Sense of impending gloom...

Does anybody have this feeling sometimes. Maybe it is the sense of last year on my Uni (I spend too much time in my pretty Ivory Tower. As much as I got out and went into the world, I was always more or less an Ivory Tower dweller). I don't want it all to end... I mean, I can still learn... but it won't be the same again. As much as I despite academia for the way they argue semantics while the world burns... there are things about it I love.

I been through this before, although my first attempt at life did not work out. Maybe just as good, I might get stuck as Prague's tourguide... and that would probably not be the right direction for me. I don't want to tell the people about "Mythology, architecture/History of one of the little known nations/Wars, sufferings, oppressions/Revolutions, defenestrations"... I wanna do something about these....

So well, maybe attempt number two will work and I will get the job of my dreams (badly paid, emotionally draining, underapreciated, with long work hours, preferably one that takes me to sketchy places... PRETTY PLEASE. Maybe it will work out this time. It has to.

but still I worry. I watch the news and I worry the world will burn before I manage to get out of my Ivory Tower and I will be guilty too because I should have done more.
I fear that one day I will wake up and everything will be changed beyond recognition and gone. and that I will not adjust, that I will just spend the rest of life wondering for good old days.
I am scared that something terrible will happened and I will not be able to react appropriatelly.

I am afraid that the mayan prophecy is true and that I will have not much to report about what I done here.

I sense it at times... I always had this feeling since I was a child that something is gonna happen, that we are going to see history made. Well, we did. Last december I had a dream in which i walked to "department of middle eastern studies" through crumbling corridor... and fireworks outside. These premotions work.
And I can feel the world collapsing... and it does scare me, indeed, as much as I try to be at peace with whatever happens.

Yup, Venus, the world is always collapsing, and always surviving. I don't think you have to worry about being around when the world ends. Human lifetimes are too short. We really do overestimate ourselves as a species and our importance, vastly.

There is that issue about getting a job. Yes. That can be a problem. But I think, judging from your always interesting posts on PC, that you're very much smart enough to figure out how to get not only a job, but an interesting job. May not make you a rich banker, but it will get you out into the world in interesting places at interesting times.

It's obvious you have to work either for an NGO or for a government foreign aid program or as an international journalist or as a teacher in a third-world country. You're good at languages. You can hack that.

You're scared that something terrible will happen and you won't be able to react appropriately? Hmmmm? You'll worry about what you're wearing? You'll think about the menu for tomorrow's lunch?

History is always happening. It's happening right this minute. There's no such thing as non-History. (I wish there was!) It might not be happening right at the place you are (or I am), but it's happening. All the time. Take care!

I think we both believe in the concept of knowledge over ignorance, regardless of what it brings, but fear is still natural. Fear and uncertainty will at some point haunt the hearts and minds of all intellectuals.

Being at the point in your life where you're making the first steps into something more, it's hard to see where you are going to end up and if you'll even get the chance to do what you want. Furthermore it is always draining to understand the weight of the world.

Some days I worry about the state of the world and my own life, and how the two intertwine. But it's okay. One step at a time with your chin up and eyes forward.

Yes, much more lately, I feel the doom. There is little hope for this country. I fear that any day, the worst WILL happen. I've lived waiting for the other shoe to drop for most of my life. I also have prophetic dreams and the last one was very bad. I've lost all hope. Sorry I don't mean to be a downer but this is my truth.

Ygres, I can definitelly see myself working for some NGO. Not sure about working for government, because I would have to compromise some of my principles. And one of my fears is hurting others... even unintentionally... I know that if I get into politics, I will get in situation, where I may have to screw some to save others... and I know that this will be very hard on me (as it should).

Yeah, I know humanity survived this long, so chances are we will still. But end of civilization would be also pretty hard to handle. One thing I always wondered about... how did people deal with collapse of Rome? It must have screwed their lifes. Their little worlds. History books don't really speak about that. I sorta discussed this in another thread...

so as for reacting... I just hope I won't end up sitting on ruins crying hysterically. I like to think that I would be one of the people who will go and try to rebuild the world if things go bad.

Dragon... thanks, dear. Yeah, it is approach I chose, the intellectual over just consumer of the world... but at times it just effing painful. But no going back once you crossed the line...

calista... I am scared on global level. If it was just my country, as sad as it is, I could get out in cargo and start life somewhere else. But this time around... it is the global village that is in trouble. And no, you are not a downer. No need to apologize for feeling... somehow realistic.

It's a good thing I believe in God, or else this "humans overestimate themselves" rubbish would trigger a depressive episode. I don't understand why people are so critical of our species. Get a grip on the beauty of the Universe...

As for government, I was thinking in terms of the foreign aid administration or something like that which would take you around the world and, like an NGO, have you helping very poor people advance.

But civilization isn't going to end. At the absolute worst, it will simply change, as it has all the time in the past. Yes, it's now changing at a faster rate and that's disconcerting (our evolutionary environment was not one of fast change). But the human race isn't going away any time soon.

As for the collapse of Rome, that took place very slowly indeed over several centuries. And keep in mind that, contrary to what a lot of people think, the collapse of Rome in the west (Rome in the east kept going for another thousand years) simply meant that Roman civilization was replaced by other, different civilizations.

There's no chance of that ("sitting on ruins") whatsoever. At all. Though I do know that you're by no means the only person to be worried about that. There are millions of other people who feel the same way. Let me tell you how I approach it.

First, at least for me, there's no problem at all if the human race disappears at some way distant point in the future. The world will be perfectly fine without us and there will, no question, be other supposedly "intelligent" species around the universe.

Second, the human race isn't going to die out any time soon, for any reason whatsoever, especially from "catastrophes." There are far too many of us. No pandemic, no nuclear war, no economic breakdown is going to cause the disappearance of the human race. In all circumstances whatsoever, there will simply be too many survivors and they will carry on human culture for a long time.

Third, there won't be any "collapse of civilization." There may be "failed states" here and there for a while, but though most people today appear not to know it, there have always been "failed states" and in due course they're replaced by normally governed entities. As for any "collapse of civilization" due to economic reasons, it won't happen. Modern economies provide too many important things to too many people to be permitted to die. There is no reason to believe that we can't adjust to any supply shortage that shows up.

What we'll face, always, are new and different challenges which, as human beings, we're the best species to overcome, however difficult they may be. We really are smart little suckers, and when we get serious and organized we achieve miracles. Sorry, it's true. Take care!

"Soon" is a relative term.

Summary

�Globalization is not likely to be economically sustainable if it proceeds as it has. In fact, it could come to a sudden and catastrophic stop unless properly governed. Thus, a more effective system of global economic governance needs to be built, through an intrinsically political process, involving the adjustment of the boundaries between national sovereignty and global mechanisms.

�Existing mechanisms for global economic governance were designed to a large extent to respond to the global realities being faced more than 60 years ago. Since then, the world has changed beyond recognition, but the multilateral institutions for economic governance have changed little or have adapted slowly. To respond to today’s challenges, major reforms will be needed. For one thing, democratic deficits as regards voice and voting power need to be redressed in recognition of the growing weight of developing countries in the global economy. But the actual functions of the major institutions also need to be reformed. The principle of common-but-differentiated responsibilities should be a major guide throughout the reform process which is crucial for a fairer and sustainable globalization.

�The food, financial and climate change crises have highlighted fundamental weaknesses which require not only a retooling of the multilateral trading regime and a deep-reaching reform of the international financial architecture, but also the closing of present gaps so as to eliminate inconsistencies in the existing mechanisms of global economic governance. This may necessitate the creation of new mechanisms for dealing with some of the deficiencies, such as specialized multilateral frameworks through which to govern international migration and labour mobility, international financial regulation and sovereign debt workouts. Most importantly, what is needed is a strong mechanism for global economic coordination which establishes coherence across all areas of global economic governance. http://www.un.org/esa/analysis/wess/...s/chapter6.pdf

What is to be done?

The risks associated with the deeper interdependence of national economies exposed by the crisis can foster a drastic retreat from globalization. There are, however, feasible approaches to initiating more sustainable globalization processes. The previous chapters have examined various approaches to retooling the existing aid, trade and financial architectures with a view to filling such gaps and eliminating such traps in the international system as undermine development efforts. Overcoming institutional weaknesses in the key international organizations, such as IMF and the World Bank, and eliminating inequities in respect of the access to participation, particularly at the World Trade Organization, are also important. There are glaring inadequacies in the global coordination of economic decision-making, including conflicting agendas and conflicting rules in the areas of trade, aid and debt.

The previous chapters have identified a number of challenging directions for reform, including:

• Providing sufficient policy space for developing countries so as to allow them to deploy a broader range of development policies
• Reforming the technology regime, particularly in the light of the climate
change challenge, so as to ensure greater access for developing countries
• Reforming the global regime overseeing international labour flows
• Establishing and resourcing coordinated counter-cyclical mechanisms among economies
• Coordinating international financial regulation and controlling regulatory
and tax competition among countries
• Averting climate change

Retooling the rules of the game for a fair and sustainable global development is necessary, but not sufficient. Retooling is also about the players. Providing developing countries having weaker initial conditions with more of the time, resources and policy space needed for them to become full participants is to be regarded not as an act of charity or goodwill on the part of the powerful but as an imperative for realizing the shared goal of expanding international commerce. The principle of common-but-differentiated rights and obligations which are to be defined as a function of level of development will need to be applied in practice and embedded within a system of clear-cut rules.

Climate Change:

Foreword

The science has become more irrevocable than ever: Climate change is happening. The evidence is all around us. And unless we act, we will see catastrophic consequences including rising sea levels, droughts and famine, and the loss of up to a third of the world’s plant and animal species.

We need a new global agreement to tackle climate change, and this must be based on the soundest, most robust and up-to-date science available.

Through its overview of the latest definitive science, this Climate Change Science Compendium reaffirms the strong evidence outlined in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report that climate change is continuing apace. In fact, this report shows that climate change is accelerating at a much faster pace than was previously thought by scientists. New scientific evidence suggests important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in major Earth Systems and ecosystems, may already have been reached or even overtaken.

Climate change, more than any other challenge facing the world today, is a planetary crisis that will require strong, focused global action.

As pressures build for an internationally agreed response, we now have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to come together and address climate change through a newly invigorated multilateralism. This will be our chance to put in place a climate change agreement that all nations can embrace – an agreement that is equitable, balanced and comprehensive.

This Climate Change Science Compendium is a wake-up call. The time for hesitation is over. We need the world to realize, once and for all, that the time to act is now and we must work together to address this monumental challenge. This is the moral challenge of our generation.

Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations Headquarters, New York
September 2009
http://www.unep.org/pdf/ccScienceCom...highres_en.pdf

While many will argue man has not caused global warming, they overlook the fact that reducing our carbon footprint benefits all. Not surprisingly many will will heed Socrates: "Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think."

Yes I've also had this feeling of impending doom a few times and a person has to pay attention to where its coming from. As others have said personal transitions/change can be intimidating. As far as the world in general...that's a big concept to think about. I also think many young people feel scared when they finish high school and then when they get to the end of University. Its great you think you can make a difference but be careful not to get too ahead of yourself - its hard to fit the earth into your backpack lol.

Ygres, I guess it is me living in the bufferzone, with Yugoslavia in my backyard that influenced my thinking. The history was even faster here. I guess we all carry this in us here in Bloc (some just don't realize it)...

Lynn.... thanks. I am trying to stay rational in my "wanna save the world".

Byz... I am already pretty green in my doings.

Venus, I was agreeing with you.

Thanks?

I just wonder how to deal with that and have life during the countdown...

Venus, I understand what you're saying here I get it too relating to school. I'm about to graduate and well. I'll miss school - love learning and stuff even though I have other issues with it it's safe and everything.

As far as the world asa whole, I think anyone with eyes open wide looking would be frightened, but that this is also true of many other time periods. Imagine looking otu on Feudal Europe for instance - I'd be scared! So my hope is that we're just going through change that won't tear us apart, just.... change us... and hope that it can become a positive thing.

It is possible to keep learning after school...

You are having trouble with me agreeing with you? I agree with a lot of what you say.

I am not have problem with agreeing per se. I would just appreciate more personal thoughts. I can do and do my own research and sometimes one looks more for perspectives, rather than what feels like a lecture.

There are many reasons why the mayans were probably wrong. One of these being a calender difference, can't remember the specifics but you could look it up. On a relatively unrelated subject, I saw a serious article tha claimed the mayans must have been aliens. It made me lol.
I have had phases of believing the world was going to end, but completely separate from everyone else (i.e. not when there were various news reports about it). Freaked my friend out once cause i was at a sleepover and felt like i wasnt gonna wake up. prob shouldnt have told her, but another friend felt the same. then nothin happened so you are not alone in feelings of impendin gloom

This particular quote has been attributed to a lot of different people, everyone from Muhammad to Martin Luther King, but, in some variation, reads as:

"Even if you knew the world would end tomorrow, plant a tree."

I think fear of everything ending is an elaboration of an innate human fear. Certainly there is evidence for that as most of the religions provide for some end to humans in some fashion. At least our time on this earth.

It's likely an elaboration of the fear of our own mortality writ large.

Not saying it is without merit. Everything, in fact, could end tomorrow.

So I guess the question becomes "what kind of tree to plant..."

Black walnut.

I feel like there is cause for a feeling of impending doom. The middle east, though, has been in turmoil forever it seems like. It's hard to imagine a lack of doom with terrorism on the rise and violence in America the way it is.

But I can't concentrate on any of this. I'll drive myself nuts if I do. There's too much good to enjoy. If the world comes to an end, then that's all a part of God's plan. I'll be in the safest place possible, which is wherever it is He wants me.

You seem incredibly creative. I'm thankful to have read your post today.

Sense of Impending Gloom. I wrote an earlier post on this thread (#7, 10/20/2011) that took a very long-distance, wrong-end-of-the-telescope view of the human race and its future, a post that was moderately optimistic and burst a few bubbles in today's end-of-the-world thinking.

And that post is an accurate description of the way I do myself, personally, react to the world and human developments. I always take a long-distance view. But I recently recognized that the large majority of other people don't do this. Most people are mainly concerned about the here and now and perhaps a few years in the future.

So I thought about the discrepancy and after a while decided that to be fair to PC readers I'd have to add a balancing post using most people's chronological parameters rather than my own much more historical, geological, evolutionary scale of time.

And while looking at things from a long-distance perspective yields, I think, a moderately hopeful picture of the future, a close-up shot does not. At least for people in the first world. While the entire global picture (other than climate change) isn't negative, the financial and economic picture in the first world is quite gloomy indeed, with all kinds of rather probable short and medium-term catastrophes arrayed for us to choose from in a cafeteria-style offering of bad things.

The Euro crisis and the insane right-wing fiscal and economic ideas in Washington, in addition to the brewing crises in Italy, Spain, the French banking industry, and the hardships of all of Greece, Ireland and Portugal create significant (and realistic) worries about a global financial and economic catastrophe of the first order. I was raised to believe (firmly) that Everyone Had Learned Their Lesson in the thirties and that such things could never happen again.

I believe we're finding out now that that happy belief isn't true, that the collective memory of how badly out of hand things can get has faded, and thus we're again very much at risk from human stupidity and greed. In a situation where it's quite possible that we won't be able to find a way out.

But what does this mean for the average PC member? I wonder. I'd assume that most of us don't have significant wealth in securities, and the holders of securities are probably the ones most at risk today. Many of us, though, do have jobs, and there's no telling what effect a financial catastrophe could have on jobs. Our bank deposits are insured, we're not really affected by near-term inflation, our homes have been devalued to a level it would seem impossible to go below. But that's all here in the U.S.

Our friends in Europe (like Venus) may have more to lose (or at least for some European nations). There's no guarantee at all that the European powers-that-be will be able to navigate out of the current, incredible mess without significant damage being done, such as the Greeks are suffering now, the unbelievable mortgage crisis in Spain (with their record unemployment rate), and the hardships being visited on Ireland and Portugal. Whether those kinds of conditions will spread to other countries, like Venus' Czech Republic, remains to be seen.

So, Europe is going to go through tough times. We're already doing so here, but things could get a lot worse. They don't have to get worse. There's no necessity for that at all. But in order to avoid the downslope, people in Washington are going to have to ditch voodoo economics, among other things.

Sense of Impending Gloom. This is my counter-balancing post to my other post in this thread #7 on 10/20/2011. Read together they cover the short, medium and long-term prospects of the first world and the whole world. Just my personal views