I'm always reminded of Kubrick's comments on the risk of nuclear weapons:

"People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction. The longer the bomb is around without anything happening, the better the job that people do in psychologically denying its existence. It has become as abstract as the fact that we are all going to die someday, which we usually do an excellent job of denying." [0]

That last bit invokes some of the research behind Terror Management Theory: first and foremost, we are wired to avoid risks to our survival. But that drive is mediated by subjective qualia: avoiding mortal fear. The best way to do that is to prevent circumstances of immediate danger: don't poke the bear, don't play near the edge of a cliff. But when it comes to dangers of limited individual agency (systemic risk, black swans), it makes complete sense that evolution would select for "try not to think about it".

[0] https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/11/27/jeremy-bernstein-s...

Maybe the scope limit of our deep brains is only a "thing" in large groups. Being short sighted is nothing if you're alone, you trip, you choke, you get whacked by a rock. In a semi organized society, the sudden too-late-bound reflex triggers an avalanche of failure.

I would generally agree, which is why I think the discourse around "misinformation" (IMO, both a legitimate concern, and a moral panic) is missing the forest for the trees.

Our failures to respond reasonably and proportionally to threats, be they ecological, medical, economic, military, even political, are all downstream of a crisis of trust, not only in institutions, but in each other. And as with broken trust in personal relationships, rebuilding that trust is non-trivial.

> There's an undescribable absurdism of this era.

One observation I've made time and again throughout my life: a large chunk people live their life using a very simple, greedy algorithm (not as in greed, but greedy in the sense algo theory): deal with problems when they appear, and don't think about them until they do.

This is why people build houses in the path of lava erupting from a volcano: it's never an issue until it becomes one.

The smaller portion of folks who do plan ahead (because they are capable of it) and anticipate problems before they occur is the portion that gets ahead.

I don't think this is something that is specific to this era.

Sure, it's happened since the dawn of humanity. What is different is that we have tools and structures that are leagues ahead of any previous era. Stats, math, communication, everything is up to 11, and yet it doesn't affect much of the social response.

It's not like people don't know, it's more like there's not much we can do about it (other than voting).

It's up to governments to come up with and enforce laws that prevent corporations from releasing millions of metric tons of greenhouse gasses. Without strict laws in place, there's too little incentive from being moral or being long-term oriented, also your competition who don't will run you out of business with the extra profits.

There's also very few consumers willing to investigate/research the pollution generated from all companies related to making/delivering the products they buy. So being "greener" isn't really much of an advantage.

Nah, Covid showed that even with epidemic projections people would still under react at first, causing the exponential rise, then over reacting too late.

Our data don't take mob psychology enough in account, the curve is not really a quantitative map it's a psychology fractal. It means 'even with this curve in front of you, you will still follow the pattern causing it to happen'

And people like Leonardo DiCaprio fly their private jet to a conference, to tell Johnny average not to drive his car to work but instead use a bike. The same issues are apearing in many other future catastrophies, where a few big actors cause most of the damage, and the governments want to "do something", and then ban straws and make fuel a bit more expensive for average people, while not touching the main polluters.

I thought Leo was mostly calling out huge companies and industry for polluting? They are after all the majority of polluters by far compared to any individuals - rich or poor.

Then again just by living in most western societies on an individual level, even if we do try our best, we are essentially guaranteed to have a massively higher footprint than someone living in most third world countries.

I was talking in general, rich people polluting a lot, telling poor people, not to do things, that they do every day.

Even "the terminator" has a "climate initiative" - https://www.schwarzeneggerclimateinitiative.com/

Of course people forget he brough hummers to civilians,... And being a rich guy, caring for the environment, he could be driving a tesla (or something smaller, to use even less energy), but nope... he drives a monostrosity of a SUV (GMC Yukon - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10440521/Arnol... )

When the water and resource wars start (the final battles/world wars), I hope people realize who created this. I hope we don't just fight each other over water, and actually cannibalize the wealthy oligarchs, for all they've done to accerbate and accelerate things.

We may all die, but at least if they die first there'll be some justice... and maybe we get a few extra years without one of them polluting as much as 50 million people in a single year...

i'm really saddened that I have boys under 4, and they have to really live through some of the worst of this. It's going to be a much harsher world, and it already isn't very amicable to anyone who isn't already wealthy.

There's that saying, "I'll start treating it like a crisis when the people saying it's a crisis start acting like it."

Yep, and untill then, i'll keep buying beachfront properties, like they do.

..oh wait, i'm not that rich.

Maybe a carbon pig with 10,000+ sq ft home, several homes, would be a better example. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/al-gores-clima...

And Al Gore is a hypocrite - everybody else should conserve.