We've already passed the point of Peak Oil. These fuels only get more expensive to extract with each passing decade. And the political pressures that extraction creates is collapsing the capacity for efficient extraction at least as quickly as the industrial extraction is pinching off the low hanging fruit.

I don't think its a given that we simply plunge over the 4° C threshold, because I can see an abrupt collapse in access to fossil fuel tying out with a steady increase in the supply of less geographically constrained wind and solar power. Also next-gen nuclear is at least peaking over the horizon, for real this time, given the advent of nuclear freighters in China.

But it's also possible we demolish the infrastructure we need to replace fossil fuels with renewables, effectively cannibalize the rungs of our technological ladder in order to do... whatever the fuck this is. And then we lodge ourselves in a modern Dark Age, exhausted of the cheap energy that propelled us to the 20th century heights and rapidly losing access to the biome that supports the enormous increase in humans that gave us the brain power to innovate our way out of the last dark age.

Then we're proper fucked.

people like this will blame some external factor rather than themselves

History is written by the survivors. I do wonder what they'll write when the events of the modern moment are far enough in the rear view mirror to discuss without wading through a morass of oil industry propaganda. But I seriously doubt the survivors will be the Americans who handcuffed themselves to a decaying industry. I doubt it will be the westerners who have increasingly eschewed the very idea of "liberal arts" as a past time. I doubt it will be a society that incinerates its libraries and post offices and feeds all of academia into a digital set of funhouse mirrors that turns every idea into an advertisement for consumerist crap.

The heart of the western cultural dominance rests in its university systems. And that's been deteriorating for the last sixty years. The countries that eclipse the NATO block education framework will spell the end of its ability to author the history books.

[–] xj9@hexbear.net 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

rapidly losing access to the biome that supports the enormous increase in humans that gave us the brain power to innovate our way out of the last dark age.

the last dark age only happened in europe. most of the world was actually thriving at this time. sad it didn't last a little longer actually. would have been really interesting to see a globalized world where europe is left out until late in the game. i would suggest that western culture causes dark ages, that's what we've been living for the last 500 years or so. almost everything has been erased. for a lot of us, the collapse of empire is a light at the end of the tunnel. it'll be horrible, for certain, and was completely avoidable, but you know white people. crawl out to the fallout baby, when they drop that bomb

[–] BashfulBob@hexbear.net 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

the last dark age only happened in europe. most of the world was actually thriving at this time.

You can find "Dark Ages" that have consumed various chunks of the planet, based on when certain central institutions of information collapsed.

Mississippi culture in North America and the Mayan culture in Central America. The collapse of various East Asia dynasties. The sacking of Middle Eastern city states

But we're in a global manufacturing and information economy. If China and the US obliterate critical infrastructure in a war, South Africa doesn't get to pick up on aeronautics or semiconductors or cosmetology where these two juggernauts left off. The info is lost and must be rediscovered.

for a lot of us, the collapse of empire is a light at the end of the tunnel

Nobody benefited when the Library of Alexandria burned.

[–] xj9@hexbear.net 1 points 1 month ago

Nobody burned the library of Alexandria it probably died from neglect, but Europeans did burn ~every book ever produced in central america and extinguished hundreds of unique cultures and languages. Western culture is a dark age IMO. And I'm not saying dark ages don't exist elsewhere. Europe may be fanatically xenophobic, but they aren't entirely unique either. Just the most successful at spreading darkness.