There is often a tendency to retro romanticism about the past, whether it is the sixties or the 'golden age' of ancient history. Plato's idea of abdiogenesis was based on the idea that something had been lost which needed to be remembered. A similar idea is involved in the Christian concept of the 'fall'.

Thinking about the future is so uncertain as unknown possibilities. They involve comparison with the past as a way of framing. How we frame all of this may make a difference in how we choose to live in making critical decisions of what comes next. That is if humans have any role in intentionality in the larger scheme. The humans are only part of the larger system but through consciousness have some freedom in shaping their destiny and the nature of all life on Planet Earth.

This leads to the question of is it the end of civilisation or is there potential for transformation? Is the idea of transformation mere romanticism or have people become too engulfed by nihilism? I am asking about the nature of values underlying politics. — Jack Cummins

As things will definately change, we simply have to cope with that change. This will force us to change our ideas and the models we use to think about civilization itself. The idea of cultural decadence and cultural collapse is very old. Oswald Sprengler wrote his Untergang des Abenlandes in 1918, a fitting year to think of the decline of Western culture and heritage. Pessimism and cynicism seem intelligent, optimism seems naive. Yet this has lead to a huge fallacy that is rampant in our society: the idea that our civilization is extremely fragile and could collapse easily.

We have had several collapses earlier: the Bronze Age collapse, the collapse of Antiquity to the "Dark Ages" of the Medieval Times. So if it has happened before, why wouldn't it happen now?

The error is that we look at our lifestyles and think how incapable we are to "survive" without buying food from the supermarket. But let's think about this. That my Iphone won't work or I cannot order stuff easily from another continent isn't life threatening to me.

Our present prosperity can falter, but not our society itself. We just witnessed a huge pandemic with millions of people dying from it. Did our society collapse? No. We discovered vaccines extremely quickly. Without modern medicine, pandemics would have wrecked havoc in our societies. But with modern medicine, they won't be something like the Black Death. People had then no idea what hit them. We were fairly quickly looking for vaccines against the lab leak virus. We have witnessed financial crisis and our international monetary system nearly collapsed (which was held secret). Did our society collapse? No. I think the a next financial crisis will happen, sooner or later. Will it destroy our society? Again no. Many people will loose money and some will prosper. Economic depressions are partly huge transfer of wealth from some to others.

Easiest way to think about just how enduring our civilization is with the idea of nuclear war. We are taught that it will end our Civilization and saying anything else is morally wrong, that it will increase the possibility of a nuclear war. Well, the overkill in nuclear weapons was reached in the late 1980's and we have now only a small portion of nukes left from that era. Many Russian nukes intended to destroy American cities went into fuelling the electricity of those cities. (A really uplifting story about humanity)

So today there actually aren't so many nuclear weapons to even kill all Russians and Americans. Perhaps just every fifth or every fourth. Like what happened in Poland during WW2, every fifth Polish died. This is because a) either side won't use all of their nukes and b) a lot of those nukes will go into counterforce targets, blasting missile silos in the Central Plains in the US and Siberia in Russia.

After Russia and the US have done this dramatic "urban renewal", then what about Argentina or New Zealand? Likely they won't get even much radiation. Will their civilization collapse like in the Bronze age? Yeah, ordering something from Amazon.com from the US or getting a old book from a Texan bookstore won't happen, but will they forget writing in New Zealand? Will life there really be like a Mad Max movie? Again no. There's likely far more books in New Zealand and Argentina than there were books in Antiquity, even if we long for the library of Alexandria.

Hence civilization will survive. What it can do is simply become very stale and stagnant. Because once something is developed to be as cost effective as possible and there's nothing to replace the useful item, then there's no need for an engineer to improve it. Books are still quite the same form as they were hundreds of years ago. Firearms have been quite the same for a hundred years only with optics and materials having changed. A pencil has been also around for ages:




Even culture can be so. It might be that a hundred years from now, in 2124, people still listen to Michael Jackson. After all, some are listening to Mozart still, so why not to the king of Pop? Will something change? Of course. It's likely that some people now living will see "Peak Humanity" and then the global population will decrease. This will change the economy quite a lot, yet as we can see from Japan, this doesn't mean an immediate collapse. There's simply will be a lot of old people. Different times likely will promote different thinking, and with that different thinking the next Renaissance and rebirth might happen. At least people surely have the desire to make the time they are living "the most important", even in the 2120's.

(World's oldest Office manager get's the Guinness World Record in 2021 at the age of 90, now she is 94 and still working.)

I am glad that you think that there will be enough people around for a New Renaissance. Nevertheless, I do think that there is likely to be a lot of population reduction through many factors, from war and inequalities. Of course, this is not the first time and the ability to cope with change is questionable.

You say about learning to adapt without I-phones and relying on supermarkets, but I am not sure that many could. That is because most people don't have sources of local food. Also, it is becoming difficult to access so much from money to medical care without doing it online. Life for many is becoming more and more fragile. Theoretically, technology should be enabling greater self sufficiency but it is doing the opposite of creating so much dependency.

A lot of fragility comes from inequality in mass society, with those at the higher scale being able to access comforts and those at the bottom often left with nothing. The lack of community in the Western world may be a critical factor too. In parts of the world, such as the third world, people may be able to cope through sharing and group support. But, in the first world the nature of how individualism has developed means that many suffer in isolation.

The problem comes down to the nature of the 'mass' society and consumer materialism. New economists, such as Schumacher pointed to the need for smaller and local resources but the opposite seems to be happening. The pandemic may have taught some lessons and in England there is some development of community hubs. Some have had a chance for a rethink, but it is so variable and political leaders make tough choices over resources.

All that you touch
You change.

All that you change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
Is Change. — Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

I do think that there is likely to be a lot of population reduction through many factors, from war and inequalities. Of course, this is not the first time and the ability to cope with change is questionable. — Jack Cummins

:up: :up:

My (dark) forecasting ...

(2023)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/844458

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/841471

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/848035