🔚 Lessons from the end of the world: Why we take civilization for granted

The degrowth dream of a 'simpler life' isn’t about escaping modernity — it’s about buying a curated version, one with solar panels, trust funds, and barn parties. It’s not simplicity. It’s aesthetic

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,

I consume plenty of dystopian, even apocalyptic media — and not just because I like action-oriented, science fiction-adjacent thrillers. Many of these films, shows, and books have an Up Wing message buried inside, sometimes intentionally, but usually not. Interstellar is a great example of the former with its warning about the existential and spiritual risk of rejecting progress. But sometimes you have to dig a little, as in Children of Men (which I recently wrote about).

Or consider the 2017 book The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker, which I just finished. It follows Edgar Hill, an utterly unremarkable, middle-class, suburban dad navigating a devastated Scotland after a swarm of asteroids pepper the Northern Hemisphere. Separated from his evacuated family, he faces a daunting 500-mile trek across blasted and hostile terrain to hopefully rejoin them on the English coast.

Of course, the premise immediately strikes me (pun partially intended) as making the techno-solutionist case for asteroid tracking and defense.