5 ms·

Over the past 5-10 years I've gone from being mostly optimistic about our collective future to quite pessimistic. It's looking increasingly likely that we're un

Over the past 5-10 years I've gone from being mostly optimistic about our collective future to quite pessimistic. It's looking increasingly likely that we're unable to solve problems like climate change that require mass cooperation and that too many people are too selfish and short-sighted to allow for collective action. And in the (hopefully unlikely) event that industrial society collapses (from a pandemic, mass political instability, etc) any surviving humans won't be able to restart it because we've already used all of the "easy" fossil fuels. This is pretty much our only shot at making civilization work.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
> any surviving humans won't be able to restart it because we've already used all of the "easy" fossil fuels. How much fuel do we need to restart a society, assuming we still have knowledge left over? Could a seed of a technological society start at hydroelectric dams, or in places where solar infrastructure still exists?
- mrob 10y ago
  There's an interesting Youtube channel "Primitive Technology"[0]. Note how pretty much every technology involves fire. This is prehistoric tech-level, and it already won't scale to modern population sizes without fossil fuels. Trees aren't enough[1]. Modern technology is even more energy intensive. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Pre-industrial_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Pre-industrial_h...
  - xj9 10y ago
    why would you jump all of the way back to prehistoric tech? a lot of modern (and fairly green) tech would be pretty easy to salvage. manufacturing some of this stuff is pretty involved, but i don't think we will have to start all the way over. https://youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw https://youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw http://www.mikeswindmillshop.com/instructional-lessons/mikes-method-building-wind-generators http://www.mikeswindmillshop.com/instructional-lessons/mikes... http://www.techlib.com/electronics/amxmit.htm http://www.techlib.com/electronics/amxmit.htm
  - adrianN 10y ago
    Modern population sizes are unlikely to be sustained past a hypothetic apocalypse and a rebirth of technology is unlikely to include a large part of the survivors. The question is how many hands you need at least to bootstrap from society's scrap metal back to a sustainable technology stack.
    - abtinf 10y ago
      More than .15 per square mile. According to Guns, Germs, and Steel, a population of 4,000 humans living in Tasmania were cutoff from contact with the mainland after the Bass Straight flooded 10,000 years ago. In this extreme isolation, they regressed beyond even stone-age technology, including losing knowledge of how to catch fish or start fires. https://books.google.com/books?id=PWnWRFEGoeUC&pg=PA312&lpg=PA312&dq=guns+germs+and+steel+tasmania&source=bl&ots=Ol_5hGxUlS&sig=E9DhyYydJrCYM5ZwdtOt34qQ9I8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie4PrR0dnTAhVN62MKHbDhBSgQ6AEIHDAA https://books.google.com/books?id=PWnWRFEGoeUC&pg=PA312&lpg=...
jerf 10y ago
It may help you to ponder that in the 1980s, a lot of people were extremely confident human civilization was doomed, doomed, doomed by certainly no later than 2000, and even setting the date that late was terribly optimistic. There are people who profit from selling this doom. Buy less of it. I'm not a binary thinker, so just because I'm saying "don't feel quite so doomed" does not mean I'm advocating for the polar opposite blindly sunny disposition either. I said "buy less of it" rather than "stop buying it" quite deliberately. But doom has been "real soon now!" for, like, 60+ years, and it's an important perspective to keep that in mind when you hear today's confident doom-mongers promising immanent doom Real Soon Now (TM). (More than 60 years, really, you can find people complaining about how society is going downhill in antiquity. But the modern brand is about 50-60 years old.)
- minikites 10y ago
  Making comparisons to antiquity is useless because we didn't have any mechanism for ruining the planet. Now we have all of the tools necessary to make that happen in a few hours through action (nuclear weapons) or a few decades through inaction (climate change). And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
  - jerf 10y ago
    "And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite:" I would consider this support for my point, not contradiction. Before replying, please do me the courtesy of at least trying to imagine how I might consider that the case. I also reiterate my point about this not being a binary situation, because I can't help but think you did indeed, despite my explicit discussion, interpret it as a claim you shouldn't be worried about anything.
- badosu 10y ago
patrickdavey 10y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here, I must say I broadly agree with you. Certainly on the "mass cooperation and altruism" part. What I'd like to know, is: "Is democracy suited to solving issues like climate change" ? It seems to me, that, solutions to climate change mostly mean a reduction in consumption & energy use (at least in the interim), and, what politicians will be voted in on those policies?
- the_gastropod 10y ago
  I don't usually like citing old dead people, but Thomas Jefferson said "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." I think the biggest problem with our lack of action with regards to climate change is our lack of education.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > "Is democracy suited to solving issues like climate change" Noam Chomsky gave a talk[1] about a month ago about that question, but his version substitutes intelligence for democracy. Species that are successful at maintaining their niche over evolutionary time spans are not selecting for intelligence. Survivability of a species, population size, and speciation rate generally decrease as intelligence rises. I might believe we have a chance as a species if we were doing anything even remotely realistic to address our actual long-term threats, but we aren't. Instead, the actual actions being taken seem to be almost unanimous trying to accelerate us into disaster. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0R_06zOOY#t=128 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0R_06zOOY#t=128
switchbak 10y ago
It's a shame you're getting downvoted, I thought your comment was quite insightful, if a little pessimistic. There has certainly been lots of doom and gloom in the past, with some (not all) of it quite justified - look how close we came to nuclear annihilation multiple times during the cold war. It was only cool headed individuals that kept all of humanity from a tragic end. Those fears were well justified, and we're getting to a similar situation right now, so close that William J. Perry thinks we're at the highest likelihood of nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis. Those war-based risks are of a very different (political) nature however, one that doesn't persist after the war pressures subside. With climate change, we're in a much different situation, and one that I'm actually not sure we're up to solving. If we look at progress so far, I don't think it looks good. It's a shame it's being converted into a political and tribal game. We're talking about the survival of an advanced species here (hell, it might be the only one). There is literally nothing more important than that.
- averagewall 10y ago
  > the survival of an advanced species here No we're not. That's not the risk of global warming. Such false extremist ideas are part of the tribalism you mention and make it worse.
- vanjoe 10y ago
  > kept all of humanity from a tragic end Humanity would have survived, lots of people would Die, but not everyone
averagewall 10y ago
Is there any evidence that any of those disasters are likely enough to sacrifice our other goals for? We've recently had mass political instability, yet WWII was actually followed by a boost of industry rather than a collapse and the cold war was followed by people carrying on perfectly fine but with space travel and satellite communications. Just because people don't cooperate to do the thing that you personally want them to do doesn't make them selfish. They are still cooperating doing something else which may turn out to be even more valuable - improving technology and helping each other with real, and possibly even more serious problems like disease and happiness. You can't judge that that they're working towards the wrong goal, it's just different to your personal goal.

pavel_lishin 10y ago

> any surviving humans won't be able to restart it because we've already used all of the "easy" fossil fuels. How much fuel do we need to restart a society, assuming we still have knowledge left over? Could a seed of a technological society start at hydroelectric dams, or in places where solar infrastructure still exists?

mrob 10y ago
There's an interesting Youtube channel "Primitive Technology"[0]. Note how pretty much every technology involves fire. This is prehistoric tech-level, and it already won't scale to modern population sizes without fossil fuels. Trees aren't enough[1]. Modern technology is even more energy intensive. [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Pre-industrial_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Pre-industrial_h...
- xj9 10y ago
  why would you jump all of the way back to prehistoric tech? a lot of modern (and fairly green) tech would be pretty easy to salvage. manufacturing some of this stuff is pretty involved, but i don't think we will have to start all the way over. https://youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw https://youtu.be/ZmHY9DkD1Hw http://www.mikeswindmillshop.com/instructional-lessons/mikes-method-building-wind-generators http://www.mikeswindmillshop.com/instructional-lessons/mikes... http://www.techlib.com/electronics/amxmit.htm http://www.techlib.com/electronics/amxmit.htm
- adrianN 10y ago
  Modern population sizes are unlikely to be sustained past a hypothetic apocalypse and a rebirth of technology is unlikely to include a large part of the survivors. The question is how many hands you need at least to bootstrap from society's scrap metal back to a sustainable technology stack.
  - abtinf 10y ago
    More than .15 per square mile. According to Guns, Germs, and Steel, a population of 4,000 humans living in Tasmania were cutoff from contact with the mainland after the Bass Straight flooded 10,000 years ago. In this extreme isolation, they regressed beyond even stone-age technology, including losing knowledge of how to catch fish or start fires. https://books.google.com/books?id=PWnWRFEGoeUC&pg=PA312&lpg=PA312&dq=guns+germs+and+steel+tasmania&source=bl&ots=Ol_5hGxUlS&sig=E9DhyYydJrCYM5ZwdtOt34qQ9I8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie4PrR0dnTAhVN62MKHbDhBSgQ6AEIHDAA https://books.google.com/books?id=PWnWRFEGoeUC&pg=PA312&lpg=...

jerf 10y ago

It may help you to ponder that in the 1980s, a lot of people were extremely confident human civilization was doomed, doomed, doomed by certainly no later than 2000, and even setting the date that late was terribly optimistic. There are people who profit from selling this doom. Buy less of it. I'm not a binary thinker, so just because I'm saying "don't feel quite so doomed" does not mean I'm advocating for the polar opposite blindly sunny disposition either. I said "buy less of it" rather than "stop buying it" quite deliberately. But doom has been "real soon now!" for, like, 60+ years, and it's an important perspective to keep that in mind when you hear today's confident doom-mongers promising immanent doom Real Soon Now (TM). (More than 60 years, really, you can find people complaining about how society is going downhill in antiquity. But the modern brand is about 50-60 years old.)

minikites 10y ago
Making comparisons to antiquity is useless because we didn't have any mechanism for ruining the planet. Now we have all of the tools necessary to make that happen in a few hours through action (nuclear weapons) or a few decades through inaction (climate change). And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident
- jerf 10y ago
  "And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite:" I would consider this support for my point, not contradiction. Before replying, please do me the courtesy of at least trying to imagine how I might consider that the case. I also reiterate my point about this not being a binary situation, because I can't help but think you did indeed, despite my explicit discussion, interpret it as a claim you shouldn't be worried about anything.
badosu 10y ago

patrickdavey 10y ago

I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here, I must say I broadly agree with you. Certainly on the "mass cooperation and altruism" part. What I'd like to know, is: "Is democracy suited to solving issues like climate change" ? It seems to me, that, solutions to climate change mostly mean a reduction in consumption & energy use (at least in the interim), and, what politicians will be voted in on those policies?

the_gastropod 10y ago
I don't usually like citing old dead people, but Thomas Jefferson said "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." I think the biggest problem with our lack of action with regards to climate change is our lack of education.
pdkl95 10y ago
> "Is democracy suited to solving issues like climate change" Noam Chomsky gave a talk[1] about a month ago about that question, but his version substitutes intelligence for democracy. Species that are successful at maintaining their niche over evolutionary time spans are not selecting for intelligence. Survivability of a species, population size, and speciation rate generally decrease as intelligence rises. I might believe we have a chance as a species if we were doing anything even remotely realistic to address our actual long-term threats, but we aren't. Instead, the actual actions being taken seem to be almost unanimous trying to accelerate us into disaster. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0R_06zOOY#t=128 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK0R_06zOOY#t=128

switchbak 10y ago

It's a shame you're getting downvoted, I thought your comment was quite insightful, if a little pessimistic. There has certainly been lots of doom and gloom in the past, with some (not all) of it quite justified - look how close we came to nuclear annihilation multiple times during the cold war. It was only cool headed individuals that kept all of humanity from a tragic end. Those fears were well justified, and we're getting to a similar situation right now, so close that William J. Perry thinks we're at the highest likelihood of nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis. Those war-based risks are of a very different (political) nature however, one that doesn't persist after the war pressures subside. With climate change, we're in a much different situation, and one that I'm actually not sure we're up to solving. If we look at progress so far, I don't think it looks good. It's a shame it's being converted into a political and tribal game. We're talking about the survival of an advanced species here (hell, it might be the only one). There is literally nothing more important than that.

averagewall 10y ago
> the survival of an advanced species here No we're not. That's not the risk of global warming. Such false extremist ideas are part of the tribalism you mention and make it worse.
vanjoe 10y ago
> kept all of humanity from a tragic end Humanity would have survived, lots of people would Die, but not everyone

averagewall 10y ago

Is there any evidence that any of those disasters are likely enough to sacrifice our other goals for? We've recently had mass political instability, yet WWII was actually followed by a boost of industry rather than a collapse and the cold war was followed by people carrying on perfectly fine but with space travel and satellite communications. Just because people don't cooperate to do the thing that you personally want them to do doesn't make them selfish. They are still cooperating doing something else which may turn out to be even more valuable - improving technology and helping each other with real, and possibly even more serious problems like disease and happiness. You can't judge that that they're working towards the wrong goal, it's just different to your personal goal.