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As terrible as the consequences of humanity will be for biodiversity and life on Earth, there is a strange silver lining. We seem to be one of the most intens

by retrac 3y ago

As terrible as the consequences of humanity will be for biodiversity and life on Earth, there is a strange silver lining. We seem to be one of the most intense, unprecedented, sudden, and multifaceted selection pressures life has ever experienced on Earth. We affect everything from the DNA and biochemistry to continent-wide land use. We are creating weird, new, toxic environments all over the planet, to which existing life must adapt. We're going to see all sorts of weird and wonderful novel behaviours evolve in basically every form of remaining life over the next few millennia, assuming we're still here to see it.

psychphysic 3y ago
Only really toxic for us. The rest of the world doesn't care as we're the only beings capable of understanding the misery we are inflicting.
edgyquant 3y ago
Yeah this. Humans aren’t destroying life on earth they’re changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures will evolve to feed on humans. Terrible is not an objective measure either. Oxygen and asteroids destroyed most life on earth but neither was terrible, they just were. The only reason people think we’re doing terrible things is because we’ve convinced ourselves we aren’t a natural part of the biosphere that adapted to what we’re doing now.
- ornornor 3y ago
  Isn’t it about control? An asteroid coming down is random as in no one caused it. What we’re doing is different: it’s a conscious choice and course of action (collectively). We didn’t really know in the beginning but we’ve knows for decades and collectively chose to continue mostly unabated. By that token we as a species are fully responsible for what’s happening in my opinion.
- gen220 3y ago
  Here's hoping 2200 will be the century of the Polymerphage (some bacterium whose favorite food is polymers, i.e. plastics). It'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the whole food supply chain, as we're pretty dependent on the idea of polymers "keeping out" the things that normally eat our food before we'd get the chance to. Maybe we'll go back to only eating crazy fermented and spicy things.
  - kilolima 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub Related, great Stanislaw Lem novel about the "Great Decomposition" of paper.
  - seabass-labrax 3y ago
    Why would you hope that wide-spread polymer-munching bacteria becomes a reality? Polymers have been terrifically important in more applications than I could list, and whilst we could go back to 'only eating crazy fermented and spicy things' (or risk dying if we don't), there are plenty of useful things that cannot be that: cheap and widely-available medicines exist partly because of the ease of constructing sterile packaging for them. Distributing pills in glass tubes would be considerably more expensive than using plastic containers, and I am sure that there are some substances for which polymers are the only viable storage material. It feels to me like the mistake is abusing plastics, which are some of the longest living, most resilient materials, for disposable products. Bacteria that eats polymers might clean up our mess, but it will also destroy one of the key foundations of modern industry, and I don't think the world will just sit back and become pre-industrial again - we'll be back with something worse.
    - gen220 3y ago
      It was more tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not sure it would (on net, and a long enough time horizon) be a bad thing if we had to go back to some combination of paper and glass – like you said, we mainly use polymers because they're cheap, not because they're the best material when you consider all the negative externalities. Plus, I guess I'm imagining the polymerphages would probably be more interested in soft plastics – grocery bags, styrofoam. The kind of stuff that already disintegrates pretty easily.
- lukas099 3y ago
  The world will eventually recover from an extinction event probably, but it will be terrible for us humans.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  > Yeah this. Humans aren’t destroying life on earth they’re changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures will evolve to feed on humans. Is this even remotely likely given how much control we have over our environment? It surely wouldn't be any other predatory animal, we wouldn't let it come to that. Microbes, viruses, bacteria something like that maybe but those aren't "feeding" on humans in the common sense of the word.
Apofis 3y ago
Humanity is the ultimate invasive species, destroying and killing all in its wake without second thought. Overall, everything but other humans is an afterthought, and even that not always so.
lurknot 3y ago
This isn't really how evolution works; this is just brainwashing optimism at best. Sure, there's epigenetic memory which buys life time to adapt during outlier times. But evolution itself is a function of time[generations of mutations * recombination]. Thousands of branches of the tree of life are burning that have persisted since the beginning of life on earth. The bacteria on the other hand, reproduce rapidly relative to the nice plants and birds and critters you're thinking of. They will be fine.

by retrac 3y ago

psychphysic 3y ago

Only really toxic for us. The rest of the world doesn't care as we're the only beings capable of understanding the misery we are inflicting.

edgyquant 3y ago

Yeah this. Humans aren’t destroying life on earth they’re changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures will evolve to feed on humans. Terrible is not an objective measure either. Oxygen and asteroids destroyed most life on earth but neither was terrible, they just were. The only reason people think we’re doing terrible things is because we’ve convinced ourselves we aren’t a natural part of the biosphere that adapted to what we’re doing now.

ornornor 3y ago
Isn’t it about control? An asteroid coming down is random as in no one caused it. What we’re doing is different: it’s a conscious choice and course of action (collectively). We didn’t really know in the beginning but we’ve knows for decades and collectively chose to continue mostly unabated. By that token we as a species are fully responsible for what’s happening in my opinion.
gen220 3y ago
Here's hoping 2200 will be the century of the Polymerphage (some bacterium whose favorite food is polymers, i.e. plastics). It'll be interesting to see what effect it has on the whole food supply chain, as we're pretty dependent on the idea of polymers "keeping out" the things that normally eat our food before we'd get the chance to. Maybe we'll go back to only eating crazy fermented and spicy things.
- kilolima 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoirs_Found_in_a_Bathtub Related, great Stanislaw Lem novel about the "Great Decomposition" of paper.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  Why would you hope that wide-spread polymer-munching bacteria becomes a reality? Polymers have been terrifically important in more applications than I could list, and whilst we could go back to 'only eating crazy fermented and spicy things' (or risk dying if we don't), there are plenty of useful things that cannot be that: cheap and widely-available medicines exist partly because of the ease of constructing sterile packaging for them. Distributing pills in glass tubes would be considerably more expensive than using plastic containers, and I am sure that there are some substances for which polymers are the only viable storage material. It feels to me like the mistake is abusing plastics, which are some of the longest living, most resilient materials, for disposable products. Bacteria that eats polymers might clean up our mess, but it will also destroy one of the key foundations of modern industry, and I don't think the world will just sit back and become pre-industrial again - we'll be back with something worse.
  - gen220 3y ago
    It was more tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not sure it would (on net, and a long enough time horizon) be a bad thing if we had to go back to some combination of paper and glass – like you said, we mainly use polymers because they're cheap, not because they're the best material when you consider all the negative externalities. Plus, I guess I'm imagining the polymerphages would probably be more interested in soft plastics – grocery bags, styrofoam. The kind of stuff that already disintegrates pretty easily.
lukas099 3y ago
The world will eventually recover from an extinction event probably, but it will be terrible for us humans.
barbazoo 3y ago
> Yeah this. Humans aren’t destroying life on earth they’re changing it and forcing new species to evolve. Who knows how weird the world will be in a million years: what creatures will evolve to feed on humans. Is this even remotely likely given how much control we have over our environment? It surely wouldn't be any other predatory animal, we wouldn't let it come to that. Microbes, viruses, bacteria something like that maybe but those aren't "feeding" on humans in the common sense of the word.

Apofis 3y ago

Humanity is the ultimate invasive species, destroying and killing all in its wake without second thought. Overall, everything but other humans is an afterthought, and even that not always so.

lurknot 3y ago

This isn't really how evolution works; this is just brainwashing optimism at best. Sure, there's epigenetic memory which buys life time to adapt during outlier times. But evolution itself is a function of time[generations of mutations * recombination]. Thousands of branches of the tree of life are burning that have persisted since the beginning of life on earth. The bacteria on the other hand, reproduce rapidly relative to the nice plants and birds and critters you're thinking of. They will be fine.