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Doomsday scoreboard

doomsday.march1studios.com

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Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#71

Post by _carbyau_ »

marcyb5st wrote: post #33

A bit in the doomer camp, and what worries me the most are the lifestyle changes needed to not fuck up the climate in the next few hundreds years. I believe I heard that we should slash 7/8th of our emissions (as individuals living a modern lifestyle) to keep the wet bulb temperature in check worldwide by the end of the century. This is, in my opinion, a target that we'll surely miss and it won't be nice. Europe is a…

As a society if we care about our fellow humans - generally seen as a virtue to have - then we need to reduce our emissions etc etc.

As a rat race where the competition is between humans then rich people have a comparative advantage regarding how to survive the ravages.

So the future is less about avoiding climate catastrophe completely - that won't happen when the rich and powerful don't care.

The future is about surviving the issues until enough people die that emissions takes care of itself.

Either a lot of people die thus reducing emissions, or specific groups die thus reducing the capability to generate emissions on behalf of others. Or maybe enough tragedies happen that moral conscience does hold sway. Likely a combination of the above.

For supporting the continuation of my genes, maybe I should invest in property in Siberia/Alaska/Canada/Greenland/etc etc.

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#72

Post by shoo »

For anyone curious about academic studies of historical societal collapses, check out Joseph Tainter [1]

> As described in Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems. [...] Such complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning the consumption of resources, or other forms of wealth).

> When a society confronts a "problem," such as a shortage of energy, or difficulty in gaining access to it, it tends to create new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Tainter, who first identifies seventeen examples of rapid collapse of societies, applies his model to three case studies: The Western Roman Empire, the Maya civilization, and the Chaco culture.

> For example, as Roman agricultural output slowly declined and population increased, per-capita energy availability dropped. The Romans "solved" this problem by conquering their neighbours to appropriate their energy surpluses (as metals, grain, slaves, other materials of value). However, as the Empire grew, the cost of maintaining communications, garrisons, civil government, etc. grew with it. Eventually, this cost grew so great that any new challenges such as invasions and crop failures could not be solved by the acquisition of more territory. [...]

> It is often assumed that the collapse of the western Roman Empire was a catastrophe for everyone involved. Tainter points out that it can be seen as a very rational preference of individuals at the time, many of whom were actually better off. Tainter notes that in the west, local populations in many cases greeted the barbarians as liberators.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#74

Post by catigula »

amock wrote: post #13
catigula wrote: post #9

Doesn't make much sense given that we wouldn't exist to observe a timeline/reality where doomsday has been realized/effectuated.

The prediction aren't for total extinction events or even events where the internet wouldn't be around. Also, it' just a silly site provided for our entertainment.

That is also tautological. Anyways, beneath the silliness is a smugness everyone here knows all too well, including me. Let's not pretend.

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#75

Post by the_af »

loandbehold wrote: post #57
roadside_picnic wrote: post #26

I've been in the "doomer" camp for over a decade and been surprised how many things I thought were far off in the future have come to fruition earlier. But, the one thing I always find interesting, philosophically, about believing the world-as-we-know-it is coming to an end is that all of the things people are concerned about will happen no matter what . Being afraid of the end of the world is ultimately being afraid…

People like Ray Kurzweil, Jürgen Schmidhuber, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Paul Christiano see a pathway out of this inevitability through technological singularity. In their vision humans are a seed to something greater, something noticeable on cosmic scales. In their vision, like early humans who emerged on the other end of genetic bottlenecks, today's humans will have a disproportionate effect on the future. According t…

Please don't take this to be dismissive of your comment, because that's not my intention, but...

I think people like Ray Kurzweil are essentially religious. Instead of a messiah and heaven, they think of salvation in terms of a singularity, immortality, or a way of ascension. It feels very religious to me, and as such, detached from reality and physical possibilities.

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#76

Post by kulahan »

bloppe wrote: post #65
kulahan wrote: post #59

One mildly interesting fact that MANY Christians get wrong: There is no lead-up to the apocalypse. The Messiah will return "like a thief in the night" and "nobody, except my Father, knows the hour of my return" (I probably butchered those two quotes). Either way, the Bible is pretty clear (as was Jesus): there will be zero indication the apocalypse is coming. None. It'll just... start.

The homeless man currently yelling outside my window is an equally authoritative source of information about the apocalypse as the Bible, and he thinks it's coming soon.

A billion people don't believe there's some truth to what the homeless man outside of your window is saying, and someone leading a legitimate-enough revolution that they're put to death by the King of Rome is probably a tiny bit more believable.

But I get what you're saying either way. I just think it's an interesting factlet.

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#77

Post by alganet »

Was the Bronze Age Collapse a doomsday event? Mount Toba eruption? I think they were.

I'm not saying anyone predicted those or something. It's just that the notion of doomsday is quite vague.

I'm trying to broaden some notions here. Prediction might not be exactly absolute prediction, and doomsday might not be exactly absolute doomsday.

Perhaps some great threats were averted precisely because someone predicted them (for example, the great leaded gasoline poisoning).

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#78

Post by manoDev »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #71
marcyb5st wrote: post #33

A bit in the doomer camp, and what worries me the most are the lifestyle changes needed to not fuck up the climate in the next few hundreds years. I believe I heard that we should slash 7/8th of our emissions (as individuals living a modern lifestyle) to keep the wet bulb temperature in check worldwide by the end of the century. This is, in my opinion, a target that we'll surely miss and it won't be nice. Europe is a…

As a society if we care about our fellow humans - generally seen as a virtue to have - then we need to reduce our emissions etc etc. As a rat race where the competition is between humans then rich people have a comparative advantage regarding how to survive the ravages. So the future is less about avoiding climate catastrophe completely - that won't happen when the rich and powerful don't care. The future is about su…

The emissions are only a problem initially; it doesn’t matter if enough population perish, the warming will continue by self-reinforcing effects for an era.

Re: Doomsday scoreboard

#80

Post by vdupras »

bloppe wrote: post #69
Sweepi wrote: post #63

Are the predictions from the 2nd and later IPCC reports in there? Last I checked they were on track.

But is that the apocalypse? I hate the fact that we're destabilizing the environment, but humans (and wildlife) are pretty good at adaptation. Our ancestors have obviously survived massive extinction events in the past.

Yes, obviously, but our ancestors weren't human then.
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