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"I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either, whether or not that is realistic." Wha

"I believe bringing children into a world of such uncertainty and possible collapse is not really that appealing either, whether or not that is realistic." What a curious response. I have been hearing that argument for over 50 years, and, arguably, it has been used across the world since the first world war over 100 years ago, and (especially) since the first atomic bomb was dropped. And yet it is essentially a feeble and frail argument based upon fear of the unknown. Interesting to hear a techie say it.

JohnMakin 2y ago
“the unknown” is a future of at least 2+ (conservatively) degrees celsius by the end of the century, and zero indication thus far this is avoidable. Even if it is we are at a point of irreversible catastrophic effects. Nor is there any world wide effort to take actual actions that will prevent such a dire future - To me, this is reasonably certain enough to be an easy argument. I don’t particularly care for the hand wavy arguments around this fact, either. Even if you somehow don’t believe the evidence here, we’re already starting to see the first, second, and tertiary effects of climate change, and the future extrapolated forward will not be a world I would enjoy to live in, nor for one of my theoretical offspring. This is a perfectly rational response.
- purplethinking 2y ago
  It is completely avoidable, but you're right, there is no indication that anyone is going to do anything about it. We could start to fix the problem by using stratospheric aerosol injection as a stopgap measure and building thousands of nuclear reactors to pull carbon out of the air. But that's not the solution environmentalists want, which is one of personal sacrifice and moral cleansing, so here we are. My guess is we'll face some climate catastrophe like the fictional heat wave in The Ministry for the Future, and then start actually doing something about it. The good news is carbon emissions have already decoupled from economic growth, solar and wind are growing exponentially, transportation is being electrified etc. At the same time, technological progress is only accelerating with AI, so our capabilities as a species will be quite amazing in the coming 50-100 years. We can and will fix this.
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JohnMakin 2y ago

“the unknown” is a future of at least 2+ (conservatively) degrees celsius by the end of the century, and zero indication thus far this is avoidable. Even if it is we are at a point of irreversible catastrophic effects. Nor is there any world wide effort to take actual actions that will prevent such a dire future - To me, this is reasonably certain enough to be an easy argument. I don’t particularly care for the hand wavy arguments around this fact, either. Even if you somehow don’t believe the evidence here, we’re already starting to see the first, second, and tertiary effects of climate change, and the future extrapolated forward will not be a world I would enjoy to live in, nor for one of my theoretical offspring. This is a perfectly rational response.

purplethinking 2y ago
It is completely avoidable, but you're right, there is no indication that anyone is going to do anything about it. We could start to fix the problem by using stratospheric aerosol injection as a stopgap measure and building thousands of nuclear reactors to pull carbon out of the air. But that's not the solution environmentalists want, which is one of personal sacrifice and moral cleansing, so here we are. My guess is we'll face some climate catastrophe like the fictional heat wave in The Ministry for the Future, and then start actually doing something about it. The good news is carbon emissions have already decoupled from economic growth, solar and wind are growing exponentially, transportation is being electrified etc. At the same time, technological progress is only accelerating with AI, so our capabilities as a species will be quite amazing in the coming 50-100 years. We can and will fix this.

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