Starker on 10/11/2016 at 21:57
Mendel didn't have a computer, btw. I mean, as far as we know.
faetal on 10/11/2016 at 21:58
i work in gene engineering (only for a month, but did a fuck load of reading in that month) and can tell you that genetic editing is ridiculously complex and you need state of the art labs, so forget about it in anything which isn't an affluent, stable society. Selective breeding can do a lot so long as you have the time, usable land and abundance of resources to invest outside of staying alive.
faetal on 10/11/2016 at 21:59
Quote Posted by Starker
Mendel didn't have a computer, btw. I mean, as far as we know.
To be fair, all Mendel did (which was huge at the time) was point out that heritable traits tended to fall within predictable ratios depending on their relationship with equivalent allelic variants.
He wasn't really engineering anything past creating interesting hybrids and looking at the phenotypes.
Starker on 10/11/2016 at 22:08
Um, I'm not talking about the more complex sciences, though. We have a lot of low level knowledge that gives us an edge. We know of pesticides, fertilisers, diseases, etc. Hell, just basic hygiene bumps our survival rate significantly.
Assidragon on 10/11/2016 at 22:30
Mendel only noted down the very basics, mind you. And even he didn't fully grasp why he saw happened; he only made a note on the "rules" of how traits are inherited. Even he had no idea about genetics.
Regarding pesticides and fertilisers, those are fairly new inventions, at least in their efficient variant. People did notice that putting manure on the field can help yields, but efficient, nitrogen-based fertilisers are in use for less than a hundred years. They also kind of need an industry to be produced. Pesticides are a bit more varied - in the basic form you can spray simple poison on the plants and it'll work more or less (think of sulphur, arsenic, copper, etc). However, those are far not as efficient as the chemicals we have today; and again, those chemicals need a chemistry industry to be produced in meaningful quantity. And for both of these things you need to have a good knowledge how to use them, otherwise they can cause more trouble than gain; in extreme case you can completely destroy the soil by using fertilisers the wrong way, for example.
Let's just say there's a reason we had a lot of famines before industrialised farming.
EDIT: you mention diseases, but I'm pretty sure we'd be helpless against them without antibiotics, especially if people were suffering of malnutrition. It might not even help to know what's killing us.
Starker on 10/11/2016 at 23:28
Antibiotics aren't that old either and while they have been a huge boon, we weren't completely helpless before them. Just knowing about what causes disease and how to avoid it (e.g. the germ theory) has been quite helpful in dealing with all kinds of disease.
To repeat, I'm not talking about retaining the very best knowledge of the most advanced sciences. I'm talking of the basic kind of knowledge that we are able to learn from a book and teach to others. And I still maintain that we are not as dependent on computers as you might think. Our engineers might not be able to build things without computers now, but they could learn to do without.
faetal on 10/11/2016 at 23:36
Please, look to places of extreme poverty and note their tech level.
If you want to talk about various scenarios where humans turn out OK, then fine, we'll talk about that.
I'm saying that in a select scenario where the ecological damage has removed abundance, we won't have the same edge. We may die out.
Starker on 10/11/2016 at 23:37
I'm not talking about keeping the same edge. I'm saying that I don't think there would be a complete loss of knowledge. Also, do you think places of extreme poverty have a low tech level because they are starving or could both of these have something to do with lack of money and resources?
faetal on 10/11/2016 at 23:44
Yes, low resources. In an ecosystem not suited ideally to humans over the course of thousands of years, I am saying that we could die out. It's possible. Tech and all.
That's all I am saying. What is wrong with that notion for you?
You are talking about the same edge really, you are talking about being able to outrace ecological pressures through ingenuity. This requires abundance and a certain level of comfort. It's why you don't get antibiotic development in poverty-stricken areas - no excess, no window of comfort to work within.
Renzatic on 10/11/2016 at 23:54
Quote Posted by faetal
There has been no mass extinction event from warming within the last 75k years. Near complete decimation of our ecosphere? When?
I provided a link to it. The Toba Catastrophe. A supervolcano eruption about 75,000 years ago that produced a decades long nuclear winter type scenario, dropping the average temperature of the planet by about 15C, and leading to tons of plant and animal life dying off, almost taking the entire human race with it.
