Image Credit: Gary Hooker
Hi! How’s everyone? Today we’re going to discuss an especially cheery topic — extinction.
How do you feel looking around the world? Depressed, anxious, bewildered, bereft? We have the pathetic spectacle of the first criminal trial of an American President — and the current front runner for the next Presidency. If you needed a sign about how things are going in this age, that’s one that’ll go down in history.
How did we get here?
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There’s a phrase that came into vogue a few years back. “Late stage capitalism.” I won’t go into its provenance, per se, suffice it to say that it’s sort of an academic term, that’s supposed to summarize this phase of history, this age. But now I think we’re in a whole new phase: extinction capitalism.
By that, you might imagine that I’m referring to the planet, and what’s happening to it. Scientists are bewildered that we now find ourselves in “uncharted territory,” warming’s happening so fast. That’s one aspect of what I mean, and it’s a crucial one, to be sure, but funnily, sadly, I mean the term “extinction capitalism” in an even broader sense than that.
What else is going…extinct? Or is on the road to it? Here’s a little smattering.
- Democracy’s at just 20% of the world right now, declining at 10% a decade. That puts the extinction of democracy within today’s lifetimes. And that’s an historic, crushing loss.
- Generations are in downward mobility, and the sort of central idea of modernity, an upwards trajectory of living standards, is going extinct, or already is. Most people don’t think their kids and grandkids will have better lives than they did, and given current trends, they’re right.
- How about…just prosperity itself? The majority of the world, in a stunning reversal, is now getting poorer. I say stunning because this upturns decades, if not…
