Suppose it was proven to a 99% certainty that civilization is doomed. What should we do? - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Pollution, global warming, urbanisation etc.
Forum rules: No one line posts please.
#15199762
Unthinking Majority wrote:But what if, in the OP scenario, scientists came out and said the only way to prevent the extinction of the human population was to stop burning all fossil fuels immediately? We would obviously have to do that.

Thank you for being the 1st person to reply with an answer to the question.

Your answer is that humanity should go down fighting.
We should do what we can to save civilization, and this will, at least, extend the time we have left.
We may fail at the main goal of saving civilization, but at least we'll get to live several years longer before TSHTF.
OK, that's not crazy.
#15199763
Steve_American wrote:So, I see the bad predictions and you see the rosy predictions.
Reality is somewhere in between. I made no "rosy predictions". I know tough times are ahead, but humans are infinitely adaptable. We've got the best survival trait of all the species: Intellect.

I never called you a liar, but returned the "delusional" statement that you so readily used to label me. :D
#15199783
Godstud wrote:Reality is somewhere in between. I made no "rosy predictions". I know tough times are ahead, but humans are infinitely adaptable. We've got the best survival trait of all the species: Intellect.

I never called you a liar, but returned the "delusional" statement that you so readily used to label me. :D

The lie you accused me of is not having many sources for claims that it is likely if nothing at all is done for civilization to fail.
I exaggerated it to look at what if it was very likely no matter what we did.

If we continue to do basically nothing, then we will cross a few tipping points (within a decade) and then no matter what we do civilization will be likely to fail everywhere on Earth all over and for the next 100,000 year while nature removes enough CO2 from the air to cool the Earth enough.

I apologize if you took offense to my claim that you seem in this thread to be in denial.
If you don't want to seem to be in denial don't call reasonable claims ridiculous. And disrespect the poster.
.
Last edited by Steve_American on 26 Nov 2021 11:41, edited 1 time in total.
#15199789
I'm currently reading a sci-fi trilogy by Liu Cixin in which Earth makes contact with a hostile alien race that has launched an armada to destroy us. It will take them 421 years to reach us and they are surveilling and sabotaging us with sci-fi tech called sophons. I'm on the 2nd book and the UN has recruited 4 "wall facers" to plan our defenses whilst alien sympathiser "wall breakers" hunt them down. In book one the sympathisers recruited others via an online game designed to teach users about life on the aliens' planet.
#15199932
Steve_American wrote:The lie you accused me of is not having many sources for claims that it is likely if nothing at all is done for civilization to fail.
I exaggerated it to look at what if it was very likely no matter what we did.
Isn't exaggeration a form of lying?

Steve_American wrote:If you don't want to seem to be in denial don't call reasonable claims ridiculous. And disrespect the poster.
I didn't disrespect the poster, and if you make outrageous claims(I do not think your claim was "reasonable")and someone wants the sources... and the sources don't match what you say.... What is that called?

If a pig jumped really high and I said it flew... is that exaggeration, a lie, or both?
#15199938
Godstud wrote:Isn't exaggeration a form of lying?

I didn't disrespect the poster, and if you make outrageous claims(I do not think your claim was "reasonable")and someone wants the sources... and the sources don't match what you say.... What is that called?

If a pig jumped really high and I said it flew... is that exaggeration, a lie, or both?

Of all the trolling I've seen, wow.

I didn't lie, because the subject of my OP, was "Suppose it was proven to a 99% certainty that civilization is doomed. What should we do?" Suppose means like 'if'.

Exaggerating to say "If this is the case, what should we do?" is not lying.

OMHO, you did disrespect me, and I am the OP.

In the OP I asked people like you to not respond, and if you must, to be nice. You came at me 3 times and were not nice.
.
#15199939
AFAIK wrote:I'm currently reading a sci-fi trilogy by Liu Cixin in which Earth makes contact with a hostile alien race that has launched an armada to destroy us. It will take them 421 years to reach us and they are surveilling and sabotaging us with sci-fi tech called sophons. I'm on the 2nd book and the UN has recruited 4 "wall facers" to plan our defenses whilst alien sympathiser "wall breakers" hunt them down. In book one the sympathisers recruited others via an online game designed to teach users about life on the aliens' planet.


I'd be an alien sympathizer because we're already doomed - anything the aliens bring (even if its total annihilation) would be an improvement.
#15199942
Steve_American wrote:In the OP I asked people like you to not respond, and if you must, to be nice. You came at me 3 times and were not nice.
I am sorry you are overly sensitive and had your feelings hurt because I found your entire "what if" scenario to be pretty ridiculous, and said so.

How did I disrespect you by asking for a source for your claims? I never called you a liar.

You made up a scenario that I don't agree with and have said as such. It's not trolling when someone disagrees with you.

See my signature:
“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
#15200199
@Potemkin The public hysteria which enabled Bush to invade Iraq on a false pretext - on a lie - is being repeated again, but on a bigger scale. The human race is not facing extinction - we are facing not being able to live in the Middle East, not being able to use the internal combustion engine any more, and not being able to use disposable plastic for consumer items. I regard none if these things as a great loss. AGW is indeed a real thing, and must be addressed, but lies about our species facing extinction because of AGW are not helpful.


There you have it. The overwhelming majority of people who have ever lived have been pulled along by forces that they could not fully understand, did not care much for them as individuals and that they could not even begin to control. The "will of the people" has always been the will of a very few people. The very concept of civilization has always referred to the customs and desires of a relatively few people.

Henry V to Kate, Princess of France: O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great
kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined
within the weak list of a country’s fashion. We are
the makers of manners, Kate, and the liberty that
follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults,
as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion of
your country in denying me a kiss.


There will arise great kings. They always have. They will lead the rest of us to adopt the behaviors necessary to support their notion of "the way things ought to be". They will not much care how many of us die or are displaced in service to their ideas. But they will have ideas and strength to lead.

We the masses of humanity whether we live in a technologically advanced nation or in a stilted village in the depths of the rain forest have the weakest understanding of what "civilization" really means. It is, for most of us, manners. Little more. Customs and conveniences. As Potemkin says, we will adapt. At least the adaptable ones among us will. And this adaptation means that we will obey the wishes of those who offer us protection and food first and circuses later.

I agree that AGW is not an extinction event. It is a huge inconvenience. It will kill millions of people. Maybe a billion or two. Who knows? "Civilization" does not much care.

AGW will not be an event but a process. Most likely the advanced nations will do relatively well and the poor ones not so much. Always been that way. The US, for example, can build canals or decide not to grow subsistence crops in the driest parts of the country. We can build public transportation and even mount huge climate intervention programs.

That guy in the stilted hut, not so much. Maybe his technology free lifestyle will work, and maybe not. Islands and coastal areas will be inundated which will play old Harry with some cultures but not "civilization". It may be that the US "man on a horse" will be the one with the stones to stop the country from being overrun with refugees. Maybe the African man-on-a-horse will be the one who feeds at the point of a gun. Or doesn't feed at the point of a gun.

But "civilization" whatever that comes to mean, will still be there. There is nothing "uncivilized" about harsh and tyrannical leadership in times of crisis. It may be undesirable compared to what we have now but with the barbarians at the gate, having Attila at the head of your army is not a half bad thing.

We in the US are seeing a descent to violence already. We have a significant number of people who are already rallying to the banner of the autocrat. Maybe we need them and maybe not. I suspect that they will prevail either way.

Finally. There will be no hunter gatherer regression. There is little to hunt or gather. There are three ways to get sufficient food to support any number of folks. First is to make more food. The second is to maximize the use of the resources you have. The third is to limit the number of people at the feeding trough. Care to guess which it will be?
#15200213
Drlee wrote:
The very concept of civilization


Drlee wrote:
what "civilization" really means.


Drlee wrote:
"Civilization" does not much care.



Civilization means an entire society that produces a *surplus*.


Drlee wrote:
It may be that the US "man on a horse" will be the one with the stones to stop the country from being overrun with refugees.



To *you* 'civilization' means *nationalism*.

(Since capital can readily cross international borders, to seek out profits, then so should *workers* / people, too, since they're looking for better job markets, etc.)
#15200246
Drlee wrote:Finally. There will be no hunter gatherer regression. There is little to hunt or gather. There are three ways to get sufficient food to support any number of folks. First is to make more food. The second is to maximize the use of the resources you have. The third is to limit the number of people at the feeding trough. Care to guess which it will be?

I agree with everything in your post except this paragraph. There is actually plenty of food on the Earth to hunt and gather, provided the human race numbers in the millions rather than in the billions. This planet is a paradise right now, compared to what it has been throughout most of its history. And it is still a paradise, even with human civilisation, the Holocene extinction event, and AGW. The human race has existed for about 300,000 years, and we have been hunter-gatherers for approximately 99% of that time. We could easily go back to that again, but at the cost of a catastrophic population crash.
#15200266
I agree with everything in your post except this paragraph. There is actually plenty of food on the Earth to hunt and gather, provided the human race numbers in the millions rather than in the billions. This planet is a paradise right now, compared to what it has been throughout most of its history. And it is still a paradise, even with human civilisation, the Holocene extinction event, and AGW. The human race has existed for about 300,000 years, and we have been hunter-gatherers for approximately 99% of that time. We could easily go back to that again, but at the cost of a catastrophic population crash.


Well I can't argue about that. Given the catastrophic population crash that you mention, the world could easily sustain moderate numbers. The trick would be how we get to those numbers. The trip down would be the key.
#15200267
Drlee wrote:Well I can't argue about that. Given the catastrophic population crash that you mention, the world could easily sustain moderate numbers. The trick would be how we get to those numbers. The trip down would be the key.

Indeed. And this is actually the only realistic way to end anthropogenic global warming, and the only way to end the current Holocene extinction event. There are simply too many people on this planet for the Earth's ecosystem to sustain us long-term. Something has to give. Simply recycling plastic and driving around in Teslas is not going to cut it.
#15200269
late wrote:No, it's not. But the reality is we haven't made much of an effort yet, and America hasn't even started.

We can do a lot, if we ever get serious about it.

You never will. To create a sustainable future for everybody, Americans must reduce their consumption. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. Do you really think that most Americans would get on board with the idea of taking a huge cut to their own standard of living, just so people in Africa or in Asia can have decent lives? :eh:

@Rugoz You are a fuckin' moralist, Russia could[…]

Israel-Palestinian War 2023

A new film has been released destroying the offici[…]

You are a supporter of the genocide against the P[…]

Before he was elected he had a charity that he wo[…]