Hacker News Reader

Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

Survivor Bias. If it had we wouldn't be writing about it.

In order for survivor bias to apply here we need other worlds which were destroyed to compare ours to.

The fallacy still applies, we just don’t have enough data to know how lucky we really were. The question itself is biased to our present point of reference because if the world had been destroyed, no one would ask it

I think you're confusing survivorship bias with hindsight bias.

If you're not then it's difficult to argue with this, that's simply not the definition of survivorship bias.

Yes maybe there are lots of other Earth like planets in our galaxy? universe?, where human like intelligent species aren't wondering and talking about why-not any longer.

In the game series "Mass Effect" there is a race called the Krogans which destroy themselves in nuclear war at about 1950s era technology levels, leaving their world completely destroyed and in nuclear winter.

When you come across them in the game it's been many generations since that event and they still havent recovered and only get into space because other aliens come by and "lift them up".

Would not be surprised if this is the fate of humanity as well

From the wiki: "Unfortunately, as krogan society became more technologically advanced, so did their weaponry. The end result is that they destroyed their homeworld in a nuclear war ... The krogan were reduced to primitive warring clans struggling to survive a nuclear winter of their own creation, a state that continued until they were discovered by the salarians two thousand years later."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com