The Fediverse is too full of doomerism.

So let’s be honest—the track record for doom is awful.

Most of the time, betting on collapse is a losing game. Not only because it becomes self-fulfilling, but because history shows that progress wins out more often than not. I don’t say that as a naïve optimist. If anything, doom should appeal to me. I’m a contrarian at heart.

But history tells a clear story. Every generation has its prophets of collapse. Sometimes they’re right—but those moments are rare, and the people making them usually go broke waiting for vindication. The rest spend decades yelling “doom!” while the world keeps quietly getting better.

And even when the doomers do have a point, they still get it wrong. They underestimate how stubborn we are. Humanity is basically that boss fight you think you’ve beaten—until the health bar refills. We adapt, improvise, and claw our way out.

The Great Depression didn’t fix itself. People built safety nets, reformed banks, and rewired their economies. Inflation has flared up again and again, but institutions learned how to keep it from spiralling out of control. Energy crises forced innovation in how we produce and use power. Even the 2008 financial meltdown—supposedly the death of capitalism—ended up proving that markets can mutate fast enough to survive almost anything.

The doomers weren’t wrong about the threats. They just underestimated how fast humans learn under pressure—and how innovation always sneaks in through the cracks.

That’s the real story. Humanity’s defining trait isn’t blind optimism—it’s resiliency. We stumble, argue, and procrastinate, but when the stakes get high enough, we build, fix, and adapt. We don’t survive because the future is guaranteed—we survive because we refuse to stop creating it.

And that resilience isn’t abstract. It’s personal. It’s the person rebuilding after a layoff. The worker starting over when an industry collapses. The founder trying again after failure. Markets may crash, but people keep reinventing themselves. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

Still, zoom out beyond the latest crisis and the long-term picture is hard to ignore.

In 1925, most of the world didn’t have electricity or running water. Life expectancy was under 40 in many countries. Roughly 80 percent of adults were illiterate. Today, more than 90 percent of the global population has access to electricity. Over three-quarters can read and write. Global life expectancy is now over 70. And we carry supercomputers in our pockets with access to the sum of human knowledge.

Over the past century, humanity has endured the Great Depression, a world war, a Cold War, oil shocks, recessions, pandemics, and nuclear close calls. Every time, someone declared it was the end. Yet each time, we adapted, rebuilt, and moved forward.

Just within the past 20 years, more than 700 million people have escaped extreme poverty. Infant mortality has fallen by half. Deaths from infectious diseases have plunged. Despite everything—pandemics, wars, climate shocks—global living standards continue to rise.

And still, doom sells.

To those convinced the end is near, I’ll offer the same challenge. If you’re that certain, short the entire economy.

Most won’t, because unless you’re among the rare few who get it exactly right, betting on doom will ruin you.

The Fediverse is too full of doomerism.

So let’s be honest—the track record for doom is awful.

Most of the time, betting on collapse is a losing game. Not only because it becomes self-fulfilling, but because history shows that progress wins out more often than not. I don’t say that as a naïve optimist. If anything, doom should appeal to me. I’m a contrarian at heart.

But history tells a clear story. Every generation has its prophets of collapse. Sometimes they’re right—but those moments are rare, and the people making them usually go broke waiting for vindication. The rest spend decades yelling “doom!” while the world keeps quietly getting better.

And even when the doomers do have a point, they still get it wrong. They underestimate how stubborn we are. Humanity is basically that boss fight you think you’ve beaten—until the health bar refills. We adapt, improvise, and claw our way out.

The Great Depression didn’t fix itself. People built safety nets, reformed banks, and rewired their economies. Inflation has flared up again and again, but institutions learned how to keep it from spiralling out of control. Energy crises forced innovation in how we produce and use power. Even the 2008 financial meltdown—supposedly the death of capitalism—ended up proving that markets can mutate fast enough to survive almost anything.

The doomers weren’t wrong about the threats. They just underestimated how fast humans learn under pressure—and how innovation always sneaks in through the cracks.

That’s the real story. Humanity’s defining trait isn’t blind optimism—it’s resiliency. We stumble, argue, and procrastinate, but when the stakes get high enough, we build, fix, and adapt. We don’t survive because the future is guaranteed—we survive because we refuse to stop creating it.

And that resilience isn’t abstract. It’s personal. It’s the person rebuilding after a layoff. The worker starting over when an industry collapses. The founder trying again after failure. Markets may crash, but people keep reinventing themselves. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

Still, zoom out beyond the latest crisis and the long-term picture is hard to ignore.

In 1925, most of the world didn’t have electricity or running water. Life expectancy was under 40 in many countries. Roughly 80 percent of adults were illiterate. Today, more than 90 percent of the global population has access to electricity. Over three-quarters can read and write. Global life expectancy is now over 70. And we carry supercomputers in our pockets with access to the sum of human knowledge.

Over the past century, humanity has endured the Great Depression, a world war, a Cold War, oil shocks, recessions, pandemics, and nuclear close calls. Every time, someone declared it was the end. Yet each time, we adapted, rebuilt, and moved forward.

Just within the past 20 years, more than 700 million people have escaped extreme poverty. Infant mortality has fallen by half. Deaths from infectious diseases have plunged. Despite everything—pandemics, wars, climate shocks—global living standards continue to rise.

And still, doom sells.

To those convinced the end is near, I’ll offer the same challenge. If you’re that certain, short the entire economy.

Most won’t, because unless you’re among the rare few who get it exactly right, betting on doom will ruin you.

@atomicpoet The difference with the past? It’s been 200 years since the Industrial Revolution and less than 100 since the development of the atomic bomb. 200 years ago we didn’t have the technological capability to destroy our own species. Today we do.

@atomicpoet Valid points, but I feel three things need to be said:

1. We survive and make it out the other side until we don't.
2. That survival always comes at a cost.
3. A thing that greatly improves our chances of survival is communicating the problem to as many people as possible to get the largest number of people possible aware and working on a solution.

If your message is "don't give up on trying to create a better world", I agree. If it's "relax folks, everything will work itself out", I very strongly disagree.

Aral Balkan I get that—and the threat is real. But for the entirety of my life—nearly 44 years—I’ve been waiting for the nuclear holocaust to happen.

It hasn’t.

I’ve now lived more than half my projected lifespan under that same shadow, and the world’s still here. Not because it can’t happen, but because, statistically, most of us will die of natural causes before it does.

And I suspect you believe the same—since it’s highly unlikely you’re posting this from the safety of a nuclear bunker.

@atomicpoet Oh, no, I believe it’s going to be climate-related habitat loss that does us in for the most part – if the resulting fascism leads to nuclear war, that’s just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Unless we manage to fundamentally change the system.

And, yeah, I’m an optimist, otherwise I wouldn’t still be working on small things that, perhaps, when combined with the small changes others are making, might still help. Or at least provide some temporary sanctuary. Who knows. We can but try.

The Fediverse is too full of doomerism.

So let’s be honest—the track record for doom is awful.

Most of the time, betting on collapse is a losing game. Not only because it becomes self-fulfilling, but because history shows that progress wins out more often than not. I don’t say that as a naïve optimist. If anything, doom should appeal to me. I’m a contrarian at heart.

But history tells a clear story. Every generation has its prophets of collapse. Sometimes they’re right—but those moments are rare, and the people making them usually go broke waiting for vindication. The rest spend decades yelling “doom!” while the world keeps quietly getting better.

And even when the doomers do have a point, they still get it wrong. They underestimate how stubborn we are. Humanity is basically that boss fight you think you’ve beaten—until the health bar refills. We adapt, improvise, and claw our way out.

The Great Depression didn’t fix itself. People built safety nets, reformed banks, and rewired their economies. Inflation has flared up again and again, but institutions learned how to keep it from spiralling out of control. Energy crises forced innovation in how we produce and use power. Even the 2008 financial meltdown—supposedly the death of capitalism—ended up proving that markets can mutate fast enough to survive almost anything.

The doomers weren’t wrong about the threats. They just underestimated how fast humans learn under pressure—and how innovation always sneaks in through the cracks.

That’s the real story. Humanity’s defining trait isn’t blind optimism—it’s resiliency. We stumble, argue, and procrastinate, but when the stakes get high enough, we build, fix, and adapt. We don’t survive because the future is guaranteed—we survive because we refuse to stop creating it.

And that resilience isn’t abstract. It’s personal. It’s the person rebuilding after a layoff. The worker starting over when an industry collapses. The founder trying again after failure. Markets may crash, but people keep reinventing themselves. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

Still, zoom out beyond the latest crisis and the long-term picture is hard to ignore.

In 1925, most of the world didn’t have electricity or running water. Life expectancy was under 40 in many countries. Roughly 80 percent of adults were illiterate. Today, more than 90 percent of the global population has access to electricity. Over three-quarters can read and write. Global life expectancy is now over 70. And we carry supercomputers in our pockets with access to the sum of human knowledge.

Over the past century, humanity has endured the Great Depression, a world war, a Cold War, oil shocks, recessions, pandemics, and nuclear close calls. Every time, someone declared it was the end. Yet each time, we adapted, rebuilt, and moved forward.

Just within the past 20 years, more than 700 million people have escaped extreme poverty. Infant mortality has fallen by half. Deaths from infectious diseases have plunged. Despite everything—pandemics, wars, climate shocks—global living standards continue to rise.

And still, doom sells.

To those convinced the end is near, I’ll offer the same challenge. If you’re that certain, short the entire economy.

Most won’t, because unless you’re among the rare few who get it exactly right, betting on doom will ruin you.

@atomicpoet I used to see criticism of ‘doomers’ a lot on Twitter but this is the first time on the fedi. I’ve never been sure what is causing the offence? Doom for who? Doom for what? There are so many crises and so many possible outcomes.

Will my life be as comfortable in 30 years time? Will I have suffered losses of my health, of material wealth and people I love because of the worlds inability to respond quickly enough to myriad crises very possible. Will I be still be able to live a fulfilled and meaningful life, also possible. That’s me.

Am I doomed if I live on Tuvalu which will be underwater? If my livelihood depends on coral reefs for fishing, if I’m on the Gaza Strip, if I’m an indigenous person in Alaska? What does doom mean then? Will the rich world’s late actions save them from their suffering?

What if I’m an orangutan or a whale, am I doomed? Does saving a few of my kind mean that I’m not? What about the Amazon rainforest, is it doomed? What does doomed mean for the Amazon?

There seem to be a lot of people (me included) shouting ‘grab a bucket your house is on fire’ but still not enough people grabbing buckets.

Will we put out the fire? I would say it’s still possible but there will be a lot of damage now. Is that doomerism?

@atomicpoet maybe, I don’t know exactly what you mean by doom?! Human extinction? No not in the near future. Some doom for some people and things has happened and is happening because we (wealthy westerners) are letting it so yes! I just think the term is black and white when in fact there are degrees of misery to be inflicted depending on what we do now. What are you all doing? That’s the key to all of this?! Honestly, I’m burning right out now with efforts to change stuff (not very successfully I’ll admit), just been speaking with a group of Green councillors and yes, things are dire, fighting fascism as well as the climate crisis. We need to all get off our collective arses frankly rather than debate doom or not doom.