3 ms·

> I am scared. Really scared. Everyone should be. This is a statement about your mental health, not one about reality. Barring a badly-timed war, the global s

> I am scared. Really scared. Everyone should be. This is a statement about your mental health, not one about reality. Barring a badly-timed war, the global standard of living in 2100 will be much better than today’s. Even if global warming causes 10% less increase in GDP, as some modeling conservatively predicts. If you want something to freak out about, I’d recommend nuclear war, the next AIDS-like virus, drone terrorism, and the casual destruction of human prosperity caused by housing policies.

polotics 6y ago
May I suggest you read the IPCC report? 2100 with business as usual scenarios looks like at least one billion humans with an urgent need to relocate. If you have a better model please show your work.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  I was referring to either this one: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26167 https://www.nber.org/papers/w26167 or some other with similar scale of estimates, using what I presume to be mainstream predictions of temperature growth. Edit: Also, you can easily tell without looking that the idea billions would have to relocate is a complete joke. The reason is, let’s suppose global warming makes a region unfarmable. Well, even if it were farmable, automation in the 3rd world will move people out of farming anyway. So they’d have to be doing other work, trading for food, no matter what happens.
- catawbasam 6y ago
  We are not on the business as usual path any more, so that isn't the most relevant scenario.
ben_w 6y ago
2100 is way too far out to predict anything. The cost of gene synthesis is roughly 20 years behind gene sequencing [0]. Extrapolated, by 2040, arbitrarily modifying your offspring will represent a trivial fraction (~0.5%) of the total cost of starting a family. Follow Moore’s law (considering lower costs rather than boosted performance) and assuming the Kurzweil estimate for full brain emulation, then by 2047, uploaded minds would be cheaper than the food eaten by subsistence farmers. [1] The first thing most people suggest when they hear about 3D printers is printing another 3D printer. It is definitely possible because that’s what every living cell does; while nobody knows how to do this now, if we can make it happen with the rocks of Mercury, it only takes four decades to build a Dyson swarm. [2] The questions are, what happens first, and how does humanity collectively react to that? [0] https://image.slidesharecdn.com/gblocks-webinar2014-140123123130-phpapp02/95/beyond-cloning-101-uses-of-synthetic-highfidelity-doublestranded-dna-14-638.jpg?cb=1390480423 https://image.slidesharecdn.com/gblocks-webinar2014-14012312... [1] https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/67531 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/67531 [2] https://youtu.be/zQTfuI-9jIo https://youtu.be/zQTfuI-9jIo

polotics 6y ago

May I suggest you read the IPCC report? 2100 with business as usual scenarios looks like at least one billion humans with an urgent need to relocate. If you have a better model please show your work.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
I was referring to either this one: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26167 https://www.nber.org/papers/w26167 or some other with similar scale of estimates, using what I presume to be mainstream predictions of temperature growth. Edit: Also, you can easily tell without looking that the idea billions would have to relocate is a complete joke. The reason is, let’s suppose global warming makes a region unfarmable. Well, even if it were farmable, automation in the 3rd world will move people out of farming anyway. So they’d have to be doing other work, trading for food, no matter what happens.
catawbasam 6y ago
We are not on the business as usual path any more, so that isn't the most relevant scenario.

ben_w 6y ago

2100 is way too far out to predict anything. The cost of gene synthesis is roughly 20 years behind gene sequencing [0]. Extrapolated, by 2040, arbitrarily modifying your offspring will represent a trivial fraction (~0.5%) of the total cost of starting a family. Follow Moore’s law (considering lower costs rather than boosted performance) and assuming the Kurzweil estimate for full brain emulation, then by 2047, uploaded minds would be cheaper than the food eaten by subsistence farmers. [1] The first thing most people suggest when they hear about 3D printers is printing another 3D printer. It is definitely possible because that’s what every living cell does; while nobody knows how to do this now, if we can make it happen with the rocks of Mercury, it only takes four decades to build a Dyson swarm. [2] The questions are, what happens first, and how does humanity collectively react to that? [0] https://image.slidesharecdn.com/gblocks-webinar2014-140123123130-phpapp02/95/beyond-cloning-101-uses-of-synthetic-highfidelity-doublestranded-dna-14-638.jpg?cb=1390480423 https://image.slidesharecdn.com/gblocks-webinar2014-14012312... [1] https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/67531 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/67531 [2] https://youtu.be/zQTfuI-9jIo https://youtu.be/zQTfuI-9jIo