181–190 of 327 posts
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We're on a steady path to extinction, no doubt.
Sure eventually , but there's no clear indication if that's 10 years away, 10 billion years away, or a mere technicality as our descendants evolve into something that counts as a separate species.
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Do you think there is a "real" (>1% over the next century) risk for humanity to wipe itself out, or just that the hostile-alien risk is way beyond negligible in comparison? Because all current climate doom-erism notwithstanding-- humanity extinction seems impossible to achieve to me via climate change or nuclear war; rogue autonomous self-replicating systems might be a danger, but are too far beyound current tech to…
Just a feeling or rather educated guess is: That general AI going rogue if it gets conscious is small, more probable is narrow AI that has mistake in setting goals, given too much power by either military or corporations. Global Warming is highly probable but we still have chance if we find energy to cooperate around mutual goal. Key points: - Siberian permafrost and releasing huge amount of CH4 topping up all effort…
First: I use the term because I see NO factual basis for assuming that humankind is going extinct. Your post did not change my view on that:
1) I fully agree that global warming is a massive problem.
But assuming that it's going to lead to human extinction is IMO straight up delusional.
The only plausible mechanism is full-runaway "hot-venus" greenhouse effect (evaporating our oceans), and that is a scenario that--pretty much all scientists agree--we are NOT going to reach no matter how much fossil fuel we burn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect#Eart...).
Rising sea levels and climate change might lead to international crises and cost countless human lifes, but there is simply NO WAY for this to kill ALL humans by itself.
2) With nuclear threats it's a similar situation: There are simply not enough nukes to cover the inhabited surface (even assuming worst-case full escalation!):
The highest estimates I found were between 1.6 and 3 billion victims, assuming that every last nuke was used on the most effective target and killing every person there (which are both completely unrealistic assumptions).
Both fallout and nuclear winter are completely insufficient for extinction purposes, because there is not enough radioactive material for the fallout and not enough dust in the atmosphere for nuclear winter to kill all (we had somewhat comparable volcanic events in the past).
3) Corrupt leadership is something humankind has survived with since leaders exist; there is simply no reason to assume that they are suddenly going to cause our all extinction.
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Do you think there is a "real" (>1% over the next century) risk for humanity to wipe itself out, or just that the hostile-alien risk is way beyond negligible in comparison? Because all current climate doom-erism notwithstanding-- humanity extinction seems impossible to achieve to me via climate change or nuclear war; rogue autonomous self-replicating systems might be a danger, but are too far beyound current tech to…
If civilization as we know it ends but humanity survives it would be very difficult for future generations to reestablish because we've used up all the easy to access hydrocarbons. Without easy to reach coal there won't be another industrial revolution and humanity would be stuck for millions of years until the hydrocarbons reform.
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> if you've colonized say 20 stars, what disaster could possibly end your civilization? Unfortunately, war with another civilization.
But maybe war is a territorial animal's instinct and once we have shaken up a bit more of our animality, we'd understand this makes no sense ? If we can control resource, exchange knowledge and techniques, and reproduce automatically (for instance if we become small electronic machines rather than the current inefficient chemical process we are), "war" might probably sounds both ridiculous and totally ineffective, bo…
Perhaps we can shake off many emotional components of war (which would make war an irrational option in many of the cases that our monkey brain would have been dragged into) but that doesn't necessarily mean that war itself would be eradicated
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You don’t destroy the system because you want to inhabit it yourself. This assumes that life is looking for similar habitats and that it’s not simpler to create an artificial planet anyway.
If there is oxygen breathing carbon based intelligent life that wants our planet they could've easily spotted and taken it anytime within the past 2 billion years. It seems safe to say that there isn't life that wants our planet.
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Read more about the Great Filter, it's probable it's ahead of us.
is it _probable_? AFA we know we've been insanely lucky up to this point (as earthling life we went past multiple mass extinctions, we got multi-cellular life, multiple brains iterations, a society which still didn't wipe itself out etc) What makes it more likely for the filter to be ahead of us rather than behind us?
If we can't make the complete transition to renewables in the next thirty years, it's game over for a VERY long time. Future civilizations won't enjoy the benefit of Spindletop. Cheap energy sources won't be available near the surface of the crust for another > 50 million years.
We won't go extinct, but it will be the 18th century for a very long time and nobody will leave this rock during that time.
The Great Filter is right here, in front of us, in our lifetimes.
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If I was a technologically advanced civilization, I would send robotic Von Neumann probes around the galaxy to keep tabs on things at close proximity. If I was also murderous, I would have programmed the probes to destroy any signs of life. So, the fact that we are still alive after broadcasting the presence of life through out atmosphere for the last couple billion years is quite reassuring.
Wouldn't that be the most difficult and expensive way to simply monitor for life or technosignatures? Compare that to simply (relatively speaking) building massive space based optical and radio observatories that can observe every visible star. The light reaching you has already made the trip, you just have to collect it. If you were murderous, you could launch an attack from your home system rather than waiting for…
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Do you think there is a "real" (>1% over the next century) risk for humanity to wipe itself out, or just that the hostile-alien risk is way beyond negligible in comparison? Because all current climate doom-erism notwithstanding-- humanity extinction seems impossible to achieve to me via climate change or nuclear war; rogue autonomous self-replicating systems might be a danger, but are too far beyound current tech to…
If civilization as we know it ends but humanity survives it would be very difficult for future generations to reestablish because we've used up all the easy to access hydrocarbons. Without easy to reach coal there won't be another industrial revolution and humanity would be stuck for millions of years until the hydrocarbons reform.
I'm fairly certain that our accumulated knowledge would make a second industrial happen even faster in spite of fossil-fuel-lack (but it might play out slightly differently, because of higher fuel costs...)
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If civilization as we know it ends but humanity survives it would be very difficult for future generations to reestablish because we've used up all the easy to access hydrocarbons. Without easy to reach coal there won't be another industrial revolution and humanity would be stuck for millions of years until the hydrocarbons reform.
I disagree on this, because biofuels are a viable substitute in almost every situation. I'm fairly certain that our accumulated knowledge would make a second industrial happen even faster in spite of fossil-fuel-lack (but it might play out slightly differently, because of higher fuel costs...)
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Agreed. The great filter and collapse theory in general are fascinating in theory and can motivate some great positive action but they can't undermine the fact that humans beings are doing better than they've ever done in our history by almost every imaginable metric.
> the fact that humans beings are doing better than they've ever done in our history by almost every imaginable metric. That's because we have had ready access to insanely abundant high-energy density source of energy. The non-fossil fuel supported carrying capacity of the planet for humans is estimated to be somewhere around 1 billion people. When the fuel runs out (if we don't cook ourselves first), that will colla…
I also strongly believe that we could cover all our energy needs with renewable sources within a few decades if we really wanted to (even assuming no significant advances in tech), and this seems mostly non-disputed to me (because that is literally what nation-states are currently planning/doing).
> Is there even anything controversial in these statements?
Yes. Your statements seem not credible to me and you cite no sources.