Humanity in peril, by Fred Vargas : the end of an era

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

WARNING !
If you are subject to panic attacks and such, please do me a favor: leave at once and don’t ever come back to this thread. I beg you. I mean it, I’m serious.

——
I am currently reading Fred Vargas’ last book.
She is a famous French writer. While she mostly writes police books, this time she felt the need to write some kind of successor to her 2008 alarming yet funny message that was asking for change to preserve humanity.
Intended as a 20 pages essay, it ended as a 223 pages book gathering 405 citations, most of them being scientific research work (she used to be a researcher herself).
I can’t say it’s well written. She kind of get lost in the facts and doesn’t manage to invent solutions. But that’s not the point. The point is the facts. Well, the projections that are to become facts very soon…

My spine is chilling at the reading of this book.
Reading about most minerals depletion in the next 20 years is already quite scary… Silver, chrome, gold, zinc, indium, neodymium, strontium, lead, diamond, helium, and copper, all becoming unavailable before 2040… The end of a lot of things we use everyday. Like magnets, for instance.

But being now conscious that humanity is facing its biggest threat (we’re talking about a reduction of +75% of the population before 2100) renders so many things futile around me.

I was at VivaTechnology conference in Paris, where thousands of companies were rivaling in depleting resources for innovative pointless VR/AI based technology. Having read the first pages of Vargas’ book was like seeing 30 years in the future. So futile use of resources…

It’s unbelievable, I mean I know that we can’t keep on exponentially consuming ressources forever. But knowing how close we are from such massive change, such magnitude… We will SEE it.

I keep telling myself that humans excel at facing challenges, finding solutions, innovating, adapting…
I want to believe we will face this pushing solidarity as the only way to get out of this. I don’t want my children to face barbary.
Still, can’t believe I’ll end living like my grand grandmother used to 100 years ago. What a weird feeling.
Still have to figure how I can organize my personal life to face this.

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Environmental impact of the music industry
#2
#3
#4

Oh goodie, just finished my last book in tube today, was gonna look for a new one. Will check on this now.

but, why the panic attack warning?

edit: is this the book you’re mentioning? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/392967.Un_peu_plus_loin_sur_la_droite

#5

I think that everything balances out. people say irreversible damage to the planet but really they mean irreversible damage to our species. the world doesn’t need resources to keep spinning. We could kill our whole species and practically every other one on the planet and life would just evolve again. We may pay for the environmental sins of those who came before us but we aren’t worried when reaping the benefits we have in modern society. It’s easy for people to be misled into thinking that it will all be happy sailing from here on out because of how far we’ve come.

The only thing that will truly change the direction of the masses will be real catastrophe. Still, we’ve been narrowly avoiding crisis for as long as we’ve been intelligent enough to comprehend it. I don’t doubt that real changes will have to be made, but in any case life will go on. Even if only for the elite to outsource their misery to the rest

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#6

the solution lies in the space. we need to mine asteroids

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#7

I guess if you have trouble to sleep or have regular anxiety, this book won’t help. I mean, I talk to this to a friend, and he freaked out.

The book I’m talking about is “L’humanité en péril”, by Fred Vargas. It was just published.

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#8

oh, I guess no english version yet. putain, I have to wait than.

(that’s the only french word I know :stuck_out_tongue: )

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#9

I wonder if you have kids.
I can’t just take it like this, like, as a theory.
It’s like it just became a huge threat to the ones I love, in my reality.

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#10

Yep we ll soon start kicking ourselves for having blown all those useful and non renewable (at least not on human timescales) resources on completely futile stuff. I wonder what it will take before a critical mass realizes and acts on it (a small minority already does), and how much longer than that it will take before political and industrial powers follow. The current progression is way too timid. I hope very badly this is before large disasters happen but to be honest, i m not very optmistic there.

#11

well, it’s not a theory. If you check on numbers or even reports, everything is out there open. It’s just squeezed behind cat videos and instagram selfies.


#12

Yeah, everyone chill out with the breeding. We’re not short of humans are we.

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#13

Hint: converting all individual use, luxury cars to electric ones is not going to save the world.

A serious reconsideration of what a healthy ecology, society and economy is is what we need.

#14

I have a son yeah. I agree that it’s scary. I don’t take any pleasure in accepting it but the facts simply say that humanity is unsustainable in its current state. Even in a post-apocalyptic world depleted of resources and damaged beyond repair environmentally I would still rather exist than not, and many came before me in worse circumstances than that. I find some solace the fact that if I did what I could as an individual then it was beyond my control regardless. All things end, humanity included. Not today though and not in our lifetimes. All I know is we’re probably the most considerate towards future generations than we’ve ever been. It was too late before I existed, and definitely too late by the time I was old enough to understand. Enjoy each day as it comes

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#15

Is socialism the answer? Eradicate capitalism? Who knows what will work? Here in America socialism and the green movement is used as a boogeyman by our politicians but we know they are paid by powerful lobbyists. Yet it’s seems impossible to get everybody on the same page to make a meaningful change to improve our future chances of survival. It’s like trying get someone to quit smoking.

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#16

I’m going to bury my A4 in the back garden.

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#17

@LyingDalai I strongly recommend a book by Steven Pinker - “Enlightement Now”. 400 pages of why this is the best time to be alive.
Just for different perspective.

#18

Hey there,
I really feel you. The only thought I can add here is this: For a whole lot of people, Life is scary, dangerous and painful already at all times.

#19

I’m teaching my son to shoot and hunt. I’m teaching him fieldcraft and basic survival skills.

These are skills I think he will need as an adult.

Especially when the people who make all the decisions have their rooms booked in the bunkers.
Can’t remember who it was, but someone on Joe Rogan last month talked about a discussion held by potential owners of condos in a luxury bunker about how they would continue to pay their security staff once money became worthless.

#20

Humanity has always been in peril, as a kid growing up in the 80’s the ever present threat of global nuclear war was reminded to school children by way of charming movies, such as “When the wind blows” and “Threads”

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