noting that the British Industrial Revolution, The French Revolution, and the American Revolution all overlap in time periods. Live was very different before the late 1700s.
Are you referring to some pre-capitalism economic systems?
Like Feudalism? Greco-Roman slave-based economies? Tribal subsistence economies? Mesopotamian barter-based economies? Ancient Indian caste-based economies?
Seriously, which system are you pointing to that holds answers? I'm not against your position, I just can't imagine what you mean.
Are you referring to some pre-capitalism economic systems?
Yes. The person with the hammer and sickle handle, who moderates Leftypedia, thinks we should retvrn to a caste system. You nailed it. Your question is definitely in good faith.
Capitalistic Socialism seems the most successful offshoot of Capitalism. Pure Capitalism is killing its social networks, and the fabric of that system’s societies is falling apart.
You're joking, right?
I'd diagnose the problem similarly to the person you replied to and I don't think I'd feel compelled to offer a specific remedy either.
People have been experimenting with economies and societies for thousands of years and we are in a relatively new money/power/control stuck spot right now. I'm sure there's been a system in history that would work much better than what we've got, but I just read recreationally so I dunno what it is and just because something worked 1000 years ago in North America doesn't mean it'll work here today. I wouldn't mind giving something new a shot though, what we have is not working for most people.
Things seemed pretty good in the pre-agricultural age of hunting and gathering.
The whole "good times create weak people" is fascist propaganda.
Context: An eco-terrorist organization that's a fifth column for an alien invasion made this statement
I can give you the only true answer to your question of "what can I do today to help fight climate change?" But you won't like it and this 'solution' does not preserve society in really any meaningful way, however it does help to address climate change and prevent the entire natural world from dying of heat stroke. So the question becomes, what do you want to save? You can't save everything and trying to do so will only result in you saving nothing.
The answer is large scale industrial sabotage. And when everything grinds to a halt and people start starving to death because of no industrialized food production and various other factors, you will regret the actions. As you and your own family fall victim to violence over food or land because everyone is panicking and trying to survive, you will likely regret it more. But then in 1000 years, there may still be people alive to call you a monster, if they remember you at all.
I'm fucking laughing out loud reading this comment.
Or you could mandate that corporations, instead of being legally required to make the line go up at the expense of anyone they can exploit, are required to pursue less environmentally destructive practices. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of them already did research on this but found it impacted their bottom line and dismissed it.
Our civilization is more than capable, but those who have money and power are unwilling, because that's not something they're interested or invested in.
Distribution of money and power is a facet of society.
Those were the delusional words of someone who lived in an upside down country. Kinda agree but if a single country fails, humanity doesn't get extinguished.
Think about climate change and reevaluate that position. There is no feasible way that the countries of the world will get together and all agree to do anything meaningful about it because anything MEANINGFUL will result in mass death. There's really no other way around it. Which is why everyone is dragging their feet. Who wants that? Who wants to be responsible for that?
Earth's climate has changed many times before and life found a way, regardless.
People who hate themselves and have low self steem say that humans are cancer but the real cancer are the doomers that only sigh, complain and lie flat without doing anything to help because they think everything is doomed. Well, aside from the usual corporate billionaire cancer from crapitalism
Humanity fuck yeah.
I disagree. I see problems solved all the time.
(Squints) What do you mean by "solved"?
I mean, we're pretty good at math. We can "solve" math problems. But when the math is applied and we choose to do the opposite of what the math says, then we've not "solved" the problem, we legitimately make it worse.
See also: climate change, housing bubbles, food insecurity, pay equity, universal childcare, universal healthcare, universal pharmacare, student to teacher ratios, media consolidation, and most other market-based solutions.
e: and, as said below, war. That math only maths when dominating "others".
I’m referring to the way golden rice solved vitamin A deficiency for millions of people.
I don’t care about math “problems” at all I’m talking about real problems.
No civilization has ever been capable of solving the problems of civilization. This is why history hasn't ended yet. We hope that eventually we may discover how to address the problems of civilization. We weren't built for any of this. We have to use non-intuitive methodology because the intuitions we evolved have equipped us for a totally different lifestyle. We have not figured out how to get humanity to function peacefully and productively in these massive systems. We're the first animals to even try to do what we're doing.
Only way we solve all of our problems is fundamentally changing human nature imo regardless of what system you try to put in place
The thing about that is that there isn't a definable human nature, just tendencies and systems. Using technology like CRISPR to force a definable human nature for all humans would likely doom us. It would be nice until the the environment we adapted our species to changes and then no one in the entire population would be capable of adapting to the new environment since we bottlenecked ourselves for short-term peace and prosperity.
I think it is still capable of solving the problems we currently have, but the biggest question is, will it?
Politics, nationalism, greed, and corporations are currently blocking attempts to solve the climate crisis.
Can we get them out of the way before it's too late? I guess we'll find out.
I honestly think it's too late already. The world as we know it will cease to exist soon. We are already clearly seeing the effects of climate change, and there is much more to come based on the current level of co2. Not to mention that we keep pumping more of the stuff into our atmosphere.
If something absolutely won't do something, it is not capable of doing that thing.
Won't =/= can't
I'm partial to the notion of memetic evolution, which is to say that humans have a concurrent driver of behavior besides our genes. Less so than capability or willingness, I tend to believe that some of the memes driving us are too successful, if that makes sense. They perfectly capitalize on the foibles of the human organism and I just don't believe we're able to surmount that. The only likely way out is running through the painful cycle described in another comment here. We need to suffer sufficiently to initiate a change in the ideas by which we operate
How are these memes different from ideas and the world of conscious human discourse?
No.
Humanity always finds a way.
So far... this time could legit be different.
We've Fucked Around with the planet (since the Industrial Revolution), and also invented nukes, so... I suppose we're about to enter the And Find Out stage of FAAFO.
We can solve problems, the status quo is just to profitable for those in power. Don't you find it strange how the status quo persists despite both mainstream political parties running a Change candidate for president and winning? (MAGA is the shitters form of change, just in the wrong way)
Clearly the people are looking for solutions, even if they don't know the answers.
Consider watching a video on first past three post voting. If we change how we vote in each of our individual states , people can vote for 3rd parties and still have their vote count if their preference didn't win. No spoiler effect!
Aren't we in the USA already at >200 electoral votes total that have pledged to put all of their votes towards whoever wins the popular vote? That said, I would expect a more serious resistance as it inches closer to where it might actually make a difference.
Also, I realize that isn't quite the same thing as fully moving away from a first past the vote system, but it is a type of reformation and it does help get away from the electoral college system in particular, so seems somewhat related.
I'd disagree. If you look at the problems which create existential problems for "our civilization" (more on the scare quotes in a minute), the list is pretty short.
Other than that, there isn't all that much which could really wipe out all civilization, everywhere, at once. And this is where I get back to those "scare quotes". We don't really have one single civilization on Earth. We have a bunch of them which interact in lots of ways. While that interdependence does make things a bit fragile, it also means that there is a higher degree of redundancy. If the US went tits up tomorrow, it would have some major impacts on China, India and Western Europe. But, each of those areas has a reasonable chance of adjusting and and continuing on. There may be a lost decade or three while supply chains adjust and new infrastructure is built out, but there is nothing wholly unique to the US which couldn't be replicated elsewhere. And depending on how the US failed, the useful bits of the US economy might well be able to be rebooted by someone else. Again, there is probably a lot of death on the table, the US is a major food exporter, after all. But, China already has a history of weathering millions of people dying to famine, I'm sure the PRC government could figure out a leap forward. An with such useful farmland in the US, one would expect farms to pop back up and get producing pretty quick. Maybe not at the level of output which the US currently has, but if we've killed off half or more of the US population, then we have a bunch of useful farmland with a lot less people to feed.
If there was a time in the past that we were capable of solving our problems, why didn’t we do it then?
Great point. Have we ever?
I'd argue that our civilization is more capable of solving it's own problems than it ever has been, just because we are are far better at identifying them, communicating them to the rest of the world, and analyzing the effects of what we try. Just because we have not solved all our problems does not mean that people in years past would have been able to do so and we've somehow lost that ability.
No.
The only pressing problem we're at the threshold of being unable to solve is climate change.
I still stand that if politicians would grow a backbone, most of the problems we have would be solved overnight.
if politicians would grow a backbone, most of the problems we have would be solved
Politicians aren't scared to do what's right. Their job is to act in the interest of their fellow elites. The most successful at empowering their fellows are given more power. Solving society's problems isn't remotely on the agenda.
If anything, we want more cowardly and timid elites. Politicians with a backbone are just more dangerous predators.
Nope. There are problems that won't be solved because of the framework of the system, but there are things that will be solved because it falls within the framework. Hopefully it goes a good direction, so far it's been good for humans.
I'm the context of the story, yeah. But the premise is terrible so I'm reality, no.
It's both capable and willing, the problem is that not everyone agrees with the solutions being used. And so they say "we're doing it wrong" instead of "I think we're doing it wrong."
I mean, not everyone agrees what the problems are. We can't even approach talking about solutions until we settle on the problems. And that problem seems to be getting worse.
Is it really a problem, though?
Human civilizations have only been around for a couple thousand years. That's nothing.
edit: by this I mean to say that it's too soon to make sweeping generalizations about what human social organizations can or cannot do. A commenter downstream rightly points out that "civilization" isn't a well-defined term in this context, although I was thinking of it as a shorthand term for the various human political, commercial, cultural, etc. organizations of a given era. My contention is that because recorded history is only a couple of thousand years old, we do not have enough information about what the various components of "civilization" are capable of, especially when they are overlapping, interacting, and meeting a novel challenge.
btw I tried reading this book but got bored halfway through, and I watched the first episode and wasn't that impressed either. I read the wikipedia summary and it's got some neat ideas, though.
Civilization is one of those great words (like Innovation) where if you're using it, you're definitely using it wrong.
When you say civilization, do you mean: The State, Justified Violence, Official Oppression, Bureaucracy, A Standing Army, Cultures you Agree with, or just Table Manners?
Quite right. I edited my comment to clarify. Thank you for the feedback.
Human civilizations have only been around for a couple thousand years.
L M A O
Human civilizations have only been around for a couple thousand years.
At least four thousand, but I agree with the rest of your comment.
I disagree. "No longer" implies we were ever capable
Good catch, and I agree.
No problem is ever solved no solution has ever been without further problems.
This is indicative of an ever expanding problem-solution matrix of entropy, meaning we're neither solving issues nor creating problems, we're just creating more complex landscapes to navigate.
This is why Buddhist monks and high tech computerized supply chains can both legitimately be said to have the answers we need, even though they're from radically different ends of this entropy.
It's also why they're both wrong and lying to themselves.
We are both the problem and the solution.
We can but the solver won't come from the mainstream, it'll come from the edge. One of those insane weirdos that everybody knows is badwrong.
So be kind to weirdos.
The normies you can safely pound to paste tho.
Yeah, I'd agree, and why I hope AGI is a thing soon, so the AI(s) can take over managing us.
We are capable if we stop being selfish and go vegan
Capable? Yes. Willing? No.
Could not have said it better.
If a civilization chooses not to be civil .... why call it a civilization?
That's just not how language really works, Axl.
Because they have civilians
I think Capable should be downgraded to a Maybe at this point...