3 ms·

All models are wrong. Some are useful. We are in new territory. With 8 billion people, a global internet, climate change, etc. this is a scenario we haven't se

All models are wrong. Some are useful. We are in new territory. With 8 billion people, a global internet, climate change, etc. this is a scenario we haven't seen before. I am skeptical that it is helpful to make sweeping pronouncements of this sort. Some countries have high rates of disease and low levels of education. I bet getting people healthier and better educated would improve productivity more than having more children. We also don't necessarily know how more people raises GDP per capita. Maybe it's a situation where having basics in place fosters more people who are healthier or something and maybe in some countries that pattern is not what's happening.

ThomPete 3y ago
the only difference between before is that we are much much better at handling nature and the climate. We are so good at it that we reduced death from climate related catastrophees by 95% the last 100 years. Unfortunately the youth is being lied and manipulated thinking the opposite. Its become a religion worshipping nature and politicians and the media is our days priesthood, promising salvation if we repent. The most dangerous thing humanity can do is to not believe in the future. If you dont believe in tomorrow you wont invest into it. Its the principles of a death-cult. It is so sad to see the youth wasting their years on pessimism when life is mostly positive even if you are not rich. And now we see the new contender based on the same defaist attitude in the AI doomers using same speculative frameworks to claim the end of the world without a single thread of evidence
- vacuity 3y ago
  The AI doomerism is definitely overblown, but I don't think the same is true of climate change. It won't be a fast extinction by any means, but if the heaps of scientific evidence are to be trusted, we are rapidly losing leeway to feasibly reverse/mitigate the consequences. Only looking at deaths up to this point is like seeing an empty road, walking onto it, and texting people while standing still.
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    [flagged]
- bmer 3y ago
  I often see this thrown around, that the youth today are being peddled some nature-worshipping fantasy, when the "hard truth is that nature is a cruel entity, tamed forcefully by the work of our forefathers". It kind of ignores the fact that young people just want clean water. Clean air. I don't want long-lived hormone-like pollutants in my mattress. I don't want the river that supplies most of the clean water to my city to become polluted, and I also do not want it to dry out due to over-diversion to industry (okay, sue me, I want a good view). I do not want to take massive risks with how I affect the environment, before I have a chance to fully understand future repercussions. Last, but not least: I do not want to lose knowledge. Currently, a lot of nanotechnology and pharmaceutical technology is being driven not by de-novo design of proteins, but by trawling through information about existing ensembles (which mostly come from come from organisms we had ready access to). Destroying previously inaccessible/invisible (e.g. 99% of the ocean) ecosystems just because "woops, we didn't bother thinking that we live in a chaotic dynamical system" is akin to purposefully deleting hard-drives with millenia's worth of hard-won data. Climate is an issue too, sure. But its mostly overblown as the reason why people care about environmental issues (especially given how much we do not know about climate, period), rather than: as the scapegoat that the media finds most convenient to trumpet (because it is the easiest for governments and businesses to try and quantify). Most real people (i.e. not the strawmen) aren't nearly so simplistic. On the other hand, the rather simple concerns along the lines of: "hey, can we just be a bit more careful about just pumping this random shit into the air, until we understand better?", "hey, can you not put selinium rich mining byproducts in my local river?", or "can you not use low-grade silicone with questionable health consequences for my cat's grooming brush" don't get much attention. I'm all for believing in the future. It becomes harder to do so when one realizes that a) they are disposable, and b) people in power do not care abou the messes they create, because they will never have to personally deal with cleaning up those messes. Which makes me think: aw shit, I don't want to have clean up those messes either! Why can't they move a little slower, and a lot more thoughtfully? So...uh, nothing to do with "oh no, death cult!".
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    your comment is a prime example of the complete ignorance towards the circumstances most people used to live under. Cruel brutish and short for most people dont even begin to explain it. We have access to more clean water than ever, sanitation and i could go on, but unfortunately the youth has been hijacked by antihuman people who under the guise of moral virtue signalling spread unscientific FUD. Imagine how many years they are wasting on worrying rather than learning to solve problems as they appear.
- dominicdoty 3y ago
  The "95% reduction in the last 100 years" feels like a misguided argument since our improved abilities to handle weather events will not hold if the weather patterns we've gotten so good at handling, change. If you exceed design conditions, your 95% reduction can quickly turn into a Texas blackout. I agree that optimism is critical to keep moving forward. However I do disagree with your implication that young people believe that we cannot handle nature and the climate. The view I (anecdotally) encounter most is not the belief that we are incapable of handling it, but that we will refuse to handle it till it's too late.
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    its not misguided, but i am not surprised you are skeptical, its impossible for most people to actually get rational perspectives because of the hysteria.
- defrost 3y ago
  > we reduced death from climate related catastrophees by 95% the last 100 years. This seems like a casual claim that requires a strong citation to back it up. Especially in the matter of seperating "death from a climate related catastrophe" from "death from a weather related catastrophe" .. if in fact such a difference is recognised. Is this absolute global "death by weather" per annum you're quoting or some locale relative percentage "death by weather" ? How solid are the numbers?
  - ThomPete 3y ago
    this is relative to the size of population. The numbers are right, you should also be able to reason how much better weve become at living places that used to be impossible.
    - defrost 3y ago
      > The numbers are right, .. and your source for this is .. ? > you should also be able to reason how much better we[']ve become I can reason quite well thank you, multiple STEM degrees, decades in global exploration geophysics, decades of hearing people pull numbers out of thin air, etc.
      - ThomPete 3y ago
        With that many degrees it should be trivial for you to realize that it has to be like that. https://humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-deaths-2/ https://humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-de...
bmer 3y ago
> We also don't necessarily know how more people raises GDP per capita. Maybe it's a situation where having basics in place fosters more people who are healthier or something and maybe in some countries that pattern is not what's happening. Is there some type of underlying assumption that goes like this: "more people ==> more people participating in the market ==> more consumers for your product"? In that case, to add to your point, I think "more people ==> more people participating in the market" is problematic. It is perhaps true in the following grotesque sense: "the more 'shit'(objectified, person/product) that's produced and thrown at the wall, the higher the chance we find some(thing/one) that sticks to the wall (meaningful market participant)", but that grotesque perspective ignores that the "things that doesn't stick to the wall" may unexpected systemic effects that reduce market size (e.g. greater depression amongst the wall-clingers, due to the suffering they see around them, harder to elicit feelings of shared community between all pieces (whether they clung to the wall, or pooled to the bottom) because they know they are disposable: i.e. loss of trust in humanity), etc.). It reminds me of the country my parents came from. In general, people don't like to believe that every human being has great potential (and that most people do not get to reach this potential, for a variety of reasons, many systemic) because then actions that negatively affect other people's potential, even in small ways, have greater-than-expected negative externalities. That's bad for business; while any benefits reaped from the other perspective (in building a stronger market in the future) can only be reaped in the future, and therefore worthless ("a society grows great, when old persons plant trees whose shade they will never get to rest under..."). So it's easier to think that people are born with a fixed maximum potential. Those that can reach it, will most likely reach it, while those who do not do so well likely did not have that potential to begin with. Based on this, it makes sense to have more shit thrown at the wall to see what sticks. I think also many of the fertility arguments are based off of "undesirables have high fertility rates", therefore, "desirables must increase their fertility rates!". Put differently, it's not always a call for "greater human fertility; without any qualifications", but a dog-whistle with some uncomfortable qualifications. (c.f. the discomfort of having "desirable persons be in relationships with undesirable persons"). Related to this is the perspective that desirability is due to the existence of certain historical traditions, therefore, desirable parents have a better chance of inculcating desirability into their offspring, than society has of inculcating desirability into undesirables through lost causes such as education or inter-cultural understanding. Not related to the last, but other similar ideas are: "If we do not have enough humans, who will do the dirty work? Could end up being us!" or "Children are the machines who support us when we grow older!". Anyway, I'm getting bored, so will stop here. To sum up: whenever entities present "we need more fertility" arguments, it's rarely because they want to explore reality for everyone's benefit, and often because they have certain pre-decided perspectives on how their future (not their children's) may be safe-guarded.

ThomPete 3y ago

the only difference between before is that we are much much better at handling nature and the climate. We are so good at it that we reduced death from climate related catastrophees by 95% the last 100 years. Unfortunately the youth is being lied and manipulated thinking the opposite. Its become a religion worshipping nature and politicians and the media is our days priesthood, promising salvation if we repent. The most dangerous thing humanity can do is to not believe in the future. If you dont believe in tomorrow you wont invest into it. Its the principles of a death-cult. It is so sad to see the youth wasting their years on pessimism when life is mostly positive even if you are not rich. And now we see the new contender based on the same defaist attitude in the AI doomers using same speculative frameworks to claim the end of the world without a single thread of evidence

vacuity 3y ago
The AI doomerism is definitely overblown, but I don't think the same is true of climate change. It won't be a fast extinction by any means, but if the heaps of scientific evidence are to be trusted, we are rapidly losing leeway to feasibly reverse/mitigate the consequences. Only looking at deaths up to this point is like seeing an empty road, walking onto it, and texting people while standing still.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  [flagged]
bmer 3y ago
I often see this thrown around, that the youth today are being peddled some nature-worshipping fantasy, when the "hard truth is that nature is a cruel entity, tamed forcefully by the work of our forefathers". It kind of ignores the fact that young people just want clean water. Clean air. I don't want long-lived hormone-like pollutants in my mattress. I don't want the river that supplies most of the clean water to my city to become polluted, and I also do not want it to dry out due to over-diversion to industry (okay, sue me, I want a good view). I do not want to take massive risks with how I affect the environment, before I have a chance to fully understand future repercussions. Last, but not least: I do not want to lose knowledge. Currently, a lot of nanotechnology and pharmaceutical technology is being driven not by de-novo design of proteins, but by trawling through information about existing ensembles (which mostly come from come from organisms we had ready access to). Destroying previously inaccessible/invisible (e.g. 99% of the ocean) ecosystems just because "woops, we didn't bother thinking that we live in a chaotic dynamical system" is akin to purposefully deleting hard-drives with millenia's worth of hard-won data. Climate is an issue too, sure. But its mostly overblown as the reason why people care about environmental issues (especially given how much we do not know about climate, period), rather than: as the scapegoat that the media finds most convenient to trumpet (because it is the easiest for governments and businesses to try and quantify). Most real people (i.e. not the strawmen) aren't nearly so simplistic. On the other hand, the rather simple concerns along the lines of: "hey, can we just be a bit more careful about just pumping this random shit into the air, until we understand better?", "hey, can you not put selinium rich mining byproducts in my local river?", or "can you not use low-grade silicone with questionable health consequences for my cat's grooming brush" don't get much attention. I'm all for believing in the future. It becomes harder to do so when one realizes that a) they are disposable, and b) people in power do not care abou the messes they create, because they will never have to personally deal with cleaning up those messes. Which makes me think: aw shit, I don't want to have clean up those messes either! Why can't they move a little slower, and a lot more thoughtfully? So...uh, nothing to do with "oh no, death cult!".
- ThomPete 3y ago
  your comment is a prime example of the complete ignorance towards the circumstances most people used to live under. Cruel brutish and short for most people dont even begin to explain it. We have access to more clean water than ever, sanitation and i could go on, but unfortunately the youth has been hijacked by antihuman people who under the guise of moral virtue signalling spread unscientific FUD. Imagine how many years they are wasting on worrying rather than learning to solve problems as they appear.
dominicdoty 3y ago
The "95% reduction in the last 100 years" feels like a misguided argument since our improved abilities to handle weather events will not hold if the weather patterns we've gotten so good at handling, change. If you exceed design conditions, your 95% reduction can quickly turn into a Texas blackout. I agree that optimism is critical to keep moving forward. However I do disagree with your implication that young people believe that we cannot handle nature and the climate. The view I (anecdotally) encounter most is not the belief that we are incapable of handling it, but that we will refuse to handle it till it's too late.
- ThomPete 3y ago
  its not misguided, but i am not surprised you are skeptical, its impossible for most people to actually get rational perspectives because of the hysteria.
defrost 3y ago
> we reduced death from climate related catastrophees by 95% the last 100 years. This seems like a casual claim that requires a strong citation to back it up. Especially in the matter of seperating "death from a climate related catastrophe" from "death from a weather related catastrophe" .. if in fact such a difference is recognised. Is this absolute global "death by weather" per annum you're quoting or some locale relative percentage "death by weather" ? How solid are the numbers?
- ThomPete 3y ago
  this is relative to the size of population. The numbers are right, you should also be able to reason how much better weve become at living places that used to be impossible.
  - defrost 3y ago
    > The numbers are right, .. and your source for this is .. ? > you should also be able to reason how much better we[']ve become I can reason quite well thank you, multiple STEM degrees, decades in global exploration geophysics, decades of hearing people pull numbers out of thin air, etc.
    - ThomPete 3y ago
      With that many degrees it should be trivial for you to realize that it has to be like that. https://humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-deaths-2/ https://humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-de...

bmer 3y ago

> We also don't necessarily know how more people raises GDP per capita. Maybe it's a situation where having basics in place fosters more people who are healthier or something and maybe in some countries that pattern is not what's happening. Is there some type of underlying assumption that goes like this: "more people ==> more people participating in the market ==> more consumers for your product"? In that case, to add to your point, I think "more people ==> more people participating in the market" is problematic. It is perhaps true in the following grotesque sense: "the more 'shit'(objectified, person/product) that's produced and thrown at the wall, the higher the chance we find some(thing/one) that sticks to the wall (meaningful market participant)", but that grotesque perspective ignores that the "things that doesn't stick to the wall" may unexpected systemic effects that reduce market size (e.g. greater depression amongst the wall-clingers, due to the suffering they see around them, harder to elicit feelings of shared community between all pieces (whether they clung to the wall, or pooled to the bottom) because they know they are disposable: i.e. loss of trust in humanity), etc.). It reminds me of the country my parents came from. In general, people don't like to believe that every human being has great potential (and that most people do not get to reach this potential, for a variety of reasons, many systemic) because then actions that negatively affect other people's potential, even in small ways, have greater-than-expected negative externalities. That's bad for business; while any benefits reaped from the other perspective (in building a stronger market in the future) can only be reaped in the future, and therefore worthless ("a society grows great, when old persons plant trees whose shade they will never get to rest under..."). So it's easier to think that people are born with a fixed maximum potential. Those that can reach it, will most likely reach it, while those who do not do so well likely did not have that potential to begin with. Based on this, it makes sense to have more shit thrown at the wall to see what sticks. I think also many of the fertility arguments are based off of "undesirables have high fertility rates", therefore, "desirables must increase their fertility rates!". Put differently, it's not always a call for "greater human fertility; without any qualifications", but a dog-whistle with some uncomfortable qualifications. (c.f. the discomfort of having "desirable persons be in relationships with undesirable persons"). Related to this is the perspective that desirability is due to the existence of certain historical traditions, therefore, desirable parents have a better chance of inculcating desirability into their offspring, than society has of inculcating desirability into undesirables through lost causes such as education or inter-cultural understanding. Not related to the last, but other similar ideas are: "If we do not have enough humans, who will do the dirty work? Could end up being us!" or "Children are the machines who support us when we grow older!". Anyway, I'm getting bored, so will stop here. To sum up: whenever entities present "we need more fertility" arguments, it's rarely because they want to explore reality for everyone's benefit, and often because they have certain pre-decided perspectives on how their future (not their children's) may be safe-guarded.