Earth on the verge of Mass Extinctions

[Archbob]

Who's "we"? More people are going hungry than ever before in history, looks like "we" are not doing such a good job.

Extinction requires that everyone dies or at least there's no way to breed.

If 99% of Humanity died, there'd still be a healthly 65 million of us or so.

 

[choxorn]

I believe I will and even if I die tragically young my daughter will. She's only two. The world will be vastly, vastly different by 2080 (assuming she reaches 82).

That would be the age of 72.

And yes, we will probably live long enough to feel some of the effects. Even if we don't, why condemn future people with a problem they can't solve but we can, but we didn't because we didn't care?

 

[Narz]

That would be the age of 72.

lol, math fail, my bad.

And yes, we will probably live long enough to feel some of the effects. Even if we don't, why condemn future people with a problem they can't solve but we can, but we didn't because we didn't care?

Exactly!

 

[cubsfan6506]

I believe I will and even if I die tragically young my daughter will. She's only two. The world will be vastly, vastly different by 2080 (assuming she reaches 82).

If your daughter's 2 now she'd be 72 in 2080.

(2010-2)=2008
(2080-2008)=72
Edit: Oops

Extinction requires that everyone dies or at least there's no way to breed.

If 99% of Humanity died, there'd still be a healthly 65 million of us or so.

Great I volunteer you.

 

[Patroklos]

Who's "we"? More people are going hungry than ever before in history, looks like "we" are not doing such a good job.

Source?

And lets do that comparison via percentages. Using your method more people are dieing from lightning strikes too, which is for the same reason irrelevant.

Huge glacial melts for one, fishery catches down, I forgot the percentage, over 50, IIRC, species dying off, islands being swallowed up, global warming, not to mention the huge amount of toxicity building up in ecosystems (and our bodies, in Japan IIRC, only 2% of the population has healthy/acceptable sperm counts according to the WHO). Maybe the average guy at the discotec can't really profoundly feel what's going on but things are happening.

No, its in the few percentage point range. Or in other words entirely insignificant in the big picture range.

 

[Narz]

Source?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8109698.stm

And lets do that comparison via percentages.

Lets not. A billion hungry is a billion hungry, does 1, 2 or even 10 rich people cancel out 10 malnourished ones? I don't think so.

No, its in the few percentage point range. Or in other words entirely insignificant in the big picture range.

I misspoke, I mean fish stocks not species.

There are 90% fewer big fish than there were 60 years ago. That's kind of intense.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0515_030515_fishdecline.html

 

[Archbob]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8109698.stm


Lets not. A billion hungry is a billion hungry, does 1, 2 or even 10 rich people cancel out 10 malnourished ones? I don't think so.


I misspoke, I mean fish stocks not species.

There are 90% fewer big fish than there were 60 years ago. That's kind of intense.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0515_030515_fishdecline.html

But a billion hungry means that there are 5 billion that are not quite so hungry. Yes, part of humanity is in peril but that does not in any way mean humans are in danger of extinction.

For this extinction to compare with the last few great ones, the dying out would have to continue for centuries and mostly likely would have to continue for Millenia. No, you will in all likelihood, not live to see the effects of it, neither will your children and grandchildren.

And thats just the way evolution and change works. Some species die and other survive when these events happen. You can't hope to preserve everything and there are some species that just shouldn't be preserved. 99.9% of all species that have lived on earth have died.

 

[Narz]

But a billion hungry means that there are 5 billion that are not quite so hungry. Yes, part of humanity is in peril but that does not in any way mean humans are in danger of extinction.

My point is just that we shouldn't be so proud of ourselves if so many are living in poverty & that the wealth of some doesn't compensate for the suffering of others.

For this extinction to compare with the last few great ones, the dying out would have to continue for centuries and mostly likely would have to continue for Millenia. No, you will in all likelihood, not live to see the effects of it, neither will your children and grandchildren.

It probably will continue for centuries. Even if humans disappeared the climate change we've helped set in motion will continue to disrupt things for a thousand years or more.

And thats just the way evolution and change works. Some species die and other survive when these events happen. You can't hope to preserve everything and there are some species that just shouldn't be preserved. 99.9% of all species that have lived on earth have died.

It's not about preserving everything that's ever lived, it's about being a positive instead of a negative catalyst.

 

[Archbob]

My point is just that we shouldn't be so proud of ourselves if so many are living in poverty & that the wealth of some doesn't compensate for the suffering of others.

No, but you guys are exaggerating way too much. Just because a portion of the population is in peril is by no means any real justification to say the entire species is in danger.

It probably will continue for centuries. Even if humans disappeared the climate change we've helped set in motion will continue to disrupt things for a thousand years or more.

Mass glaciations like the ice ages we've been having would have that effect regardless if we were here or not. These things have happened many times without humans here and it could very well just be a natural occurence. I think people want to feel important so they tend to hype up the effect that humans have. Weather patterns have changed way faster than whats currently happening before humans arrived on the scene.

It's not about preserving everything that's ever lived, it's about being a positive instead of a negative catalyst.

See, this is where people are mistaken. Extinctions aren't a "positive" or "negative" thing. Old species must die out for new species to arrive. If it wasn't for the K-T extinction 65 million years ago, we probably would have no evolved. Mass extinction aren't an ending or a "negative", there are, in fact, a new beginning.

Now, I'm against man-made climate change because it may make it harder on us as a species. But there's really little we can do about natural climate change as the earth regularly goes through warm periods and ice ages, which is a real possibility of whats happening right now. These temperatures we're seeing right now aren't really any hotter than the norm from a geological perspective.

 

[Narz]

No, but you guys are exaggerating way too much. Just because a portion of the population is in peril is by no means any real justification to say the entire species is in danger.

I didn't say humanity is going to fully die off.

Mass glaciations like the ice ages we've been having would have that effect regardless if we were here or not. These things have happened many times without humans here and it could very well just be a natural occurence.

The scientific consensus disagrees.

I think people want to feel important so they tend to hype up the effect that humans have. Weather patterns have changed way faster than whats currently happening before humans arrived on the scene.

We don't need to "feel" important, look at what we've done to the landscape, take a breathe of air in an urban area, sample a polar bears blood for dioxins. Us humans are kind of a big deal whether we want to play small or not.

See, this is where people are mistaken. Extinctions aren't a "positive" or "negative" thing.

From our perspective they are bad because we're part of the current order. We don't want a new order & the whole ecosystem to flip on it's head.

Now, I'm against man-made climate change because it may make it harder on us as a species. But there's really little we can do about natural climate change as the earth regularly goes through warm periods and ice ages, which is a real possibility of whats happening right now. These temperatures we're seeing right now aren't really any hotter than the norm from a geological perspective.

Well there are other threads for that debate.

 

[deanej]

The "scientific consensus" is mainly from climate scientists, who I don't think are entirely honest. For example, 2010 was already declared the hottest year on record - in July! Where's the rest of the year? Looks like they jumped the gun because they wanted data that would be in their favor.

 

[Abaddon]

From our perspective they are bad because we're part of the current order. We don't want a new order & the whole ecosystem to flip on it's head.

We would survive though. So why does it matter if the eco flips?

 

[Narz]

We would survive though. So why does it matter if the eco flips?

We? Maybe some of us but there would be massive suffering for virtually every organism that exists today, including humans.

You can say "objectively" it doesn't matter but it does to those alive.

 

[Yeekim]

We would survive though. So why does it matter if the eco flips?

I wouldn't especially fancy life on a planet, where entire fauna would consist of humans, rats and cockroaches...

 

[Ayatollah So]

Well, at least the mass extinction thing could be fair - our own extinction could well be included. Not because of global warming or dioxins or such. Rather, because we are already working on some probable successors to all life forms - artificial intelligences constructed from inorganic matter.

This would be a good joke reply to the thread, if only I were joking.

Biological evolution finds LOCAL optima. A two-pound brain full of nerve cells is a great way to get intelligence, if you don't mind signals that travel at under 1 millionth the speed of light, and synaptic operations that use more than 1 million times as much energy as the theoretical physical minimum energy to encode a bit of information. And why would you mind, when there is no competition that can do any better? But human designers can, and will, do better, because intelligent design is truly goal-directed. We will build a smarter mind. And that is a very dangerous thing to do.

 

[Archbob]

The "scientific consensus" is mainly from climate scientists, who I don't think are entirely honest. For example, 2010 was already declared the hottest year on record - in July! Where's the rest of the year? Looks like they jumped the gun because they wanted data that would be in their favor.

This. Researchers are notoriously known for throwing out data points that don't agree with their theory.

 

[choxorn]

if you don't mind signals that travel at under 1 millionth the speed of light,

Technically, the signals do travel at light-speed, they just make a lot of brief pauses on the way there.

 

[El_Machinae]

We would survive though. So why does it matter if the eco flips?

Well, a flipping ecosystem could be unpleasant. The species would survive, but I suspect that an ecological crisis will cause people to suffer more than they would have needed.

I think that people sometimes think of humanity as an organism that thrives or contracts: while this is a viewpoint that deserves merit, we can also realise that there are people making up that organism.

The only reason why we should stand for destruction of the ecosystem is to increase sustainable economic (and therefore technological) progress ... but there's obviously types of ecosystem destruction that are bad for economic progress.

Well, at least the mass extinction thing could be fair - our own extinction could well be included. Not because of global warming or dioxins or such. Rather, because we are already working on some probable successors to all life forms - artificial intelligences constructed from inorganic matter.

This would be a good joke reply to the thread, if only I were joking.

Biological evolution finds LOCAL optima. A two-pound brain full of nerve cells is a great way to get intelligence, if you don't mind signals that travel at under 1 millionth the speed of light, and synaptic operations that use more than 1 million times as much energy as the theoretical physical minimum energy to encode a bit of information. And why would you mind, when there is no competition that can do any better? But human designers can, and will, do better, because intelligent design is truly goal-directed. We will build a smarter mind. And that is a very dangerous thing to do.

Very dangerous, but very likely, I think. There're enough groups that are working on AI that it strikes me that - if it's possible for people to do it - it's going to happen eventually. But these research efforts are only possible because we have excess wealth to invest in developing new technologies. It's only likely if we can continue to technologically progress sustainably for a long-enough period.

I'm an environmentalist probably because I want us on the fast-track to computronium. I was humanity to thrive until we can have enough technology to thrive without a naturally-evolved ecosystem. But, until then, we're terribly dependent upon ecosystems merely to maintain our economic system.

If food gets too expensive, then we're going to lose the ability to invest sufficient profits into R&D to get escape velocity for our society. Worst case is a slow-motion slide into the same fate as the Easter Islanders.

Fallen Angel Lord: your thesis on extinctions being necessary to evolution have a element of truth, but please remember that it IS possible that evolution occurs much more slowly than extinctions can occur.

 

[Bast]

There is a mass extinction going on right now. It's been happening for some time and will culminate with the extinction of humans.

Extinctions event don't happen over night. They're gradual processes.

In other words, we're finished. We just don't know it yet.

 

[deanej]

What makes you think humans will go extinct? Last I checked, we're dependent on technology, not polar bears.