Oxford University Researchers List 12 Global Risks To Human Civilization 213
An anonymous reader writes The 12 greatest threats to civilization have been established by Oxford University scientists, with nuclear war and extreme climate change topping the list. Published by the Global Challenges Foundation, the report explores the 12 most likely ways civilization could end. "[This research] is about how a better understanding of the magnitude of the challenges can help the world to address the risks it faces, and can help to create a path towards more sustainable development," the study's authors said. "It is a scientific assessment about the possibility of oblivion, certainly, but even more it is a call for action based on the assumption that humanity is able to rise to challenges and turn them into opportunities."
Lists (Score:5, Funny)
I think Lists are the real problem.
How many times have they found Lists in bad guy's pockets?
1. Steal some cash
2. Beat up old lady
3. Shoot up a crowd.
4. Go home and chill with some Jamaican...and not the kind with dreadlocks.
Peak oil? (Score:4, Insightful)
We're now forty years after the first oil shock, and, for lack of a valid alternative, oil still runs 98% of transportation.
How come peak oil isn't listed?
Re:Peak oil? (Score:4, Insightful)
"We're now forty years after the first oil shock ... How come peak oil isn't listed?"
Your post contains its own answer.
People have been screaming "peak oil" since the late 1800s. Meanwhile, oil resource estimates just keep rising.
It's a naive perception of how the world works that envisions that mineral resources are like some cup with some fixed, limited quantity of a resource, and once you take it all it's gone. The reality is that for every resource, there's unthinkably, mind-bogglingly vast quantities available in total. The ease of extraction generally follows an exponential curve: the easiest stuff is incredibly rare, the next easiest an order of magnitude more common, the next easiest yet another another order of magnitude, and so forth. The amount you can produce depends on your technology and your current price point. Any hike in your price point or increase in your technology consequently puts exponentially more resource onto the market. Likewise, any hike in price leads to significant increase tech research to develop new types of resources, as the potential payoff becomes massive. The exponential scaling factor of difficulty of extraction versus availability strongly discourages supply peaks.
Now, the sort of resource availability curves aren't completely smooth - some order of magnitude transitions can be easier to achieve than others. Likewise, resource markets are always going to be inherently vulnerable to long-term price swings because you have such a long lead time between the start of new projects and the reaching of full production, and even longer time periods before the start of work on new technology and it becoming commercially viable. But regardless of the swings, the long-term picture is never one of scarcity. Making the scarcity bet is not a good idea [wikipedia.org].
Now, minerals can and do peak - but rarely from supply peaks. Rather, demand peaks are far more common. The stone age didn't end because people ran out of stones.
Re: (Score:2)
Note, of course, that the emphasis is on mineral resources - not biological. Biological resources don't follow a "the harder it is to extract, the exponentially more is available" curve. Rather, they're just the opposite - the more you extract, the less the total for you to extract in the future; the less you extract, the faster new resources become available.
Re:Peak oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real scarcity is our knowledge.
Re:Peak oil? (Score:5, Informative)
We're probably already past conventional peak oil. People haven't noticed because of the glut of shale oil, but shale oil only provides a very short term solution.
Re: (Score:3)
(for those who are curious, here's the long-term pricing [hofstra.edu] on the minerals in the Simon-Erhlich wager, inflation-adjusted).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
See the post immediately above yours. It only works if you don't factor in inflation.
The "economists" claim is not directly cited, only indirectly referenced (no source given in the indirect reference), and the economists in question are implied by the indirect source to be "environmentalists" who have "tended to deny the significance of the Ehrlich-Simon bet".
Re:Peak oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
+5 Insightful? :
No :
-5 for bullshit, willful ignorance and not reading the article you link to
You might want to take a look at this article about the energy trap : http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the... [ucsd.edu]
You're talking about extraction price, you should talk about the energy return on investment : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]
Once it costs more energy to retrieve oil than to leave it in the ground, we'll have a big problem, and that hasn't been mentioned one bit by TFA.
Re: (Score:2)
What if you use solar power to extract, and then use the oil for more immediate short-term energy needs?
Re:Peak oil? (Score:4, Insightful)
EROEI is only relevant when looked at as an entire system perspective.
The Luftwaffe in the latter part of WWII was largely fuelled with aviation fuel made from coal. The primitive coal to liquids technology they used was very inefficient tech consuming way more energy of coal than it produced jet fuel (highly negative EROEI). Yet it kept the Germans in the air until the plants were bombed.
How can that possibly be? How could a negative EROEI work? Simple: because the net energy picture was still positive. Energy from coal in, less energy from jet fuel out. And the economic picture worked because you can't stick coal in a jet's fuel tank and fly it.
Oil doesn't have to be some super high EROEI fuel to work. It doesn't even have to be a positive EROEI fuel to work. So long as you can put it in your gas tank, and so long as the world can produce energy to make it, it can get alone just fine.
Even as it stands, oil is already a fuel whose value is many times higher than its raw energy value. Compare the per-BTU costs of coal or natural gas to that of oil - even in our current low oil price regime. Oil's value isn't it's energy value. It's the ability to drive an engine with it that makes it valuable. Changing other forms of energy into oil is a perfectly realistic economic proposition.
That said, in reality, oil is far, far from a negative EROEI, and won't be going negative for a long, long time, if ever - not that that matters.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right. But then you're back to problem 1 on the list : extreme climate change.
We have too much oil/coal/gas (see climate change) but not enough oil/gas (see oil peak).
Re: (Score:2)
I don't deny that at all. Peak oil would actually be great for the climate. Unfortunately, no magical supply peak is going to save the climate from us.
Re: (Score:2)
+1
WTF Oxford University?
Our society is so dependent on oil that I cannot believe either they didn't include it.
Re:Peak oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is, but probably not for the reasons most people think.
The biggest issue is food security. There are probably 2 or 3 Billion people that cannot be fed unless we have oil for food production. More if you assume transportation is down, as there are concentrations of food where there are not concentrations of people.
Ruthless capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the single meta-challenge we have to face. With its focus on short-term profit it's going to kill us all.
Re: (Score:2)
And straw men.
Straw men will be the foot soldier of the Apocalypse
I'm surprised by number 1 on the list. (Score:5, Funny)
I wasn't expecting it, but now that I've thought about it more, it does make perfect sense. Systemd is perhaps the most harmful thing to have ever happened to the Linux community. It has caused more strife, discontent, anger, animosity and uncertainty than even Microsoft or SCO ever managed to cause.
It was forced, through slimy political means, upon all Debian users. This has ruined the reliability and stability of Debian, which in turn has torn apart the Debian community.
And since Linux is the most important thing to all of humanity, anything that harms Linux in such a manner is clearly harmful to the entire world and human race. So, yeah, it does make sense why systemd would be the number one threat.
Re: (Score:2)
Was that from the list provided by Bennett Hassleton?
(Sorry Bennett. If you're reading this, I have actually really likes some of your posts, but you've become something of a meme around these parts)
You've got to hand it to them (Score:4, Insightful)
Scientists researching field A call for more research into field A. Also, as there will always be "unknown unknowns" that funding should continue indefinitely.
Not too hard (Score:3, Funny)
1. Putin
2. Putin
3. Putin
4. Putin
5. Putin
6. Putin
7. Putin
8. Putin
9. Putin
10. Putin
11. Putin
and I bet you thought I would put Putin in 12.
12. Putin
YOu were right!
Re: (Score:3)
Ask Pussy Riot about Putin.
Re: (Score:2)
Keep getting [freedomhouse.org] your news [cpj.org] from Russian media. [rsf.org]
What solution? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The message here is that if politicians don’t come up with solutions to the other problems in the list, they are a risk in and of themselves."
Really?
So lets see. Government only has 4 solutions to every problem.
1) Pass a law making it illegal.
2) Tax it
3) Declare war on it
4) Throw money at it and hope it goes away
Which solution do you think they should use on these issues?
Re:What solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to our glorious private industry leaders who:
1) Lobby the government to shut down the "competition" they claim to worship?
2) Lobby the government to minimize the "risk" the claim to embrace?
3) Seek rent?
4) Leverage every technology possible to reduce their costs while keeping prices the same?
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot the addendum to #4:
4a) Lobby the government to ban any technology if it threatens their prominence in the industry.
(See the MPAA/RIAA for a prime example.)
Re: (Score:2)
Tell me, what is the solution?
Would you add more government and government regulations (Option 1 and 4 plus 2 to pay for it) to solve what you see as the issue with Private industry?
Re: (Score:2)
Seeing as the government runs the high schools (Public schools) you would have the government teach future business owners, doctors, lawyers, and politicians ethics.
There is no way that could ever turn into an epic failure. Sounds like a great, well thought out solution. :P
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We could put Libertarian dogmatism and naivety on the list, but they themselves have little influence, so it isn't like fixing them would fix the problem.
I guess you could call it pathological cynicism, and it expresses itself in many ideologies: government is evil, corporations are evil, America is evil, the West is evil, cisgender heterosexual white men are evil, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So lets see. Government only has 4 solutions to every problem.
Whoa there, you forgot the 5th government solution that causes way more long term problems than the 4 you listed:
5. Provide it "free" via an entitlement program
Re: (Score:2)
I think that is a subset of 4.
So humans are the biggest problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Burst Forth, Publish Your Policy Report! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.
Yep, that's the only option. There's nothing between doing nothing and that option. It's all we have. And if anyone starts to talk about mitigation strategies, planning ahead of time or devoting a single cent of taxpayer money toward preparing for it, we are just all going to have a meltdown and throw a tantrum with teabags on our hats. Thank god we have these strawman arguments for what these ivory tower Oxford elitists are telling us to do: eliminate the human race to protect the human race. I cannot believe they would actually come to that conclusion but there it is, right in the article. Those environmentalists will have us starving in mud huts by the end of the month if we just sit by and let this academic report go unabated and without criticism!
*tortured sigh*
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, I forgot the sarcasm tag. Apparently that was not obvious to you. But let's look at the points listed in TFA:
Nuclear war: We've been in danger of it since the 1950's. We even came close on a few occasions. So what's the solution? No one in their right mind has a workable solution. No country that has these weapons is going to give them up. And many countries want this capability. Some are dedicating considerably more resources toward it than others. Do I wish someone could wave a magic wand and make
Re:So humans are the biggest problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
The end of civilisation (Score:2)
One proof the world is sliding backwards: fifty years ago the end of civilisation was due to only three things: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Few people thought there would be any civilisation left after the year 2000.
Re: (Score:2)
If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.
So what you're saying is, the #1 threat to humanity is intellectuals making lists about the dangers to humanity? :)
TLDR - here's the list (Score:5, Informative)
Extreme climate change /karmawhoring>
Nuclear war
Global pandemic
Major asteroid impact
Super volcano
Ecological catastrophe
Global system catastrophe
Synthetic biology
Nanotechnology
Artificial intelligence
Future bad global governance
Unknown consequences
Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"
Re: (Score:2)
Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"
I think it fell off the list when projections started indicating that world population is likely to stabilize somewhere around 2050.
In the mean time, it's a good time to buy property in Italy, as their population isn't growing enough. Russia and Japan have shrinking populations, although they're less likely to make immigrants feel welcome. The USA would have a shrinking population too if it wasn't for all those immigrants coming in and taking the jobs of the native-born Americans who aren't being born.
Re:TLDR - here's the list (Score:5, Insightful)
Future bad global governance
Unlike current bad global governance, which isn't a threat at all...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. I busted out laughing here at work when I saw "future" before that one.
Re: (Score:3)
If current trends continue, overpopulation is a non-issue. Pop will increase to the 10-12 billion range then begin a decline to a (possibly) lower-than-today level during the rest of this century and first part of the next.
Do remember that China, Europe, and the USA (collectively, about a third the world's population) are already in a state of population decline absent immigration. India is now the only major nation with a positive population growth rate when immig
Re: (Score:2)
If current trends continue
When has extrapolating population trend lines ever been a proven technique ?
Re: (Score:2)
Malthus's predictions of famine didn't materialize.
Re: (Score:2)
That's because reality is more complex than extending a trend line with a ruler. And that goes both ways.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It seems hard to believe that Africa will sustain 4x more people than now given the state the continent is already in.
Re: (Score:2)
How about a more realistic list (Score:2)
The only ones on the list that have any factual basis:
1. Major asteroid impact [wikipedia.org]
2. Super volcano [wikipedia.org]
3. Ecological catastrophe [wikipedia.org]
The others in the list seem to be the result fanciful imaginations or anti-science fear mongering. So, I'd like to add two more item to the list:
4. Failure to understand history/philosophy/science (aversion to rational thought) [wikipedia.org]
5. Poisoned minds, poisoned cultures [wikipedia.org]
Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality (Score:5, Interesting)
See: http://overpopulationisamyth.c... [overpopula...samyth.com]
In general, as Julian Simon wrote, the (educated, nourished, healthy) human imagination is the ultimate resource that invents all other resources, so in general the more people you have, the more imagination you have. For example, woudl we have the internet if someone in the 1600s had decided there were too many people because London was overcrowded and killed off all but a million humans on the planet? The solar system can probably support quadrillions of people living in space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore like JD Bernal imagined in the 1920s.
http://www.juliansimon.com/wri... [juliansimon.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/... [islandone.org]
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/... [kurtz-fernhout.com]
That list is very similar to what I had listed here in back in 1999 (minus a few fanciful ones):
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/... [kurtz-fernhout.com]
"The race is on to make the human world a better (and more resilient) place before one of these overwhelms us:
Autonomous military robots out of control
Nanotechnology virus / gray slime
Ethnically targeted virus
Sterility virus
Computer virus
Asteroid impact
Y2K
Other unforseen computer failure mode
Global warming / climate change / flooding
Nuclear / biological war
Unexpected economic collapse from Chaos effects
Terrorism w/ unforseen wide effects
Out of control bureaucracy (1984)
Religious / philosophical warfare
Economic imbalance leading to world war
Arms race leading to world war
Zero-point energy tap out of control
Time-space information system spreading failure effect (Chalker's Zinder Nullifier)
Unforseen consequences of research (energy, weapons, informational, biological)"
But in the end, I think the issue raised in my sig is the biggest challenge: the perilous irony of people using the tools of material abundance in a war-like way as if material scarcity was still a major concern, as well as derivative issues like the moral problem of creating artificial scarcity under capitalism and so on. There are possible solutions to such issues (basic income, expanded gift economy, improved subsistence via 3D printing and personal agricultural robots and indoor agriculture and solar panels and so on, participatory democratic planning supported by the internet), but ideology and existing artificial-scarcity-based power structures stands in the way. Still, the dominant ideology is slowly shifting top a more open and abundance-oriented one. As Buckminster Fuller said decades ago, whether it will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end...
Re: (Score:2)
as if material scarcity was still a major concern
I'd like a mansion on a 10-acre beach front property in a nice sunny climate, please.
Re: (Score:2)
And I'd like two entire universes please.
Just because you can make a silly demand, doesn't make it anything other than that.
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Why is that a silly demand ? Beach front property is an example of a highly desirable, yet scarce resource. Claiming that scarcity does not exist, or will not exist in the future, is bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand how billions more poor people are an imagination resource if they are underfed, uneducated and enthralled with religious superstition unless the imagination product is just day to day survival skills as poor, hungry, ignorant serf in a theologically dominated environment.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see Gamma Ray Bursters, ergo, list is poppycock.
Re: (Score:2)
I would consider that a trivial variation on the killer asteroid theme.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The summary lists climate change and nuclear war as being "at the top of the list" as though it has some relevance. The list doesn't appear to be ordered by likelihood, otherwise why is "Major asteroid impact" listed above "Ecological catastrophe"?
12: Unknown (Score:2)
I guess they didn't think hard enough.
Theres threats from outside the Solar system, like nearby supernova or gamma ray burst, and of course aliens.
Even 'friendly" aliens could end our civilisation.
They covered everything (Score:2)
Last one was unknown consequences. Thats a pretty safe thing to say that the end will come from the unknown.
The greatest threat to civilization ... (Score:2)
They watch too many movies: (Score:2)
1) The Day After Tomorrow
2) Wargames
3) Outbreak
4) Armageddon / Deep Impact
5) Volcano / Dante's Peak
6) Wall-E
7) Margin Call
8) Resident Evil
9) STTNG (Borg nanobots)
10) I Robot / Terminator
11) Idiocracy
12) Catch-all for every other disaster movie evar
Some Missing Items... (Score:3)
13. Supreme Being glances over and says "Hey! I haven't destroyed those ungrateful little twits yet? Kindof embarrassing, I told them Armageddon was supposed to happen 2 thousand years ago. Oh well, if I do it now maybe no one will notice I'm late"
14. Vogon construction of an intergalactic highway.
Re: (Score:3)
15. Someone drops the Red Matter
16. No one can speak "whale song" in 400 years
17. Vger can't find Decker
Re:Some Missing Items... (Score:5, Funny)
18. TV show is cancelled before the plot lines are resolved leading to angry aliens storming the planet demanding to see the ending.
Ignored knowns (Score:2)
Also should be considered Black Swan events [slashdot.org]. They are not exactly unknown, but they are dismissed as risks, sometimes because not understanding them well enough. And with them, fatal combos should be counted too, global warming could take 50-100 years to go into full effect, and that is too much time, enough to get combined with, or be a factor causing, diseases, wars, ecosystem depletion and some other factors listed there.
In fact, don't know how things like a big meteorite or supervolcano (that would ca
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
The Article Was Flawed (Score:3)
The greatest risk to human civilization is people. (Score:2, Insightful)
There is only one thing; (Score:2)
Humans have an inherent weakness that will do us all in at some point. It's greed. Whether it has to do with religion, money, power or good karma on Slashdot, it's all the same. Lacking greed, people might be able to live together without fear of others. Unfortunately, greed is also what drives progress in so many ways as well.
I Think I Know... (Score:2)
Is the report titled "Dumb Ways to Die"? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That was before lasers.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You misspelled Religion
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Islam that marches people to the beach and cuts off their heads?
Or burns people alive in a cage in a public square?
Or sells women and children in sexual slavery?
Or flies airliners into office buildings?
Or blows up buses, cafes, churches, synagogs, government buildings, hotels, or anything place else innocent people gather?
Or maybe they Islam that cuts the throat of film makers and then leaves a note attached to their chest with a fucking knife?
Then there's the Islam that breaks into a publisher's office
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Neither did the express any outrage over those things being done in their name.
Not today, yesterday, nor, I suspect, tomorrow.
Re:Islam (Score:4, Insightful)
Which ones follow the Quran?
The "extremists" are the ones who DON'T want to kill nonbelievers.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Which of the religions mentioned figure prominently in virtually every trouble spot in the world to day? HINT: It follows the teachings of a pedophile, murdering prophet.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, a religious argument that an evil SkyGod will set fire to a city is probably going to be mocked.
Explain in scientific terms the consequences of a fire spreading out of control in an urban area, and you will likely be more persuasive.
(Though not to the people who think the Fire Code is evil government oppression.)
Re:Fear Mongering FTW (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny thing... they only mentioned the end of civilization, not the end of humanity - there is a distinction.
Overall, there are only IMHO two that are probable (bad governance, economic/system collapse), and one distant potential (ecological destruction). Then again, it doesn't take a tinfoil-hat wearer or a bible thumper to appreciate them; they seem kind of straightforward.
I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike), or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change").
Few civilizations have lasted longer than a couple of centuries, and fewer still longer than a millennia or so. Of the small handful that have (China, India, Roman Empire), none of them have lasted too long without going through fundamental changes and a lot of bloodshed. I fully expect our current global civilization to collapse sometime within the next hundred years (sooner if the USD collapses), but it's the very nature of human civilization; there will be a dark period where some (hopefully most) knowledge is saved, followed by a rebirth of sorts lifetimes down the road.
Sounds depressing, but just be glad that you live in such a wondrous time, eh?
Economic/system collapse = End of civilization (Score:2)
Overall, there are only IMHO two that are probable (bad governance, economic/system collapse)
System collapse is not a cause, that's what the end of civilization is! And whatever "governance" there may have been before collapse will necessarily be considered "bad".
Re:Fear Mongering FTW (Score:5, Insightful)
The scariest scenario is that we end up in a stable state similar to how Europe languished for over 1000 years with tiny, feuding dukedoms and duchies, where because of the constant warfare, any attempts at trade would be impossible, since any traders would be killed and their goods taken for a dukedom's coffers... or killed and the goods burned so it doesn't go to the next dukedom on the list. This was a very stable state where no progress could be made in technology or the arts... until the Black Plague make it impossible for the ruling class to have enough backs to flog to keep themselves on top. Subsistance peasants could grow things like olives instead of crops needed for food, and up sprang the Renaissance when before the plague, large nations that had the means to do things were just a pipe dream.
This nightmare can easily hit us again. Europe and the US are a lot like Rome where instead of bread and circuses, it is beard oil and iPhones. The barbarians are already at the gate, and unlike a conquering Rome which "embraced and extended" Greece's civilization, they are interested in nothing but destruction. Knowledge can be saved, but with the ethic that groups [1] like the Taliban and ISIS have (destroying the Buddhist statues for example, as well as burning film archives), it will be a lot harder to preserve items from our current civilization than it was back after Rome fell and a lot of scrolls and libraries wound up in Persia for safekeeping.
Our civilization is robust. Europe was nearly eradicated by WWII, but it is the beacon of light for the world now. However, it wouldn't take much for a global war to start that would involve every nation out there [2].
However, if enough of the world got destroyed, the ability to get back to working on state of the art technology may not happen. One needs the tools to make the tools, ad nauseum. Destroying an energy infrastructure would put things back in a dark age for a long time, since coal and oil are musts to keep the lights on, and nuclear requires a civilization level to keep running. Transportation is also vital, for rare earths, coal, water, food, and other basics to keep a civilization active.
As for decentralized energy, they all have issues. Solar is good, but is one EMP blast away from being history.
Which leaves hydroelectric and geothermal... and those are only usable in only a few regions, which would leave the rest of the world sans power.
Without power and transportation, there would be starvation in the billions, since there is no way a densely packed city like Signapore, Dubai, or even London can support itself by food grown in a nearby radius. Even here in the US, if the trucks stopped going into NYC, in 1-3 days, the entire city will wind up a giant Donner party.
What can one do? Here in the US, one is fairly lucky -- arable land is available with wells to be dug. 5-20 acres can keep a family fed, with a critical mass of available livestock around so life can go on even if anything more high tech than a horse-drawn carriage was rendered inoperable. Getting out of the "hives" is a high priority since one's life is at the mercy of the city's administration if push comes to shove.
[1]: Again, one has to note that Islamic countries were the ones that kept Roman and Greek history from being lost in time while the average European had an average lifespan of a Justin Bieber fan (if they didn't starve to death, they were killed by the nobles for sport.) It is the extreme offshoots from the Wahhabi philosophy that view only setting up a thanatocracy as one's sole goal in life. It is ironic that the group/religion which preserved Western religion and culture for centuries, now has extremist sects devoted to its destruction.
[2]: This can easily be started. If Russia completely collapsed and neighboring countries started claiming territory, this would bring every single country in, either in hopes of a land grab, or preventing an enemy from doing so. We saw shades of this a century ago when countries came to Russia to fend off others. Even the US did this... and this is still a sore point with Russians, especially when Murmansk and Archangelsk are brought up.
Re:Fear Mongering FTW (Score:4, Insightful)
EMP is overrated as a hazard. In lab tests, typical cars needed to be power cycled to reboot their computers. Electromagnetic emission regulations effectively mean all consumer products are lightly EMP shielded these days. Power grid is another question.
General Jack Pershing made two really ballsy, fantastic decisions in his carrier.
1. He told the English/French high command 'Fuck no! You guys are incompetent jackasses. Just give us part of the front.' (para) when they wanted to use American soldiers as replacements in English and French units in WWI.
2. He told the US congress via the press: 'Get us the fuck out of here, this place is a mess and we are only making things worse' (para) when in command of the 'Allied Expeditionary Force' in Russia after WWI.
It's a safe bet he personally saved a million lives and shortened WWI.
If Russia collapsed, there would be a little nipping at the edges. Mostly nations taking their land back. Nobody want's to try to control Russia proper. Besides which; their nukes aren't going anywhere.
Russia's 'Government' is a show, same as everywhere. The real power there will not collapse in any case.
Re:Fear Mongering FTW (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that globalization means that EVERYONE collapses at the SAME time, all those old civilizations collapsed over an extended period of time and most parts of the world were not affected directly by their downfall. I don't think our retrospective lessons of past events will help much for the future in this case.
Re: (Score:2)
Far more likely than You Think (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike)
Actually the odds of you being alive for an extinction level event, while low, are far higher that. The odds of winning the UK national lottery are about one in 14 million. The average life expectancy of a human is ~80 years in the western world so if the rate of extinction-level events only has to be one every ~1.1 billion years for the annual probability of one to mean that there is a higher chance of you being alive when one happens than there is of you winning the lottery.
If you look at the frequenc
Re: (Score:2)
or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change").
This is not ideology driven. There is a scientific consensus that extreme climate change is a serious threat. The only ideology I see comes from the deniers who don't accept the science.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, your sig "I am a crackpot" leads me to hope that you don't actually believe the mental contortions in that item!
Rgds
Damon
Re: (Score:2)
Who approved the grantor's grant?
Re: (Score:2)
Strangely enough, the movie title "12 Monkeys" seems rather appropriate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't blame "more storms" on climate change - what happens when the US goes for a decade or two without getting hit by a hurricane? If climate change caused Hurricane Katrina, what's caused the lack of hurricanes since?
If you're only looking at hurricanes that strike the US mainland and not the overall number of hurricanes regardless of where they are you're doing it wrong. Where hurricanes hit is mostly a matter of chance.
If you look at the North Atlantic hurricane records [wikipedia.org] since the exceptional year of 2005 (Katrina, Rita, Wilma) the years 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012 have been considerably stronger than average.