Nicker on 8/11/2016 at 02:13

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Our advanced society is dependent on " social stability and resource abundance" but I think our species is pretty robust and adaptive to most environments. We are well distributed. A little basic technology and cooperation gives us a huge advantage. Fire, clothes and shelter, rudimentary agriculture, basic tools, pack hunting.

It would be an enormous shame to lose all the scientific advances we have made. I hope our wisdom catches up to our intelligence before we lose all that.

faetal on 8/11/2016 at 08:41

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The question wasn't "could we survive", it was "could we survive anything". I think not.
The P-T extinction event was (to the best of our knowledge) caused by 5 degrees of average global temp increase over around 200,000 years. Our industrial revolution has currently done around 1.2 in 200 years with no sign of slowing down and positive feedback mechanisms teetering on the precipice of taking control away from us. I'm sure in 99% of the feasible scenarios, humans can scrape through.

But I'm also pretty sure it won't be through lab grown meat (we still haven't figured out how to do that without fetal calf serum) etc. I keep hearing people describe science as a magic wand to turn the tables on our environmental disasters - I've had people explain that colony collapse disorder isn't a big deal as we can make bee drones to do the pollination, without any thought about the resource and logistical issues of trying to do that as a straight swap, ditto with lab grown meat. We can do REALLY cool things, in very small amounts or with massive resource investment. These things also tend to function best in the presence of stable social structure. When resource wars (which will essentially be a war between the rich and the poor once the nation-level disputes have resolved) are tearing society apart, I'm not holding out too much hope for labs being fully up and running with all of their suppliers intact etc...

As I've said, humans have been around for the blink of an eye and have thrived in a world whose carrying capacity and ecological conditions is forgiving of things like long gestation periods, single child births and a ridiculously slow rate of genetic adaptation (average length of generation being 20-something years). I'm sure in most scenarios, we'll be pared right back and eke out a decent enough existence once all of the wars have died down and the tech situation has stabilised. But anyone who tells you that they know humanity can pull through any scenario is basing it on some aspect of science which I've yet to encounter in around 10 years of paying very close attention to the issue (I also have a biology PhD since we're using that as currency).

Even in the worse case scenario, where humans don't make it, I can imagine the process of us dying off taking thousands of years, possibly tens of thousands. But with a big enough ecological shift, the carrying capacity and conditions which allowed us to thrive, might favour something else entirely which will gradually outcompete us. It is possible we become fossils - we haven't yet stood the test of time that eg crocodiles or sharks have. What's remarkable about us can also be what finishes us off. I'm not ruling out that the answer to the Fermi paradox might be that in this universe, sufficient advancement is also a kill-switch, an asymptote of intelligent life where it canes the carrying capacity of its planet before the point where is advances enough to leave.

Recommend a mod kicks this discussion into its own thread, since I doubt any Trump supporters want to hear science stuff.

[EDIT] Another point to consider re technology is to appreciate how much of it relies on very tight logistics and economical gradients. There is no small group of ingenious people who are foraging the parts to make smart phones - that tech is dependent on supply lines for some very niche materials and components (rare earth metals do not grow on trees), as well as specialised production lines and perhaps most importantly, massive, coordinated economical reasons to mobilise the production. Break down society and remove smoothly running international supply lines and you lose that shit almost overnight. Before firing back about how tech will save us, pause to consider what needs to be in place and working efficiently for our most basic of assumed tech to be in ready enough supply to counted upon.

Vivian on 8/11/2016 at 09:09

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Dude, the chixculub impactor was equivalent to like 100 gigatonnes. Nukes are pussy shit next to that. You'd need to detonate everything we've got three or four times in a row.

Vivian on 8/11/2016 at 09:22

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We could just not eat meat dude. We don't need it.



Palaeontology PhD (while we're slapping our dicks on the table). Based on the fossil record, adaptable, highly populous and globally distributed generalists like ourselves stand a good chance of surviving anything that's happened to the earth so far, bar the athena impact I guess. And our rate of genetic adaptation is pretty meaningless once we developed cultural adaptation, which works on a ridiculously tight schedule. If anything was going to survive, I would bet on it being us.

faetal on 8/11/2016 at 09:28

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Tell that to microbiota and parasites. 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.

If anything was going to survive, I'd put it on something with a far greater resources required:fecundity ratio, over a long time in an enironment harsher than anything humans are genetically or metabolically adapted to.

Also, you can thank Renz for the dicks on the table, since he essentially decided to invalidate my arguments with "Vivian knows dinosaurs" - personally, I don't think either of our areas of expertise are wholly relevant to the exact topic, our overall training is just useful in allowing us to discuss it properly.

[EDIT] Before responding, do consider whether your stance is that you can't envisage any situation where humans don't make it. Because that is a very bold claim.

[EDIT 2] Also, I know we don't need to eat meat, the lab meat argument is just one of my bug bears as it always gets wheeled out to explain why science will save mankind etc... As for eating other stuff, we have no way of knowing what other stuff will make it through a mass extinction or which species will be (a) most metabolically able to benefit or (b) the fastest to metabolically adapt. Those are huge yet not obvious factors on survivability. Its easy to imagine we'll invent a way around that, but as previously mentioned, in the midst of resource wars, break down of global logistics etc etc, our tech capability will be hamstrung and ingenuity alone can't change a poor food supply into a good one. Or perhaps it can, but not before we dwindle to the point where out-competing us becomes a formality. Again, disclaimer - I'm focussing just on the 5% or less chance that a scenario arises where we don't make it (this also in response to Starker).