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Comment by simianwords | Hacker News Reader

There’s no evidence of near extinction. You are doing a disservice by promoting conspiracy theories like this while the last 50 years pulled billions out of poverty by using more energy.

I would love to verify that the consensus is that humanity would get extinct if we don’t do anything about emissions.

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Humans idk, but wildlife in general is getting fucked

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

> The Holocene or Anthropocene extinction[3][4] is an ongoing extinction event caused by human activity during the current geological epoch,[5][6] impacting diverse families of plants[7][8][9] and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,[10] fish, and invertebrates, as well as both terrestrial and marine species.[11] It is sometimes also called the sixth extinction

Would there be so many billions if we didn't figure out how to convert petroleum into fertilizer and so many other useful things? My point is that, just because we now have billions, it feels wrong to justify maintaining those billions of people at the luxury levels so many of us enjoy. We differ from other animals only by degrees, not by kind. From watching so many nature documentaries over the years, and reading nonfiction books about animals, I understand many mammal newborns don't make it into childhood. I'm not convinced that a high human infant-mortality rate is bad. It just feels bad, and with our pathological focus on feeling happy and suppressing sadness, a consequence seems to be we make decisions out of momentary selfishness rather than care for future generations long after we individuals are dead.

> I'm not convinced that a high human infant-mortality rate is bad

Sigh.

Why? We basically broke evolution and purposefully make the specie more dysgenic. At that point we need life long drug treatments to keep people from overeating because they have less self control than pigs and literal cattle. Surely there is a middle ground

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