5 ms·
What's it going to take?
by bippi 8y ago
What's it going to take?
- mirimir 8y agoVery likely, it will take the collapse of human high-tech civilization, and substantial reductions in human populations and resource exploitation.
- snikeris 8y agoOn a long enough timeline, only human high-tech civilization will save the species of our planet.
- EliRivers 8y agoOr that of some non-human species. If humans check out, perhaps someone else will take a turn.
- jniedrauer 8y agoNo extant life is capable of building advanced technology except us. It would take a very long time for that to change. And there are no guarantees that we don't experience another catastrophic mass extinction event along the way that finally finishes us off. They would also be left with a world that has no cheap fuel sources or easily accessible raw materials. This may be the only chance our solar system will ever get at advanced civilization.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- EliRivers 8y agoOn a long enough timeline. The kind of time that recycles continents. The kind of time that turns a small mammal into a dominant technological species. My point was that the OP assumed only humans can do it. I disagree. There's no law of physics preventing another species evolving and having a go, once humans vanish. In the meantime, while they're busy evolving, some cheap energy sources can be created for them. Plenty of time left before the sun changes too much.
- ForHackernews 8y ago> In the meantime, while they're busy evolving, some cheap energy sources can be created for them. That may or may not be true. The fossil fuel glut that helped humanity develop industrial technology was the byproduct of a pretty strange set of evolutionary and environmental circumstances: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01/07/the-fantastically-strange-origin-of-most-coal-on-earth/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/01...
- TeMPOraL 8y agoBut honestly, who cares if a hypothetical far-future species of intelligent beings would evolve on Earth. We are humans, this is our civilization, and if we fuck this one up, we're checking out of the game. Even if we don't go extinct, it'll be many millennia before we're back at our feet. We have one chance here to build something qualitatively new and permanent in this universe.
- ForHackernews 8y agoIt may well be too late already. This article was originally posted in 2016, and things have gotten worse since then: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fossil-fuels https://www.vox.com/2016/10/4/13118594/2-degrees-no-more-fos... If we wanted to have a genuine fighting chance of holding climate change to a safe level, the entire world would need to be on a war footing: rationing, mass revocation of driver's licenses, no coal power plants, anywhere. Nobody will stand for that, there's no political or economic will. Our grandchildren will curse us for hard lives we've bequeathed to them.
- mirimir 8y agoI get that perspective. But maybe we could identify with self-consciousness and intelligence, rather than with just humans.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoSure. But right now humans are the only species exhibiting self-consciousness and intelligence in the known universe! We barely have a clue about how that came to be, and under what conditions it could happen again. It may very well be that we are - and forever will be - the only ones with "the spark" in the entire lightcone of Earth. So until another self-conscious intelligence presents itself, or until we have a more robust model that shows one should arise shall we die off, I think it's best to stick with our team for now, as it might be the only team.
- poulsbohemian 8y agoI'm pretty sure my cats are just keeping me around because I can open the food can.
- mirimir 8y agoAnd because you're too big to kill. But if you die, they may eat you ;)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tremon 8y agoOur technological ability to destroy greatly outmatches our ability to preserve, and always has. I do not believe techological progress will save the day. Technology alone with not spontaneously generate more sustainable economics or more reponsible societies.
- snikeris 8y agoI disagree. When you're struggling to survive, you don't care what your trash fire is doing to the environment. Caring about the environment is a wealthy person's problem. Technology creates wealth.
- trukterious 8y agoSnikeris is snickety, but correct. In the long run, only technology and creativity could create better substitutes for burning wood and dung. For making furniture and other structures out of rainforest hardwood. Only technology will avert the next big meteor strike and the next super-volcano eruption (both otherwise inevitable, and both capable of wiping out a multitude of species, as has happened previously). Reversion to a primitive way of life could make matters worse, environmentally speaking. The attraction is based on guilt. It's a response to the alienation and nihilism we associate with modernity; a response to philosophical and spiritual problems rather than to environmental ones. So our duty remains not to prophecy doom but to work for a better world -- for all life.
- PeterisP 8y agoWood is a renewable resource - if the global population was (for example) a few million people, then building everything out of wood, clearcutting forests for farming and burning all the wood they'd need wouldn't be a problem; and without technology a high population can't be sustained. What's dangerous, however, is a mid-tech low-income high-population situation, which can only be a dystopia. High technology is a solution, stone-age technology can be a solution, but any semi-industrialized post-apocalyptic 'steampunk' will be worse than both high and low tech.
- 8y ago
- mirimir 8y agoYes, I suppose. The species saved will be humans, pets, livestock, crops, and whatever else is necessary, or can't be gotten rid of.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoThe looming cliff of possible extinction becoming visible. Of course at that point it's way past too late.
- redleggedfrog 8y agoYou can take solace in the nature of geographic time. Eventually humans will be gone and nature will replenish itself. Life finds a way.
- saiya-jin 8y agoIf you take even broader view, all life on Earth will die when our dying Sun expands itself and burn Earth. To me that's equivalent of life without meaning or purpose, but that might be just my narrow view. Also possible is - another species, probably if challenged enough will evolve to be smart enough to escape, colonize the galaxy or whole universe. But we still have a good chance! Let's not focus at what is broken, failed or doomed but rather what might give us better chance achieving this. It can be supporting some moral company (not necessarily SpaceX but possibly a good example), or not supporting one that is oblivious to environment and our future and has the only focus to make money at all costs. it can be just about being a good person to everybody out there. Tiny steps can lead to great future... maybe I am naive, but does it really matter in this specific topic? We have no clue about future, which decisions will be important and which not.
- jniedrauer 8y agoConsider that climate change caused by advanced civilizations may be "the great filter". The stars really are empty. We had a chance, but we failed just like all the others. Maybe life doesn't find a way.
- sebazzz 8y agoIntelligent life does not find a way. But what is the root cause? Why don't we care enough? Money?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- PeterisP 8y agoA clear, imminent harm to our livelihood in this generation. A clear harm to someone else's livelihood (e.g. birds, or some people on the other side of the planet) or long-term harm to our descendants is clearly not considered sufficient as we all can see.