Why is global uncertainty at an all-time high in 2026? World Uncertainty Index surges to 106,862 in February - worse than COVID, 2008 crash, and 9/11 combined:
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@cstross it's what happen when you elect a rapist pedophile with demencia as US president i guess ?
@cstross Why so much uncertainty? I'm really not sure.
Let's not mince words here.
The reason is Trump.
When the president of arguably the nation with the biggest military in the world is suffering from massive dementia and his enablers are basically establishing a fascist nation, the world IS afraid.
For good reason.
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@Firlefanz Yes that's a factor, but there are many complicating issues: we're undergoing the biggest global energy economy transition since the coal-to-oil transition circa 1890-1940, an unprecedented crisis of capitalism due to the global removal of checks and balances, the weaponization of the internet by Russia (and Russian-backed proxies, mostly fascists), the end of the Third World (China has developed: India is only a short distance behind, Africa's mostly doing much better), and so on.
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True, and there is the looming climate catastrophe, but all of this is made so much worse by the rise of fascism and the influence of the billionaire oligarchs all over the world.
Trump is spearheading the dive into chaos and sabotaging everything, from science to trade to diplomacy. Unfortunately, there are plenty of brothers in spirit who follow him without hesitation.
@cstross The status quo cannot hold.
No one in a position of power ever expresses an alternative; they are, instead, absolutely committed to maintaining the status quo by any means, up to and including committed genocide on themselves, never mind (generic) you.
There is no law but power, and power wants everyone to die because god won't love them enough.
And since we all need the big machine of society and exchange to run in order to live, it's easy for everyone to die. People have noticed.
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Eh. The "prediction of calamity from change" is one of neofascism's most flagrant and easy to disprove cultural ops
Human history simply doesn't support the idea that as civilizations die, so too do the social and cultural technologies that sustain human quality of life, with few exceptions
The US is fucked. But globally who really cares? The US doesn't make anything. We're an ecumenopoly: imperial seat reliant on its empire for survival. And we just blew up our empire. 🤷♂️
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@johnzajac We eat oil. You can quibble about the stylized fact of ten tonnes of oil to a tonne of food, but we eat oil.
Extracting oil breaks agriculture and habitability.
It's a real problem.
It's also the status quo.
The problem I'm identifying isn't _change_; it's the violent refusal of change. The ongoing American collapse isn't ending the Oil Empire; it's leaving us with a zombie Oil Empire no one has the power to kill.
@cstross what's the unit of uncertainty? What does an increase of one on the index mean?
@cstross Because now we are beyond any doubt that the people in power are either batshit crazy or grossly incompetent.
Before, we just suspected it.
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@EricLawton @Remittancegirl I would totally allow "evil" as a synonym for "sociopathic", except a lot of the aforementioned sociopaths are christian or fascist indoctrinees who believe the definition of "evil" is "someone who doesn't share my views and/or ethnicity". Evil is susceptible to redefinition.
@cstross It seems to me like leadership vacuum - which is what happens, when managers are incompetent or disinterested.
@cstross What's the uncertainty on that uncertainty? I would like to take my error bars error bars out to the bar.
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@jwz There's probably some linguistic uncertainty in there, too! But the article itself highlights a bunch of worrying trends.
@jwz @cstross and now we all wonder if @dnalounge is that bar. or error bar.
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@cubeos @cstross @dnalounge Buying a bar was certainly an error so who can say