5 ms·

Humans have a tendency to view the very first thing they experience as "normal". This is a warped perception. I mean 120 years ago there had never been human-po

by cletus 5y ago

Humans have a tendency to view the very first thing they experience as "normal". This is a warped perception. I mean 120 years ago there had never been human-powered flight. Look where we are now. Some embrace changes. Others try and resist it. Most just accept it. Beyond personal experience, this colours collective consciousness. The earliest human writing that we still have record of is only 5000-6000 years old. There is archaeological evidence os civilization going back 10,000-15,000 years. We've found settlements at the bottom of the English Channel from ~8,000 years ago [1]. This should tell you something: we've seen massive sea level rises in recent Earth history. The last 10,000 years have been relatively stable, abnormally so. There are a host of events that affect life on earth. Just to name a few: solar flares, meteor/asteroid impacts, supervolcanoes, earthquakes, magnetic pole flipping, rapid climate change (cooling and warming), sea levels rising and falling, Milankovitch cycles (ie eccentricity, axial tilt and precession) driving long-term climate, cosmic events (eg gamma ray bursts) and so on. Some of these things are relatively common too in the sense that they've occurred multiple times in the short span of civilization. Beyond these superflare events there are others that cause massive death and destruction (eg [1]). I guess my point is the best we can do is put off the next such event temporarily. There will be another Ice Age, for example. There will be future mass extinctions. Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales. Ultimately we're just going to have to learn to adapt. [1]: https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-english-channel.html https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-englis... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536

JohnWhigham 5y ago
I think it's safe to say that modern civilization will be positively fucked when a Tambora-level eruption (let alone a 536 AD-level one) occurs. Like, decades-long economic depressions. And no nation is equipped to handle that. It's easier to recover when civilizations weren't as connected as they are today, in addition to no electricity grid to have to worry about.
- samatman 5y ago
  This is one of the reasons I've continued to advocate for a nuclear baseload in the face of the jaw-dropping price decreases for solar. The Scream by Edvard Munch was painted in 1893. Planning for multiple summers with chronically low insolation is the only responsible course of action. Bad enough it will put pressure on food, trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse.
  - irrational 5y ago
    > trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse I think the bigger problem would be trouble keeping phones charged and Internet/WiFi running. I seriously think that we are so addicted to our always-connected devices that losing them would be severely distressing for many/most people.
    - andrew_ 5y ago
      Only those who were around before it was commonplace would recover quickly. Muscle memory is a thing. I'm often told by younger peers that my practice of leaving my phone at home to go to the grocery store is unthinkable. Folks will just have to learn patience, and a different way.
      - throwawayboise 5y ago
        Yes I still have to deliberately check that I have my phone when I leave the house. OTOH I always have my keys and my wallet. My kids are constantly losing keys and wallets. None of them has ever lost his phone.
    - samatman 5y ago
      "Internet" is inclusive of critical logistic and financial infrastructure so, yeah, not optional to keep it running no matter how much of it consist of cat pics.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      You can't eat phones.
foobarbecue 5y ago
Yes. And a key component of learning to adapt is learning to make intelligent global-scale behavior changes when it's in our interest, such as banning CFCs and reducing CO2 output. Perhaps "adapt" is the wrong word; you might see some of these actions as proactive.
- cletus 5y ago
  If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that people won't even mildly inconvenience themselves to benefit other people. What's more, that will become political. I mean think about it: is it easier to reduce global CO2 output that'll no doubt make things more expensive at least in the short term and require concerted action by other countries like India and China and with all of that it'll probably take decades to see an impact or to just form a voting bloc and get the government to bail you out when your coastal town gets flooded?
  - changoplatanero 5y ago
    It's hard for people to even mildly inconvenience themselves in the short term to benefit themselves in the long term. Think how hard it is to lose weight.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
    That's not what the pandemic has taught me. The pandemic has taught me that governments all over the world are able to make overnight sweeping changes, develop and roll out new medicine in incredibly short timespans, and that people will put up with horrible life changing protective measures for years for the sake of society.
    - Dig1t 5y ago
      This is so true, reading headlines and toxic internet comments makes it so easy to feel like we completely failed WRT the pandemic, but if you really think about it, its kind of amazing how well we responded. Especially considering the free world got to keep its individual liberties and the global economy didn't completely collapse.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
> Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales. I'd like to see a graphic or some kind of graph-theoretic summary statistic describing the damage we've done to the evolutionary tree.
jamesmontalvo3 5y ago
I think you make a lot of fair points, but when I see comments like: > anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales I’m reminded of: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

by cletus 5y ago

JohnWhigham 5y ago

I think it's safe to say that modern civilization will be positively fucked when a Tambora-level eruption (let alone a 536 AD-level one) occurs. Like, decades-long economic depressions. And no nation is equipped to handle that. It's easier to recover when civilizations weren't as connected as they are today, in addition to no electricity grid to have to worry about.

samatman 5y ago
This is one of the reasons I've continued to advocate for a nuclear baseload in the face of the jaw-dropping price decreases for solar. The Scream by Edvard Munch was painted in 1893. Planning for multiple summers with chronically low insolation is the only responsible course of action. Bad enough it will put pressure on food, trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse.
- irrational 5y ago
  > trouble keeping the lights on would make this much worse I think the bigger problem would be trouble keeping phones charged and Internet/WiFi running. I seriously think that we are so addicted to our always-connected devices that losing them would be severely distressing for many/most people.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
    Only those who were around before it was commonplace would recover quickly. Muscle memory is a thing. I'm often told by younger peers that my practice of leaving my phone at home to go to the grocery store is unthinkable. Folks will just have to learn patience, and a different way.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      Yes I still have to deliberately check that I have my phone when I leave the house. OTOH I always have my keys and my wallet. My kids are constantly losing keys and wallets. None of them has ever lost his phone.
  - samatman 5y ago
    "Internet" is inclusive of critical logistic and financial infrastructure so, yeah, not optional to keep it running no matter how much of it consist of cat pics.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    You can't eat phones.

foobarbecue 5y ago

Yes. And a key component of learning to adapt is learning to make intelligent global-scale behavior changes when it's in our interest, such as banning CFCs and reducing CO2 output. Perhaps "adapt" is the wrong word; you might see some of these actions as proactive.

cletus 5y ago
If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it's that people won't even mildly inconvenience themselves to benefit other people. What's more, that will become political. I mean think about it: is it easier to reduce global CO2 output that'll no doubt make things more expensive at least in the short term and require concerted action by other countries like India and China and with all of that it'll probably take decades to see an impact or to just form a voting bloc and get the government to bail you out when your coastal town gets flooded?
- changoplatanero 5y ago
  It's hard for people to even mildly inconvenience themselves in the short term to benefit themselves in the long term. Think how hard it is to lose weight.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
  That's not what the pandemic has taught me. The pandemic has taught me that governments all over the world are able to make overnight sweeping changes, develop and roll out new medicine in incredibly short timespans, and that people will put up with horrible life changing protective measures for years for the sake of society.
  - Dig1t 5y ago
    This is so true, reading headlines and toxic internet comments makes it so easy to feel like we completely failed WRT the pandemic, but if you really think about it, its kind of amazing how well we responded. Especially considering the free world got to keep its individual liberties and the global economy didn't completely collapse.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

> Yes, we're wreaking havoc on the planet but anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales. I'd like to see a graphic or some kind of graph-theoretic summary statistic describing the damage we've done to the evolutionary tree.

jamesmontalvo3 5y ago

I think you make a lot of fair points, but when I see comments like: > anything we're doing now still just feels like tinkering on the smallest scales I’m reminded of: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/