Slashdot Log In
Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction
Posted by
kdawson
on Fri Nov 14, 2008 12:37 PM
from the doing-the-numbers dept.
from the doing-the-numbers dept.
wiredog sends in a study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Center For Biosecurity, assessing risks of human extinction and the costs of preventing it. "In this century a number of events could extinguish humanity. The probability of these events may be very low, but the expected value of preventing them could be high, as it represents the value of all future human lives."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Why bother? (Score:5, Insightful)
If we all die off, nobody is going to be around to lament the fact that we're gone.
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Funny)
Speak for yourself, human.
Parent
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, human or not we're all doomed. Deal with it.
The Last Question [multivax.com]
Parent
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry - I should have credited that. Short story by Isaac Asimov dealing with the end of life everywhere written in 1956.
Here's the wiki for anyone who just wants the gist without reading all 5 or 6 pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Question [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Why bother? (Score:5, Funny)
If we all die off, nobody is going to be around to lament the fact that we're gone.
Not true, as I have programmed Lamentobot for exactly this purpose, and his nuclear heart will ensure that he will be around to cry over the passing of human kind should we be wiped out any time in the next twenty thousand years.
Parent
Re:Why bother? (Score:4, Funny)
I've thought about it, and what I came up with was the following: Meter? What? Huh?
Parent
No problem! (Score:4, Funny)
As long as we can round up a hardy crew of misfits and renegades and train them to be astronauts, we can handle anything!
Reducing the risk of extinction, post-Zentradi era (Score:4, Funny)
The general plan is to perform mass-cloning of the populace, and then send out hordes of colonization fleets to find habitable planets elsewhere in the galaxy... If we hit any rough territory, we'll just sing at the problem until it goes away!
Better plan (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
I LIKE this plan! (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello there ladies. Would any of you be interested in participating in my scientific experiment to reduce the risk of human extinction?"
Hah! That's great! I can just imagine how this would all go down... You'd tell the ladies how you're conducting a program to reduce the risk of human extinction and "preserve favorable genetic traits"... You'd, like, buy 'em a drink, take 'em back to the lab with you, then take a genetic sample, put it in the freezer and send 'em on their way...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
some animal species that are about to go extinct (Score:3, Insightful)
might actually think that this is a wonderful concept.
To quote George Carlin: "The earth will shrug us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance".
Re:some animal species that are about to go extinc (Score:3, Insightful)
some animal species that are about to go extinct might actually think that this is a wonderful concept.
Well then, they should have invented their own firearms and started "deurbanizing" our habitats to make way for their own purposes!
Summary of the article (Score:5, Informative)
We could all die!!! But we probably won't. At least not right away.
On the other hand, who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
I honestly don't give two figs if humanity goes extinct (I certainly won't after the event).
Sure, if it happens while I'm alive, there maybe some un-avoidable pain and suffering for myself, but if it happens after I'm dead, well, I'll be dead.
Dead people can't suffer.
Anyway, extinction is a natural part of evolution, adapt or die motherfuckers, adapt and die. Yes, change from or to and is deliberate, because we are all going to die.
---
Anyway, onto the actual scenarios. From the introduction:
None of these things is going to wipe out each and every human, nor even enough humans to make the population enviable. Unless climate change is really, really dramatic (in which case, there is nothing we can do about it anyway). And to talk about flu... Viruses have never killed more than 70% of a given population (number pulled from the air, probably less, Wikipedia says The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. [wikipedia.org]). Oh, and terrorism. Scary shit that.
Then we get onto astronomical events, comets, solar flares and stuff, and the paper goes on and on.
Basically, we are all going to die, humanity is going to go extinct (if nothing else, the heat death of the universe will get us), and to think about the issue with any great thought is probably a waste of time.
Re:On the other hand, who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I always encounter this sentiment (or lack thereof), and I can only rationalize it as some sort of perverted self-loathing of the human race.
Life is a suicide mission. You just keep going and going until you croak.
But we do it anyway.
We survive. We thrive. We are compelled to persevere, even when nature does everything in its power to destroy us.
Why? Because we must.
Because if we don't, then everything we have accomplished will be for nothing.
It may sound altruistic, but I do care about the future of the human race. Because if no one else did before us, we would never live today.
We didn't crawl out of a pond so you could throw it all away.
Parent
Re:Don't rationalise it (Score:5, Insightful)
The earth is not a thing with a mind. Saying it would hardly miss us is gibberish.
The statement "life is what you make it" is more profound than most people think. It is people, individuals and groups, who give life meaning. It should not be trivialized.
Parent
Re:On the other hand, who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
Basically, we are all going to die, humanity is going to go extinct (if nothing else, the heat death of the universe will get us), and to think about the issue with any great thought is probably a waste of time.
Thankfully this is perfectly in line with my new investment strategy - Hookers, Blow, Jack Daniels and the Craps Table.
Parent
Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
missed geeks favorite disasters (Score:5, Funny)
Overshoot (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that the world population shot up by a factor of 4 in the last 100 years, mainly due to fossil fuel usage which won't last even another 100 years, I think some kind of near-term die-off is inevitable. However, I'd suggest that the lower the human population, the less stress as a whole the population is under as more per-capita resource with less competition is available, so complete extinction would become less and less likely as the population drops.
Re:Overshoot (Score:4, Insightful)
(or ever: we will reduce our usage, and prices will increase, but we can still synthesize fossil fuels from just about anything with carbon in it).
Excuse me, the first law of thermodynamics said he would like to have a talk with you.
Parent
Maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Just maybe, some alien race might discover that eating a human prolongs their life, or cures some previously incurable disease...
You'd think we'd be exploring space like crazy with the resources (not money) that we have ... but i guess since there are no indigenous people there to exploit ...
But the longer humanity is confined to this single celestial body we're literally keeping all our eggs in one basket.
the greatest threat to the species (Score:5, Insightful)
is the species
humanity itself is its own greatest enemy
in all other species, the idea is optimization of genes expressed for maximum survival. it's a feedback loop that has worked very well for billions of years
however, in humanity, with our brains and our language and our civilization, our biological survival has become of secondary importance to the survival of our memes. we sacrifice for larger ideas. suicide bombers will sacrifice that which genetic imperative considers the ultimate sin: extinguishing of life before reproduction. but from a meme's point of view, if it reinforces an idea's survival, its a good thing. memes are kind of like genes in that they look for maximum expression, but unlike genes in that they don't care if we actually survive
therefore, you could have a meme propogate in civilization that embraces our own extinction. nihilism is an example of a meme which embraces the meaningless of life and pointlessness of survival, for example. just look at the tags on the slashdot summary: "letthemdienews". there are a lot of people out there for whom cynicism and learned helplessness has led to not caring and even actively embrace our extinction
humanity as a biological entity, a growth, if you will, has done remarkably well. 7 billion is a good number in terms of judging success for the large mammals that we are. our brains and our tool use has allowed us to survive in the tundra and in the desert. we've done really good as animals so far
but our memes, a recent development in civilization that has not stood the test of time and has no direct genetic allegory, has no real stake in the survival of the biological organism which creates them with our language
Re:the greatest threat to the species (Score:4, Insightful)
In all other species, the idea is don't die before you procreate. That's it. Maximum survival has nothing to do with it -- maximum reproductive viability of your offspring is where it's at. For some species, this means living a long time and caring for your family members (apes, elephants, etc). For others, this means having lots of offspring and maximizing the chance of procreation of some of the offspring (praying mantises, where one or two young will devour the rest of the hatchlings as they emege). For some, this means a shotgun approach -- having a ton of offspring, since this maximizes the chance some will survive to procreate.
I disagree. Look at the Birds of Paradise in New Guinea. Their ridiculous mating dances and plumage are just like our memes... especially the mating dances. And the parallel is far wider in scope... due to lack of predators and plenty of food, their plumage and dances have evolved due to preferential mate selection. Predator evasion and food gathering are low on the list in a land of plenty. This is an allegory to the human race, IMO. In re: suicide bombers, I also disagree. Sacrificing oneslef so that those most genetically like you survive and procreate? That occurs in lots of cooperative species.
And as for "memes" being new to civilisation, I think there's some hubris involved in your opinion. Memes are as old as civilisation itself, they are what civilisation is based upon.
One other thing... overpopulation results in competition for scarce resources. Whether or not that competition is expressed as competition for food, water, oil, or whatever, overpopulation results in conflict. Conflict that results in casualties helps solve the overpopulation problem. From a tribal standpoint, it makes sense to wage war on the other, so that your relatives' genes can be passed on. Look at central Africa...
Parent
There is zero chance of extinction (Score:5, Insightful)
Over the next billion years or so. Zero.
There is no doubt that 99.99% of the population could be wiped out by a cataclysm. That's probably worth ... considering. But killing 99.99% of the world's population leaves over 600,000 individuals alive. Individuals of a species so adaptable that it can thrive everywhere from the deserts of the Kalihari to the coast of Greenland.
Humanity is a weed species. In fact, we're the weed species. We thrive relative to other species on disruption. Rats and cockroaches are just hangers on. They are Kato to our OJ, hitching a ride on our exploitation of new niches opened by environmental cataclysm. Every kind of cataclysm that could possibly be prepared for wiould only in a very short time convert the world into a storehouse of underutilized resources for the survivors. Those survivors might not have much fun, at least in the short term, but people are amazingly adaptable. Hell should hold not terrors for humanity, because it won't take anything like an eternity for anything to seem normal to people.
The only way to cause human extinction is to manage to kill everyone at one go. Things like a the Sun going unexpectedly nova, or some kind of unforseen astronomical radiation burst that sterilizes everything. Stuff you couldn't possibly prepare for.
Of the things you can prepare for, things like plague, the reason to prepare for them isn't the survival of the species. It's the survival of society. We have it pretty good, after all, and it wouldn't take much in those cases to take out a significant amount of insurance for our way of life.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It did; the Eastern Roman Empire a.k.a. the Byzantine Empire didn't come to an end until 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire.
Re:There is non-zero finite chance of extinction (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaving aside the points others have made about the example you give, it really proves my point.
The collapse of the Roman empire in the West did not entail the extinction of H. sapiens in Europe. People adapt to changing circumstances. The contiguity of population also means that the cultural collapse of Rome was never complete, even if the political collapse was total. We must not confuse the collapse of civilization with extinction. When they mesoamerican city states like Copan fell and dissolved into the jungle, the people didn't disappear, they just changed their way of life.
With respect to the 99.99% of all species going extinct, that is not a counter argument to my assertion that humans are uniquely adaptable. In point of fact, we aren't necessarily the dominant species on the planet. Ranked by biomass there is more krill on the planet than humanity. There is more termites, both as individuals and by weight. Humans, however, have colonized the greatest variety of geography.
Name another species that is humanity's equal in adaptability and fecundity, and you carry your argument. Otherwise, the 99.99% figure is irrelevant. Humans are far more adaptable than 99.99% or even 99.999% of species that ever lived.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but even if you managed to do all of that, Madagascar would still close its ports and leave a remnant of humanity. So basically, there's no way to kill off the entire species.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You raise an worthwhile point, but I would say that it is highly likely that 60,000 survivors could repopulate the planet.
True, if we assume they are evenly spread across the planet surface, many, perhaps most of them would perish before finding another human being. But that's a very, very stringent condition, isn't it? It seems almost certain that in such a scenario, people will tend survive in geographic clumps. Places the plague never reached, or where the post comet strike climate changes were survi
We can build three arks (Score:3, Funny)
All the statistitions and the fear mongers on 'B' ark, please.
Re:We can build three arks (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Extinction (Score:5, Insightful)
Not with a bang, but with a whimper (Score:4, Interesting)
OK. Let's assume that everything that's been worked on for 50 years and still doesn't work isn't going to work. This includes fusion and space travel.
Industrial civilization is only about 200 years old. It's convenient to start at 1808, the first year somebody bought a train ticket. That was when the industrial revolution started affecting large numbers of people. Does industrial civilization have another 200 years left?
We're running out of oil. The optimistic position is that peak oil is 20 years away. The pessimistic position is that peak oil was two years ago. Few think there's 50 years of oil left. There's really nothing on the energy horizon big enough to replace oil. All the alternatives are considerably more expensive, and have a lower return on energy invested vs. energy out.
We're running out of some other minerals. There are substitutes, and recycling, but using a substitute is usually more energy intensive.
It's quite possible that industrial civilization will just run down. This has already happened in a number of Third World countries. A few countries, such as Argentina, have already gone from rich to poor. The usual pattern is devolution into rich central cities surrounded by an ocean of poverty. Mexico City and Rio are classic examples.
That may be the future.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
.
True, assuming there's nothing else in space.
Think bigger, think space. Plenty of energy there (solar/magnetic/heat), and other planets/moon too. Move the bulk of energy consuming processes to space and you'll likely see an efficiency increase and energy consumption decrease. And you can always ship energy back to Earth easily at that point.
.
Space is the final frontier.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The optimistic position is that peak oil is 20 years away. The pessimistic position is that peak oil was two years ago. Few think there's 50 years of oil left.
That's not so bad then. In the 70's we only had less than 10 years of oil left. Now we have 50 years worth. We've gaind 40 years worth of oil in the last 30 years!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No one technology, maybe, but perhaps the future is multiple technologies working together. You could have Solar plants in the south-western US, wind turbines in the plains states, some geo-thermal plants, nuclear, clean-coal, etc. You might even toss some oil powered facilities in the mix also. All of those plants would convert their respective fuel sources to electricity which would be shared across a giant electrical grid. Need to
simple (Score:4, Insightful)
religion must end. We are on the brink of being able to prevent our own extinction by any means. Religious zealots are preventing mankind from progressing forward.
Re:Grey goo (Score:5, Insightful)
More to the point, does it matter?
Is there a point to clinging to what we are now, beyond the same sense of nogstalgia that we feel when we hear of some historical location being renovated/removed to make way for something better?
I may not be a Transhumanist [wikipedia.org] but I'm also not entirely certain trying to keep us as we are today is all that beneficial. Or that the ultimate end of the journey will be made with our footsteps.
Parent
Re:Grey goo (Score:5, Insightful)
human beings to mere drones of a hive mind.
Would that really be much different from the way things are now? I'm not trying to be a dick, but in my view we tend to deny the fact that while we are individuals, the greater whole of humanity tends to behave quite like a hive. Look at a busy intersection for a while - we are social and quite hive-like.
I would say that we are a pretty successful mostly hairless ape - but we most likely aren't gonna make it. Something might make it, but I doubt it will be us (it might be related, but I don't think we would recognize it). In any case - this planet belongs to the bacteria and it always will, I'm just thankful they have let us hang around for this long.
Parent
Re:Grey goo (Score:5, Insightful)
Real nanotech dangers are like "a bunch of small particles get in the environment and it's like some hybrid of mercury and asbestos" (in terms of accumulation of mercury and the damaging properties of asbestos).
Parent
!Goo (Score:5, Interesting)
Carbon based life has little use for the silicon in dirt. Silicon based goo can convert it into solar panels...
The "grey goo" apocalypse presumes exactly what it name stands for : that the surface of earth will be covered with an amorphous mass comprising an almost infinite number of the same nano machine.
What you advocate instead, requires specialisation, organisation, etc...
Basically, you're just re-inventing evolution, but this time with silicon-based life forms organising into a complete eco-system (including plant-like solar-pannel-nanobots whose purpose is to serve as energy entry point for the rest of the food chain including the carnivore-like nanobots which lack access to light).
It's not extinction by grey goo, it will be extinction by grey life instead.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They've (science fiction writers, newspaper reporters, even the people building them who should know better) been calling computers "thinking machines" and "electronic brains" since the existance of electronic computers.
Computers still don't think and I don't forsee them thinking; not digital computers, in any case. Thought and feeling are chemical processes, not binary arithemetic with NAND and NOR gates.
If we are controlled by computers, the computers will be controlled by men; the same rich, powerful, an
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's Get a New Dominant Species On This Planet (Score:5, Funny)
Now we just need to figure out what to call the new planted. I suggest Ape World.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know why but the term "go apeshit" always makes me laugh...
Re:Anyone who read the Dune Chronicles knows... (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, if Leto's Golden Path leads to any more Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson Dune novels I say we just go along with our extinction.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)