The Age of the Idiot Versus the Age of Extinction

Hello, This Is the End of the World Calling, Would You Like To Survive? Press One for “Yes”

Image Credit: Amr Alfikry, follow him here and here.

I have to warn you, you’re not going to like reading this. Any of this. Go…I don’t know…watch a Marvel Movie or something. Play with a dog. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen next, and it’s going to be as real and ugly as it gets. You’ve been warned. Ok, ready? Walk right on through the gates of hell with me, Dante, and Virgil. 

Take a look at planet earth today, and you’ll see something laughable happening, that history will gawp at. When I say look, I mean literally. There’s New York City, covered in a sinister, creepy, gray haze. That haze is literally the smoke and ashes from Canada, (big) parts of which are…on fire.

The haze reaches down past Boston, through New York, beyond Philadelphia, all the way south to…Tennessee.

The planet is burning. And you can literally smell it. “One New York City commuter described the smell as progressing during the day from ‘burnt toast’ to ‘campfire.’”

You can smell the scent of the Age of Extinction in the air.

It’s not even summer yet.

That’s the bleak part. The funny part? Nobody cares. Sure, there are a handful of people who do care. You, me, a handful of activists, a small number of scientists, a tiny smattering of politicians and executives. That’s about…it.

This is the Age of Extinction. You can…smell it. This is the Age of Extinction. And…LOL…almost nobody cares. So there’s New York City, going about its business. All those deals have to be done! Hey, somebody’s got to buy designer linens!! Who’s going to keep the economy afloat, for Pete’s sake! If I kid, it’s to make a point, which is that we’ve reached the utterly surreal place where you can smell Canada burning from Fifth Avenue in Manhattan…and nobody cares.

Now, that tells us something, at least if you ask me, but first let me shade in the “nobody cares” part, and then we’ll come to what everyone really wants to know, which is, how do I survive all of this without going broke?

Who cares about Extinction? Not Americans, that’s for sure. They’re such…strange…beleaguered…beaten people…that climate change barely even registers. A majority of Americans don’t even want to phase out fossil fuels. Go ahead, join me — ahahahaha — in deranged laughter. You can smell Canada burning from Fif — never mind. You get the point.

Then there’s Europe. Europeans are different. They say they care about climate change, intensely so. It’s near the top of their list of priorities. And then they go out and vote for…far right parties. Increasingly so. A few years from now, Europe will more or less be a far right continent, if current trends hold, and there’s no reason to think they won’t. Needless to say, far right parties are…LOL…not exactly against climate change…because of course, hey, if you can get rid of those nasty subhumans with megafires and floods, great! Awesome! If you think I kid, let’s consider gentle, idiotic Sweden, where 75% of people say “climate change and its consequences are the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21st century.” Meanwhile, they put a party so extreme it was founded by a literal SS member in power…and the first thing they did was…dissolve the Environment Ministry.

Join me again in deranged laughter, because, well, now you see the scope of the problem, which is this.

This is the Age of Extinction versus the Age of the Idiot. There are situations in life which are win/win. This is one of those. Both of these forces are going to win, the idiots and extinction, hand in merry hand with one another.Think of all those New Yorkers happily sipping their mocha-latte-ccinos (oat milk only please!)….while the planet burns…and they gaze into the ashes where a sky used to be…not giving much of a damn about anything except their next deal, pair of jeans, apartment, boss.

Let’s keep going with “nobody cares,” before I tell you what you really want to know, hey, Umair, how do I keep my money safe in all this? 

Then there are young people. They care about the planet! They care so much that…instead of voting…they’re…glued to Instafluencers…Spotify…whatever the next creepy, dumbass, hyper-exploitative schtick Big Tech Bro comes up with next is. Don’t kid yourself. We economists have a principle called “revealed preference” — it just means that actions count far more than words. We see Europeans revealed preference isn’t climate change at all, but kissing the rear ends of demagogues, and then polishing them up eagerly for good measure — just like Americans, really. Sorry if that makes you mad, but it has to be said. Young people are like that too — their revealed preference is…well…dumb capitalist shit, repulsive nonsense, like watching some fool sell them stuff on Instagram and pretending it’s not an infomercial…while the world burns.

Nobody cares about the Age of Extinction. There’s one group left, really, which is developing nations. What about them? Here’s India… “cracking down on critics of coal.” There’s China, which is happily pumping carbon into the skies like, hey, it’s 1899. I guess in the grand scheme of things they can be forgiven a little, because, well, they’re poor countries who never got to exploit much of anyone or anything, and so they never got rich. But still, it leaves us with the painful fact, all too exposed.

This is the Age of Extinction, versus the Age of the Idiot. Nobody cares about Extinction, and — whew, dude, what’s that smell? Bro! That’s Canada burning! Ha-ha!! This is awesome! Hilarious, right? Amazing! Hey, let’s take a pic of it, post it on insta, then go work on a “deal.” Darling, why is the sky grey this morning? Did you burn…the…designer French toast? Or — oh God, was it the linens? No, Mom, that’s just Canada on fire. No big deal! Hey, Lala the Instafluencer-God said this manicure bar is divine!

The scale of this problem is impossible to comprehend, because, well, who can comprehend that many people not comprehending the end of the world as they know it when it’s literally raining ashes into their designer coffees? LOL. I know, I know, give it a rest, Umair. Whew. Enough, dude. Sorry, look. We need to get real about this.