4 ms·

This assumes a lot of things about alien physiology, structure, and tolerances are the same as humans. It's not hard to imagine the possibility of a species ari

This assumes a lot of things about alien physiology, structure, and tolerances are the same as humans. It's not hard to imagine the possibility of a species arising that either is less affected by a greenhouse effect or at maybe exists in an environment where it doesn't happen. That's not even getting into the possibility of different paths to energy production. This is always a problem with any Fermi paradox thought experiment. We're extrapolating so much from a sample of 1 and we understand so little about even that one case.

lisper 4y ago
The details don't really matter. What matters is that 1) a new source of energy is discovered which 2) disrupts an existing equilibrium which in turn 3) brings about ecosystem collapse faster than even intelligence can adapt. The exact mechanism by which this series of events plays out is irrelevant.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  It's such a negative thought experiment isn't it? Not saying it doesn't hold some water but man it's bleak.
  - lisper 4y ago
    Yep. I've been in a serious existential crisis over this for the last few years. It's not like disaster is inevitable. We could cut carbon emissions before they destroy technological civilization, or maybe come up with a practical way to (re-)sequester the carbon we've emitted. But right now it is not looking particularly promising to me, and time is running out fast.
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      What are you doing about it? I think if you're that concerned about it, you should be working to solve it, this would surely be the antidote to your worries. Just writing a letter to your representatives would be a simple way to help.
      - lisper 4y ago
        Only if I thought that there was something my representative could do that would solve the problem. The reason I'm in existential despair is that the distance between what I think would need to be done to solve the problem and what can plausibly be done given the realities of our world is vast. Even if we cut emissions to zero tomorrow (which is obviously not going to happen) that would not solve the current problem. I think that if you look at things realistically, we have already passed the point of no return. So what I am doing is searching for someone who can persuade me that I'm wrong and that there is a plausible path forward that does not involve societal collapse in the near future (by which I mean the next 100 years or so). When I find that person I'm going to put a lot of effort into trying to help them succeed. But so far I have not found them. I'm also putting some effort into building a legacy (by which I mean a societal legacy, not a personal one) that our descendants could use to rebuild civilization once the planet settles into a new equilibrium. That will probably be at least a few thousand years from now, so this too is a real challenge.
        bamboozled 4y ago
        If nothing could be done, then why are you stressed, you'll just have to go with it.
        lisper 4y ago
        Because I think there is a significant chance that civilization will collapse within my lifetime, and that is not going to be fun.
        bamboozled 4y ago
        Well, worrying about it won't change much.
        rainbell 4y ago
        you sound like another me in the world
        4y ago
- stormbrew 4y ago
  I agree the details don't matter, which is precisely why there's no reason to believe (2) or (3) is universal other than that it's our own experience. You are taking our details and extrapolating them to a universal filter. Most people die of old age. A very small number of people die of being hit by rocks falling from the sky. Only one of these is a broad filter for who survives into the next century that everyone has to go through, but if you only knew the life of one person you could not say with certainty which one it was.
  - lisper 4y ago
    That's true, except that it is plausible that any major new source of energy is going to disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium somehow, and it will do so very rapidly on evolutionary time scales. So yes, I'm extrapolating from one data point. But I think it's a plausible extrapolation based on a plausible model of evolution and ecosystems in general. Call it a hypothesis. Nothing would please me more than to have it disproved by evidence.
    - stormbrew 4y ago
      > it is plausible that any major new source of energy is going to disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium somehow Why? Anyways even if I grant that, we then get to ask why a change in equilibrium universally results in catastrophe? Certainly the weeds in my unkempt garden would disagree that the lack of equilibrium there is a bad thing. To be honest even the hypothesis that where we are now was inevitable for us seems sketchy and unsupportable. What if we'd had a nuclear race instead of a space race? We actually found alternatives to fossil fuel long before we reached a crisis point.
      - lisper 4y ago
        These are fair questions. > Why? Because releasing energy is invariably accompanied by change of some sort. If that energy is released as part of an intentional effort by a technological civilization, then that change is also going to be intentional. The entities releasing the energy are doing it in order to produce change. That's the whole point. Note that the situation we are facing here on earth is actually not what you would expect from that dynamic. Our current climate change is not directly related to the changes we've unleashed with the industrial revolution. It's an ancillary side-effect, and a particularly annoying one. But even if we didn't have CO2 to worry about, sooner or later we would cause some other change that would disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium. In fact, we've already done that in numerous smaller ways. Lots of species and non-technological civilizations have already gone extinct here on earth. The fundamental problem is that industrial revolutions produce exponential growth, which is not sustainable. Sooner or later that growth has to stop. (Even an arbitrarily advanced civilization is constrained by the speed of light to grow at a maximum rate of N^2 in the long run.) So either we have to decide to stop it or the laws of physics will do it for us, and the former seems unlikely. > why a change in equilibrium universally results in catastrophe? It doesn't necessarily, though it is very likely to be a catastrophe for someone. In any major upheaval there will be winners and losers. The reason I think it's likely is that there will always be a period where new technologies cause living standards to improve dramatically, and that induces techno-optimism, a belief that technology will always be able to solve any problem that happens to come down the pike. Techno-optimism will cause civilizations to go closer and closer to the edge of the existential precipice because the Malthusians warning about existential threats will always be empirically wrong until it's too late. > We actually found alternatives to fossil fuel long before we reached a crisis point. Yes, that's true. And it's quite possible that on a different trajectory it would have taken 1000 years or 10,000 years to reach the crisis point instead of just a few hundred. But what is killing us now is not CO2 per se, but rather techno-optimism and the prisoner's dilemma. No one wants to sacrifice their standard of living for the greater good of future generations. And that seems to me to be a universal dynamic.

lisper 4y ago

The details don't really matter. What matters is that 1) a new source of energy is discovered which 2) disrupts an existing equilibrium which in turn 3) brings about ecosystem collapse faster than even intelligence can adapt. The exact mechanism by which this series of events plays out is irrelevant.

bamboozled 4y ago
It's such a negative thought experiment isn't it? Not saying it doesn't hold some water but man it's bleak.
- lisper 4y ago
  Yep. I've been in a serious existential crisis over this for the last few years. It's not like disaster is inevitable. We could cut carbon emissions before they destroy technological civilization, or maybe come up with a practical way to (re-)sequester the carbon we've emitted. But right now it is not looking particularly promising to me, and time is running out fast.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    What are you doing about it? I think if you're that concerned about it, you should be working to solve it, this would surely be the antidote to your worries. Just writing a letter to your representatives would be a simple way to help.
    - lisper 4y ago
      Only if I thought that there was something my representative could do that would solve the problem. The reason I'm in existential despair is that the distance between what I think would need to be done to solve the problem and what can plausibly be done given the realities of our world is vast. Even if we cut emissions to zero tomorrow (which is obviously not going to happen) that would not solve the current problem. I think that if you look at things realistically, we have already passed the point of no return. So what I am doing is searching for someone who can persuade me that I'm wrong and that there is a plausible path forward that does not involve societal collapse in the near future (by which I mean the next 100 years or so). When I find that person I'm going to put a lot of effort into trying to help them succeed. But so far I have not found them. I'm also putting some effort into building a legacy (by which I mean a societal legacy, not a personal one) that our descendants could use to rebuild civilization once the planet settles into a new equilibrium. That will probably be at least a few thousand years from now, so this too is a real challenge.
      - bamboozled 4y ago
        If nothing could be done, then why are you stressed, you'll just have to go with it.
        lisper 4y ago
        Because I think there is a significant chance that civilization will collapse within my lifetime, and that is not going to be fun.
        bamboozled 4y ago
        Well, worrying about it won't change much.
        rainbell 4y ago
        you sound like another me in the world
      - 4y ago
stormbrew 4y ago
I agree the details don't matter, which is precisely why there's no reason to believe (2) or (3) is universal other than that it's our own experience. You are taking our details and extrapolating them to a universal filter. Most people die of old age. A very small number of people die of being hit by rocks falling from the sky. Only one of these is a broad filter for who survives into the next century that everyone has to go through, but if you only knew the life of one person you could not say with certainty which one it was.
- lisper 4y ago
  That's true, except that it is plausible that any major new source of energy is going to disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium somehow, and it will do so very rapidly on evolutionary time scales. So yes, I'm extrapolating from one data point. But I think it's a plausible extrapolation based on a plausible model of evolution and ecosystems in general. Call it a hypothesis. Nothing would please me more than to have it disproved by evidence.
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    > it is plausible that any major new source of energy is going to disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium somehow Why? Anyways even if I grant that, we then get to ask why a change in equilibrium universally results in catastrophe? Certainly the weeds in my unkempt garden would disagree that the lack of equilibrium there is a bad thing. To be honest even the hypothesis that where we are now was inevitable for us seems sketchy and unsupportable. What if we'd had a nuclear race instead of a space race? We actually found alternatives to fossil fuel long before we reached a crisis point.
    - lisper 4y ago
      These are fair questions. > Why? Because releasing energy is invariably accompanied by change of some sort. If that energy is released as part of an intentional effort by a technological civilization, then that change is also going to be intentional. The entities releasing the energy are doing it in order to produce change. That's the whole point. Note that the situation we are facing here on earth is actually not what you would expect from that dynamic. Our current climate change is not directly related to the changes we've unleashed with the industrial revolution. It's an ancillary side-effect, and a particularly annoying one. But even if we didn't have CO2 to worry about, sooner or later we would cause some other change that would disrupt the previously prevailing equilibrium. In fact, we've already done that in numerous smaller ways. Lots of species and non-technological civilizations have already gone extinct here on earth. The fundamental problem is that industrial revolutions produce exponential growth, which is not sustainable. Sooner or later that growth has to stop. (Even an arbitrarily advanced civilization is constrained by the speed of light to grow at a maximum rate of N^2 in the long run.) So either we have to decide to stop it or the laws of physics will do it for us, and the former seems unlikely. > why a change in equilibrium universally results in catastrophe? It doesn't necessarily, though it is very likely to be a catastrophe for someone. In any major upheaval there will be winners and losers. The reason I think it's likely is that there will always be a period where new technologies cause living standards to improve dramatically, and that induces techno-optimism, a belief that technology will always be able to solve any problem that happens to come down the pike. Techno-optimism will cause civilizations to go closer and closer to the edge of the existential precipice because the Malthusians warning about existential threats will always be empirically wrong until it's too late. > We actually found alternatives to fossil fuel long before we reached a crisis point. Yes, that's true. And it's quite possible that on a different trajectory it would have taken 1000 years or 10,000 years to reach the crisis point instead of just a few hundred. But what is killing us now is not CO2 per se, but rather techno-optimism and the prisoner's dilemma. No one wants to sacrifice their standard of living for the greater good of future generations. And that seems to me to be a universal dynamic.