If We Do Nothing

What could happen if the current trajectory continues without coordinated intervention

The Current Trajectory

Humanity has followed a trajectory of increasing artificialization since the domestication of fire. This trajectory is not an accident or a mistake; it is a deterministic process that reinforces itself over time.

The central problem is that artificial systems transform the environment in ways that are incompatible with the regulatory processes of life, including human physiology. This leads irreversibly to mass species extinction, soil degradation, ecosystem collapse, and widespread human pathologies.

What could happen if the current trajectory continues without coordinated intervention:

1. Extinction of Wildlife

Human civilization depends on the progressive exploitation of ecosystems. Without wild ecosystems, there would be no resources to sustain it.

Ecological destruction would continue until the collapse of wildlife. Simple life forms and commensal species would likely persist, but complex ecosystems would not. Mammals, birds, flowering plants, forests, and living oceans would collapse.

As a result, mass species extinction, irreversible degradation of soils and forests, and the breakdown of food systems would follow. Massive famines and resource wars would spread across the globe. Human extinction would then become a plausible outcome rather than a distant possibility.

We do not believe in reformism or technological solutionism. We believe it is impossible to address these fundamental crises without questioning the very existence of artificial systems and, by extension, civilization itself.

The following data illustrate the catastrophic situation we are facing. The 21st century is a pivotal period that will determine the future of life on Earth.

Global biodiversity

69 percent average decline in wild vertebrate populations (1970 to 2018)

WWF, Living Planet Report 2022

Insects

40 percent of insect species threatened with extinction, with an estimated annual decline of 1 to 2 percent

IPBES, Global Assessment 2019

Soils

24 billion tonnes of fertile soil lost each year due to erosion

FAO, Status of the World's Soil Resources

Oceans, oxygen depletion

Over 500 coastal dead zones, covering more than 245,000 square kilometers

UNEP / GO2NE

Plastics

11 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year

UNEP, From Pollution to Solution, 2021

Marine biological resources

35 percent of global fish stocks are overexploited

FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2022

2. Artificial Adaptation of Humans

Artificial systems are based on a principle of compensation. They emerge to offset human needs that are no longer fulfilled because humans have been separated from the self-regulating processes of living systems, processes inherent to the networks of interdependence found in wild ecosystems.

Civilization can therefore be understood as an iatrogenic process: a cumulative layering of compensatory artifices, each introduced to correct the damage caused by the previous ones, until these artifices converge into a self-sustaining system.

Today, the technological system represents the ultimate expression of artificial systems. It radically reshapes the human environment, producing conditions that impose unprecedented adaptive pressure on human beings. If civilization continues its trajectory of growth, humans will be forced to adapt to this technological environment through scientifically assisted biological manipulation.

Increasing biological degeneration, including total medical dependency, widespread pathologies, and the inability to survive without technological prosthetics, would lead to biotechnological modifications such as neural implants, artificial organs, and CRISPR, culminating in accomplished transhumanism.

Such a trajectory would lead to the end of the human as we know it, the autonomy of the technological system existing for its own sake, and ultimately the disappearance of freedom.

3. Chaotic Collapse

Industrial civilization may collapse on its own through its internal contradictions, without any coordinated action. While such a collapse might appear at first glance as an opportunity, it would carry extremely severe consequences for the future of life on Earth due to the abandonment of, or loss of control over, critical infrastructures.

  • Nuclear power plants
    Radioactive or toxic leaks contaminating soils and groundwater for centuries
  • High-security biological laboratories (BSL-3 / BSL-4)
    Failure of containment systems leading to the accidental release of pathogenic agents
  • Chemical and petrochemical industries
    Abandonment of pressurized or unstable reservoirs leading to explosions, fires, and toxic clouds such as ammonia or chlorine
  • Water treatment plants and drinking water networks
    Cessation of treatment leading to biological water pollution and rapid epidemics such as cholera and dysentery

Widespread violence, precarious survival in ruins, and the absence of organized knowledge transmission would follow. Human survival would become highly chaotic, difficult, and associated with a high risk of famine, epidemics, war, or inability to survive in a degraded environment.

Above all, in the absence of a collective understanding of the trajectory and of the material constraints that prevent reindustrialization, artificial systems could rapidly re-emerge. A few generations later, the same trajectory would likely resume, further aggravated by an already degraded environment.

This is what would occur if collapse happened without preparation and without collective awareness of the root of the problem. Achieving this awareness is therefore a crucial objective of feralism.

Possible Combinations

These scenarios are not mutually exclusive. Combinations are probable. For example:

  • Some regions could experience extinction, others transhumanism, and others chaotic survival.
  • A chaotic collapse of complex societies could occur for the majority, while transhumanism would be reserved for an elite.
  • Successive collapses with partial reindustrializations could occur too rapidly for nature to regenerate.

We do not know when these processes will reach critical thresholds. The time scale could range from a few decades to a few centuries. Some regions and populations would be more resilient than others. Points of no return have been identified, but their exact thresholds remain unknown.

As explained, no political reform can counter the dramatic consequences of artificiality.

The Problem of Competitive Pressure

Out of 1,000 hunter-gatherer groups with fire, it only takes one to develop agriculture for its population to multiply by a factor of 10 to 100 and conquer neighboring territories. The other 999 are forced to adopt agriculture or be eliminated.

This is what happened historically. Within a few millennia after the emergence of agriculture around 10,000 BCE, it conquered almost the entire planet.

This explains why it is impossible to regulate the consequences of artificiality in the long term. Every artifice ultimately spreads as far as it can and gives rise to those that follow within a deterministic framework.

Why We Want to Avoid These Trajectories

All of them would involve:

  • Maximum suffering during the transition
  • Loss of biological autonomy
  • Irreversible destruction of biodiversity
  • Absence of preparation
  • Loss of knowledge that could facilitate an organized exit
  • Total reduction of human freedom

Alternatives Exist

Faced with these pessimistic trajectories, coordinated exit scenarios are theoretically possible, but they require collective understanding and organized action.