in reply to Carlos Solís
This was a problem. We just acted to ban CFCs, which solved the problem. Now the ozone hole is recovering. I wouldn’t say it turned out not to be a problem though. The human race just had the brains and corporation to come together and deal with it.
in reply to ximtor
in reply to isleepinahammock

Thats not at all what i meant, and by no means i am belittling the issue. But the dependency is the the point. All official action is actively trying to not improve the situation and just continue running fullspeed against the wall. It is baffling to me how much influence anything fossil fuel related has to convince so many stakeholders to rather burn everything than accept losses. Then again maybe thats just capitalsm at heart.

No idea, just don't say I am comparing the two as the same. Thanks for the clarification about the CFC producers being small fry, that makes sense. But rejecting the idea of any sort of change in terms of fossil fuels is just fucking stupid, and very common in my experience. And i'm talking about shit like german car producers advocating for their super optimized ICE over shitty woke batteries. Or neglecting the possibility of heating a house without burning shit because infrastructure isn't in place at this very moment

in reply to Chl0r0f0rm_Angel
The news stories blew the issue way out of proportion. There were claims that anything with a computer in it would stop working at midnight. Cars would crash, planes would fall out of the sky, etc. Y2K was really just a finance and IT problem. The fact is most electronic devices of the time, even ones with a clock, didn't know what the year was and couldn't be effected by a short-sighted engineering problem.
in reply to SubArcticTundra

It might be very country specific. But gambling houses.

They started to proliferate in my country around 10 years ago, and they said they were going to be the end of our youth. I, myself, went to a lot of actions to stop them.

We failed to stop them.

And 10 years after... Nothing happened. There are no mesurable increase in social problems due to the massive increase in gambling I was told it was going to happen. Also the houses themselves are always empty, people gamble mostly online anyway. But they put so much pressure on us to stop the opening of the physical buildings and cause rhe closure of the ones already opened.

I'm in principle against them still. Just because I don't like people making money out of people addicted to gambling. But I'm also kind of mad that I spent to much time, effort, and even got sued for what we tried to do to stop them, just for them not really being as much as a threat as I was told they were. And my efforts would have been much better spent elsewhere.

At least I learned a very valuable lesson.

Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 7 de septiembre de 2026, 7:24)
in reply to none [none/use name]

None of the objectives were met.

We tried so hard and still were unable to stop any opening, cause any closure or push the legislative changes we wanted (limiting the amount of gambling houses that could be opened). They just opened as many houses as they liked.

My lesson was to not follow anything blindly even if it was said by people I respect. Always analyze by myself and be skeptical of everything.

Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 7 de septiembre de 2026, 7:59)
in reply to daniskarma

But do you think it's possible you contributed to a vibe or attitude amongst your peers that these things were not that cool? Or had otherwise indirect influence?

I've picketed businesses before and people completely avoid going anywhere near you. Even after we are gone, there is a bad taste on that business.

If it had been accepted with no opposition, do you think it would have been the same in the end?

Always analyze by myself and be skeptical of everything.


You're saying all this with hindsight. Given the information that was (or would have been if you'd looked for it) available at the time, could you really have anticipated the outcome?

in reply to SubArcticTundra

That my job is too easy. I having too much time to play video games, reading, travelling, watching TV, dating.

That my job pays too good. I having so much money that I not knowing what to buy.

That AI is too well developed and be morally used that I having nothing to do. (Well it kind of is given how easily I could be unemployed)

in reply to SubArcticTundra

There are some that were fixed, but fixed with great effort. The hole in the ozone layer for example.

My final answer will be overpopulation. Personally though I think the population should be about 1 billion just so I don't feel quite as much existential dread at my own insignificance.

in reply to SubArcticTundra

1. Obesity pandemic


Ever since semaglutide came on the market, it seems like we're slowly getting a handle on it.

2. Overpopulation in Africa/Asia


Automation is causing them to stop having children as more jobs require higher education and there's less jobs around altogether.

3. Poverty in Africa/Asia


Related to overpopulation. China has lifted itself up completely.
India is also doing better every year.
Famines in African nations have severely been reduced these days and all of them are now war related.

[edit]I'm getting some downvotes.
Is anything wrong here?

Esta entrada fue editada (lunes, 7 de septiembre de 2026, 14:44)
in reply to SubArcticTundra
I have not heard one good thing about India. Please share. As far as I can tell only China has blossomed and it's incredibly striking. India? ... I guess capitalism just doesn't work. Let's check back in maybe... 100 years? How long does it take for a capitalist nation to build itself up? 500 years?
in reply to folaht

to me those 3 all seems like valid problems still.

obesity may be solved in a few decades but is still ongoing.

overpopulation in india etc is still a big issue combined with poverty..

a large part of china(mainland) is still suffering in great poverty. places like shanghai/beijing are a very small minority number wise.

in reply to folaht
Down votes probably because they're less of a problem than expected they would be 15 years ago but still problematic. Very large regions in Africa/Asia still deal with overpopulation and poverty although India and China have made some massive progress in the last 15 years. For semaglutide it's still early days, nobody expected there to be an actual general drug against obesity but more long term studies are still needed.

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in reply to CurlyWurlies4All

This was averted by mass production of fertilizer through fossil fuels.

I'm sure that won't come back to bite us in the ass.

Certainly not dangerous to have massive monocultures what could easily be wiped out by disease or heat waves. I'm sure all those people will be able to keep living when we aren't making as much fertilizer with the destruction of our economies.

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in reply to HasturInYellow

We are producing about four times as much food as we consume.

Solar panels wind turbines and nuclear energy have proven to solve all of our issues if we actually put effort into implementing them.

Humanity destroying the entire planet would happen even without food scarcity. Every problem we've been presented with has had a solution, but we just didn't implement it.

in reply to CurlyWurlies4All

Well, we haven't reached the peak yet, tho. Afaik global population is going to peak at around 10 billion people somewhere in the 60s. We will see how much land climate change will render unusable for farming until then as well. So a food shortage is still not completely off the table, I think. Well, at least if we continue to use most of the crops to feed livestock, and not us humans directly.

And if not food, but access to enough fresh water willl probably be a huge issue in the future.

in reply to SubArcticTundra

Climate change. We all thought we were gonna have to cut back on consumption, use less fossil fuels, and change our infrastructure entirely to renewable energy.

Thankfully it's not a problem anymore at all. Our wise leaders just decided to stop talking about it and instead just decided we'd speed the process up, burn fossil fuels for glorified chat bots while draining our fresh water resources.

Thankfully it's not a problem anymore. Because a problem would imply it's something that has a solution. We're far past that point. We're essentially watching this generation of our oligarchs committing a mass global genocide of the upcoming generations.

Problem solved.

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 8:51)
in reply to wheezy
Climate change. We all thought we were gonna have to cut back on consumption, use less fossil fuels, and change our infrastructure entirely to renewable energy.


I feel like we were expecting this because we were expecting someone to be our parent and force us to make the changes, when in fact nobody is externally enforcing that we stay on a safe climate path, and we are stuck waiting for our own societal self-discipline.

Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 13:43)
in reply to SubArcticTundra
You say we, like there is anything that any amount of reusable tote bags and driving less could have done. The damage being done to our climate is primarily being done at a corporate and industrial level. People hate hearing how Capitalism is the bad guy, but profits kept being put over environmentalism. If your company wants to be competitive with companies that don't give a shit, your options are to fight the federal government to implement regulations (expensive and time consuming), or to simply also stop giving a fuck (great next quarter, very easy).
in reply to SubArcticTundra

In general, yes, the western world was under the false assumption that the leaders it had were, at the very least, aligned in the interest of self preservation. Many are still living with this false belief today.

I think it's less about societal self discipline though; and more about the incompatibility of the societal hierarchy with working to solve the problem of climate change. The contradictions between the ruling and working class are in conflict when it comes to the priority of climate change. Climate change is an opportunity for further wealth concentration for the ruling class of our society; and that same ruling class has "drank their own Koolaid" in the idea of American and Western exceptionalism.

Capitalism is incapable of addressing the problems of climate change. It's like trying to put out a fire and bringing a bulldozer instead of a firetruck.

in reply to wheezy
I'll never forget when the U.S. state of North Carolina made a policy disallowing any government official or documentation to reference or acknowledge the existence of climate change. It was their response to a state study noting the effect of rising sea levels on their coastal towns.
Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 15:58)
in reply to callouscomic

Convicted Criminal Florida Senator Rick Scott did that when he was the Convicted Criminal Governor of Florida. I believe that he was the first to pull that nonsense, and then everyone else started copying him.

Did I mention that he's a Convicted Criminal? I like to remind people that Rick Scott is a Convicted Criminal as often as possible, because Convicted Criminal Florida Senator Rick Scott HATES when anyone mentions that Rick Scott is a Convicted Criminal.

in reply to myszka
Esta entrada fue editada (martes, 8 de septiembre de 2026, 20:50)
in reply to sexual_tomato
Really? I thought it was mostly solved by regulations that require filters at the industrial sites (and aren't those used in Diesel cars, too?).
Actually, what happens with the gunked-up filter material? Can the captured sulfur and nitrogen be used? I think you can use nitrogen as a fertilizer?