evilgenius wrote:I admit to having doomer tendencies. Part of that is just clean fun.
Yup.
evilgenius wrote: And you always have to run the worst case scenario past yourself when you are thinking about the future.
Exactly right. Nobody knows what the future will bring. The cornucopians who see a rosy future don't have monopoly on truth, and neither do the doomers who see imminent doom.
A more rational way to look at the future is as a spectrum of probabilities.
The chances of total doom from all causes in the next year----probably very very low.
The chances of total doom from all causes in the next 10 yeas ----- somewhat greater
The chances of total doom from all causes in 20 years ------ greater still, but even so perhaps still not very high. Somewhere between 0.1-5% maybe?
So not the most likely outcome, but still a real possibility.
And then there are things that don't mean total doom, but which come with higher probabilities.
The chances that peak oil will occur in the future------100%
The chances of continued global warming-----100%
The chances of continued sea level rise ------- 100%
The chances of hotter and longer heat waves in the summer ------- 100%
The chances that social security will need to be cut .......... 75+%
The chances that major state pension funds in Illinois, Connecticut, etc. will go bankrupt....... 95%
The chances of debt causing a major economic/political crisis the in EU -------- 75%
The chances of debt causing a major economic/political crisis in the US ------ 90%
Etc. etc.
You don't have to be a doomer to realize that economic crisis, global warming, and even future doom is a real possibility. You can even rough out the probabilities of various outcomes, within broad limits.
The probability of future doom is not zero.
CHEERS!