Crises that humanity now faces | Hacker News Reader

Crises that humanity now faces

theguardian.com

33 points8bitpony43 comments

Point 9 (UN Security Council) is something I hadn't thought of. That would be the Insecurity Council. Finding five people more likely to draw us all into a catastrophic war would be a challenge.

Well, you could replace May with Boris Johnson

And still, our right-wing politics (in France) still think euthanasia shouldn't be allowed.

Screw this world if you want, but at least let me die before you kill us all.

I think it's time for us to question the belief that everyone in the world can put aside their differences and share the same values.

If I had to guess, I'd say that most of the fear that underlies prediction of catastrophe is fear that we'll never get to that ideal world. Can we imagine a different future, where groups of people form their own local cultural norms and value sets, and we still manage to all live and thrive? I think it's important that we do because that may be the world that we live in.

If that's true, that people really can't live in the same country as those with different skin colors, or accents or religions without blaming their problems on each other, then why wouldn't they just blame people in other countries?

Seems like blaming the foreigners that immigrate and blaming the foreigners that don't, go hand in hand.

It seems like you are replying to an idea about what I said rather than what I said.

You can jump from a cliff if you're tired from this world, but don't ask doctors to do it for you.

I don't ask doctors to do it for me, but I'd love my government to have enough humanity to allow me to die without pain.

Why?

Im honestly curious why you don't think that's a service the medical industry should provide. (In particular, to elderly or terminally-ill people.)

What if you are too sick to jump off that proverbial cliff?

But not a word about the elephant in the room: overpopulation.

Wasn't that the panic of an earlier decade?

Yes and I'm not sure why the panic has subsided. Has the world really increased its capacity for human population? More likely: it's media meme that had come and gone.

Birth rates are levelling off.

No. No they aren't. The number of pregnancies is declining, but the pregnancies that result in a child who lives more than two years has never been higher.

Higher, and levelling off.

So, it's exponential growth, but with a slower rate.

No. A slowing rate. Totally different thing.

Yes, that and killer bees.

Why it is the elephant is probably that if you decry overpopulation, you're implicitly complaining about them, not us.

You can't invoke overpopulation without bringing in racial and other divisions, because it's not the developed nations where the populations growth is taking place (other than due to immigration).

> You can't invoke overpopulation without bringing in racial and other divisions

Of course I can. Watch: overpopulation of humans is a very serious problem. In fact, it is the root of many (if not nearly all) of the other major problems we are currently facing (climate change, pollution, loss of biodiversity). Not overpopulation of poor humans or dark-skinned humans, but humans. And in fact it is almost universally the case that if you offer people the opportunity to have fewer children without destroying their economic prospects or requiring them to have abortions (i.e. if you give them jobs and access to birth control), they will take it. The only exceptions are members of certain extreme religious (not racial) groups.

After decades of hearing that the sky is falling for these and other reasons, and realizing that it never does, I've come to the conclusion that the people who push this sort of fear need to be challenged. Humanity will muddle through, we always do.

I agree. Fear of catastrophe is a catastrophe on its own. I have friends that tend to not want children, giving as a reason some of the problems that are stated in this article.

I know ... Life goes on is very shallow thought, when you read article like this, but depression can't help solve those problems. As a matter of fact, that depression by the constant stream of negativity by the current highly-globalized world is the reason people vote against the system.

We may "muddle through", but the "muddling" will be wars caused by agricultural collapse[0], deaths caused by trying to keep refugees of those wars at bay[1], and violence in "far away" places as the industrialized world seeks to maintain its standard of living in the process[2][3][4].

The disaster is already in full swing, I'm afraid. And attitudes like this are the old adage about frogs and boiling water. It may not look like it in Berlin, London, California (but then again[5]), Hong Kong, or Tokyo, but millions of people are suffering already. The best case right now is the industrialized world makes it at the expense of the "undeveloped" nations, but as Mark Blythe pointed out, the Hamptons is not a defensible position[6]. So it may be worth considering whether this head-in-the-sand approach is worth it, even from a purely self-interest point of view.

[0]: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria...

[1]: http://www.amnesty.eu/content/assets/Reports/EUR_050012014__...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/canada-barrick...

[3]: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/02/foreign-fi...

[4]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/19/sierra-leone-mining-boom...

[5]: http://www.californiadrought.org/drought/current-conditions/

[6]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg

Yet world poverty has been in decline for years: https://www.cato.org/blog/dramatic-decline-world-poverty

World violence is decreasing: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

Disease rates are declining across the world: http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/life-expectancy-incre...

And pollution is deceasing too: https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning...

Smile every once in a while. It's good for you.

I wasn't expecting the political tilt of this article. But perhaps many crises are avoided because we start doing something to prevent them. For example the ozone hole. Or the fear of mass terrorism after 9/11.

Mass terrorism was never a real fear, nor was a similar 9/11 style hijacking. In fact, 9/11 style hijackings were so easy to stop, they literally didn't remain effective for even 4 hours. (One of the planes was downed during the attack as it unfolded, because word of the attack had spread and it was that easy to stop. Had passengers not downed it, the military was en route to intercept.)

About the only meaningful and smart thing we did post-9/11 was make airplane cockpit doors stronger and have a better lock.

The rest? We should've just ignored it and gone on with our lives. Terrorism is meant to cause death to nations by auto-immune over-response, and the 9/11 attack was designed by CIA trained operatives to do exactly that.

The PATRIOT Act may as well have been a concession note to bin Laden.

I tend to share your view. However, consider that if the end does come, it will be a one time thing. The view just before the end will be indistinguishable from the view you'd get in a world where there is no end.

Is shoehorning Trump in everything the new Rickrolling?

Is he not a huge crisis that humanity now faces? Racists, homophobes, white supremacists, and climate-change deniers running the whitehouse?

If you want to bet, this guy proposes a variety of things to bet on: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo...

"1. Total hate crimes incidents as measured here will be not more than 125% of their 2015 value at any year during a Trump presidency, conditional on similar reporting methodology [confidence: 80%]

2. Total minority population of US citizens will increase throughout Trump’s presidency [confidence: 99%]

3. US Muslim population increases throughout Trump’s presidency [confidence: 95%]

4. Trump cabinet will be at least 10% minority [confidence: 90%], at least 20% minority [confidence: 70%], at least 30% minority [30%]. Here I’m defining “minority” to include nonwhites, Latinos, and LGBT people, though not women. Note that by this definition America as a whole is about 35% minority and Congress is about 15% minority.

5. Gay marriage will remain legal throughout a Trump presidency [confidence: 95%]

6. Race relations as perceived by blacks, as measured by this Gallup poll, will do better under Trump than they did under Obama (ie the change in race relations 2017-2021 will be less negative/more positive than the change 2009-2016) [confidence: 70%].

7. Neither Trump nor any of his officials (Cabinet, etc) will endorse the KKK, Stormfront, or explicit neo-Nazis publicly, refuse to back down, etc, and keep their job [confidence: 99%].

8. No large demographic group (> 1 million people) get forced to sign up for a “registry” [confidence: 95%] 9> No large demographic group gets sent to internment camps [confidence: 99%]

10. Number of deportations during Trump’s four years will not be greater than Obama’s 8 [confidence: 90%]

If you disagree with me, come up with a bet and see if I’ll take it.

And if you don’t, stop.

Stop fearmongering."

I think number 10 is a little misleading. If Trump manages to deport almost as much as Obama in 4 years, he is deporting almost twice as much. Which is very alarming.

But a 1% chance on #7 is terrifying, no? Or has the world changed that much?

>"1. Total hate crimes incidents as measured here will be not more than 125% of their 2015 value at any year during a Trump presidency, conditional on similar reporting methodology [confidence: 80%]

Weren't hate crimes in 2015 already at a high spike above previous years?

Oh I wonder what will be on here other than climate change, bio-engineered plagues, and... oh, it's just a left wing fluff piece.

you mean caring about the planet and democracy is left wing now? wow

5 out of the 13 "impossible crises humanity will face" is people getting power because they were or might become democratically elected. What are you talking about?

Authoritarians might get elected, but they sure don't let themselves get un-elected.

I mean it's worth the down votes to try to crack the echo chamber of pro globalism ideology spouted by people like you.

Maybe if you had presented some challenges you believe are serious, or contributed in any meaningful way rather than just bitching, people would respond more favorably.

You know that's not true. Come on, have you seen the community here? I've done so before with things like this and it hasn't mattered. Besides, a nothing but ideology link like this (and the above comment the demonstrates a self deluded echo chamber mentality) provide no basis for any real conversation because there's nothing there to discuss. Don't feel bad though, I couldn't give a shit about some online news aggregator karma score. I just couldn't let this article sit on the front page without a clear denouncement for being what it is.

Edit -

At the time, mine was the only comment.

I'm pretty sure that is true.

Of course as soon as I saw the George Monbiot byline I knew how the piece would read. But if you want to present a counterpoint, present a counter point. If you just tell people they are stupid, they will just downvote you. Karma's useless but downvotes are a signal you're not winning the hearts and minds.

To correct him on one point, the UK will have access to the common market(no one disputes this)

What he is actually talking about is MEMBERSHIP of the common market(which likely requires free movement of people).

Currently it is unlikely the UK will keep membership as it seems a trade agreement is the preferred option.

Everything is up in the air and anyone who is sure of anything is either lying, misinformed, or deluded.

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