Dystopian visions

There is a mode of thought that runs counter to this, of course. In the dystopian vision of the future, various apocalypses threaten to destroy humanity. The future is a dark and threatening place in which the progress humankind made in more enlightened eras has led, tragically, to its potential destruction. The solutions to problems of an earlier time often turn out to create even worse difficulties. Environmental dystopians, for example, believe the petroleum that created the modern world, and that dramatically improved the lives of billions, is leading to a planet-wide climatic disaster. Peak oil dystopians contend that petroleum is running out, and our dependence on it will cause a civilizational collapse the likes of which we haven’t seen since the fall of Rome. In these cases, and in all dystopian scenarios, humankind is not freed from its problems — in fact, we may have created them, or made them worse in ways that defy our abilities to control.