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The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

nautil.us

41–50 of 69 posts

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#41
post #38

Second coming, rapture etc are not unique to religious nutcases. It appears to be a mental disease that afflicts the atheist PhDs and others alike. Over the last 100 years, average temperature (of whatever use this metric is) has gone up 1.5 deg C. Meanwhile life on this planet has flourished. Planet’s green cover has increased. Humans are better off on pretty much every metric.

You need to educate yourself some more my friend. You could start with the latest IPCC report's summary. Green cover won't tell you much about loss of insects, marine wildlife, microorganism in the soil, etc... Also I'd be interested in which specific metric you speak about when talking about humans being better off and which studies you are refering too. You'll reckon that if you don't even trust a widespread scient…

Let’s say there has indeed been loss of insect life for the sake of argument due to “climate change” on account of human activity and that the knob can be turned back by some magical calibration of human activity.

As a chief beneficiary of such activity (clearly you are using a modern computing/communication device from a climate controlled space to access a frivolous internet chat forum), why don’t you take responsibility and the lead? Perhaps give up your computer(s), phone(s), automobile, refrigerator, television and quit commuting and vacationing away from your local park and live off the land by growing vegetables. You know you can show us the ropes and kick start a global movement that will turn the knob.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#42

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that apocalypse porn helps the situation. I don't feel a need to see that new Civil War movie.

Your average war movie is much more apocalypse porn than Civil War. Civil War was a "this would suck, seriously" experience, not fantasizing & idolizing which the word porn implies.

Also, I need to immortalize a typo that I made writing the above paragraph:

Civil Warn

That's a good summary of the movie.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#43

As logical as it is, I think advocacy of “degrowth” is a sure formula to put the far right in the driver’s seat and anyone who is seriously concerned about survival as forming another ingroup-outgrouo thing needs and answer to that.

the word "degrowth" isn't mentioned once in this interview fwiw. it's actually a rational take on resiliency in the face of an uncertain future, built upon the realities of biological change and history.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#44
post #20

I've made peace with the fact that a portion of humanity is always convinced the world will end soon. I guess it serves some evolutionary purpose, since it's so deeply ingrained. We've done quite well with these people among us so far, despite them always, since the dawn of humanity, being wrong.

> being wrong The last collapse happended to the natives of a whole continent just a few centuries ago by new types of disease. I don't think they expected that, so they didn't need to be wrong, it just happened.

I could make the (true) argument that while this almost (their descendants are still around) happened, all of humanity was not extinguished.

But it's an interesting point. While the world never ends, entire peoples and nations do get extinguished with some regularity, and having people around who always look for ways this can happen could serve a credible evolutionary purpose, even though they're almost always wrong.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#45

I've made peace with the fact that a portion of humanity is always convinced the world will end soon. I guess it serves some evolutionary purpose, since it's so deeply ingrained. We've done quite well with these people among us so far, despite them always, since the dawn of humanity, being wrong.

The phrase “since the dawn of humanity” is doing a lot of work in this comment. On a long enough timeline, the “world has ended” multiple times. This isn’t doomerism, it’s a pragmatic view from a biologist’s perspective.

Also as others pointed out, you misinterpret or misrepresent the interviewee’s words by placing “the end of the world” alongside TFA’s as though a thoughtful discussion with domain experts (in biology) is the same as the ravings of apocalyptic cranks.

Do you have an argument besides the ad hominem directed at “these people among us”?

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#46

To anyone feeling anxious about the future after reading this article: We have the technology to pause the worst effects of climate change indefinitely for a few billion dollars a year: https://news.uchicago.edu/radical-solution-address-climate-c... It’s far from a complete solution, but it works well enough that the future described in the article is much more a dark fantasy than a likely reality.

Please expand on the tension between the competing passages of “We have the technology to pause the worst effects..” and “It’s far from a complete solution”.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#48

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't think that apocalypse porn helps the situation. I don't feel a need to see that new Civil War movie.

Right. I'm also getting old and I've learned not to worry about things I can't change. If the world decides through inaction to find out about the veracity of current predictions where our path is taking us, I'll be along for the ride. Whether I want to or not.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#49

Second coming, rapture etc are not unique to religious nutcases. It appears to be a mental disease that afflicts the atheist PhDs and others alike. Over the last 100 years, average temperature (of whatever use this metric is) has gone up 1.5 deg C. Meanwhile life on this planet has flourished. Planet’s green cover has increased. Humans are better off on pretty much every metric.

"Flourished" in the context having the background extinction rate 2-3 orders above the normal is a bit overoptimistic if not intentionally misleading. Yes, we have far more cows that there were ever been, or far more units of a narrow set of crops than ever.

But that is not a full system, in particular, a sustainable one. And the signals that things are decaying fast, at least for what matters for our civilization, are all around. And they are not just about climate or the natural world.

Re: The Collapse Is Coming. Will Humanity Adapt?

#50

To anyone feeling anxious about the future after reading this article: We have the technology to pause the worst effects of climate change indefinitely for a few billion dollars a year: https://news.uchicago.edu/radical-solution-address-climate-c... It’s far from a complete solution, but it works well enough that the future described in the article is much more a dark fantasy than a likely reality.

When we willing and trull obey all the laws of Maker of the universe, then we will be prepared for the future crises that is to come. In fact, it already here with us. Climate Change!!! Lets carefully look into the real motive of this phrase
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