this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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A scientist has made the shocking claim that there's a 49% chance the world will end in just 25 years. Jared Diamond, American scientist and historian, predicted civilisation could collapse by 2050. He told Intelligencer: "I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050."

Diamond explained that fisheries and farms across the globe are being "managed unsustainably", causing resources to be depleted at an alarming rate. He added: "At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted.

"Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably."

The Pulitzer Prize winning author warned that we must come up with more sustainable practices by 2050, "or it'll be too late".

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[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 73 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

"Why 49% and not 50%?" "I wanted it to sound more accurate than it is"

[–] naught101@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago

Totally. I assume his error margin is about 30 times that difference

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 weeks ago

Because it's a simple way of saying "We're not quite over that most likely outcome line yet, but we're getting there."

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 56 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"Popsci author repeats claim he's been using for decades to sell books that most anthropologists question".

Man, sometimes I think newspapers and traditional media should be banned from reporting on science at all. I am very critical of social media and what Internet does to communication, but I'll admit that the extremely focused experts that communicate on a narrow field for a living do a much, much better job of parsing published claims than traditional generalist news ever did. I am exhausted of impossible galaxies, stars that "should not exist", healthy superfood, cures for cancer and world-ending events.

[–] naught101@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Any good broad-scale critique fro anthropologists that's worth reading? I've only read one of his books, nearly 20 years ago, but most of what I've heard him say has seemed more or less on point.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 9 points 3 weeks ago

All I have is what you can get by looking him up, and I am definitely not an expert. I'm saying that this one guy referencing his one model for his one theory of society-as-ecology deserves a more nuanced headline than "the world is ending in 25 years". If I can speak on anything here it's on the reporting.

He isn't even saying anything that controversial when you dig through to the actual statements, which is a constant of mainstream news reporting on science news. "With all these things, at the rate we’re going now, we can carry on with our present unsustainable use for a few decades, and by around 2050 we won’t be able to continue it any longer" is barely any more severe of a warning than any climate scientist or ecologist has been making about these things for the past four decades.

Hell, if anything he seems to be less concerned than the average Lemmy denizen:

He explained: "As for what we can do about it, whether to deal with it by individual action, or at a middle scale by corporate action, or at a top scale by government action - all three of those.

"Individually we can do things. We can buy different sorts of cars. We can do less driving. We can vote for public transport. That’s one thing.

"There are also corporate interests...I see that corporations, big corporations, while some of them do horrible things, some of them also are doing wonderful things which don’t make the front page."

Post that around these parts, you'll get people calling you a corporate shill for even entertaining that personal behaviour has an impact in this process or that any corporation is doing anything positive.

Don't hear the Express go "dude on the Internet thinks it's high time we ban cars before we all die", though.

[–] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 49 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Wow, Jared Diamond and a tabloid.

This seems no more or less likely than before.

[–] EtnaAtsume@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago

I was gonna say... Was briefly concerned until I saw Jared Fucking Diamond's name.

[–] YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

He's playing it very save with 49%. As if he knew math or something

[–] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah, that was another red flag. Margins of error on any kind of calculation like this are going to be big; "roughly half" would be a strong claim. Coming out with an exact percentage about a social sciences issue is crackpot territory.

[–] 1D10@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Honestly is he a scientist? Does he do science,or just find shit that supports his idea.

Edit, I did a bit of googling and it does appear he is still publishing papers, but it feels like he has been beating the "we all gonna die" drum for a long time now.

[–] CanadaPlus@futurology.today 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

He's makes his money as a popular writer, and actual historians say he's a hack.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 43 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050.

Emphasis added. That's a pretty big bit of weasel-wording there, the world "as we know it" has changed drastically in the past 25 years. Things that we thought were indispensable to the proper functioning of the world order - such as, for example, the lack of a pudding-brained pedophillic fascist in the White House - are no longer operative. Yet we're muddling along well enough, all things considered.

Things are rapidly changing in so many ways right now. Projecting that far forward with any confidence is a bit of a fool's errand.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

That’s a pretty big bit of weasel-wording there

Absolutely, the world today is also not as we knew it in the 25 years ago, and it's very different compared to the 70's, where the future looked a bit more rosy.

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 27 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

MIT predicted society would collapse by 2040 back in the 70s.

That was a pretty good prediction then. "World will end" is obviously a stupid wording, but the point is clear. The entire food supply chain as it is today will collapse, the question is just when it will happen and if we will have completely switched to indoor farming before then.

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 8 points 3 weeks ago

Almost there

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

collapsed inline media

That model keeps getting tweaked and rerun, as others have mentioned, its from 'The Limits to Growth, otherwise known as the 'World 3 model'.

In this one, instesd of measuring 'pollution', which was....fairly difficult to get accurate data on... they just used CO2 instead.

Pretty much same result, we are pretty much at the peak of modern civilization right now.

collapsed inline media

IIRC, thats a screen grab from Paul Beckwith, a pretty well renowned climate scientist... he has a youtube channel, he puts out like a 20ish slide powerpoint recapping other recent climate studies every week or so ...

Basically we are fucked, all our climate models from 5 or 10 years ago were actually too optimistic, we already blew through 1.5C, the SMOC, the Anatactic part of the thermohaline cycle, already collapsed a decade ago, and we did not notice untill the last few months.

We are tracking closer to the '8.5C by 2100' level of climate sensitivity models than anything else.

Insurance companies are basically already abandoning roughly the lower third of the US, too much climate disaster danger, can't afford to insure homes and neighborhoods.

collapsed inline media

UK Society of Actuaries recently put together their own risk assessment, from the ground up instesd of top down as the World 3 model... they are also predicting massive losses, economic damage, begging governments and insurance companies and banks to adopt mitigation strategies.

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[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 3 weeks ago
[–] mycodesucks@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

That's WAY later than I thought!

This is cause for celebration! 🎉

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

yep, sounds like we can start worrying about that in about 20 years then.

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[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 11 points 3 weeks ago
[–] teolan@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

We need to send a bunch of scientists to the edge of the ~~galaxy~~ globe to create a foundation that will help reduce the duration of the chaos to only a millennia.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 weeks ago

Nostradammit!

[–] winkly@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Gestures broadly at everything

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 8 points 3 weeks ago

Where's that remind me bot? Remind me in 2049

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Calling Jared Diamond a scientist is pushing it.

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[–] AlphaOmega@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I checked my magic 8 ball, we are screwed

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I’d rather the magic 8 ball make our decisions than most politicians. We’d have a higher chance of survival

[–] Professorozone@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

What does collapse even mean? All humanity dies? Fifty percent of humanity dies? Many die and those that don't revert to Mad Max life styles?

[–] skeezix@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

no more strawberry frosted doughnuts at Dunks.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 3 points 3 weeks ago

And no more Fortnite Battle Pass®.

[–] Brutticus@midwest.social 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

This is something historians struggle with, because "Collapse" has happened before, the most famous of which might be the Bronze Age Collapse, or the fall of the western Roman Empire in 473. Needless to say, those didn't result in human extinction, or even the extinction of human habitation in those locations (so Greece was inhabited before the Bronze age collapse, but that predates Classical Greece, which we think of as it's golden age, and one for humanity).

Specifically, it was (natural) climate change or political turmoil (those usually go hand in hand) making long established trade routes and subsistence patterns untenable, and with it, destroying the power of the people who controlled that trade. There was a reduction in trade, as the elites had the money to import, and the disposition to distinguish themselves from the lower classes. There was certainly some population reduction, because food was not moving as much, and populations were reduced to what the locality could support. I want to note that at this point, we see migrations (although we do see violence). I want to thank Patrick Wyman's podcast for teaching me this answer.

So I think, in this case, I think its likely we see this. The current power structure will probably not survive, although pockets of it may hold on in places, and maybe even survive into the next iteration (so think about the Catholic Church, an ancient roman institution survives to this day). Instead, I expect to see local polities spring up, holding on to or rejecting various aspects of the old world. A process of balkanization implies the rest of the world looks on in horror, but I expect to see some process of it happening everywhere. Immediately, these fragments will resemble the world we recognize, but in the centuries that follow, the world will become unrecognizable to us.

I think its also important to note that like, the destruction of the social order, which would suck for a lot of reasons (like the development of technology like vaccines), doesn't necessarily mean a "dark age." Some knowledge was lost (like Roman concrete in the fall of Rome) but I dont think the fall of the modern world precludes the loss of electricity, or motor vehicles, or even something like the telephone.

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[–] Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Y'know, Quasimodo predicted all this.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

So that's why I planned to live in mountains and grow my own food. I thought I was high. Thanks Science.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago

Calling Jared diamond a historian is just nonsense.

The minute I saw his name I rolled my eyes.

Move along nothing to see here.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Problem:

What's sustainable for 7 billion people (now) isn't sustainable for the population in 2050.

https://www.un.org/en/desa/world-population-projected-reach-98-billion-2050-and-112-billion-2100

"World population projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion in 2100"

We need a plan to either sustainably feed 10 billion people or dramatically reduce the population.

[–] Olap@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

Most of the northern hemisphere isn't even making 2 per couple. It is Africa which keeps churning out babies to be blunt

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/birth-rate-by-country

What we have also seen is education and rising economies reduce the birth rate. If we want to actually curb things: the trend of reducing foreign aid is going to make things worse

[–] Vupware@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Seems to me like the latter is the likely outcome.

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