I haven’t changed my mind.

The last few weeks, I’ve ranted a bit about how I’ve become a bit of an activist, going to demonstrations, the big climate March in London last Saturday, and generally getting stuff done in the name of things like human rights, going green and so on.

All that said, I’m still holding my position.

And that position is: the world’s fucked. Maybe not in the next few years, maybe not by the general climate-change deadline of 2050, and maybe not even in my lifetime. But it’s going to the dogs. If our environment doesn’t kill us, our leaders will, either through some massive global war in which the entire Western male population is forced into conscription to fight against the huge beast that is China, or the US president will accidentally trip up and set off every single nuclear missile, thus obliterating half the population instantly and the rest through radiation sickness. It’s going to happen. People are thick as shit, and sadly I’m including myself in that group.

I’m a terrible person. I buy clothes cheaply, knowing they’ve come from sweatshops. I’ll buy Cadbury Dairy Milk, sure, but as far as any other food goes I don’t think twice. I love travelling, and if there’s a cheap domestic flight that works out less than the train, I’ll take it. And I’m not going to stop travelling abroad by plane - the world’s too tempting.

Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes. Undoubtedly, unequivocally, and unashamedly. That might be problematic in some people’s view; I don’t really care. But I think it’d be nice if other people did.

This is where the concept of doomsday optimism comes in. It’s a complex viewpoint, and one that has a couple of definitions, both of which I’m happy to embrace. The two of them involve one mutual concept, though - that of doomsday. I’m talking about cities burning to the ground, entire countries engulfed in floods, a completely apocalyptic scenario. What follows that part varies. On the one hand, doomsday optimism can mean that the end of the world is fast approaching, but people may as well stave it off while they can - and good on them if they do. This is one part that I embrace, despite being slow to practise it myself - if I can get other people to slow down their impact on the world, even knowing that it’s really already too late, then that’s nice.

The second part is the real reason why I can’t devote myself to living a saintlike lifestyle, and it’s perhaps slightly more disturbing - I like the idea of dystopia. That’s perverse, I know, but the idea of an entire city destroyed, even knowing that millions died because of it, is something that thrills me. I wouldn’t do it, don’t get me wrong - I’m not talking about me personally bombing places here, because aside from anything then I wouldn’t see it - but there’s a sort of perverse fascination that comes with that sort of change. I think about something like 9/11, and once I get past the horror of such an event (and don’t get me wrong, the recent documentary on Channel 4 moved me as much as anyone else) it’s something I just marvel at. If you remove yourself morally from an event of that magnitude, then it’s incredible. And if I’ve proved anything in the past, it’s that I’m pretty good at morally removing myself from situations.

Of course, I could only approach this as a spectator, a voyeur so to speak. Moral relativism has the added benefit/curse of not being compelled to do anything based on morality. I don’t want to blow up a country, because I don’t feel any particular hatred towards any of them. If I do get angry at a country, it’s because of their sheer stupidity (which is why I get passionate about somewhere like Israel’s persecution of Palestine - it’s so fucking stupid). But I still wouldn’t blow it up - the problem with criticising a country from the perspective of saying they’re thick is that it also opens them up to ridicule, something that isn’t exactly related to hot-blooded righteous passion.

In summary, then - the world is royally screwed. If I can get you to do something about it, good, but don’t expect me to. And why shouldn’t you? Because my world-view isn’t the same as yours, and where I see something crazy, morbid and beautiful, you just see anguish, terror and death.