6 ms·

"I’ve been thinking about 12 Monkeys a lot lately. It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the

by AJRF 8y ago

"I’ve been thinking about 12 Monkeys a lot lately. It seems, these days, as though the human race has passed a Rubicon and is now on a straight path toward the end of days, or at least the end of the social order as we know it." This feels a little unsubstantiated. Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This pessimism is toxic and unrealistic.

DennisP 8y ago
Historically speaking, the best time to own Bitcoin was back in January. Things always look great at the top of a bubble. CO2 is higher than in the past several million years and we're still adding more at our usual pace. We've killed 60% of wild vertebrate life since 1970, wiped out a large percentage of the insect population, and we're continuing the practices that caused that as well. None of this can go on forever. Almost everybody misses the main finding of the Club of Rome study: if you model a simple assumption that resources get more expensive to extract over time and environmental destruction gets more expensive to deal with, you don't get a gradual decline. You get continued improvement up to a peak, and then it suddenly crashes down. What's really toxic: enjoying that run up to the peak and assuming everything's fine, instead of buckling down and fixing the problems before it's too late.
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  Well put. The ironic thing about all numbers-oriented folks in extractive enterprises (regardless of whether they're extracting natural resources, capital, or labor), is their blind spot to the fact that ALL resources are finite. There's no "free-refill" when the big-gulp runs out.
  - ewhanley 8y ago
    I can only speak to the minerals extraction industry (oil & gas, specifically), but they (we) are well aware that hydrocarbons are a finite resource. The industry as a whole is arguably short sighted, but it’s not because they think the supply of oil is endless.
    - pixl97 8y ago
      Really a bigger issue is that huge amounts of hydrocarbons still exist to be tapped. Which then get turned into atmospheric CO2.
      - XorNot 8y ago
        Coal is particularly problematic. Oil may peak soon... Australia alone has like 400 years worth of coal in known reserves alone. We won't run out of it anytime soon - we absolutely should not dig it all up and burn it though.
  - dorgo 8y ago
    > ALL resources are finite Not in a world where matter/energy is conserved over time.
    - krapp 8y ago
      The Second Law of Thermodynamics would like a word with you...
- andrepd 8y ago
  The root cause of all of this: an economic system predicated on the notion of growth. Unrestrained greed, sole focus on maximization of profit, and unlimited growth. It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. Doesn't matter if you're mining the earth bare, generating millions of tons of garbage, optimising for inferior products that break sooner, treating workers like slaves in a race to the bottom... in other words making the world objectively worse. All social considerations, moral, ecological, of welfare, of justice, all those considerations don't enter the calculations. All that matters is the quarterly shareholder report. Like some guy said, "the only people who believe in infinite growth on a finite planet are madmen and economists".
  - howlin 8y ago
    """ It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. """ But if the next gen of phones use 30% less resources, it's still possible to grow without increasing the rate of resource consumption. GDP growth has been driven much more by innovation than added resource consumption for years.
    - MrTonyD 8y ago
      I think you're missing his point.
    - jdc 8y ago
      However with Jevon's Paradox, we get the opposite consequence and people consume even more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
  - platz 8y ago
    If you don't produce more than you consume (i.e. grow), how do you sustain yourself?
    - Klinky 8y ago
      Sustenance is not the same thing as unrestrained growth.
- jm__87 8y ago
  > if you model a simple assumption that resources get more expensive to extract over time Why would you make this assumption? Resources get cheaper to extract over time as technology improves...
  - DennisP 8y ago
    Technology improves but resources get more scarce. Oil is getting more expensive to extract, for example. The same is true of many mineral resources, as we're forced to move to lower-grade ores. But your point is a good one. I basically see us as being in a race between technological improvement and environmental catastrophe. I'm not at all sure which side will win. It'd be nice if policy makers would help weight the race in our favor.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
A whole lot of factors are better now than they've ever been, and that's genuinely wonderful and cause for optimism. It's naive to therefore ignore all other factors. The great strides we're making in access to food and clean water and medical care won't stop unchecked global warming from devastating human civilization. It's not just a matter of rising sea levels; if things continue apace, large parts of the equator will be too hot for humans to survive by the end of this century, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees will be seeking sanctuary somewhere, anywhere. Acknowledge our successes and keep fighting.
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"The great strides we're making in access to food and clean water and medical care won't stop unchecked global warming from devastating human civilization. It's not just a matter of rising sea levels; if things continue apace, large parts of the equator will be too hot for humans to survive by the end of this century, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees will be seeking sanctuary somewhere, anywhere." Do you realize you are just like one of the crazy dudes yelling about doomsday on the corner? Just because you are online doesn't make it any more convincing, actually it makes it less convincing. I assume you are repeating similar stuff over and over, so you should at least have some sources for each claim you include in these posts. EDIT: And I don't mean this in a non-constructive way. There are a few topics where I have found myself making the same arguments over and over online (measles, gene "editing", NHST) and so have saved a list of citations and quotes from them that resulted from my research into the topic. It can all be done quite informally and is not at all a hassle.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    All right! https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/india-climate-change-uninhabitable/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/india-climate-chang... https://qz.com/india/1049730/heatwaves-could-turn-parts-of-india-and-pakistan-uninhabitable-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://qz.com/india/1049730/heatwaves-could-turn-parts-of-i... https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/africa/sudan-climate-change/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/africa/sudan-climate-change/i... I'm curious why you felt that such a hostile response was justified. You could have just said "I'd like to see a source for that" and I would happily have provided. Did you really think I was just making up lies, and would slink away in defeat when challenged?
wpietri 8y ago
> Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This pessimism is toxic and unrealistic. Perhaps you haven't been following the news about the rise of authoritarianism [1][2] and the revitalization of ethnic nationalism? Historically speaking, those have led to enormous suffering. [1] If you like video, John Oliver had a great summary in his last show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s [2] Or if you prefer numbers, we are in a "global democratic recession": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/01/31/democracy-continues-its-disturbing-retreat https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/01/31/democrac...
rayiner 8y ago
I don't think the pessimism is unrealistic. Unless there is a scientific miracle, we are headed toward significant increases in global temperature over the next 50-100 years. The temperature rise itself probably won't kill us, or at least most of us. But the temperature rise itself is not what we have to worry about. Think about the events that triggered WWI and WWII--they will pale in comparison to the consequences of climate change. How is climate change going to affect China and India (two nuclear powers) and their neighbors? Climate change and the resulting water shortages aren't going to leave the West unscathed either, even leaving aside the political issues elsewhere. At the rate the Ogallala aquifer is being depleted, farm production in the Midwest of the U.S. will peak in 2040. Farmers in Kansas will have to drop their groundwater pumping by 80% in order to preserve the aquifer indefinitely. There is a real possibility that water shortages will get very ugly. Then of course you have major west coast cities that depend on the Colorado river for drinking water, and are already fighting over a resource that's at capacity. I don't think it would be out of the question to see civil unrest or outright military action between U.S. states within a century if some scientific advance doesn't change the course of the water situation in the U.S. These scenarios are not unrealistic or unduly speculative. Major environmental stressors will happen this century absent some unforeseen technological interventions.
- dorgo 8y ago
  Humans will always find something to fight over. If it's not the water supply it's the religion. If it's not religion it's something else. Envirentment won't kill us. We will.
kiliantics 8y ago
> Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This feels a little unsubstantiated. Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today. Species extinction rates have never been higher than today. There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical about the future.
- ithkuil 8y ago
  > Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today Honest question: is that true? I mean practical weather (in)equality, not just comparing how many billion of dollars some few billionaires have vs the poorest people on Earth. In the past there were Kings and peasants, Masters and slaves, people who had everything by birth right and other people who had nothing and never could have it, not even the right to education. I'm not saying nowadays there are not instances of that in still too many contexts (not only in far away countries), but claiming that wealth inequality was never so big as today sounds quite odd to me.
- dorgo 8y ago
  >Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today Wealth increased to an extent that inequality little matters. If homeless beggars have smartphones with access to unlimited knowledge, enough to eat and access to medical treatment superior to everything before, how do they compare to the kings of the past?
  - XorNot 8y ago
    Beggars may have smart phones but they still don't have a sanitary place to defecate or stable access to food. When the beggars have indoor plumbing, refrigerators, and food we can discuss whether having a smartphone means inequality is not a problem.

by AJRF 8y ago

DennisP 8y ago

Historically speaking, the best time to own Bitcoin was back in January. Things always look great at the top of a bubble. CO2 is higher than in the past several million years and we're still adding more at our usual pace. We've killed 60% of wild vertebrate life since 1970, wiped out a large percentage of the insect population, and we're continuing the practices that caused that as well. None of this can go on forever. Almost everybody misses the main finding of the Club of Rome study: if you model a simple assumption that resources get more expensive to extract over time and environmental destruction gets more expensive to deal with, you don't get a gradual decline. You get continued improvement up to a peak, and then it suddenly crashes down. What's really toxic: enjoying that run up to the peak and assuming everything's fine, instead of buckling down and fixing the problems before it's too late.

crispyambulance 8y ago
Well put. The ironic thing about all numbers-oriented folks in extractive enterprises (regardless of whether they're extracting natural resources, capital, or labor), is their blind spot to the fact that ALL resources are finite. There's no "free-refill" when the big-gulp runs out.
- ewhanley 8y ago
  I can only speak to the minerals extraction industry (oil & gas, specifically), but they (we) are well aware that hydrocarbons are a finite resource. The industry as a whole is arguably short sighted, but it’s not because they think the supply of oil is endless.
  - pixl97 8y ago
    Really a bigger issue is that huge amounts of hydrocarbons still exist to be tapped. Which then get turned into atmospheric CO2.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      Coal is particularly problematic. Oil may peak soon... Australia alone has like 400 years worth of coal in known reserves alone. We won't run out of it anytime soon - we absolutely should not dig it all up and burn it though.
- dorgo 8y ago
  > ALL resources are finite Not in a world where matter/energy is conserved over time.
  - krapp 8y ago
    The Second Law of Thermodynamics would like a word with you...
andrepd 8y ago
The root cause of all of this: an economic system predicated on the notion of growth. Unrestrained greed, sole focus on maximization of profit, and unlimited growth. It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. Doesn't matter if you're mining the earth bare, generating millions of tons of garbage, optimising for inferior products that break sooner, treating workers like slaves in a race to the bottom... in other words making the world objectively worse. All social considerations, moral, ecological, of welfare, of justice, all those considerations don't enter the calculations. All that matters is the quarterly shareholder report. Like some guy said, "the only people who believe in infinite growth on a finite planet are madmen and economists".
- howlin 8y ago
  """ It's not enough to sell as many mobile phones as you did last year, no, you must sell 10% more each quarter, or whatever. """ But if the next gen of phones use 30% less resources, it's still possible to grow without increasing the rate of resource consumption. GDP growth has been driven much more by innovation than added resource consumption for years.
  - MrTonyD 8y ago
    I think you're missing his point.
  - jdc 8y ago
    However with Jevon's Paradox, we get the opposite consequence and people consume even more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- platz 8y ago
  If you don't produce more than you consume (i.e. grow), how do you sustain yourself?
  - Klinky 8y ago
    Sustenance is not the same thing as unrestrained growth.
jm__87 8y ago
> if you model a simple assumption that resources get more expensive to extract over time Why would you make this assumption? Resources get cheaper to extract over time as technology improves...
- DennisP 8y ago
  Technology improves but resources get more scarce. Oil is getting more expensive to extract, for example. The same is true of many mineral resources, as we're forced to move to lower-grade ores. But your point is a good one. I basically see us as being in a race between technological improvement and environmental catastrophe. I'm not at all sure which side will win. It'd be nice if policy makers would help weight the race in our favor.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

A whole lot of factors are better now than they've ever been, and that's genuinely wonderful and cause for optimism. It's naive to therefore ignore all other factors. The great strides we're making in access to food and clean water and medical care won't stop unchecked global warming from devastating human civilization. It's not just a matter of rising sea levels; if things continue apace, large parts of the equator will be too hot for humans to survive by the end of this century, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees will be seeking sanctuary somewhere, anywhere. Acknowledge our successes and keep fighting.

nonbel 8y ago
>"The great strides we're making in access to food and clean water and medical care won't stop unchecked global warming from devastating human civilization. It's not just a matter of rising sea levels; if things continue apace, large parts of the equator will be too hot for humans to survive by the end of this century, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees will be seeking sanctuary somewhere, anywhere." Do you realize you are just like one of the crazy dudes yelling about doomsday on the corner? Just because you are online doesn't make it any more convincing, actually it makes it less convincing. I assume you are repeating similar stuff over and over, so you should at least have some sources for each claim you include in these posts. EDIT: And I don't mean this in a non-constructive way. There are a few topics where I have found myself making the same arguments over and over online (measles, gene "editing", NHST) and so have saved a list of citations and quotes from them that resulted from my research into the topic. It can all be done quite informally and is not at all a hassle.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  All right! https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/india-climate-change-uninhabitable/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/india-climate-chang... https://qz.com/india/1049730/heatwaves-could-turn-parts-of-india-and-pakistan-uninhabitable-by-the-end-of-the-century/ https://qz.com/india/1049730/heatwaves-could-turn-parts-of-i... https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/africa/sudan-climate-change/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/africa/sudan-climate-change/i... I'm curious why you felt that such a hostile response was justified. You could have just said "I'd like to see a source for that" and I would happily have provided. Did you really think I was just making up lies, and would slink away in defeat when challenged?

wpietri 8y ago

> Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This pessimism is toxic and unrealistic. Perhaps you haven't been following the news about the rise of authoritarianism [1][2] and the revitalization of ethnic nationalism? Historically speaking, those have led to enormous suffering. [1] If you like video, John Oliver had a great summary in his last show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s [2] Or if you prefer numbers, we are in a "global democratic recession": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/01/31/democracy-continues-its-disturbing-retreat https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/01/31/democrac...

rayiner 8y ago

I don't think the pessimism is unrealistic. Unless there is a scientific miracle, we are headed toward significant increases in global temperature over the next 50-100 years. The temperature rise itself probably won't kill us, or at least most of us. But the temperature rise itself is not what we have to worry about. Think about the events that triggered WWI and WWII--they will pale in comparison to the consequences of climate change. How is climate change going to affect China and India (two nuclear powers) and their neighbors? Climate change and the resulting water shortages aren't going to leave the West unscathed either, even leaving aside the political issues elsewhere. At the rate the Ogallala aquifer is being depleted, farm production in the Midwest of the U.S. will peak in 2040. Farmers in Kansas will have to drop their groundwater pumping by 80% in order to preserve the aquifer indefinitely. There is a real possibility that water shortages will get very ugly. Then of course you have major west coast cities that depend on the Colorado river for drinking water, and are already fighting over a resource that's at capacity. I don't think it would be out of the question to see civil unrest or outright military action between U.S. states within a century if some scientific advance doesn't change the course of the water situation in the U.S. These scenarios are not unrealistic or unduly speculative. Major environmental stressors will happen this century absent some unforeseen technological interventions.

dorgo 8y ago
Humans will always find something to fight over. If it's not the water supply it's the religion. If it's not religion it's something else. Envirentment won't kill us. We will.

kiliantics 8y ago

> Historically speaking, this is the greatest time on earth to be alive. This feels a little unsubstantiated. Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today. Species extinction rates have never been higher than today. There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical about the future.

ithkuil 8y ago
> Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today Honest question: is that true? I mean practical weather (in)equality, not just comparing how many billion of dollars some few billionaires have vs the poorest people on Earth. In the past there were Kings and peasants, Masters and slaves, people who had everything by birth right and other people who had nothing and never could have it, not even the right to education. I'm not saying nowadays there are not instances of that in still too many contexts (not only in far away countries), but claiming that wealth inequality was never so big as today sounds quite odd to me.
dorgo 8y ago
>Wealth inequality has never been higher than it is today Wealth increased to an extent that inequality little matters. If homeless beggars have smartphones with access to unlimited knowledge, enough to eat and access to medical treatment superior to everything before, how do they compare to the kings of the past?
- XorNot 8y ago
  Beggars may have smart phones but they still don't have a sanitary place to defecate or stable access to food. When the beggars have indoor plumbing, refrigerators, and food we can discuss whether having a smartphone means inequality is not a problem.