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I used to get depressed thinking that I wouldn't live long enough to see the sci-fi future where we're all immortal cyborgs with minds in the cloud. So in a pu

I used to get depressed thinking that I wouldn't live long enough to see the sci-fi future where we're all immortal cyborgs with minds in the cloud. So in a purely selfish sense, I guess "right now is the peak of human civilisation, the future is all melting ice caps and resource wars until we die off completely in 2500" is reassuring?

mat4magic 8y ago
Whats the worst case though? I cant see any event based on climate change that would wipe out all humans. Climate Change may be fast for earth but is still slow for humans. Cant really see a scenaria where a significant part of humanity couldnt adapt to the new circumstances. The harsh conditions would probably even advance technology in general. Still best Case would be to stop climate Change because that would be hard and scary times.
antisthenes 8y ago
Keep in mind, that vast swathes of Earth were uninhabitable even before global warming was even a concept. To illustrate this - look at Egypt and the earliest civilizations. The only place where life existed permanently was in a narrow band alongside a river. Life will still exist after a 4C warming, but in much narrower bands than it currently does. The global population of people will be reduced probably by a factor of 10, eventually, settling on a sustainable level of around maybe 800-900 million. This, in turn, should reduce the burn rate of unsustainable resources by a lot, letting us coast for another couple of centuries. The only question is - how violently will we go down from 8 billion to 800 million? Disclaimer: this is all wild speculation and my personal opinion.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  How violently? Well, 7.2 billion people will die. Is that violent enough? Then there's the additional violence that all 8 billion will do, trying to be one of the 800 million rather than one of the 7.2 billion. My own gut feel is that we will muddle through much better than that, with less than 500 million dead. On this subject, that seems to make me the crazy optimist...
  - antisthenes 8y ago
    I strongly believe that every currently living person on this planet will die, hopefully just because of old age. Not sure why you assume there will be 7.2 billion violent deaths.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      If you're going to go from a planetary population of 8 billion to one of 800 million due to global warming, I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a lot of "not because of old age".
      - antisthenes 8y ago
        I believe in the goodness of people and our ability to resolve things in a less violent way, even during times of scarcity and global warming. Maybe that's too optimistic.

mat4magic 8y ago

Whats the worst case though? I cant see any event based on climate change that would wipe out all humans. Climate Change may be fast for earth but is still slow for humans. Cant really see a scenaria where a significant part of humanity couldnt adapt to the new circumstances. The harsh conditions would probably even advance technology in general. Still best Case would be to stop climate Change because that would be hard and scary times.

antisthenes 8y ago

Keep in mind, that vast swathes of Earth were uninhabitable even before global warming was even a concept. To illustrate this - look at Egypt and the earliest civilizations. The only place where life existed permanently was in a narrow band alongside a river. Life will still exist after a 4C warming, but in much narrower bands than it currently does. The global population of people will be reduced probably by a factor of 10, eventually, settling on a sustainable level of around maybe 800-900 million. This, in turn, should reduce the burn rate of unsustainable resources by a lot, letting us coast for another couple of centuries. The only question is - how violently will we go down from 8 billion to 800 million? Disclaimer: this is all wild speculation and my personal opinion.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
How violently? Well, 7.2 billion people will die. Is that violent enough? Then there's the additional violence that all 8 billion will do, trying to be one of the 800 million rather than one of the 7.2 billion. My own gut feel is that we will muddle through much better than that, with less than 500 million dead. On this subject, that seems to make me the crazy optimist...
- antisthenes 8y ago
  I strongly believe that every currently living person on this planet will die, hopefully just because of old age. Not sure why you assume there will be 7.2 billion violent deaths.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    If you're going to go from a planetary population of 8 billion to one of 800 million due to global warming, I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a lot of "not because of old age".
    - antisthenes 8y ago
      I believe in the goodness of people and our ability to resolve things in a less violent way, even during times of scarcity and global warming. Maybe that's too optimistic.