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> Call me a pessimist, but I would be extremely surprised if humans are still around then. Why is that? Despite what pessimists - and even the occasional reali

> Call me a pessimist, but I would be extremely surprised if humans are still around then. Why is that? Despite what pessimists - and even the occasional realist - have been saying for decades now, so far humanity has avoided extinction or civilization collapse. Even the arguably most urgent as well as most important problem for decades to come (climate change) isn't an extinction-level event, even in a worst-case scenario. So far, mankind's continued existence depended on a rather fragile foundation. Once mankind develops into a multi-planetary species, which we are on the verge of becoming, simply all bets are off and things might work out either way. Becoming a multi-planetary species might be the Great Filter we seem to be observing. Paradoxically, that we have yet to meet any species that has already passed that filter, makes it more likely for humans to simply be the first ones to do so.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago
Just alone the fact that people like us who are arguably part of humanity’s most advanced people must believe that climate change is the biggest problem is a very good indicator that humanity will not survive, particularly because you and we are unable to identify other far more immediate pressing challenges that make climate change a relatively meaningless concern even if you accept all of its premises and motivations for concerns about it at face value … a totally other large issue. Just alone the fact that people cannot even speak freely without censorship and of certain topics in order to discuss objectively whether they are legitimate or possibly a greater risk than climate change, specifically because the conversation and topics themselves are forced and enforced, is also a very good indicator that things will not go as well as people want to tell themselves. You say we are on the cusp of interplanetary existence? Just alone the realities of that state are likely to cause more problems that could lead to extinction than not. For example, it is far more likely that humans will rather rapidly diverge in evolution between planets for several reasons, which can lead to all kinds of issues not directly related to whether one of the species of human will survive. We are in a global toxic relationship with each other and are not even clear about fundamental questions of agreeing on basic facts or being able to even just examine whether all the basic assumptions are correct. How one could expect that to allow us to face of extinction is beyond me. However, it strikes me that lying to oneself of faking it til you make it will simply not impress a cold and calculated mistress as reality.
- dTal 5y ago
  >people like us who are arguably part of humanity’s most advanced people Arguable indeed.
- BjoernKW 5y ago
  Well, "biggest" is something else than "urgent and important". Fair enough, though. It perhaps is true that climate change is assigned undue importance in public discourse when compared with other problems that might be just as important - or even more so. You'd be hard pressed, however, to find an issue that has as many immediate (or near-future) and potentially severe repercussions for as many people. Evolutionary divergence certainly seems like a potentially relevant future problem, the key word here being "potentially", though. Climate change, on the other hand, is a certain reality. Assigning the same resources to both problems, even though one of them might never even materialize (or do so in a manner we can't even anticipate yet), therefore would be irrational. That doesn't mean, however, that we can't work on solving both at the same time. At the very least, 8 billion or so people allow for massive parallelism.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago

Just alone the fact that people like us who are arguably part of humanity’s most advanced people must believe that climate change is the biggest problem is a very good indicator that humanity will not survive, particularly because you and we are unable to identify other far more immediate pressing challenges that make climate change a relatively meaningless concern even if you accept all of its premises and motivations for concerns about it at face value … a totally other large issue. Just alone the fact that people cannot even speak freely without censorship and of certain topics in order to discuss objectively whether they are legitimate or possibly a greater risk than climate change, specifically because the conversation and topics themselves are forced and enforced, is also a very good indicator that things will not go as well as people want to tell themselves. You say we are on the cusp of interplanetary existence? Just alone the realities of that state are likely to cause more problems that could lead to extinction than not. For example, it is far more likely that humans will rather rapidly diverge in evolution between planets for several reasons, which can lead to all kinds of issues not directly related to whether one of the species of human will survive. We are in a global toxic relationship with each other and are not even clear about fundamental questions of agreeing on basic facts or being able to even just examine whether all the basic assumptions are correct. How one could expect that to allow us to face of extinction is beyond me. However, it strikes me that lying to oneself of faking it til you make it will simply not impress a cold and calculated mistress as reality.

dTal 5y ago
>people like us who are arguably part of humanity’s most advanced people Arguable indeed.
BjoernKW 5y ago
Well, "biggest" is something else than "urgent and important". Fair enough, though. It perhaps is true that climate change is assigned undue importance in public discourse when compared with other problems that might be just as important - or even more so. You'd be hard pressed, however, to find an issue that has as many immediate (or near-future) and potentially severe repercussions for as many people. Evolutionary divergence certainly seems like a potentially relevant future problem, the key word here being "potentially", though. Climate change, on the other hand, is a certain reality. Assigning the same resources to both problems, even though one of them might never even materialize (or do so in a manner we can't even anticipate yet), therefore would be irrational. That doesn't mean, however, that we can't work on solving both at the same time. At the very least, 8 billion or so people allow for massive parallelism.