Give Up Hope. Take Action.

Humanity is in dire circumstances right now. We’re at something of a precipice. We face the threats of nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence, global heating, superbugs, ecological destruction, resource exhaustion, overpopulation, mass surveillance, authoritarianism, and much more.

Cory Doctorow, writer, blogger, and activist, wrote an article titled “The Swerve”. I recommend everybody read it because it’s a very accurate analogy for our situation, at least in terms of global heating.

Most people are living in a fantasy land either denying these facts because they don’t want them to be true, accepting them but acting as if they’re not true, or just saying “c’est la vie” and making glib jokes as a coping mechanism, but none of that makes it go away.

My attitude towards the current state of things is similar to that of the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Clare Farrell:

“Hope for me feels like the opposite of admitting that you have to do it. ‘I hope someone else will fix it.’ That’s a disaster. Hope dies and action begins.” - Clare Farrell

The situation is probably hopeless and nobody is doing anything about it. It’s not just the politicians. Average, everyday people aren’t even doing the mildest, least objectionable political activities like signing petitions or going to nonviolent protests.

You might get some satisfaction from keeping up with the news about humanity’s dire situation, but unless you actually do something, you may as well be just as oblivious and in tacit denial as your average layperson.

If you want to start feeling better about how hopeless circumstances are, stop making glib remarks, stop making excuses, and do something about it. Isn’t it clear by now that nobody else is going to?

Whatever you do won’t feel like enough and there may not be many opportunities for you to make a difference. You will probably fail lots of times. Things might get worse despite your efforts. Act anyways.

In my past entries, I tried to be hopeful because I thought it was important not to spread despair, but the truth is I don’t have hope for humanity. I think people who are optimistic about the future of our species are living in a fantasy. The time for hope has passed.

There’s nobody coming to save the day unless it’s you. So what are you waiting on? Are you gonna try to do something about it, or are you just going to passively read the bad news as your world slowly falls apart?

What will it be?