9 ms·
> But our looming weight makes us vulnerable, vulnerable to viruses that were once isolated deep in forests and mountains, but are now bumping into humans, vuln
by grondilu 9y ago
> But our looming weight makes us vulnerable, vulnerable to viruses that were once isolated deep in forests and mountains, but are now bumping into humans, vulnerable to climate change, vulnerable to armies fighting over scarce resources. The lesson of Toba the Supervolcano is that there is nothing inevitable about our domination of the world. With a little bad luck, we can go too.
I'm personally more inclined to think we are less vulnerable than ever before.
I doubt any virus would wipe out an entire population. An infectious agent spreads better among a numerous population, but as it kills its hosts, the population becomes smaller, which slows the infection rate. So there is negative feedback here, and I doubt that can lead to a total extinction of the host species. Not to mention that we have modern medicine now, and that we understand how viruses work.
Climate change is an issue, but I have hard times imagining how it could wipe out all human beings. Worse case scenario, I guess, would be a sharp decline in agricultural production. So hunger riots and stuff. But even that would at worse reduce the population until a new equilibrium is reached. And I don't see that equilibrium to be at 0.
Nuclear war is a serious threat. But it's not like it would destroy the surface of the Earth or anything. It would provoke a nuclear winter though. I suppose a nuclear winter is about as bad as a volcanic winter is, or worse. Again, the main difficulty would be a sharp decline in food production. And that also would require a new population equilibrium to be reached.
IMHO human beings, nowadays, can deal with an awful lot of contingencies. We can predict them, we can store resources, we can plan ahead...
There really is a case to make about the idea that humans will survive a mass extinction. Annalee Newitz wrote a book about it[1]
1. https://www.amazon.com/Scatter-Adapt-Remember-Survive-Extinction/dp/0307949427 https://www.amazon.com/Scatter-Adapt-Remember-Survive-Extinc...
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoCanticle for Liebowitz is a novel on that topic. I'm not sure "humans will not go totally extinct" is any more comforting than the cliche of "We'll not destroy the earth, it'll be fine, it's human's that'll be wiped out" there's definately the opportunity for a lot of people to have a very bad time. Even worse than the bad times that large segments of the planet are experiencing right now.
- _Microft 9y agoNo matter how bad times large segments of the planet are experiencing, there have been worse times. Meaning:almost all of the past was worse than it is today. At https://ourworldindata.org/ https://ourworldindata.org/ you can find tons of data, info-graphics and articles from various (respectable) sources backing that claim. That's not meaning that things are all rosy yet - just meaning that they have been worse in the past!
- kerbalspacepro 9y agoI feel like people use the current ok state of humanity and the phrase "it's been worse!" to block out a completely unrelated statement, "it might get worse".
- _Microft 9y agoI never said that we not better make sure that it stays that way. If I see someone mentioning the "current, miserable state of the world" I have to object and correct their skewed view (which is not of the present but of a wrongly remembered or romanticized past that serves as incorrect baseline for the comparison!).
- marcus_holmes 9y agoI think it's not so much a rosy view of the past, but a fear-filled view of the present. I did a quick poll of my FB feed, and about 60% of my "friends" felt that the present was worse than the past. Despite all the evidence saying that it's not.
- vlehto 9y agoI'm also not afraid of isolated viruses in desolate places. They have limited gene pool and no humans to practice with. It's incredibly unlikely that such virus would randomly be very very good at targeting humans, but also very very bad at staying super sneaky when on a human host. The optimum strategy for virus is not to kill. It's to stay unnoticed and spread. And the best way to stay unnoticed is not to cause any symptoms ever. HIV is scary because it's not very good at staying unnoticed. But it's also very bad at spreading too. Same goes with anthrax and pretty much every other deadly virus/bacteria. They typically are optimized for other mammals and therefore they suck at both staying unnoticed and targeting humans.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eru 9y agoHIV has actually gotten much better at co-existing with its human hosts over the last few decades.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gepi79 9y agoIMO the only thing that could extinguish humanity is AI (possibly extra-terrestrial AI). Other events (if in the next decades) that might kill billions of humans: - meteorites. - super volcanoes. - any combination of them. There is nothing else that could happen for real that would harm humanity to a catastrophic degree.
- jon_smark 9y agoWhat about pandemics? (Either natural or engineered.)
- gepi79 9y agoPossible in theory but IMO too unlikely; especially for a natural disease. With regard to climate change: We know the danger is real and thus humanity adapts to prevent the worst.
- mseebach 9y agoWe're pretty good at disease control, see eg. the recent ebola outbreak. An outbreak of anything dangerous would be quickly contained. There are no organizations with the capacity to surreptitiously produce, distribute and release an infection agent broadly enough that it might kill in the billions before being contained. That basically leaves the US or Russia (the only countries with the capacity to do so) arbitrarily deciding to nuke most cities in south Asia.
- eru 9y agoI'd give China more of a chance than Russia, actually. They have more resources. (But perhaps less willingness than Russia: China is doing very well with the status quo.)
- mseebach 9y agoI don't think China has the nuclear warhead stockpile to kill 1 billion+ people. Wikipedia says "Current stockpile (usable and not): ~260" which means each would have to kill 3.8 million, which basically means delivering each perfectly into a major city. That's a non-trivial operation to put it mildly. That said, I don't see any objective (rational or otherwise) of either country that would be advanced by such an attack. And again, we're talking about an attack that will kill 1B+ people, not just any nuclear attack -- that's a different story. Still low probability, but at least there are semi-rational objectives that could motivate it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...
- keeperofdakeys 9y agoAs a species we're still part of the food chain, we depend upon plants and animals to survive, and we're full of microorganisms. Some of the long lasting consequences of the Chernobyl disaster in this respect are quite worrying - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around-chernobyl-arent-decaying-properly-180950075/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/forests-around....