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> massive social upheaval, revolutions, In countries that the average HNer won't live in. Or visit. Nice things to worry about, but for most of us here it'll b

> massive social upheaval, revolutions, In countries that the average HNer won't live in. Or visit. Nice things to worry about, but for most of us here it'll be a distant concern. And asking people to give up their quality of life for others they'll never meet will always be a hard sell. > war, famine, Ditto. > diseases This one might affect the first world, but I don't know of a strong link between 'global warming' and 'new diseases'. If anything, making the tropics less habitable should decrease contact between humans and exotic new disease carriers... > and maybe even a pause for civilisation itself until things stabilise again. I'm sorry, what? 5% penalty to global GDP by 2100 is not a 'pause for civilisation itself', or anything close. Unless you only meant to include the aforementioned "countries that HNers typically don't live in"? For that matter, I'd say a "pause" is by far the least likely of "civilization continues as normal", "civilization pauses, but comes back" and "civilization dies, forever". "pause" just requires walking such a fine line between "bad enough to overwhelm all the systems designed to keep things running" and not "bad enough to make humanity unsustainable".

jacobush 7y ago
Let me see here what you are saying: Poor non-HN people, we don't care about those at all? They can die? If we get widespread war over resources, 5% penalty on anything is not going to suffice. A limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is going to cause corn crops to fail in the US. (Where average HN-ers live, if you care only about your own in-group.) I didn't mean new diseases. I meant old diseases. If you have no electricity in a big city for an extended time, you will be in for a wild ride. (The last point I don't care much about, it's not very important. But I think if civilisation died, it would have a huge amount of knowledge and technology for new generations to come to jumpstart from, compared to those generations who had to discover everything for themselves.)

jacobush 7y ago

Let me see here what you are saying: Poor non-HN people, we don't care about those at all? They can die? If we get widespread war over resources, 5% penalty on anything is not going to suffice. A limited nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India is going to cause corn crops to fail in the US. (Where average HN-ers live, if you care only about your own in-group.) I didn't mean new diseases. I meant old diseases. If you have no electricity in a big city for an extended time, you will be in for a wild ride. (The last point I don't care much about, it's not very important. But I think if civilisation died, it would have a huge amount of knowledge and technology for new generations to come to jumpstart from, compared to those generations who had to discover everything for themselves.)