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Programming in the Apocalypse

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Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#291

Post by dijit »

coldtea wrote: post #288
dijit wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem to be a kind of variant on the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” (after this, therefore because of this) fallacy — if one thing follows another the second must have been caused by the first. Only in this case you are looking at denials where “propter hoc” actually holds — the second thing really was caused by the first. There really should be a catchy name for this, since it permeates a lot of political reaso…

> People see that timely action averted a problem, but somehow take that as evidence that there wasn’t a problem in the first place. Depending on the situation, 2 cases are possible (and have happened): (a) A thing was indeed about to become a grave problem and timely action prevented it. (b) A thing was never to become a big issue, and all the action spent preventing it didn't have any significance. In both cases th…

We know it could have been a big problem by the small things that got omitted and became problems.

You can argue that we didn’t need to pump hundreds of millions into it; but it is a fact that there would have been a crisis had it not been actively averted.

The same issue exists now with 2048 and we’re already seeing problems (on things that date far into the future) and we will likely need to expend effort and energy in avoiding this issue: especially on embedded devices.

If you’re denying that there would have been a problem then I’m afraid you’re simply mistaken.

I could give you many citations if I wasn’t on my phone. There was even a documentary about it.

“Was the millennium bug a myth” or something.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#292

Post by tasuki »

astrange wrote: post #254
tasuki wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lots of people worked very hard to make the outcome better. I'm grateful to them for helping protect my aged relations. They did make a difference. With that out, the Covid-19 pandemic, even without any measures at all, was still incredibly mild. Wikipedia says 0.1-0.3% global population lost [0]. It would have been I don't know, perhaps 0.5% without measures? Compare to the other pandemics on that list, you rou…

Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on. SARS-1 and MERS are quite fatal too but we stopped them from spreading.

> Those other pandemics are before we had any ability to defend ourselves or even know what was going on.

Yes, of course. And I'm simply adding that Covid-19 would be nowhere as bad as those even if we had no ability to defend ourselves.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#293

Post by tasuki »

kinleyd wrote: post #126
madrox wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a fallacy here in that "because covid's impact wasn't great, covid wasn't that bad." Any time we have to mobilize a lot of effort to head off the worst outcome, there's a tendency to say "well nothing really bad happened, so why did we go through all that effort?" Let's not trivialize the global effort necessary to bring us to 1/10th the death toll. It absolutely could've been worse. It's our response…

Well said. I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu.

> I think if the vaccines hadn't come out at all, it could well have been as bad as the Spanish Flu.

I'm very much for vaccines, but this is just not true at all. Covid was never going to be near as bad as the Spanish flu, even if no measures were taken at all.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#294

Post by mav88 »

doctorhandshake wrote: post #284
mav88 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA has been tampering with its figures for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Rc301T-hY

Uhhh ... who is Tony Heller

Ah the good old genetic fallacy. As it so happens, he was a lead designer on the original PowerPC and received several awards for it. So a real engineer and scientist. After retiring he started investigating the fallacy of climate change.

It's quite irrelevant who he is, it's what he has to say that's important and whether his facts are correct (which they are).

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#295

Post by krastanov »

FargaColora wrote: post #290
krastanov wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your reaction surprises me. What is so strange about "preparing on the community level", which would mean things like making sure your township is not expanding into areas that would be destroyed by newly severe forest fires or hurricanes or floods. Or that your city forbids certain types of lawns or agriculture because droughts are getting more severe. Or just having a more independent electricity/water/sewage in yo…

All the things you describe are good and beneficial for society. The problem was that you are preparing for an "impact" in 10 years that is not being predicted by anyone, except doomers and propagandists. You believe that the BBC is "neoliberal propaganda". That is your right, but you will alienate the vast majority of people with such extremist rhetoric.

Slow down for a second, I am not the person to whom you originally responded, I am just a passerby that is surprised by the intensity of your reaction given there are fairly reasonable interpretations of the passage you quoted as a reason to not bother having conversation with OP. We do know that droughts and fires and hurricanes will be more severe over the next decade or two, so it seems reasonable to call it "impact", their severe dislike of BBC notwithstanding.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#296

Post by antifa »

imwillofficial wrote: post #109
soco wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don't need to care about consequences. No matter how high the sea level rises, enough money gets you a higher place to stay.

No, it shows they don’t believe it. Obama’s recently purchased beachfront property is a testament to this.

If I had half the money I think Obama has, buying a vacation home somewhere that might disappear into a hurricane randomly in the next 10 years would not be a problem.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#297

Post by Filligree »

vkou wrote: post #79
Filligree wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True human extinction doesn't seem plausible, but in a worst-case scenario we can imagine a > 99% drop in population, roughly to what is sustainable without technology, in a dramatically harsher world. ("Without"? Well, nobody today knows how to build a cast-iron plough.) I don't believe this scenario is likely. For one thing we're not headed for 8C of heating; for another, technological change seems to be coming jus…

> assuming we struggle hard enough. We aren't struggling at all, though. We just eased off the accelerator a little. (Assuming that our accounting is correct, and that methane leakage isn't worse than we think. [1]) [1] It's worse than we think.

True, but...

I need to retain some optimism, or I get too depressed to keep on. In this case, my optimism is that solar/wind and batteries will drop enough in price that fossil fuels become economically unfeasible.

It seems possible! I just hope it isn't too little, too late.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#298

Post by skyfaller »

felipeerias wrote: post #226
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…

That's a pretty big assumption, to assume that current pledges will be fulfilled. Last I heard, it was just, like, Gambia that was on track to meet Paris Agreement pledges. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/15/world/climate-pledges-insuffi... None of the G20 countries are on track.

The point of the Paris Agreement pledges is to prevent catastrophic global heating, so it would be great, although in my opinion inadequate, if the world community met them. Sadly, we're not heading in that direction right now.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#299

Post by _dain_ »

enraged_camel wrote: post #214
_dain_ wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you "grown ups" locked me indoors for months and didn't let me see my family. spare me your sanctimony.

The world contains more people than just you and your family. I was bummed to not see mine as well, but I (and they) also understood that a shared sacrifice was necessary to make.

a "shared sacrifice" that accomplished nothing.

Re: Programming in the Apocalypse

#300

Post by doctorhandshake »

mav88 wrote: post #294
doctorhandshake wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh ... who is Tony Heller

Ah the good old genetic fallacy. As it so happens, he was a lead designer on the original PowerPC and received several awards for it. So a real engineer and scientist. After retiring he started investigating the fallacy of climate change. It's quite irrelevant who he is, it's what he has to say that's important and whether his facts are correct (which they are).

I don’t know about you but I’m not qualified to evaluate the enormous amount of evidence required to ascertain whether the globe is warming and so I’m inclined to believe almost all scientists rather than some kook on YouTube who basically doesn’t google. That’s the nature of considering the opinions of experts on subjects in which you’re not an expert.
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