Developments in green technology.

The most obvious is, of course, solar power (it ABSOLUTELY ROCKS) and new, eco-friendly batteries, but there’s so much more:

• Organisms that eat plastic
• Novel recyclable materials
• Reusing industrial waste to produce tons of useful products (personally working on that!)
• Novel eco-friendly fertilizers
• Actually nutritious plant meat and milk substitutes

And so, so much more!

Also, there are a lot of organizational changes that help:

• Recycling is getting more widespread
• FOSS and hacky folks allow electronic devices to live way longer than they otherwise would
• Bans on petroleum-based plastics in many applications propel cleaner alternatives (including clean, renewable plastics like PLA)
• And more again!

We have all it takes to build a sustainable, almost solarpunk world. With enough political will, we can make it happen. It’s not “futurism” anymore - it’s a reality we can forge here and now.

In France, high-schoolers are launching a revolution, new generation rocks!!

Trump is old and sick. Putin is old and sick. Xi is at least old. Most troublemakers are way beyond. It’s just a question of waiting them out.

Global warming cannot cause humanity to go extinct. Nuclear war cannot cause humanity to go extinct. Population decline cannot cause humanity to go extinct.

If you think any of these are possible, you do not know enough about global warming, nuclear war, or population decline.

In short, things may get very, very, very bad. But hope springs eternal. And there are very, very few scenarios that won’t leave many millions of people alive to pick up the pieces.

This is a bit trite, but there are a lot of delicious foods to eat, and so many cats to give scritches to. Concerts to hear. Songs to sing.

I was at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix and they had a violin made out of literal trash. It’s a testament to people’s resilience and yearning to create. There are so many wonderfully creative people out there, I’ll never have the time to consume the every good bit, especially when I feel well enough to create stuff of my own. I love seeing the things people, especially people I care about, create.

China

There’s one thing that’s happened this year that inspired actual hope in me. (I am generally a cynic, having read too many history books.)

I made a video about Flock buying out their employees and, in researching it, learned that Flock (as of a month ago) had lost nearly 400 contracts in 36 states. An independent outfit is tracking it because, obviously, major media outlets don’t want to talk about the unpopularity of fascism.

Thing is, this accelerated last summer, which means a lot of people who are otherwise apolitical are learning about Flock, going to city council meetings and doing boring, pedestrian and effective political organizing for a good cause.

That is objectively a good thing.

I’m not sure if optimist is the best term to describe be but at least I don’t go out of my way to find the worst possible intreptretation for everything just so that I can then go around complaining all the time and acting as if all the bad things in my life are someone else’s fault and outside of my influence.

There’s a Bluesky thread (yes I know) going where people are contributing things that have gotten better in their lifetimes, and there really are a lot of things there. Things are still improving, there will always be setbacks and things left to fight for, but it isn’t impossible, things aren’t hopeless.

Getting some historical perspective is amazing. We live in one of the best times on earth, possibly the best ever. Most people just don’t realise it because we don’t have the lifespan to experience the difference ourselves.

two things

1. one day he’ll die
2. one day I’ll die

that’s about it.

Generally speaking, the world just keeps getting better in ways that matter.

Despite all the wars going on, this is probably the most peaceful time in human history; we just see every single conflict thanks to modern telecommunication.

There has always been terrible stuff going on in the world. Very little of the terrible things in the modern day are really new, it’s just a new form. And usually the new form is a bit friendlier than the last one.

Frankly, how bad the past was makes it hard to be anything but optimistic about the future. Overall, the best time to be alive in all of history is right now. There’s no reason to think that trend won’t continue.

We’ll defeat diseases, and get more efficient at producing the things we need, and develop technologies to solve problems. Sure, a lot of that will be expensive for a while if capitalism persists, but going into debt for cancer treatment beats dying of cancer.

And it’s never been easier to coordinate with such a huge number of people. We have the tools at our disposal to actively make the future better. We have to use them, but we do have them. And it really seems like people are starting to get interested in using those tools, and they’re only getting easier to use, which means with a little elbow grease we could progress from “better, year over year” to “actually good”.

The boomers are dying, the techbro bubble is almost ready to pop, the kids are organizing. I feel privileged to get to witness the next 50 years.

The bullshit with Putin and Ukraine as well as Trump and Iran is heavily incentivizing the adoption of EVs.

I hope it’s quick and painless.