4 ms·

Bullets that we’ve dodged as a species

11 points by spottiness 15y ago

tokenadult 15y ago
Betting against predictions of exhaustion of this or that natural resource seems to be one of the smartest ways to bet. http://www.perc.org/articles/article588.php http://www.perc.org/articles/article588.php http://globalgeography.aag.org/PopulationandNaturalResources1e/CF_PopNatRes_Jan10/CF_PopNatRes_Jan1011.html http://globalgeography.aag.org/PopulationandNaturalResources... http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html
Sniffnoy 15y ago
I admit I'm working with hindsight, but the cancer prediction just seems like, well, a bad prediction; can we really call it a "bullet we've dodged"? Does anyone know how credible this prediction was considered at the time?
yread 15y ago
All in all an interesting article, some of those catastrophes were perhaps prevented by concentrated effort (banning of DDT, campaigns against spreading HIV). But WTF is this: The last few years have seemed to offer a lot of lessons about human hubris. Here are some of the things that we’ve learned we can’t do safely: (a) drill for oil in mile-deep water (Deepwater Horizon), (b) build nuclear power plants on tsunami-prone coastlines (Fukushima), (c) build the world’s biggest airliner and engines (Qantas Flight 32), (d) protect cities that are below sea level from flooding (Katrina in New Orleans). a) The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Perdido which is a spar platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 2,438 metres (7,999 ft). And it works just fine! b) Japan's coast is full of nuclear power plants which should work well unless a 1 in 1000 years earthquake strikes c) what? Didn't the flight land just ok showing how robust the platform is? During an uncontained engine failure the turbine disk isn't supposed to hit the plane. This one did and it was ok. d) The Netherlands? Hello?
- evilduck 15y ago
  d) Hell, even more recently with the Mississippi river floods, New Orleans totally escaped that thanks entirely to our ability to protect low lying areas with human engineering. I'm sitting in my living room at a 3 feet above sea level and about 19 feet below the Mississippi river level as I type this right now.
- michaelcampbell 15y ago
  As for d), do they experience category 4 or 5 hurricanes?
monkeypizza 15y ago
A lot of these have happened in alternate universes. and evolutionarily, we dodged lots of bullets. Imagine if we used the alligator's method of sex determination - based on temperature of the egg at fertilization. Even in ancient times kings would have been able to grow armies. Imagine if our skull wasn't as thick and primitive humans had institutionalized personality altering brain surgery, and our world were descended from them.

11 points by spottiness 15y ago

Betting against predictions of exhaustion of this or that natural resource seems to be one of the smartest ways to bet. http://www.perc.org/articles/article588.php http://www.perc.org/articles/article588.php http://globalgeography.aag.org/PopulationandNaturalResources1e/CF_PopNatRes_Jan10/CF_PopNatRes_Jan1011.html http://globalgeography.aag.org/PopulationandNaturalResources... http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html

Sniffnoy 15y ago

I admit I'm working with hindsight, but the cancer prediction just seems like, well, a bad prediction; can we really call it a "bullet we've dodged"? Does anyone know how credible this prediction was considered at the time?

yread 15y ago

All in all an interesting article, some of those catastrophes were perhaps prevented by concentrated effort (banning of DDT, campaigns against spreading HIV). But WTF is this: The last few years have seemed to offer a lot of lessons about human hubris. Here are some of the things that we’ve learned we can’t do safely: (a) drill for oil in mile-deep water (Deepwater Horizon), (b) build nuclear power plants on tsunami-prone coastlines (Fukushima), (c) build the world’s biggest airliner and engines (Qantas Flight 32), (d) protect cities that are below sea level from flooding (Katrina in New Orleans). a) The world's deepest oil platform is the floating Perdido which is a spar platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a water depth of 2,438 metres (7,999 ft). And it works just fine! b) Japan's coast is full of nuclear power plants which should work well unless a 1 in 1000 years earthquake strikes c) what? Didn't the flight land just ok showing how robust the platform is? During an uncontained engine failure the turbine disk isn't supposed to hit the plane. This one did and it was ok. d) The Netherlands? Hello?

evilduck 15y ago
d) Hell, even more recently with the Mississippi river floods, New Orleans totally escaped that thanks entirely to our ability to protect low lying areas with human engineering. I'm sitting in my living room at a 3 feet above sea level and about 19 feet below the Mississippi river level as I type this right now.
michaelcampbell 15y ago
As for d), do they experience category 4 or 5 hurricanes?

monkeypizza 15y ago

A lot of these have happened in alternate universes. and evolutionarily, we dodged lots of bullets. Imagine if we used the alligator's method of sex determination - based on temperature of the egg at fertilization. Even in ancient times kings would have been able to grow armies. Imagine if our skull wasn't as thick and primitive humans had institutionalized personality altering brain surgery, and our world were descended from them.