Ask HN: Is the world going to shit?

About a year ago I stumbled upon the degrowth concept and subsequently picked up the book "Degrowth: Less is More" by Jason Hickel. For those unfamiliar with the term: "an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to finite planetary boundaries".[1]

There's been some of HN posts mentioning degrowth in the past but they were heavily criticized[2][3]. I get some degrowthist literature might seem too apocalyptic, but they make some good points:

- Criticism of "decoupling": there's no way of our GDP keeps growing indefinitely while reducing our ecological footprint. In fact, despite all the advancements made in renewables during the past decades global CO2 emissions are at an all-time high.

- Very few people know how to build/grow anything end to end. Consumerism appears to be the only way to live in the West right now (with it, a shared feeling of powerlessness).

At the same time, I stumble upon articles from time to time that are indirectly aligned with the same ideas although from an entirely different perspective. These couple of HN posts come to mind:

- "The super-rich 'preppers' planning to save themselves" [4]

- "I, Pencil (1958)" [5]

- "CO2 emissions are being 'outsourced' by rich countries to rising economies"[6] (The Guardian, not HN)

I gotta admit, this has me pretty worried. However I also have hope (and with hope, it comes action). Questions that I'd like to get input on from the HN community:

1. Am I overly paranoid for believing this? (degrowth seems like our only way out)

2. Is believing technology will save us from climate collapse really that, a belief? Believing this would mean society should keep doing its thing for a tiny tiny chance of getting a free "get out of jail" card (i.e. decoupling is not a fable after all).

3. On the other hand, if we know it's a belief: why aren't our so-called leaders doing anything real about it (albeit at the cost of GDP), are they just trying to prevent widespread panic? I see how this might sound a bit "conspiranoic" but i can't just find better words for it...

4. Regardless of the answer to the question above on #2, why aren't people actively building resilient hyperlocal communities and actively ignore what brought us here in the first place? I.e. globalization and widespread consumerism

4.1. Low-tech, no-tech initiatives seem pretty plausible to me (provided we leave aside our current individualistic values as a society)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32416815

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20058894

[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32711413

[5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13016980

[6]: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/19/co2-emissions-outsourced-rich-nations-rising-economies

I just came from the beach where there were many smiling and happy families....so I'm gonna say no.

I am a firm believer that the world has always being going to shit.

It's called change and accepting that has made life much more bearable.

While change is increasingly happening faster, the changes are (mostly) smaller. We're in one of the longest periods of “peace time“ and threat of war/death continue to decrease (while not evenly distributed that's not a reason to lose hope).

I wouldn't call the changes "smaller". Climate change is an existential threat. Possibly the greatest one we've ever faced, certainly the greatest since WWII and so far we're definitely NOT rising to the occasion.

Per capita emissions in the US and other western nations are declining even when you account for production shifted to other countries

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/no-the-us-didnt-outsource-...

I don't truly see the "no one knows how to do anything end to end". This is somewhat true - but I don't know if 500 years ago the same person necessarily knew how to work with bronze and to raise cattle and to preserve foods for the winter. Perhaps it seems easier since there was less things, but there was also a lot less ability to move around and learn about things so I'm not so sure.

Ultimately it seems like the absolute worst case scenario is that a shock causes a partial collapse of western society to the point where people are very poor and not able to use technology we take for granted, but this is pretty close to what an honest degrowther sees as the best case scenario. If you want to experience life as it existed before modern technology there are plenty of places in the world that moreorless still live as they did hundreds of years ago - and it would only be romanticizing them so say they dont have their own very severe issues that are objectively worse than what we have.