Anyone else questioned their sanity after AMA with Luke Kemp here? | TheaterFire

Anyone else questioned their sanity after AMA with Luke Kemp here?

Posted by arkH3@reddit | collapse | View on Reddit | 267 comments

Anyone else felt down after the AMA with Luke Kemp here on r/collapse earlier this week? A bit of a rant.

My heart sunk when someone asked Luke whether we should be worried about extinction and he reaponded that it was highly improbable for probably millenia...

Luke seems to be doing well in promoting his book - podcast appearances, event appearances, interviews, this AMA here... And it seems his work is divorced from awareness of ecological collapse, ocean ecosystems collapse, the pace of climate collapse, accumulation of toxicity and all the stuff and that the prognosis very likely features a massive population collapse this century, and probable end of liveable conditions on the planet for any big population. (Although yes, I seek consolation in thinking that "extinction" may be interpreted as no members of the species surviving... which would make the statement less out of touch qjat what I believe to be reality).

I know that the closer we go to mainstream, the less people see things in alignment with most of us here in the subreddit.

But this instance... and him speaking here, and the comments there generally praising the book, no dissent... really made me question my sanity for a couple of hours. I was thinking if I was actually hallucinating, and reality was somewhere very different from what I thought available evidence was pointing at.

I guess, in my mind, I painted this subreddit as a place where views like that don't pass. A bit of a safe haven. And this shook me, I guess.

I guess me writing this post is me seeking validation/confirmation.

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clv101@reddit

95%+ is not extinction. For almost the entirety of our species history we numbered significantly less than 100,000 individuals, returning to that level would represent a 99.9% population collapse - and we'd be fine! Could continue at that kind of level for hundreds of thousands of years - as we have in the past.

Extinction has a very precise meaning and there is no reason to think it is happening this century.

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TheOldPug@reddit

For almost the entirety of our species history we numbered significantly less than 100,000 individuals

But the climate was stable, there were no microplastics, and those 100K individuals were surrounded by thriving biodiversity.

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Pearl83Mice@reddit

Keep in mind that in the entire history of our species we’ve never had the kind of climate (and thus environmental) change that we are experiencing now and worse in the coming decades. If plants and animals are also experiencing massive losses, this drastically limits our available resources to survive. We are a part of the ecosystem and when enough portions collapse, so do we.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

This seems to be lost on some of the commenters here.

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Gniggins@reddit

Weve scraped the earth of all the easily available resources in ancient times.

Not enough game animals even with us dying out to return to hunter gather life, too much top soil degradation means farming without nitrate fertilizers wont feed us again.

Ocean acidification is cratering what we can harvest from the sea with modern tech, good luck doing it in a wooden canoe old school like.

Plus the apex predator never survives shit beneath them getting wiped out, which describes us.

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

Op I’m with you, there was some hopium peddling by Kemp, he seemed optimistic as a personality

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I am also optimistic as a personality, that's not incompatjble with concluding that available science points to the majority of the population being wiped out later this century. ;)

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

Even if 100,000 humans survive to 2200, their chance of survival after that is zero. The conditions changed and will change big time from hospitable to inhospitable/unlivable

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

We are on the same page. And a lot of people here are on a very different page, which is new to me, but now I know 👍

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

And how tragic 7.9b people dying and more animals and plants going with. It’s fucked

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Uber_Alleyways@reddit

Another thing is the emergent threats. Could be anything from PFOA bombs from flooding, to unforeseen consequences of methane in the atmosphere. These on top of the obvious will likely have an impact.

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FantasticOutside7@reddit

Black swans…

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captainstormy@reddit

Except there have been massive changes to the earths climate that significantly impacted humanity more than once in history. Super volcano's erupting plunging the whole world into a massive winter is just one example.

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

This seems consistent with the view you are opposing. Your article itself says that this change to climate had people almost vanish. Now we have are faced with a few additional challenges that place constrainsts on humanity's ability to reproduce itself and a society long-term. I.e. the chances being lower than when people almost vanished. ?

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes, I appreciate that difference in interpretation of the word.

At the same time, when in the past a small humanity survived for hundreds of thousands of years, not all conditions were as they are now on the planet, or where we are headed, were they? When it comes to infertility trends, toxicity, etc? Nor was the planet outside of equillibrium completely - I thought the last time that happened was millions of years back?

I think what you say is invalid as a precedent.

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clv101@reddit

Sure, there are scenarios that could finish us off, toxicity and infertility would top that list. Nothing's impossible. But remember our species did survive glacial / interglacial cycles. It's not asking much of the planet for there to remain some niche, or a few, where populations in the tens of thousands could exist.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

At current infertility rates, Global North males would reach somewhere near 0% sperm count around 2035+. Not considering female infertility's effects. Of course, one could argue that Global North numbers are not representative of the whole world - but if the underlying causes are things like exposure to toxicity, on average, things may be worse, not better, in the Global South. This constraint to reproduction was never there in the past glacial eras. Nor are the causes of this constraint going to go away anytime soon.
Micro and nano plastics have been found even in areas considered pristine / untouched by human, the stuff circulates the globe. So in asking for a niche that is a) reachable by a surviving pocket with decent fertility rates b) itself stable enough and its gradual accumulation in contamination is not decisive... I would say it is not asking little. Not implausible. But not highly probable.

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the_pwnererXx@reddit

This seems like a baseless extrapolation

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

It's actually based on scientific evidence.

Which part or parts do you think is baseless? Maybe I can add pointers.

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the_pwnererXx@reddit

I'd like you to back your claim that infertility rates are going to be 100% in a decade

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I said sperm counts would be "near 0%", just to be clear. I've shared the evidence somewhere on reddit before, I will add it here later today when I am on my desktop (much easier to copy paste). Hang on. (You can also google that meanwhile, or someone under my earlier comment on this also posted the wikipedia page on "infertility crisis"). But I'll share the evidence and reasoning. 👍

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the_pwnererXx@reddit

You may be referencing this study by Shanna swan

The issue attracted media attention after a 2017 meta-analysis found that sperm counts in Western countries had declined by 52.4 percent between 1973 and 2011

And linearly projecting this trend to reach 0. That projection itself is baseless

Heres a quote from Shanna swan from a Yale interview, saying the same thing

If you extend the line of sperm counts for Western men, it hits zero in 2045. If that were to happen, the median sperm count would be zero, which means that half of men would be azoospermic — that is, having no sperm. The other half would have quite low sperm counts. However, that’s an extrapolation quite a way from the data, which is risky. It’s particularly risky for biological systems because when you approach a lower limit, the curve will have to flatten out.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/stealth-chemicals-a-call-to-action-on-a-threat-to-human-fertility

Here's a recent study from a Danish sperm bank showing no change over 7 years

https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/no-evidence-sperm-counts-are-dropping-researchers-find/

In the new study, however, statistical analysis of sperm samples provided by the men applying to be sperm donors showed that while the average sperm concentration varied from year to year, it did not change significantly over a six-year period

So, I'd consider your claim debunked. Guess we aren't going extinct by sperm count, eh?

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

There is a lot to comment on here. (The most important part is in the end).

1) Yes that is the study.

2) The flattening curve effect is precisely why I say exactly "near 0%" and not zero, although in our book we say "between 0% and 10%", as an estimate. And I appreciate that saying just "near 0" sounds like "0.2%". I will make sure to be more accurate in communicating this extrapolation in the future, to avoid confusion.

I do not think the quote by Swan contradicts my argument at all, it actually supports it. Why do you think it contradicts it? Its the very fact that many men would be completely unviable and the rest with significantly diminished viability that is at the core of the problem.

3) The Danish study is a much smaller sample size, isn't it? And Sperm bank donours may not be representative of a broader population, given the demographic bias?

4) You have actually misrepresented my claim and then declared it debunked. I do claim that extinction will happen due to 0% sperm count. But that small pockets of survivors (who survived other causes of mass loss of life) will have difficulty maintaining their population, among other things because of fertility issues. The decisive metric here is birth rate being higher than 2.1 children per woman, not sperm counts as such. Trends in sperm counts are indicators of the increasing constraints of humanity's ability to hit the 2.1 children per woman mark.

To my knowledge, we do not have science on what % of average sperm counts and what % of fertile women are the minimal threshold for 2.1 children per woman being viable (do we?). And then, please add all the other factors that make 2.1 children per woman improbable in post 2040 world. (Let alone "millenia" ahead). There is a good summary here in the root comments, not by me.

So... I do not consider my claim debunked. I consider you debunking an argument you projected onto me debunked.

And I am also drawing conclusions here, as you are.

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the_pwnererXx@reddit

Your lack of response is telling, consider yourself pwned

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the_pwnererXx@reddit

I don't see any evidence to suggest that flattening would happen at a level of infertility, rather than just lower than previous levels. You are again, extrapolating to meet your bias far beyond what the data actually is showing

Here's another study from the US of 12000 men.

examined 11,787 men across 58 studies from 1970-2018 and found no clinically significant decline in sperm concentration among fertile men. The study actually found a significant increase in total sperm count of 2.9 million per year.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39128669

Also, that Danish study has 6000 participants and is not by any means small for the claim you are making.

Here's a counter from Harvard researchers, which calls into question the entire methodology of the swan study

SCB asserts that sperm count varies within a wide range, much of which can be considered non-pathological and species-typical, and that knowledge about the relationship between individual and population sperm count and life-historical and ecological factors is critical to interpreting trends

"above the threshold necessary for fertility, there is no basis to assume that high average population sperm counts are optimal," nor that Western sperm counts in the 1970s constitute a species-typical baseline

Richardson and colleagues found that the research claimed causal links between declining sperm counts and declining fertility, as well as between exposures to certain environmental chemicals and lower sperm counts, but neither of these assumptions are supported by scientific or geographic evidence. The jump from "sperm counts are lower" to "fertility is declining" to "chemicals are the cause" involves multiple unproven steps.

https://www.genderscilab.org/blog/sperm-count-biovariation-an-introduction-and-primer

And I think this in direct contradiction to your claims. Now you are clearly moving the goal posts on sperm count and saying it's more about birth rate (and making another baseless claim that lower sperm counts are the cause of lower birth rates). A birth rate below 2.1 does not cause extinction any time soon, even if it dropped to 0.5. You basically claimed it's going to 0, which is a completely different thing.

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clv101@reddit

Read Shanna Swan's book and the big meta study on fertility decline. The evidence for decline is clear, there are many contributing factors. Detailed understanding of the interplay is not well understood and it is wrong to assume current trajectories will lead to 0% and absurd to assume that even if we did reach 0% the decline would be linear.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Importantly, nobody claims we'd reach 0% here. That's u/the_pwnererXx inserting words in my mouth that the (unedited) comment actually doesn't contain.

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poop-machines@reddit

No, no, no and no.

You're claiming 0% fertility. No fertile males at all in the global north. None. 0% sperm count.

You don't see how problematic that is?

Really I feel like missing the glaring error of extrapolating data to such an extreme prediction makes the rest of what you say invalid. And actually I don't believe you did extrapolate data, I think you just maybe heard that sperm rates were dropping so you assumed it would be worse than the predictions. But your prediction is impossible unless they chipped every man's balls off and didn't let anybody from the global south move to the global north without chopping their balls.

Impossible.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Can you re-read it please? It says "somewhere near 0% sperm count%. That's not 0%. But that is actually secondary. The point is that in order for any population to survuve, you need more than 2.1 children per woman. I mentioned declining sperm rates (at already measured rates), and female infertility here as causes. And of course there are other factors that would reduce chances of a woman having more than 2.1 children - see among the root comments, there is a very good one (not by me).

Coming back to "near 0% sperm count", it is in fact extrapolation of trend - please hand on, like I said below, I will copy-paste the reasoning and evidence.

Your point about Global South men shows you don't know a whole lot about realities in the Global South. Or do you? What makes you think sperm counts there would be better, on average?

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poop-machines@reddit

You're conflating reproduction rare with sperm count.

Humans in most countries in the north are already below the reproduction rate, which is an average of 2.1(ish) births per two people. This number is not 0% sperm count or anything like it. It just means that every two people have on average 2.1 kids.

The reason why people are having less kids isn't because of falling sperm rates (primarily) although they do factor in. The reason why is because more couples are having 0 kids. People are having kids much later, and putting off trying until they are in their mid 30s in many cases, which has a much greater effect on fertility than anything else.

In the past, people would try in the early 20s or even earlier.

So the issue is that people are having kids later.

Sperm rates being even close to 0% would mean that everyone is classed as being infertile. Here's why: you need a critical mass of sperm to make reproduction likely. At the moment we aren't close to reaching that.

There is also temporary factors that affect "sperm rates" results. For example, using a laptop on your lap can literally make you temporarily infertile. This was actually explored as a potential contraceptive but it was found to be too inconsistent and some people's sperm was more resistant.

Anyway, you are confusing what's essentially a 100% reproduction rate with 0%. And confusing reproduction rate with sperm count.

Very very different things.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Let me take back one part (without editing the post, not to be accused of editing my argument): I did not mean to make a personal attack re Global South knowledge. I guess I was starting to get agitated with some of the tone here, and got carried away. Please ignore what I say about your knowledge of GS, just go to "What makes you think sperm counts would be better, on average, in the Global South"? That way we can argue on the level of reasoning. Thank you for your patience.

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Buetti@reddit

all of this still happens with temperatures (and CO2 Levels) being within a certain frame. Also, the effects weren't global.

Basically: climate conditions have been relatively stable since our ancestors were still climbing on trees. This has changed. there's no comparison with "what has been".

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

YES!!!!

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epadafunk@reddit

How is extinction open to interpretation though? Extinction means that every individual member of a species dies. Zero individuals alive. We've got a long way to go for that. Things can be so bad compared to now and we won't be extinct as a species.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Technically not open to interpretation. I am speaking about personal mental frame of reference. When I'd hear extinction, until now for me that meant something along the lines of "population collapse to very small numbers". Somebody else here in the comments gets it and suggests this is actually very common - that when people ask about extinction, they are actually asking about the prospects of majority of people dying. Not about the technical point of reaching 0.

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gatohaus@reddit

This. I think most people would choose the word “extinction” if you asked them what they would call a nearly total die-off of a species. Technically incorrect but casually acceptable.

I don’t see the value in getting pedantic about it in a social forum.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Well... a lot of people here see value in being pedantic about it :). Look at the downvotes. I am happy to afford them the victory on this point. I am happy to be precise in ny use of this term going forward.

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FakeGamer2@reddit

Im sorry but there's no frame of reference you shoukd be using the word extinction to mean society collapse. The tobacco eruption 70k hears ago got humans down to just a few thousand people and we bounced back to billions. I think you're underestimating just how adaptive we are. And I think you're underestimating the planets resiliency too.

Life has survived giant asteroid impacts, giant volcanic eruptions that emitted more co2 than humans could ever hope to output. Just because we are fucking up tje planet now doesnt mean earth is going to turn into Venus

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JCPY00@reddit

I’ve never in my life heard anybody use the word extinction to mean anything other than 100% gone until this thread.

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GN0K@reddit

If the 5% left are incel tech bros stuck in their bunkers I'd say that's functionality extinct.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

"functionally extinct" is a useful distinction, pertinent to a lot of the debate here.

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SimpleAsEndOf@reddit

What is dead may never die.

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HumblSnekOilSalesman@reddit

Not disagreeing, just adding to the conversation. Extinction is when no individuals of a species remain alive, meaning the species can no longer reproduce.

A mass extinction is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity of life on Earth, where at least 75% of all species go extinct within a relatively short geological period.

The current rate of atmospheric change, driven by human activity, is occurring at a speed that is at least 10 times faster than the changes that caused past mass extinctions.

The rate of biodiversity loss is alarming, with a 73% average decline in monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2020. Freshwater species have seen the most severe global decline, with an 83% drop in population size. Species are disappearing at a rate 10 to 1,000 times faster than the natural extinction rate.

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. Life's resilience is contingent on many variables, and with unprecedented conditions we can expect unprecedented outcomes.

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LastCivStanding@reddit

What kind of economy would 100k people have? Mining and refining minerals is a huge complex job. It would take thousands of people. Whose going to make computers? The minimum viable population for a modern economy is very high and if they take shortcuts it's very likely they will continue to pollute the earth in unsustainable ways. The economy will quickly devolve into subsistence farming with some scavenging for materials. It will be a very hard life and given the changes to weather, probably not survive able.

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clv101@reddit

LOL, what kind of economy? A neolithic one! That's our species standard operating procedure. The last few thousand years are not typical.

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Chill_Panda@reddit

Not full extinction no, but you cannot say we will not live through an extinction period the worst this planet has ever seen.

And saying we have lived with less than 100,000 individuals is a bit of a pointless statement when looking to the future, because those 100,000 individuals will never have experienced the world we are heading for.

Never mind the fact that we are not course correcting and if we don’t we’ll be mars by 2100

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nospecialsnowflake@reddit

Yeah, i thought the atmosphere was going to change over time to make earth more uninhabitable by all oxygen breathing species…

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theStaircaseProject@reddit

That’s my thought. 100,000 people in a world of seasons they neither understand nor can any longer predict. Who’s going to pollinate? Who’s going to disperse? What will the stragglers eat if everything that’s not a Savannah grass is getting flooded, scorched, or pulled out by intense winds.

When the “100,000” existed, the world was very very different, I agree, as if those 100,000 are going to “Renegade” their way to an agrarian commune.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes. Saying the same numbers survived in the past is invalid reasoning. The conditions were vastly different from what we are headed into.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

yes! Thank you. Some logical reasoning here.

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JHandey2021@reddit

Faith in near-term human extinction is not required to participate in r/collapse. Is it? If it is, the mods should rename the subreddit to "r/neartermextinction" and be done with it.

Otherwise, there will be a range of opinions, and, to be frank, this feet-stamping tantrum that ONLY MY WAY IS THE TRUE WAY!!!! is yet another example of the overall decline of discussion here. Have you taken a look at "Goliath's Curse"? I just got it and was holding it in my hand a few minutes ago. Whatever else you think it is, it's not lightweight.

A long, long time ago, I participated on and off on a forum called Metafilter. Interesting discussions way back when (they really hated Reddit, FYI). But there was a bit of the disappearing-up-ones-own-ass that started happening there, too, the purity tests, the almost aggressive unpleasantness towards newbies, etc. One day, a couple of jackasses started slagging David Graeber, the late anthropologist, for being an intellectual lightweight because they didn't like his book "Debt".

Well, Graeber showed up and made them look like utter fools, ending with the (accurate) observation that many MeFites seemed to be trying to drive people away. The gap between Internet sniping and real scholarship was vast.

This is starting to get old.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

It thought casual Friday was the time to be open and discuss our not always rational reactions and patterns. I have been disabused of the idea with vehemence.

And have also been taught thay I need to add lots of disclaimers, because people will assign very different meaning to what I say than I do, then they will get upset at the meaning they assigned, and then scold me for me it. I.e. they'll have the same reaction I had to Luke's statement, but will think they have higher ground 👍

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JHandey2021@reddit

Um… not entirely understanding your thought process.

You make a long post, expressing - quite clearly - your disappointment that someone did not toe the line that you think they should have, and beyond that, stating that this somehow violated your sense of safety (apologies about not being precise on that last bit, but you were so infuriated by several people calling you out that you apparently deleted almost your entire original post and replaced it with passive-aggressive “edits”). And then you repeatedly stated - again, clearly - that you feel entitled to being insulated from dissenting views (and once again, let’s remember that most responses were broadly SUPPORTIVE of your original point!)

Doesn't sound very “casual” to me. Quite the opposite, in fact.

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earthkincollective@reddit

It thought casual Friday was the time to be open and discuss our not always rational reactions and patterns. I have been disabused of the idea with vehemence.

Dude. If it's casual enough for you to be allowed to share your real feelings and opinions, then it's equally allowed for others to do the same in response.

You feeling like "casual Fridays" is a lie here isn't because you were prevented from freely sharing in any way. You just don't want others to be able to do the same. 🤦

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Uou are right about me not liking when other people share when they disagree with you - that's clearly the case for most of us, I accept being called out for that.

My comment here was a reaction to you suggesting that I said that belief in near term extinction was a requirement for being here. That's you embellishing what I wrote / interpreting it wrongly, beyond what I ever meant. And then scolding me for your projection onto my words. I hope you can accept that's not untrue.

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earthkincollective@reddit

My previous comment was my first in this particular thread, so I think you might be conflating me with someone else.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes, that's right. Sorry, I lost track.

I would still say my comment above could help explain my takeaway about casual Friday and the need to add disclaimers - several of people here have vehemently objected to what they thought I wrote or thought I meant when I wrote it in my original post, not in an open-minded way, but in a "you are an idiot for suggesting what I am convinced you were suggesting" way. So what you say in your comment is partly true, and partly you probably missed why I said I had to adjuct my expectations about casual Fridays.

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jhau01@reddit

My heart sunk when someone asked Luke whether we should be worried about extinction and he reaponded that it was highly improbable for probably millenia...

I will qualify this by saying that I have not read the AMA, so I'm not sure if Luke Kemp qualified his statement in any way.

However, absent a nuclear war, I don't think humanity will become extinct.

I do, however, think that in the future humanity will, either voluntarily (ie simply through reduced birthrates) or involuntarily (war, starvation or a combination) have a very significant reduction in population, until the world reaches more of a balancing point.

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Incendiaryag@reddit

I agree very much with your estimation. Obviously for the vast majority of people though the “reduction” is the extinction not just of individuals but entire cultures, ways of being, transformation that is probably what Earth needs but won’t be pleasant for man kind. Probably within a couple hundred years stuff will look way more primitive in regard to mankind.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

If you posit that majority of humankind might go extinct, say, for the argument's sake, within 100 years... and combine that with current infertility trends, and probability of increase in oncological disease due to accumulating toxicity... don't those two things alone, without even considering the extremeky harsh conditions of the planet, point towards a plausible extinction sooner than "millenia" later?

If you have a small population and in that small population a very small number of people can replicate... that itself is at odds with long-term survival. And eventually adds the burden of consanguity.

?

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kingtacticool@reddit

Humans have spread across the globe. There will be habitable places somewhere for at least thousands to survive even if we see 8C.

Im an og doomer and we could see a 99% drop in population due to climate change over the next 1-200 years but we wont go extinct for a long time.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Forever chemicals too, for example, have spread across the globe, haven't they? There are issues other than global heating affecting whether some place is liveable.

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lost_horizons@reddit

That’s not extinction though. Words have meanings and extinction means the total end of a species. The dodo bird is extinct. Pandas, while vastly reduced in number, are not.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Please see the edit (PS2) in the post. I agree 95% die-off is not extinction (I am not very clear on the terminology :) ), but once we are at that point, extinction seems very probable, over a timeframe shorter than millennia, to me.

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earthkincollective@reddit

I think this is the crux of the problem right there, that I see in your analysis. There seems to be an unconscious assumption at play that the lower our population gets, the more precarious the future of our species becomes. In other words, the greater the population reduction, the greater the likelihood of extinction.

That seems intuitive but I don't think that's actually how reality works. It's far more difficult (precarious) to sustain a huge population than it is to sustain a smaller one, on any given land base.

Frankly I think the truth is actually the opposite - the curve of population decline will actually flatten out the closer it gets to zero, making the likelihood of extinction far lower than you are assuming.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Also, I think the crux of the problem is that you severely under-estimate how difficult it will be to survive when there is next to no viable soil, few surviving animals, and hence general food sources, limited access to water in many places, no stable climate and likely a no effective ability to predict weather and abrupt "season" changes, and a bunch of other features of the range of plausible futures. There is no precedent for any cohort of humans ever surviving long term in that cocktail. (Others have listed the conditions more fully here in comments under this post).

The fewer people you have, and given they are scattered in pockets that may not know of each other and may not be able to communicate, the less likely you will have access to expertise and skills that would be necessary for survival in an extremely hostile environment. Let alone the fewer couples you have that can still conceive.

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earthkincollective@reddit

Again, you are basing your analysis on a TON of assumptions that are unproven, unknowable, exaggerated and frankly hyperbolic. Such as these:

when there is next to no viable soil,

No amount of climate change or shitty human impacts on the earth would ever cause this. Even where all the fossil topsoil is depleted there are PLENTY of early-succession species (commonly considered weeds) whose ecological niche is specifically to take advantage of disturbed or poor soils. And many of those weeds are edible.

few surviving animals,

Even with greatly reduced overall mega fauna there would still be PLENTY of animals remaining. The biodiversity would just be greatly diminished - instead of dozens of bird species you will find a handful. Instead of dozens of rodents you will only find a couple species. But the populations of those remaining species will spread to fill the niche.

limited access to water in many places,

That just means humans won't be living in those places, and will have to move to where there is water. This in no way precludes the existence of humans in general.

no stable climate

You don't seem to understand how climate change works. (Or frankly how ecology works, either). Climate change doesn't mean there will be "no stable climate". Even the current changes to the climate which are extremely rapid compared to natural shifts, are slow from a human perspective. Also, a changing climate doesn't mean an unlivable climate.

There is no precedent for any cohort of humans ever surviving long term in that cocktail.

Yes there is, as was explained to you in other comments.

The fewer people you have, and given they are scattered in pockets that may not know of each other and may not be able to communicate, the less likely you will have access to expertise and skills that would be necessary for survival in an extremely hostile environment. Let alone the fewer couples you have that can still conceive.

You are basically talking about how humans have lived for 99.9999% of our existence as a species. In small groups that had limited communication with each other. And yet we always managed to reproduce just fine.

Yes, relearning how to live primitively is going to be a struggle for humanity as a whole, but as someone who has studied primitive skills for years I can tell you that it doesn't take any longer to learn those skills than any other skills. And those who will be doing that are going to have nothing but time, to practice and refine their skills. Within a generation children will be once again learning survival skills from their parents.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

It's conscious assumption, actually.

I am adding the below reasoning (copied over from my commeny under another post) for part of the reason - the functional fertility threshold. Somen of the other reasons for the assumption are the ones I added into this post, at its very end (copied over from someone else comment here).

"I agree that declining birth rates have significant consequences for a population collapse, and - in the context of this subreddit - especially for what constitutes a functional exctinction treshold (learnt a new term just yesterday! ;) ) for humanity.

In a scenario a few decades later, when humanity's population may have realistically already declined dramatically, and fertility may have continued declining with accumulating toxicity and compounding exposure to it... (and with other health factors reducing fertility and birth rates potentially increasing)... the burden of reaching the 2.1 maintenance level average birth rate would be placed disproportionately on a subset of women or couples who are still able to conceive. I.e. certain women would be nominally required to have (many?) more than 2 children in order to compensate. And this may be incompatible with their personal aspirations and choices, or even physical ability. (Which to me does open prospects of scary Handmaid's Tale scenarios).

Also, if this is past societal collapse, which it realistically could be, rates of women dying in child birth may go up to pre-modern medicine and surgery levels, which would further reduce chances of women able to conceive having many children in order to hit the average 2.1 rate.

All of this suggests that the functional extinction threshold may be much higher than most of us would intuitively think, and some might even posit we are past the threshold."

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kingtacticool@reddit

I agree. The curve will eventually flatten out unless shit gets truly crazy. Our species has faced bottlenecks before. Even down to a few thousand and rebounded. And with our spread across the globe I see our extinction as very unlikely.

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kingtacticool@reddit

Honestly im not worried about PFAS or any of the other forever chemicals when it comes to collapse.

The three big threats that wil kill most of us are: starvation, dehydration and each other. In that order. If its one thing I learned from covid its that the government and the powers that be have zero intention of saving anyone but themselves once shit hits the fan.

Once the lights go out and the trucks stop dropping stuff off at the grocery store society will devour itself very quickly. Especially in the west.

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Buetti@reddit

Forever chemicals and micro/nano plastic will finish off the remains.

Also: The billions dying means a massive reduction of complexity. No more water filters, no more modern medicine

Environmental risks that are managed at the moment, will stop being managed at some point, adding on to the clusterfuck.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Exactly. Including maintaining safety of nuclear power plants. That goes out of the window the moment we don't have complexity. So refreshing reading your comments here.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Oh I mostly agree with that. That's what will kill the majority of us.

I mentioned PFAs in the context of the propects for long term survival for any isolated pockets of humans who didn't die of starvation or dehydration. Small pockets surviving is what most commentators here bring up to say humanity not going extinct for millenia is plausible.

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kingtacticool@reddit

lol. I stopped giving any fucks about our species long term survival.

Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

In my personal opinion our species doesnt deserve to survive long term.

We are going to be the proof case for The Great Filter

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I hear you. Why I was so affected by the AMA session was because it was a confrontation with many amongst us - even among a supposedly highly aware audience - believing in myths and not questioning myths... or being fond of methods of settling on sources of truth that I found irrelevant. And this being the case very much reducing the likelihood of any meaningful and timely interventions while we still can relevantly alter the trajectory, in the sense of how people many (billions of) people would be affected, how severely, how soon. I care about those things.

As I mentioned somewhere else, I do not particularly care about long-term survival as a species (in the sense of some isolated pockets of survivors somewhere), that's a fairly pointless outcome for me. I guess we are on the same page on that front.

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Bormgans@reddit

habital places somewhere? and what will they eat when ecosystems collapse?

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kingtacticool@reddit

Even ecological collapse wont be global unless we get to 8-10C.

Life, uh, finds a way.

This planet has been through five mass extinctions with varying percentages of biomass and ecological loss.

My hope is that societal collapse happens fast enough so that our ecological damage isnt too long lasting.

Climate Change was never about saving the planet. The planet is and will be perfectly fine. Our existence on it was what we are trying to save. I often think that the planet and the biosphere would have been much better off if we had wiped civilization out in the 50s with a nuclear war. Fewer species would have gone extinct and the oceans would have been much less polluted and overfished. And yes I realize what im saying.

Gaia dont give a shit. She will have life of some kind on her for billions of years to come.

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EdibleScissors@reddit

8 - 10C is looking pretty likely, although it may take a millennia or two- that timeframe is too short for adaptation for most life on Earth. We are probably looking at 3 - 4C by 2100 barring a massive and sustained effort to change the planet’s albedo (which I doubt can be sustained for hundreds of years).

I guess the boomers are lucky that they still get to die from old age.

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kingtacticool@reddit

The Great Dying, the worst mass extinction this planet has seen was caused by 10C global warming and wiped out 83% of life on this planet. But thats a mind blowing amount of energy that was caused by hundreds of volcano erupting for hundreds of thousand of years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event

I sure hope were not capable of that kind of nonsens but honestly anything around 6C would be extinction level event for an animal our size.

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

Another, likely even larger contributing factor was a near global disappearance of trees at that time due to an immensely powerful ENSO cycle. (it was at time of pangea after all, one conrinent, one ocean)

Alternating drought and flood cycles far stronger than anything that can even happen on today's Earth ensured pretty much no plant that doesn't grow fast will make it. Aside from a tiny amount of trees surviving in the less severely impacted regions, the rest were all gone. That was an enormous carbon source as well.

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Bormgans@reddit

I agree life finds and way. Human life however...

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kingtacticool@reddit

Yeah, we'll be gone long before 10C. I figure society will go between 3-4C, civilization between 4-6C and anything north of 6C is extinction level event for us. By that point we'll be down to thousands on the planet anyway.

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Buetti@reddit

I'm 100% with you. Don't get discouraged by the downvotes.

I really don't understand how people cling to their "but there are survivable places" ideas.

It's not just climate collapse, for God's sake.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I am not getting discouraged, but it is definitely an interesting pointer at how diverse interpretations (of what collapse means and which trajectories are plausible) coexist even in a niche forum like this subreddit. And that the big picture, all things considered type of thinking (what in my professional circles we call systemic foresight) is perhaps not in a majority.

Also interesting that many people downvote without engaging in a discussion.

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Bormgans@reddit

I think part of the downvotes come from the fact that you use a definition of extinction that is ideosyncratic, to put it favorably, or simply wrong in standard communication.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Maybe. I thought this has gotten clarified over the course of the day. And I did not think it needed further editing in the original post, because I made the point repeatedly in comments that 95% extinct was, in my view, if we consider all factors, probably functionally extinct, i.e. still incompatible with the statement that reaching 0 survivors would be highly improbable for millennia. But yeah. People may be rattled by my honest admission that I interpreted the word differently till today :).

At the same time, lot of the comments that got a lot of downvotes are unrelated to the definition.

My takeaway is that a lot of people downvote not on the basis of quality of argument (logic, reasoning, etc), but on the basis of whether the argument fits with their pre-existing beliefs. I've seen that also in some completely unrelated posts (sometimes in playing in my comments' "favour") - e.g. on gender related stuff.

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Bormgans@reddit

Yes sure, agree on all fronts, there´s more to it than that definition.

I agree it would be nicer of people would argue instead of just downvote but I guess it´s a matter of time and energy too.

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kingtacticool@reddit

Billions are going to die from climate change.

The human race wont go extinct for thousands of years.

Both of these things can be true.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes. And then it can also be true that people will due because of other reasons than climate change, and from the aggravating feedback loops among these possible causes and mega trends. And that once we consider all these things, humanity not going extinct for thousands of years may still be plausible but not highly probable.
We need to get our heads out of the climate change sand.

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the_old_coday182@reddit

You can’t say “highly probable” without some way to actually quantify that. What is the statical chance that one of your Armageddons happen? Numerical answers with data to support the numbers. Otherwise you’re just using hyperbole and de-legitimizing your own points.

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HigherandHigherDown@reddit

You really only need to assume that humans will attempt to maintain the status quo and that agricultural yields are going to plummet; given these things, a 50% reduction in yields can be expected to lead to a 50% reduction in humans.

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the_old_coday182@reddit

I hear the word “assume” and then I see made up numbers. Do you have anything to share other than your own conjecture? Because you’re just proving my point lol

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I hear you. For a lot of these future-oriented outcomes and factors at play there is no data yet, and no mathematical models. (And the models we do have generally don't seem great at getting tipping points and feedback loops right, are they?) So I am not sure how I could meet the expectation on quantification. In the end, a lot of what is shared here are hypotheses / opinions about what is probable and not probable. They are based on reasoning, not data.

Looking at it differently, what other phrasing than "highly probable" do you suggest, in the absence of data?

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the_old_coday182@reddit

“Highly probable” sounds like it’s been quantified and there is data to believe it’s more likely to happen, than not. Maybe try a phrasing that doesn’t suggest you know the future. Hyperbole ruins discourse.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I am asking for a specific suggestion, because nothing is coming to mind. "Highly likely", "highly plausible", etc, all seem to convey the exact same thing as "highly probable". The only thing that comes to mind is to add more framing that makes it clear that the statement is based on reasoning and not data. But I am hoping you have more or better ideas ideas for how to communicate the same notion - since this seems to be something you feel strongly about, and would have probably suggested to others before.

I don't agree it's hyperbole as such - I am not using the term as a means of exaggeration.

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the_old_coday182@reddit

“Realistic”

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes I was coming to the same. "very realistic" "not very realistic". Thank you! That is helpful!

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

How about "strongly consistent with foreseeable trends", "somewhat consistent with foreseeable trends" and "incompatible with foreseeable trends"?

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

To my collection, Luke's qualification was that 1) the most likely causes were things like nuclear war/catatrosphe, and 2) that even Hansen (who was mentioned by the person asking the question) is criticised "by some" (for such and such reasons).

This also hit hard because it sort of reiterated (in my mind) that the valid way of cognition is scientific consensus and not outliers, which I disagree with. Consensus has been demonstrably off for a while. Outliers are more likely to be right.

However, what you write here to me goes back to definitions of extinction, I guess. For me, the majority of humanity loosing their lives, or thereabouts, qualifies as extinction. And that seems to be on the books for later this century, based on my analysis and understanding.

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Ecstatic_Garlic_8978@reddit

Surviving the direct cause of an extinction event is only one piece of the puzzle. Genetic diversity is extremely important in the long run, especially for our species which is already in short supply of it.

If enough of our genetic variation is lost in the bottleneck then extinction is still very much on the table further down the line. There's also genetic drift to think about where random harmful mutations (from an evolutionary standpoint) are allowed to propagate, or if some of the surviving humans continued to pass theirs down afterwards.

This can also cause extinction to occur through the gradual degradation of a species already pushed to the brink without natural selection stepping in. Just as with collapse of civilizations extinction is not so cut and dry, both happen in complex multifaceted ways which can't be narrowed down to just one cause.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Thank you! This is very much aligned with my thinking (added a PS2, borrowed from one of the commenters here, related to this, to the original post).

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Key-Practice-8788@reddit

You're not black pilled enough, that's a paddlin'

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gangofminotaurs@reddit

Yes, humans are so special. Mammalian life might disappear in the extinction event that we are, but we will prevail.

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GhooricZone@reddit

I had the opposite reaction. He (and his book) made me feel sane, aware, and not so isolated in my view of humanity’s current state.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Then we're at very different places in terms of previous exposure to material and conclusions about plausible futures.

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Key-Practice-8788@reddit

Dude, collapse isn't your safe space. Other people have other ideas and interpret the data differently. Just because you were shook and emotional by someone way smarter than you disagreeing with you doesn't mean everyone feels the same way.

If you want people to 100% agree with you and feed you talking points, go to r/conservative

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Hah, I appreciate you calling this/me out. Rationally, I don't think I expect us all to agree. But my reaction to the AMA shows this is not really the case. Some attachment to what I believe to be true, and wanting others to see things the same way... Noted as something to work on.

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Key-Practice-8788@reddit

That's a great attitude. You sound like a very solid dude.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Genuine (unrelated) question: Do you call everyone dude, or did you assume I was male?

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Key-Practice-8788@reddit

Sorry, everyone is dude. I started calling everyone dude when my kids started doing it.

It doesn't matter what your preferred gender is, you're a dude when you're a good person.

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

That is something every human experiences, so don't feel too bad about it. :)

People like being affirmed in their views and opinions because it shapes a large part of who we are as a person. No one likes being told they are wrong, which is why the reaction to opposing views is so often denial, violence, or both instead of a respectful disagreement and making a case. People telling us our most strongly held views, visions, opinions are not as solid as we thought feels like an attack against us.

But I want to point out that this isn't an us vs them situation. The same kind of hand-waving, ear-plugging, la la singing denial of opposing views is not exclusive to any side of political, scientific, or any other kind of debate.

Optimists do this. Collapseniks do this. The average person does it.

We all love to assert our own set of views as the default, infallible reality that everyone else can only hopelessly deny. It's safer that way.

There is of course 1 objective reality, and that is the past and present. And since none of us are omniscient, we only ever see a portion of it. What that portion encompasses will form what you think. Disagreements (whether they be small or fundamental) are thus inevitable. We all ought to learn how to react to them with grace

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I agree. This post and debate here is a big exercise in / manifestation of confirmatiom bias, on all sides, including mine.

And a training in trying to stay graceful and respectful when in disagreement and under personal attacks :)

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

It's an important skill to have, not many do. I too have sooo many moments where I would rather turn around and walk off than actually sit down, adjust my proverbial tie and get into a lengthy conversation. Whether it be online or in person. I'm not exempt from my own "rule".

I used to think only AI would ever be truly unbiased, until we invented LLMs, that are basically bias flavored bias with a side of bias.

I try to improve on this front by reading a lot of posts/comments/blogs that I fundamentally disagree with to build up a mixed view, and evaluate which of 2 contradictory statements has more evidence behind it.

I can't get rid of my biases, nobody can, however much we love to say we're just seeing reality for what it is. The next best thing to do is to not feed it with the same views over and over. Too much agreement and consolation will enforce the existing biases you have. Too much direct opposition can also do that, strangely enough. So the best is to expose yourself to a mix.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

That does sound healthy. Seems like this subreddit will be a good training ground for me :D, unexpectedly.

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maybri@reddit

Yeah, this is the post that's going to make me unsubscribe from this subreddit. The comment you're referring to from Luke Kemp said that "Near-term (2100) extinction is incredibly unlikely", and that "many of the effects [of climate change] such as ocean anoxia will take millennia to play out". That was what led you to feel like you were hallucinating, and to think that his work is "divorced from awareness of ecological collapse"? Those are just completely reasonable understandings of the current science on the subject.

Inexplicably you are defining human extinction as "95+% of humanity dying"--there are 8 billion humans on the planet. A 95% reduction in the human population leaves 400 million people--that was what the world population looked like only 500 years ago, and is still thousands of times larger than the pre-agricultural human population that was our species' norm for hundreds of millennia. But you say 95% would constitute extinction because "that's an outcome you care about" and you "don't particularly care if humanity as a species survives". Okay? And so Luke Kemp not using that language in the same unusual way you do is cause to reject his body of work and chase him out of this subreddit, and the fact that that didn't happen was deeply disturbing to you? He was asked about total human extinction, not collapse in general which he obviously does believe we are on a trajectory for because that's the entire premise of his book.

I see that a lot of the top comments here are disagreeing with you, which is slightly heartening, but the fact that this post was nonetheless upvoted enough to show up on my front page and there are plenty of people going to bat for it further down in the comments is confirming something I've felt for a while about this subreddit, which is that a lot of the people here have a cult-like ideology of extreme, unrealistic pessimism that is built on willful misunderstandings of ecology and climate science. There's a fixation here on the idea of the Earth imminently turning into another Venus, which I hope at least most of you are intentionally using as hyperbole, but I'm seeing people in this thread who seem to seriously believe that's going to happen this century, even though the scientific consensus is clear that a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth is almost certainly impossible until a billion or so years from now when the sun has expanded enough to enable it.

I say that not to say we'll be fine--I fully believe our civilization is doomed no matter what at this point--but there is a meaningful difference between the end of human civilization, the end of the human species, and the end of life on Earth, and anyone who thinks that the latter two are even remotely likely within the next century badly need a reality check. I subscribed to this subreddit because I was hoping for a community of like-minded people interested in discussing how humanity can move forward from the failure of our civilization, how we can live and die gracefully through the collapse, what lessons we can learn from the pre-agricultural past to try to convey to those descendants of ours who will live in the post-agricultural, post-collapse future, and so on. Instead virtually every post I read on here is just full of doomers who don't seem to be able to think realistically or speak productively about any of these issues. What a shame.

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ProcessOk8958@reddit

I appreciate you speaking against this doomerism. Here the majority wants to just throw their hands out...

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Urshilikai@reddit

preach, the doomer cult was always just big oil propaganda to disarm any resistance

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HigherandHigherDown@reddit

The oilmen are going to lie to sell more oil? Next you'll tell me that smoking tobacco causes cancer!

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

With the earth energy imbalance being so far gone, it’s important to realize now that the climate will only get hotter possibly forever. So yes earth is becoming more like Venus obviously that will take a lot of time but the heating is still accelerating! That puts an inevitability on our extinction imo, when exactly nobody knows but if we see 6-10c this century we won’t grow crops and the oceans will die off, aka no more oxygen

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maybri@reddit

I mean, like I said, a runaway greenhouse effect to make the Earth like Venus becomes plausible in literally a billion years as the sun expands, so you're technically correct in saying it will take a lot of time, but it's absolutely not true that the warming will continue to accelerate until then. To my understanding the likely pattern is once human carbon emissions and the emissions that may result from any feedback loops we trigger have stopped, CO2 levels will gradually begin to drop and the Earth will begin to cool again. It may be centuries before then, and it probably won't ever return to being as cool as it is right now again (at least not without something to trigger another ice age, which isn't unlikely on geological timescales), but it's not just going to keep getting warmer forever.

Losing the ability to grow crops won't result in human extinction. It will result in the collapse of human civilization, but as long as there is enough food available in the environment for hunting and gathering in at least a few parts of the world, the species will continue.

The oceans dying off completely is extremely unlikely. There have been anoxic events in the distant past that the oceans recovered from, and there's not much reason to believe that this will be any different in that regard. But also, it's not even true that if the oceans die off, we all immediately suffocate. The oxygen that's already in the atmosphere wouldn't instantly disappear, and as long as terrestrial plants still existed, CO2 would continue to be removed from the atmosphere and oxygen would continue to be produced. So the whole concern is just based in scientific misunderstanding.

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bipolarearthovershot@reddit

How do you expect c02 levels to magically drop?

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earthkincollective@reddit

The same way they have every time before in the planet's history. 🤦

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DeathToPennies@reddit

This sub has been going down the tubes for a few years now— casual readers, unserious thinkers, and then people like this who let the assurance of death get the better of them. It’s a shame.

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earthkincollective@reddit

This sub is doing just fine. The fact that some people are like this doesn't mean everyone is.

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earthkincollective@reddit

THANK YOU. I got the exact same impression from this post, although I don't begrudge OP posting it because everyone's entitled to their opinions (as long as they aren't hateful). But no one is entitled to upvotes.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

It seems that what I wrote here rattled you a lot. Like I was rattled by what Luke wrote. And more importantly, you are rattled by not eveybody here sharing your views, which is exactly what I was rattled by.

You mock me for questioning my sanity because of confrontation with many people not sharing my views (who I expected to share them) and yet you say you are so rattled you're thinking of leaving this community, because too many people upvoted to post, which you disagree with.

If you take a step back, you may see this similarity. You are rattled by seeing me articulate your own pattern.

I don't agree with your approach of a) only considering consensus and b) seemingly only or mostly considering climate change linked causes. And there is no surprise then we don't see eye to eye on the rest of it. (What part of science other than climate change js there even consensus on? Science is not designed to generate consensus).

For what it's worth, I didn't mean the words "it won't pass" in the sense of chasing Luke away, but in the sense of statements contradicting available science being questioned by people here.

Each of us found some solace here - each in the exact other comments and upvotes/downvotes. So our confirmation bias can continue ;)

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maybri@reddit

It's more that I'd had a building frustration with this subreddit for a long time, had actually thought I'd already unsubscribed since I'd been thinking about it and hadn't seen a post from it on my front page in a while, and then saw your post this morning and felt that it was a really clear example of what I dislike about this subreddit and wanted to not just unsubscribe for real this time, but express my frustration as I was leaving (not in the hopes of getting validation--I actually expected I'd be downvoted, but I just have the kind of mental illness that makes it hard not to say something when I see someone on the internet being confidently wrong about a subject I care about). It's not at all personal to you and I wouldn't really say I was "rattled" per se, just annoyed.

As for this:

I don't agree with your approach of a) only considering consensus and b) seemingly only or mostly considering climate change linked causes. And there is no surprise then we don't see eye to eye on the rest of it. (What part of science other than climate change js there even consensus on? Science is not designed to generate consensus).

There obviously isn't any complete scientific consensus on practically anything. By consensus I mean the most commonly held belief on a subject among scientists with the relevant expertise.

You mention that your concern is "contradicting available science". I fear the term "available science" is hopelessly vague. Consider a study like this, which found that global temperatures are not particularly sensitive to CO2 and changes can mostly be attributed to changes in cloud cover that have nothing to do with human activity. It's a junk study which has been thoroughly debunked by other climate scientists, but it's within the range of what's covered by the term "available science". If we're rejecting the idea of a scientific consensus that can be used to decide what findings are probably accurate and what findings are suspect, we have to treat this study as seriously as any other, even though you would hopefully agree we absolutely should not do that.

It's no different with an alarmist study that says the Earth is going to look like Venus in 50 years. The idea isn't supported by other research and the vast majority of climate scientists would disagree. So why take it any more seriously than the climate denier study I just linked? The only reason I can see is because the people here basically want to believe in an extremely fast, extremely dire, irreversible collapse, and they're biased towards believing things that support that narrative.

I don't claim to know why people here want to believe that--maybe some of it is the cultural Christianity making people want to believe in a coming apocalypse, some of it is certainly just a pessimistic mindset that wants to feel justified (and smarter than everyone else) in not having hope, and I imagine a lot of it is a self-centered, ego-serving response to the current moment that makes it comforting to think the entire world will die with you so there's no need to even think about what responsibility you might have to future generations. But regardless, it's clear to me that bias exists here and is leading to willful misinterpretation of the science and promotion of junk science that fits the narrative.

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Popular_Dirt_1154@reddit

This subreddit has gotten too popular and died as a result.

It is mostly just a place to dwell in self pity like any other depression based sub reddit. Coping by reading the same "smoke em if you got em" comments repeated under every post.

The AMA was actually interesting creating a more nuanced discussion beyond what has become habitual here.

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Outside_Dig1463@reddit

The thing i dont see people talking about is the evidence pointing to the potential that collapse could trigger the end of the universe.

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Outside_Dig1463@reddit

"Come on extinction!" -is that what we're doing here?

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Cultural-Answer-321@reddit

It is utter hubris to think humans cannot go extinct.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

It's clearly a prevalent one.

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boomaDooma@reddit

Why are people so concerned about the future extinction of humans? Once you die, whatever happens to the rest of the human race will be of no concern to you.

Everyone should be more concerned about the extinctions of thousands of species that is happening right now.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I think that is a question for people concerned about future extinction of humans, who I am not one of.

I am however concerns about future mass loss of life in humans. I agree mass loss of life of any species should be an equal concern, although personally I am biased towards humans.

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Bandits101@reddit

I get it you want to believe humans are different and will survive no matter what. Cherry picking life as it is now or was at a time in the past is not being true to yourself.

Similar to saying my grandfather smoked a packet a day and lived to 93. Humans have NOT experienced 5-8 degrees of warming, you are lying to yourself.

It’s obvious you are stuck in the bargaining stage and I suspect relatively young. It’s okay though, I don’t recommend losing hope and moving to acceptance, it won’t change anything.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Some people clearly do (want to believe that).

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Bandits101@reddit

This reply was meant for somewhere else, my bad.

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HomoExtinctisus@reddit

Edit/PS based on the comments so far: yes the definition of extinction seems to be at the core of my reaction to Luke's statement.

I don't understand how the definition can be at the core of your problem. I have the same view of this view of the AMA but I subscribe to the traditional definition of extinction.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Well.. because I acknowledge that hypothetically a few people could survive somewhere for millennia, if we say extinction is 0 specimen surviving. I think it is highly improbable, but not entirely implausible. It's not way outside the realm of the imaginable, for me.
Had I interpreted what Luke said as 0 person surviving, I would probably find it improbable but not outrageous - less out of touch with reality than with my interpretation of "95+% not surviving" - because saying that that is a "highly improbable" outcomes "for millennia" is outright shocking to me.
And the statement not being questioned by the attendees is more shocking, in that context. Does this clarification make more sense?

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HomoExtinctisus@reddit

Not exactly, what you are describe is functional extinction which in the long run is the same as extinction, just has a longer runway. I don't find there is a meaningful distinction. What I am saying is Luke's words seem to be the core of your reaction, not the definition of extinction.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

We're on the same page re functional extinction being full extinction in the long term.

I am not sure I can pinpoint what was at the core of the reaction. My understanding: Hearing something that seemed very untrue / not aligned with my informed beliefs about the range of plausible futures, AND it not being questioned by anyone - which was not aligned with my (since debunked) beliefs about this subreddit. If Luke said what he said and he was vehemently questioned about his asumptions and reasoning by the audience, I wouldn't be rattled at all. It would have confirmed my beliefs.

Does it make sense?

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HomoExtinctisus@reddit

The lack of engagement in Kemp’s AMA might reflect broader skepticism toward his recycled arguments. His rebranding of civilizations as 'Goliaths' and framing them as inherently 'uncivilized' due to their predatory or cruel tendencies is more sensationalism than fresh insight. This perspective is already well-documented in existing historical and academic work, without the need for hyperbolic labels.

More importantly, labeling a society 'uncivilized' for being exploitative is a moral stance, not an objective analysis. A rigorous assessment would acknowledge that large, dominant civilizations naturally consume vast resources, creating scarcity and competition—conditions that often lead to what we perceive as cruelty. The most frustrating part is Kemp obviously knows this yet marches ahead anyways.

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Ghostwoods@reddit

There's a lot of people here, including a great many who believe their personal cause could/is going to save the world, if only we'd all... X, whatever X is.

There's also some pro-status quo actors here now, both meatspace and digital, pushing the "you doomers are craycray, we'll just have to tighten our belts" narrative.

What the "5% remaining population is fiiine" crowd forget is that when we've been at very low population levels before, we've still had centuries of local subsistence knowledge embedded at a profound cultural level, along with stable climatology, easily accessible resources, and healthy, fertile soil.

None of those things are true any more. Almost no-one understands the requirements of stone age tech subsistence, and even if they do, there isn't any healthy land left, nor any predictable weather or easy-to-retrieve natural resources.

It's my best guess that any population decrease severe enough to crash global logistics will trigger collapse -- very quickly, if it breaks national logistics too; quite slowly, if it does not -- and from there, a couple more years of brutal starvation will see us down to tens of millions, almost all distributed across unpredictably fortunate micro-climate pockets. A town here, a few villages there, a particular few mile stretch of coast, etc. I suspect even a nuclear war would leave similar small groups struggling on.

Whether those pockets of humanity survive in any multi-generational timeline is down to how bad the feedback loops we've already locked in are. A thousand years from now could see us still clinging on by our fingernails, or evolved into new species under the intense pressure, or having been completely scoured from the planet.

Either way, it's an absolute cultural extinction, even if Homo sapiens sapiens keeps on clinging to the edges.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

"What the "5% remaining population is fiiine" crowd forget is that when we've been at very low population levels before, we've still had centuries of local subsistence knowledge embedded at a profound cultural level, along with stable climatology, easily accessible resources, and healthy, fertile soil." - exactly.

I realise, in retrospect, that the whole argument about full extinction here is irrelevant to me. It began because a lot of people got rattled my my inaccurate use of the word extinction, and then me saying that even if I used it inaccurately, the near full extinction was for all practical purposes functional extinction - all things considered. (And that being unpalatable to many - good to know it's such a trigger!)

I am more interested in influencing the trajectories and outcomes that affect the vast majority of people before the distinction of functional extinction becomes relevant. And understanding the underlying dynamics, pace and scale of disruption, levers for intervention, points of no return, etc.

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One_Television_764@reddit

OP, It's really hard to have a productive conversation nowadays, and especially with a topic as vast and astroturfed as climate change. The numbers don't lie, there is a chance, albeit small, that the science is incorrect. But, I like the odds of the math being closer to the truth than a person trying to sell a book or a podcast pitch.

Everything is intertwined, we are part of a delicate system (for human survival), more complex than even our best super computers can simulate. Total human extinction is, in my opinion, guaranteed within 100 years. I personally think we will start to see widespread abrupt collapse starting sometime in the 2030s, possibly sooner. The rate of change is the problem. The warming we're experiencing is geologically like we woke up and hit the planet with a billion thermonuclear bombs, and the bombings are even increasing exponentially.

We cannot replace diesel engines with ANY available fuel or energy source. That means total collapse of our entire infrastructure system and everything that keeps "the capitalism" booming. We could theoretically replace all gasoline powered engines specifically and not cause THAT much of an issue. Once the economics of diesel fuel generation become negative that means no more deliveries, no more mining of raw materials, no more medicine, no more infrastructure, no more concrete, batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, trains, foundries, semiconductors and on and on. (I mean specifically on industrial societal scale).

Say we de-growth tomorrow and go back to a time period of the 15th century, that doesn't stop the c02 in the atmosphere now from dispersing into the oceans and raising the PH enough to dissolve calcium carbonate shells of phytoplankton, which is the base food structure and the MAIN oxygen generator for the planet. Their exoskeletons begin to dissolve starting ~around~ 500ppm of c02 in the atmosphere from the research I've done.

Say that turns out to be false for some reason. We're all going to be virtually sterilized by the compounding effects of microplastics infiltration of the male sex organs (of all species). And whatever other absolutely horrid side effects Dupont and bros has released on this poor planet.

If we manage to sequester away 100,000 of our healthiest, brightest men and women into the best bunkers the planet has to offer with multiple generations worth of food, supplies and Warhammer minis to keep them all busy painting, they cannot escape the microplastics. Even the most advanced filtration systems on the planet don't completely get rid of it from your food, (which bio-acuumulates in plants, fish, everything) or the air you breathe or the water you drink.

Even if we can manage to design some super fancy, filter-all system. It's in everything and everywhere on the entire planet.

The SINGLE piece of tattered shred of hope that I hold dear, as if by some divine deus ex machina savior of our reality TV show is the slight possibility that more compute will increase machine intelligence indefinitely and linearly until we reach a point that it can perfect a nuclear fusion reaction algorithm and ONLY then can we immediately begin to deploy C02 sequestration technology to bring c02 levels back down to pre industrial levels with c02 scrubbers. That's IF we solve the Alignment problem, and IF its possible to deploy a LLM or neural net onto a fusion reactor control system. And that ONLY gives us TIME to start working to reverse all the other god forsaken issues we have simultaneously. (I don't believe this will save us. But I do believe that this is what is fueling the AI bubble currently as someone that works in this field, among other things.)

Don't doubt yourself. Most people are ignorant or dumb or both. And that's not to be rude or mean or devalue them. They have value and I care for them just as I do the most brilliant among us. But, it doesnt change the fact that they are incapable of extrapolating out information or thinking in long time horizons.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

One of the upsides of this unplanned mess of a post and debate (that I thought was me starting a casual chat with like minded friends :D), was that a handful of actually like minded people, who appear to be respectful and well informed, have actually come to the surface. And that's a pretty good outcome. I want to know who has a shared grasp of reality. Which is a starting point for other stuff.

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Pootle001@reddit

Isolated tribes like Sentinelese will not go extinct.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Because...?

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Buetti@reddit

everyone knows that indigenous tribes are immune to the effects of collapse

/s

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Pootle001@reddit

I didn't say immune. But they are resilient.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Of course. But resilience also is context-based, it has its limits.

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Interestingllc@reddit

We are leaving the stable climate that humanity has been in since its beginning and we are changing it faster than it's ever been changed before..... anyone who even tries to speculate on safe havens during such a change is not a serious person. This is the biggest issue humanity has ever faced and we have failed. WHO cares whether people on an island are able to survive for a bit longer than the rest of the world.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

That's a loaded statememt. Do you mean societal collapse? How about immune to climate and planetary distabilisation (already considering their ability to migdate somewhere far else) or immune to forever chemicals?

I'd love to understand your reasoning better. Clearly not everybody knows.

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Buetti@reddit

the /s is an indicator for irony.

I'm sarcastic about it because there is a lot of focus on "returning to indigenous practices, to live in balance with nature" in some branches of the collapse community (or at least with some people I know).

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I've learnt something new! Thank you. Only 3 months on reddit.

Yes I hear you about the subculture / subniche you're referring to. And some of the practices (e.g. engineered/nurtured abundance) clearly have a lot of value and potential. But not a panacea considering the whole laundry list of we want to push out and avert extinction-level outcomes. People like to think in panaceas, in my experience.

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Pootle001@reddit

Welcome to reddit OP.

Because basic cultures - for example subsistence living tribes like the Sentinelese - will not be affected by the sudden disappearance of food sources. IMO starvation is the most likely future for we citizens of the global capitalist system.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

What food sources are those? Will they not be affected by ocean ecosystem collapse and land baed ecosystem collapse (infertility in nature, large species not being able to adapt to climate change, etc), and... much later on, by instability of weather and climate patterns and their impact on ecosystems?

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Pootle001@reddit

Ocean stocks will very unlikely disappear overnight and they will adapt. The 2004 tsunami permanently destroying their historic fishing grounds and they adapted.

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anonymousmutekittens@reddit

Only in collapse will someone say their heart sink when someone said we weren’t going to be extinct within the next thousand years

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

That's probably true. Also, isn't the phrase itself a bit idiosyncratic?

I actually first heard the very phrase "my heart sunk" from someone in the collapse community and I am myself surprised I used it here, because I normally don't speak in terms of "heart". I would normally say I was perplexed, or something like that.

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captainstormy@reddit

Also, it seems to me 95+% of humanity dying makes the odds of the remainder surviving for further millennia also unlikely, all things considered. But that is a nuance.

But that isn't extinction, extinction has a very specific meaning. Extinction means you go extinct, which means no longer exists.

There have been more than one time that humanity almost went extinct. As in only a few thousand remained on the whole planet.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/genetics-suggest-our-human-ancestors-very-nearly-went-extinct-900000-years-ago-180982830/

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c

So climate change won't be the end of humanity. It'll reduce our numbers, but it won't end us. It very well might end our society as we know it though, but not humanity.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I don't claim climate change will be the end of humanity. I stand for a different understanding of our predicament than one of climate change, and am considering more factors driving extinction (in the technical sense) than climate change.

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Logical-Race8871@reddit

There being "uncontacted" tribes till like the 1970s which still largely live as they always have up to including today October 17th, 2025...

Is a pretty good indicator some people will make it out of whatever anthropogenic the rest of the species can throw at them.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

You may be interested in the comment thread about uncontacted tribes somewhere higher up here.

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Ok-Abrocoma-6587@reddit

I never thought collapse was the same thing as extinction.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Well... Neither did I.

And clearly people here and elsewhere understand very different things under the word collapse. (Some clearly think societal, some climate + population, some societal + climate; very few seem to think climate + oceans + ocesystems ie biosphere + societal + population).

I don't call population dropping to 95%+ collapse. If anything, I'd call that population collapse, but even then I'd add more, because I think for many others let's say 60% drop is population collapse.

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Ok-Abrocoma-6587@reddit

I don't parse it out as much as others seem to need to. It really hurts my head. I just know (and have known for decades) that there is guaranteed population, biosphere/ecological, societal collapse coming in the next decades and century. That's all I've got. I don't need to know the stats and numbers. Nothing about over-consumption and over-population can be sustained. Smaller pockets of humans will remain, living much simpler lives.

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Slamtilt_Windmills@reddit

I feel there are collapse factors that will wipe out most of people. But when we talk about humans surviving it feels they're are assumptions being made: 1) surviveable areas. With our resonant global climate conditions dissipating, we won't really have climate, i.e. no stable weather patterns in any given area 2) viable population (numbers). The distribution of survivors will be random, and they'll be so busy keeping themselves alive there's no reason to assume they'll seek each other out to form breeding population. 3) viable population (capability). Consider what it would take to survive in any of the possible brave new worlds. Consider the percentage of people who would be able to pull it off. Consider the likelihood those are the people randomly selected to survive. 4) resources. The Road was a pretty ridiculous notion, that the protagonist happened to find their way to resources so many times. Scavenging is a game of luck, and luck runs out. 5) all of these things, and maybe a few more, eall have to have success patterns that overlap. A smart, capable person randomly happening to last, randomly in radius of several other capable people, in an area randomly with enough resources to get set up long term, randomly in an area that will be viable long term.

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maybri@reddit

I'm only replying here because OP quoted the text of your comment in an edit to the original post and I strongly disagree with OP, so I want to break down why I don't think your comment redeems OP's perspective:

1) surviveable areas. With our resonant global climate conditions dissipating, we won't really have climate, i.e. no stable weather patterns in any given area

This isn't true. Even in extreme Hothouse Earth scenarios, while the tropics and subtropics become uninhabitable, much of the planet would still have survivable temperatures year-round, especially at and around the poles. There would be thermal refugia in coastal or high-altitude regions as well even closer to the equator. Droughts or violent storms would pose threats to individual groups, and groups would have to stay small to avoid outgrowing a population that could be fed off of ecosystems undergoing collapse, but humanity has survived extremely difficult conditions like this in the past.

2) viable population (numbers). The distribution of survivors will be random, and they'll be so busy keeping themselves alive there's no reason to assume they'll seek each other out to form breeding population.

I mean, no, distribution of survivors will absolutely not be random. It will have to do mostly with climate and ecological factors, with some areas having their human populations totally wiped out (or driven elsewhere) and others doing relatively okay. There's no reason to think humans will be so scattered that finding reproductive partners will be unusually difficult for the survivors.

3) viable population (capability). Consider what it would take to survive in any of the possible brave new worlds. Consider the percentage of people who would be able to pull it off. Consider the likelihood those are the people randomly selected to survive.

Again, what is this "random selection" you're imagining? This isn't the Rapture, it isn't a Thanos snap, it isn't a zombie apocalypse--the people with pre-existing survival skills, the intelligence and adaptability to learn new ones, and the will to live through hard times are exactly the people most likely to survive to advanced stages of the collapse.

4)viable population (social). I live in America, it sucks. The capitalistic society exists in a manner that causes emotive trauma to the average person, in a way that makes people unwilling and_or unable to be likely to cooperate with others in the narrow pattern of behavior required for group survival. I can't speak for other countries, but America has done it's best to infect the rest of the world.

I think this is a good point, but only really relevant if the collapse occurs extremely fast. Realistically, it will occur over several generations, and capitalism will collapse relatively early in the process when a large proportion of the current human population is still alive. The people who will have to survive through the most difficult parts of the climate apocalypse will have some generational trauma related to capitalism, but will have grown up in a world where it's already a distant memory. The cultural impact the early parts of the collapse will have on humanity are difficult to predict, but I don't find it hard to believe they will result in better odds of long-term survival rather than worse.

5) resources. The Road was a pretty ridiculous notion, that the protagonist happened to find their way to resources so many times. Scavenging is a game of luck, and luck runs out.

Post-collapse humans would most likely return to hunting and gathering rather than scavenging the remains of our civilization. As long as, again, their numbers stay low enough that they can live off of the available food in the collapsing ecosystem they find themselves in (and of course they can move to other nearby refugia if one completely collapses), this isn't going to be a problem.

6) all of these things, and maybe a few more (natural disasters, genetic conditions, health events) all have to have success patterns that overlap. A smart, capable, healthy person randomly happening to last, randomly in radius of several other capable healthy people, in an area randomly with enough resources to get set up long term, randomly in an area that will be viable long term without any short term occurrences.

Again, the pattern is not going to look like a zombie apocalypse movie where hopefully enough random isolated survivors will find their ways to the same safe place where they can rebuild a stable breeding population. It's going to look like groups of people who stayed together from the beginning, dramatically changing their lifestyle to adapt as the world changes, but continuing to support each other and keep each other alive. That's not a process that involves a lot of random chance--the only realistic points of failure are ones that would wipe out the entire group (or so much of it that recovery is impossible) in a very short period of time. And while I'm sure that will happen to many human groups all over the planet, it's very unlikely it will happen to all of them.

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Bandits101@reddit

“In and around the poles”…..is that your get out of jail card? Antartica, Northern Siberia or Canada. I suppose you assume the flora and fauna will adapt to twilight and darkness.

The poles and glaciers are melting, rivers and lakes are drying, seas are rising and landscapes even now are changing. All major river deltas and their massive food production will be gone.

As the planet warms the great water bodies do so too. The oceans are on their way to losing their ability to exchange temperature with the depths. The majority of climate and marine scientists are way beyond just being alarmed.

The atmosphere can retain a great deal of water vapour and make life unliveable between the tropics. As temperatures slowly equalize, major weather events will wane and die.

Without weather, cultivating crops will be hit or miss and then constantly a miss. Without great technological innovations requiring energy, living will likely be a constant labor.

Dreaming of islands of plenty in a sea of want are just that…dreams. Humans are not exceptional, destined to survive alone on a desolate planet.

We may assume sea and terrestrial life are not important but I beg to differ. You say humans will survive in plus eight degrees of warming, because of “in and around the poles”.

I think you pulled that assumption from your nether regions. The big positive feedbacks of AGW have yet to be realized.

Methane and ocean warming are two but as the atmosphere clears so will warming become clear as well.

Even if human induced GHG’s clear, there is no stopping the enormous warming potential of the positive feedback of evaporating oceans.

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maybri@reddit

I suppose you assume the flora and fauna will adapt to twilight and darkness.

I mean... yeah? You realize there are already plants and animals (including humans) living in those places, right? The cold is the biggest obstacle to life thriving there right now, which is obviously going to become less of a problem as time goes on. If we go back to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (probably history's best analogue for what's coming--a period where the planet warmed 5-8 °C in the span of 20,000 years), there were diverse, thriving forest ecosystems in polar regions, including even early primates. I think it will take several thousand years before the poles look like that again, but I see no reason to assume they won't get there.

The poles and glaciers are melting, rivers and lakes are drying, seas are rising and landscapes even now are changing. All major river deltas and their massive food production will be gone.

As the planet warms the great water bodies do so too. The oceans are on their way to losing their ability to exchange temperature with the depths. The majority of climate and marine scientists are way beyond just being alarmed.

The atmosphere can retain a great deal of water vapour and make life unliveable between the tropics. As temperatures slowly equalize, major weather events will wane and die.

So, a lot of what you're saying here is correct to my understanding, some of it seems overstated (it's definitely not true that river deltas will completely disappear), but I'm especially confused by the claim that "major weather events will wane and die." Maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you mean, but that seems like a dramatic overextension of the idea of how weather patterns will be changed by the weakening of the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles. In reality, weather will continue as long as the equator continues to receive more solar heating than the poles.

In any case, without dismissing the severe and catastrophic ecological effects of everything you're talking about, they do not indicate human extinction. They're alarming for the continued existence of a human population of 8 billion and counting. They do not mean there would be nowhere left on earth to support a human population of <1 million.

Without weather, cultivating crops will be hit or miss and then constantly a miss. Without great technological innovations requiring energy, living will likely be a constant labor.

This is where I feel like maybe you just didn't read my last comment closely--I was talking about humans surviving by returning to Stone Age technology levels and ways of living. Large-scale agriculture will almost certainly cease to be viable; I fully agree with you there. Populations will need to survive by hunting and gathering, and there will be a massive collapse in the human population at this time as it shrinks to the carrying capacity of the refugia where human life is still possible.

Dreaming of islands of plenty in a sea of want are just that…dreams. Humans are not exceptional, destined to survive alone on a desolate planet.

You are just putting words in my mouth here. The refugia will not be "islands of plenty" while the rest of the planet dies; they'll just be the places where humans can survive. The situation will still be bad there, but survivable for small groups of humans. Meanwhile, it's not like these refugia will be the only place on Earth with complex life anymore either--Earth has been far warmer than it's projected to get in even the most dire realistic warming scenarios and still had thriving ecosystems across the planet. I don't think ecosystems will be thriving when we reach that point in the near couple centuries, but that's because of how fast the transition is going to happen, not because the end result is going to be some permanently unlivable hell world.

We may assume sea and terrestrial life are not important but I beg to differ.

Who's assuming that? Certainly not me. There's a big difference between saying "the coming ecological collapse will be survivable by a small number of humans" and saying "the coming ecological collapse is no big deal, we'll be fine." I'm saying the former, and you're for some reason choosing to respond as if I'm saying the latter.

You say humans will survive in plus eight degrees of warming, because of “in and around the poles”.

I think you pulled that assumption from your nether regions. The big positive feedbacks of AGW have yet to be realized.

Methane and ocean warming are two but as the atmosphere clears so will warming become clear as well.

Even if human induced GHG’s clear, there is no stopping the enormous warming potential of the positive feedback of evaporating oceans.

My assumption is in line with the current scientific consensus from everything I've read on the topic. At +8 °C warming, enough of the planet should remain habitable to humans that extinction is unlikely. The major concern is how much of the world will start to have days where wet bulb temperatures exceed 35 °C, which will pretty much unavoidably wipe out the entire human population present wherever that happens. But at +8 °C warming, the only areas expected to exceed that threshold are in the tropics (so not even just "in and around the poles"). Even in much more extreme scenarios like +12 °C, which not many scientists see as a possibility even if we burn all of the remaining recoverable fossil fuels on the planet, there would remain thermal refugia where wet bulb temperatures never exceed 35 °C.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

THANK YOU! That's the kind of reasoning we need. What are all the underlying conditions for long-term survival. How likely are they to remain. And how likely are they to remain all at once.

I mentioned infertility here a bunch of times (your point on "capability"), but let's also consider pre-modern era rates of death while giving birth for women and rates of newborns surviving into reproductive age - and then account in those rates for never-before scales of toxicity, planetary instability, etc.

I hope everyone here reads your comment.

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crypto_dds@reddit

Humans are EXCELLENT at survival. You may be a bit too concerned about complete extinction. You’ll more likely see AI take over in our lifetimes, economic collapse, alien invasions, WWIII, etc but Extinction Level Events are very very rare.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

That excellence was never tested under the severity of conditions we are headed into - as many have pointed out here. There is no precedent, just optimism.

I, as I write in the post, am not concerned with complete extinction. That got debated here a lot because clearly a lot of other people are concerned about it and want to rebuke it vehemently, often with not great reasoning.

I agree there are much more imminent concerns and sources of mass scale disruption.

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Classic-Today-4367@reddit

I didn't read through all the AMA posts, but have seen enough of Luke's interviews, talks etc in recent years to believe he is pretty sure everything is in an ever-faster downward spiral.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

So if what you say is true then he either contradicted himself in the AMA, censored himself, or in his understanding the ever faster downward spiral actually does not feature exctinction due to Earth systems collapsing for millenia - which would make it a very slow ever faster spiral.

?

🤷

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Usernome1@reddit

Or it seems like you’re drastically overestimating the likelihood of literally every single human dying and reading into certain comments, as well as drastically underestimating the resilience of human beings and the different environments we can survive in.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I don't

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Usernome1@reddit

How is saying there are very few scenarios where near term extinction is plausible not consistent with the belief that we are in a dire state and getting worse? He literally says in his book that "the threats we face today are far worse than in the past" and from an article that "the world is worsening in areas that have contributed to the collapse of previous societies. The climate is changing, the gap between the rich and poor is widening, the world is becoming increasingly complex, and our demands on the environment are outstripping planetary carrying capacity."

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

"Ever faster downward spiral" implies accelerating feedback loops and tipping points, abrupt non-linear developments, to me. Maybe not to you? I guess time to look up a precise definition, based on the experience here, although I don't tjimk there is one for the 3 words.

The examples you give merely speak to the current baseline and a trend that can be linear.

On the scale of human systems and society, I'd say no "ever faster downward spiral" can stretch millennia to reach its end point. Linear development can.

On a planetary scale, yes an ever faster downward spiral can realistically span millenia.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I tried adding a screenshot here. Doesn't look like it's getting saved.

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OddGoldfish@reddit

If you have a custom definition of a word, you can't get upset when other people don't use it...

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Hah, clearly you can. You may be unaware lf your custom definition, because you did not actively choose it. And then someone using a different definition, which makes their statement to appear more extreme to you, is upsetting.

I am fascinated that me honestly admitting this is what I realised - that I understood the world differently - didn't resonate with anyone but 3 (I am confident most people interpret some words in their vocabulary differently from a technical definition), and people just go on concluding I am an idiot.

At least I know there is nothing casual about "causal Friday", as someone new to reddit and this sub. If you don't want this kind of reaction, definitely don't allow for any imprecision and honest vulnerability. Be beyond reproach and invulnerable, (and if you make a mistake, cover it up with a different explanation), because that's the standard 1/3 of the people here will hold you to.

Thank you to the currently cca 15 people who made the comment about me being an idiot because of the definition for the lesson 👍

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Logical-Race8871@reddit

Human extinction is such a boring topic. Extinction happens to every species. That's how life in the universe works.

Also we fuck like rabbits when we have fertilizer, which there's still enough materials around to make for a good long time.

You could literally get this stuff restarted from like a couple million people and be back to 10 billy in a couple centuries.

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

Anyone else questioned their sanity after AMA with Luke Kemp here?

Will this restore your sanity?

Henry Gee is a senior editor at the scientific journal Nature and has written several books. One of my favorites is The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution. He calls humanity "a dead species walking."

Audio narration of Henry Gee's piece: https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/henry-gee-humans-are-doomed-to-go-extinct-122821

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Thank you for sharing! I have not heard of this source before.

For the record, I don't think I lost my sanity - but I questioned whether I had. This and some other contributions here, and the exchange overall (seeing what arguments and reasoning underpin people's belief that humanity won't go extinct for millenia), has helped me regain a trust in my sanity, and hence composure :)

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

This and some other contributions here, and the exchange overall (seeing what arguments and reasoning underpin people's belief that humanity won't go extinct for millenia),

Humanity may linger after our high-tech civilization fails but lasting "for millenia" seems overly optimistic to me.

We've made quite a mess of our planet. As a kid, I roamed the woods around where I now live. Back then, however, there was no West Nile Virus or tick-born illnesses lurking in those woods. Thawing perma frost is freeing boatloads of pathogens that have been safely kept on ice for ages.

As you know, the list goes on and on. Bottom line, the world of today...and tomorrow...will be more hostile to, as Henry Gee so aptly put it, humanity's genetic "saminess."

Lasting "for millenia" denotes, IMHO, an unwarranted optimism. But then, humans are very good at BSing themselves.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

How do you quote only a part of someone's comment, please? I feel like I am going through a steep learning curve on reddit today.

I agree with what you say.

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

How do you quote only a part of someone's comment, please?

Under the comment you're interested in, click "reply." This moves the entire comment to a working window.

Then, select the text you want to quote. (On my phone, a menu then comes up...usually "quote," "copy," "cut," etc.) Click "quote." Your selected text will appear with the > before the transfered text.

Hit the return on your keyboard twice for a paragraph spacing. Then, write your response.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Hit the return on your keyboard twice for a paragraph spacing. Then, write your response.

Testing. Thank you.

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TheArcticFox444@reddit

You got it!

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

It might not, since his timeline seems to be pretty well aligned with Luke Kemp's. I think he laid out his reasoning pretty well in that AMA (there are a few other related questions there that share more details, and to be fair he did say it could happen sooner)

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Bandits101@reddit

To me he comes across as being fully committed to believing in human exceptionalism. If he just fully researched AGW he might not be so optimistic and that is one of many calamities that are bearing down.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

What does AGW stand for in this context?

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Lemonthepotato@reddit

Anthropogenic global warming.

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Bellegante@reddit

Extinction is a specific word with a specific meaning.

99% of humanity dying is not extinction, 100% is.

It’s not downplaying collapse in and of itself to say humanity won’t become extinct in the near term, especially not because you decided to use a different definition of the word..

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

The question in the AMA specifically asked about plausibility of extinction happening between 2050-2100, and mentioned causes such as ocean acidification and ecosystems collapse. To my knowledge, these trends are linked to projected outcomes of major population collapse (say to 95% of current size) later this century. Which is perhaps why I also assumed that that was what the question was asking about.

I didn't "decide" to use the word differently from the technical definition, this was not result of a conscious process.

I don't believe the way you u/bellegante understand each word in your vocabulary is fully aligned with the technical definition. But you won't know until your understanding is confronted.

No need to be a dick about it ;)

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PinkOxalis@reddit

Luke Kemp is selling a book. He says we are going to figure it all out eventually and all we need to do to prevent collapse is reduce emissions and pollution and rein in the oligarchs. Easy!

The people that want a media presence all say, in one way or another, that it's really not that bad and here are the "fixes." Doughnut economics, circular economies, Goliaths -- you have to look at the genre they are writing in and the public platform they want. They see people like those on this subreddit as the old cartoon of the bearded man standing on a street corner yelling "the end is nigh."

The only place for more honest conversation is academic books (which don't have to sell in large numbers and still "count" for the academic) and places like this subreddit.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I think that all makes sense to me. Part of the cocktail of me being rattled was that this happened on this subreddit, and it seemed to me nobody questioned the comment. (This was the case during the AMA, to my knowldge, but I see that since the live event ended, it has actually been questionned). And as you can see in the comments under this post, a lot of people here fundamentally agree with the statements that I found implausible and rattling, or theur underlying reasoning.

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North-Fudge-2646@reddit

I (the questioner) was surprised that he peddled out the same hopium answer as anyone else. I tend to find clarity with hopium-free Michael Dowd and Predicament, Not A Problem Erik Michaels on this one.

Let's remember:

Earth's worst mass extinction event, the Great Dying, was driven by rapid CO2 and methane release.
The Great Dying killed 9 out of 10 species on the planet.
Today's rate of change in atmospheric CO2 concentration is at least 10 times faster than it was during the Great Dying, and possibly up to 74 times faster.
There is a temperature lag between emissions and effects of 10-20 years. Today we are feeling the effects from 2005.
Over 33% of total cumulative anthropogenic carbon emissions in all of human history have been released since the movie Iron Man premiered in theatres. Over 50% were produced after 1990.

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1n919sv/if_anybody_thinks_youre_crazy_for_talking_about/

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kylerae@reddit

I for the most part like Luke's takes. Although like you I agree things will be worse than what he is expecting. My biggest issue with his most recent discussions is his take on how collapses affect the majority of people. I do think he is correct that past collapses have been bad for the 1% and overtime better for the 99%, but I think he overlooks a few things with his views that this collapse will be the same.

We know we currently live in a global civilization. This has never happened before.
Because of 1, as well as the full global damage we have done, means there will be very few places for people to flee to.
Our population is massive and so spread out compared to past collapses.
I think the biggest question I have for him (and honestly I am so bummed I happened to miss is AMA), but who does he think the 1% vs the 99% are in this modern world? Let's say his beliefs pan out. This collapse is bad for the 1% but is eventually beneficial for the 99%. He does realize the vast majority of his audience is very close to the 1% globally. The Global North would also be considered the heart of this current civilization. He argues people that lived in the heart of civilizations (like in Rome) were the ones to suffer the most. So I guess my question is most of his discussions have been about how we shouldn't worry too much because when past civilizations collapsed eventually it was better for the majority of people, but the people he is telling that to are most likely to be the ones (in his theory) to suffer the most long term.

I think those of us in the Global North focus on our fight against our 1%, but often overlook that a lot of us are pretty close to that level when looking at the global population. If those in Rome suffered the most because they had the farthest to fall that means the majority of his audience will also suffer the most at least long term. But that belief does not fully pan out because we know those in the Global South are being impacted more so than those in the Global North. Do I think looking out over the next several hundred years, if our population drops significantly, those who are more self-sustaining today will be more likely to survive in the future, sure, but I think the complexity of our current civilization makes most of his hopeful takes about collapse very uncertain.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

The degree of non-alignment on what the range of plausible futures may or may not look like in this subreddit is my main takeaway from creating this post and engaging in discussion here. Adjusting my expectations.

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Kulty@reddit

I think arguing what the specific threshold for the extinction of our species is, is missing the mark on two points:

What is relevant to us as individuals is the extinction of civilization (not our species), aka "the end of life as we know it."
What people actually mean when they ask "Will humanity go extinct?", is "Do I have to worry that we are all going to die within my, or the lifetime my children?" and "Is there any basis for holding on to hope that things will improve?"

A massive population collapse due to the inability to grow and distribute enough food is entirely plausible within the next couple generations of humans. However, the inevitable end of civilization is a bit of a bummer, a conversation-stopper of sorts. A public person with a book to sell would be wise to avoid that topic all together, or give answers that leave room for projection and can sound credible to the doomer and hope-seeker alike.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Of course, we can see that many among our scientists have been dilluting the message (their words not mine), but then the problem is... if we all dilute the message in order to sell books or get the next round of funding, we will never close the knowledge-action gap because we keep creating a knowledge gap.

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Kulty@reddit

Ah, but then the question becomes a philosophical one: if the end of civilization is inevitable, what difference does it make whether we are aware or not? For many people hope is what gets them out of the bed in the morning - not just grand hope for our civilization, but the mundane, personal hope that tomorrow will be better than yesterday in our workplace and our home life.

For many, letting go of the one implies letting go of the other, and life would seize to feel worth living. The path to an outlook where collapse acceptance and the love for life can coexist, can be challenging and lonely.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I think it is a practical question, not a philosophical one - as long as one doesn't care merely about their own fate but also the fate of others, including the scale and severity of suffering and the like.

I agree about the cognitive and psychological barfiers. My bias has been having a so-called big window of tolerance.

I do not feel deflated by being clear about prospects of future extinction and points of no return - the clarity energises me and gives me agency. Points to what makes sense doing. Helps priorise. Sort plausible and implausible theories of change. And I know of other people wired the same way.

But many, if not most, have it the other way around. Clarity on doom is incompatible with hope and agency.

What I am deflated by - as evidenced by this post and the underlying experience that inspired the post, is denial, deep ingrained misconceptions, and the misconceptions not being questioned by people supposedly in the know, which shows the true scale pf the knowledge gap (pr intehrity gap?) If we have a knowledge gap, we'll never do anything relevant, at any relevant timeframes. The potebtial of doing relevant stuff in time is what keeps me going.

To clarify: by that I don't mean making the inevitable evitable, but changing the trajectory so as to alter how exactly this plays out, and what it means for the affected majority.

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Kulty@reddit

I agree, and arguably even if the end result is the same, we have - at least in theory - influence over how much objective suffering ocvurs in the way. E.g. if we can avoid having a world war on the way there, that would be a goal worth striving for.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes.

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ValMo88@reddit

For me that agency includes, how do we preserve education, so that multiple generations from now humanity isn’t in another “dark age”.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I can attest to the end of your comment too, as someone who is a public person with a book to sell who has not avoid the topic and not given vague answers :D

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Thank you! A very lucid view and comment.

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

They are two different topics, the extinction of the human race would not occur even if all the atomic bombs were launched at the same time, now, the end of civilization as we know it, yes, as you see they are different topics.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes they are. We are speaking extinction here. Not end of civilisation as we know it.

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

No man, humanity has had great religious and political changes that have caused the elimination of civilizations and created others, Greece, Rome, Egypt, Aztecs, Mayans, pre-Columbian cultures and all those of North Americans, and so on, many more, the people in those places continue to live but their cultures or civilizations change.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes. I meant... from among these two distinct phenomena, this post and debate is not about civilisational collapse / societal collapse. Perhaps we are all on the same page that that is inevitable. The post and debate are about the prospects of extinction, its timeline, and key factors influencing it.

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

Ugh, Interesting, it is obvious that the collapse as a civilization would come before and then I suppose a bad luck of natural and not so natural disasters along with new viruses or super resistant bacteria

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes. I'd also say that is obvious - although I have not tested that statement on this audience, and clearly other stuff that I thought was obvious there is no alignment on :)

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

Like which ones?

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Well.. for example the one on climate change being the sole major driver of population collapse / mass loss of human life / extinction-grade impacts in the not so distant future. I thought it was pretty obvious this was not the case (in the context of this subreddit) - and it is not. In half of the people's minds here, this is exactly how they see the situation.

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

It is very clear that climate change will cause massive migrations, conflicts and wars

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

To be clear, I am disputing the "sole major" part, or stating it as an example of what this subreddit is not aligned on. Not whether climate change is a driver of disruption or not.

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Hot_Annual6360@reddit

But come on, how bad we are if we go out

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Mindless-Public-5519@reddit

It might also come down to his definition of human extinction. Different academics define human extinction differently and I think Luke Kemp means 0 humans around, whereas others define it as a significant reduction. I can't find the damn article, but I remember reading about this recently on The Guardian where the interviewed different scientists about this.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

HAH! I hope you find it :) You will see how many people here asserted that there is only one valid definition - that of 0 specimen surviving. I like a term someone else has thrown in "functionally extinct" - as in, some individuals may be alive, but unable to continue reproducing a population.

Which brings in another reference point to mind: There are some rare and endangered animals in ZOOs around the world, but that doesn't mean the species can survive. Very often these are a lot of issues in trying to breed them: e.g. the specific male and female brought together from different ZOOs not having chemistry, or not being able to conceive... an individual dyeing in transport to another ZOO... individuals not breeding or not breeding at expected rates in captivity due to stress or unknown factors... Having to resort to breeding siblings, etc. So technically the species is not extinct, but for all practical purposes, it might as well be.
Now.. a few individuals remaining is of course a very different threshold than 5% of the population surviving and what their prospects then are...

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B4SSF4C3@reddit

Extinction = 100%. This is not an ambiguous term. Humanity’s population has collapsed down to just a few thousand individuals for, apparently, as long as 100,000 years at one point a million years ago. That’s not extinction. We are still here.

Adjust your terminology.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes, this exchange here has been instructive in realising that is necessary. It's more adjusting a mental reference point / internal meaning assigned to the word. I have hardly ever used "extinction" in any narratives or discourse. A lot of the confusion (mine during the AMA) and here (in the discussion) would have been avoided if we all understood extinction the same way - i.e. if my mental reference point was the same as the technically accurate definition.
Although you'll see in some of the comments here that I am/was not alone in my earlier unconscious interpretation of it.

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jizzlevania@reddit

If you looks at humans as regular ol' animals, it means at 95% death rate, our conservation status would be critically endangered. as humans we don't exist in nature (what a sad fucking thought) and there is not a more advanced species to care for us in captivity, so we'd never be Extinct in Wild, we'd just go to extinct. If 5% of people survive the climate apocalypse, they gotta be the 5% who know how to start a fire with no supplies or they might not last the thousand years.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

They have to know how to start fire, and a bunch of other things, don't they? And be physically capable of doing it, mentally stable enough to function in spite of the trauma and stress of the highly inhospitable planet... all sorts of additional factors affecting their future survival rate.

I didn't quite get your point about the endangered species analogy, but that term did come to my mind a few times here when I kept throwing the 95% reference point around. Would you like to try to paraphrase, please?

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JotaTaylor@reddit

Sounds like:

a) You consider "collapse analysis" to be an exact science where there's firm consensus regarding all variables involved;
b) You put a lot of stock into this one person's opinion, for whatever reason (personally, I don't pay much attention to anyone who's selling anything);
c) You really want human extinction to be true and unavoidable --either because the death drive is getting the best of you, or because you've fully comitted to this hypothesis and don't want to be wrong.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Hi,

Re a): I wouldn't say I consider it exact science or that I expect consensus on all variables involved, but some broad agreement on some key parameters on what futures are plausible and what futures are not plausible would be reassuring. :) Like, we all have a basic shared understanding of reality. I commented on this somewhere in this sea of comments. My main drive is a sense of clarity. (Clarity, not certainty). Clarity gives me a sense of agency. Seeing a huge knowledge gap makes me feel deflated - like, there is no chance we will do anything relevant in the window of opportunity we have to meaningfully alter the current trajectory. Does it make sense.

Re b): It's not about 1 person's opinion, in my view. It's about feeling defeated because yet another person who sells something I view as diluted or not quite aware of the present baseline and plausible futures getting a lot of clout, being very influential, the work being widely disseminated... Ultimately perpetuating and cementing a knowledge gap / lack of clarity, lack of chances of us doing anything meaningful.
And it's about my shock of it looking like this community (which I had unrealistic expectations of, being new here), was buying it - and clearly a big part of it is buying it or sharing the same beliefs, judging from the comments here, and more from the 40% of downvotes of anything I say here :) That was a shock, that I am processing. (Because it means the niche that I thought had a shared understanding of reality, does not).

Re c) I don't really want it to be true, as in... I don't have stakes attached (death drive?). My main concern is about huge population collapse rather than extinction of the species, and doing something about shifting the trajectory of that. As I tried to acknowledge, in my mind, until today, extinction and 95%+ population loss were the same outcomes. Which has tainted everything around my perceptions of the AMA, how I was affected, the discussion here.

However, I am big on things being conceptually coherent... so I will argue when people present narratives or arguments that are not logically coherent at all. Which may give the impression that I want extinction to be true.

If you're happy to say more about what you were thinking / how you arrived at your hypotheses a) b) and c), I'd be happy to read it - and reflect if there is more to it than I am consciously aware of.

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Obvious_Pattern_3993@reddit

"In my mind 95+% of humanity dying is extinction, because that's an outcome I care / am concerned about. I don't particularly care if humanity as a species survives.
Also, it seems to me 95+% of humanity dying makes the odds of the remainder surviving for further millenia also unlikely, all things considered. But that is a nuance."

Okay, let's rewind back in the history of human race to a point where there wasnt modern technology.
Before fossils fuels, before electricity, before steam engines, etc.

That was somewhere before \~1650.

At this point, the world population was \~400 millions of people.
That's \~5% of today's population.

And they did pretty well under that circumstances, humanity lived many thousands of years this way.
And did not go extinct, and even with their very primitive tech and limited knowledge they managed to spread around the whole globe and survive in deserts and tundras.

Humans are incredibly efficient survival machines.

So I must agree with Luke Kemp - even if the current, technologically advanced civilization collapses and human population will be reduced to 5%, I find it highly unlikely that the remaining humans will go extinct in the foreseeable future, unless some really nasty disaster happens, e.g. a freakin' big asteroid hits the earth, or something like this.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

The circumstances you describe are not the planetary reality post 2040. Hence the argument falls apart. They are conditions of relative stability of Earth systems and relative abundance of natural resources.

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Obvious_Pattern_3993@reddit

Post 2040 there still will be vast areas that are suitable for humans and wildlife.
Even in case of 2-3-4 C warming, when the mid-latitudes will be inhabitable, lands that are currently too cold for agriculture will warm to a level where agriculture will be possible, like the northern parts of Canada, or Siberia, or southern parts of Chile, Argentina.

That's the reality.
Something tells me that you WANT to believe that humans will extinct soon. But it is highly unlikely.

On the other hand, it is highly likely that the globalized industrial civilization in it's current form will cease to exist in the near future, but that's not extinction.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

You need to look beyond climate change.

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Obvious_Pattern_3993@reddit

I do. Most of the resources that are depleting are required to maintain this industrial, globalized civilization for 8 billion people.
But they are not essential in the sense of survival for a few hundred millions of people.
It is a fact that the human race can survive without those, that's what we did before the industrial civilization for tens of thousands of years.

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Iamnotheattack@reddit

Some reading you should look into

What The Most Detailed Report Ever Compiled On Existential Risks From Climate Change Found

https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/climate-change

Although worth noting that the whole climate change framing is pretty shitty because it only focuses on climate instead of overall environmental destruction, and I'm very happy we are slowly moving towards planetary boundaries framing. Largely in thanks to The Potsdam Institute where I'm sure there is also some great reading but I haven't taken the time to dig in there as I find the whole "AI Doom" thing to be a bit more pressing at the moment.

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Buetti@reddit

The article lost me at the headline and got worse with every paragraph.

Classic TESCREAL propaganda.

"We shouldn't tank global economy, because not everyone is going to die!" WTF? I guess billions of people dying is not important enough to rethink the ways we operate? All hail capitalism.

And seriously: I don't fucking care what the "general consensus" from "experts" is. None of the "experts" frequently cited expected us to breach 1,5° already, if you asked them 5 years ago. Instead they keep muttering about "long term averages".

"We have to be aware of left wing and right wing climate desinformation" - wow. Enlightened centrism. So original.

This article is absolute crap.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Which article is this referring to? I am getting lost in the comments, may need to check from my desktop.

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Buetti@reddit

This one:

https://open.substack.com/pub/benthams/p/what-the-most-detailed-report-ever?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4pcu3

Tbh: I haven't checked the original source the article is based on, but from my point of view, it doesn't really matter what some climate scientists agreed on a couple of years ago, without actually considering that we are facing an interconnected poly crisis (or rather poly catastrophy).

Whenever I hear "Sooner than expected" I think to myself: well yeah, sooner than the mainstream discourse expected but there have been people warning about exactly this scenario for a long time.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

In my circles we arrived at and say polycollapse. Precisely to avoid the confusion: not just economic or societal collapse. Not just climate collapse. Not just those two combined. Multiple collapse processes unfolding in parallel.

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Lemonthepotato@reddit

80,000 hours says “A large chunk of land on Earth would remain habitable, even with 13°C of warming. We would have to live in a much smaller area, but civilisation would survive.” which seems a bit questionable but idk.

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Buetti@reddit

I'm so torn about the Potsdam Institute. Their studies and data are all legit, but the people there...

Stefan Rahmstorf (the AMOC guy, that predicted the AMOC to be stable until a couple of years ago, and fought tooth and claw against other scientists who said that it will collapse sooner than expected) blocked the whole German sooner community on Twitter a couple of years ago claiming "Doomers are the new climate change deniers".

Ottmar Edenhofer (their climate economist) is literally defending capitalism in interviews. Fuuuuck this guy.

I read interviews with some other scientist from PIK and they are all filled to the brim with Hopium.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Thanks for sharing! I did not know anything closer about the people at the institute. However, the PB science now seems to be produced by multiple overlapping entities, not by PIK alone.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Thank you. I agree and, as a coincidence, just ranted about that elsewhere a moment ago. In my experience, when people who don't posit extinction-level outcomes (at least in these sense of majority of he population losing lives) in the second half of this century as likely, then the most likely reason is that they are only thinking climate, not the full picture.

I also "rejoice" about growing awareness of and visibikity of the planetary boundaries framework. Seems like a lot more funding is going that direction. Spoiler alert: the language is still pretty soft. And the material light on prognosis (the framework is itself a back-looking snapshot, isn't it, not a future looking projection tool). But yes mainstreaming that grasp could do wonders.

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Mostest_Importantest@reddit

If anything has been instructional in collapse, it was from seeing and knowing that humans will avoid looking at reality even after there's no rational/sane/healthy choices left to make.

If you got a book to sell, preaching about the scientifically accurate futility of everything won't boost sales.

It's already Venus, and everyone is grabbing the last of what's left.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

If only I had the stomach to withold the scientifically accurate parts... 🤦🏼‍♂️ Anyways. Never a better time for a career change then during an impending economic collapse :D

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Mostest_Importantest@reddit

Everyone's journey into full collapse awareness takes some measure of time.

Most people don't like thinking about how bad humanity will be in another 200-300 years due to the shit our species has done in the past 100 and will do in the next 100 years.

I believe the science that suggests that in less than five hundred years, nothing larger than a small dog will be able to live in the new environment we've created.

Will careers, let alone career changes even exist in the new tomorrow? 🤷

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

We're on the same page. Maybe carrier is the wrong word. Livelihood.

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Mostest_Importantest@reddit

I plan on selling my body, one organ at a time. Then all the rest at once.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

I am really surprised by some of the views expressed here (or rather them being expressed here). I thought we learnt no later than with the Limits to Growth models that when you consider more factors, the catastrophe prepones on the timeline, and its scale changes.

We know we have 7 of 9 transgressed planetary boundaries, but it seems many people still think the problem ahead is climate collapse, or that this one of 7 transgressed boundaries is the obly significant contributor to non-liveable conditions on the planet. Many people haven't caught up with what the frameworks actually sugnifies, it seems.

We go back to a narrow mental model.

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yves759@reddit

This guy seems to know almost nothing about ressource constraints, doesn't even mention it in his first list of risks in his Nate Hagens interview, obviously one of these moralistic semi idiot.

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clv101@reddit

Oh boy! Read his book, he knows plenty about resource constraints. He shows how resource constraints not only play a key role in creating goliaths but also their downfall.

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yves759@reddit

yeah maybe, anyway, could not go much further in this Nate Hagens interview, the current techno industrial civilization is built on fossile fuel, not listing their depletion in the first or second risk (not even a risk, a certainty), I really cannot go further.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Well... when it comes to oral interviews... I am happy to give a benefit of the doubt. I have more than once been put in front of a camera and mic when sleep deprived, too cognitively impaired to say "no"/"not today", and then ended up saying incoherent rubbish or even omitting my own most important talking points. One would think a podcast recording is not unscheduled/unforeseen, and is something you can have some control over before it's released, but still. I can sympathise there.
When it's your own scheduled event and you have some time to think before you answer in writing, the ability to draft and edit etc, it's a bit of a "higher bar".
I wouldn't call anyone a semi idiot, but we are not reading the same book, metaphorically speaking.

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gangofminotaurs@reddit

I can offer you a

Humans are so special. Mammalian life might disappear in the extinction event that we are, but we will prevail.

or maybe a

Billions will die but I (or people like me) will survive because I'm... me / rich / collapse aware / american / survivalist / whatever.

We live in a matriochka doll of denial, and places like r/collapse are just a smaller doll.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes this is more or less the observation I am arriving, and it's a bit sad. But at least I am no longer questioning my sanity :D

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HumblSnekOilSalesman@reddit

A lot of life on Earth needs oxygen to live, including us. The oceans produce most of the oxygen on this planet. Not much of a stretch to say that when the oceans die we follow soon thereafter. No one, no matter how wealthy or prepared, can survive what's coming. Blue ocean event soon, Venus on the horizon.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Agreed! And the oceans dying is not millenia out, not even more than two decades out.

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

Normally, I'd agree but in the context of oxygen production, a dead ocean means devoid of microorganisms as well. Particularly the photosythesizing ones that encompass a broad range of habitable conditions.

These organisms were around for every mass extinction so far, and given their extremely short lifespan they have an easier time adapting over generations than we do, with out 75+ year life expectancies.

A dead ocean devoid of larger, complex life is a possibility for sure, given the ocean hosts only ~1% of biomass. But to sterilize it completely is a bit of a stretch beyond what I'd consider plausible in the near term.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yes that's a helpful distinction. What is 2 decades or so out is the related food system shock and accelerating of land based ecosystem collapse where they are intertwined. And acceleration of climate change due to ocean ecosystem collapse, thereabouts.

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

Yeah, these are possible or even likely outcomes, we agree there

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TheHistorian2@reddit

He clearly qualified it by saying that extinction is a high bar. And he’s right.

To get to human population = 0 will take a while. Even in a +6C (or beyond) world, everyone doesn’t drop dead overnight. Migration, famine, war, etc. are predictable, but 8+ billion people is a lot. At some point, there are only enough people left to eke out a meager existence with small groups in whatever hellscape remains.

But don’t feel too bad; civilization is still totally screwed.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Yeah I don't think I read into what he meant by "a high bar". But even then, not sure getting to 0 is millenia out, let alone highly improbable. I'd say maybe centuries out seems plausible.

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Torvaldicus_Unknown@reddit

Well, I don’t think a full blown human extinction will occur within the next 500-1000+years. We could very easily bottleneck, but life is a lot more resilient than we give it credit for.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Can you say more on factors you've considered? Or how you reached this conclusion, please? (Beyond thw resilience part).

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CorvidCorbeau@reddit

I understand it is difficult, but does this place have to be a safe haven where views like that don't pass?

I wouldn't entertain obviously false things in a discussion, like climate change denial, or flat earth conspiracies, or sth. of that nature, but the extinction risk is a pretty open question and it changes year after year, while never having too much certainty in the answers. It's a roulette wheel with a thousand balls in play, and if they all land on black the show is over.

I think that should be treated with a certain open-mindedness that goes above skepticism of it being unacceptable. I admit I am quite stubborn about the things I consider myself informed on, but if well researched professionals share a vividly different view, I can't help but consider I might be on the wrong track.

It's also possible that you are correct and everyone else isn't.

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arkH3@reddit (OP)

Oh yes, absolutely. It doesn't have to be a safe haven. I am just sharing my realisation and having to adjust to the heterogenity of views shared by different segments of users here. It's helpful to know, I just am processing it.

The mental switch from thinking were were all on different pages of the same book to thinking we are reading similar but related books.

Btw when I say "pass", I didn't mean they shouldn't be published. I meant "go unquestioned". I was the onky one to add a comment there, asking for a clarification.