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Comment by holoduke | Hacker News Reader

What would happen with society if we find out that we have avout 500 years before our magnetic shield disappears and the atmosphere will be gone 200 years later. Would we finally work together to somehow try to find a fix or will the world turn into anarchy?

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If you have some spare time this is very popular subject for speculative fiction, sometimes with much shorter time spans or lower stakes but most people working together, it can be inspiring if one is so inclined. Of course, there's not much story to tell if we don't unite a bit (there's always conflict). For lower stakes: Contact, Rendezvous with Rama, and for fate of mankind (to some extent) there's Spin, Project Hail Mary, Mars trilogy and Ministry for the Future (deep dive into each political side portrayed and maybe even a bit too optimistic in some ways), Seveneves, The Gods Themselves, Footfall. There's also the pessimistic outlook that can be summarized by that New Yorker cartoon, but that's a different list. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...

>Ministry for the Future (deep dive into each political side portrayed and maybe even a bit too optimistic in some ways) I loved the book but it's indeed hopelessly optimistic. I think the heat wave that begins this book is going to happen in the next decade and the response to it would be remarkably NOT like the book

I did not want to spoil too much for the uninitiated for a not new book, but yes! The bandaid to make more pollution to lessen the local climate change effects I could definitely see happening.

Interesting question. I think there would be a bit of both but the most common reaction by far would be to do nothing. There would be a lot of disinformation questioning the scientists and science behind the findings, and any politician trying to direct significant money towards adressing the problem would be attacked by all of the politicians who would rather use those funds for their own benefit.

I think the modern era has shown that most people put very little value on future lives or the lives of people outside of their tribe. Plenty of propoganda would spring up to justify inaction and alleviate any guilt.

You make it sound like there'll be a simple right way to respond but you might be ignoring most of the practices we already have which benefit current people at the expense of future people. It's not so easy to decide when the future is so far off and often uncertain. We've tried eugenics but as you say, that's political suicide now. We can't seem to ban antibiotics despite them causing anti-biotic resistant bacteria. We're happy to wipe out thousands of years of cultural beliefs that have a proven history of survivability in favor of modern ideas that have only lasted a couple of generations. We keep on using medical interventions to save the lives of babies and allow them to grow up and reproduce with their defective genes. There's even popular opposition to Musk's plan to colonize Mars despite the real risk of a meteor eventually wiping out all humans on Earth. That said, there's also value in selfishly taking what we can for our present selves and maybe future generations will be able to maintain that standard or even develop technology to clean up the mess. After-all, humans already mostly depend on technology like clothing, shelter, and cooking but we've evolved to cope with those limitations.

Look how we react to climate change.

anarchy. we have been there before. people don't bond well in such massive numbers suddenly. They fight until there is no peace. They fight for the short term. They fight until there are no other leaders. And the successful ones bond together the fastest to fight the rest of the people. And then that bond breaks up again.

Every person fights for himself. Then he fights for his people. Then he fights for the people, but by that time he dies.

Well, it would take 100 million years for the atmosphere to be gone. The UV would be a worse problem because it would kill all the plants.

I think this question becomes a lot more interesting for 50 + 20 years instead of 500 + 200. For the latter I just can't see people giving enough of a shit to devolve into anarchy over. It'd be like going to the 1300s and asking someone what they'll do to stop Polio in the 1900s.

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