A scientist has made the shocking claim that there’s a 49% chance the world will end in just 25 years. Jared Diamond, American scientist and historian, predicted civilisation could collapse by 2050. He told Intelligencer: “I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050.”
Diamond explained that fisheries and farms across the globe are being “managed unsustainably”, causing resources to be depleted at an alarming rate. He added: "At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted.
“Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably.”
The Pulitzer Prize winning author warned that we must come up with more sustainable practices by 2050, “or it’ll be too late”.
I do believe this to be true, capitalism has already hit its peak of extraction, water has entered the asset market, similar to gold, housing and diamonds. Humanity is in for a massive shock, migration, collapse of political systems. I will be fragging the billionaire bunkers if anyone cares to join me.
What does collapse even mean? All humanity dies? Fifty percent of humanity dies? Many die and those that don’t revert to Mad Max life styles?
They’ve been making these kinds of predictions for a long time. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t very real existential threats to humanity around every corner, we may well experience a complete disaster, lord knows our logistics chain is delicate and largely ignored and props up everything we care about.
But what a lot of people miss in all of these predictions, is how adaptable and malleable human life is.
Will there be flooded cities and shanty-towns across coasts? Probably. Will there be gleaming cities of solar-powered utopia? Also probably. Will there be unrest, crime and war and famine? Absolutely. Will there be new comforts and escapes and new ways to stay safe and protected by your state in return for your attention, your money and your time? Also absolutely. Will it all be fragile? Yes, and it is now as well.
The future doesn’t hold just one thing, it holds many things. The future has always been the same: more of everything and then some. Look at us now, people predicted by this time we would have flying cars and robots… which we do! In some places. But we also still have uncontacted amazonian tribes, so we have everything we had in the previous century plus more.
The collapse of society “as we know it” where we as a species cannot survive by following the same.lifestyle we have depended on in the past.
Our company helps manage a significant percentage of a critical piece of nationwide infrastructure. With what I see everyday, my wife and I have decided to buy fertile land that can be farmed and has its own source of subterranean water so that we can grow enough food to survive (we already switched to plant based diets). We also are investing heavily so that our home can be “off-grid”. Summer is covered, but we are still working on winter power generation.
We are not at “prepper” level, but if you’re building a new home, why not try to build in some resiliency?
no more strawberry frosted doughnuts at Dunks.
The general breakdown of civilization,.nad mutiple points of fialuer that.can no longer be papered over.
and no one.comes bevase theres been too many disasters. A bridge collaoaes and no one foxes it, a wildfire and no firefighters, a hurricane and no one comes to help, the ibtent goes nldown and.doeat come back up again. The lights go off and don’t come back on, your toilet doesn’t flush and the grocery store has empty shelves.amd no gasoline available etc
Are you ok?
Calling Jared Diamond a scientist is pushing it.
To be fair though, he’s been writing on this topic for nearly 20 years. His book collapse is still one of the best history books I’ve read.
So he’s been writing on the topic for 20 years and twenty years ago he predicted that the world would collapse in 45 years?
I was thinking the same thing so I looked him up and he has a BSc in biochemical science (Harvard) and a PhD from Cambridge in biophysics of the gallbladder. Colour me shocked. Still, kind of stepping outside his zone of expertise on this grand statement.
I checked my magic 8 ball, we are screwed
I’d rather the magic 8 ball make our decisions than most politicians. We’d have a higher chance of survival
Y’know, Quasimodo predicted this.
Optimistic
Well I already knew I wouldn’t manage to retire…
Well at least this means there’s a 50% chance I won’t need the retirement savings that Im not going to have
Nostradammit!
A scientist has made the shocking claim that there’s a 49% chance the world will end in just 25 years.
100% it will not, no scientist worth anything would ever make such a moronic claim.
A possibility could be that civilization will end, but that’s not the same as the end of the world, it’s just the end of civilization.
The earth may change in ways that make it uninhabitable for humans, but that’s not the end of the world, “just” the end of humanity.
It’s very hard to take people serious when they make such obviously erroneous (stupid) claims.Most likely it’s an American, and it’s just USA that will end, because Americans tend to think USA = The World.
I think you’re being, not only pedantic, but also just wrong. “The world will end” is a perfectly apt description to just about anyone about what is going on. The world will be uninhabitable for A MAJORITY of life that currently exists.
Permian extinction: last time shit like this happened, temps rose 10°C over 10,000’s of years. Still killed 90% of ALL LIFE. To be so arrogant as to presume that the USA collapsing would not have any knock on effects on the rest of the world. To presume that what kills of humans would do nothing to any other life. To presume that that scientist is a moron who just LOVES AMERICA so very much, because why else would he say things that make me feel bad?
I think you’re being, not only pedantic, but also just wrong.
hat part of what I quoted can’t you read.
The world will be uninhabitable
That’s not the end of the world either. I described that VERY clearly.
Permian extinction:
Exactly, and that was not the end of the earth either, even the end of all life on earth is not the end of the earth. You may call it merely semantics, I call it facts.
Your argument is not wrong in the clinical sense. Just in the sense that it is so obtuse and irrelevant that your insistence that it is the only correct way to view things makes me not take you seriously.
no scientist worth anything would ever make such a moronic claim.
He didn’t. It would have taken you five seconds to read the excerpt OP posted and notice that the actual quote is “I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050.”
He didn’t say the world will end. He didn’t even say that civilisation will end. He said that the social order we enjoy today could collapse. But rather than take five seconds to notice that, you decided to yell about nothing because it was more important to voice your opinion than it was to check your facts.
And for the record, yes, he is American, but he’s also spent a significant amount of his life living and working outside of the US. He wrote Guns, Germs and Steel, one of the most seminal texts on the subject of how civilisations rise and fall. He is literally a globally recognized expert in this field. He’s also hugely responsible for dismantling much of the Euro-centric “I guess maybe white people are just smarter” nonsense that underlies much of the traditional study of history, and proving that the advantages enjoyed today by places like the US were not a product of any inherent superiority but rather of geographic fortune. So no, he really can’t be accused of having any kind of world view that treats America as special, given that he’s devoted most of his life to demolishing that notion.
Dunno if everyone is enjoying that social order. But it’s certainly true that there’s less order than there was 20 years ago.
I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050.”
EXACTLY, so no scientist would make the stupid claim, just as I described, meaning it’s just lousy journalism editorializing what the scientist really claimed.
Do you really think I should have made my post LONGER? Further describing how and why it’s stupid, can you really not see it from the part I described?
Do you really think I should have made my post LONGER?
No but you could’ve made it much shorter by cutting out the commentary based only on the headline and didn’t read the article.
My comment was NOT based on the headline, read again…
I made a quote from the selected parts OP used!
And disregarding the bullshit I receive for it, my comment is actually factual and correct, contrary to the article and the criticism of my comment.I quote a part that is CLEARLY in error, as I stated NO serious scientist would write such bullshit.
Where’s that remind me bot? Remind me in 2049
“Why 49% and not 50%?” “I wanted it to sound more accurate than it is”
Because it’s a simple way of saying “We’re not quite over that most likely outcome line yet, but we’re getting there.”
Totally. I assume his error margin is about 30 times that difference
This isn’t news.
That’s WAY later than I thought!
This is cause for celebration! 🎉
yep, sounds like we can start worrying about that in about 20 years then.
24
Not sure if you’re celebrating because that’s earlier than you thought, or later than you thought…
Extra time! I wouldn’t have given us 5.
49% chance the world will end in just 25 years
Giant meteor coming to wipe out all of the world’s life?
predicted civilisation could collapse by 2050
Oh, so just the collapse of current civilisation. That’s happened many, many times already.
While not a good thing for those experiencing it, consider this. As we look back on previous civilisations, would we consider ours to generally be the best up to now? I’d say so. Perhaps what comes next will be even better.
The collapse of a particularly large civilisation is usually a slow affair that is difficult even to spot from the inside as it’s happening (consider the slow crumbling of the USA currently for example).
So while it is a period of turmoil and not a small amount of suffering, it’s not like everybody is going to die and humanity will go extinct, or anything.
Oh, so just the collapse of current civilisation. That’s happened many, many times already.
Collapse of local civilizations has happened a lot of times. Collapse of the global civilization has not happened yet. And previous collapses happened when often improved the living conditions for big parts of the population, because they were farmers who no longer had to support the ruling classes after the collapse. Collapse of food production and distribution when e.g. only 1% of the population are professional farmers (in Germany) will be fundamentally different.
