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History has shown various times[1] that our timeline is the one to bet on when it comes to narrowly avoiding the extinction of much of human life. My bet is thu

History has shown various times[1] that our timeline is the one to bet on when it comes to narrowly avoiding the extinction of much of human life. My bet is thus that one or several of the many ideas how to avoid a total climate crisis will prevail, in a soft-quantum-immortality kinda way. [1] examples: Hitler‘s halt before Dunkirk and his various other silly mistakes (resulting in them not being able to develop the bomb first), Vasili Arkhipov‘s abort to launch a nuclear torpedo during Cuban Crisis, Stanislav Petrov not reporting what their systems indicated to be a nuclear attack…

concordDance 3y ago
The idea that Nazi Germany invading Britain would result in the extinction of most human life is utterly absurd. Even a full nuclear exchange at the height of the cold war wouldn't have bumped off human civilization.
sfn42 3y ago
Yeah let's just keep calm and carry on and hope that something magically saves us. That's probably going to work out great
- m_mueller 3y ago
  Well, better to panic and run in 1000 directions, none of which going away from the planet that is so far our only habitat? It will work out one way or another. And either many-worlds is true, and some of them will carry on human life, or it’s not, I‘m wrong and all these examples were just lucky accidents. In the second option we‘re likely screwed either way, because the number of ways that humanity can kill itself is growing by the decade, and one of these will trigger sooner or later.
  - hju22_-3 3y ago
    This is such a... strange way to essential just ignore the problem and hope it goes away. Like a student deciding not to study, because why would that help. Either he fails or another in a—essentially—another world does or doesn't. Problem solved. This kind of attitude is problematic regardless of the topic though. Because whether it works out or not isn't dependent on you, because what you're describing is just noping out of the situation and ignoring it. And, for those who genuinely do care, one way or the other. That take the many hours upon hours to write out good whitepapers on the topic, how is that panicking exactly? Sure, there is a lot of horror media, purposefully misleading information, and doomer attitudes thrown around from either side of the argument, and some of those average (statistically speaking) folk can probably be described as panicking. And there's also companies doing and implementing things only for the PR, or to remove heat from themselves, or preemt such things, and what have you. But I still wouldn't go so far as to write the entire topic off because some people are panicky and a lot of companies have financial incentives to earn more regardless of morality. I do agree that, on the current course, I can't see humanity lasting very long, so to speak... that is, if nothing is done about it. Sure, perhaps nothing will work out. Perhaps everything will fix itself if one ignores the problem. Perhaps the fictional student ends up passing either way. Perhaps it won't. But is that reason enough to simply brush our hands of it? To just let it happen? Sitting back and doing nothing won't make things better either. Doing something has—at least—the potential for change, whether good or bad.
    - m_mueller 3y ago
      I never said to do nothing. I just don’t see value in worrying about things out of our control. I do my best to keep my family’s footprint low (and already live on a country with comparatively low footprint). But most of this whole thing is at best in the hands of corrupt politicians and at worst completely rudderless.
robotresearcher 3y ago
Survivor bias.
- m_mueller 3y ago
  Well it is. The question is what percentage you assign to the probability of having survived so far. Depending on that it can give evidence towards many-worlds (coupled with the anthropic principle).
1letterunixname 3y ago
No so probabilistic, but more like a linear combination of approaches maximizing for gain function and economy of scale. I can tell you with certainty planting trees is far down on the list. At the top of the list would be strategies that utilize biological processes as the capture component of CCS. Kelp and phytoplankton robotic oceanic aquaculture seem the most obvious. Going GMO to increase yield and reduce needs for micronutrients would probably be helpful. Terrestrial CCS would look like either chemical processes or DACCS. I think the Microsoft approach has legs to it if it can be demonstrated, Omniprocessor-style. For soil health and to combat desertification, it would be wiser to stop rain forest loss and reintroduce megafauna across the world to improve non-wooden plains / semi-wooded land.
- m_mueller 3y ago
  I think along the same lines. On the point of megafauna, isn’t it rather dependent on having enough large predators? E.g. in temperate forests, wolves have been shown to be very effective at repairing forest health by keeping deer at bay, leading to positive changes throughout the ecosystem.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
> History has shown various times that our timeline is the one to bet on when it comes to narrowly avoiding the extinction of much of human life. I'm not convinced by that logic, although as I've never yet died, maybe I could convince myself that I'm immortal by employing it.

concordDance 3y ago

The idea that Nazi Germany invading Britain would result in the extinction of most human life is utterly absurd. Even a full nuclear exchange at the height of the cold war wouldn't have bumped off human civilization.

sfn42 3y ago

Yeah let's just keep calm and carry on and hope that something magically saves us. That's probably going to work out great

m_mueller 3y ago
Well, better to panic and run in 1000 directions, none of which going away from the planet that is so far our only habitat? It will work out one way or another. And either many-worlds is true, and some of them will carry on human life, or it’s not, I‘m wrong and all these examples were just lucky accidents. In the second option we‘re likely screwed either way, because the number of ways that humanity can kill itself is growing by the decade, and one of these will trigger sooner or later.
- hju22_-3 3y ago
  This is such a... strange way to essential just ignore the problem and hope it goes away. Like a student deciding not to study, because why would that help. Either he fails or another in a—essentially—another world does or doesn't. Problem solved. This kind of attitude is problematic regardless of the topic though. Because whether it works out or not isn't dependent on you, because what you're describing is just noping out of the situation and ignoring it. And, for those who genuinely do care, one way or the other. That take the many hours upon hours to write out good whitepapers on the topic, how is that panicking exactly? Sure, there is a lot of horror media, purposefully misleading information, and doomer attitudes thrown around from either side of the argument, and some of those average (statistically speaking) folk can probably be described as panicking. And there's also companies doing and implementing things only for the PR, or to remove heat from themselves, or preemt such things, and what have you. But I still wouldn't go so far as to write the entire topic off because some people are panicky and a lot of companies have financial incentives to earn more regardless of morality. I do agree that, on the current course, I can't see humanity lasting very long, so to speak... that is, if nothing is done about it. Sure, perhaps nothing will work out. Perhaps everything will fix itself if one ignores the problem. Perhaps the fictional student ends up passing either way. Perhaps it won't. But is that reason enough to simply brush our hands of it? To just let it happen? Sitting back and doing nothing won't make things better either. Doing something has—at least—the potential for change, whether good or bad.
  - m_mueller 3y ago
    I never said to do nothing. I just don’t see value in worrying about things out of our control. I do my best to keep my family’s footprint low (and already live on a country with comparatively low footprint). But most of this whole thing is at best in the hands of corrupt politicians and at worst completely rudderless.

robotresearcher 3y ago

Survivor bias.

m_mueller 3y ago
Well it is. The question is what percentage you assign to the probability of having survived so far. Depending on that it can give evidence towards many-worlds (coupled with the anthropic principle).

1letterunixname 3y ago

No so probabilistic, but more like a linear combination of approaches maximizing for gain function and economy of scale. I can tell you with certainty planting trees is far down on the list. At the top of the list would be strategies that utilize biological processes as the capture component of CCS. Kelp and phytoplankton robotic oceanic aquaculture seem the most obvious. Going GMO to increase yield and reduce needs for micronutrients would probably be helpful. Terrestrial CCS would look like either chemical processes or DACCS. I think the Microsoft approach has legs to it if it can be demonstrated, Omniprocessor-style. For soil health and to combat desertification, it would be wiser to stop rain forest loss and reintroduce megafauna across the world to improve non-wooden plains / semi-wooded land.

m_mueller 3y ago
I think along the same lines. On the point of megafauna, isn’t it rather dependent on having enough large predators? E.g. in temperate forests, wolves have been shown to be very effective at repairing forest health by keeping deer at bay, leading to positive changes throughout the ecosystem.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

> History has shown various times that our timeline is the one to bet on when it comes to narrowly avoiding the extinction of much of human life. I'm not convinced by that logic, although as I've never yet died, maybe I could convince myself that I'm immortal by employing it.