Evidence that the modern world as we know it is almost over has never been stronger or more obvious, yet still the brainwashed masses seem to have basically zero clue. How can this be?

William E. Rees says it about as well as anyone has said it:

One might expect that an intelligent social species would devise cultural overrides to rein in potentially dangerous expansionist tendencies on a finite planet. Rather remarkably, the opposite is the case. One of the most important roots of overshoot is MTI [Modern Techno-Industrial] society’s belief in human exceptionalism, the idea that H. sapiens is fundamentally different from other species. Exceptionalists posit that human individual and social behaviours are culturally rather than genetically determined; that human ingenuity can overcome resource scarcities; that we are not otherwise bound by the laws and limits of nature.

William E. Rees, The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

This idea that we can create our own reality is broadcast to each of us tens of thousands of times each day. Shit, it’s probably literally hundreds of thousands of times a day. You can scroll past thousands of posts in minutes on the internet, and (by definition) most of them are going to say the same thing that most of them are saying.

That last sentence might seem blindingly obvious, but there is a subtle thing going on, which cements in the brainwashing. By seeing (even for a fleeting instant) each of these countless voices of opinion scroll past, the message our brains receive is that this is the voice of the majority. And we as human sheep are hardwired to pay attention to the voice of the majority. The familiar, safe voice of the herd.

And by this process we, as a species, get rooted in the ass.

So for now, even just for a minute or two, try to forget this monster-sized river of information-excrement, and think of some of these basic facts in isolation. Step outside of the world of internet, TV, Netflix, video games and social media, and consider what is really happening in the world…

Animal Species are Fucked

Not only is everything dying, but the rate of death is getting faster all the time.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), tracked almost 35,000 vertebrate populations of 5,495 species from 1970-2020. Conclusion: The animals of the world are fucked. The Earth is 4.3 billion years old, but in just 50 years our modern industrial society has killed 73% of global vertebrate (i.e. fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammal) wildlife populations. The steepest decline is in freshwater populations (85%), followed by terrestrial (69%) and then marine (56%).

No bullshit, there are tears streaming down my face right now as I think of all these animals dying. Yes, I am a big crybaby. So shoot me. I get that people don’t want to think about this stuff. But that doesn’t make it go away. It just bakes this future in. It just makes us into stupid sheep. Most people are sad when their beloved cat or dog dies, but here we are talking about killing a whole planet.

The last 50 years isn’t an isolated example—this is a long-term, established trend, which began with the rise of human civilisations—and the rate of death is getting faster all the time.

It’s happening now, on our own planet, all around us. While we sit and watch Netflix and play on the internet.

The biggest reason for all this death is “habitat destruction”. We are destroying the natural places where the animals used to live. This can be seen here quite clearly:

If you project these graphs forward another 100 years, we will have used all of the land on the planet, and the only animals left still alive will be in farms. How will we grow our economy then?

A lot of people seem to think that driving an electric car or electing the right politician is going to solve these problems.

Our Energy Resources Are Fucked

The economy needs around 3% growth to sustain itself (that is, to continue to exist). That’s mathematically equivalent to doubling in size about every 25 years. This uses a lot of energy and other resources, and that energy and resource use also has to more or less double every 25 years.

This means that any supply of energy, no matter how large, is never going to be enough.

Despite all the claims of how renewable energy will save us, and how renewable energy use is growing (of course it is growing, all energy use is growing), fossil fuel use is still growing, too. Just as it always has. So far. We look at graphs like this, showing massive exponential growth, and we see them so often we think they are normal. The way things have been for years now (true, for about 400 years since the birth of steam power and the energy revolution). The way things can continue, just like that (could not be more false—see below)…

Even If We Had Infinite Energy Resources, We’re STill Fucked

Let’s imagine there was a limitless source of energy. Perhaps fusion power becomes commercially viable at large scale, as large as we could ever want. Would this save us?

No.

The graph below shows the total amount of power our civilisation would use if we could continue it for another 2,600 years. The green labels indicate what was happening in our history that many years before now (i.e., the renaissance was about 400 years ago). The red labels compare our energy use to other systems —the Sun’s energy that hits the 20% of the earth’s land; all of the earth’s land; all of the earth; the entire output of all of the Sun over all of space; and the entire output of all of the stars and other objects in the entire galaxy.

Note that it takes 1350 years for the power consumed by our modern human high-tech society to equal the total output of the Sun. This is not the total output of all of the Sun’s energy that reaches the Earth (we need that much energy in 400 years time)—this is all of the energy that the Sun produces in its entirety.

Since it is impossible for energy to be destroyed—it just gets converted from one form to another—and here, the form it gets converted to is waste heat. That means that the earth would be radiating as much energy as the sun. Considering that the Sun is about 100 times larger than the Earth, and all the heat of the Sun would have to fit onto the surface of the Earth, the Earth would have to be considerably hotter than the Sun.

This is nothing to do with “global warming” or “climate change” or “the greenhouse effect” as usually discussed. (Which all relate to the theory of our pollution slowly changing the Earth to trap in more of the sun’s heat over time). No, this is just a very, very basic calculation of human energy use at each point in time, at that point in time, independent of any fancy geoscience, growing at 2.3% per year from the amount that we use today. In 1300 years, assuming our civilisation still exists, to power our civilisation we will need as much energy as the output of entire Sun.

Considering the impossibility of this, it might seem odd that there are still people who don’t see a problem. The only possible hole in the above logic would be if somehow our civilisation could continue to exist without the required growth. This too shall be discussed here, soon. People talk about things like a zero-growth economy. And then they spend their entire lives doing all that they can to grow the economy. Like taking out a mortgage (which grows the money supply). Or paying rent (which grows the money supply by paying off other people’s mortgages). Or, basically, anything at all that involves money and functioning in modern techo-industrial society.

Conclusion: We Are Fucked

“Without a biosphere in a good shape, there is no life on the planet. It’s very simple. That’s all you need to know. The economists will tell you we can decouple growth from material consumption, but that is total nonsense… If you don’t manage decline, then you succumb to it and you are gone.”

Vaclav Smil

It’s fairly highly likely that when our civilisation is using as much power as the entire sun, and our planet is glowing in space with equal brightness to the Sun, or even remotely close to that, the biosphere is not going to be in good shape. No matter how these issues are looked at, when we take off the glasses, the idea that our civilisation isn’t about to end is completely ludicrous.

It’s coming for us. Soon.

Without specifically really seriously trying, over a period of time, with effort, to find answers, the internet isn’t going to help us. AI isn’t going to help us. AI is at best going to give wishy-washy glossed-over bullshit utterly-overly-optimistic answers, otherwise it wil straight up tell us,

I can’t create that image for you, as it might be interpreted as harmful or distressing. If you’d like, I can help with something more uplifting or creative! Let me know what you’re thinking.

Microsoft Copilot

The end of everything stares at us from the depths of oblivion. More frightening than the worst imaginable monster from all of fiction.

Other than to go back to sleep and wait to die, what are you going to do about it?