4 ms·

Humanity being the first species to go extinct because it was more profitable than continued existence.

by Herring 10mo ago

PaulHoule 10mo ago
See https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinction-smoking-kills/ https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinct...
wwweston 10mo ago
Not so much profit as a particular failure of accounting. Focus on privatization of profit with socialization of costs allows making staggering and possibly fatal costs someone else’s problem.
- echelon_musk 10mo ago
  AKA externalities.
- Loughla 10mo ago
  We've turned the tragedy of the commons into an economic practice.
  - MrSkelter 10mo ago
    This is a common misconception. Commons are well maintained in healthy societies. Over extraction being punished by the group. Moreover private owners optimize for wealth under capitalism, not preservation. Look at why oil companies want to do to the sea and arctic. Or the replacement of Amazonian forest with pasture for beef grazing. African countries suffer under the poverty created by colonial extraction of both resources and people, followed by being charged for the privilege of having their resources taken, and saddled with unpayable loans. Those loans also placing them in a position where they are forced to allow western countries to continue to extract, and are prevented from protecting their national interests. If Africa was allowed to own its wealth and develop without negative interference (assassinations, extraction, the world bank, foreign militaries) it would be the richest region on the planet.
phtrivier 10mo ago
Let's emulate world class leadership from the greatest country on earth, and immediately stop funding those alarmists doomsayers. Anyway, I read on HN that AI was about to solve climate change any time now. I'm sure prompting LLMs the right way will harness the world knowledge to generatively hallucinate a way for trees to grow better.
- BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
  I think Elon is working towards colonizing Mars because once it's all worked out, that's what Earth's environment will be like.
  - kibwen 10mo ago
    Nope, it's Venus that we're racing towards.
BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
Remind me of the fantastic line: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment"
- Herring 10mo ago
  https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
timr 10mo ago
Humanity is not going extinct.
- wolvoleo 10mo ago
  Not directly because of climate change no. Some areas will be fairly unaffected or might even improve for human use (eg Siberia). However it will cause ecosystem collapse which we rely on for food due to too rapid change which nature can't handle, and it will change which areas are viable for human habitation and agriculture. Meaning many many people will have to move. And of course mass forced migration combined with shrinking resources is a recipe for global war. See how popular migrants are now in many countries, and consider half the world having to migrate to survive. Poor people living in areas that become uninhabitable (and who never caused the problem in the first place) will move to a better place where it's likely the current inhabitants will protest. And a global war is very likely to lead to extinction with the WMD tech humanity has now. All we need to do is stop trying to be richer than everyone else and to work together :(
  - timr 10mo ago
    > However it will cause ecosystem collapse which we rely on for food due to too rapid change Citation absolutely required. This is not in the IPCC reports, which are already quite extreme in their projections. The IPCC sixth assessment report has an entire section on ecosystem impacts, and while a number of changes are projected with varying degrees of confidence, the word “collapse” is nowhere to be found, except for the following sentence: > It is not known at which level of global warming an abrupt permafrost collapse…compared to gradual thaw (Turetsky et al., 2020) would have to be considered an important additional risk. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-2/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-2/

Humanity being the first species to go extinct because it was more profitable than continued existence.

by Herring 10mo ago

Humanity being the first species to go extinct because it was more profitable than continued existence.

See https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinction-smoking-kills/ https://screenrant.com/far-side-gary-larson-dinosaur-extinct...

wwweston 10mo ago

Not so much profit as a particular failure of accounting. Focus on privatization of profit with socialization of costs allows making staggering and possibly fatal costs someone else’s problem.

echelon_musk 10mo ago
AKA externalities.
Loughla 10mo ago
We've turned the tragedy of the commons into an economic practice.
- MrSkelter 10mo ago
  This is a common misconception. Commons are well maintained in healthy societies. Over extraction being punished by the group. Moreover private owners optimize for wealth under capitalism, not preservation. Look at why oil companies want to do to the sea and arctic. Or the replacement of Amazonian forest with pasture for beef grazing. African countries suffer under the poverty created by colonial extraction of both resources and people, followed by being charged for the privilege of having their resources taken, and saddled with unpayable loans. Those loans also placing them in a position where they are forced to allow western countries to continue to extract, and are prevented from protecting their national interests. If Africa was allowed to own its wealth and develop without negative interference (assassinations, extraction, the world bank, foreign militaries) it would be the richest region on the planet.

phtrivier 10mo ago

Let's emulate world class leadership from the greatest country on earth, and immediately stop funding those alarmists doomsayers. Anyway, I read on HN that AI was about to solve climate change any time now. I'm sure prompting LLMs the right way will harness the world knowledge to generatively hallucinate a way for trees to grow better.

BLKNSLVR 10mo ago
I think Elon is working towards colonizing Mars because once it's all worked out, that's what Earth's environment will be like.
- kibwen 10mo ago
  Nope, it's Venus that we're racing towards.

BLKNSLVR 10mo ago

Remind me of the fantastic line: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment"

Herring 10mo ago
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

timr 10mo ago

Humanity is not going extinct.

wolvoleo 10mo ago
Not directly because of climate change no. Some areas will be fairly unaffected or might even improve for human use (eg Siberia). However it will cause ecosystem collapse which we rely on for food due to too rapid change which nature can't handle, and it will change which areas are viable for human habitation and agriculture. Meaning many many people will have to move. And of course mass forced migration combined with shrinking resources is a recipe for global war. See how popular migrants are now in many countries, and consider half the world having to migrate to survive. Poor people living in areas that become uninhabitable (and who never caused the problem in the first place) will move to a better place where it's likely the current inhabitants will protest. And a global war is very likely to lead to extinction with the WMD tech humanity has now. All we need to do is stop trying to be richer than everyone else and to work together :(
- timr 10mo ago
  > However it will cause ecosystem collapse which we rely on for food due to too rapid change Citation absolutely required. This is not in the IPCC reports, which are already quite extreme in their projections. The IPCC sixth assessment report has an entire section on ecosystem impacts, and while a number of changes are projected with varying degrees of confidence, the word “collapse” is nowhere to be found, except for the following sentence: > It is not known at which level of global warming an abrupt permafrost collapse…compared to gradual thaw (Turetsky et al., 2020) would have to be considered an important additional risk. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-2/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-2/