3 ms·

I think this is quite obviously a Yes And situation. We've broken the game so many damn times, humans are awesome and we need to keep being awesome. Somebodie

I think this is quite obviously a Yes And situation. We've broken the game so many damn times, humans are awesome and we need to keep being awesome. Somebodies gotta prevent an asteroid from killing the earth over these next 100 years. It ain't gonna be the dolphins. Speaking of which, we really need to ask the dolphins if they'd like some thumbs.

amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
Interestingly, although giant asteroids have certainly been responsible for some of the mass extinctions we see in the fossil record, apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them
- ben_w 11mo ago
  > apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them I'm not sure about that. Don't get me wrong, an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them Rather, looking at the pandemic response and various wars, I think (most) world governments are competent enough to re-organise labour and national diets to mitigate the problems one would cause: covering farms in poly-tunnels, having "national service" that's about building/repurposing farming infrastructure rather than military function, food rationing, changes to farming laws to make sure livestock is only on land that doesn't support intensive crops, etc.
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    > an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them We absolutely can, and extract geothermal energy from the system to boot.
    - ben_w 11mo ago
      Are you sure? Everything I've seen suggests that the thermal mass of the Yellowstone magma reservoir is order-of 10km each way (so 1000km^3 total), density order-of 3 kg/litre, and heat capacity order-of 1500 J/kg K, so lowering the temperature of that reservoir by 100 K would still yield about the entire world's energy consumption in 2017: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+%281500+J%2Fkg+K%29+*+100+K https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+... Even though this would combine both left-coded and right-coded aspects of the USA's politics (right: the USA's love of energy intensity; left: in this scenario it helps the environment not be made of fire), I find it dubious that the US would (or could) construct enough power plants to reach that scale. (China might even want to help, but at this point I find myself too cynical of both China and the USA for that to happen even in an emergency).
nomel 11mo ago
If it involves eggs, I think we'll be fine, by the sheer number of them.
faidit 11mo ago
That's if we don't extinct ourselves (and the dolphins) first.

amanaplanacanal 11mo ago

Interestingly, although giant asteroids have certainly been responsible for some of the mass extinctions we see in the fossil record, apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them

ben_w 11mo ago
> apparently super volcanoes are also right up there. And I don't think there is a damn thing we can do about them I'm not sure about that. Don't get me wrong, an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them Rather, looking at the pandemic response and various wars, I think (most) world governments are competent enough to re-organise labour and national diets to mitigate the problems one would cause: covering farms in poly-tunnels, having "national service" that's about building/repurposing farming infrastructure rather than military function, food rationing, changes to farming laws to make sure livestock is only on land that doesn't support intensive crops, etc.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > an example of a super-volcano is Yellowstone National Park, so I agree we can't prevent them We absolutely can, and extract geothermal energy from the system to boot.
  - ben_w 11mo ago
    Are you sure? Everything I've seen suggests that the thermal mass of the Yellowstone magma reservoir is order-of 10km each way (so 1000km^3 total), density order-of 3 kg/litre, and heat capacity order-of 1500 J/kg K, so lowering the temperature of that reservoir by 100 K would still yield about the entire world's energy consumption in 2017: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+%281500+J%2Fkg+K%29+*+100+K https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000km%5E3+*+3kg%2Fl+*+... Even though this would combine both left-coded and right-coded aspects of the USA's politics (right: the USA's love of energy intensity; left: in this scenario it helps the environment not be made of fire), I find it dubious that the US would (or could) construct enough power plants to reach that scale. (China might even want to help, but at this point I find myself too cynical of both China and the USA for that to happen even in an emergency).

nomel 11mo ago

If it involves eggs, I think we'll be fine, by the sheer number of them.

faidit 11mo ago

That's if we don't extinct ourselves (and the dolphins) first.