Join the Fun!

allbrightwes , Oladimeji Ajegbile / pexels Report

#2

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Factual information on the Internet. There's a churn of AI created content that's being taken as fact, and used as the basis for new articles and content. Sifting through information to validate it is already too much effort for many and will only become more difficult.

Final score:

78points

POST

Cat Chat 2 months ago

Not just AI. So many things on the internet that are wrong, just because the person who posted thought they were right. So much fake stuff made by people on their own (without the assistance of AI) for clout.

35points

#3

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Ogallala Aquifer. You know how Kansas and Nebraska are known for essentially being endless fields of wheat and corn? Well they do that by drilling wells to one of the world's largest aquifers deep under the Midwest. There isn't enough consistent rain fall in those areas for all those crops, so well water makes up the difference. But, we're draining it and it can't be replenished. Once it's drained, it's Dust Bowl 2.0 and no more large scale farming in the Midwest.

Judge_Bredd3 , Tom Fisk / pexels Report

Final score:

74points

POST

PrettyJoyBird 2 months ago

How much remains? What year is it estimated to be gone?

12points

Crafty_Bad_6232 , Polina Tankilevitch / pexels Report

The secret to systems surviving and thriving in any setting is to consistently put in time, effort, and money to maintain them. That way, they’ll operate optimally and won’t collapse in the far-off future. To paraphrase comedian John Oliver: infrastructure might not be sexy, but it’s vital.

According to one US Senate proposal, there is a massive gap between the money that’s spent on infrastructural maintenance and what’s needed for the sake of safety and proper functioning. The proposal notes that, based on the findings of the American Society of Civil Engineers [ASCE], the US would have to spend $3.6 trillion “just to bring our existing Infrastructure into a state of good repair by 2020.”

At the time, the Senate proposal noted that the infrastructure investment gap could be responsible for a loss of $4 trillion of gross domestic product and the loss of 2.5 million jobs. That’s a massive blow to any economy. And the situation may be getting even worse!

The American Society of Civil Engineers states that according to a recent analysis, the total infrastructure investment gap has gone from $2.1 trillion over 10 years to $2.59 trillion. The ASCE notes that the knock-on effects will be devastating. By 2039, it would result in the loss of $10 trillion in GDP, over 3 million jobs, and $2.24 trillion in exports over two decades.

#4

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Antibiotic effectiveness.

Final score:

68points

POST

Sindhu P 2 months ago (edited)

Phage therapy can be used to fight some of the infections caused by antibiotic resistant bacteria, but it has some negative side effects, such as causing the immune system to overreact and it could be difficult to find the exact variety of bacteriophage to treat a particular infection.

10points

Funkrusher_Plus , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report

#5

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending General common courtesy and civilized behavior.

Final score:

66points

POST

LSD 2 months ago

We don’t deserve bees

25points

#6

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Bees.

We are losing bees at an alarming rate.

As far as important species go, they are top of the list. They are critical pollinators: they pollinate 70 of the around 100 crop species that feed 90% of the world. ~~Honey~~ bees are responsible for $30 billion a year in crops.

[Produce options with Bees](https://bestbees.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/produce-with-bees-wf.jpeg)

[Produce options without Bees](https://bestbees.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/produce-without-bees-wf.jpeg)

When the Bees are gone, we will shortly follow.

DoctoreVodka , Pixabay / pexels Report

Final score:

63points

POST

Jeff Gabrisl 2 months ago

A big part of this in the US is lawn culture. Everyone wants a flat green field or green grass and no weeds. The problem is that those weeds are the flowers that native pollinators depend on. Most bee species are solitary and don't build hives to store honey. I get county code enforcement called on me all the time because I don't mow my lawn when the native wildflowers start blooming. I would rather have a bunch of busy little bees flying around my yard than have a boring flat green field. I'm lucky that I don't have an HOA, because some them don't allow the native wildflowers even if they are in a garden area, because they consider them weeds that could spread into the perfectly manicured lawns of other homeowners.

30points

Poor infrastructure affects everyone. “When we fail to invest in our infrastructure, we pay the price. Poor roads and airports mean travel times increase. An aging electric grid and inadequate water distribution make utilities unreliable,” the ASCE says.

“Problems like these translate into higher costs for businesses to manufacture and distribute goods and provide services. These higher costs, in turn, get passed along to workers and families. By 2039, America’s overdue infrastructure bill will cost the average American household $3,300 a year, or $63 a week.”

#7

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Publicly traded companies constantly being like "we did good not great. More money next quarter. Oh that's good not great. Even more money next quarter" in the 4 years ive been with my company, my production quota has tripled and it's unsustainable. Every quarter has to make more money than the last otherwise it's failing. This is almost every single publicly traded company. Corners being cut, profits maximised, employees compromised. It's endlessly happening

16RabidCats , Lukas / pexels Report

Final score:

62points

POST

Owen 2 months ago

End stage capitalism.

41points

nerdy99 , cottonbro studio / pexels Report

#8

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Honestly, the education system feels like it's barely holding on.

Final score:

56points

POST

Elle Lian 2 months ago

I worked for a district that had a 50% turnover rate for teachers in years 1-5. They were the highest paying district in the area. Staff were leaving primarily because of student behavior. I worked in the pre-kindergarten class and lasted five years. I had kids destroy my classroom, run away, open defiance with no parent or admin support, throw chairs at me, and completely stop any teaching. Out of 9 classes, everyone had at least one student like this and most had 3-4. A colleague had her pinkie fractured and her knee dislocated (two separate incidents) by the same student. These students were usually returned to the classroom the same day. When I switched districts, it was a bit better. I only had one or two of the students each year. After 13 years of teaching, I finally left.

12points

#9

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The tower of laundry I've been avoiding for weeks

FlorallFairy , rfduck / flickr Report

Final score:

54points

POST

Tucker Cahooter 2 months ago

So where is the cat supposed to sleep then?

31points

doodle_rooster , Dimitris Kamaras / flickr Report

Generally speaking, many people don’t give a damn about systems until they start breaking down and affecting their lives in a negative way.

For example, many folks won’t start worrying about exercise and healthy food until they get a health scare. Nor does your average driver care much about road maintenance until they hit a series of potholes, nor your resident worry about plumbing until there's a leak. Similarly, a hands-off manager might not notice the signs that their team is burning out until it’s too late.

#10

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Garisenda -- one of two remaining 12th century towers in Bologna, Italy.

I saw them in April. It looks pretty ridiculous to be honest. They have the area blocked off by some shipping containers because that towers probably going to fall any day. It looks like there are some half-hearted restoration attempts happening but no idea what their plan is...

Final score:

45points

POST

Sardinian 2 months ago (edited)

The tower will not collapse. It would have but they already started an enormous plan to stabilise it from further oscillations using some of the scaffolding used in the past to do the very same thing with the leaning tower of Pisa (which was collapsing). By the end of 2024 the Garisenda will be stabilised and in 2025 the adjacent Torre degli Asinelli re-opens to the public again. You can read about this here: https://www.ilpost.it/2024/08/05/lavori-garisenda-bologna/

17points

MantisAwakening , Eternal Child / pexels Report

#11

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The food chain. I’m still amazed no one is talking about the fact that insect biomass has declined by ∼47% and abundance declined by ∼61.5% over the last 35 years. In some areas it’s measured 75% decline in a single generation.

This “insect apocalypse” is…very bad. Don’t just take my word for it:

> Indeed, most biologists agree that the world has entered its sixth mass extinction event, the first since the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million y ago, when more than 80% of all species, including the nonavian dinosaurs, perished.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023989118

Final score:

45points

POST

Huddo's sister 2 months ago

Especially since we are being told insects are the protein source of the future as we need to reduce our global footprint.

16points

ipsofactoshithead , Tima Miroshnichenko / pexels Report

#12

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The education system. We have maybe 10 more years before a whole section of teachers retires, and then we’re absolutely screwed. 50% of teachers quit within the first 5 years, and that statistic is much higher for SPED teachers. We aren’t going to have anyone to work in the schools. Get ready for your kids to be “taught” by an online program with a person who babysits 50 kids at one time and has no training. It’s going to get bad fast, even faster in bad union states. And if you have a kid with a lot of support needs? Truly I don’t know what they’ll do. I work with that population and we currently are missing two teachers and 3 others are on emergency permits. It’s a huge problem and keeps getting worse because the pay is so bad that no one wants to work with these students. I went to the hospital on Friday from a bite from a student (truly a manifestation of his disability) who desperately needs a 2:1 but the district is making it impossible. I barely get to teach cause I’m putting out fires all day.

Final score:

44points

POST

Huddo's sister 2 months ago

It's so hard to get teachers to stay in the field because they get terrible pay for the amount of work. If the state funded more support workers for students with challenging behaviours it would make a lot of difference. Teachers could spend their time teaching and not battling with these behaviours. Or if class sizes were smaller. Either way, many children need diverse learning structures which increases the need for differentiated teaching, which spreads them thin. Also having supportive management is important.

16points

It’s always best to imagine the possible negative consequences that might arise if you do nothing in terms of maintenance, and then strive to consistently put in the effort to avoid the worst-case scenarios. This strategy might not be perfect, but it’s down-to-earth and very grounded. Incremental maintenance is incredibly powerful. And it sure beats panicked rushing about when things start to fall apart before your eyes.

What infrastructure projects, industries, and systems have you personally seen collapsing in your local areas, dear Pandas? Is anything being done about it? How would the collapse affect you personally? Let us know in the comments.

#13

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The red supergiant star, Betelgeuse. It's speculated to soon be going to or have already undergone a core collapse supernova but the light of the explosion hasn't yet reached us. It will shine as bright as a full moon for a year when its light reaches Earth, casting its own shadows even. The radius of the supernova is just out of harm's reach, but wild animals tend to use the moon to help them navigate at night, and scientists are concerned that wildlife all over the globe may confuse this supernova with the moon, potentially disrupting the ecosystem.

OoTgoated , K Bahr / flickr Report

Final score:

42points

POST

ADJ 2 months ago

Supernovas happened in the past, and wildlife somehow managed to live through it. And they will live through Betelgeuse too.

15points

halleberryhaircut , Tim Mossholder / pexels Report

#14

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Florida citrus industry -- specifically oranges. There is a fungus that is spreading and infecting groves across the state. Unfortunately, we have no way to kill the fungus. The only solution is to cut down all citrus trees within a certain radius of an infected tree. Many farmers are choosing to sell their farm rather than try to start all over.

Final score:

38points

POST

Manana Man 2 months ago

They're having a similar problem with bananas. The likely solution may be to abandon the current variety grown everywhere and switch to others.

23points

angel_withredeyes11 , RDNE Stock project / pexels Report

#15

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending A month ago I was at my grandparents' house. For an inheritance issue they called an architect. The first thing he told them is that they can no longer live in the house, because it is at risk of collapse. That night nobody slept.

Final score:

37points

POST

Jcusack 2 months ago

Welp, sounds like we're moving!

6points

HeyImBandit , Ahmed akacha / pexels Report

#16

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending World peace, seriously we are on the brink of some heavy s**t coming our way and the stakes have never been higher (nukes, chem, bio weapons) just overall fuckery

Final score:

34points

POST

Jeff Gabrisl 2 months ago

I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, and how much it meant to so many people. The Scorpions even wrote ”Winds of Change", one of the most beautiful songs ever written, because of it. I remember hearing that song for the first time and thinking about how lucky we are to finally ending the threat of nuclear apocalypse. Now when I hear that song it just makes me feel sorry for the new generation. There will always be politicians that want over peace 😔

19points

-im-your-huckleberry , Rodolfo Quirós / pexels Report

#17

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending There's a waste product of burning coal called fly ash. We use it in concrete. It makes the concrete better and cheaper. Nobody is building new coal power plants, and old ones are shutting down. It's getting harder and harder to source the ash. If we have to source it from far away, like China, the transportation costs erase the cost saving. We can get the same concrete with just cement and added chemicals but it's more expensive. In ten years we probably won't be using it at all.

It's a really minor thing that will have far reaching consequences. Architects and engineers will probably look at ways to reduce concrete in their buildings as the costs increase. It's not likely to impact residential, but big downtown architecture is sure to be affected.

Final score:

32points

POST

Pernille 2 months ago

Yay, concrete is a terrible material seen from an ecological point of view, and it doesn't last very long either.

21points

ImprovementFar5054 , Bernd Thaller / flickr Report

#18

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Colorado river as the main water supply for 3 states with major cities.

Final score:

32points

POST

Pedantic Panda 2 months ago

Already doesn't exist for many Mexicans.

13points

Wookie_Nipple , Maurício Mascaro / pexels Report

#19

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Abundant water and food. I think things will hold up ok through most of our lives, but sh**s going to get grim in the next couple generations.

Final score:

31points

POST

Tucker Cahooter 2 months ago

So I guess one s**t will be censored but multiple shits are okay

14points

lobsterman2112 , Antoni Shkraba / pexels Report

#20

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Health care in the U.S.

I'm not talking about paying for health care in the U.S. I think that's fixable. (You can cut the costs by 30% by making it all covered by Medicare For All.)

I'm talking about actually having enough physicians, nurse practitioners, and physicians assistants to treat everyone.

Burnout has gotten a lot worse in the U.S. Almost every physician I know is talking about retiring within five years or at least cutting back dramatically.

The big problems:

1. Not enough medical schools / residency programs to train physicians. My hospital is in need of just about all specialties. Pre-Med programs remain as a weed-out for medical schools, which just means we need more medical schools. We make up for the lack of them by importing physicians from other countries. We need more medical schools and weed out a lot less potential graduates. PreMed undergraduate courses include Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Organic Chemistry. I'm not saying any of them need to be removed. Just make enough medical schools that the medical schools will take B's in these courses than require almost perfect GPAs for admissions. I can guarantee that almost no physician uses any of these courses in their day to day practice of medicine. If they did, it would be required in their continuing medical education, which it is not.
2. Too much paperwork. Too much hoops we have to go through on a regular basis. Not just the hundred+ hours of continuing education, the quarterly tests to keep our board certifications up to date, the every two year Basic Life Support / Extended Life Support classes we have to take, Now there is mandatory education for opiod abuse, child welfare, and God only knows what else. Also every two year licensing by your state medical board, DEA certification, etc.
3. Too much competition in an area (!), forcing physicians to compete with each other and therefore burning us out faster. It also means more duplication of effort in an area.
4. Most physicians now work for health networks / big business, which means less leniency when we need something. ie: need to take a day off? You need to put it in the calendar 3 months in advance. You want to buy a stethoscope? It counts as part of your tech purchase for the year. Yes, a stethoscope (not an electric one) is considered tech, just like a phone or computer.
5. Patients have gotten a heck of a lot more demanding, and aggressively so. Everyone Googles up their problems and thinks they have the most rare BS disease. No one wants to listen to their physicians advise and just give time to see if things get better on their own. And if the physician doesn't say exactly what the patient wants to here, the patient screams it from every website and review place so everyone else thinks the physician is an idiot. You don't like what I say? Please go elsewhere. I don't have time for your BS and the fact that you think you are the 1 in 10,000,000 20-year-olds who actually has a congenital cause of heart attack at your age.

BTW: I see #5 on Reddit almost every day. I sometimes comment about it and get downvoted to oblivion. Now I just sigh and move onwards. I won't convince people that unnecessary testing is (almost certainly) not going to make them better and more than likely cause more anxiety when a result comes back not exactly what they expected.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. Just a burnt out physician taking a couple minutes off before getting back to work on a Sunday morning. Cut me a break. I've been working 14 days in a row now. Most weeks not this bad, fortunately.

Final score:

29points

POST

Huddo's sister 2 months ago

TLDR all of it, but the gist from skimming it is that it's a similar situation as in Australia. Too many staff getting burned out and leaving the profession and not enough incentives for engaging new recruits. For paramedics, many ambulances are being 'ramped up' at hospitals for hours because there aren't enough doctors to admit the patients. An elderly man died yesterday because it took four hours for an ambulance to get there because of that issue in conjunction with 50 crews being on sick leave. The whole system is broken and politicians agree, but aren't putting things in place quickly enough for any repair to have an impact.

13points

Mr-Safety , David Riaño Cortés / pexels Report

#21

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Amazon

To some degree it generates its own weather patterns with the vast amounts of water evaporated into the atmosphere from leaves. Deforestation is putting it close to a tipping point where it can no longer maintain those patterns. Once reached, the feedback loop is likely irreversible.

Random Safety Tip: First dates (with someone you don’t already know and trust) should always be someplace public with cameras like a coffee shop. Trust your gut if something feels off.

Final score:

29points

POST

iseefractals 2 months ago

Manana Man, it's almost impressive how well worded your idiotic opinions are. Do you have some sort of magic padded helmet, or have you just spent so much time hanging around in echo chambers of like minded individuals you can no longer tell fact from fiction? Yes, the earth will be fine on a long enough scale...humanity, and every living thing currently residing on the planet, will not be. We're living through the 6th mass extinction, right now. The effects of Co2 were first observed in 1854, being that higher concentrations of Co2 in the air caused it to get hotter, faster, and retain that heat for longer periods of time. This observation was treated as fact, and built upon for NINETY years....up until the end of world war 2 when cars became synonymous with freedom. The planet is not well balanced, it's DELICATELY balanced, and humans have f****d that balance up. it's not a point of debate to anyone but idiots like you who think the sun and the moon are the "same person!"

13points

#22

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Literally all infrastructure in North America. The majority of underground infrastructure (pipes, water lines, sewer systems) has been completely ignored in terms of maintenance, and has been TOTALLY ignored in terms of budgeting replacing the assets.

There are towns that have coming bills of 10s-100s of millions (not even mentioning larger cities) that have saved approximately 0% of the required amount by constantly pushing out the life time estimation of the assets.

lots and lots of bills are coming due shortly if the engineering estimates are accurate and very few towns have saved anything for this scenario.

We're basically living in a world where no one wants to be the person to say that we need to save money for long term planning, and instead everyone hopes things don't fail while they are leading and they can pass the buck.

spinmove , Bayram Er / pexels Report

Final score:

27points

POST

QueerAxolotls 2 months ago

My city is currently re-doing the sewer system since its old, was made when we had maybe a third of our current population, and is literally terracotta. Even that (very essential) task had to go through a ton of loopholes to get approved.

9points

TicanDoko , Mark Wolfe / Wikipedia Report

#23

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The US blood supply is still hard hit from COVID and the American Red Cross isn’t lying when they say we’re in an emergency platelet shortage so if you can donate platelets, please donate.

Final score:

27points

POST

Dragon mama 2 months ago

There are some archaic rules about donation that desperately need to change if we are ever going to have enough. There are rules that were needed when first implemented (ie. AIDS epidemic) that aren't necessary anymore. Sometimes it's because the situation has changed but mostly because of the technological advances. There are many people who are blocked from donating for nonsensical reasons who would gladly do it regularly

25points

Squigglepig52 , Jan Kroon / pexels Report

#24

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Well, top soil is getting super depleted. What used to be yards deep fertile soil is down to inches. Washed or blown away due to agriculture and irrigation.

Final score:

26points

POST

Vicki Perizzolo 2 months ago

Start composting and stop using pesticides

6points

#25

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Internet security. Both keeping our information safe & keeping the internet lights on. Some predict that a 24 hour worldwide shutdown could be cataclysmic & this whole system is being held up by toothpicks.

eju2000 , Pixabay / pexels Report

Final score:

24points

POST

Tucker Cahooter 2 months ago

Well a botched security update recently came quite close to doing exactly that...

14points

reiveroftheborder , Skitterphoto / pexels Report

#26

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Human migration patterns will put a massive strain on various countries around the globe as the environment changes

Final score:

22points

POST

BarfyCat 2 months ago

Already is.

6points

#27

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Rio Grande levees in El Paso's Upper Valley are old and need repair, and will fail in a major flood. The low lying suburbs in the Upper Valley were recently deemed to be in a FEMA flood plain.

oddlotz , B575 / Wikipedia Report

Final score:

21points

POST

Scott Rackley 2 months ago

Same with New Orleans. If another category 4 comes, there are levees that will fail.

2points

#28

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The young childcare industry. Increased regulation to make facilities safer (a very good thing!) had the unintended consequence of increasing costs for owners. You now need more teachers who have training and certification, not to mention the patience and stamina to work with young kids all day. The pay is comparable to fast food without the benefits. Owners have to find a way to pay teachers enough to retain them while keeping costs down so parents can afford to send their kids. It's damn near impossible without an infusion of government investments.

gpedp , Yan Krukau / pexels Report

Final score:

21points

POST

frederick clause 2 months ago

Here's a radical idea. Lets make it possible for a family to live on one income again. I know this goes against the business model to keep wages low and profits high but it might actually make it possible to sustain the population.

17points

TrishPanda18 , Eric Prouzet / pexels Report

#29

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Housing prices along the coast in Florida. Most of the state is barely three feet above sea level and flooding is getting worse and worse every year. In fifty years, sea level is going to be much more inland than it is now and no amount of "beach restoration" is going to help it.

Final score:

21points

POST

ConstantlyJon 2 months ago

My aunt and uncle saved their entire lives to retire, moved to a house on the IC in Flagler, and got two 500-year floods in just a couple of years. People who think that it isn't a problem until the coast is literally "under water" are nuts. Now my aunt and uncle are desperately trying to move, but no one wants to buy their house.

11points

Ruby-Shark , Donald Tong / pexels Report

#30

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The UK criminal justice system Edit: For any non Brits passing through. The new gvt has had to announce it's releasing prisoners early because it's got no space for incoming suspects on remand and new convicts. The last gvt shut like half the courts, the remaining ones are falling apart and understaffed. There aren't enough judges so there's a two year backlog of serious cases. The junior end of the profession are so poorly paid they've been on strike repeatedly. And let's not forget the police have basically stopped investigating shoplifting and other smaller crimes. This after 14 years of the "law and order" party being in power. Thank goodness the former chief prosecutor is now prime minister so maybe there's a hope of fixing it.

Final score:

20points

POST

Roxy222uk 2 months ago

I have high hopes of James Timpson as minister for prisons. He has decades of experience working with prisoners and of the prison system, and he really cares. He has said that 1/3 of people in prison should be there, 1/3 should be being treated for mental health problems, and 1/3 shouldn't be there at all (interestingly, often this is women, apparently). Having said that he is just one man, so it depends how much he can achieve within the system as it is.

9points

Alternative_Sort_404 , Antoni Shkraba / pexels Report

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#31

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending You will no longer ‘own’ the vehicle you ‘purchase’. I believe that electric vehicles are the way of the future, but manufacturers (of cars, trucks, tractors, boats,etc) have been restricting access to necessary diagnostic and repair information for a couple decades now… and it’s only going to get worse unless we fight for ‘right to repair’ legislation

Final score:

15points

POST

B 2 months ago

I am just curious to those of you that lease. You are signing a long term rental agreement with a balloon payment at the end or roll that balloon into your next lease. With cars that now offer a 10 year warranty how is leasing a better option? You are still responsible for wearable items like tires & maintenance either way. I am honestly curious why people feel leasing is the best option? I'm not trying to start an argument really want to know

4points

#32

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending IT knowledge. There are several factors at work here.

* Colleges are mostly a few years behind trends, if not more. So a lot of recent grads are way behind from the gate. Most colleges are now just shills for business licenses called "degrees," You need this "license" to be "allowed" to have a entry job, and they know it, and charge whatever the market can bear. Pearson Vue has seized a huge amount of this space, which just adds to the cost, and tries to enforce certification tracks with government contract specs and all sorts of inroads.
* The "cash cow" of graduating college with 6 figure jobs waiting for them is mostly gone. The junior roles have been outsourced overseas, and have been replaced with people with multiple hats. There are very few "middle roles," so the track of going from junior to senior has a HUGE gap that keeps getting wider.
* The senior roles are starting to age out: many went into management, and some are retiring. Knowledge and experience is getting lost.
* Companies reliant on technology to surve are cutting technology costs as a "cost center" because of the pressure of rising capitalism always producing value year to year. Thus, they send more jobs overseas, and senior roles become too costly to maintain.
* We are incurring a lot of "debt" in aging infrastructure, and IT is no different. There are systems operating high-cost operations in factories, transportation, and utilities that haven't been upgraded in decades, and some of the people who knew how it all worked are dying off.

Eventually, there won't be enough senior roles to teacher younger people anything, and there will be a cascading series of knowledge gaps in current infrastructure, leading to huge failures. People say that "kids today know computers" but they really don't: most only know GUI and how to operate an iPad, not what makes the iPad work under the hood or how the Internet works.

punkwalrus , Mizuno K / pexels Report

Final score:

13points

POST

Manana Man 2 months ago

All kinds of systems that haven't been upgraded in the US and Europe are in that condition because the jobs have been outsourced to use cheaper labor in Asia.

2points

Engelgrafik , Richard Howe / flickr Report

#33

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Lots of things according to r/collapse

Personally I live in a city called Lowell MA and there's the Rourke Bridge built 40 years ago that was meant to be temporary. Honestly it reminds me of those horrible scary bridges you've seen over rivers in Siberia or some other place in central Asia. It's loud and bumpy and you can feel the whole thing sway because it gets 25,000 cars crossing it EVERY DAY.

Not only that... you can actually walk under it since there's a river walk pathway it connects to, and you can see rusted sections just rotting away. About 6 months ago a truck crossed it and a panel on the surface somehow see-sawed up into the gas tank. The truck made it across but not before losing probably 80 to 100 gallons of diesel onto the bridge and into the river below. The river had a marshy / swampy area near the bridge and you could see the fuel slick eddying and collecting into that area. I can't imagine much survived underneath. I'm sure a lot of fish eggs and small aquatic animals died down there.

The city, state and feds have known this bridge needs replacing for decades and they know about the rust and rot, but they continue to say that it will last for now. Don't they always say that though?

There is a plan to make a new one next to it... but it won't be done until 2028... which we all know means it'll probably drag on into 2029, 2030, etc.

I honestly don't think it will last that long.

Final score:

12points

POST

Sue User 2 months ago

Forty two percent of bridges in USA are over 50 years old. Many are in disrepair. Hence the Infastructure Act.

5points

#34

The AMOC: known to Americans as the Gulf Stream section of the current. The ocean is warming, and the whole system is starting to slow.

NativeMasshole Report

Final score:

12points

POST

Manana Man 2 months ago

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

#35

The Los Angeles Court Reporter system, among many other county services like the Health Department. You can add several county IT systems to that list

Court reporters went home in 2020 and most of them just never came back. There is such demand for court reporters that they now start at $100k a year with signing bonuses. Except they still cant hire enough qualified people. The problem being that they were a very important part of the justice system in Los Angeles.

Many courts dont allow electronic recordings as accurate portrayals of court discussions. In some probate and misdemeanor courts they do, but all others need a court reporter. If a judge rules against you, a properly created court transcript is needed to appeal your decision. Those arent being given out in many cases any longer, and cases cant be delayed indefinitely. No transcript, no appeal. No appeal means serious constitutional violations.

kegman83 Report

Final score:

12points

POST

deejak 2 months ago

Til

2points

SatelliteArray , James Watt / flickr Report

#36

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending The Colorado River’s water levels are dropping consistently and dropping fast. The Hoover Dam eventually won’t be able to make electricity. There’s so much that relies on the Colorado and eventually it’s all going to fall apart. So much farming, several major cities, tens of millions of people. They’re either going to have to relocate or start importing water from elsewhere. On top of that, 53% of aquifers in the US are losing water.

Final score:

12points

POST

Manana Man 2 months ago

And just to be clear, this is a due to overuse.

7points

Tryingtodosomethingg , Abdul batin / pexels Report

#37

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending I don't know, but every time I go to a drugstore it feels like we lost a war

Final score:

11points

POST

Cat Chat 2 months ago

In the US, there are a lot of shortages of the higher controlled medications. For most of those, the (I think) FDA has to approve how much will be allowed to be produced and sold. Despite the need for many having increased, they have been approving less every year. I won't even go into the mess it is for people who need opioids (yes, "need" in order to have any kind of quality of life).

7points

ConstableBlimeyChips , Christopher Borges / pexels Report

#38

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Without human intervention, your local energy grid is only about 6 to 24 hours away from complete collapse, depending on how greedy the utility company is in terms of automatic backups. The electricity grid will likely fail first and within hours. Other energy sources like city heat or natural gas will take longer because those rely less on active human inputs.

You remember in The Last of US TV show how Nick Offerman is in a Home Depot, the power goes out, and he remarks "that was fast"? That bit was much more accurate than anyone not involved in utilities would ever care to know about.

Final score:

11points

POST

David Paterson 2 months ago

In South Africa, locals are stealing the copper wire from the electricity grid and selling it for scrap copper value. You think you have problems!

3points

#39

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending A lot of subscription services, not just like streaming services im talking about the big corporate software subscriptions, I work in tech and there's a very real panic going on at a lot of these companies because they built their entire network and service at a loss, funneled hundreds of thousands of investor dollars into a product with the idea that they would raise the price after and make it all back after getting a foot hold,

but here's the thing, the cost of running a live service program is MUCH higher then just selling a license and letting people install the program and use it locally, you need servers, you need virtual machines, not to mention the personhours difference between occasional software updates of regular software and a live service, so not only do they have to pay back that loss leading, they also need to make enough to keep up with running the service

they get in and they spread as FAR as they can, they reach every possible customer, they do what they planned on and jack the price now that they have dedicated users, but it's not enough, there just aren't enough customers to ever actually make the money needed to pay back their loans and run the company, either your product is too niche, or there's too much competition, or in some cases you are literally selling to every potential customer, and it's still not enough to pay back your loss leads, and by the time they realize this they can try raising prices, but at this point some other company is going to be in the "lose money get customers" phase doing the same thing you are, and if you raise the price AGAIN this quickly you're gonna breech the trust thermocline, and the customers you do have are going to jump ship and you'll make even less money.

Alot of companies jumped on the "Software as a service" train that was so successful for microsoft and adobe, but the thing is, they already had a s**t tonne of money to throw at projects, they could loss lead and just eat the losses, smaller companies don't have that luxury, but they made it seem so lucrative and easy that thousands of companies are slowly hemorrhaging themselves to death trying to replicate it

theflamelord , Thirdman / pexels Report

Final score:

11points

POST

deejak 2 months ago

This one makes me *very* happy.

5points

miserable-now , Katherine Johnson / flickr Report

#40

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending Chrysler/Dodge. Many dealers can't get rid of all their 2023 models from last year still sitting on the lot.

Time to ressurect the K-car. It saved them in the 80s, and it can do it again!

Final score:

10points

POST

Freya the Wanderer 2 months ago

How about reliable EVs? I'd like for my next car to be 100% electric, or at least hybrid-electric - and I prefer that it come from Detroit.

1point

#41

Most of software is held together just by duct tape

nobody85678 Report

Final score:

10points

POST

TennesseeHomesteadUSA 2 months ago

Like Windows ?

1point

Rude-Objective-8553 Report

#42

Most municipal water supplies in the US, especially in Florida and New Orleans. I work in the industry. It’s terrible.

Final score:

9points

POST

TennesseeHomesteadUSA 2 months ago

No municipal water supply here. Glad of it too ! I catch rainwater here on this homestead and store it in 275-gallon IBC totes. This is the way I want it.

0points

degobrah , Markus Spiske / pexels Report

#43

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending From what I understand the internet as we know. I don't know the ins and outs but a lot critial internet infrastructure is open source and being maintained by volunteers.

I've seen [this picture](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/d/d7/dependency.png) quite a few times. Anyone with more knowledge about it please elaborate

Final score:

7points

POST

Jeff Gabrisl 2 months ago

Open source software is the backbone of the Internet and has been since the beginning. Most likely every software that is tied to the Internet came about because of oss. Unix, BSD, and Linux all run and operate because of open source software. Unix and BSD used to be the kings of open source software because they were designed to be ported to any computer when most systems required proprietary software. This was way back in the 70s. Since then, the Internet is mostly based on open source software. At&t most likely running the Unix system 5 Unix that they developed in the 80s , but have probably updated it without making it open source. I'm sure that there are plenty of companies and industries that still use old mainframe that require the old open source software, but require a new version for security. Furthermore, if you have an android phone, or you use chrome,brave or Firefox as a web browser, you are using open source software.

3points

#44

A construction worker told me that he warned the city about a sinkhole forming underneath a road, and they ignored him. So I avoid that road.

garg Report

Final score:

7points

POST

Slapdash1 2 months ago

Thanks, I will.

3points

#45

Rancho Palos Verdes. There is a state of emergency in the city right now, and there’s tons of landslides happening

tetiu Report

Final score:

7points

POST

Manana Man 2 months ago

Mother Nature is guaranteed to win this fight.

5points

PostalMike , Ekaterina Belinskaya / pexels Report

#46

People Share 30 Things That Are Dangerously Close To Ending I feel like the US Postal Service has less than 20 years left. Our city delivers all the Amazon packages, but they’re building their own facility and within a year or two might be delivering all their own parcels. I feel like without the Amazon we’ll have about 30% more carriers than we need. Factor in first class mail being just a fraction of the overall mail, the death of newspapers and magazines, online bill paying, email, free long distance calling with cell phones, and the extremely low rate charged for shipping standard mail. I personally no longer buy presents and pay $20 - $40 for shipping when I can just order off Amazon and have them shipped directly for free. I don’t see as many people waiting in the lobby. There’s just no aspect that suggests a future.

Final score:

7points

POST

deejak 2 months ago

DeJoy will help DeStroy it. As planned.

9points

#47

Large power station Transformers.

Let’s say if a few big ones go down unexpectedly, you can expect to wait 8-10 months for a new one.

C_A_M_Overland Report

Final score:

7points

POST

nicholas nolan 2 months ago

That's not exactly the case, no. If MANY transformers go down you have this problem. Not if A transformer goes down.

3points

#48

The Australian housing market.

S73417H Report

Final score:

6points

POST

Huddo's sister 2 months ago

All I can say is, it's so bad atm, whether you rent or buy.

4points

#49

My mental health

shay_143 Report

Final score:

4points

POST

SweetCheesySpaghetti 2 months ago

Especially after reading this list.

1point