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Comment by wins32767 | Hacker News Reader

I think this article misses the possibly that we had a shot to get an interplanetary civilization due to the accumulation of fossil fuels over the last ~400m years, but that we've consumed those resources not getting out into space meaningfully and therefore have missed the window (as it were). We've clearly exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth and the period from the 1950s to the 2050s may well be the only time period where there is enough civilizational/energy surplus to afford the extremely high upfront costs of creating self sustaining ecologies off of Earth. I hope I'm wrong, but if civilization collapses (as they all seem to do eventually), I'm not sure it will ever be possible for another Earth based species to get off planet meaningfully (due, for example, to the unique circumstances required to lay down large coal beds).

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> We've clearly exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth

I’m curious to hear what leads you to this idea. Global warming is really the only major threat (well, covid too) our entire species faces but that is just a cultural/political issue and is largely technologically solved. All other issues that would stop our species from expanding are solved to a large degree (at a level where they don’t threaten our species growth).

The collapse of fisheries worldwide, soil degradation across nearly all arable land currently in use, broad ecosystem collapse (see decreasing numbers of insects worldwide). All of these are signs of unsustainable use of the planet's resources. Hell, absent fertilizers from fossil fuels, the green revolution (and subsequent population boom) wouldn't be possible.

There are too many people living living lives that consume too many resources currently. While we've slowed our growth, we're going to shrink our resource utilization absent extra capacity from space. That reduction will either be managed or unmanaged reduction (e.g. collapse).

All of those aren’t going to make humans extinct though. Are we potentially ruining the earth? Yeah probably. But the human race could certainly survive long term with no soil and no ocean animals.

No disagreement there, but there would be many, many less humans.

> is really the only major threat

Soil degradation, ocean acidification, basic resource scarcity (running out of copper or phosphates for example)

Others which come to mind that are "fixable" through technology vs psycho-cultural features:

Overfishing - > global enforceable legislation of the seas Meat consumption - > high quality meat analogs Plastics endocrine disruption - > improved discovery of protein folding to discover problematic endocrine disruptors Batteries - > novel types of battery chemistry Lack of Water - > drip irrigation, desalination (desertification itself can't be per se fixed) Lack of Energy longterm - > SPARK, ARC nuclear type reactors

Even soil degradation could be tackled with GMO crops and improved nitrates/phosphates, it would not be ideal because these also generate toxic algae blooms on river deltas but "would make do". Ocean acidification is the scary one just like most other effects related to global warming

Disagree, you get to space using fossils and then what? Can't ship everything from Earth, the surplus is not that big, you need local industry first. I suspect even hundreds of starships won't be enough, our technology is incredibly interdependent. Only then you can build self-sustaining ecology.

Industry needs loads of energy and only practical power sources in space are solar (up to some distance but there water is scarce) and nuclear.

So if there was a missing chance, I'd say it was developing ubiquitous nuclear power. Would help on Earth, would help in space.

I do think that civilization will collapse. We are too optimistic, we don’t see ourselves failing; we have watched too many Hollywood movies and we think we will save ourselves no matter what.

Think for a moment what would happen if we, the whole planet, all decide one Sunday afternoon : it’s enough, it’s fine if the entire human race doesn’t make it 100 years more. Let’s leave the planet to the other species. Thanks for all the fish!

>I do think that civilization will collapse. We are too optimistic, we don’t see ourselves failing; we have watched too many Hollywood movies and we think we will save ourselves no matter what.

I agree. I was already on this line of thinking and watching our collective response to COVID really solidified just how little work we're ever going to do on climate change. We badly misunderstand history as a linear function of progress, so we believe things always get better. We rely too much on the hope of a technological breakthrough that would mean we don't have to do any real work, because we got used to that in the 20th century. Living standards and health outcomes are already worse for this generation compared to the previous generation and we soothe ourselves with cheap consumer goods because they're the only things we can afford. We're not going to leave Earth, we're going to stay here and ruin it out of selfishness.

why would you assume fossil fuels are a requirement for space travel? liquid hydrogen doesn't require fossil fuels to make, it is just a lot cheaper to do it that way.

we could also use nuclear propulsion, which the russians have been able to successfully do with cruise missles

I think OP may be implying the fossil fuels are necessary for the "industrial revolution" part of a civilization's development -- and that industrial revolution is a gating factor for achieving spacefaring technology.

Yes, it's this. After the collapse of the western Roman empire, the standard of living dropped to bronze age levels in many areas, well below where it was before the Romans took over. Assuming a similar decline after modern civilization collapses (to say pre-industrial revolution levels), I don't see how it's possible to get back without the easy surplus energy. It's much more complicated to build batteries or nuclear or solar than it is to make a steam engine.

I wouldn't say it's a hard assumption, it's just mighty convenient that there was a carboniferous period on this planet that left us with some really easy energy to use for industrialisation.

There's a question then of whether we'd have been stuck on a pre industrial ladder rung if it hadn't happened.

It just seems necessary, but of course the opposite might be true, that if we didn't have this easy energy we'd have jumped ahead with solar and wind or others instead.

My interpretation of OP was that if civilization collapses, a revival would require cheap energy (probably fossil fuel) to rebuild industry and science - and that fossil fuel is gone.

There are lots of alternative energy sources, but we haven't managed to switch to them with our pretty advanced science and energy, so there may not be a developmental path for less advanced societies that ends in plentiful energy sources without fossil fuels as a stepping stone.

Put another way: If a society at the level of pre-industrial revolution Europe didn't have access to oil and coal, do you think they could have figured out nuclear energy? How would they obtain the energy to process and refine fissionable material? Or even for that matter... how could they obtain the energy to smelt iron and steal, let alone build computer chips and solar panels.

So our failure now also limits what any successor intelligent species could accomplish (until enough fossil fuels can form again).

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