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I think many people around the world are clueless about how we are at the cusp of ecological tipping points whereby, basic life support services that the Biosphere provides is almost at the point of ending. Plankton dieoff in the oceans and other threats to ocean ecoystems, fresh water suppplies dwindling , insect dieoff, cumulative waste, chemical interactions and overexposure, phosphate depletions etc. Many people are aware of CC, but few seem wary as they should be of the tremendous negative impact our numbers and ways of living is exerting on the functionality and integrity of ecological support systems. Here is an article that informs of some of this. https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... study-says

The problem is the human overshoot population. The solution is a massive human die-back to a sustainable population. That would have already happened with any species not intelligent. However, humans and their computers may just pull through, battered and changed by the experience in ways - both physical and cultural - that we cannot yet imagine. But the planet will never be the same as before the human overshoot occurred.

Technology.

Yeah, I'm a Luddite, 50 years ago I had an "Earthrise" poster on my wall, and yet I'm an early adopter of all types of technology. Here is an entertaining story, kinda seasonal, that shows just how we will kill this world and not give it a second thought.

Glitter

We are headed for the all-time perfect storm of civilization collapse due to both exogenous and endogenous shocks. People will not be going back to the farms as they did during some of the previous events. There will be mostly die off. The current deluded elites and snowflake group-think drones will not adapt.

I'm still wondering why people think civilization will collapse. It never has before, and (although mathematicly a non-zero probability) it seems unlikely to do so.

Even if 90% of the humans die, that's 780 million people left. If 99% die, that's 78 million left. If 99.9% die, still 7.8 milllion humans. Plenty of humans to have electronics, TV, mechanized farms, annoying sales calls on your phone, governments and tax collectors, all the "benefits" of civilization.

KaiserJeep wrote:I'm still wondering why people think civilization will collapse. It never has before .......

Societal collapse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse

14 Ancient Civilizations That Collapsed
https://ancientcivilizationsworld.com/collapsed/

Why do civilizations collapse?
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/ ... -collapse/

Lessons From The Last Time Civilization Collapsed
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2014/ ... -collapsed

Ten Civilizations or Nations That Collapsed From Drought
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffM ... ought.html

Why do civilizations collapse?
https://science.howstuffworks.com/envir ... llapse.htm

Annenberg Learner Interactives: Collapse

Explore the fall of civilizations through four examples: the ancient Maya, Mesopotamia, the Anasazi, and the medieval African empires of Mali and Songhai.
https://www.learner.org/interactives/collapse/

Maybe you think we're ignorant. Or maybe your technological hubris lets you think we're somehow different.

KaiserJeep wrote:I'm still wondering why people think civilization will collapse. It never has before, and (although mathematicly a non-zero probability) it seems unlikely to do so.

Even if 90% of the humans die, that's 780 million people left. If 99% die, that's 78 million left. If 99.9% die, still 7.8 milllion humans. Plenty of humans to have electronics, TV, mechanized farms, annoying sales calls on your phone, governments and tax collectors, all the "benefits" of civilization.

And I have to agree with the point you and Tanada have both made in the past -- "collapse" to a much smaller (and possibly sustainable) human population could take several centuries or more. It doesn't have to be the super fast zombie apocalypse vision the fast crashers seem to crave.

One might even call that more of an evolution than a "collapse".

Ancient civilizations collapsed when the population died off because knowledge existed only in people's heads. They were vulnerable to pandemics, wars, and crop failures due to CC, all of which have been happening continuously over the last two millenia without any loss of knowledge. In today's society, everybody has a significant portion of the sum total of knowledge as far away as the nearest mobile device. There are offline copies in every library, printed on paper. Nothing will be lost.

Hollywood strikes again.

Kaiser, what good is knowledge when you cannot breathe the air or not sufficient breathable air, when the soils to grow crops are dead, when the water ieither is insufficient to grow food and/or too polluted to drink. When radiation blankets the planet. When the landscape is denuded of wild crops and animals. I think you yourself have hinted that we are inexorably creating a ravaged barren planet. Better hope the space faring plans are progressing with celerity

The air on earth has been breathable for hundreds of millions of years through higher global co2 levels and temperatures. It's hubris to think humans are or can change that.

Cog wrote:The air on earth has been breathable for hundreds of millions of years through higher global co2 levels and temperatures. It's hubris to think humans are or can change that.

Look up HydrogenSulfide escape during the Great Dying. Also, Plankton dieoff in recent times

What good is knowledge when so many choose to ignore it?

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
One might even call that more of an evolution than a "collapse".

good point and one we should consider far more seriously than the teetering on the edge of tipping points.

Ibon wrote:

Outcast_Searcher wrote:
One might even call that more of an evolution than a "collapse".

good point and one we should consider far more seriously than the teetering on the edge of tipping points.

Accelerated evolution is often the result of forcing (tipping points included), and evolutionary events often result in failure to evolve in time to prevent extinctions. Considering the the high rate of extinctions we've been party to, this is a rather extreme forcing event. It may be hubris to assume humans will emerge from this round of evolutionary forcing as the dominant species, or emerge at all.

KaiserJeep wrote:Ancient civilizations collapsed when the population died off because knowledge existed only in people's heads. They were vulnerable to pandemics, wars, and crop failures due to CC, all of which have been happening continuously over the last two millennia without any loss of knowledge. In today's society, everybody has a significant portion of the sum total of knowledge as far away as the nearest mobile device. There are offline copies in every library, printed on paper. Nothing will be lost.

Hollywood strikes again.

This used to be one of my favorite arguments against a hard crash into a dark age.
I now think the first Dark Ages disagree, we'll voluntarily give up knowledge for power, a la Lord of the Flies.

Everyone with access to Google can be a 5 minute expert in anything. I do it for most any post consisting of more than "LOL." Helps win an online argument but makes one think experts (elites) who spend a lifetime studying a particular subject are overrated. I read some guy said about Brexit: "Yeahbutt whaddabout the experts that built the Titanic?" I assume he wants non-experts designing airliners? Lots here will probably agree.

IRL we're moving into a future of owners, automation and ultra-specialists. While at the same time a huge swath believes elites are the problem and yearn for a strongman to tell them what they want to hear and punish whatever scapegoat comes to hand.

There is a popular backlash against higher education (liberal indoctrination) and experts (elites). We even have a POTUS elected by those people now. He is the first to tell you he has a Big Brain and a great Gut Instinct about science supposedly due to—or evidenced by— the fact his uncle is a science professor. His spokesperson defends "alternate facts" and he himself directs, "Just stick with us, don't believe what you see or read" — and a huge number don't. Hard to square that with a belief that printed textbooks will keep us from descending into tribal chaos and worshiping a pig's head on a pike

Take anti-vaxxers. I can clearly remember lining up at the county health department to get my sugar cube, perhaps one of my earliest memories. My step-dad had polio as a child and walked with a limp, it was a big deal. Anti-vaxxers are vehemently opposed because their belief in a conspiracy long disproven is greater than their actual experience of what serious disease epidemics can bring—they know better than the experts because they read/saw it online/TV.

For a simpler analogy (because lots of people here probably believe vaccines are an illuminati plot), a young relative of mine walked home in a snowstorm wearing flip-flops once because she was not taught to fear frostbite, but was taught the myth of Stranger-Danger and to be terrified of the lady in uniform who offered her a ride home—this on an Army post. She'd been indoctrinated not to trust strangers and now suffers whenever her feet get cold, and is lucky at that.

We might not lose knowledge but we are already moving to discredit it for the sake of belief.


Pages I googled to become expert in everything I just wrote:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-anti- ... n-epidemic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/polit ... 80724.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... ation-bias
https://www.quora.com/Philosophy-Is-it- ... -knowledge
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/ke ... the-flies/

Pops, your last point reminds me of a sociological study of two adjacent neighborhoods in Chicago. During the deadly heatwave of '95, one neighborhood suffered very many deaths, the other, hardly any at all. After ruling out a number of other possible factors, the sociologist concluded that the difference was community cohesion.

The neighborhood with few casualties, known as Little Village, had a tightly knit community with many community spaces where people hung out and got to know each other, to trust each other, and to look after each other. So these places also became the places where people came to check on each other and to know who to go check on.

The other neighborhood (I forgot the name) had gone through some demographic disruptions, and in any case had never been as close knit as Little Village. The media didn't help when the overplayed stories of robberies, and misrepresented the relative danger, so lots of (especially older) residents kept their windows closed for fear of robbery, and ended up basically roasting in their own beds.

See further at: Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Klinenberg
https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/book ... 09880.html

The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg (1989, 1991)

dohboi wrote:Pops, your last point reminds me of a sociological study of two adjacent neighborhoods in Chicago. During the deadly heatwave of '95, one neighborhood suffered very many deaths, the other, hardly any at all. After ruling out a number of other possible factors, the sociologist concluded that the difference was community cohesion.

Very good.
Showing another downside to the rise of sensationalist clickbait media, let alone the silos of the net.

Pops wrote:

dohboi wrote:Pops, your last point reminds me of a sociological study of two adjacent neighborhoods in Chicago. During the deadly heatwave of '95, one neighborhood suffered very many deaths, the other, hardly any at all. After ruling out a number of other possible factors, the sociologist concluded that the difference was community cohesion.

Very good.
Showing another downside to the rise of sensationalist clickbait media, let alone the silos of the net.

Yep, this is why I laugh every time I read on this site the predictions from the clueless that Central and South America will suffer devastating consequences of peak oil and climate change while the USA will remain resilient.

GHung wrote: It may be hubris to assume humans will emerge from this round of evolutionary forcing as the dominant species, or emerge at all.

In spite of Tanada reminding me of the contrary based on the historical record I fully believe that the humans who emerge from upcoming consequences will lose a bit of that hubris regarding their dominance and actually experience some spiritual epiphanies in understanding that they are an integral part of the community of life. A keystone species perhaps but not dominant.

It is the hubris of dominance which will undermine the hubris of dominance.

Somebody claimed that civilization has never collapsed before. What nonsense. The Maya, Sumerians, Harappa Linky and others disappeared due to regional climate change. Today we are facing similar or worse climate change on a global scale. There is nowhere to run and the notion of modern civilization surviving is absurd.

Techno-cornucopia believers probably think we will adapt to climate change via engineering. We can't even adapt to the looming collapse of oil and natural gas and instead pretend that BAU will last forever. When the farms, fisheries and forests are collapsing it will be too late to start building sci-fi agricultural domes. There will be no economy to support such projects. Any faith in technology to save humanity is delusional since it is based on pop-culture sci-fi BS. Technology in sci-fi evolves on demand and essentially with no time cost. Exponential progress to utopia is a pure delusion. We are still using internal combustion engines but should have had Mr. Fusion devices.

How is food going to reach the billions of people who depend on it being available in sufficiently large amounts and which requires an enormous fossil-fuel burning logistics chain? Overnight all the transport and harvesting will transition to solar and wind energy? In what fantasy world? Economics is not about optimizing technological solutions. And money does make the world go round. There will be no money for boutique solutions to replace the economically preferred ones since there will be a state of economic collapse. I suppose we could have a command economy imposed by a dictatorship. But the technology is not something that materializes through desire and the force of will.

Some humans will survive. So what.