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Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

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Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#311

Post by _yb2s »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #244
flir wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neuromancer. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Erewhon.

You have massively confused "AGI as a plot point" with "is what the literary work is about". For example Neuromancer is about trauma and identity. If I'm being charitable I could give you Erewhon, but that's only because a major theme is anthropocentrism. A vast majority of the book is a criticism of victorian society. Ellison's analysis of his own work is pretty well known and while not specifically about AGI is def…

This is an absurd level of nitpicking... the phrase "is about" means both of those things in common speech, and everyone can tell which you mean depending on context. Language is defined by regular people through its use and context, scholars only describe it after the fact- to their extreme dismay. You might be technically correct within the jargon of, e.g. an academic literature course, but you aren't correct to insist the words mean that unless you are in that context, with that audience, where it has that meaning.

Moreover, I don't think you are correct, even in the literary sense, when saying, for example, what Neuromancer is about. I don't really care what an author says it's about, most artists are channeling something unconscious and often have very little conscious understanding of what their work is actually about. I've read plenty of Gibson books. The guy is an absolute luddite, and writes on a typewriter. He is terrified of how dangerous and dehumanizing technology is, and all of his books are "about" an all-consuming fear of technology and the changes it causes.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#312

Post by exoverito »

silverquiet wrote: post #209
exoverito wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will always billions in losses from something, especially when global wealth is estimated to be around 450 trillion. The Dust Bowl was a disastrous incident of climate change, yet it didn't occur because of CO2. The damage caused by the California Wildfires are just as much a function of expanding developments into forests, immediately putting out small fires leading to the accumulation of fuel over time, and o…

I'd be curious to see the science on enhanced plant growth; my understanding is that the benefits of increased CO2 fade very quickly. I believe we can already see plant pores evolving to be smaller as they were in previous times when the Earth had greater CO2 levels. About the only thing that gives me hope is SRM, but it's a half-assed solution at best. A world with 800ppm CO2 and a dimmed sun via aerosols is not the…

The optimal CO2 level for plant growth is between 800 and 1000 ppm, as observed within greenhouses.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/...

There is no perfect solution. One of the benefits of stratospheric aerosols is that they only stay suspended for 10 years or so, reducing the risk of long term effects. They are also an exceptionally cheap strategy, on the order of a few billion a year to cool the entire Earth. Compare that with the many trillions needed to just get to carbon neutral, while significantly reducing economic growth and living standards.

The world we were born into will not exist in any scenario. As they saying goes, you never step in the same river twice. CO2 emissions show no sign of decreasing, especially as China, India and Africa continue developing. Furthermore, we are on the cusp of AGI within the next decade or so, which will radically change reality far more than the Earth possibly getting a bit warmer in a 100 years or so. The IPCC does not even predict major cataclysm, and expects only sea level rise of a couple feet in the worst case scenario.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#313

Post by user90131313 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #49
belter wrote: post #3

We are in the multilayered race between - The risk of the rise of AGI - The risk and madness of Nuclear conflict - The risk of runaway Climate change My money is on Mother Gaia. She will brutally and swiftly discipline her puppies.

#1 is marketing hype. #2 is very real. #3 is happening and could cause #2 if wars for livable land and water resources break out.

2 is the real hype

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#314

Post by genezeta »

cma wrote: post #305
krainboltgreene wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the movies and stories you mentioned were about the "rise of AGI". The closest you can get might be The Matrix via Animatrix? You can go look up what the authors meant by their pieces, there's plenty of analysis of each of those stories. In addition I would love a citation on "the rise of AGI" being a fear in sci-fi for a long time, I've enjoyed quite a bit of science fiction literature and I can only think o…

Terminator 2 and a deleted scene, but the essence of it was there in the movie https://www.youtube.com/v=1UZeHJyiMG8&

Corrected link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UZeHJyiMG8

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#315

Post by vbezhenar »

alex_duf wrote: post #149
admissionsguy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 is marketing hype #2 is a remote possibility #3 is a non-threat

please explain how #3 is a non-threat?

And how hypothetical global warming is a threat? So let's assume it's happening. Let's assume some ices melt and ocean level rises. Let's assume some coastal cities gets flooded. Just move to higher places, eh? Why do you live in coast anyway, what a weird thing.

I'd welcome global warming, I tired of paying $50/month every winter just to keep my house warm.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#316

Post by feoren »

_yb2s wrote: post #160
AlexandrB wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 is marketing hype. #2 is very real. #3 is happening and could cause #2 if wars for livable land and water resources break out.

Regardless of how realistic you think AGI risk is, it’s not marketing hype- it has been a human fear and central in scifi for a long time. Movies like 2001, Terminator, and the Matrix were hugely popular long before AI was profitable. Arguably ancient myths about golems and genies are essentially the same fear and concept. AI companies are afraid of public fear over AI as it might lead to regulating them out of exist…

Spiders have been a human fear for two million years, but I'm not too worried about them causing our downfall as a species. Just because we're afraid of AI doesn't mean it's actually worth fearing.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#317

Post by somenameforme »

vasco wrote: post #281
daveguy wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One person can make one command decision and make #2 a reality. That's all it takes. No matter how many people drool over AGI the bandwidth and processing just isn't there. We barely have control systems as intelligent as a bacterium.

As far as I know no single person on earth can do it all by themselves - all the mechanisms I'm aware of at least.

To my knowledge, this is correct. In theory a command from e.g. the President is authoritative and should legally be carried out. In practice, you'd require every person along the chain to implicitly agree to effectively ending the world. Even at the bottom of the chain, there are likely multi-key requirements so even there you don't have just one person with his hand on the trigger.

This makes one of the biggest threats to humanity's survival being buggy software. If a software glitch from one side or the other suggests nuclear weapons are incoming, they will almost certainly retaliate in kind. And once the bombs are away, the other side will definitely respond, and that's pretty much gg humanity. In fact this exact thing very nearly happened in 1983. Soviet instrumentation indicated that the US had attack the USSR with multiple nuclear weapons. The technician on duty, Stanislav Petrov, [correctly] judged that what was happening was an instrumentation error, and disobeyed protocol - refusing to escalate it to his superiors who very well could have ordered retaliatory strikes.

For some context this had happened at once of the highest levels of tensions between the US and the USSR. This was in the era of the 'Star Wars program', which was to be a US missile defense shield, leading the Soviet Union to become paranoid about intentions of a preemptive nuclear strike attack. Those tensions had already led to the downing of one 747 that had inadvertently veered into Soviet territory, while carrying a US Congressman at that. Given this context it's highly probable that his superiors would have ordered the retaliation. So he's one of very few people who can be reasonably said to have saved the world.

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

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#318

Post by pfdietz »

dangus wrote: post #201
pfdietz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about that; I could see everyone drifting into a conflict no one wants, WW1 style. Recent events also are incentivizing small countries to go nuclear, which will increase the risk of nuclear war. I expect South Korea, Japan, and maybe even the Philippines and Vietnam to acquire nuclear weapons at some point. Japan already has a capability to acquire nuclear weapons quickly, with their separated reactor-g…

Acquiring nuclear weapons is not the same as using them. Nuclear weapons aren’t a combat armament. They are an insurance policy. They are a way to get adversaries to leave you alone or bring you to the negotiating table. I believe it was Kim Jong Il or Un or maybe both who directly stated this to insiders in their regime. They weren’t ever intended to be used, and those leaders were fully aware that any real conflict…

The argument "war won't occur, it's irrational" isn't a good one. Both WW1 and WW2 were irrational, but they happened anyway. If actors were perfectly rational no wars would occur.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#319

Post by _yb2s »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #146
aurareturn wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 is very real #2 is warmongering #3 will be solved by human ingenuity I have a more positive outlook. :)

The idea that we are going to technology our way out of climate change is hilariously naive. That would require us to remove more co2 from the atmopshere each year than we add, which is just a laughable idea to achieve within the required time frame of the next 15 years or so.

It would have to be both cultural/political, and technological on that time frame. With current technologies that remove CO2, we could completely remove all of the CO2 we currently add to the atmosphere, without even any reduction in our use or release of CO2. The cost of such an effort with current technology would be slightly less than, for example, the cost of World War II (adjusted for inflation, etc.).

If people cared enough to make huge sacrifices, we could absolutely do it right now. Now the technology to make it effortless, so it happens automatically without people doing anything expensive or difficult? E.g. pulling carbon from the air to make things becomes cheaper and superior to pulling oil from the ground? Indeed, we are a ways from that.

Re: Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years

#320

Post by jonwinstanley »

admissionsguy wrote: post #265
alex_duf wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please explain how #3 is a non-threat?

Unlike race, the fear of global warming is a social construct. Logically, if you are worried about humans, you should be worried about aging, cancer, heart disease. And if you are worried about the rest of nature, you should be worried about geology and human influence (of which climate is a minor part and self-limiting if significant).

You can’t think of any circumstances where climate change might cause a threat to human life on the planet?
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