https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/it-is-starting-to-get-strange

Climate change could destroy society in a couple of decades but Ai could do in in a matter of 5-10 years.

I don’t think people understand how quickly things are moving in the Ai space and how it will directly effect them.

Any job where you stare at a screen or do a repetitive task could be gone within 5 years.

A few myths to dispel:

1)Ai will create new jobs, just like technology before it. Yes there will be some new specialist jobs created but for the first time in technological history the Ai has the ability to replace these jobs before they are created. A good example of this is an “Ai prompt writer” which was a big new Ai job just a few months ago, this is now already being replaced by software to do it better than a human.

2. Businesses will realize that that if they eliminate most jobs companies will not buy their products or services. I can assure you that no business in the history of earth has thought like this, all they care about is bottom line, and they certainly don’t think more than a few years ahead, they see consumers as a monolithic group. Less consumers buying their product, time to cut costs, by firing humans, it’s a deflationary circle.

3. Governments will step in and regulate or provide UBI; given that they can’t even manage to do anything about climate change the chances of governments to adapt quickly enough is laughable.

4. Manual work will be safe for longer; yes we are about 5-10 years out from fully humanoid robots however because of the people leaving the white collar job force and deflationary pressures the value of these jobs will decline until they don’t cover the cost of living.

Once we head into a worldwide deflationary cycle it will accelerate rapidly and then combine that with climate change, Rome will fall fast I would Imagine.

Just a note. I love this banner. Not sure when it changed, but it caught my eye today and made me smile.

Not sure how it's connected to the theme, but great to see. So much more pleasant to look at as we're reading about disaster. Was it supposed to remind us, in an inverse way, of what we're about to lose?

In any case, appreciate it, mods.

Thomas

The mod team would like feedback on some ways to revive the presence of research-based content in our sub. We've received feedback from some of you over the years how the sub has changed as its grown in popularity, to the detriment of this content, and hope to find ways to change that. We acknowledge the value of such content, but we understand that it often gets drowned out by other types of posts, such as bad-news-of-the-day.

Some ideas below, however, we would like to hear from you and get your thoughts on how we can better approach research-based content. We may trial various options depending on feedback.

1. Stickied post for research-based content: Similar to the weekly observation post, create a stickied post in the sub specifically for research-based content.
2. "Science Sundays": Similar to Casual Fridays, designate a specific day of the week (e.g., every Sunday) for research-based posts only. This would increase visibility of these posts.
3. Promote r/collapsescience: Encourage crossposting from r/collapsescience. This doesn't change content visibility in r/collapse (it could still not reach top), but may have more visibility and divert discussion to one spot, r/collapsescience
4. Separate flair for research posts: Create a new flair specifically for research-based posts. This will allow users to filter these posts themselves and easily find the type of content they're interested in. However, we would lose the topical flair ("climate", etc)

We're open to other suggestions and ideas as well. We want to create a sub that is informative, engaging, and relevant to our community. We believe that research-based content is an important part of that, and we hope to see more of it in the future.

Ultimately, the community largely drives the subreddit they want to see (mods do have an impact, but just to enforce our agreed rules). You can help drive that, see this comment from u/letstalkufos for how you can help.

View Poll

Hello good folks of collapse.

I feel dumb just posting this but here goes. I have a wife and 3 young kids to think about here. My wife, she is very smart and way ahead of me on all of this. She has been reading articles for years, research studies, deep adaptation, everything she can get her hands on to help her better understand where we are headed.

Now for some reason, my stupid brain basically wants to do deer in headlights, everytime she tries to talk to me about it all. Its at a point where she is just frustrated with me and i am frustrated with myself. I understand what she is saying, but i almost feel as though nothing I can do right now will matter. But that cant be the right thing either. We have to do something, make changes, protect our children the best we can.

Anyways, I am having a hard time getting a sense of panic/urgency and being helpful to my wife in planning for our future and navigating through all this.

I believe what she is telling me, some of it scares the shit out of me, but my body/mind still do not seem to get the sense of urgency.

Like i said, i already felt pretty stupid posting this, but hoping someone can help me help myself and be a better support to my wife.

Thanks

Update: woah! I posted this before bed and just woke up to all these comments. Thanks everyone who upvoted/downvoted and took the time to comment. I will try to get through these today and respond to what i can.

I believe society has entered the phase of declining marginal returns where we will increasingly be powerless to deal with the challenges thrown at us. However, due to global competition, society (in an increasingly authoritarian way) will probably hold on for much longer than we expect until we all collapse together. Something like the Maya collapse theory from Tainter where collapse played out over centuries with increasing malnutrition and dysfunction until it all implodes.

I don’t think we have centuries left but for sure another 50 - 100 years before we get the great simplification. I assume the next years / decades will be characterized by increasing resource scarcity and most likely a multi bread basket failure leading to insane food inflation and faster deglobalization.

So how to deal with this? I am currently working in tech but I think those boom times are over. I think wealth will be for those with real assets, especially productive land. So I am thinking about moving out of the city into a rural area and getting into the agriculture space.

What is your plan / beliefs?