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Comment by poetically | Hacker News Reader

This is a silly article. Humans will be around until the next comet strike, the question is in what kind of conditions we'll be living until then. The degradation of the biosphere and our declining quality of life is real so it's better to focus on those issues instead of worrying about extinction. Global warming and increasing automation are much more clear and pertinent threats than our eventual extinction.

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>Humans will be around until the next comet strike

Not necessarily. For all we know, we might evolve into a different species over the next million years. Either way, though, extinction is just part of the natural process for any species, and not something we should worry about for ourselves. As you said, we are much better off considering how to improve biological conditions and quality of life than worrying about the eventual end of H. sapiens.

My default assumption is that there are plenty of people and there will be plenty of people for a long time. The only real threat to our survival is our own stupidity, greed, and avarice.

And even that might not be enough to put our species into an early grave!

It's certainly a pernicious failure mode.

And it was only a matter of time before the arrogant comments came out. I would not be so sure of humanaty's ability to avoid extinction if we continue on the path we've charted.

What's arrogant about what I wrote?

Your assumption that humans will be reasonable enough to not kill themselves, in the name of profit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29421577

Your arrogance is in the timescale your assumption operates in and not seeing the interdependence between man, nature, and unknowns.

This is incredibly arrogant. I'm not using the word in the pejorative sense (I'm not calling you names), but in one that's better described as hubris.

Awful lot of assumptions you're making there. One might even say it's arrogant and hubristic.

fair. I may have been intending to reply to another comment, on second read. Sorry about singling yours out.

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