I think the general population of humans struggle to recognize, understand, and address large scale threats.
There's the scientific community that'll try to explain these issues to the general public in simplistic term. But they're often overruled by dumb idiots in charge who store snowballs in their freezer as proof that climate change isn't real.
There's a belief that humanity needs to be brought to the edge of extinction to realize how bad things really are and to get their shit together. I don't believe humanity would be willing to save itself from extinction as it's just not profitable to do so.
I bought a T14 Gen 2 on eBay for about $250. It can play some older games like Morrowind, but I mostly use it for book writing, D&D games, video downloading/ripping/burning, browsing, and such.
I put Linux Mint on mine and it runs like a dream.