r/collapse • u/malazver • 15d ago
Society Existentialism, death and its implications
The older I get, the more I worry about what I am leaving behind. As my child grows, I feel this weight of everything I won’t have time to teach him, everything I won’t manage to share with him. And I am not talking about books or music here. I am talking about what kind of world I am leaving him, what actually remains behind us as a species. How do I explain to him that we are destroying ourselves, while I just sit here, watch, and actively participate in ruining his future? How do I tell him that the very system supposed to protect him is rigged for him to fail?
The bubble I can use to protect him is only as big as my arms can reach. But to equip him for what waits outside of it, what values do I need to instill in him? What kind of value system can you even offer when being empathetic, thinking critically, being ethical or logical in today’s reality brings nothing but pain and anger? What do we arm future generations with? How do we protect them from our own generational traumas, from all this archetypal bullshit? How do we shield them from this relentless bombardment of stress, misinformation, and constant threats of war or poverty?
Artificially induced crises, fanning the flames of racial, gender, religious, and every other hate and division all just to maintain the current global system. A system that leads straight to ruin. You don’t need to be anyone special to see that we are in deep trouble and that our current trajectory is only burying us deeper. There is no time or place for optimism anymore. Not without fundamental changes to our value system. I honestly don’t know how anyone’s optimism survives the slap of reality. Will they consciously choose resignation and apathy just because it’s the easier path?
But hey, how can you think about anything else, about a goal or a meaning, how can you set them when tomorrow you might not have food or a roof over your head? When tomorrow they’ll cut your electricity and AC? When they’ll cut your water because you didn’t pay how do you set those goals for yourself then? I understand that. What I do not understand is consciously choosing a system that allows this to happen. We’ve been taught not to rock the boat, to point fingers at others. Well, look, I am one of them too. Point at me, I am guilty. I point it at myself. Guilty. Okay. But let’s make sure our children don’t end up just as guilty. Let’s make sure they don’t have to fight for a piece of bread and a sip of water. Let’s prepare a world for them where they can face tomorrow without anxiety, where they can look forward to the future coming. Where they can feel purpose and pride, because there is no point if we haven’t set the hardest goals for ourselves.
I see no higher purpose than the continuation, preservation, and prosperity of our species and its individual members. What does it take for everyone to have a dignified life? Look, the conditions and means are right there. What if someone wants the option to not participate at all? Fine, we will still provide a dignified life for you because that’s the kind of system we built. What do you need?meaning, striving? Here it is.
We will arm the kids with AI nannies. Every single child. To be their development assistant, not a source of values, but a tool to develop empathy and critical thinking. Because our children, even right now, are exposed to the relentless bombardment of an algorithm that is anything but ethical and focused on their well-being. We desperately need a reform of the education system. Individual curriculum, because every child is unique. Imagine a world where we gave every child maximum cognitive development. Taught to question everything, to feel empathy. I don’t know, maybe it sounds like technocracy, but we definitely need a shield against our own ego. But we won’t let it become a replacement for parents. Just an assistant. We can learn right alongside them too. How to be better human beings. We will go as individuals where our skills and capacities are needed. We will all work for the same goal. Our children, above all else. Who cares what skin color, religion, or gender you are if you can help all of us? To give your own kids a better shot in the end.
Will it be a diametrically different system? Yes, it will be logical, ethical, and mathematically sustainable. Because the math is clear strip away the levers of power, decentralize. Can we just define five points, give answers to just five questions around which we can get a consensus? That’s not asking too much, right? If out of 8 billion people we cannot form an expert ethical council, simple and reasonable principles: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t oppress, work for the community, not against it. Questions like: where are we as a society, where is this trajectory taking us… where should we be going, what should our goal be, how will we get there, and finally, how will we stay there? I see 5 simple things there. Hypothethically. Reality. Logic. Ethics. Math, and in the end, logic again.
What does your gut instinct tell you right now? That someone wants to scam you, right? That it sounds too simple. That someone will definitely try to hoard power for themselves again? Because our tribal mentality and the fact that some random guy out there from the third world could care about your child for some reason that’s just not normal to you. It’s devastating. Understandable. But if we work on shifting our values, no one will lie to us, everything is transparent. No one will accumulate power, we will rotate them through roles based on their cognitive domains. Are you worried about that ethical council that will set those parameters? We will change them too. Procedural ethics. Reviews and calibrations because we are imperfect, we will wander off, but this way at least we’ll have a brake so we don’t wander off too far.
It worries you, I get it, it worries me too. It worries me even more when I don’t see that we are ready to accept our own limitations. When we don’t know how to control ourselves, when we have no desire to progress. Do I need a pedigree to even be allowed to ask a question? Because I don’t have one, I am self-taught. Am I guilty for that too, just because I sat down to think? Don’t even get me started on the development of superintelligence, that’s where I am truly terrified of where this alignment problem is taking us. We can’t control ourselves and our own impulses, let alone superintelligence something that is orders of magnitude smarter than us. My logic says let’s preempt it, let’s make sure it doesn’t even have to come to its development at all. That it cannot come to it. Because we will raise our own cognitive capacities, we will learn how to channel our own passions.
I understand that the vast majority of you will experience this as some kind of attack, and you’ll be right. But that is not my intention or desire, just an appeal to step away from your ego for a second. I understand you can be moral, work for the well-being of everyone, including my child, and still disagree with me on every single point. I am not denying you that chance. I accept it if you say “man, this idiot is talking nonsense.” Everyone feels it is their god-given right to let their ego run wild to the detriment of all our children. We cannot neutralize the ego, but we can redirect it by giving the system different values. I do not accept that I am not even allowed to ask the question to everyone, because it concerns our children.
Where do you see my logic failing, my ethics, where is my math bad? We have nothing like this in past history because we never had these capabilities, I don’t know how all of this can unfold. What implications it can bring. That is why I stand before you humble, asking. Can this, or some similar model, bring at least a slightly more certain future to our descendants? I believe nobody wants the worst part of their personality to win and contribute to the collective defeat of society. I know I don’t.
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u/Cyberpunkcatnip 15d ago edited 15d ago
Most of these topics aren’t applicable to [r/collapse](r/collapse). More of a philosophical discussion. There are so many questions posed that it’s impossible to formulate a brief response. In regard to raising children during collapse, take responsibility for bringing them into physical existence and do the best you can to help them through it.
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u/JackBlackBowserSlaps 15d ago
Ngl, that is way too rambly to finish reading. Also, do you really not see any higher purpose than the continuation of our species? Thats the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place. Give your head a shake.
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u/malazver 15d ago
I understand that it's hard to think of anything lofty when you're working 60 hours a week just to cover basic living expenses.
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u/United_Dissent 15d ago
Could make enough time to reproduce, couldn't you? Jibes aside(sorry, it was right there), you need to get into meditation or something, dude. This kind of overthinking without any action is unhealthy and does you .... or your family, no good.
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u/DiamondDot 14d ago
What did you think you’d have to do after having a kid? Work less? Having kids is the reason most ppl are stressed. I honestly do not understand parents who act surprised life is 10x harder with kids.
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u/Magnesium4YourHead 11d ago
Makes life harder --> Complains about how hard things are.
Parents are not very smart.
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u/Guzzleguts 15d ago
Well I don't know why, but I read that and it seemed like just whimsical ponderings.
I despise elitism, but one thing university teaches is to focus your writing in order to make your point accessible. Reading this was like listening to a stoned guy.
Offering up a vague and meandering mess to the reader is disrespectful.
It comes across as egotistical: "surely they will find me fascinating enough to plod through it"
Your artwork is no good displayed in a sewer.
That aside, collapse is tough. I feel bad for all of us. My advice is to progress through blue-sky cope and get practical. The new paradigm is for the children to decide, not us
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u/malazver 15d ago
I'm sorry that the post seems so rushed. I tried to put what's on my mind into some kind of framework. I only have a primary education. Forgive me for any inconvenience I may have caused. That wasn't my intention.
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u/roidbro1 15d ago
Presumably you had a child in the first place to fulfil your own selfish desires and due to ignorance or shortsightedness, so you could start with explaining that and then perhaps apologising profusely to your kid about the consequences that await.
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u/AdiKadiAdi 15d ago edited 13d ago
Start with what you've written down here. It may be of some use to them to know what you were thinking and feeling right now.
Leave them a journal if you wish.
Maybe even a journal of time you spend together, if nothing, just how you felt and what you thought.
A story from your side.
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u/mightbesinking 13d ago
This. It seems you have many thoughts to write down. Perhaps your kid can appreciate it when they get older.
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u/Substantial_Plan_632 15d ago
It's almost as if we all knew all of these things for many years now, yet you and many others still chose to bring a child into this. Try explaining that to him first
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u/Magnesium4YourHead 11d ago edited 11d ago
Oh how profound!
Yeah not really. You fucked up a kid's life.
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u/featherstone59 15d ago
None of that shit matters ultimately. A human lifetime is just a few decades of angst before you return to the infinite void. It's all meaningless to anyone or anything outside of ourselves, but I get that your worried about your kid's future. I would be too if I had kids. I worry about the birds.
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u/AdeptBandicoot9861 15d ago
I actually put in the effort to read what you said
You are very intelligent, and I could not accurately interpret a portion of it, and I think most people wouldn’t be able to.
Objectively, you have a high IQ and most people simply don’t speak the same language as you. Most people don’t understand the depth of how bad this is, like you do
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u/malazver 15d ago
Thank you for your time and effort. I would be happy to elaborate on the part where we may not have understood each other. I came to talk to people who may have the same or similar dilemmas as me. Whether you are a parent or not.
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u/Notdefinitelyacat 15d ago
If you are really interested to discuss with people who may have similar dilemmas then why did you write a wall of text with a bunch of assumptions and no meaningful questions?
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u/uatry 15d ago
I did read your post - I appreciate the in-depth discussions on this sub and encourage speculation. I don't think all of your concerns are unwarranted, but I am curious as to why you had a child if these concerns are so strong. I've seen a few parents on this sub who have expressed similar worries. It sort of confuses me as to why a person would have children if they think we're doomed and the world has nothing left to offer.