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Society is about to Great Filter itself away over the next thousand years with climate change…

marcosdumay 4y ago
The great filter is something with odds around 10^-30 of surviving. It's hard to find any convincing argument that climate change will destroy our civilization with anything near 1/2 odds. It's a completely different ballpark.
- asdff 4y ago
  How can you even put odds on something like this?
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I think it’s a definitional thing: “a great filter” assumes that life is basically everywhere and yet one specific something (or perhaps as many as “a few”) almost always prevents it from taking over a significant fraction of its future light cone. If there are 10^30 stars in ours, the lower bound on the odds of surpassing it have to be close to that. Personally I expect there to be many smaller filters rather than a few great filters — 30 things each with a factor of 10 has the same effect, after all.
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      Personally, abiogenesis by itself looks like something on the 10^-60 to 10^-140 range, so it fully explains everything. Anyway, there are indeed a few things in our past that look like a 10^-10 odds filter, like each time our genetic encoding changed to increase our codons and the oxygen catastrophe. There are more that look like merely "almost impossible to survive" (I'd guess some ~10^-4 filter) like large asteroid impacts, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
colechristensen 4y ago
Eh it might suck for a while but I really doubt that the situation will go beyond human survivability.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Humans will survive. How well the modern civilization will fare is bigger question. Breakdown of globalization might be bad.
- asdff 4y ago
  Some will survive but many will die as well. Our modern society has increased the carrying capacity of our planet. As we see climate change disturb food production we will see this carrying capacity fall. If this leads to the collapse of stability in regions the carrying capacity will fall further.
surge 4y ago
Even climate scientists don't argue it'll be extinction level, it'll just be really bad for some regions, great if you live in Siberia and suddenly Canada and Russia have shipping lanes in the arctic and are growing tomatoes. Calm down.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  The Great Filter doesn't refer only to extinctions. Anything that makes it highly improbably for a civilization to advance from our current level of technology to significant space colonization would be a Great Filter.
- rybosome 4y ago
  There are scientists who think we could be in for an extinction level event solely from climate change. We could enter one due to environmental pressure from the death of a key part of the biosphere, not even related to climate change. And finally, food scarcity in a world of climate change increases the likelihood of conflict, including nuclear conflict. Sadly, it is reasonable to be concerned about this possibility.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  Okay so only 90% of the human race dies due to drought, famine and nuclear war. I'm so totes calm. Serene.
- BeefWellington 4y ago
  Climate change itself perhaps not. I'd argue there's quite a bit of precedence to believe that the way humans will react to these changes could lead us down that path.
- asdff 4y ago
  It won't be extinction level, no, but there will be famines and migrations and collapse of governments and violence. That much is guaranteed.
  - midasuni 4y ago
    And in 1000 years what will the situation be?
callamdelaney 4y ago
Climate change is a natural fact of our planet, it's been happening since its inception and will continue. Is this current push towards renewables our first forey into terraforming?
- Ekaros 4y ago
  What I might consider as the first foray was likely irrigation.
  - callamdelaney 4y ago
    Perhaps the first conscious occurance?
zamalek 4y ago
We have made a big enough change to avoid 4C, or turning Earth into Venus. The goal is now to avoid turning it into a livable hell hole. We have evaded this filter. On to the next.

The great filter is something with odds around 10^-30 of surviving. It's hard to find any convincing argument that climate change will destroy our civilization with anything near 1/2 odds. It's a completely different ballpark.

asdff 4y ago
How can you even put odds on something like this?
- ben_w 4y ago
  I think it’s a definitional thing: “a great filter” assumes that life is basically everywhere and yet one specific something (or perhaps as many as “a few”) almost always prevents it from taking over a significant fraction of its future light cone. If there are 10^30 stars in ours, the lower bound on the odds of surpassing it have to be close to that. Personally I expect there to be many smaller filters rather than a few great filters — 30 things each with a factor of 10 has the same effect, after all.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Personally, abiogenesis by itself looks like something on the 10^-60 to 10^-140 range, so it fully explains everything. Anyway, there are indeed a few things in our past that look like a 10^-10 odds filter, like each time our genetic encoding changed to increase our codons and the oxygen catastrophe. There are more that look like merely "almost impossible to survive" (I'd guess some ~10^-4 filter) like large asteroid impacts, but not nearly enough to make a difference.

colechristensen 4y ago

Eh it might suck for a while but I really doubt that the situation will go beyond human survivability.

Ekaros 4y ago
Humans will survive. How well the modern civilization will fare is bigger question. Breakdown of globalization might be bad.
asdff 4y ago
Some will survive but many will die as well. Our modern society has increased the carrying capacity of our planet. As we see climate change disturb food production we will see this carrying capacity fall. If this leads to the collapse of stability in regions the carrying capacity will fall further.

surge 4y ago

Even climate scientists don't argue it'll be extinction level, it'll just be really bad for some regions, great if you live in Siberia and suddenly Canada and Russia have shipping lanes in the arctic and are growing tomatoes. Calm down.

tshaddox 4y ago
The Great Filter doesn't refer only to extinctions. Anything that makes it highly improbably for a civilization to advance from our current level of technology to significant space colonization would be a Great Filter.
rybosome 4y ago
There are scientists who think we could be in for an extinction level event solely from climate change. We could enter one due to environmental pressure from the death of a key part of the biosphere, not even related to climate change. And finally, food scarcity in a world of climate change increases the likelihood of conflict, including nuclear conflict. Sadly, it is reasonable to be concerned about this possibility.
lamontcg 4y ago
Okay so only 90% of the human race dies due to drought, famine and nuclear war. I'm so totes calm. Serene.
BeefWellington 4y ago
Climate change itself perhaps not. I'd argue there's quite a bit of precedence to believe that the way humans will react to these changes could lead us down that path.
asdff 4y ago
It won't be extinction level, no, but there will be famines and migrations and collapse of governments and violence. That much is guaranteed.
- midasuni 4y ago
  And in 1000 years what will the situation be?

callamdelaney 4y ago

Climate change is a natural fact of our planet, it's been happening since its inception and will continue. Is this current push towards renewables our first forey into terraforming?

Ekaros 4y ago
What I might consider as the first foray was likely irrigation.
- callamdelaney 4y ago
  Perhaps the first conscious occurance?

zamalek 4y ago

We have made a big enough change to avoid 4C, or turning Earth into Venus. The goal is now to avoid turning it into a livable hell hole. We have evaded this filter. On to the next.