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Comment by jcattle | Hacker News Reader

From your earlier comment, your curiosity was more about what happens after we run out.

In your question you stated the running out as a given fact ("When" we run out, not "if").

If that was what you wanted to say I can't tell you, but that's definitely how it was received and thus you also got the harsh response. Since it reads a lot like doomsday thinking.

(Example: Does that mean when we run out of oxygen there are no more humans?

Why would we run out?)

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?Why would we run out?)

Of oxygen, because of rising temperatures interacting with rock weathering binding all the oxygen.

Now, that's more of something to worry about at geological time scales, but Earth in fact, is not infinite.

I love that you countered pedantry with pedantry. <3

Yes, my curiosity was about when we run out, because I didn’t know if we would run out. That was the whole point of the question. Have some leniency, we’re not all experts about everything.

> my curiosity was about when we run out, because I didn’t know if we would run out

You still seem to be missing the point.

If you talk about "when we run out", you are presenting yourself as an expert stating "we will run out" and asking about the aftermath.

It would be appropriate, and better received with more leniency, for you to ask whether we would run out.

That’s not rational. Why would I be asking such a simple question if I were an expert?

Exactly, that self-contradiction is part of why you were downvoted so heavily. Because you presented yourself to the world as irrational.

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