# How do we prevent the next mass extinction?



## Nightchill (Oct 19, 2013)

an absurd man said:


> For those who ask "_why_?": Edgy much?


Curiouous. Don't have anything more informative to remark?


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

Dosto Yevsky said:


> *Why*: "For small creatures such as ourselves, the vastness of the universe is only bearable through love."
> - Carl Sagan
> 
> *How*: End the ongoing mass extinction, stop run-off climate change and work hard socially, emotionally and intellectually towards a type 1, type 2, type 3 etc. civilisation.


I agree with the quote by Sagan and I think your plan is interesting. But Dyson Spheres make me nervous because we still have a lot to learn from nature. I would hope that technology would become more efficient, and people more mutually-beneficially symbiotic before anyone has to harness all the star power in the milky way.


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## Dosto Yevsky (Feb 9, 2014)

meltedsorbet said:


> I agree with the quote by Sagan and I think your plan is interesting. But Dyson Spheres make me nervous because we still have a lot to learn from nature. I would hope that technology would become more efficient, and people more mutually-beneficially symbiotic before anyone has to harness all the star power in the milky way.


Yes, we need to do something about the sabretooth tiger paradox.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

Dosto Yevsky said:


> Yes, we need to do something about the sabretooth tiger paradox.


I'm not sure what you're referring to. Would you like to elaborate?

We can abstract our natural instincts for social harmony (and also perfect the practice with each other) to include the greater ecosystem, and we can solve complex problems with logic. We are not sabertooth tigers, but large-brained primates. 

But really...I don't know what you meant. Google only told me a somewhat depressing music video when i searched:


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## Dosto Yevsky (Feb 9, 2014)

Sabretooth tiger paradox = it would seem likely that the environment man evolved in favoured short-sighted tool-makers who could invent weapons and other useful tools. They became good at answering the question "how?". Hypothetically, if there ever were hunter-gatherers who were less inclined to ponder "how" and more given to big picture-thinking and the question "why?", they would have been an easier target for predators such as sabretooth tigers.

Hence mankind evolved to generally excel at "how" (say, how to kill animals) while being much less inclined to and interested in asking "why". It's glaringly obvious in today's society where we can send men to moon but are unwilling to understand why our activities are preparing a death trap for us. Again, we do understand how this is happening but we do not seem to care enough about why it is happening. On an individual level, many are concerned with how to acquire wealth and status while rarely asking themselves why they should need them.

A hypothetical civilisation which focuses on why instead of how would have 9 Diogeneses for every engineer.


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## Death Persuades (Feb 17, 2012)

It already begun.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

A few years ago there was an article published by one of the federal agencies that said if we quit all carbon fuel burning, it would be a hundred years before there was a noticeable difference. 

The last ice age started warming up about 20,000 years ago, and it has not completed the warming process. The ice caps will melt, most glaciers will disappear, and nothing can be done to stop that. Ultimately the ice will come and never leave. Removing the heat coming from the earth and allowing for the decrease in solar heating, the earth will be a dead snowball. 

There is far more politics behind "global warming" than science. The models are flawed. Methane and water vapor contribute more to atmospheric heating than CO2. But, being that we are in the waning centuries of the last Ice age, yes, it is warming and will keep warming.

Imagine a lush garden, about 5 acres, with a high fence and netting to keep everything out. put in a few rabbits. They will multiply without control and eat everything that grows than all starve to death. That will happen to humanity. The mastodon and polar bear are ice age animals, and they cannot exist unchanged in the interglacial period we are moving into. 

" For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath pressed, 
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, 
And one by one crept silently to rest. "-

from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
by Edward Fitzgerald


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## Tao Te Ching (May 3, 2013)

Mass extinction would really shake up this party. I can't wait to forget it all over again, have wonderful dream.


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## Eudaimonia (Sep 24, 2013)

Mass suicide.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

I would suggest we can at least hold it off indefinitely by disempowering all oil and gas companies, as well as coal, and switch to alternative energy and live sustainably.

Lol at preventing volcanic eruptions and asteroids.


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## Alaya (Nov 11, 2009)

We could always hire the guys from Armageddon to drill a hole into an asteroid and prevent impact on Earth. Worked well in the movie, after all.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

It's obvious that mass extinctions are good. Dinosaurs died and mammals rose to the forefront, next mammals will die and they insects will soon dominate.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

Grandmaster Yoda said:


> It's obvious that mass extinctions are good. Dinosaurs died and mammals rose to the forefront, next mammals will die and they insects will soon dominate.


We still have birds. They are dinosaurs.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

fourtines said:


> We still have birds. They are dinosaurs.


This is true. How could I forget about the birds?


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Well why leave the house if theres a possibility that I could die?

That would be a waste of scientific resources and time.

Are planet being destroyed is so insignificant in the greater creation of the universe.

Even if we wanted to tackle something like this we are years behind in technology and It would be better on focusing on bettering our technology and understanding of the universe in general, because then more viable solutions would seem evident.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

fourtines said:


> We still have birds. They are dinosaurs.


Yea but they only became birds because of extinction.

If there where no threat then they would still be dinosaurs.


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

In case of an asteroid impacting Earth, we clone and cryogenically freeze ourselves an army of fully trained Bruce Willises.


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Yea but they only became birds because of extinction.
> 
> If there where no threat then they would still be dinosaurs.


No. Avian dinosaurs aka birds have been around since the late Jurassic, which was over 100 million years before the k-t extinction event. We only consider 'birds' and 'dinosaurs' as separate groups of animals because that's what we're used to them being, but birds are nothing more than a specialized group of Coelurosaurs (a type of theropods, that laymen know as carnivorous dinosaurs), a group that included Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and Deinonychus.

About 66 million years ago, T.rex was just as 'advanced' or 'derived' as birds were at the time. They were just 2 clades of animal that were adapted to different environments (T.rex to land, birds to the air and water).

A threat of extinction doesn't necessarily lead to evolving radically different features. The threat of death is always there, but evolution is a bit more complex than that. A successful species can have a random mutation that can proven to be _even more_ useful than its common form as well.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> No. Avian dinosaurs aka birds have been around since the late Jurassic, which was over 100 million years before the k-t extinction event. We only consider 'birds' and 'dinosaurs' as separate groups of animals because that's what we're used to them being, but birds are nothing more than a specialized group of Coelurosaurs (a type of theropods, that laymen know as carnivorous dinosaurs), a group that included Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor and Deinonychus.
> 
> About 66 million years ago, T.rex was just as 'advanced' or 'derived' as birds were at the time. They were just 2 clades of animal that specialized on different environments (T.rex on sland, birds in the air and in water).


Yes, this is my exact point though...

They are in the same Coelurosaur group but because of the environment and evolution the ones that where closer to birds had a better chance of survival than there T-rex like cousins. 

And so natural selection did it's thing and got rid of the old model (t-rex) in favour for the new one (birds).


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Yes, this is my exact point though...
> 
> They are in the same group and because of the environment and evolution the ones that where closer to birds had a better chance of survival than there T-rex like cousins.
> 
> And so natural selection did it's thing and got rid of the old model (t-rex) in favour for the new one (birds).


Birds _at that time_ were just as much 'the new model' as T.rex was 'the new model'.


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## SuperDevastation (Jun 7, 2010)

There won't be one, everyone that has predicted such a thing were wrong.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> Birds _at that time_ were just as much 'the new model' as T.rex was 'the new model'.


Yes but they where still better suited for survival in the long run, if not then we would still have T-rex today.

What came first the chicken or the egg?


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Yes but they where still better suited for survival in the long run, if not then we would still have T-rex today.


That's not the same as being a 'new model', which is what you said.



Bahburah said:


> What came first the chicken or the egg?


The egg that cointained the chicken was laid by a non-chicken.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> That's not the same as being a 'new model', which is what you said.


Well we could argue the details of what I said or just admit that I'm right?



Derange At 170 said:


> The egg that cointained the chicken was laid by a non-chicken.


Yes and that egg was from a less developed Coelurosaur compared to the new born it just had.


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Well we could argue the details of what I said or just admit that I'm right?


The details are important because they have implications. The implication that birds were the 'new model' and T.rex was 'the old model' misses the point of why one became extinct and the other didn't.

You're a Ti user, even moreso than I am. You should be aware of these details.

Your original point was also that...



Bahburah said:


> Yea but they only became birds because of extinction.
> 
> If there where no threat then they would still be dinosaurs.


Which is false since birds already were around 100 million years before non-avian dinosaurs became extinct.

Say what you mean. Don't say one thing, go back and then say you meant something else all along.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> Which is false since birds already were around 100 million years before non-avian dinosaurs became extinct.
> 
> Say what you mean. Don't say one thing, go back and then say you meant something else all along.


Yes but your missing the point that there still around today and t-rex is not. It docent matter that they where alive at the same time or not, because T-rex was still around before the bird, and the birds development came out of the t-rex.

As you said, 



Derange At 170 said:


> The egg that cointained the chicken was laid by a non-chicken.


Yes T-rex is basically a giant bird, but I would argue that T-rex was around before the birds development and therefore is the older model of the bird.


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Yes but your missing the point that there still around today and t-rex is not. It docent matter that they where alive at the same time or not, because T-rex was still around before the bird, and the birds development came out of the t-rex.


As explained below, you are wrong.



Bahburah said:


> Yes T-rex is basically a giant bird, but I would argue that T-rex was around before the birds development and therefore is the older module of the bird.


Then you would argue wrong, because Tyrannosauroids developed after birds did, and T.rex, the most derived Tyrannosaurid (more derived than Tyrannosauroids even), was only around for the last 3 million years before the k-t extinction.

Birds and Tyrannosaurids share a common ancestor. Both were feathered dinosaurs and shared many featurs. Birds developed to be small flying animals (and some even lived in the sea at the time), where T.rex specialized on being a gigantic mouth with tremendous biteforce with a body of a tank.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> As explained below, you are wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well I'm only using T-rex as a generalization for the idea I'm using.
I'm not arguing specific species, and have no interest in that.

The general argument is extinction here.

So In argument of of where modern Birds came from it would have been from Birds and Tyrannosaurids common ancestor that they shared and came from. One could argue that was a "dinosaur". (altho open to debate I guess)

Therefor modern Birds though the process of evolution (which involves natural selection, which involves extinction) came from a prehistoric Dinosaur.


(Ti works by using lots of small details only in the name of using them to create a larger more general idea by the way, it's not Si.)


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Bahburah said:


> Well I'm only using T-rex as a generalization for the idea I'm using.
> I'm not arguing specific species, and have no interest in that.


And I'm using T.rex as a specific example to highlight that 100 thousand years before the k-t extinction, birds and dinosaurs were one and the same thing, one wasn't more derived or modern than the other and they were all just animals and they were both equally "advanced" (though I hate this word in the context of evolution) for two different purposes, just specialized in different niches. The speciliazition of T.rex occurring _after_ birds took to the sky paints a good picture of that.



Bahburah said:


> The general argument is extinction here.
> 
> So In argument of of where modern Birds came from it would have been from Birds and Tyrannosaurids common ancestor that they shared and came from. One could argue that was a "dinosaur". (altho open to debate I guess)
> 
> Therefor modern Birds though the process of evolution (which involves natural selection, which involves extinction) came from a prehistoric Dinosaur.


You weren't just arguing that "animals just go extinct" you made some pretty specific claims, such as the one I quoted at the end of this post.



Bahburah said:


> (Ti works by using lots of small details only in the name of using them to create a larger more general idea by the way, it's not Si.)


And the implications of the details in your previous posts implies a false "general idea". Like the one of the 'old model' and 'new model' that you proposed here:



Bahburah said:


> And so natural selection did it's thing and got rid of the old model (t-rex) in favour for the new one (birds).


If you just want to be 'right', despite minimal knowledge and shoddy argumentation, go elsewhere. I have very little patience for people who change their argument every round because they can't admit to being wrong.


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## Erbse (Oct 15, 2010)

Scientific breakthroughs will _cause_ the next mass extinction(s) :mellow:



CerebralCookie said:


> Don't be jerks.


^ this. For special emphasis :tongue:


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

Ianius Darkstar said:


> I'm liking all your posts. Especially the massive one that ends in asteroid course manipulation using rockets. I'm thinking that making artificial high mass, high gravity, magnetic planets would be how that field would progress.
> 
> 
> If you feel that you should be part of a cause I figure the preservation of the human race would be a top contender.


Two things -
If you develop a process for making artificial mass, I want to get in on that -
Simpler to use magic, and much more likely to be possible.

Second: to each of us, the human race ends when we die.


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## Bahburah (Jul 25, 2013)

Derange At 170 said:


> If you just want to be 'right', despite minimal knowledge and shoddy argumentation, go elsewhere. I have very little patience for people who change their argument every round because they can't admit to being wrong.


Well thats just how I learn dude, you shouldn't take everything I say so seriously, this is the internet, there are idiots all over the place.

I know that I change my arguments when I debate, yet I've learned a lot more than If I where to have just agreed with you at the start.
I have no problem debating something to the end even if it's wrong, thats debating.
I'll admit then that yes I did have a lack of knowledge and was wrong, yet my logic stays true, based of the information I had, and still holds up. This is the cures of being a Ti dom, it's really quite useless on it's own and everything is ether a defiant right or wrong.

And my main point was that extinction is a necessary process in order for life to grow, dinosaurs and birds just got thrown into the mix to prove a point, and like I admit, I was wrong about said details, but the logic behind the idea still holds up.

If I where to change it to another spices of animal such as mammoths to elephants, or wolfs to dogs my argument would hold up.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

Philosophaser Song Boy said:


> Get off the planet.


There is no place to go, and no way to get there. People in the past envisioned going to heaven in a Rapture. Now they envision going to Utopia in space. Same belief. Same probability.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

an absurd man said:


> For those who ask "_why_?": Edgy much?


I repeat: for the individual, death is extermination. So, quit breeding more people, and in a century, the problem is solved.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

meltedsorbet said:


> I'm not sure what you're referring to. Would you like to elaborate?
> 
> We can abstract our natural instincts for social harmony (and also perfect the practice with each other) to include the greater ecosystem, and we can solve complex problems with logic. We are not sabertooth tigers, but large-brained primates.


Us large- brained primates have killed more of each other that any other predator. Where is our natural instincts for social harmony? That is a foolish dream. Subservience is what you are referring to.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

fourtines said:


> I would suggest we can at least hold it off indefinitely by disempowering all oil and gas companies, as well as coal, and switch to alternative energy and live sustainably.
> 
> Lol at preventing volcanic eruptions and asteroids.


Mass starvation, epidemics, riots, etc. would do the same thing - and we know how to do that. Alternate energy to support a modern civilization does not exist. And, the UAW doesn't want to get rid of automobiles and the humongous infrastructure that makes them possible. Let's start small. We will all agree to use public transportation, turn off heat and air conditioning, and eat only what we can grow in out apartment flower boxes.

There was a shipwreck and a pragmatist and a visionary were washed up on a small island with a palm tree and nothing bur sand. Shortly afterwards a crate washed up and inside were cans of survival food. The visionary said ,"We're saved!" The pragmatist replied , "No, we have no war to open the cans. Not eve a rock." The visionary said, " There is a way. First, we assume a can opener. . . ."


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

fourtines said:


> We still have birds. They are dinosaurs.


Ah, what the hell. That topic was already ground into the dirt. I deleted my post.


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## Dosto Yevsky (Feb 9, 2014)

One thing that virtually always presents itself in this kind of discussions is the GCS - George Carlin Stance: So long and fuck us.

It has a certain entertainment value, but when you contemplate your grandchildren slowly dying out in Syria-like conditions, you'd have to be a psychopath not to care.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

Dosto Yevsky said:


> One thing that virtually always presents itself in this kind of discussions is the GCS - George Carlin Stance: So long and fuck us.
> 
> It has a certain entertainment value, but when you contemplate your grandchildren slowly dying out in Syria-like conditions, you'd have to be a psychopath not to care.


I am aware of that. . and it breaks my heart. I have hope. . . But not much belief. I think the welfare state and overbreeding will extinguish humanity long before an apocalypse.


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## Dosto Yevsky (Feb 9, 2014)

OldManRivers said:


> I am aware of that. . and it breaks my heart. I have hope. . . But not much belief. I think the welfare state and overbreeding will extinguish humanity long before an apocalypse.


It's understandable (some form of apathy) but not acceptable.

I'm less pessimistic myself... The human world and planet Earth are such complex systems, no one can predict what will happen with much accuracy. Do the best you can right now and don't focus too far ahead.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

OldManRivers said:


> Mass starvation, epidemics, riots, etc. would do the same thing - and we know how to do that. Alternate energy to support a modern civilization does not exist. And, the UAW doesn't want to get rid of automobiles and the humongous infrastructure that makes them possible. Let's start small. We will all agree to use public transportation, turn off heat and air conditioning, and eat only what we can grow in out apartment flower boxes.
> 
> There was a shipwreck and a pragmatist and a visionary were washed up on a small island with a palm tree and nothing bur sand. Shortly afterwards a crate washed up and inside were cans of survival food. The visionary said ,"We're saved!" The pragmatist replied , "No, we have no war to open the cans. Not eve a rock." The visionary said, " There is a way. First, we assume a can opener. . . ."


Industrialism really was a plague. People think it saved us, but it's sort of like getting morphine before you die of cancer...it was a temporary way to bring comfort to humanity, which lead to narcissism of epic proportions. Apparently though, life was still reasonably sustainable as recently as the 1960s...although pollution and extinction became problems by about 1900, things like the park service and the environmental protection act of 1970 started to change that.


You are right. The lifestyle we expect when combined with the number of people on earth is completely impossible to sustain.

I still think its worth trying at least to reshape the expectations of normal.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

OldManRivers said:


> There is no place to go, and no way to get there. People in the past envisioned going to heaven in a Rapture. Now they envision going to Utopia in space. Same belief. Same probability.


Some speculate there is a way to build a new atmosphere on another planet, but it takes time for a fake sped up evolution to create an atmosphere people could live in. Then there is the matter of getting there.

If this works, in time, only a small percentage of people will even be able to go there. Humanity will continue, but not any relation to its current incarnation.


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## Thalassa (Jun 10, 2010)

SuperDevastation said:


> There won't be one, everyone that has predicted such a thing were wrong.


That's a kind of ridiculous way to come to a conclusion, particularly since it's fact that the earth is, as we know it, in the process of ending. We have destroyed fresh water, food supplies, most rainforests and wet lands, and now the polar ice caps are melting. Incredibly, some people don't accept it even as its happening, their faith in man borders on the insane.

We have to slow it down, at least. We actively have to do this. Even green Christians have separated themselves from the Republican party because of it.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

fourtines said:


> Industrialism really was a plague. People think it saved us, but it's sort of like getting morphine before you die of cancer...it was a temporary way to bring comfort to humanity, which lead to narcissism of epic proportions. Apparently though, life was still reasonably sustainable as recently as the 1960s...although pollution and extinction became problems by about 1900, things like the park service and the environmental protection act of 1970 started to change that.
> 
> 
> You are right. The lifestyle we expect when combined with the number of people on earth is completely impossible to sustain.
> ...


One thing that bothers me is the naivety that we can continue to burn fossil fuel, just reduce the amount somewhat. All the oil and coal in existence was made via photosynthesis of then free CO2 over millions of years. It will take even longer to remove it via the same path only if we take the biomass out of the loop as was done originally , and that is the only method we have. But no one wants to hear that. Where we are is the best we will be in the next few millennia if we quit _now_ burning fossil biomass. And that will not be done. 

There was an lake island somewhere in the US around the end of the 19th century. It was populated with deer, elk, maybe, and wolves. In order to have a nice hunting preserve, the wolves were trapped out and hunting was by membership only. It was not too many years before the deer began dying in huge numbers, and never recovered. They had destroyed the flora that sustained them. 

Our predators, war, famine, and disease, have been greatly suppressed. Our numbers are cultivated not for trophies, but for votes. Look at the highway system: all that asphalt was from processing petroleum. That is the 5 % bottom of the oil barrel. Concrete is made by calcining limestone, fusing it with clay, and grinding up the clinker - a huge consumption of fuel. Then the mines for iron copper, nickel, producing aluminum from its oxide - all energy producers. Why?


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

OldManRivers said:


> Us large- brained primates have killed more of each other that any other predator. Where is our natural instincts for social harmony? That is a foolish dream. Subservience is what you are referring to.


Nope. It's not.

I suppose our natural instincts for social harmony can be seen in the "welfare state," which is, according to you, going to extinguish humanity! I am just as allergic to social Darwinism as to the "I really care, but I just want everyone to die" claims. So I disagree with you.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

meltedsorbet said:


> Nope. It's not.
> 
> I suppose our natural instincts for social harmony can be seen in the "welfare state," which is, according to you, going to extinguish humanity! I am just as allergic to social Darwinism as to the "I really care, but I just want everyone to die" claims. So I disagree with you.


Whether I care or not, everyone will die. That is a certainty. 
I do not believe in social Darwinism. I do believe that, if you want something, pay for it. We pay millions to be totally dependent on the government, and they are.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

OldManRivers said:


> Whether I care or not, everyone will die. That is a certainty.
> I do not believe in social Darwinism. I do believe that, if you want something, pay for it. We pay millions to be totally dependent, and we have it.


Oh...well I believe that the feelings behind "welfare" are natural and beneficial. The mechanics of how justice and compassion should be manifested are open for criticism.

I'm not going to argue with your stereotypes about the poor, but I am going to argue that love, compassion, and the desire for fairness are examples of our natural drive for social harmony, and not "subservience." 

Also, I didn't mean to infer that you, personally, do not care. I apologize because I can see how I sounded that way.


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## Bote (Jun 16, 2010)

Dosto Yevsky said:


> One thing that virtually always presents itself in this kind of discussions is the GCS - George Carlin Stance: So long and fuck us.
> 
> It has a certain entertainment value, but when you contemplate your grandchildren slowly dying out in Syria-like conditions, you'd have to be a psychopath not to care.


I am seriously getting annoyed by Carliners, too. Downright useless commentaries which only annoy those who ponder the questions seriously.

As for OP,

- quick question (I'm European): Why the hell is Yellowstone a problem?!
- Black hole: since LHC we are getting closer to creating mini black holes. I guess we will understand how to protect ourselves from them once we create them . Or maybe creating them will destroy us. Atm I don't think it would be productive to waste resources on this problem. Nearest black hole is very far away.
- Shockwave impact: Well what is the nearest star which could turn into a supernova? I'm not aware of this information. IMO we should be worried about the Sun more, since we are unable to predict it's motions or events accurately enough yet. Colonizing remote planets in the solar system is the first step.

Asteroids: I think we already have the tech for big ones which could make us extinct. Some nukes create an explosion which is 8 kilometers in diameter. Seems destructive enough to split a big asteroid and seriously reduce the mass of the pieces which will form post-impact. I am aware the pieces will still pose a problem, but we can start from this.

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Personally, I think we should also be concerned about *viruses and microbes*.


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## Eiderdrown (May 9, 2011)

fourtines said:


> Industrialism really was a plague. People think it saved us, but it's sort of like getting morphine before you die of cancer...it was a temporary way to bring comfort to humanity, which lead to narcissism of epic proportions. Apparently though, life was still reasonably sustainable as recently as the 1960s...although pollution and extinction became problems by about 1900, things like the park service and the environmental protection act of 1970 started to change that.


I totally agree, although the descent may have began even before industrialization, I think it came with the emergence of renaissance thinking, right around the time of Descartes. Ran Prieur talks about the Dark ages as being more or less the last era when humanity was organized in a bottom-up self governing system; as opposed to the top-down methods of control employed by the Roman Empire and modern governments today. I think what historians call the enlightenment are actually the dark ages of humanity; when things started to slide into mechanistic reductionism and modernity. And conversely what are called the dark ages were actually a time of ascendancy from the atrocities of the roman civilization. 

I get the feeling that most people on this forum will agree that western civilization today is visibly cracking under its own weight and that relatively soon we'll be returning to the resilient state of humanity which the dark ages and hunter gatherer peoples had. And the mass extinction is just one of these indicators, I don't think we're seeing anything new. If I remember correctly, it was Aristotle who wrote that deforestation in Greece was harming water quality; and it's the same story today with the destruction of the natural world. 

So, how to prevent the next mass extinction? I am working on chipping away the cultural paradigm which is responsible for the mass extinction from my mental space and making peace / preparing for the inevitable collapse of the physical space.


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## OldManRivers (Mar 22, 2012)

meltedsorbet said:


> Oh...well I believe that the feelings behind "welfare" are natural and beneficial. The mechanics of how justice and compassion should be manifested are open for criticism.
> 
> I'm not going to argue with your stereotypes about the poor, but I am going to argue that love, compassion, and the desire for fairness are examples of our natural drive for social harmony, and not "subservience."
> 
> Also, I didn't mean to infer that you, personally, do not care. I apologize because I can see how I sounded that way.


Apology accepted, but no great biggie. 
I worked in social services, and interned in a family shelter. I saw poverty and despair up close. I also saw scammers using the system: there are large books of "do not serve" of the professional "needy" in most social services agencies. 
The welfare department offices in the city where I worked was deliberately two blocks off the bus route. A single mother with three small children had great difficulty in managing just getting there. In rainy weather, it was not possible.
I talked to one woman who had been a former resident: She was helped financially to get a rental house, a job and community provided daycare. She had an emergency and had to spend part of the earned rent money for her child. The landlord, on the day after her rent was due, dumped her belongings on the street - and it was stolen or broken. Back at the shelter she told me she did not have the courage to try again.

One healthy, sane male refused to work. He said, "Why should I work when I have a place to live and $500 a month spending money?

We may be much closer in belief than either of us think. There are truly hurting people who deserve help, and make the most of it. 
There are others -
A middle-aged man who was mentally ill and was in and out of the state hospital had over 25 children. He put himself up for stud, and women came to him because his children drew "crazy checks" as they called it - and he got 10 percent from each. 
Compassion? No, pity and disgust.


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## Brother (Sep 21, 2013)

Mass extinction event?


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## Fern (Sep 2, 2012)

It doesn't even matter.


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## Ianius Darkstar (Feb 13, 2014)

This post really took off. Lots of mind expanders. Even that last one in a way. I especially liked what the cats had to say. Deep, plus It read like how i imagine two different cat's would talk.

I also love that there was a massive argument about dinosaurs in the middle.

I don't have solutions to the usual global killers, however I came up with something to tackle over-population....

What if, the UN implemented a scheme where food and fuel become a lot more expensive, however each person has a social discount card which administers a discount on food and fuel. Each person has an account in a monitoring government department, and each persons discount is in proportion to how much of our lives have been spent employed in a field which directly sustains the planet (i.e. meat cloning, solar power, forestry)

Its sort of an anti-tax. Obviously it'd be more complicated, especially where social welfare and the very poor and uneducated are concerned. Also yeah it'd be abused, but the discount could be reduced as punishment.

Another thought - If we figured out a way of harnessing kinetic energy from the physical act of love mankind would have finally trumped nature. The devices I'm picturing would probably cause internal burning though and they'd definitely be a kill-joy.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Ianius Darkstar said:


> I don't have solutions to the usual global killers, however I came up with something to tackle over-population....


Overpopulation: Myth.


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## Dragunov (Oct 2, 2013)

HAL said:


> Overpopulation: Myth.


All that video proved is that saving them will lead to overpopulation. According to him saving them will lead to a 4 billion increase in population. Did you even watch the video?


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## Sunn (Mar 12, 2014)

It's a cold point of view but personally I wouldn't see the issue with a chunk of the worlds population dropping off the face of the planet. Even if it was me.

We already last beyond our natural means through medicine and technology, we're finding cures for diseases meant to lower populations, but yet we continue to believe we can just live on Earth as if it can sustain ALL of us indefinitely when it can't.


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Dragunov said:


> All that video proved is that saving them will lead to overpopulation. According to him saving them will lead to a 4 billion increase in population. Did you even watch the video?


Moron.

He's saying that if we raise societies out of poverty they'll reduce their birthrate to two children per family and the population will settle at 11 billion. That's a comfortable number and it could even reduce if peoples' lives get comfortable enough for them to maybe even reduce to having just one child per couple.

However if things are left unchanged, populations will continue to grow exponentially.

The solution to overpopulation is to end poverty. That's what the video was saying.


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## Dragunov (Oct 2, 2013)

HAL said:


> Moron.
> 
> He's saying that if we raise societies out of poverty they'll reduce their birthrate to two children per family and the population will settle at 11 billion. That's a comfortable number and it could even reduce if peoples' lives get comfortable enough for them to maybe even reduce to having just one child per couple.
> 
> ...


That video makes way too many assumptions and what makes you think that 11 billion is a comfortable number considering the current state of things?


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## BlackShugar (Apr 29, 2014)

Yeah, there one thing we can definitely do. Now, repeat with me,

"Our Father who art in heaven....."


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## HAL (May 10, 2014)

Dragunov said:


> That video makes way too many assumptions and what makes you think that 11 billion is a comfortable number considering the current state of things?


What _is_ the current state of things?

What's the viable alternative to the population settling at 11 billion and then declining as living standards increase?


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