Programming in the Apocalypse • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#221

Post by XorNot » Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

mcculley wrote: post #44

skyfaller wrote: post #16

I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses: - Although it's looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction…

> human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization How do you imagine human extinction being an outcome? It seems to me that the worst case scenario is large loss of population which would decrease greenhouse gas output. There would still be some increase in temperature even once we stop emitting, but wouldn't people in colder climates still survive?

Reduce human population by enough and extinction goes back on the agenda long term. There was at least one [1] population bottleneck in the last 70,000 years.

Of course I would've thought "aren't you worried your grandchildren will live miserable, dangerous lives struggling to survive" would be a decent argument but I've encountered no Boomer who seems to worry about it as they excitedly tell me about the coming collapse of something or imminent major war in wherever.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/genetic-bottleneck-almost-ki...

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#222

Post by syntheweave » Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

dijit wrote: post #136

KerrAvon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://also.kottke.org/22/04/the-mass-delusion-of-the-pande...

We have a widely deployed vaccine. COVID will live with us forever now, a pandemic has a few characteristics which make it so, one of which is capacity to overwhelm healthcare. As soon as covid couldn’t overwhelm our healthcare systems it was over. Now people will die every year with it, just like the flu. Sad reality, but reality nonetheless, the fact we couldn’t handle a lock-down cemented that we would be living w…

We still haven't really grappled with the aftereffects of long COVID. What we've done instead is say it's over because the acute phase is done with, and buried the reports of longer term issues. In other words, the health care system now simply returns wrong answers to triage its own capacity.

But that doesn't make it no longer a pandemic. We know quite well that we can normalize our way into wrong answers as a society. It'll only become clear where we stand after another year or two - either more and more people become disabled after their "mild" case, or it gradually trails off.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#223

Post by XorNot » Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #202

FargaColora wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the difference between human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization" Literally nobody is predicting any of those things, except propagandists and doomers. I would urge you to broaden your media intake to more mainstream sources, because it is not mentally healthy to be living a life under such falsehoods.

The comment section is full of clueless numpties that do not understand what 4 degrees REALLY means, and think it won't lead to collapse. When the world was 4 degrees COLDER Chicago was under 900 meters of ice. Toronto was under two Kilometers of ice. Do you think that would cause collapse of civilisation? How are you going to adapt to a glacier covering all the farmland? No technolgy, not even nuclear bombs, can rem…

To be very specific: people who think increase isn't dangerous need to look up web-bulb temperature [1].

There are regions of this planet where an average 4 degrees increase will mean that for periods longer then 24 hours, multiple times a year, the wet-bulb temperature will exceed 35 degrees C. That is unsurvivable by human life. Your only options in that environment are to not be in that environment by either escape or technological means.

There are cities built in areas where this is a risk, and if it happens they will just be depopulated: it is not possible for millions of people to escape an urban area under a heat wave. If they're somewhat built up, then they might survive it provided the electrical grid holds out - which, as recent experience globally should show - is questionable. Remember: under these conditions, no repairs to external infrastructure are going to be possible - you would need active refrigeration to move around outside and survive. We are not remotely adapted to that sort of hostile environment.

Most likely we are a decade or two out from a climate-forced mass casualty event, probably in the Indian subcontinent, with more minor (slightly less mass death) occurring in parts of Asia earlier.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#224

Post by syntheweave » Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:58 AM UTC

nynx wrote: post #45

It’s nice to submit to call of civilizational collapse every once in a while, but it’s not a realistic view. Yes, climate change is going to affect billions of people, but from what I can tell, things are moving in the right direction and we’re on track to avoid the worst even with barely any political action. If it was suddenly 2050 and none of our technology had improved, we’d be fucked. But it’s not a useful persp…

Yep, this is the comment. We've been on and are continuing along a path to disruptive new tech in a whole cluster of key societal sectors, and this will change the whole game to the point where by 2030, we'll wonder why we were worried in 2022(see: any Tony Seba lecture). It's not just energy production but the paradigms of land use, transport, communications, materials engineering, all shifting at once, with orders-of-magnitude consequences in each. It'll make solving the climate issue be a slam dunk - we still have to make it a reality but there will be plenty of capacity to do so.

The ONLY techs we should be caring about over the 50-year horizon are the disruptive ones.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#225

Post by Spooky23 » Tue, May 31, 2022, 3:03 AM UTC

mcculley wrote: post #44

skyfaller wrote: post #16

I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses: - Although it's looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction…

> human extinction and the mere collapse of our civilization How do you imagine human extinction being an outcome? It seems to me that the worst case scenario is large loss of population which would decrease greenhouse gas output. There would still be some increase in temperature even once we stop emitting, but wouldn't people in colder climates still survive?

People underestimate the suffering humans can endure. Primitive humanity was able to endure reduction to a few hundred mating pairs of humans.

Society as it stands is much more fragile, but I’m sure we’re more likely to destroy ourselves from within before climate is a really major factor.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#226

Post by felipeerias » Tue, May 31, 2022, 3:27 AM UTC

skyfaller wrote: post #16

I agree that we need to plan for climate adaptation (preparing for predictable problems) and resilience (preparing for unpredictable problems), but I have a few kneejerk responses: - Although it's looking increasingly unlikely that we can avert climate disaster, we can never give up. For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming, and could mean the difference between human extinction…

> For example, 8 degrees of warming would be much worse than 4 degrees of warming

You should review where you got those figures and whether they are representative enough of current scientific consensus regarding the most likely scenarios.

As fas as I know and assuming that current pledges are fulfilled, most plausible estimations tend to be around 2 or at most 3 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels (we are already well over 1°C).

While it is clear that this increase in temperatures will have severe consequences, I fail to see how it would lead anywhere near the civilization collapse that you seem so confident in predicting.

See for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04553-z.epdf

("Realization of Paris Agreement pledges may limit warming just below 2 °C", Nature)

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#227

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 31, 2022, 3:28 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #108

madrox wrote: post #97

The pandemic taught me a lot about apocalypse. While people are a lot slower to buy into collective action and changing their way of life than I thought, society is far more robust than I expected. Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. With that in mind, I have some ideas on what programming will look like in 30 years: 1. New frameworks and abstractions for making apps even more disposable while maint…

> Covid looked nothing like a pandemic film, thank god. That's probably because it was not that great impact wise. If it was more like the Spanish Flu, with a huge death toll across all ages (as opposed to 1/10th the death toll, and mostly focused on older people and co-morbidities) it would have absolutely have looked like "a pandemic film".

[deleted]

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#228

Post by coryrc » Tue, May 31, 2022, 3:37 AM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #201

coryrc wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a tendency to say "well nothing really bad happened, so why did we go through all that effort? Basically a third of our country didn't go through that effort and the country is mostly still chugging along. Were it much deadlier, things would not have turned out okay.

My state took it just seriously enough to get us to vaccines (and even before that, buy some time until they realized they shouldn't just put everyone on a respirator). For all I know it may have saved my life and the life of several other people I know with comorbidities. Possibly my parents as well. Yes, a third of the country didn't go through the effort and a lot of people died in those states also. The country m…

I think we're in violent agreement.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#229

Post by jtwebman » Tue, May 31, 2022, 3:47 AM UTC

2050 local first development will be the only way to go. No more servers but devices communicating via local networks with maybe some online backup at the most. It will be only offline mobile apps and web apps that will thrive.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#230

Post by goatlover » Tue, May 31, 2022, 4:44 AM UTC

PheonixPharts wrote: post #220

formerly_proven wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some fairly absurd doomerism going on in the "climate catastrophe tomorrow" camp where climate change will (somehow) turn earth into a barren rock and we're inches away from triggering a self-reinforcing climate resonance cascade of unforeseen consequences. It's of course a very urgent issue, but I think exaggerating it until it becomes a threat to "all life on earth" levels is a) dishonest b) does nothing to…

> where climate change will (somehow) turn earth into a barren rock and we're inches away from triggering a self-reinforcing climate resonance cascade of unforeseen consequences. The "barren rock" is a bit of a strawman. Very few if any people believe that the elimination of all life on Earth is in the cards. Human life, on the other hand, is certainly possible. For the vast majority of major extinction events in his…

It's hard to imagine how climate change would lead to human extinction, since humans have inhabited such a wide range of environments across the globe for thousands of years, have technology to help cope with extreme climates, and are vary adaptable. What would make every single environment unlivable for humans? I don't believe there is a single climate model that does that.

And how many climate scientists actually believe extinction is on the table? I've seen some say collapse of global civilization and mass death is a possibility under the worst case scenarios, but not really anyone claiming all humans would die. Anyway, the latest IPCC report puts the upper range of warming at 3.7°C. Which is bad, but not the apocalyptic hot house Earth scenario. But even with that, some environments will still be livable. People live on mountains, near likes, far inland, way up north and all over the place. Earth isn't going to turn into Venus, and it was a lot hotter when the dinosaurs evolved. Plants and animals still survived after the Permian die off.