Alright, so you don’t acknowledge the problem, still fits the definition.
Fair enough on most of those areas you mentioned by the way, wars, economical depression, and the pandemic have been exaggerated, with the serious caveat on the latter that that was unclear at the time so you had to err on the side of caution. But it’s kind of the opposite with climate change IMHO. Scientists have kept to rather conservative projections so as to not cause panic and apathy in the general public, but over the last years new measurements have outpaced those predictions at practically every step of the way.
Climate change is probably the most clearly a “big fucking issue” for mankind. I’m fully aware it’s going to kill a huge portion of the population before the end of this century and that I’m probably going to be one of them. I don’t expect to retire or have any kind of life beyond MAYBE 60 because we’ll be locked in famine wars and constant civil unrest.
The rise of global fascism and it’s persecution of “the other” or “enemies of the state” as seen in the USA, Israel, China, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, The Philippines, and many South American and African nations is another major issue that’s being largely ignored and/or actively progressed by an alarming number of people today. Is another thing that is being underplayed in the media and it going to ADD TO the major global instability that climate change is going to cause.
OP is in their mid-40s. They’re probably going to be one of the last generations to live in the golden age of humanity’s leisure. Everyone else is going to live their life starving and fighting for a seat at the table or dying in wars.
My point is- people 45 and up can afford to bury their heads about all of those things because they’ll never have to worry about it getting cut off before they’re ready to pull it out.
Climate change is probably the most clearly a “big fucking issue” for mankind. I’m fully aware it’s going to kill a huge portion of the population before the end of this century and that I’m probably going to be one of them. I don’t expect to retire or have any kind of life beyond MAYBE 60 because we’ll be locked in famine wars and constant civil unrest.
Can’t say I haven’t wandered those paths of thought, but what keeps nagging at the back of my mind is the possibility of a positive feedback loop of ecosystem collapse, cascading through all of it. From my limited understanding it’s somewhat likely to happen but nobody can tell the exact likelihood or outcome. Best guess likelihood of it happening climbs exponentially between 1.5°C and 5°C of warming, which is why limiting warming to 1°C was determined as a threshold initially and subsequently raised to 1.5°C because 1°C became a pipe dream. Depending on how pessimistically you want to do your measurements we have now already reached those 1.5°C of warming.
The rise of global fascism and it’s persecution of “the other” or “enemies of the state” as seen in the USA, Israel, China, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, The Philippines, and many South American and African nations is another major issue that’s being largely ignored and/or actively progressed by an alarming number of people today. Is another thing that is being underplayed in the media and it going to ADD TO the major global instability that climate change is going to cause.
Yeah tell me about it, the far right party in Germany keeps getting new poll records, now breaking 20%. In fucking Germany! Thought I’d never see the day. And therein lies the crux. I think the move towards the right on a global scale is in large part reactionary towards the largest problem on a global scale happening right now, which is climate change. Of which we keep seeing incrementally bigger symptoms, chiefly among them in this context migration as well as economic problems related and unrelated to that. The sensory information of our society already indicates how vast this problem will be. And unless the underlying cause is fixed, this trend won’t reverse itself; On the contrary, we will see democracies collapse left, right, and centre, pun intended.
OP is in their mid-40s.
Ok, this is too ad hominem for me, so I’m going to disregard that part of the argument.
The Clathrate gun hypothesis scares me big time. Probably because in this older science fiction novel the aliens were going to blow up part of the ocean floor to create the hot atmosphere they needed.
Alright, so you don’t acknowledge the problem, still fits the definition.
I’d hate for our discussion to be about semantics, but I’m saying that we don’t believe in the problem. If I’d say “Hey, regarding the vampire situation, you have your head in the sand, because you won’t acknowledge the problem”, it wouldn’t be an accurate statement.
I’d hate for our discussion to be about semantics,
Semi-off-topic rant incoming, but hard disagree on this one. This is a really weird statement that is commonly used for the opposite of what it actually means (although not in this case). I don’t enjoy syntactical discussion, e.g. whether I used the wrong sentence structure or whatever, as long as the meaning is clear. But discussion on “the meaning of words”, i.e. their semantics, is absolutely necessary in many cases, here about whether we use the same definition of this idiom. You can’t properly communicate without that, so if you don’t discuss semantics where appropriate you are talking at each other instead of with each other, despite using the same language.
but I’m saying that we don’t believe in the problem.
Case in point here, you are operating from your intuitive definition of the head-in-the-sand idiom which doesn’t fit the situation at hand, I’m operating from the Merriam-Webster definition which does fit the situation at hand.
Just to be clear, I don’t intend any judgement here, just saying it fits that one specific definition of this idiom, which is why I quoted it originally.
As stated in the grandparent of this comment I can agree with many of your examples, so I understand your revulsion of categorising your behaviour as sticking your head into the sand. But to people who recognise and acknowledge the problem, unlike you who recognises but doesn’t acknowledge the problem, you are sticking your head into the sand.
Well I understand the impetus, but that’s literally the definition of the head-in-the-sand idiom according to Merriam-Webster:
I’m not saying that we are unwilling to recognize a problem, the problem itself is greatly exaggerated, or even non-existent.
Alright, so you don’t acknowledge the problem, still fits the definition.
Fair enough on most of those areas you mentioned by the way, wars, economical depression, and the pandemic have been exaggerated, with the serious caveat on the latter that that was unclear at the time so you had to err on the side of caution. But it’s kind of the opposite with climate change IMHO. Scientists have kept to rather conservative projections so as to not cause panic and apathy in the general public, but over the last years new measurements have outpaced those predictions at practically every step of the way.
Climate change is probably the most clearly a “big fucking issue” for mankind. I’m fully aware it’s going to kill a huge portion of the population before the end of this century and that I’m probably going to be one of them. I don’t expect to retire or have any kind of life beyond MAYBE 60 because we’ll be locked in famine wars and constant civil unrest.
The rise of global fascism and it’s persecution of “the other” or “enemies of the state” as seen in the USA, Israel, China, Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, The Philippines, and many South American and African nations is another major issue that’s being largely ignored and/or actively progressed by an alarming number of people today. Is another thing that is being underplayed in the media and it going to ADD TO the major global instability that climate change is going to cause.
OP is in their mid-40s. They’re probably going to be one of the last generations to live in the golden age of humanity’s leisure. Everyone else is going to live their life starving and fighting for a seat at the table or dying in wars.
My point is- people 45 and up can afford to bury their heads about all of those things because they’ll never have to worry about it getting cut off before they’re ready to pull it out.
Can’t say I haven’t wandered those paths of thought, but what keeps nagging at the back of my mind is the possibility of a positive feedback loop of ecosystem collapse, cascading through all of it. From my limited understanding it’s somewhat likely to happen but nobody can tell the exact likelihood or outcome. Best guess likelihood of it happening climbs exponentially between 1.5°C and 5°C of warming, which is why limiting warming to 1°C was determined as a threshold initially and subsequently raised to 1.5°C because 1°C became a pipe dream. Depending on how pessimistically you want to do your measurements we have now already reached those 1.5°C of warming.
For reference: Wikipedia:Tipping_points_in_the_climate_system#Cascading_tipping_points
Yeah tell me about it, the far right party in Germany keeps getting new poll records, now breaking 20%. In fucking Germany! Thought I’d never see the day. And therein lies the crux. I think the move towards the right on a global scale is in large part reactionary towards the largest problem on a global scale happening right now, which is climate change. Of which we keep seeing incrementally bigger symptoms, chiefly among them in this context migration as well as economic problems related and unrelated to that. The sensory information of our society already indicates how vast this problem will be. And unless the underlying cause is fixed, this trend won’t reverse itself; On the contrary, we will see democracies collapse left, right, and centre, pun intended.
Ok, this is too ad hominem for me, so I’m going to disregard that part of the argument.
Re: Tipping points
The Clathrate gun hypothesis scares me big time. Probably because in this older science fiction novel the aliens were going to blow up part of the ocean floor to create the hot atmosphere they needed.
I’d hate for our discussion to be about semantics, but I’m saying that we don’t believe in the problem. If I’d say “Hey, regarding the vampire situation, you have your head in the sand, because you won’t acknowledge the problem”, it wouldn’t be an accurate statement.
Semi-off-topic rant incoming, but hard disagree on this one. This is a really weird statement that is commonly used for the opposite of what it actually means (although not in this case). I don’t enjoy syntactical discussion, e.g. whether I used the wrong sentence structure or whatever, as long as the meaning is clear. But discussion on “the meaning of words”, i.e. their semantics, is absolutely necessary in many cases, here about whether we use the same definition of this idiom. You can’t properly communicate without that, so if you don’t discuss semantics where appropriate you are talking at each other instead of with each other, despite using the same language.
Case in point here, you are operating from your intuitive definition of the head-in-the-sand idiom which doesn’t fit the situation at hand, I’m operating from the Merriam-Webster definition which does fit the situation at hand.
Just to be clear, I don’t intend any judgement here, just saying it fits that one specific definition of this idiom, which is why I quoted it originally.
As stated in the grandparent of this comment I can agree with many of your examples, so I understand your revulsion of categorising your behaviour as sticking your head into the sand. But to people who recognise and acknowledge the problem, unlike you who recognises but doesn’t acknowledge the problem, you are sticking your head into the sand.