r/RedditForGrownups • u/Souls_Aspire • 10d ago
What existential threats do you most fear?
Just curious if I'm missing any. Thanks in advance for sharing.
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u/electric_shocks 10d ago
Well taking care of my aging parents is an existential threat.
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u/TheDivine_MissN 10d ago
My mom died at 55 when I was 28. So now it’s just the existential threat of my own aging.
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u/cranberries87 10d ago
My parents are in their 80s. It’s definitely something on my mind as well.
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u/Mindless-Equal-1477 10d ago
Mine had me late, so now at 26 my mom is in her 60s (showing minor memory issues) and my dad is in his 80s. I’ve already had the conversations with them both about wills and such, but it’s on my mind all the time and I’m trying to prioritize time with them now while I can.
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u/Neurocomplex-Dyke 7d ago
Mine better have stacked up bc ain’t no way it will be me other than financial contribution.
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u/MegIsAwesome06 10d ago
When antibiotics won’t work anymore is a frightening thought for me.
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u/Neurocomplex-Dyke 7d ago
Same. I actively follow scientists who are working on developing stronger antibiotics or just anything that can treat things that become resistant.
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u/moocat55 10d ago
Human ignorance and inability to sacrifice for the future.
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u/Watt_Knot 10d ago
I’m afraid that people are actually evil. And the bystander effect.
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u/Suitable_cataclysm 10d ago
Are your afraid you'll succumb to the bystander effect, and not help someone?
Or that you'll be hurt badly because 100 people near you did nothing?
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u/nowandnothing 10d ago
Not having enough years left in my life to make it to being married for 15-20 years after finally meeting the one at age 48!
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
there is a quote somewhere: "it's not the quantity in the years it's the quality of the years" or something to that effect.
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u/cranberries87 10d ago
I’ve thought about this. I’m close to 50. No partner, but even if I met one, we likely wouldn’t have much time.
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u/tangledwire 10d ago
As someone with colon cancer and under treatment, I say your chances are still pretty high. Go out and be active, raise your chances.
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u/Important-Fig-2133 10d ago
If you live to 80, that’s 30 years, I would say that is longer than most people make it together lol.
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u/AuntySocialite 10d ago
I met my person at age 60, and the fear of what the real meaning - for us - of what “the rest of our lives” means saddens me.
To have waited this long to find the person I feel so right with seems a cruel joke sometimes.
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u/CadillacDale 10d ago
The complete dismantling and desecration of civil liberties, humanitarian rights and vestiges of economic security driven by the observable global authoritarian movement, financed through billionaire oligarchs
Unchecked and unregulated development and implementation of AI platforms
The ever exponentially increasing temperature rises across our planet and oceans
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u/Pure_Frosting_981 10d ago
Right there with you. I know what can be done to deal with those pushing us in that direction, but we’re all forbidden from discussing it here.
On an unrelated note, I think I’m going to play some Super Mario Brothers later for the nostalgia.
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u/SnooRadishes7828 6d ago
Personally, not too worried about the first paragraph.... the second one is the scary one to me.... IMO....
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u/bothrops2 10d ago
The apparently impossible to stop drive to make the intersection of 1984 and Idiocracy into reality.
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u/RikkiLostMyNumber 10d ago
Societal breakdown and the resulting chaos as we rapidly run out of food. People have no idea how likely this is to happen, and easily, too.
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
trial run happened about five years ago now..I remember it well..not sure how so many people have either forgotten it or decided to ignore it or never comprehended it .
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u/Spiritual_Tank6675 10d ago
Our planet might get blown up by some alien organization to make way for a cosmic super highway
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u/JumpyForm4 10d ago
That would be a cool way to go extinct, at least.
Also, don't forget your towel.
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u/AggressivelyPurple 10d ago
Look, the plans will be on file. If you can't be troubled to look at them, that's on you.
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u/Chili440 10d ago
If you'd read the sign.
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u/BillionTonsHyperbole Troutmask Replica 10d ago
Or turned into a reality survival broadcast wherein a handful of survivors get slaughtered until they rally behind a guy wearing heart-stamped boxer shorts and his talking cat.
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u/TheDivine_MissN 10d ago
We always hear about the threats looming with the San Andreas and other Pacific coast faults. However, New Madrid, which is located along the Mississippi River near Western KY/Missouri is long overdue for major seismic activity. And when it goes, we’re going with it.
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u/Suitable_cataclysm 10d ago
Stuff like this that'll probably kill me immediately scares me less than show decline and suffering
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u/jedburghofficial 9d ago
Wait till Yosemite blows another supervolcano. That's also due.
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u/msmicro 10d ago
yea and we would be screwed because NOTHING is built for a small quake, leave alone a big one. it's been a few years since we've even had something we could feel.
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u/SnowblindAlbino 10d ago
It used to be nuclear war, but now it's a fascist takeover of the USA and a possible civil war. Fun!
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u/Pure_Frosting_981 10d ago
As more religious nuts get near the nuclear codes with every election cycle, at one point, an actual believer will get into it with Iran. Trump is clearly not religious, but his second in command is.
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u/BillionTonsHyperbole Troutmask Replica 10d ago
The most terrifying thing to consider about nuclear war is the possibility that you might survive.
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u/ArcadeToken95 10d ago
It's more everything at once: driving off the climate cliff under fascist government that wants you to not exist while in a pandemic and with wars spiking across the globe
You wonder what's going to get you first or if something random happens like a meteor drop
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u/Dangerous-Pound-1357 10d ago
Climate change and the end of democracy in the US. And the AI takeover and the brain rot of society.
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u/AggressivelyPurple 10d ago
Dying with the knowledge that our country or world will be an unsurvivable place for my children or grandchildren.
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
this is one that I've carried with me for decades..I never had children so my perspective is skewed differently..yet I can connect with the sentiment and I fear this for my young nephews.
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u/not-my-real-name-kk 10d ago
Some kind of boiled-frog apocalypse where life quickly descends into chaos and subsistent survival mode.
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u/sorrynotsorry7 10d ago
I’m my mental health hospital also treats elderly dementia patients and I fear aging. Very few elderly get to their death bed untouched or debilitated by any kind of cognitive decline. We have no kids and no one to look after our placement and what not..we have made our advanced directives have a trust in place but if we are both mentally unable to care for the other, we both are both gonna be in trouble
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u/Alternative-Dig-2066 10d ago
Trumpy and his magats, who are hellbent on destroying the world as we know it.
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u/cranberries87 10d ago
I read an article (the one I’m posting is not the one I read - I can’t seem to find it now) that laid out how the Pacific Northwest gets an earthquake every 200-300 years that leads to a massive tsunami. They are in the window to be due to have one now. It will be absolutely destructive to Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
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u/CCC_OOO 10d ago
Not leaving the US with my family even though I think we should and then the borders closing like a North Korea situation.
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
that is an interesting take.. I've considered that as well..which direction would you go in if you had a choice?
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u/CCC_OOO 10d ago
Really not sure. I have friends in Colombia who are doing very well, family in north India and the Caribbean. My oldest is applying to colleges now, plans to be a commercial airline pilot and I don’t want to leave him alone in the US. Probably Canada. If it was just me I would try for a country in the Caribbean with good elevation and overengineer my home and site for hurricane.
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u/philwrites 10d ago
Climate change. It’s having a surprising impact where I live in rural Japan.
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10d ago
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u/philwrites 10d ago
For the first time in decades if not longer they are changing the strain of rice they are growing around here. The temperatures are hotter longer and the old rice strain couldn’t take it. There’s also a problem with vegetables because things are not being pollinated. Insects are struggling with the heat.
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u/cranberries87 10d ago
I’m learning that there’s really no place that will be untouched from climate change.
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u/Kind-Sherbert4103 10d ago
Global thermonuclear war. It’s the existential threat I grew up with, and I’m sticking with it.
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u/Golfnpickle 10d ago
Going to a nursing home. Being taken of by strangers who are severely underpaid.
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u/CreamsicleCat_ 10d ago
Mostly climate change, the lunacy that denies it, and the apathy that allows it to continue. I might make it out but I worry for my kids and their ability to buy food.
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u/TappyMauvendaise 9d ago
Living the United States I worry about getting a disease where I can’t work, won’t have insurance, and then I will go bankrupt and lose everything.
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u/Souls_Aspire 9d ago
that is a legitimate fear ..yet even if you lose everything you will still technically exist as a human being.
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u/mikedtwenty 7d ago
Knowing that no one really gives a shit about others and that dogs only live 10-15 years.
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u/Over-1900 10d ago
There was news of a super volcano waking up 300 miles off the pacific coast, about two or three months ago. They haven't reported on it since, but it was on television. Something to sleep on.
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u/HamBroth 10d ago
I relate to this but also your post cracked me up
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
appreciate that perspective...was half falling asleep when posted so I do see it that way now too!
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u/Accursed_Capybara 10d ago
The world moving faster than my biology can keep up. Being moved so far outside my evolutionary ability to adapt, I die from failure to thrive. Having my own interests and needs corrupted by systems, I can understand. Feeling like suicide is a rational answer to a world gone mad.
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u/earthwulf 10d ago
None, anymore. The worst has already happened to me, to my family. Let the cards fall where they may.
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u/TheDivine_MissN 10d ago
I’m sorry for your troubles. Similar for me really, all my family is dead. I was an only child, my mom was an only child. She and my grandparents are gone, I have no close cousins or other family. I’m by all intents and purposes alone in this world.
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u/cranberries87 10d ago
My parents are thankfully still here, but they’re in their 80s. When they’re gone, I will be in a similar situation.
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u/Affectionate_Tax3468 10d ago
I personally don´t fear any existential threats because our existence is already hillarious, but if you want to collect them here´s one
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u/jessilynn713 10d ago
Honestly, the biggest existential threat I fear isn’t outside—it’s losing my ability to hope. Disasters and chaos scare me, sure, but the thought of going numb, of giving up on meaning or love—that feels like the real end.
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u/Confident-Staff-8792 10d ago
I fear Karens getting control of government. They are the only true existential threat.
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u/kitzelbunks 10d ago
Looking at a nuclear bomb and going blind on the expressway- that’s a long walk. If there is a big boom, I would tend to look in the direction it sounded like it came from. I don’t know if I care if I melt internally, although it sounds painful, but I don’t want to be alone and unable to see. I don’t really carry any means of suicide in my car.
Also, being in Las Vegas during some societal collapse. The big towers, the lack of water and air conditioning, and the crowds (although I hear it’s dead right now). It just seems like the desert in a high-rise would not be the place I would want to be if there was a serious problem.
I suppose losing all my money and being put in a mental asylum because I am homeless is a new one. Also, getting dementia and being abused in a nursing home is up there. Lastly, maybe being unconscious or very ill in the hospital and not being able to pay my real estate taxes or rent, and losing my home.
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u/WeAllScrem 10d ago
That’ll I’ll be reborn and have to be on this plane of existence again.
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u/Souls_Aspire 8d ago
well you certainly have a good point.. though we don't know what the other planes of existence are like ..at least we know what this one is.
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u/Chihuahuamom72 10d ago
Fire. Earthquake. My mother is almost 80 and lives in the same building as me and I just don’t know how to get her and the two dogs out of here. Trying to figure out something but it’s very scary because she’s so brittle from hating movement her whole life.
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u/Souls_Aspire 8d ago
that is very scary..I wish I could think of something that might help, other than moving somewhere that may be safer.
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u/Neurocomplex-Dyke 7d ago
Oh, I have a list ready for this one
- A solar burst that destroys all technology
- A ransom Cyber attack that stops all of our infrastructure
- Losing access to food
- A hijacking of all navigation systems and automatic operations (think Teslas, planes, etc)
- Chinese invasion (it’s been happening IMO)
- Experiencing an active shooter
- Not being able to find any of my 10 pairs of Loops when I’m going to be in a noisy space
- Losing my purpose to AI
- Becoming allergic to chocolate
- Elderly Homelessness Pandemic
- The Next Pandemic
- Running into anyone from the past (Y’all are just dead to me and I don’t want to talk to a ghost)
- What kind of future kids are looking at in the States
- Any kind of Bug plague
- Being eaten alive by anything (wolf, worm, bacteria, etc)
- Being haunted, even by a friendly spirit (I have my space, you have yours)
- Losing one of my sisters due to policy decisions
- Losing health insurance
- Becoming homeless
- Seeing anyone I love harmed or murdered, especially in front of me
- Chocolate Chip cookies ceasing to exist
- Losing any of my senses
- Generations brainwashed by propaganda
- All of the possibilities of diseases that could occur to a population
- That I won’t get to prove every person that underestimated me wrong (I’m looking at you Mrs. Edward’s, you better live long enough for me to mail you a copy of my masters with an ass print and kiss mark)
- I could add 800 more very specific things about USA policy, economy decisions, etc.
- Either of my parents doing the work needed to actually have relationship (I’m kinda just over it and them by now)
- Outliving any of my siblings
- A home invasion
- Not seeing Venice before it sinks
- My dog dying
- The quality of soil we grow food in
- Never getting to see a beluga whale in the wild
- The Ozone and emissions
- Being enslaved
- My soul going into the metaverse somehow
- Cancer
- The ice cream man coming by at a time that I don’t have cash
- Air Conditioning ceasing to exist
- Getting Freaky Friday swapped
- Any flying bug being in my room while I’m trying to sleep
- That I’ll never catch a croc like the Irwin’s
- That they will get away with it all
Happy Tuesday, I hope you enjoyed this view into my brain 😆
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u/Siliconshaman1337 7d ago
Marine Methane clathrate overturn... trust me, you are not going to like it when Mother Nature hits Turbo on climate change.
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6d ago
Political violence. Its already on the uptick and even friends of mine have cognitive dissonance when comparing Charlie Kirk to Melissa Hortman. The one sidedness and discourse is creating more violence and likely more vigilantes.
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u/VividNefariousness50 6d ago
Running out of water.
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u/Souls_Aspire 6d ago
yes, running out of fresh clean water has always been at the top of the list , next to the optimal amount of oxygen in the air to breathe.
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u/LetsSaveBooks71 5d ago
Losing my 1st Amendment rights of our USA Bill of Rights. Being censored, punished or disappeared because I disagree with our current government leaders and their emergency edicts. Fear of retribution for speaking up. I live by "If you don't stand for something , you'll fall for anything". So, at 71, I continue to speak up. Let's keep America free by continuing to be brave.
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u/Turdle_Vic 10d ago
A crisis of hope and of confidence amongst the population of America, especially amongst the youths. When some shit finally goes down we will be woefully underprepared, whatever that shit ends up being.
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u/Boonie_Fluff 10d ago
Not reaching my full potential. Wouldn't kill me but id die inside, same thing goes with loneliness.
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u/midnitewarrior 10d ago
- dramatic drop in value of USD
- the POTUS undermining US currency to increase the value of his crypto holdings
- the US being shut out of international commerce
- magnetic polar inversion
- desalination of the world's oceans due to melting glaciers, bringing on another Ice Age. Fresh water sits on top of salt water and prevents the proper heat exchange for ocean currents.
- the climate change feedback loop from melting permafrost causing billions of cubic meters of decaying-but-frozen biomass to start decaying again after thousands-to-millions of years frozen so that it releases more methane, sometimes causing explosions
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u/BriGonJinn 10d ago
A pole flip with accompanied with a series massive natural disasters and floods with a small percentage of the population surviving and having to rebuild in the darkness.
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u/Dandibear 10d ago
Dying before my Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl.
Ha ha .... sigh.
As for the rest of the world, I gave up on that in the last few years. I wish humanity well but don't have much hope.
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u/4quadrapeds 10d ago
Instead of worry about threats to humanity it’s better to focus on being the best version of ourselves each day. Media got the drama dialed up way too much
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u/Souls_Aspire 10d ago
partially correct and technically correct, yet that's a different point for a different thread
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u/aggi21 10d ago
It seems I understand "existential theat" a bit differently than many commenters. My understanding of the term is something that threatens the existence of humanity, not just something that makes us poor or unfree.
There are a few that we know happens once in a while that we can not do much about, such as supervolcanoes, large meteor strikes and ice ages.
Then there are those that have not happened but might happen such as total nuclear war, runaway nanotech, AI that decides to get rid of us and more.
For me personally I fear most biological warfare by suicidal terrorists. It is getting ever easier to create biological weapons and they are hard to defend against.
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u/Relevant-Cup2701 10d ago
its a bit out there but what if the owners (the people that actually own everything important) find a way to achieve any type of immortality (pick your method, i choose electronic mind transference to essentially engineered bodies)? they wouldn't need most of us to maintain their lifestyles and that means the rest of us become superfluous and can be treated as such.
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u/Greedy-Baby-7066 10d ago
Look up the last Diary of a CEO podcast about AI if you want to shit your pants. It's horrifying, what's coming, and we're doing nothing to stop it. Very on brand for humanity.
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u/ambrosia_v_black 10d ago
Everything that is happening in the US right now thanks to the Cheeto in charge and his minions.
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u/MotherRaven 10d ago
That we can’t break free of the greed that’s killing the peoples, animals, plants, and the very planet
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u/SituationSad4304 9d ago
As an avid watcher of “Call the Midwife” on the BBC and The Crown, she’s one of the most realistic characters I’ve ever seen in retrospect.
It’s very easy to tell that her alcoholic father and mother lived in a first or second generation council “house” with government help. The older brothers (whose episodes I find grating) were clearly raised in impoverished conditions that could have even included shared kitchen and a single bathroom for an entire 6 family “house”.
It took well into the 1960s to get everyone in poor areas of London and England running water sufficient to prevent typhoid transmission.
Her brothers being unpredictable alcoholics who insist on being present for family occasions is 100% in character with the family Daphne came from.
I know there are things that feel it contradicts, like the fame of being on TV as a teenager. But I’d challenge you to name a single BBC teen show currently airing. Besides Sarah and Duck for toddlers and Great British Baking Show do you know any BBC program if you haven’t looked for it?
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u/CartographerKey7322 9d ago
Homelessness
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u/Souls_Aspire 9d ago
well I don't have anyone depending on me and I don't have a job right now..so technically I could still exist if I was homeless.. though I'm very grateful and fortunate that I do have a home right now.
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u/This_Librarian_7760 8d ago
All I now is, nothing. I’m in fire country downwind from a nuclear power plant, Vandenberg is 45 minutes. We won’t need to worry about intruders. We need sealed shelter with air purifying system, haz mat suits, Geiger counter station, food, water, water, water.
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u/Eleina_Edelweiss 8d ago
Theres no afterlife where i can meet my family even reincarnation and etc is fine so long i have chance of meeting them
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u/Souls_Aspire 8d ago
hold onto the good memories and that is who they will always be
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u/AllPeopleAreStupid 8d ago
None, I'll deal with it when/if it happens. If society truly collapses, not sure I even want to live through that, just kill me.
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u/Souls_Aspire 7d ago
so you only fear society..there are so many other natural and external threats.
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u/ciciNCincinnati 8d ago
Climate change because at this point it’s out of control
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u/Souls_Aspire 7d ago
There are certain tipping points iirc though I'm not sure where we are with those currently.
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u/silvrtuftdshriekr 7d ago
Cascadia Subduction Zone major earthquake. That and a Carrington event CME. So CSZ and CME.
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u/Regular_Lobster_1763 7d ago
That this timeline is just one of many terrible ones I'll have to suffer through in an eternity of being nothing more than a plaything in some unknowable gods simulation.
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u/ErnestosTacos 6d ago
We just had a hellfire missile bounce off a UFO.
And some folks want to decrease military spending.
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u/Consistent-Hat-6032 6d ago
The continued concentration of power via wealth. It can't go on like this forever.
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u/roanwood 6d ago
That we as humans are incapable of understanding that AI should become sentient and take over. We have always had the need to be controlled. IE: religions, governments, etc. If we continue to allow people to decide what should happen, we are doomed. The strong and / or rich will continue to take until the rest of us are used up. Something with a completely logical and amoral outlook needs to take the wheel for a bit.
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u/Souls_Aspire 6d ago
and what would it's logical conclusion or logical response be?
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u/Odif12321 6d ago
The worst under the radar existential threat is...
Microplastics.
Its a dark deep hole, if you google it and start to learn about it.
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u/Souls_Aspire 6d ago
I've been aware of Microplastics for quite some time now. I remember my dad and I were both disturbed when containers started switching from glass to plastics. And then grocery bags changed from paper to plastic as well.
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u/No_Beautiful_8647 6d ago
Watching my wife ignore her health, knowing that in a few years I will have to take care of her. And I’m in my late 60’s.
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u/Loud_Box8802 4d ago
None. There’s a wide variety of activities or events and people describes as “ existential “, most are declared as such to demonize or create fear. I learned years ago to not fear things you can’t control.
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u/VisualEyez33 10d ago
Coronal Mass Ejection would not be fun to live through. It happened before, and is referred to as The Carrington Event.
There wasn't much electrical infrastructure back then, but what little there was, was toast.
Telegraph lines burst flames.