faetal on 9/11/2016 at 19:13
That isn't the discussion though. It's more like:
A: I can envisage A happening, but only 5% of the time, for example by this happening.
B: But this could happen.
A: Yes, that's covered by the other 95% of the time.
B: But this could happen.
A: ...
bjack on 9/11/2016 at 19:20
Messing with our DNA will produce a new species eventually. By our own doing, we will be replaced by creatures that resemble us, but they will be as related to us as we are to chimps. It is the next wave in our evolution. We will be the direct cause or our eventual extinction. “But wait!” you may say. Wouldn't there still be “normal/natural” humans in the bush, the outback, the steps, etc? Maybe and probably, but do not discount the capacity for cruelty. Maybe the new humans will cull the herd or eliminate it. Maybe they will be kept around, just like the savages in Brave New World.
Or we are wiped out by a huge comet. Or a massive solar EMP mucks up civilization. This latter event would not kill off humans, just destroy civilization.
Most likely, “we” will survive in one form or another, even if genetically altered. However, our current societies will perish. Along with them will go the ability to continue to create and use the very technology that keeps us afloat today. Many of our crops now require huge amounts of inorganic chemicals to grow, thanks to Monsanto and others. The green revolution is a very energy and chemical hungry beast. When the chemicals run out, when the refineries stop producing, how long will the crops continue to produce?
One can scavenge for a while to survive, but when the goods run out, game over. Tiny populations of people can eat off the dead civilization's left overs for a while, but if they do not build up a new culture that produces, they too will die out.
Will a form of human survive most possible scenarios? Probably yes. Will fragile civilization and technology? No. History is littered with dead civilizations and we should not consider our immune to the same fate.
Pyrian on 9/11/2016 at 19:26
I think you're the one that needs to go back and re-read the thread, faetal. Renz and Viv made it perfectly clear from the outset that they're talking about what you're calling the 95%, and you're the one who insisted on arguing with them about it, even though you're basically saying the same thing from different angles.
faetal on 9/11/2016 at 19:32
Jesus seriously? I literally lost count of the number of times I had to re-iterate that I was only talking about worst case scenario I considered to be of low probability.
Seriously go back through my comments and count the number the number of times I explicitly stated it. By the 5th or 6th exchange, I started putting it in bold capitals because it seems that people were completely missing that very important distinction. Seems even that was in vain.
Look at the resolution Vivian and I reached. I wasn't sealioning on the idea that humans are resilient and would probably make it, I was saying that there was also a small possibility we wouldn't, then I showed my working. Each and every time.
I don't see how I could possibly have been more explicit without being really patronising.
faetal on 9/11/2016 at 19:45
A brief history of how no matter how explicit I was about the specific thing I was describing, people still felt I was somehow arguing against the thing I wasn't talking about and had assumed was highly probable:
Quote Posted by faetal
The question wasn't "could we survive", it was "could we survive
anything". I think not.
Quote Posted by faetal
I agree with all of what you have said, hence why I believe, as I have stated, that we'd probably pull through in upwards of 95% of situations. But as to the question of "could humans survive
anything?". My answer is still no.
Quote Posted by faetal
Like I say, I agree with you 95%...Do you think it's implausible, or just unlikely? Because I'm not disagreeing with the latter.
Quote Posted by faetal
in my 5%* scenario, I'm thinking
(unfavourable conditions - tech amelioration) * time, may not lead to survival.
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm not saying humans will definitely die off, but it isn't hard to imagine how climate change could do it. You just need to understand how ecology works.
Quote Posted by faetal
again, lest we lose focus, I'm talking about a hypothetical worst case scenario
Quote Posted by faetal
Again (and please try to keep this in mind), I'm talking about how bad it could be, not what I expect it to be on average. If you think what I am describing is not possible, then detail your WCS and say why it is the better definition of hwo bad things could be. If your logic is strong, then I'll surely concede.
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm really finding it hard to understand why you'd think we're literally
exempt from ecological extinction.
Quote Posted by faetal
I've already said I agree, I'm just postulating on the
WORST CASE SCENARIO in which humanity v1 gets consigned to humanity v2's fossil collection...
That said, in a WORST CASE scenario, I can also envisage us not being fit enough to work our advantages, which let's face it, has to be a possibility because the situation is without precedent, we are a living thing like anything else and thus totally prone to a new ecological model not being able to carry us and our tech advantage as it stands is closely tied to the world being at its most socially stable since records began (despite the media freaking out about ISIS every 5 seconds).
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm talking about a worst case scenario after a ME event has wiped out >95% of all life on earth, as has happened before under less drastic conditions (assuming our warming trend continues at this rate).
Quote Posted by faetal
I'm pretty close to giving up on this thread, since every time, since the very beginning, I have stated that I am describing a worst case scenario and people are reacting like I'm describing a foregone conclusion...I am describing a rare (by my own definition, less than 5% possibility and I have also stated this figure is just an abstraction of "very unlikely, but possible") situation whereby after a mass extinction of greater magnitude than the P-T mass extinctions, it is
POSSIBLE (note that "probable" is a different word) that the remaining ecological landscape will not contain niches which we can exploit in the same way.
Quote Posted by faetal
Well my argument is that there is a
small chance humans
could go extinct after another ME event. Seems like the counter arguments are either mistaking me for saying it's likely or suggesting that it couldn't happen.
Quote Posted by faetal
Does my 95% abstraction not already cover that, as I've gone to some length to repeat
ad nauseum?
[EDIT] I'd go so far as to say that if we came out of the other end still well adapted to the surviving ecosystem, we'd have an excellent chance of a return to former glory. However, as a young species, it's not easy to tell how well we'd adapt to something vastly different to what exists, and our reproductive process is very expensive versus pretty much everything.
Quote Posted by faetal
To my mind, we always were. I was genuinely worried that my stipulations about the probability of the outcome I was describing were dinging off people's blind spots.
Quote Posted by faetal
There are also too many unknowns for you to say it is improbable. But that's neither here nor there, since I stated ages ago that I agree that it is improbable, just that it is possible.
Quote Posted by faetal
TL;DR - if the event is big enough to scramble the rule set, humans may find themselves fucked by a quasi-Roguelike's RNG.
faetal on 9/11/2016 at 19:52
Bear in mind that at no point did anyone say "yes maybe, but we'd prefer to discuss just the scenarios where humans pull through". The discussion was very much "what you are saying is wrong", which I rejected and justified with arguments. It wasn't at all "Fuck your sunny disposition, I want to talk about extinction", just "extinction is one of the possible outcomes, albeit of low probability".
Starker on 9/11/2016 at 20:11
Quote Posted by faetal
That isn't the discussion though. It's more like:
A: I can envisage A happening, but only 5% of the time, for example by this happening.
B: But this could happen.
A: Yes, that's covered by the other 95% of the time.
B: But this could happen.
A: ...
Actually, a lot of the times I'm not arguing against the possibility of human extinction happening, but specific ideas related to it. For example us being reliant on high tech for survival or the collapse of civilization being complete and inevitable. Remember that this thread wasn't always standalone, so it used to be more like a free-form discussion and less about your idea specifically.
And, even more, sometimes I'm not arguing at all. Not every question is an attack on your idea.
van HellSing on 9/11/2016 at 20:18
ctrl+f Einstein
...yep, the made up quote still lives on.
Not that bee extinction would not be a major problem, but THERE IS NO RECORD OF EINSTEIN EVER SAYING THAT, AND EVEN IF THERE WERE, HE WASN'T AN EXPERT ON BEES.
Also: yes, we are doomed.
faetal on 9/11/2016 at 20:26
I never felt like it was arguing - I've generally referred to it as "the discussion", which contains arguments, by which I mean statements which support an idea.
The problem with my idea is that it's easy for me to understand, because I've honed it for well over a decade with the help of a biology degree, lots of extra-curricular ecology reading and various post-graduate research experience. It's not easy to try to condense the idea into something which a person can just pick up and "get". Partly because it's complicated, but also because scientific communication to a lay audience isn't something I've ever specifically trained for, so I'm winging it.
I think that extinction of humans is inevitable in certain, low probability scenarios after a ME event. The rest of the time, I agree that we're super adaptable and can do lots with a little so can probably pull through. To fully get the competition / energy assimilation / fecundity ideas probably requires a few days of reading about ecological niches and fitness etc... so whereas it just seems like a "basic" idea to me (something I did ages ago and has since been followed with way more complex stuff), it probably sounds like vague jargon to most other people.
From what I remember, the discussion started like "we need the world to end now" to "the end of the world won't be so bad because humans are aces" to "I wouldn't be that certain" and then back and forth with a load of very tightly incremental clarification. If at any point someone had expressed a desire to talk about the other 95%*, then I'd have been totally down for that too - ecology is a massive hobby topic for me as it's the bit of biology I love as much as the molecular stuff (and latterly immunology) but never took further than undergraduate study (other than aforementioned voluntary reading). But no one did.
* standard abstraction disclaimer
Chade on 9/11/2016 at 20:58
Faetal, I understood you were taking about very low probability events. I think most people did, and reading the thread I'm not entirely sure why you felt otherwise. Of course, there is always some low probability of extreme events occurring, so that particular argument isn't interesting. What is more interesting is that you clearly see ways that humans might go extinct that people like myself don't see, and you see it happening in circumstances that I don't see. Your "low probability" appears to be quite different than mine. For the record, I'm not blindly saying you're wrong and I'm right. I'm talking about the areas where we disagree because I respect your knowledge about ecosystems and I'm interested in hearing you elaborate on them. I suspect that goes for most people in this thread too.
My comment earlier was basically saying "well, it would have to be an extinction event so extreme that all large animals died out ... if some large animals could survive, then we could too", and "well, if some other animal becomes more successful than us, we'll just figure out a way to eat it, so no problem right?". And I think your response was "no, you're not thinking about basic biological processes, we simply might not have the metabolism to extract enough energy from surviving animals and plants to survive".
So about that: I'm Australian, and it wasn't all that long ago that we had a thriving society of hunter gathers on these shores (and, perhaps more relevantly, also the arid indoor areas). Not a whole lot of technology to speak of, but they ate insects, grubs, fruits, roots, leave, small game, large game ... mostly raw IIUC. We don't need wide distribution networks and modern materials in order to extract nutrients from a remarkably wide range of plants and animals. When you say that we could find an ecosystem that simply doesn't provide the energy that we require ... what would that look like? You've mentioned "weedy" plants, but what about animals? Are we talking some fundamental change in the chemicals that animals use to process food that we couldn't handle?
