How Vulnerable Is the World?
aeon.co
aeon.co
Civilisations have collapsed before, and will collapse again.
We've been around as an identifiable species for 100,000 years, that's a couple of Ice Ages and at least one point where we were down to a few hundred individuals.
Trying to control every eventuality and predict everything will be as destructive as the disasters the article talks about. Instead of shoring up control mechanisms, we could/should be shoring up our ability to adapt. Spread knowledge widely, increase education and teach people more (and better), take our kids out of the cities and into some wilderness at least once in their lives. Make our science less prone to bad incentives and less reliant on a small number of publishers. Make our internet infrastructure free from bad incentives, or corporate control. Have a plan for the collapse of civilisation, instead of hoping it won't happen or futilely trying to prevent it.
Civilizations have collapsed before... but none of those were nuclear-armed, global civilizations that have produced more artifact matter than there is biomass on the planet[1]. Our civilization is epic... and when we collapse it will be equally epic, so I'm wouldn't bet that the whole "it has happened before and will happen again" thing really applies here.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-made-stuff-...
The emerging global civilization entered some sort of exponential consumption curve a few hundred years ago and the entire planet has been swallowed up in it. The collapse will be of a scale and impact never before seen, because we've never seen anything like this. The usefulness of analogy to previous collapses seems limited to me.
Consider just in absolute terms like the amount mined. We've strip-mined all the easily accessed deposits on the whole planet at this point. If there's a serious technological regression, will our descendants even have the means to access basic resources like lithium? We've extincted all sorts of species on a scale unlike previous civilizations, as well. Unlike every other previous collapsed civilization, there's no going back to the climate-stable and resource rich world of preindustrial humanity to try over again from.
When the Roman Empire collapsed, and the Saxons saw the concrete aqueducts they left behind, they thought that a race of Giants had built them. They'd lost the ability to even comprehend what was involved in building such things any more. It took us about 1000 years to get back to that kind of constructional know-how.
But the Saxons thrived meanwhile. It turns out that you don't actually need concrete aqueducts in order to make babies.
I've wandered around SE Asia a bit. If Civilisation collapsed there's plenty of people there that wouldn't hear about it for a few years, and wouldn't care much even then. Life will go on. People will cope. They'll carry on having babies and growing food.
If we can just somehow make sure the knowledge survives, it might not even matter that much. Our descendants can work out other ways of building stuff, more suitable to the circumstances they find themselves in. Who knows? They may develop better solutions because they never had the easily strip-mined resources.
Japan had very poor iron ores. To make steel weapons they had to develop some incredible methods of forging this poor ore. They ended up producing (arguably) the best swords in the world. Constraints can be overcome and adapted to. We will cope.
We’ve built tool and industrial processes that are bigger that our planet. Look at a cargo ship. Or a mine. It’s mind blowing.
Catch the Trans-Siberian. Or the Indian-Pacific for that matter. Watch as thousands of kilometers of untouched wilderness roll by.
Visit some really poor countries and see the happiest people you've ever met living without technology.
See the ruins of vast ancient temple complexes, remains of entire civilisations that are now just tourist traps.
The world will go on without us.
I can travel to the other side of the world in one day. It’s way too small, or what we built is way too good.
And yes the world as a planet orbiting around a star will go without us. Or at least as a big giant stone.
There is nothing we can do that will kill all life on Earth. We are simply not that powerful.
As a race, we've been through Ice Ages that have seen most of the world covered in ice, and a narrow strip of habitable land around the equator. We survived all that with no technology to help us. Twice. We'll cope.
If our civilization collapses, whatever comes after will have a very difficult time becoming industrialized.
While worrying about nuclear weapons and weaponized viruses, we're strip mining the planet dry, creating extremely resource consuming stuff just to throw it in a landfill every year, while at the same time pumping the atmosphere and soil full of shit that kills plant life and other animals.
So, when this process inevitably leads to a catastrophic breakdown of the planet and human society, we'll be like "ah shit, all the signs were there, but we didn't do anything".
We should preemptively build a memorial for all the human lives that will be lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjfrJzdx7DA
In this episode eschatologist Phil Torres [1] claims that (according to some convincing estimates) humans living right now are a lot more likely to die due to a catastrophic event that can wipe out the entire species, compared to dying in a car crash. Since some of my relatives died in a car crash, I was scared of dying this way my entire life, and this put everything in such a weird perspective. As Hawking said, we're likely in the most dangerous part of the entire human history. If we don't get our shit together in the next few decades, our species will never see the next millenium.
Go listen to this episode. It's on Spotify. (I'm not in any way affiliated with that podcast, I just listen to it every once in a while)
Similarly, there's a probabilistic argument that we actually are on the cusp of some humanity-destroying event. If human population grows exponentially until it faces a civilization-destroying crisis, then a large fraction of the people who will ever be born will be born in the last lifetime before the cataclysm, because this is the nature of exponential growth. Hence, for any given observer, chances are they see the end of civilization.
(Changing population growth rates can alter this prediction somewhat: I've read that only about 10% of all humans who have ever lived are alive now, because we had several millenia of relative stagnation & steady-state population. That implies that if we don't see a cataclysm, though, there will be more stagnation ahead.)
Finally, don't rule out the possibility that the definition of "consciousness" may shift. Is a bacteria self-aware? Nobody's ever really asked one. They do communicate via chemical signals, though. [1] What if in the future, humanity's role is essentially like cells in a great planetary-scale organization, and we have planets asking each other "Do we need to worry about the destruction of the galaxy?"
Memes (in the academic sense, not the cat video sense) display all our characteristics for biological life.
They respond to stimuli (other memes, changing social trends, etc).
They grow, evolve, reproduce (Catholicism->Many branches of Protestantism)
They maintain homeostasis (core principles)
They're built of cells (people)
And so on. Although I probably wouldn't say they show signs of intelligence (although it'd be cool if someone could imagine a sentient meme). They seem more like "simple" organisms, but at a layer of abstraction above sentient life, something like how biological life is a layer of abstraction above chemistry.
I realize this PDF from 2005 by a member of "The Futurists Guild" may not seem like a reliable academic source, but it lays out some good thought experiments on the topic.
Yeah, the article says that so far humanity's approach has just been "hope there isn't a black ball" and we know that hoping isn't a tactic; but the alternative (global collaboration and perfect adherence) seems impossible even in the ideal.
So, yeah. My personal tactic has been "live a good life while you can, pitching in where you can". Humanity really needs an "Arrival" scenario to get our shit together before a black ball annihilates us.
i don't think the world needs perfect adherence. What keeps blowing my mind so many years after it happened is still what happened to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs).
I still try to understand (I was too young back than) why the world (more or less) united in the quest after Reagan and Thatcher took up the cause.
For me it still shows it is possible. But sadly I fear it became way less likely.
There have been many pandemics throughout human history, including recent human history, so it's odd to ask "why hasn't this happened sooner?" There are also, at any given time, many pathogens which can and do infect and harm humans. They vary a lot in their symptoms and infection rates, but most are endemic rather than epidemic or pandemic. "Pandemic" just means the pathogen is extremely widespread and is infecting large numbers of people in a relatively short period of time. Various health organizations and writers use different precise definitions, but some still consider HIV/AIDS to also be pandemic.
If COVID is a virus of whatever origin that escaped from a Chinese lab (only mentioning this because it’s a popular theory among ordinary netizens and the WHO expressly didn’t rule it out, though it called it not a likely scenario), then we don’t see multiple pathogens going around the world because all developed countries’ top-security bio labs are – thankfully – quite secure. Stephen King’s The Stand and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone have kept readers awake at night with fear for decades now, but the labs they describe have managed to keep their pathogens from escaping.
Also, some horrible pandemics of yore like bubonic plague were easy to stamp out by modern hygiene practices, which is why they only pop up today in undeveloped places with poor hygiene (e.g. prisons in Madagascar).
Try "extremely unlikely" instead. More like they can't rule it out with absolute certainty, but not a particularly reasonable hypothesis. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728
"Extremely unlikely" is quite the overstatement.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...
Our physical brains (and bodies) are like the bios/firmware running inside of a general purpose computer. Our civilization's collaborative thought is like the software that runs on top of it.
We've been rapidly....perhaps exponentially (and I'm using that word correctly!) increasing the capabilities and functionality of our software. This exponential curve was extremely slow for the first 100,000 years. (Most people who throw the word 'exponential' around don't realize how slow the initial growth is!). It started to speed up a few thousand years ago, and now we are experiencing multiple doublings in our human life spans.
What's not changing very much is our firmware.
Though we all feel like we think clearly, logically, make reasoned decisions, I think science has shown us that every human being is still fundamentally driven by very primitive drives and emotions. Our advanced software creates a story around that primitive firmware that hides it.
One way or another, we're running 2020 software on 1970 firmware.
I think it's quite possible that that simple thing happens to species all over the universe, and they self destruct.
One big aspect of that is, I believe, modern communication technology. Social media as we know it today is a big but not fully inclusive part. It (communication technology) is, to a greater or lesser extent, making us all insane.
It seems unlikely that an insane civilization can go on too long.
I think that's some sort of super-exponential you mean, like alluded to by Kurzweil [0]. Exponential growth means that doubling always occurs at the same interval, so those ancient people would have seen doubling just like us now. Are you using the word "exponential" too lightly ;)?
[0] https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns
Another way to put it: what if the Great Filter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter) is really that biological life doesn't have the resources available or the capability to develop the intellect necessary to manage all the technology required for a species to go intergalactic?
And the solution, for technologies that may be used by a wide amount of players, is to rely on surveillance and again, giving even more power those top/ruling players on top.
We already got a dark gray ball out of the urn, when the atomic bomb was tested at first some scientists on the project weren't sure if that wouldn't start a chain reaction on the atmosphere killing all life. And still, the people in power went ahead and used that technology.
Another example is more recent, with global warming, the people in power are ignoring the long term risks and taking measures making the problem worse and more urgent.
So, is not just taking the ball. Some of them could be already black (nuclear power, genetic manipulation, things that cause global warming, etc). Is to have the power and the will to use them. And with that in mind, last US presidency showed us how vulnerable is the world.
"[Existential risks] have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it may soon be too late. The Precipice explores the science behind the risks we face."
This is why I have been opposing Missile Defence. Strategically missile defence is a highly offensive technology, since it allows a safer first strike capability.
Israel's Iron Dome is one thing. They're destroying small, short-range, generally unguided missiles carrying conventional warheads without decoys. The US's anti-ballistic missile systems (e.g. GMD, SM-3, THAAD, Patriot, etc.) are unlikely to provide meaningful protection against ICBMs even from relatively unsophisticated enemies for one reason: it's substantially easier to build swords than shields. If North Korea builds a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead into the US mainland, they can build the technology to stuff decoy warheads into the payload (eg balloons with the same signature as the actual warhead).
You really don't want a nuclear enemy overestimating the effectiveness of your missile defense!
Maybe Covid was 'printed'...?
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-still-hasn-t-...
It's amazing that in tens of thousands of years, we've developed the power of gods yet have the same minds. And if anything our culture and values in many ways have gotten worse.
The solution to all of this mess isn't going to come from the same mindset that created the same problems (looking at you carbon capture tech).
What's needed most is an entire global shift in what we value and a concerted effort and funding to make that happen.
Framing everything in terms of past injustices turns what should be a bipartisan issue into a partisan one.
We need less infighting and more creative collaborative problem-solving.
But given the current rate of accelerated use of carbon fueled technologies, how realistic is it that carbon capture technology will catch up within the next decade or less? How certain can we be that such technology won't lead to an even worse problem?
Everything I've seen says carbon capture is a moonshot idea. I'd say Elon Musk has a better shot at populating Mars in 20 years than carbon capture saving us. And even if it is a solid mitigation technique, there still is the issue that we develop this god-level of technological power while have completely underdeveloped and underfunded social/cultural/economic/psychological development of the humans developing and wielding it. Most likely we'll just create a bigger existential threat down the line.
Then you say carbon capture tech isn't going to work because... it's too focused on solving problems constructively? What is wrong with the mindset of carbon capture tech, exactly? What is the right mindset to have? (But also, the idea that we can figure out what solutions work based on diagnosing the "mindset" of those that propose them, as opposed to analyzing the solution itself in detail, seems pretty silly to me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy )
What we don't spend relatively anywhere close to same level of energy and effort is creating, developing, funding ways to shape the human culture, values, and mind that underlies this relentless (and in many cases unfulfilling and self-destructive) pattern of looking to technology to solve everything.
It's a hard challenge for sure but I don't see any alternative solution.
Jordan Hall and Daniel Schmachtenberger talk a lot about this as one source to go deeper.
(side note, I live full time in a residential, monastic small community in the country side. Our carbon footprint is tiny for our size and we have daily conversations on this type of thing. We haven't "solved" it but this is a issue close to my heart I've dedicated my life to.)
I don't think that's obvious. It could be that we're at a part of the techno-societal landscape that happens to be bad, but if we keep working on technology, we'll get to a new part of the landscape that happens to be better. For example, as VR tech gets better, maybe it will replace social media with something healthier. ("If you're going through hell, keep going" as they say.)
It's not so much that I'm saying technological development is bad. Obviously we won't stop making new tech. It's that the larger context in which that tech development is happening is toxic, is not oriented towards health or wellbeing for everyone. The incentives are all perverted.
The human-in-the-loop Grey Goo that is Bitcoin, for example, is directly exploiting memetic greed, speculation, and fear to heat the oceans.
In addition a global panopticon will, with a high probability, lead to an increase in depression and suicide.
Both could also lead to human extinction.
What if a meteor hits now? Solar flare strong enough to take out electronics? Some country deciding tactical nuke warfare is acceptable? A supervolcano?
How many simultaneous catastrophes can current civilization survive?
Only definite conclusion is that Isaac Asimov will not go out of fashion soon.
Without spoiling too much, the story revolves around suspected government suppression of a time-viewing device. The story's pretty easy to find online; the link below lists books it appears in.
World population has gone from about 2 billion to almost 8 billion in the last 100 years.
We're well aware of the limited resources of our finite planet, yet the only metric of economic success is growth.
It's a pyramid scheme, and at some point, it has to collapse. Unless we expand beyond this planet, I suppose.
The asteroid belt has the resources for millions of O'Neil cylinders and Stanford Toruses -- we'll be fine.
Making nuclear weapons isn't that hard any more. It used to take entire cities of factories to enrich uranium. Now it takes a facility about the size of a WalMart SuperCenter. URENCO's enrichment plants are about that size.
Now life is another matter (no pun intended). The article tends to confuse the two. It seems fairly unlikely that we would be able to eradicate any form of life on this planet.
If there's life then there is no reason to think something interesting and new couldn't come out of it.
On a side note, it also seems highly unlikely that a nuclear weapon will never be detonated by accident or by mistake at some point in the future. There have been many close calls and that we know about and probably many more that were kept secret. So the "black ball" has been out of the bag for quite a while.