Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/19/dystopian-listicles.html
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I guess it’s OK as an experiment in story structure. I struggle to get past the central thesis on account of how it’s dumber than a sack of hammers.
When people say “the world would be better off without us” or “the solution to climate change is human extinction”, they are saying “IDGAF about climate change as a real-life problem, I just want everyone to die knowing I was right”.
There’s always going to be an ecosystem; the only question is how hospitable it is to humans. If you don’t care about that question, then there’s no problem; in fact, why not just save yourself the stress and be a big old climate change denier?
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BTW I know I post a lot of argumentative comments on @doctorow posts but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you
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I didn’t realize when reading the quoted segment that the story is written in reverse chronological order… reduction of corporate energy consumption after belief in aliens and retreat to walled compounds seemed a little on-the-nose.
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Is there anyone with a basic understanding of group dynamics applied on a planetary scale who thinks global cooperation will be able to stave off global warming? Has anyone posited a believable future outlining all the myriad things necessary to avoid it? Folks, it’s going to happen. Absent some amazing technology and/or alien intervention the world as we know it will drastically change in ways we can only imagine. Giving us possible scenarios about how to deal with it is where science fiction enters the picture.
I don’t think it is fair to say that acknowledging this means IDGAF. It means that forward looking organizations (like the insurance companies that service Fortune 500 companies) are operating under that assumption, telling their clients to prepare for it and accordingly refusing to make long term coverage in some areas. We as individuals would be wise to do the same and prepare for it, otherwise we are no better off than the climate change deniers. It doesn’t matter WHY people don’t (or didn’t) prepare - they will go to their graves just the same.
Human extinction.
The coordinated release of various strains of a human sterilization virus.
The no-child laws.
we ought to try these things first
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