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meh... people have been screaming DHOOOOOOOOOM!!! for generations upon generation... We'll never make enough food... we'll never have enough energy... we'll ne

meh... people have been screaming DHOOOOOOOOOM!!! for generations upon generation... We'll never make enough food... we'll never have enough energy... we'll never get along... Things are always bordering on the end of the world yet we survive.

michaelmrose 9y ago
Prior returns don't guarantee future results. Have you considered that people have taken steps to avoid catastrophy.
- wernercd 9y ago
  Granted, it only takes one "failure"... but... "people taking steps" is exactly what I was alluding too... Time and time again, cries of "Too many people!!!"... how will we feed 1 billion people? Advances in farming, logistics, technology, etc... What's being done now? More advances in farming, vertical farming, AI, etc...
Zigurd 9y ago
That depends on the nature of the threat. Running out of feedstock for plastic? Not a problem. That's the sort of thing for which one can assume a technology fix will happen, and there is probably plenty of time. On the other hand, missing the population slow-down projections and ending up with a 20 billion population? That's doom, and there is no techno-savior.
- wernercd 9y ago
  "ending up with 20 Billion Population? That's doom, and their is no techno-savior" Except for advances in vertical farming, green energy, advances in urban planning allowing people to live denser and more packed together... We'll all be dead because earth can't handle the population... cira'1968: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors... "Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.” So... by 1985, we will all be dead because DOOM!!! Time and time again... Now... can we all "get along"? Christians, Muslims, Chinese, Russians, etc? THAT isn't a technology problem - that's a humanity problem. Can we feed everyone? We sure can... and advances in tech continue to push the envelope and there is no reason to believe that we can support many multiples of what we have now. Is there an upper limit? Undoubtedly... are we near it? Hardly...
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    A population that's 2X the fairly optimistic projections of global population growth slowdown roughly double energy needs, at a time when, at best, renewable energy faces both enormous opportunity and enormous challenges in replacing coal and oil, and when cutting greenhouse gasses is critical to human survival. Just making that twice as large a challenge is reckless and dices with extinction.
dwringer 9y ago
"Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not"
- hueving 9y ago
  Which human species didn't make it past all of the previous catastrophes they predicted?
  - mikepurvis 9y ago
    Those that didn't are largely not around to let us know whether or not anyone was raising the alarm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapa_Nui_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapa_Nui_people
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    Which INTELLIGENT species didn't make it past all of the previous catastrophes they predicted? ...all the ones we never heard of.

michaelmrose 9y ago

Prior returns don't guarantee future results. Have you considered that people have taken steps to avoid catastrophy.

wernercd 9y ago
Granted, it only takes one "failure"... but... "people taking steps" is exactly what I was alluding too... Time and time again, cries of "Too many people!!!"... how will we feed 1 billion people? Advances in farming, logistics, technology, etc... What's being done now? More advances in farming, vertical farming, AI, etc...

Zigurd 9y ago

That depends on the nature of the threat. Running out of feedstock for plastic? Not a problem. That's the sort of thing for which one can assume a technology fix will happen, and there is probably plenty of time. On the other hand, missing the population slow-down projections and ending up with a 20 billion population? That's doom, and there is no techno-savior.

wernercd 9y ago
"ending up with 20 Billion Population? That's doom, and their is no techno-savior" Except for advances in vertical farming, green energy, advances in urban planning allowing people to live denser and more packed together... We'll all be dead because earth can't handle the population... cira'1968: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors-of-population-explosion.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/01/us/the-unrealized-horrors... "Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.” So... by 1985, we will all be dead because DOOM!!! Time and time again... Now... can we all "get along"? Christians, Muslims, Chinese, Russians, etc? THAT isn't a technology problem - that's a humanity problem. Can we feed everyone? We sure can... and advances in tech continue to push the envelope and there is no reason to believe that we can support many multiples of what we have now. Is there an upper limit? Undoubtedly... are we near it? Hardly...
- Zigurd 9y ago
  A population that's 2X the fairly optimistic projections of global population growth slowdown roughly double energy needs, at a time when, at best, renewable energy faces both enormous opportunity and enormous challenges in replacing coal and oil, and when cutting greenhouse gasses is critical to human survival. Just making that twice as large a challenge is reckless and dices with extinction.

dwringer 9y ago

"Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not"

hueving 9y ago
Which human species didn't make it past all of the previous catastrophes they predicted?
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  Those that didn't are largely not around to let us know whether or not anyone was raising the alarm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapa_Nui_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapa_Nui_people
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  Which INTELLIGENT species didn't make it past all of the previous catastrophes they predicted? ...all the ones we never heard of.