There are so many terrible things happening simultaneously that it is difficult to keep track of them all. Last night, as I lay in bed musing on the hideousness of it all, I hit on a generational device for sorting through the bad stuff. There are the things I will, with any luck, live long enough to see, the things that my sons will live long enough to see, and the things that my grandchildren will live long enough to see.
Let us suppose I make it for another six years to the age of
94, long enough to see the outcome of the 2008 presidential election (assuming
presidential elections have not been canceled before then.) My sons, Patrick
and Tobias, are now 54 and 52 so they will be 96 in the middle and late 2060s.
My grandson Samuel is 16 and my granddaughter Athena is 13, so they will be 96
as the 22nd century dawns. What is the bad stuff that I, my sons,
and my grandchildren will likely be dealing with? Me first.
The immediate pressing question, which I may live long
enough to see answered, is whether Republicans will succeed in killing
representative democracy in the next six years. They are certainly going to try
– indeed, they are doing everything they can right now to undermine such
democracy as America has. They are desperate because they are fighting a losing
demographic battle. Their core supporters are dying out and they can count on a
shrinking portion of the electorate. In the past 22 years, including the 2000
election, the Republicans have won the popular vote in the presidential
election only once – in 2004. They have, to be sure, won the presidency three
times in the last seven tries, thanks to the bizarre rules governing American
elections, but their base is shrinking and if they do not kill democracy soon,
they are dead meat.
It is a near certainty that the Republicans will lose the
popular vote by many millions in 2024. I think it is also very likely that they
will lose the electoral vote that year, but whether they will succeed in
stealing the election is an open question. This year’s midterm elections, which
I have a good chance of living long enough to see, will be extraordinarily
difficult for the Democrats but they have an ace in the hole: the Supreme
Court. The High Court will very likely overturn Roe V Wade in the next two
months. If they do so, it is entirely possible that this act of
self-destructive cruelty will trigger a tsunami of women’s votes that will hold
the Senate and conceivably even hold the House for the Democrats. I have
expressed my hopes in this regard in this space before so there is no need to
do so again. We shall see.
If the Republicans lose the 2004 presidential election and
then attempt to steal it by having Republican-controlled state legislatures
send lists of phony electors to the House, and if after everything plays out,
Trump or some other Republican mini me is declared the President in manifest
contradiction to the plain outcome of the vote, I think a number of large
Democratic states may simply refuse to accept the theft and then we are in
totally uncharted waters. I hope, as the Parkinson’s takes me down or I succumb
mercifully to some other life ending event, that I do not go to my grave
knowing that I have lived just long enough to see the death of American
democracy. There is precious little I can do, of course, save to donate money
and speak out but I will do what I can and hope.
Forty-two years from now, when Patrick is 96 and Tobias is
94, the effects of global warming will have long since started to transform the
human world. Rising seas will permanently flood Florida’s luxury ocean front
properties and drive scores of millions from Bangladesh, as well as compelling
New York to build seawalls â la
Hollandaise. Weather patterns will
have changed sufficiently to shift dramatically the portions of the globe that
can serve as breadbaskets to the world, with consequences beyond my capacity
to project. The richer nations will be better able to adjust to these changes,
as will the rich even in the poorer nations, but the impact on hundreds of
millions if not billions of people will be dramatic and mostly negative, I
imagine.
By the time Samuel and Athena have reached their middle 90s,
all of the problems of climate change will be exacerbated by the dramatic
shrinkage of populations around the world. China, which currently has more than
1.4 billion citizens, will have shrunk to 700 million or fewer and a number of
other countries, including those of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, and many
others will have seen dramatic declines in their populations, which will also
be aging, thus reducing the proportion of the population capable of working to
produce the goods and services required by the total population. The United
States will experience less shrinkage than many other countries because it has
welcomed so many immigrants to its shores, but inasmuch as the white sub-portion of the American population has already started to shrink in absolute
numbers, according to the 2020 Census, the internal political upheavals caused
by the shift in the composition of the population will be enormous and rather
difficult to predict.
Well, that is about as far as I had gotten when I finally
drifted off to sleep. All in all, it is a pity that I am not showing any signs
of dementia.
26 comments:
Prof. Wolff, unfortunately things are going to get even a lot worse, according to astrophysicist Neil deGrasso Tyson. He indicates that scientists have enough data to conclude that the theory that the universe will regenerate itself in a series of Big Bangs is erroneous. Instead, the universe is expanding so fast that it is on a one-way ticket to its own demise. There are two possibilities: Either the universe will expand to a point that it reaches a uniform temperature of absolute zero, at which point there will be no more energy left in the universe; or the expansion will stretch the time/space continuum to a point that it undergoes a Big Rip, destroying everything. One or the other of these outcomes will occur in 22 billion years, which is almost twice as much as the universe’s current age of 14 billion years. We should all be thankful that we will not be around to experience this catastrophe.
https://plus.cnn.com/plus/sign-up-cnn-plus?redirect=/plus/interview-club/interview/kiPunLlZ/go-out-of-this-world-with-neil-degrasse-tyson/answer/860229d1-649b-452b-8e3f-21ef3417a181
Professor Wolff, I think there is one more thing you should consider in your calculations about the Republican base. In many countries, the spectacle and insanity of the American right has been replicated (this is much easier due to social media and globalization in general) and even in the US there was a substantial increase in the amount of Hispanics and to some extent black males that voted for Trump. The modern right which likes the spectacle, conspiracy, dishonesty, and violence, is one that draws strength from the masses irrespective of race or nationality. Thankfully there is a slight majority that heavily disagree with that movement but I am not very confident that the base will shrink but rather transform to include other groups of people.
While the *aging* of populations poses problems, I'm not at all sure that the shrinking itself poses problems. Indeed smaller populations likely mean less environmental degradation, for ex., and less call on various resources whose availability will be affected negatively by climate change.
LFC, I agree but I guess that would depend on why population was shrinking.
I remember reading in college that Turgenev once staved off suicide thanks to curiosity over how the political situation in France would work itself out. (Turgenev was a man ahead of his time.) If any or all of these disasters really must arise, I for one should like to be there to witness them.
"...I for one should like to be there to witness them."
Be careful what you wish for.
בוְשַׁבֵּ֧חַ אֲנִ֛י אֶת־הַמֵּתִ֖ים שֶׁכְּבָ֣ר מֵ֑תוּ מִן־הַ֣חַיִּ֔ים
אֲשֶׁ֛ר הֵ֥מָּה חַיִּ֖ים עֲדֶֽנָה:
We know why the population is shrinking in many nations - the birth rate is below replacement. Unless we develop lots of really smart robots and replicators there may be problems with too many olds and too few youngs. Around here the fox and raccoon population populations wax and wane on a regular basis because of rabies. No reason why we East African Plains Apes should be exempt from forces that effect every other species. Maybe that mid-century bulge was a bomb after all.
MAD, our next dance with doom is this weekend In France and the polling is troubling. Le Pen is a Putin fan girl and has even borrowed from Russian banks to help finance her campaign. Russian money helped out with Brexit and contributions to the Tories.
MS, the earth times out in a billion or so years so the rest of the universe will be on its own after that.
aaall,
By the time Earth is destroyed, it is possible that homo sapiens will have figured out a way to colonize other planets, asteroids, or solar systems. And they will continue to travel through the universe, wreaking death and destruction wherever they go, for another 22 billion years, only limited by their inability to travel at the speed of light. At the end of the wonderful movie Don’t Look Up, the Republicans and their President, played by Meryl Streep, have escaped Earth’s destruction by an asteroid by commandeering the White House spaceship and traveling to another planet in another solar system. They left all the Democrats, and many fellow Republicans, behind on Earth to die. (Unfortunately, Don’t Look Up did not win a single award at the Oscars. I would have much preferred Leonardo DiCaprio winning his second award for Best Actor over face-slapping Will Smith, whose tearful tribute to King Richard Williams as a great father and protector of his family failed to take into account that King Richard abandoned his first family, while his then wife was dying of cancer, and left his first daughter in poverty, so he could re-marry and raise two tennis stars.)
Le Pen in Frankreich wäre ein Supergau für Europa.
... übrigens, die Sonne hat noch ca. 5 Milliarden Jahre Brennstoff. Bitte seien sie nicht so leichtsinnig mit der Zukunft der Erde.
Le Pen in France would be a super disaster for Europe.
... by the way, the sun still has about 5 billion years of fuel. Please don't be so careless with the future of the earth.
aaall,
I have to applaud your Talmudic learning. (My understanding of Hebrew is quite limited. I, like many young American Jews, only learned to read Hebrew phonetically, but I had no idea what I was reading meant. Sound familiar LFC?) I confess, I had to Google the Hebrew to obtain the following translation:
“I am ashamed of the dead who have already died from the living things that are the life of God.”
This is a curious passage, is it not? Should the speaker instead be ashamed of the living who caused their death? What am I missing? Or does the phrase “living things” refer to other living organisms which are not homo sapiens, meaning that humans’ disregard for the rest of life has caused their death. I think that’s it. Very profound. (Aha, another Eureka moment.)
aaall,
Further displaying my ignorance, what is the source of that Hebrew passage?
I was never a close follower of the various climate assessments until the IPCC released its most recent report. I believe that what they are saying, and keep in mind this is not a radical group of scientists and bureaucrats,is that "It is over."
We will blow through the 1.5 C degree increase in less than ten years, which means that 2 c increase, a major tipping point, will not be far behind. Within the next ten years expect to see (in addition to increased frequency of extreme weather events) severe water and food shortages across the globe.
I think the key issue is that in the not too distant future (10 years?) the realization that it is over will create widespread panic. Who is going to spend millions on that dream house when it becomes clear that life as we have known it deteriorating rapidly and irreversibly? What sectors of the economy will grind to a halt?
Preventing utter catastrophe requires revolutionary change in multiple areas within the next 10 years simultaneously. I truly feel sorry for the young.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/25/the-truth-about-ipcc-reports/
Prof Wolff, the latest episode ("The Big Payback") of Donald Glover's tv show "Atlanta," airing on FX, envisions one way in which a form of reparations for slavery could play out. A comfortably upper-middle class, liberalish man (the episode starts out with him listening to NPR while waiting to order in a local coffeeshop before driving off to work in his Prius) faces a crisis when he is sued for reparations by an African-American woman who has learned that her ancestor had been enslaved by his.
Marc S.
1) a gentle reminder that you promised to try to comment "in moderation".
2) re learning Hebrew: most of the memory tapes have been erased, but I didn't learn it as a 'living' language. Today I can barely read it at all unless it's an extremely familiar liturgical passage. I really can't read what aaall posted -- never mind understand it.
Eric,
I am not familiar with the show in question, and I understand that the proposed lawsuit is not intended to be technically possible, but rather a thought experiment regarding how such a remedy might be implemented, here is my unsolicited legal analysis: There would be two major problems with such a lawsuit. First, the statute of limitations has long expired. Second, even if the statute of limitations was not an issue, the only way the slave-owner’s descendant could be legally liable would be by naming the slave-owner’s estate as the defendant, and then proving that the descendant was a recipient of part of that estate. Not a likely feasible lawsuit. That is why legislation, enacted by Congress, is being considered instead. I am not optimistic that such legislation will ever be enacted. Native Americans have a hard enough time trying to enforce their treaties with the U.S.
p.s. I cd perhaps laboriously sound it out, but that's not really reading, as I define it. By contrast, if you put a piece of journalism in French in front of me, I can read it, though I'll probably have to look up a number of words.
LFC,
Prof. Wolff’s exhortation that I keep my comments in moderation could mean one or both of two things: (1) that I keep the length of my sometimes lengthy comments shorter; and/or (2) that I limit the number of my comments, even if they are not long. I interpreted the request to be primarily (1). If I was mistaken in that regard, I stand convicted. In my defense, I would just say that responding, briefly, to a comment that another commenter has posted still does not seem, to me at least, to be violating the ”in moderation” request. But perhaps my interpretation is self-serving.
RPW: "Let us suppose ... My sons, Patrick and Tobias, are now 54 and 52 so they will be 96 in the middle and late 2060s. My grandson Samuel is 16 and my granddaughter Athena is 13, so they will be 96 as the 22nd century dawns."
It will take quite a bit more than luck for folks to be living to those very advanced ages as the interlocking social and ecological systems that allowed for the rise in life expectancy of the wealthy during the 20th century are destroyed in the climate collapse.
* *
"The immediate pressing question, which I may live long enough to see answered, is whether Republicans will succeed in killing representative democracy in the next six years."
On the issues that will ultimately matter most to people living 50 years from now, the Democrats and the Republicans are but two faces of a single party dedicated to capitalist exploitation and US imperialism. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will save us from the coming horrors.
Preventing utter catastrophe requires revolutionary change in multiple areas within the next 10 years simultaneously. I truly feel sorry for the young.
1000%.
The passage is from Ecclesiastes 5:
"1. But I returned and saw all the oppressed who are made [so] under the sun, and behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they have no consoler, and from the hand of their oppressors there is power, but they have no consoler.
2. And I praise the dead who have already died, more than the living who are still alive.
3. And better than both of them is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun."
I was replying to CY who, should he survive to mid-century on, will surely repent of his post. Used the Tanakh on Chabad.org.
AK, the Sun's evolution to a (I believe) white dwarf will result in it expanding to approximately the Earth's orbit in a couple billion years. As a result the Earth will become rather toasty well before that.
MS, we are in the end just like any other animal. Too few of us breeding will lead to problems. The nearest star system we know of with a planet in the habitable zone (Proxima Centauri) is over four light years away. I would prefer a Federation with warp drives and replicators but ...
aaall,
I take it from the way you refer to the Tanakh instead of the Old Testament and the fact that you knew that you'd find the passage in Hebrew in Chabad.org that you are also Jewish.
Now that we learn that LFC is Jewish as well as Marc, myself, and David Zimmerman, we find an incredibly high percentage of regular commentators here who are Jews. We all seem to have chosen Professor Wolff as our rabbi. Chomsky would be my other rabbi and now that there are female rabbis, I'd opt for Hannah Arendt.
I myself know no Hebrew except a few prayers I had to memorize in Saturday Jewish education and since I refused to be bar-mitzahed, I don't even read the little Hebrew that those who were bar-mitzvahed do.
aaall,
Your reference to Proxima Centauri sparked my curiosity and I decided to do some math.
According to the science fictions movie about interstellar travel, the answer is use suspended animation.
So, how long would a person have to be in suspended animation in order to reach Proxima Centauri?
Light travels at the speed of 299,792,458 miles/per sec. This equates to 9.45 x 10 to the 14th power miles per year. In 4 years, that equals 37.8 x 10 to the 14th power miles.
Supposing we could develop a rocket propelled spaceship that travelled at 100 mi./sec., which would equal 360,000 mi./hr., which equals 3.15 x 10 to the 9th power miles per year.
Traveling from Earth to Proxima Centauri at 100 mi./sec. would take 12,000 years. Quite a long time to remain asleep. By the time we developed the technology to travel at 100 mi./sec. and perfected suspended animation, we likely will have succumbed to climate change or nuclear war.
Sorry s. wallertien, if I could choose my female rabbi, I would prefer Gal Gadot.
Correction:
s. wallerstein
" By the time we developed the technology to travel at 100 mi./sec. and perfected suspended animation, we likely will have succumbed to climate change or nuclear war."
Maybe, but if we, as a species, survived Toba, etc. we'll likely survive both, just with a lot less of us. I'm sure there are folks like us in other star systems and galaxies, some just figuring out fire and others on the way out, so in the end - easy come easy go. It's always amused me that we humans come up with so many just so stories that see humans as somehow special.
Isn't there a notion floating around out there among some of our own kind, aaall, that any species out there similar to us will have followed the same path to species suicide, which is why we don't get any signals from those that should have by this time outstripped us technologically?
S. Wallerstein: With respect to your observation above, perhaps there is a minyan in progress here in the comments section of this blog.
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