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Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

bbc.com

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Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#201

Post by anovikov »

We're not, time between start of WWII and till the Arab Oil embargo when the technical revolution ended, was quite a bit more influential. And yes sure people had an even better way to destroy biosphere then too, as well as lots of ways to make things better, and it's fair to say our grandfathers used this resource in general, in a very constructive way.

We neither got that much potential to either break or fix things, nor we make a wiser use of what we have. Yes we got Elon Musk sure, but apart from him, all that the humankind is doing is finding progressively sneakier ways to make people click on ads, which is hardly a great achievement. Everything else from art to politics is just a tool to this end.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#202

Post by fractaled »

username90 wrote: post #190

Thought experiment: Lets say you live the life of a random human throughout all time, both past and future. That is one data point, but one data point can tell us quite a lot still. So lets say you start your life, and you notice that the human population had just expanded exponentially to 100 times what it usually was, what would you assume will happen in the future? If the future will hold millions of years with hu…

I don't think this logic applies to the demographics of today. The total number of humans to have ever lived is calculated to be ~105 billion. So assuming you're applying that logic to today, you're one of the most recent ~7%, which doesn't seem that remarkable -- at least not to the point of assuming fatalistic scenarios.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#203

Post by ByteJockey »

KineticLensman wrote: post #180
lrem wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid democracies are inherently unstable. Athenian lasted 200 years and got swallowed up by Macedonian autocracy. Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army. Polish lasted 350 years and the parliament voted to allow neighbouring empires to divide the country. The US is at 250 years and people are seriously worried about it devolving into either Gilead or Cyberpunk any moment now.

> Roman lasted 500 years and got overthrown by the army Byzantium (and the rest of the Eastern Roman Empire) disagrees [0]. They lasted until 1453 - incidentally only 50 years before Columbus sailed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

Look, I love the Roman Empire just as much as anyone (and get more than a little miffed whenever someone denies that the Eastern Roman empire was legitimately Roman), but it was in no way a democracy.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#204

Post by ricksunny »

flatline wrote: post #31
fn1 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keeping global warming below 2°C is a pipe dream I think/hope it's possible by a war-mobilization type of effort, where industries start working together for the goal. We not only have to stop all emissions to zero, but should probably start removing co2 from the atmosphere as well: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/carbon-dioxide-remov... https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/wanna-limit-global-w... But th…

If anything I think the global pandemic has shown how unprepared we are to come together globally and utilize technology to solve hard problems. Maybe something good will come from all of this in that direction and we will learn from our mistakes.

>how unprepared we are to come together globally . . . to solve hard problems.

Ain't that the truth.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#205

Post by njharman »

simonh wrote: post #84
aeternum wrote: post #11

I'd argue the cold war was closer to the 'hinge of history'. In fact on this very day 9/26 in 1983, a not very well known soviet lieutenant colonel prevented what would very likely have been all out atomic war. In the grand scheme of things, everything that happened this year is probably minor in comparison to Petrov's decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

I think the Cold War, and even WW2 are part of the current period when it comes to the ‘hinge of history’ argument. They’re not saying this year is the most influential, or even this decade. I think it comes down to the explosive industrial growth and technological advances over the last few hundred years, and next hundred years or so. It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the…

Almost any multicentury period has dramatically changed human society.

Also people knew about and have already experienced pollution and other effects of industrilization. Read about London big stink.

Social aspects too, ludites, social disruption, leading to labor as a political / social force. Urbanizatiin. Communism. Labor laws. Etc.

Since ancient times "birth of civilization" we have deforested, over fished/hunted/farmed.

We have continously, dramatically changed our environment and ourselves. We've already genetically engineered ourselves (modern man and medical man are quite different) and numerous other species.

Everybody in every time period believes their time is different. Is frantic changes. Is etc.

Its only because they know more about recent events. Recent events are in memory.

The more you study human history, the more you realize it has always been a dramatic.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#206

Post by Udik »

revax wrote: post #173
Udik wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reality that science shows is far worse than what has permeated mainstream culture I'm really curious where did you get this information from. I suppose it must not be popular or mainstream media, because of course msm telling you that science shows a worse reality than msm is a contradiction. So does which primary literature does it come from?

Mainly from the IPCC reports.

Which parts exactly? Because usually it is claimed (in popular and mainstream media) that ipcc reports are toned down for consensus and political support.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#207

Post by mistermann »

Lammy wrote: post #69

What am I supposed to think BBC wants for me (from me?) when this already-ominously-worded page popped into view with three additional scary headlines pre-loaded in my eye-line so I've read them before I can even choose not to. "You may also like: - Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? - The perils of short-termism: Civilisation’s greatest threat. - The greatest long-term threats facing humanity." I know even…

I think what you are "supposed" to think is less important than what you (and everyone) do think, as well as what the downstream consequences are due to your consumption of this type of article, a type which we've likely all read several several instances of every day for years on end.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#208

Post by defterGoose »

ekianjo wrote: post #82
abraxas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody serious sees the Coronavirus as an existential threat to humanity unless it mutates in a way that really enables it to wipe out most humans. Climate change and the collapse of global ecosystems can absolutely manage that and according to every serious scientist we are pretty much on the worst case scenario path according to any peer reviewed model. The rise in nationalism and authoritarianism around the world…

> Climate change and the collapse of global ecosystems can absolutely manage that and according to every serious scientist we are pretty much on the worst case scenario path according to any peer reviewed model. Except that most models are piss-poor at predicting anything and that they only cherry pick the ones that happen to make it with new data. On top of that, climate change is a slow moving disaster, and we are…

You know what the science doesn't show? That we're "typically good at mitigating long term changes". The history of the earth is a story of alternating periods of relative stability and momentous upheaval. Even though we've gotten "smart enough" to become a thorn in nature's side, nature has a nasty habit of rearing its head suddenly and biting back with overwhelming force.

Don't make the mistake of thinking this is something you can safely ignore. If you do, your children will pay the price.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#209

Post by ta1234567890 »

simonh wrote: post #84
aeternum wrote: post #11

I'd argue the cold war was closer to the 'hinge of history'. In fact on this very day 9/26 in 1983, a not very well known soviet lieutenant colonel prevented what would very likely have been all out atomic war. In the grand scheme of things, everything that happened this year is probably minor in comparison to Petrov's decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

I think the Cold War, and even WW2 are part of the current period when it comes to the ‘hinge of history’ argument. They’re not saying this year is the most influential, or even this decade. I think it comes down to the explosive industrial growth and technological advances over the last few hundred years, and next hundred years or so. It’s a unique confluence of incredible capability with little understanding of the…

> We came very close to the world being completely dominated by Orwell style authoritarian one party states.

It seems like not only we came close, but it is the very reality we currently live in, we just don't like admitting it. Although instead of one party, we have one class.

Re: Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

#210

Post by 127 »

ogre_magi wrote: post #152
127 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change that can't be reversed, is not a hinge of history, it's the end of history.

This is such a small take. Climate change can absolutely be reversed by sufficiently determined technological and industrial civilization. The reason most climate activists don’t acknowledge that is because they don’t want it to be true. They prefer being noble doomsayers before the “ignorant sheep.” There are (expensive) geoengineering projects that would give humans direct control over global temperature.

We can't simply do many order of magnitudes easier task now (reduce carbon emissions). How exactly do you suggest we do this task you suggest later?
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