6 ms·

We're approaching an ecological collapse that will wipe us out, too.

baddox 12y ago
What data suggests that? The data I've seen (and I'll admit I have no relevant expertise and therefore little more than intuition on what sources to trust) seems to suggest that climate change will likely impose costs on humanity in the tens of billions, but that those costs are probably quite low in the grand scheme of things. I certainly haven't seen any data to suggest a credible threat of significant human population decline, much less human extinction.
- pyre 12y ago
  If the infrastructure that we have collapses there will be mass starvation. Probably more so in 1st world countries than in places where people are basically hand-to-mouth.
  - baddox 12y ago
    Why would the infrastructure collapse?
NotAtWork 12y ago
What, specifically, do you think is going to collapse in the ecosystem that not just kills billions of humans, but actually poses an existential threat to humanity? To be an existential threat, there have to be less than 5 million humans left (in my mind, at least, and this is probably a really high figure to be 'existential'). This means whatever you propose has to be at least 99.9% deadly. To put that in perspective, that's three viruses each as deadly as ebola at its worst (~90% deadly) striking humanity one after the other. /That/ would leave ~5-10 million humans alive. So I'm actually sincerely curious: what do you think is going to happen that will wipe out all of humanity?
- grondilu 12y ago
  5 millions is fairly conservative, considering our species may have already experienced a bottleneck of less than 100,000 individuals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#Humans
  - NotAtWork 12y ago
    My number is high partly to account for humans being more spread out. A lot of our bottle necks occurred at times before we really spread out all over the place.
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- schiffern 12y ago
  >So I'm actually sincerely curious: what do you think is going to happen that will wipe out all of humanity? One possibility: global warming, war, and desperate overexpansion of agriculture causing complete terrestrial desertification.
  - NotAtWork 12y ago
    > One possibility: global warming, war, and desperate overexpansion of agriculture causing complete terrestrial desertification. I'm considerably more worried that a giant space rock is going to come turn my continent in to a pool of molten rock.
- saalweachter 12y ago
  I agree that we as a species can probably survive nearly anything. Derailing, I think it's also pretty reasonable to worry about events that will only wipe out 99.9% of humanity. Statistically, I'm probably dead in such a case. Probably everyone I know is dead. My back-of-the-envelope calculation says that I probably can't expect more than a fifth cousin to survive if 99.9% of people are dead. I don't even know any of my fifth cousins.

What data suggests that? The data I've seen (and I'll admit I have no relevant expertise and therefore little more than intuition on what sources to trust) seems to suggest that climate change will likely impose costs on humanity in the tens of billions, but that those costs are probably quite low in the grand scheme of things. I certainly haven't seen any data to suggest a credible threat of significant human population decline, much less human extinction.

pyre 12y ago
If the infrastructure that we have collapses there will be mass starvation. Probably more so in 1st world countries than in places where people are basically hand-to-mouth.
- baddox 12y ago
  Why would the infrastructure collapse?

NotAtWork 12y ago

What, specifically, do you think is going to collapse in the ecosystem that not just kills billions of humans, but actually poses an existential threat to humanity? To be an existential threat, there have to be less than 5 million humans left (in my mind, at least, and this is probably a really high figure to be 'existential'). This means whatever you propose has to be at least 99.9% deadly. To put that in perspective, that's three viruses each as deadly as ebola at its worst (~90% deadly) striking humanity one after the other. /That/ would leave ~5-10 million humans alive. So I'm actually sincerely curious: what do you think is going to happen that will wipe out all of humanity?

grondilu 12y ago
5 millions is fairly conservative, considering our species may have already experienced a bottleneck of less than 100,000 individuals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#Humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck#Humans
- NotAtWork 12y ago
  My number is high partly to account for humans being more spread out. A lot of our bottle necks occurred at times before we really spread out all over the place.
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schiffern 12y ago
>So I'm actually sincerely curious: what do you think is going to happen that will wipe out all of humanity? One possibility: global warming, war, and desperate overexpansion of agriculture causing complete terrestrial desertification.
- NotAtWork 12y ago
  > One possibility: global warming, war, and desperate overexpansion of agriculture causing complete terrestrial desertification. I'm considerably more worried that a giant space rock is going to come turn my continent in to a pool of molten rock.
saalweachter 12y ago
I agree that we as a species can probably survive nearly anything. Derailing, I think it's also pretty reasonable to worry about events that will only wipe out 99.9% of humanity. Statistically, I'm probably dead in such a case. Probably everyone I know is dead. My back-of-the-envelope calculation says that I probably can't expect more than a fifth cousin to survive if 99.9% of people are dead. I don't even know any of my fifth cousins.