4 ms·

> If you have a vague feeling that your Bad Cup didn’t used to be so full, and then you conclude we’re slip-sliding toward catastrophe, you haven’t discovered a

> If you have a vague feeling that your Bad Cup didn’t used to be so full, and then you conclude we’re slip-sliding toward catastrophe, you haven’t discovered anything. You’ve just taken your biases for a walk. Or maybe we are seeing unprecedented levels of CO2, cleared land, and population? I guess that's just bias too, then, right? An alternative explanation is that every time someone thought society was getting worse, it WAS, and here we are, at the worst point.

dave4420 2y ago
Just because we have a cognitive bias, it doesn’t mean that bias is leading us in the wrong direction on every topic. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that. It just means we have to be more careful when assessing evidence.
lisper 2y ago
> I guess that's just bias too, then, right? Yep. Compare to, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages . > here we are, at the worst point Not even close. (But things are likely to change radically after Jan 20, so check back in a few months.)
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  None of that involves ecological damage, which is currently happening.
  - lisper 2y ago
    What difference does that make? Why does the mode of the catastrophe matter? The examples I cited actually killed half the population at the time. Nothing since has even come close.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      Is that a bad thing? All other animals have population collapses from time to time and it redresses the balance. I don't see it as particularly catastrophic. Of course, now this reduces to how we define catastrophe, and we obviously have a difference. But I see a halving of the human population hardly a catastrophe at all, whereas the permanent extinction of species a much worse thing.
      - lisper 2y ago
        > the permanent extinction of species a much worse thing Fair enough, but then I'll point you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events No matter how you slice it, these are far from the worst of times.
        FrustratedMonky 2y ago
        From the chart. "Holocene extinction c. 10,000 BC – Ongoing Humans[3]" We are literally in an extinction event right now.
        hex3 2y ago
        [dead]
        lisper 2y ago
        Sure. But not all extinction events are created equal. Compare the holocene with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin... or even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e... BTW, humans would almost certainly not exist were it not for the KT event.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    Right, the thing you're currently freaked out about is ecological damage. Got it. And it's worse than it's ever been. Before, it's not like we were pumping sulphur into the air until it rained acid, or lead from gasoline into the air where everybody breathed it, or CFCs that were destroying the ozone layer, or pumping so much pollution into rivers that they literally caught fire. No, this is the worst, right now. /s Look, there are serious environmental things going on. Plastic particulates. Forever chemicals. Estrogenoids. CO2. There's a lot that's real, serious, and is having real, damaging effects. I don't want to minimize that. At the same time, you seem to be hyper-fixated on one thing. You seem to be an example of what the article is talking about.
    - nonameiguess 2y ago
      This is already starting to get grayed out as of 13 minutes from being posted (which hopefully reverses later), but Jesus man, it really makes me wonder where people's sense of perspective comes from. We had an ozone hole growing past the entire continent of Antarctica. We were at best a decade from driving all whales extinct. When I was a kid in Los Angeles, around 5-10% of an average year we were banned from playing outside and had recess canceled because the air quality made it dangerous to breathe. Eastern Canada was effectively unfishable and industries and food stuffs were collapsing because of acid rain from the American rust belt. I don't doubt there is still a lot of ecological damage being done and at least some of it is cumulative, getting worse with time even if what we're doing year-on-year gets better, but a lot of it is not. We wantonly destroyed common supplies of air and water 40+ years ago in ways you almost never see any more and somehow this gets totally ignored.
haizhung 2y ago
I am actually panicking as much as you are about it, but, thinking about it, maybe it is just bias? Like, people in the 20th century were living in constant fear of mutually assured destruction for dozens of years. Is that better or worse than the guaranteed collapse of the ecosystem? I couldn’t tell. But these days, no one really cares about a nuclear war, it seems, even if one of the nuclear power is currently fighting a war; and it’s appearing to lose it.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > Like, people in the 20th century were living in constant fear of mutually assured destruction for dozens of years. Is that better or worse than the guaranteed collapse of the ecosystem? I couldn’t tell. The fallacy in your argument is that climate disaster is already happening. We have already rendered hundreds of species extinct. It is not a future risk.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    The nature and severity of climate change risks to other species is something I can be sad about, without it being also a risk to us. Likewise in reverse, there are ways a nuclear war could be relatively good for almost every species except humans, our livestock, and our pets. Given the trends on renewables, I think we're going to solve the climate… but also a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated trends start implying silly things starting in the early 2030s, so expect something else to become a problem soon enough.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      Well then, that is where we differ because I am much more concerned about other species.
- stvltvs 2y ago
  I'm still in fear of nuclear holocaust. That problem hasn't gone away even if it's not top of zeitgeist now that other existential threats are so popular.
- 2y ago

dave4420 2y ago

Just because we have a cognitive bias, it doesn’t mean that bias is leading us in the wrong direction on every topic. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that. It just means we have to be more careful when assessing evidence.

lisper 2y ago

> I guess that's just bias too, then, right? Yep. Compare to, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages . > here we are, at the worst point Not even close. (But things are likely to change radically after Jan 20, so check back in a few months.)

vouaobrasil 2y ago
None of that involves ecological damage, which is currently happening.
- lisper 2y ago
  What difference does that make? Why does the mode of the catastrophe matter? The examples I cited actually killed half the population at the time. Nothing since has even come close.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Is that a bad thing? All other animals have population collapses from time to time and it redresses the balance. I don't see it as particularly catastrophic. Of course, now this reduces to how we define catastrophe, and we obviously have a difference. But I see a halving of the human population hardly a catastrophe at all, whereas the permanent extinction of species a much worse thing.
    - lisper 2y ago
      > the permanent extinction of species a much worse thing Fair enough, but then I'll point you to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events No matter how you slice it, these are far from the worst of times.
      - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
        From the chart. "Holocene extinction c. 10,000 BC – Ongoing Humans[3]" We are literally in an extinction event right now.
        hex3 2y ago
        [dead]
        lisper 2y ago
        Sure. But not all extinction events are created equal. Compare the holocene with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extin... or even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e... BTW, humans would almost certainly not exist were it not for the KT event.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Right, the thing you're currently freaked out about is ecological damage. Got it. And it's worse than it's ever been. Before, it's not like we were pumping sulphur into the air until it rained acid, or lead from gasoline into the air where everybody breathed it, or CFCs that were destroying the ozone layer, or pumping so much pollution into rivers that they literally caught fire. No, this is the worst, right now. /s Look, there are serious environmental things going on. Plastic particulates. Forever chemicals. Estrogenoids. CO2. There's a lot that's real, serious, and is having real, damaging effects. I don't want to minimize that. At the same time, you seem to be hyper-fixated on one thing. You seem to be an example of what the article is talking about.
  - nonameiguess 2y ago
    This is already starting to get grayed out as of 13 minutes from being posted (which hopefully reverses later), but Jesus man, it really makes me wonder where people's sense of perspective comes from. We had an ozone hole growing past the entire continent of Antarctica. We were at best a decade from driving all whales extinct. When I was a kid in Los Angeles, around 5-10% of an average year we were banned from playing outside and had recess canceled because the air quality made it dangerous to breathe. Eastern Canada was effectively unfishable and industries and food stuffs were collapsing because of acid rain from the American rust belt. I don't doubt there is still a lot of ecological damage being done and at least some of it is cumulative, getting worse with time even if what we're doing year-on-year gets better, but a lot of it is not. We wantonly destroyed common supplies of air and water 40+ years ago in ways you almost never see any more and somehow this gets totally ignored.

haizhung 2y ago

I am actually panicking as much as you are about it, but, thinking about it, maybe it is just bias? Like, people in the 20th century were living in constant fear of mutually assured destruction for dozens of years. Is that better or worse than the guaranteed collapse of the ecosystem? I couldn’t tell. But these days, no one really cares about a nuclear war, it seems, even if one of the nuclear power is currently fighting a war; and it’s appearing to lose it.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
> Like, people in the 20th century were living in constant fear of mutually assured destruction for dozens of years. Is that better or worse than the guaranteed collapse of the ecosystem? I couldn’t tell. The fallacy in your argument is that climate disaster is already happening. We have already rendered hundreds of species extinct. It is not a future risk.
- ben_w 2y ago
  The nature and severity of climate change risks to other species is something I can be sad about, without it being also a risk to us. Likewise in reverse, there are ways a nuclear war could be relatively good for almost every species except humans, our livestock, and our pets. Given the trends on renewables, I think we're going to solve the climate… but also a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated trends start implying silly things starting in the early 2030s, so expect something else to become a problem soon enough.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    Well then, that is where we differ because I am much more concerned about other species.
stvltvs 2y ago
I'm still in fear of nuclear holocaust. That problem hasn't gone away even if it's not top of zeitgeist now that other existential threats are so popular.
2y ago