When and how bad?

[be cause]

 glad I'm an interdimensional worker rather than a slave on the surface . b.c.

[nanning]

Are you perchance The Doctor?

[philopek]

Once again, bbr is sure he knows the right answer, though he presents no data to support it. It is useless to debate further with such. If others want to talk about history who are not so utterly blinkered, I'm happy to oblige.

Only that this time, less the exaggeration that is his style obviously, he is right.

Rome was very advanced in many aspects and way less "barbaric" then the rest.

Further, Roman legislation and many other things Roman built the base for our modern legislaton and many other things.

Of course in such a discussion personal offense is not necessary, perhaps bbr like it "Roman Style" that was of course still way behind modern style when it comes to mutual respect and more peaceful approaches.

Further of course you're right about slavery and slavery for food and bed with physical punishment and torture is a different thing than the kind of self-inflicted slavery of  modern workers.

Finally i find it still a pity that despite of the many interesting topics that know no single, simple and once and for all answer, can't be discussed civilized here. This kind of narrow mindedness, aggression and righteousness is part of the problem we mainly deal here that is AGW and social injustice, racism etc. etc.

[oren]

Slavery is not just working very long hours for your food and lodging. Slaves were sexually used and abused, killed out of whim, taken from their home by force, moved wherever the seller or master chose, told whom to marry (if they married at all), their children taken from them whenever someone decided, beaten, and so on. Whoever thinks modern long hours are like past slavery, is as wrong as wrong could be.
(Not that I think the world is moving in the right direction, but facts are facts, modern factory worker in China or field worker in Niger has it waaaaaay better than Roman slave).

[bluice]

The Future IS better. Every single year since WW2 has seen a growing life expectancy, smaller child mortality, improving lifestyles for more and more people in this world. More and more countries are democratic, women can vote, there is no more child labour, no slavery, no 6*12 workweeks, less and less war deaths, even the homicide rate is collapsing.

Compare our present to the middle ages: 6 of your 9 children would have died before 10 (or rather 5 ), you'd have no teeth by the age of 40 if you were lucky to live that long, toiling every day from dawn till dusk.

Seriously people, what is wrong with you???

It should be obvious to everybody that by virtually any human measure quality of life is higher than ever and it keeps on improving. Yes, many things could be better than how they are but the big picture is nevertheless clear.

I think the main point here is that there is plenty of evidence showing we have made all this progress by overshooting the planet's carrying capacity. At some point overshoot will stop, one way or another. The question here is when will it stop and how will that manifest itself.

Until now we have managed to increased the planetary capacity by taking resources from other species. Eventually that also will have consequences.

[dnem]

bbr is broadly correct that the entire "the world is getting better" narrative is a fiction.  The returns of modernity have stalled.  We are at peak everything and it is not making the world a happier, more just place.  Are you aware that the global poverty figures count agrarian people living outside of the money economy as "extremely impoverished" because they make less than $2/day (or whatever the cutoff is now)? But if you move someone from an agrarian life into the city and pay him or her $2.01/day to assemble iPhones for 16 hrs/day at Foxconn, he or she has been "lifted from poverty"?  Which is the "better" life?

All the global statistics regarding GDP, productivity, poverty etc. use almost meaningless metrics that ignore true human wellbeing.  Modernity was a great ride: sanitation, antibiotics, reductions in outright slavery, women's rights, etc.  It delivered huge returns in well-being to many humans (albeit mostly purchased on fossil fuel "credit"). But it's done.  The biosphere is collapsing and the climate is unraveling.  If you can't see that now, you will soon.

[Klondike Kat]

Reading recent posts by nanning and KiwiGriff, it all boils down to how one determines the quality of one's life.  If quality is a summation of income, healthcare, housing, food security, medical care, and free time, then the quality of life of today wins hands down.  If quality of life is a measure of a more pristine nature, stress-free decision making, and closeness of friends and families, then the serfs may have been better off. 

[gerontocrat]

How bad? :

Humanity to the Biosphere: "So you expect me to adapt?"
Biosphere to Humanity      : "No, humanity, I expect you to die" .

When? : Soon enough
_____________________________________________________________
Evidence - Man's capacity for self-harm.

12 Aug 2019 Majority of Britons support 'Brexit by any means' - poll
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-poll/majority-of-britons-support-brexit-by-any-means-poll-idUKKCN1V21YG?il=0

[El Cid]

Reading recent posts by nanning and KiwiGriff, it all boils down to how one determines the quality of one's life.  If quality is a summation of income, healthcare, housing, food security, medical care, and free time, then the quality of life of today wins hands down.  If quality of life is a measure of a more pristine nature, stress-free decision making, and closeness of friends and families, then the serfs may have been better off.

You nailed it!

However, I believe that if any of these people who whine about the present state of things were suddenly sent back 3-4-500 years, they would realize after just one day how amazingly good their life in 2019 is.

[petm]

There's very little stopping people in the developed world from choosing the old ways again. Buy a piece of land and subsistence farm; Join a likeminded community, say, the Amish. Or move to the developing world, where there are still many people who have no choice how to live. Some people actually do this, but very few.

[dnem]

I don't think anyone is saying modernity is not comfortable.  I'm very comfortable in my well insulated, solar-powered home.  It's great and quite inexpensive to run.  But that has nothing to do with whether or not modernity has shit the bed.  It has.  Yes, you can imagine some post meat, post-consumer excess world.  But we ain't getting there. Quite the opposite. Emissions are rising.  CO2 concentration is rising. Meat consumption is rising. Hundreds of millions are clamoring to join the consumer class.  None of your techno-utopia is going to arrive anywhere remotely in time.

[Bruce Steele]

El Cid, Over half of US farms lose money. Off farm income makes these farms viable and land value appreciation means these farmers can exit if they choose to do so.

https://www.agriculture.com/over-half-of-us-farms-lose-money-usda-study-shows
 
Dry land farming does exist for some crops but here in the American West many areas are just too arid to farm without irrigation. Aquafiers cannot sustain current pumping rates in many areas but that doesn't mean farmers can simply switch back to dry land crops .  When the cost of pumping water is more than the value of the crop produced somethings gotta break. Around here grapes , cannabis or high end crops can continue as the aquafiers drop but you just can't take land valued at hundreds of thousands per acre and convert it to dry land crops. Instead land is converted to suburban housing, even more water intensive, but pumping costs aren't prohibitive for million dollar houses.

Besides the water problems fuel and fertilizers are completely dependent on BAU . This is true whether we are talking dry land or irrigated. Regenerative agriculture requires the ground to stay wet and dry land farming is not going to be sinking carbon, it will likely do the opposite. There are experiments with trying to sink carbon on pasture land but you need some form of feedstock to make compost and in a desert there just aren't many feedstock sources.

So as our aquafiers drop, and as rainfall patterns change ( here drier mostly ) we will simply take crop land and convert to grazing land or houses. You can still write off your loses with a few cattle running around but if the government was to change tax laws that currently supports large landowners a fairly large block of farmland would just convert back to desert. Farming is to a very large degree a land speculation program supported by tax law.

[nanning]

Reading recent posts by nanning and KiwiGriff, it all boils down to how one determines the quality of one's life.  If quality is a summation of income, healthcare, housing, food security, medical care, and free time, then the quality of life of today wins hands down.  If quality of life is a measure of a more pristine nature, stress-free decision making, and closeness of friends and families, then the serfs may have been better off.

I've read that in the days when we were still nomads, from before 12000y ago to >80000y ago if I'm correct, we spend only 4 hours a day on food and eating. Try to imagine that paradise with so much free time in an intimate group.
I'll gladly lose everything I have from civilisation for that experience. Yes there were dangers. It was real.

[Neven]

I can only share a personal anecdote. I once asked my grandfather, when he was 97 years old and living in a very rural and harsh part of Croatia whether things were better in the past. He said life was harder, there was more physical labour, but people stuck together and on the whole were more satisfied. Nowadays, he said, people have it much easier, living standards are higher, and work is less physically demanding, but they're all sick, jealous, unhappy and their kids are looking at screens all day.

When he died, it was the end of an age.

[Bruce Steele]

" it was the end of an age "   I meet many people from around the world who remember grandfathers farm . They come to my farm looking for something from a childhood memory. I think memory favors the good over the bad. Keeping that fond memory alive ,a working farm, makes work a little easier.
 

[El Cid]

...
 
Dry land farming does exist for some crops but here in the American West many areas are just too arid to farm without irrigation.

...Regenerative agriculture requires the ground to stay wet and dry land farming is not going to be sinking carbon, it will likely do the opposite. There are experiments with trying to sink carbon on pasture land but you need some form of feedstock to make compost and in a desert there just aren't many feedstock sources.

Bruce, I have a couple of comments on the above.

1) I have no experience of framing in the US West but US statistics say that only 7.6% of cropland/pasture are irrigated, so most farming is on unirrigated land.
2) Gabe Brown, one of the best known faces of regenerative ag farms near Bismarck, ND (never met him but seen a lot of videos) on 2000 acres (+3000 native pasture) - without irrigation. Now, Bismarck has 450 mm (18in) precipitation per year which is pretty dry, though they get most of that during the warmes season. And he seems to have increased carbon in his soils big time. So, I would think that it can be done in most of the US although the Western desert/mediterranean climates are more difficult I guess
3) Most corn/wheat/sunflower, etc. production in my country is non-irrigated on 500-700 mm rain per year. However, if you want to do vegetables you will definitely need irrigation

[Bruce Steele]

El Cid, Pasture in the Great Basin can sometimes be calculated by how many acres it takes to support one cow. So yes most pasture isn't irrigated. It is a big high altitude desert. The Hungarian Puszta looks verdant in comparison.
 I will look up Gabe but if you have good science on Carbon studies that document large improvements in soil carbon you should site them somewhere. Links are appreciated .

[El Cid]

Bruce,

Gabe Brown is all over the net, this is just one article:

https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/how-did-farmer-brown-bring-his-dying-land-back-brink

As for carbon:

"By 2010, Brown stopped using synthetic fertilizers and today, his crop yields are 20 percent higher than the average yields in his county. He’s also seen water-infiltration rates skyrocket—from one-half inch per hour, back in 1991, to one inch in nine seconds in 2015. Carbon-retention rates have risen dramatically, too. “On our home place, where we’ve done in-depth, significant testing, our soils have 96 tons of carbon per acre in the top 48 inches,” he says—compared with the 10 to 30 tons of stored carbon typically found in conventionally farmed soils of the Northern Plains."

[nanning]

I can only share a personal anecdote. I once asked my grandfather, when he was 97 years old and living in a very rural and harsh part of Croatia whether things were better in the past. He said life was harder, there was more physical labour, but people stuck together and on the whole were more satisfied. Nowadays, he said, people have it much easier, living standards are higher, and work is less physically demanding, but they're all sick, jealous, unhappy and their kids are looking at screens all day.

When he died, it was the end of an age.

Neven, I think your grandfather was a very wise man.

[trm1958]

Here is John Michael Greer's take on the answer to the thread title's question:
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-fire-this-time/
TL;DR:
Soon (in about a decade and extending over half a millennium) and very bad (but not the end of the human species...think repeat of the climate change that inspired all those Flood Legends everybody seems to have).