Climate Change(d)?

[bilby]

Current life in the US is far removed from what it was 75 years ago, which was far removed from 150 years ago.
50 more years will make it unrecognizable - again.

Maybe.

Since the Industrial Revolution we have seen so much rapid change in lifestyle that it feels as though rapid change is normal, even inevitable. But it's really not; An ordinary working man from 1700, transported to 1900, would be astonished at the marvels and wonders his counterparts of 1900 took for granted. But a working man from 700 wouldn't notice a huge difference if transported to 1700. The wealthy had some impressive new luxuries, but the ordinary life of a labourer was much the same.

I think we are already seeing the collapse of the age of rapid change; It's possible that things will turn around, and society could rapidly return to a pre-industrial technology level (with the concommittent rapid decline in population); But my guess is that instead we will see another long period of stability, with each century much like the last.

Population is stabilising, and so is technology - we are still seeing lots of innovation, but no longer much improvement. In the 1980s, you could fly from London or Paris to New York in a couple of hours; Today, it takes twice as long. Windows XP enabled people to be dramatically more productive than Windows 3.1 did; Windows 12 is no better than Windows 7, in terms of user productivity.

Technology companies are all looking for the next big thing, but what they are delivering is the last big thing in a shinier box.

It's a bad idea to bet on the indefinite sustaining of exponential growth, whether in population, CPU density, travel speeds, GDP, or anything else. It's also historically unusual for the entire world to suffer dramatic declines; Setbacks tend to either be local, or brief, or both.

We talk a lot about the collapse of Rome, but that's because we don't really have an example of a similar collapse more recent than 1,500 years ago. The Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires fell without casting their ordinary citizens into a dark age of poverty, lawlessness, and technological decline; Russia has had two empires collapse in the space of less than a century, but they still have cars and computers and electricity - which they didn't have under the Tsars.

The access to technological quality of life factors may well decline somewhat in the US, where these are currently most ubiquitous, but a "decline" to the levels seen in Western Europe would be far from catastrophic.

I suspect that our technological systems are less fragile than many people fear they might be. We recover rapidly from setbacks due to natural disasters. Whether our political systems are similarly resilient remains to be seen, of course.

 

[Elixir]

I suspect that our technological systems are less fragile than many people fear they might be.

I don’t know about that.
We could be entering the longest period of ”stability” (culturally & technologically) in history, due largely to instantaneous global exchange of ideas. Or we (our tech systems) could be on a precipice of vulnerability to formerly innocuous or unnoticed factors (e.g. massive solar flares), some of which we may even be unaware. I wouldn’t bet either way with any confidence.

 

[bilby]

I suspect that our technological systems are less fragile than many people fear they might be.

I don’t know about that.
We could be entering the longest period of ”stability” (culturally & technologically) in history, due largely to instantaneous global exchange of ideas. Or we (our tech systems) could be on a precipice of vulnerability to formerly innocuous or unnoticed factors (e.g. massive solar flares), some of which we may even be unaware. I wouldn’t bet either way with any confidence.

Well, our infrastructure seems to be considerably more robust in the face of solar flares now, than it was in 1972 or 1989 - largely because of lessons learned from those events.

You and I may be unaware of the systems that protect our infrastructure, but the engineers who design, build, and maintain these systems are better informed than ever.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Current life in the US is far removed from what it was 75 years ago, which was far removed from 150 years ago.
50 more years will make it unrecognizable - again.

Maybe.

Since the Industrial Revolution we have seen so much rapid change in lifestyle that it feels as though rapid change is normal, even inevitable. But it's really not; An ordinary working man from 1700, transported to 1900, would be astonished at the marvels and wonders his counterparts of 1900 took for granted. But a working man from 700 wouldn't notice a huge difference if transported to 1700. The wealthy had some impressive new luxuries, but the ordinary life of a labourer was much the same.

I think we are already seeing the collapse of the age of rapid change; It's possible that things will turn around, and society could rapidly return to a pre-industrial technology level (with the concommittent rapid decline in population); But my guess is that instead we will see another long period of stability, with each century much like the last.

Lifestlye? Depends on the bar. Technology hasn't grown a lot in the last couple of decades. Quite the opposite, it has shrunk, literally. The mobility of technology has exploded in the last 20 years and the access to information anywhere is absurd at this point. The changes from 1980 to 2000 to 2020 have been notable. And access to information anywhere is expanding through low orbit sats.

Access to information, particularly media, is in such a way, we have a generational gap regarding paid access to it, where younger folks feel the feed should be shared openly and older folks are the older pay for model.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think that we are heading for an extinction event,

We’re not “heading to” one, we are experiencing one. This is the earth’s sixth major extinction event. Biologists estimate that 35%of animals and plants could become extinct in the wild by 2050.

What we see now is probably just a shadow of what's coming.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think we are already seeing the collapse of the age of rapid change; It's possible that things will turn around, and society could rapidly return to a pre-industrial technology level (with the concommittent rapid decline in population); But my guess is that instead we will see another long period of stability, with each century much like the last.

Population is stabilising, and so is technology - we are still seeing lots of innovation, but no longer much improvement. In the 1980s, you could fly from London or Paris to New York in a couple of hours; Today, it takes twice as long. Windows XP enabled people to be dramatically more productive than Windows 3.1 did; Windows 12 is no better than Windows 7, in terms of user productivity.

But we aren't at a stable point. If we stagnate, we die.

I suspect that our technological systems are less fragile than many people fear they might be. We recover rapidly from setbacks due to natural disasters. Whether our political systems are similarly resilient remains to be seen, of course.

We recover rapidly because nothing has been a widespread problem. Our technological base has never been threatened, the devastation has always been over a limited area. We have had a close call, though--what if HIV had made it's zoonotic jump a century or two earlier?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I suspect that our technological systems are less fragile than many people fear they might be.

I don’t know about that.
We could be entering the longest period of ”stability” (culturally & technologically) in history, due largely to instantaneous global exchange of ideas. Or we (our tech systems) could be on a precipice of vulnerability to formerly innocuous or unnoticed factors (e.g. massive solar flares), some of which we may even be unaware. I wouldn’t bet either way with any confidence.

Well, our infrastructure seems to be considerably more robust in the face of solar flares now, than it was in 1972 or 1989 - largely because of lessons learned from those events.

You and I may be unaware of the systems that protect our infrastructure, but the engineers who design, build, and maintain these systems are better informed than ever.

More robust, but robust enough? We don't really know how powerful the Carrington event was--but it might very well have been enough that it could take us out today. (Not directly, but from disrupting too much.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Lifestlye? Depends on the bar. Technology hasn't grown a lot in the last couple of decades. Quite the opposite, it has shrunk, literally. The mobility of technology has exploded in the last 20 years and the access to information anywhere is absurd at this point. The changes from 1980 to 2000 to 2020 have been notable. And access to information anywhere is expanding through low orbit sats.

The equipment has shrunk, what it does for us has not.

Access to information, particularly media, is in such a way, we have a generational gap regarding paid access to it, where younger folks feel the feed should be shared openly and older folks are the older pay for model.

I think that to a large extent this comes down to the problem of too many players. Few sources of information have sensible business models. Look at what happened to Netflix. When Netflix came along and provided one subscription to a whole bunch of stuff it worked. Piracy dropped. But now we have a bunch of different services, each siloing stuff to try to make the consumer buy from them. And the response is piracy.

I used to think a microtransaction model would be good. Go to some aggregator, buy either x articles, or x articles/month or the like, use them on whatever you want. But clickbait is such a problem these days that I doubt it would work well anymore.

 

[DBT]

I don't think that we are heading for an extinction event,

We’re not “heading to” one, we are experiencing one. This is the earth’s sixth major extinction event. Biologists estimate that 35%of animals and plants could become extinct in the wild by 2050.

No doubt. I only meant the human race is not likely to become extinct in the forseeable future, even though our numbers and way of life may be greatly reduced.

 

[bilby]

But we aren't at a stable point. If we stagnate, we die.

Do we?

How and why?

 

[bilby]

I don't think that we are heading for an extinction event,

We’re not “heading to” one, we are experiencing one. This is the earth’s sixth major extinction event. Biologists estimate that 35%of animals and plants could become extinct in the wild by 2050.

No doubt. I only meant the human race is not likely to become extinct in the forseeable future, even though our numbers and way of life may be greatly reduced.

^This.

Killing billions of humans is easy. Killing all of them is hard. A few thousand survivors can repopulate the planet in fairly short order.

 

[Elixir]

Killing billions of humans is easy. Killing all of them is hard. A few thousand survivors can repopulate the planet in fairly short order.

QFT
I’d want to reincarnate at the point where a few thousand have become a few million, and plant and animal species have rebounded. But I guess the other 8 billion who don’t get that, would complain…

 

[Politesse]

That seems like unearned hubris to me. Species go extinct for various reasons, but they all add up to an inability to extract the nutrients and energy they need from their environment. We're not going to go extinct just from, say, fighting a big war. But we will eventually go extinct, as all organisms do, in response to conditions not yet known to us. Messing around with the global environment on a large scale alters those odds in ways we cannot easily assess from the present.

 

[Elixir]

an American stereotype is visible when traveling abroad

A reason I try not to do that. It’s so cringe to see them acting the stereotype without a shred of self awareness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Lifestlye? Depends on the bar. Technology hasn't grown a lot in the last couple of decades. Quite the opposite, it has shrunk, literally. The mobility of technology has exploded in the last 20 years and the access to information anywhere is absurd at this point. The changes from 1980 to 2000 to 2020 have been notable. And access to information anywhere is expanding through low orbit sats.

The equipment has shrunk, what it does for us has not.

WHERE it does it is what matters.

 

[steve_bank]

Making electronic chips and circuit boards is a very environmentally dirty process.

Disposable electronics is a toxic water problem.

All those electronic devices need energy. Especially now with AI.

Video games. Cars loaded with electronics takes more energy to run.

Global warming cones down to meeting demands for energy to power technology.

Calling somebody in Australia from the USA takes energy.

All the people communicating on a wireless device at the same time takes energy.

The faster electronic technology goes and the faster you communicate the more energy it takes.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't think that we are heading for an extinction event,

We’re not “heading to” one, we are experiencing one. This is the earth’s sixth major extinction event. Biologists estimate that 35%of animals and plants could become extinct in the wild by 2050.

No doubt. I only meant the human race is not likely to become extinct in the forseeable future, even though our numbers and way of life may be greatly reduced.

^This.

Killing billions of humans is easy. Killing all of them is hard. A few thousand survivors can repopulate the planet in fairly short order.

Except those few thousand are unlikely to have the skills to survive.

 

[DBT]

Or those with practical survival skills may be the most likely to survive.

 

[bilby]

Except those few thousand are unlikely to have the skills to survive.

Why wouldn't they?

Or those with practical survival skills may be the most likely to survive.

Exactly. It's not like the dying is likely to be completely random. The survivors will be self selected as a group of people with mutually supporting skills.

Quite likely, they will be an existing (mostly self sufficient) set of tribes, maybe in the Amazon, or the New Guinea highlands, or in already isolated locales such as North Sentinal Island.

A technology based group of developed world survivors likely has a far lower chance to make it, though semi-self-contained military units with a high standard of training in survival skills might also get through.

The crew of a medium sized naval vessel is typically pretty self-sufficient, as an operational necessity. They can't keep a modern ship running, but keeping themselves and their descendants alive should be do-able.

A few thousand suburban couch potatoes and Golgafrinchan 'B' Ark crewmembers would just die out, for sure. But they aren't likely to be amongst the last survivors of humanity in any event.