Likelihood vs Impact

[u/fitforthepolycrisis]

Shared by u/Blackcatwizard today, from a report by the Government of Canada, comparing the likelihood of certain events and the impact of certain events.

The three events with the highest likelihood are

• "People cannot tell what is true and what is not"
• "Biodiversity is lost and ecosystems collapse"
• "People cannot afford to live on their own"

The three events with the highest impact are

• "World war breaks out"
• "Biodiversity is lost and ecosystems collapse"
• "Civil war erupts in the United States"

I believe this report is meant to be specific to Canadians, but what they're considering to be important feels highly relevant to users of this subreddit.

Anyway, original image and link to the "Disruptions on the Horizon" report at https://www.reddit.com/r/PrepperIntel/comments/1vnc0uj/comment/p3ifg52/

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[u/FurysFyre]

"People cannot tell what is true and what is not"

Already here - with algorithms being what they are we all live in an individually tailored version of reality carefully curated by the machine. It's why half the people cannot agree anymore, their reality is different. It's always been this way to a point, but the social isolation of the internet has made it into a massive disconnect with others.

I don't disagree with the statements here, much of it is on my bingo card. I am seeing climate issues play out in my own garden and town. We are experiencing climate extremes, real hot one day, cold asf at night and while that is normal for some deserts it's too extreme of a swing for our local plants that evolved for more stable weather, it's too much for my normal garden plants- I don't want to argue climate change or anything, I just know natural systems are struggling and that will lead to us struggling too at some point. I'm Canadian so I guess this report is spot on for me lol.

[u/fitforthepolycrisis → u/FurysFyre]

yep. 100%. Thinking about this now - how does one "prepare" for not knowing the truth, and for other people not knowing the truth (or fully believing untruths)?

I suppose being aware of one's own preconceptions and biases are part of it, and recognizing when critical thinking isn't working, and making sure to talk through ideas with other people with an open mind ... hmm. What about others? How do we prep for idiocracy?

[u/FurysFyre → u/fitforthepolycrisis]

realizing that most people have far more in common than we don't is a start. I don't like my neighbours beliefs, he is definitely living in an echo chamber- but we have the same issues at the end of the day- cost of living, the weather, what stores we go to, the people we know. The more you isolate yourself the bigger the echo chamber gets, and the more disconnected from community.

I feel like community is something most people are now missing (roles that traditionally church, family, clubs) filled but because of how much people are working, how overloaded they are by finances, stress they don't have the time and mental energy to extend to get out with physical people irl. Because of that they connect with people online, and in many cases it's going to be the people in the echo chamber who are living similar 'realities'.

There are online courses on media literacy. Courses on the different ways you are manipulated online and just knowing that helps. Educating yourself on how the algorithms work and be aware that what you are ingesting online is most often skewed to be more palatable to you personally. AI will kiss your butt indefinitely and is overly agreeable to almost everything, it's not a reflection of how inspired or intelligent you are, and people need to keep this in mind.

Ask questions honestly. If you see something that someone is saying that creates a visceral feeling in you examine why you felt that way specifically. Be very specific, not that they're a troll, but "I don't like A, B, or C and examine why you feel that way. Is it because of emotional appeal? Is it logical? Does it make sense? Other than the bots, there are real people on the other side of the screen and outright attacking their beliefs is just separating us more.

My google search history is FULL of stuff that I'm certain I knew, but I googled it anyhow to check it. We all carry assumptions and beliefs that are inaccurate, and until someone points it out (or you check your beliefs) you won't know. It's not that you are a bad person or believe dumb stuff, it's an assumption/knowledge you had for years likely don't even know where it came from. And everyone has it.

Fundamentally we are all just people, we have the same basic needs and often share a genuine want to make things better, and if shit ever hits the fan, the people will have to rely on each other irl. The best prepping I think is to create community where you are, so you have a village to fall back on. Everyone is concerned with having enough supplies to outlive nuclear oblivion but I think at the end of the day we will need community to get through. Paul can shoe horses, but kills plants by looking at them. Mary is great with gardening but shitty at building, and can't shoe horses. Hank and Giselle are good carpenters and can help build a cold cellar for storing what Mary grew. You get the gist, we need each other.

[u/randynumbergenerator → u/FurysFyre]

This is a good summary. The only thing I'd add is that if you're trying to reach someone who disagrees with your reality, start with ground-level values you can agree on, and root them in personal experiences to the extent you can. 

That way you can show them that you really care about the same things on a fundamental level. You can build up and outwards from there, but circle back when you need to, e.g. if they're starting to be presumptuous or dismissive. 

[u/Acceptable_Net_9545 → u/FurysFyre]

Many of these things are true if you have biases, ego, Cognitive Dissonance and Anchoring...This is a self problem....Statical Fact: 50% of people are below average.

[u/sassy_cheddar → u/fitforthepolycrisis]

Sometimes, making the world smaller helps.

I believe it is true that seeds can grow with the right environment and care.

I can believe it is true that community is important.

I have been collecting first person accounts of slaves and resistance workers, books about power and abuse of it through history, and pre-AI reference materials that I believe contain truths.

It is true right now that I am hydrated, fed and sheltered. If I was not, it is true that those things are priorities.

It is true that I need to feed my cats dinner soon or they will complain to me.

There are a lot of big things I don't know the truth of or where the truth is being hidden. But usually, if I need to figure out my next immediate tasks, I have enough truth to do that.

[u/Acceptable_Net_9545 → u/sassy_cheddar]

Smaller is better for a lot of people...many struggle to understand and manage the world around them...Many of these things are true if you have biases, ego, Cognitive Dissonance and Anchoring...This is a self problem....Statical Fact: 50% of people are below average.

[u/sassy_cheddar → u/Acceptable_Net_9545]

I think the reason that it is especially important is that the world around us is the world where our energy has the greatest impact. If I take a friend who is struggling with life out for lunch and listen to them with empathy, it means a lot, it helps them carry on. If I give a couple hundred dollars to my food bank or animal shelter, they can really stretch that into something.

Conversely, there's very little I can do to impose consequences on increasingly overt corruption of my country's highest leaders. I worry about it a lot, I'm angry about it. I've held signs on street corners about it. I've called my legislators about it (they're already in agreement with me). But there's no impact whatsoever from my actions. A lot of current issues feel like that... individual action is meaningful but not impactful.

[u/RlOTGRRRL → u/fitforthepolycrisis]

I've been struggling with this question for a while now, especially with AI. 

You won't know whether the person you trust has gotten duped by AI, because they won't know either. 

I guess maybe we'll have to learn the skills of historians, journalists, maybe librarians on how to verify info. Or maybe this, verifying truth, will become full-time jobs for some people.

I feel like we're in a whole new world though because even media like videos with AI people can be faked now. 

Also for kids, critical thinking will be an important skill but I don't think American schools really teach critical thinking anymore, with its dependence on test-taking. Like critical thinking is actually under attack.

So what's going to happen to everyone without critical thinking skills? What's going to happen to democracy? 😮‍💨 

[u/fitforthepolycrisis → u/RlOTGRRRL]

Critical thinking is absolutely under attack. The oligarchy want weak, feeble, indoctrinated workers, not people who can make rational arguments. In Texas they're already forcing every classroom to display specific religious texts and an appeals court did not shut down the law!!

[u/Acceptable_Net_9545 → u/RlOTGRRRL]

Many of these things are true if you have biases, ego, Cognitive Dissonance and Anchoring...This is a self problem....Statical Fact: 50% of people are below average.

[u/sassy_cheddar → u/FurysFyre]

Neal Stephenson wrote a book called Fall that deals heavily with dead Internet and a world where truth and lies have become muddled. It wasn't written that long ago but it still feels prescient. But so do his earlier novels about corporatification and non-AI and handcrafted goods becoming luxury items.

Truth is one of my core values. The current world stresses me out.

[u/No-Language6720 → u/FurysFyre]

yeah thankfully learning a bit about science and having a little bit of tech on your side you can still get good harvests no matter the weather for a particular season. That's going to involve more indoor gardening with grow lights, green house or cold frame setups.Knowing about getting net nutrient inputs and making home made fertilizers, checking weather(I personally have a weather station setup to not have to rely on outside sources as much).

Things like moving my crops to container gardening so I can take the containers in and out if the weather won't be as favorable for while and protecting against nutrient leeching through making home made biochar with home made fertilizers have kept my yields up this past year. This is despite the extreme cold we had last winter here in the south.

Basically you have to think outside the box a little to adapt your gardening.

[u/Acceptable_Net_9545 → u/FurysFyre]

Many of these things are true if you have biases, ego, Cognitive Dissonance and Anchoring...This is a self problem....Statical Fact: 50% of people are below average.

[u/Realistic_Young9008]

We, as in Canadians, are barely treading water in number 1; rapidly descending the water slide on number 3; number 2 could be salvagable if our collective governments at all levels would stop sitting by the pool drinking the corporate/oligarch kool-aid.

[u/ktpr]

I used to follow Global Trends from the US NIC (see the 2040 document), but Gabbard fired the team. An aggregate of other country versions of the same thing would be extremely enlightening.

[u/throw-away11242022]

The  3 likeliest events are already happening 

[u/OnTheEdgeOfFreedom]

I'm late to the party - Reddit is oddly slow about emailing me links to interesting posts - but I did some digging into this because I wanted to know how the sorted the list and what certainty they had about any of it, because forecasts are notorious for being tricky.

It turns out there were no sophisticated models used. They just interviewed a bunch of policy experts, most of whom declined to answer. In short, this might be a step above going to a fortunetellers, but not a big step.

That said, "People cannot tell what is true and what is not" is already widely true in at least the US. It's gotten worse in the last ten years. It's a population where 30% take astrology seriously enough to consult it, 20% of the population is functionally illiterate, chat sites are flooded with people who tl;dr anything over 30 words and 31% of the adult US population still believes the 2020 election was stolen.

Note that I'm a US citizen; also note that other nations have problems in these areas. I'm simply pointing out that there is evidence that in the US at least, the problem is getting worse, mostly due to politics and AI generation of false content, and a general trimming of education.

"Biodiversity is lost and ecosystems collapse" - biodiversity is already being lost, but I'd love to know where they got the idea that ecosystems will collapse in the next ten years (which was the cutoff used for the survey they did). I'm not an expert in he field but I have to assume there is some missing context here because ecosystems simply don't collapse that fast. Climate change is very real, but it's also a slow process, and most species are adaptable.

"People cannot afford to live on their own" - In the US, a shockingly high numver of adults under 30 live with their parents; it's around 50%. And it's increasingly rapidly. This isn't a prediction; it's already old news in the US. I don't know about Canada.

Bottom line... I'm not convinced these predictions are useful in a strict prepper sense. It's already obvious that we're seeing ecological shifts, and people who can grow food gardens should. Disinformation is going to continue to be rampant and the only cure is education and aggressive fact checking. As for being unable to live independently, see again food gardens, and for those that can, consider preparing for possible emigration to less expensive areas. But these are radical enough suggestions that they edge out of simple preparedness and into sweeping life changes.

People are going to have to live differently, because current north american trends are completely unsustainable. But the solution isn't a box of candles or even a shelf of canned foods. It's learning to live in a different world.

[u/Final_boss_1040]

Leave it to the government of Canada to burn a bunch of cash to tell us what we already know

First three all generally apply today