reply on: What possible future (technological) breakthrough might be a grave mistake? \ stacker news ~science

21 sats \ 11 replies \ @kr 23 Jan \ parent \ on: What possible future (technological) breakthrough might be a grave mistake? science

What about the ongoing hunger in the Eastern parts of the globe?

extreme hunger was once pretty common around the world, but technology has eliminated this problem from many people’s lives.

https://ourworldindata.org/famines

undernourishment and malnourishment are still issues affecting 10-20% of the world (which i’m optimistic will eventually be solved), but extreme hunger and famines are quite rare today.

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @Fabs OP 23 Jan

And we could eliminate the rest, too.

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @kr 23 Jan

i think we will.

but this is getting off-track, my original question was if you can share any good examples of human action (or lack of action) leading to total catastrophe? i’m specifically thinking about things that once they are broken cannot be fixed.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @Fabs OP 23 Jan

good examples of human action (or lack of action) leading to total catastrophe?

Acting accordingly on the many warnings we've received decades ago on the impending (and lasting) damage that were to happen to our ecology, ecosystems and climate if we were to not change our habits and reduce our ecological footprint, and reduce our consumption of - but not limited to - fossil fuels.

I'd say we're well on our way.

I dont know why you're so stubborn on acknowledging that we Sapiens could very well be digging our own grave, we aren't the "Juwel of evolution" that we like to portray ourselves to be - we're special, that's true, but not in a good way.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @kr 23 Jan

i agree we’re headed in a bad direction, but i’m not sure total catastrophe is going to be the result.

space exploration, nuclear energy, and a host of other innovations could help reduce our ecological footprint.

fossil fuels are efficient compared to wood and whale oil, but i don’t think they are the most efficient forms of energy humans will ever create.

239 sats \ 6 replies \ @Fabs OP 23 Jan

See?

That's the thing;

We're talking about fancy things like "Space exploration" and "Colonizing new planets" - we've got some practise on the latter after all, gotta make use of that - but fail to fix our shit at home (Planet Earth).

Once we've got a new fancy planet ready for the wealthy, Earth can go to shit anyway, so why care, huh?

21 sats \ 5 replies \ @kr 23 Jan

My favorite line on this topic came from a recent discussion i had with Geoffrey West.

he said something to the effect of “it is possible to have open-ended growth, but the price we pay is that the pace of life gets faster and faster”.

the high level idea was that if we want to keep improving our standard of living, we need to continue innovating (things like space travel for example) at a faster and faster rate.

what if leaving earth to travel into space is the way to fix earth?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Fabs OP 23 Jan

Also; If we need to accelerate and accelerate in order to move forward, would'nt stagnation or shrinkage spell Doom?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr 23 Jan

possibly

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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Fabs OP 23 Jan

Space travel seems like a resource-intensive undertaking, how would that fix our problems on earth?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 23 Jan

the idea would be that by living on other planets or in space, we aren’t consuming the resources of earth at the same rate

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