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Why would we be extinct? This ridiculous eschatology doesn't belong here.

• Bakary 6y ago
  It's not at all ridiculous if you pay closer attention to various historical events. Maybe the biggest shock in this regard would be the Cuban Missile Crisis. We generally remember just a tense moment followed by the installation of red phones, but a even cursory look at the detailed timeline of events and the sheer number of near misses and gross errors is enough to make the hairs stand up on your neck and question your inductive reasoning. Now with the unknown prospect of increased weapons development over a century, it gets even less ridiculous. Imagine the international quagmire where something worse than nukes exists, but with a much easier manufacturing process. In any case, my exact argument isn't that extinction is the most likely scenario. Just that the least likely is one where we are just chugging along with the same overall technological capabilities. Worrying about what will happen to micro-plastics in a hundred years is like a New Yorker worrying about the growing quantity of horse manure in the city circa 1894.
• maximente 6y ago
  well, imagine living in 1850 and someone telling you that 100 years in the future, ancient organic goop will allow millions of metal devices to tirelessly labor on behalf of their owners, some of these machines fly across oceans, and some can drop explosives that can annihilate entire cities
  • adrianN 6y ago
    Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea was written in 1870 and features a nuclear submarine (kind of).