I'm not at all hopeful. I feel that this is the end of an age, an interregnum is upon us all.

Extremely hopeful, there are always ways to find gloom. I'm sure 100 years, 200 years, and any other period you choose ago, people were scared of what was coming. Yet, we are here and thriving. As a species, race, nation, and individuals, we have overcome a lot and accomplished a lot. There is no reason to think that will stop. A meteor might get us, but we can't do anything about it, so there is no reason to worry about it, especially since we don't know. Our future is what we make it, so our best bet is to do our best so we get and have what we want. We are scared of what we don't know, so it's natural to feel gloomy about what's coming, but doom and gloom are not the norm. As a whole, we have done great. If you don't like what you see, then change it. Every one of the people who made a change in the world was unknown at one time. Yet, they changed that and changed the world. Don't for a second think that you can't.

In the long term, the future will work out just fine; life on earth will adapt and recover without us.

In the short term, humanity is fucked, having failed to take climate change seriously for so long that it no longer matters very much what we do.

On the microscopically insignificant scale of my life, everything I had wanted to do with my time on earth is now either meaningless or impossible, so the concept of hopefulness no longer signifies much. I'm still here, and I have responsibilities my conscience will not allow me to ignore, so I do what I can about them. I try to leave more of a pleasant than an unpleasant echo in the world as I pass through it, and that seems to be about the limit of my influence, so I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it anymore.

Capitalism sucks, the surveillance state sucks, the state as an entire concept sucks, yes, of course. I poured so much energy into fighting it all for so many years and for what? Nothing. The world does what it does. Politicians are useless, they are blown around by the wind. All of this is downstream from economics, which none of us can control. My job is already being automated, but automating my job has been my job for most of my life. Healthcare has never been a guarantee - never trust that! But you'll live anyway, probably, or you won't, and then you won't be around to worry about it. "Left to your fate to starve" sounds like nothing but the natural condition of life, underneath all the illusions which call themselves "civilization". So what? Do what you can. Worrying about it gains nothing.