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All of us reading this right now are going to die just barely seeing the true extent of the outcomes. And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's

All of us reading this right now are going to die just barely seeing the true extent of the outcomes. And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's not our problem. We're among the last generations that can expect to ride the current peak in human success before the hard bounds kick in and things either become much more difficult or more likely just completely collapse. We all love to rest easy on the fallacious idea that (as Carlin put it) "the earth will be fine, it's us who are fucked." It sounds nice, but the reality is far worse. Beyond a certain temperature bound, the entire biosphere collapses... completely. "Oh but there are extremophiles that survive insane conditions!" And what do they feed on? Organic particulate matter that filters down to them from the rest of the biosphere that depends on relatively tight temperature bounds. Natural selection can only keep up with a certain degree of change in the mean of temperature before it just collapses. If we generate the conditions for the collapse of human civilization, it's more likely than not that we also take all life on Earth with us. And statistically... that means the end of life, period. That our planet happened to have the particular temperature bounds for long enough for life to emerge is vanishingly unlikely.

titzer 7y ago
I'm not gonna be "that guy", but I will say that I fully expect cockroaches and tardigrades to survive. Precious little else will. Kiss mammals goodbye. The biosphere has already got a match in our insane devouring of habitat and industrial-scale poisoning program known as modern agriculture. Not to mention the ocean acidification, garbage patch, and overfishing. People look at me a little nutty, but I seriously think in 100 years the oceans will have nothing alive in them larger than your finger. There will be no tigers, no elephants, no bison, no deer, few or no birds.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  What will they eat? Even if they could survive, the ecosystem that supplies their food won't.
  - titzer 7y ago
    Things that photosynthesize will be able to hang on as long as they can tolerate their local climate and have access to water, nitrogen, and CO2, which are the only building blocks they need. Climate change will destroy a wide variety of intricate networks, and make large parts of the planet uninhabitable, but life will cling to temperate zones.
    - 1propionyl 7y ago
      Surprise! I'm a mathematical biochemist. The necessary reactions to make a photosynthetic carbohydrate production chemical pathway energetically feasible actually only exist within extremely narrow temperature bounds. You honestly don't understand how naive you are. You're disguising hope by what sounds vaguely scientific. Not to mention: exactly where do you think those temperate zones will exist?
      - titzer 7y ago
        > You honestly don't understand how naive you are. I don't hang around hackernews to get insulted. It's not what we do around here.
        1propionyl 7y ago
        I don't hang around HN to have every other commenter confirm my existing opinions either. Being told by someone that they think you're wrong isn't an insult. If you buy the reassuring yet nonsensical idea that "the humans are fucked, the planet will be fine", you can be adequately classified as cherry-picking a minimally discomfiting worldview, against all evidence. That's not an insult.
        kaybe 7y ago
        No, but check your wording. Calling someone naive and unable to see it is insulting. Just to give you an additional perspective.
        7y ago
matthewwiese 7y ago
> And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's not our problem. That's exactly the kind of thinking that caused this mess (i.e climate catastrophe) in the first place. Had people prioritized their grandchildren and great-grandchildren instead of short-term profits then the effects of climate change would have been mitigated long ago. For example, companies like Exxon knew of what lay ahead. They chose to condemn future generations using precisely the same logic as you.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  Oh, to be clear, I'm not saying my logic is normatively correct. You're (I think) likely objectively completely right.
  - matthewwiese 7y ago
    Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. :)
hanniabu 7y ago
I mean, as long as our economy is going great then why does it matter? /s
jajag 7y ago
Widespread crop failure and fisheries collapse due to extreme weather and acidic oceans could be just around the corner. I can't say that with complete certainty (and I really hope it doesn't happen), but I can't dismiss it with any confidence either.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  I work in mathematical biochemistry. I'm personally confident everything you've described is around the corner. That doesn't mean that a total collapse in our food supply is around the corner, but it does suggest a collapse in the availability of certain micronutrients to a large proportion of the population. What that means is that the outcomes of certain nutritional deficiencies will likely become commonplace diseases societies will now how to cope with. That will of course also affect politics.
  - jajag 7y ago
    Are you able to sketch out the reasons for your confidence? [Edit: Just realized you wrote the comment I was replying to - so OK I see what you're saying]
ramblerman 7y ago
If we do end up a failed experiment, it is more than likely the great filter theory is correct and we are just one in a billion of endless repetitions that reached their critical mass and fizzled out. Time literally means nothing to the universe. So the idea we can kill all life in the universe, or are somehow responsible for the creation we live in is oddly religious to me. Yet you place no real import in the demise of humanity so I'm not sure how to parse it.
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  > Time literally means nothing to the universe. This simply isn't true. I don't know where you absorbed such a dumb and naive idea, but the current theory pretty much completely rules out your completely unsuppported take. Gravity is to our best knowledge not symmetric in time, and neither is heat. (Every other fundamental force in QCD is though.) The likelihood of the emergence of life decreases as overall entropy increases. Moreover, the emergence of life at any point in the universe is already vanishingly unlikely. If we kill life on Earth, the likelihood of life emerging again is strictly less than that of life on Earth existing as it does. And beyond a certain temperature bound, it's simply impossible. The viability of informational molecules like RNA (even silicon based variants) vanishes above around 60-70C.
  - ramblerman 7y ago
    > This simply isn't true. I don't know where you absorbed such a dumb and naive idea Lol. The fermi paradox is not my idea, neither is the great filter as one the possible explanations. But the presumption in both is that we are not alone as intelligent life, not to mention simple life. You mention the goldilocks theory, which indeed states that life probably has an incredibly thin temperature band in which it survives. But that just means life is unlikely on most planets, which means almost nothing in infinite space and time. The fact life started once, makes it likely it has done so before us and will keep doing so. When I say time doesn't matter, I mean it could take billions of eons, and in the context of the universe that doesn't matter.
    - 7y ago
gus_massa 7y ago
> "Oh but there are extremophiles that survive insane conditions!" > And what do they feed on? You are underestimating the diversity of metabolism in bacteria/archaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Metabolism As a weird example, there is an isolate cave in Romania, with a weird source of energy http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-l... . (If that's all life that all life that will survive, it looks like a nightmary scenario. But killing completely all the biosphere is very hard.) Also, Cyanobacteria will probably be fine. They almost killed accidently everyone else in the past, but there are not hard feeling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
- 1propionyl 7y ago
  Even if a handful of unusually adapted species survive, do you think they'll survive for any meaningful amount of time in the absence of any other meaningful biosphere? And even if they do, why do you assume they (species adapted to environments entirely distinct from 99.99% of Earth) will somehow exist long enough to speciate into a robust planet's worth of species? The species that exist today have largely survived because collectively they exist in homestasis and regulate their environment. If every tree suddenly disappeared the human race would be gone within hours. Similarly if every warm blooded animal suddenly disappeared plants would start dying in droves within a few days.
thulecitizen 7y ago
Honestly, your comment and prediction terrifies me. Do you have kids? What do you tell them? If you believe what you write, what still gets you up in the morning? Do you by any chance have Savant syndrome/autism/aspergers (I ask this question objectively. I do not mean to make a negative value judgement about you)? You write below that you work in mathematical biochemistry. What research are your conclusions based on; which authors, measurements etc.? > All of us reading this right now are going to die just barely seeing the true extent of the outcomes. Do you feel scared of this collapse you are predicting? Are you distraught by humanity's destruction of our home, because you would you like to see Earth and humanity's beauty continue? I guess the overarching theme/question for me is: if all this is true, where, and in what, do you find meaning? Edit: to be clear, I am asking for your personal experiences and strategies. I am not looking for any advice.

titzer 7y ago

I'm not gonna be "that guy", but I will say that I fully expect cockroaches and tardigrades to survive. Precious little else will. Kiss mammals goodbye. The biosphere has already got a match in our insane devouring of habitat and industrial-scale poisoning program known as modern agriculture. Not to mention the ocean acidification, garbage patch, and overfishing. People look at me a little nutty, but I seriously think in 100 years the oceans will have nothing alive in them larger than your finger. There will be no tigers, no elephants, no bison, no deer, few or no birds.

1propionyl 7y ago
What will they eat? Even if they could survive, the ecosystem that supplies their food won't.
- titzer 7y ago
  Things that photosynthesize will be able to hang on as long as they can tolerate their local climate and have access to water, nitrogen, and CO2, which are the only building blocks they need. Climate change will destroy a wide variety of intricate networks, and make large parts of the planet uninhabitable, but life will cling to temperate zones.
  - 1propionyl 7y ago
    Surprise! I'm a mathematical biochemist. The necessary reactions to make a photosynthetic carbohydrate production chemical pathway energetically feasible actually only exist within extremely narrow temperature bounds. You honestly don't understand how naive you are. You're disguising hope by what sounds vaguely scientific. Not to mention: exactly where do you think those temperate zones will exist?
    - titzer 7y ago
      > You honestly don't understand how naive you are. I don't hang around hackernews to get insulted. It's not what we do around here.
      - 1propionyl 7y ago
        I don't hang around HN to have every other commenter confirm my existing opinions either. Being told by someone that they think you're wrong isn't an insult. If you buy the reassuring yet nonsensical idea that "the humans are fucked, the planet will be fine", you can be adequately classified as cherry-picking a minimally discomfiting worldview, against all evidence. That's not an insult.
        kaybe 7y ago
        No, but check your wording. Calling someone naive and unable to see it is insulting. Just to give you an additional perspective.
        7y ago

matthewwiese 7y ago

> And we'll likely all die reasonably content knowing it's not our problem. That's exactly the kind of thinking that caused this mess (i.e climate catastrophe) in the first place. Had people prioritized their grandchildren and great-grandchildren instead of short-term profits then the effects of climate change would have been mitigated long ago. For example, companies like Exxon knew of what lay ahead. They chose to condemn future generations using precisely the same logic as you.

1propionyl 7y ago
Oh, to be clear, I'm not saying my logic is normatively correct. You're (I think) likely objectively completely right.
- matthewwiese 7y ago
  Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. :)

hanniabu 7y ago

I mean, as long as our economy is going great then why does it matter? /s

jajag 7y ago

Widespread crop failure and fisheries collapse due to extreme weather and acidic oceans could be just around the corner. I can't say that with complete certainty (and I really hope it doesn't happen), but I can't dismiss it with any confidence either.

1propionyl 7y ago
I work in mathematical biochemistry. I'm personally confident everything you've described is around the corner. That doesn't mean that a total collapse in our food supply is around the corner, but it does suggest a collapse in the availability of certain micronutrients to a large proportion of the population. What that means is that the outcomes of certain nutritional deficiencies will likely become commonplace diseases societies will now how to cope with. That will of course also affect politics.
- jajag 7y ago
  Are you able to sketch out the reasons for your confidence? [Edit: Just realized you wrote the comment I was replying to - so OK I see what you're saying]

ramblerman 7y ago

If we do end up a failed experiment, it is more than likely the great filter theory is correct and we are just one in a billion of endless repetitions that reached their critical mass and fizzled out. Time literally means nothing to the universe. So the idea we can kill all life in the universe, or are somehow responsible for the creation we live in is oddly religious to me. Yet you place no real import in the demise of humanity so I'm not sure how to parse it.

1propionyl 7y ago
> Time literally means nothing to the universe. This simply isn't true. I don't know where you absorbed such a dumb and naive idea, but the current theory pretty much completely rules out your completely unsuppported take. Gravity is to our best knowledge not symmetric in time, and neither is heat. (Every other fundamental force in QCD is though.) The likelihood of the emergence of life decreases as overall entropy increases. Moreover, the emergence of life at any point in the universe is already vanishingly unlikely. If we kill life on Earth, the likelihood of life emerging again is strictly less than that of life on Earth existing as it does. And beyond a certain temperature bound, it's simply impossible. The viability of informational molecules like RNA (even silicon based variants) vanishes above around 60-70C.
- ramblerman 7y ago
  > This simply isn't true. I don't know where you absorbed such a dumb and naive idea Lol. The fermi paradox is not my idea, neither is the great filter as one the possible explanations. But the presumption in both is that we are not alone as intelligent life, not to mention simple life. You mention the goldilocks theory, which indeed states that life probably has an incredibly thin temperature band in which it survives. But that just means life is unlikely on most planets, which means almost nothing in infinite space and time. The fact life started once, makes it likely it has done so before us and will keep doing so. When I say time doesn't matter, I mean it could take billions of eons, and in the context of the universe that doesn't matter.
  - 7y ago

gus_massa 7y ago

> "Oh but there are extremophiles that survive insane conditions!" > And what do they feed on? You are underestimating the diversity of metabolism in bacteria/archaea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Metabolism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaea#Metabolism As a weird example, there is an isolate cave in Romania, with a weird source of energy http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-living-in-romanias-poison-cave http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150904-the-bizarre-beasts-l... . (If that's all life that all life that will survive, it looks like a nightmary scenario. But killing completely all the biosphere is very hard.) Also, Cyanobacteria will probably be fine. They almost killed accidently everyone else in the past, but there are not hard feeling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria

1propionyl 7y ago
Even if a handful of unusually adapted species survive, do you think they'll survive for any meaningful amount of time in the absence of any other meaningful biosphere? And even if they do, why do you assume they (species adapted to environments entirely distinct from 99.99% of Earth) will somehow exist long enough to speciate into a robust planet's worth of species? The species that exist today have largely survived because collectively they exist in homestasis and regulate their environment. If every tree suddenly disappeared the human race would be gone within hours. Similarly if every warm blooded animal suddenly disappeared plants would start dying in droves within a few days.

thulecitizen 7y ago

Honestly, your comment and prediction terrifies me. Do you have kids? What do you tell them? If you believe what you write, what still gets you up in the morning? Do you by any chance have Savant syndrome/autism/aspergers (I ask this question objectively. I do not mean to make a negative value judgement about you)? You write below that you work in mathematical biochemistry. What research are your conclusions based on; which authors, measurements etc.? > All of us reading this right now are going to die just barely seeing the true extent of the outcomes. Do you feel scared of this collapse you are predicting? Are you distraught by humanity's destruction of our home, because you would you like to see Earth and humanity's beauty continue? I guess the overarching theme/question for me is: if all this is true, where, and in what, do you find meaning? Edit: to be clear, I am asking for your personal experiences and strategies. I am not looking for any advice.