Cautionary Tale: A Parable of Science Fiction

What I take out of this is that science loses to stupidity and sooner or later that trend will kill us all...

That said, Climate Change is not considered an existential threat as some pockets of humans would probably survive here and there. And I'm betting some Frankenstein technology (AI, nanotech, biotech, nuclear, etc.) gets away from us thanks to the importance of stupidity and does us in long before climate change gets us....

rugcat said:

Speaking as a writer, I found the piece too clever by half – heavy-handed and obvious. I also find the analogy flawed, but that's not my objection. There are many ways to make a point without hitting readers over the head with a club, all the while chuckling at how clever you are

Click to expand...

Yes.

Monkey said:

Also, it's not like the possibility of an asteroid hitting us has not been considered or isn't being worked on, but yes, more attention does seem to get paid to the threat we are almost certainly contributing to and could relatively easily curb, if we could only get people to accept scientific consensus and consider the long term.

Click to expand...

We don't know that we could curb it all, actually. Many scientists think we can.

robeiae said:

We don't know that we could curb it all, actually. Many scientists think we can.

Click to expand...

And then there's the question of just how critical the situation really is. Anybody remember these predictions from only 7 years ago?

ABC's ’08 Prediction: NYC Under Water from Climate Change By June 2015

New York City underwater? Gas over $9 a gallon? A carton of milk costs almost $13? Welcome to June 12, 2015. Or at least that was the wildly-inaccurate version of 2015 predicted by ABC News exactly seven years ago.

Click to expand...

After decades of hearing people crying wolf, you'd think people would get wise...

Diana Hignutt said:

That said, Climate Change is not considered an existential threat as some pockets of humans would probably survive here and there. And I'm betting some Frankenstein technology (AI, nanotech, biotech, nuclear, etc.) gets away from us thanks to the importance of stupidity and does us in long before climate change gets us....

Click to expand...

Frankenstein technology is a more accurate name than most people know: The monster became evil when his creator abused him.

Now, the thing that worries me is that climate change will cause disruptions to human society - changes in economics and ecology tend to cause upheavals, and those cause strife, and a strife-filled world is not the place I want to test my brand new nanotech disassembles in.

robeiae said:

We don't know that we could curb it all, actually. Many scientists think we can.

Click to expand...

But like an asteroid hurtling towards earth, the fact that we think we can make the asteroid not hit earth may lead us to try to make that asteroid not hit the earth.

Don said:

And then there's the question of just how critical the situation really is. Anybody remember these predictions from only 7 years ago?

After decades of hearing people crying wolf, you'd think people would get wise...

Click to expand...

Curiously, like most of your claims of wild-eyed woolly-headed crazy scientists predicting ignorant nonsense, there is no evidence of any scientist or scientific conference actually predicting such things. The transcript, as far as I can tell, to the degree that it actually interviewed actual scientists, shows the actual scientists saying "Yes, global warming is happening and this is a thing to be concerned about." The disaster movie-graphics showing New York underwater by 2015 appear to have been entirely the invention of ABC News. So great, you have proven that a network news program exaggerated and distorted science to produce a sensationalistic ratings-grabber. You have not proven that those silly dumbhead scientists were predicting the apocalypse seven years ago and they were wrong therefore we should stop listening to silly dumbhead scientists.

Let's examine two possibilities.

1) The denialists are right, but we try to mitigate the effects of climate change, and as they predict, it will harm the economy. Worst case scenario - people won't make as much money to buy consumer goods at Wal-Mart.

2) Climate scientists are right, but we listen to the denialists and do nothing. Worst case scenario - massive famine, possibly an Earth no longer capable of supporting advanced civilization.

It doesn't seem to me to be a hard decision to make, even for the scientifically illiterate. Except for maybe bankers.

clintl said:

Let's examine two possibilities.

1) The denialists are right, but we try to mitigate the effects of climate change, and as they predict, it will harm the economy. Worst case scenario - people won't make as much money to buy consumer goods at Wal-Mart.

2) Climate scientists are right, but we listen to the denialists and do nothing. Worst case scenario - massive famine, possibly an Earth no longer capable of supporting advanced civilization.

It doesn't seem to me to be a hard decision to make, even for the scientifically illiterate. Except for maybe bankers.

Click to expand...

Well sure, when you make the "worst case" scenario in 1) much closer to a "best case" scenario. I would think the scientifically literate would understand the distinction.

Xelebes said:

But like an asteroid hurtling towards earth, the fact that we think we can make the asteroid not hit earth may lead us to try to make that asteroid not hit the earth.

Click to expand...

It may. Or it may not. And in trying to make that asteroid not hit the earth, the consequences will be...

Oh, that's right. You don't know. Because you don't know exactly what will be done in the effort, exactly what it will cost, and exactly what the consequences will be. But hey, it's worth trying, regardless. Because, you know, it's a Big Deal.

robeiae said:

Well sure, when you make the "worst case" scenario in 1) much closer to a "best case" scenario. I would think the scientifically literate would understand the distinction.

Click to expand...

I'd argue that the best case scenario for #1 would be that we'd get "off" fossil fuels sooner (something we'll have to do sooner or later anyway and which will certainly produce other environmental and economic benefits, not to mention energy independence), and the expenditure on the new technologies that allow us to do so will spill over into other areas and have benefits we can only guess at now.

robeiae said:

Well sure, when you make the "worst case" scenario in 1) much closer to a "best case" scenario. I would think the scientifically literate would understand the distinction.

Click to expand...

Really? Then tell me what you think the worst case scenario in 1) is. Because so far, I haven't heard anything that's worse. Slower economic growth is the only downside the opponents of doing anything about climate change ever talk about. And it's a dubious one at that.

robeiae said:

It may. Or it may not. And in trying to make that asteroid not hit the earth, the consequences will be...

Oh, that's right. You don't know. Because you don't know exactly what will be done in the effort, exactly what it will cost, and exactly what the consequences will be. But hey, it's worth trying, regardless. Because, you know, it's a Big Deal.

Click to expand...

There's quite some range between "do nothing" and "spend trillions".

clintl said:

Really? Then tell me what you think the worst case scenario in 1) is. Because so far, I haven't heard anything that's worse. Slower economic growth is the only downside the opponents of doing anything about climate change ever talk about. And it's a dubious one at that.

Click to expand...

The worst case scenario in 1) is no different than the worst case scenario in 2). The problem, however, is that imagining a future and determining the precise "why" of that future--as opposed to some other future--is not a simple thing.

Regardless, the point is that the easy decision you theorized is based on assumptions you're making, not an even-handed, unbiased approach to the issue.

Roxxsmom said:

I'd argue that the best case scenario for #1 would be that we'd get "off" fossil fuels sooner (something we'll have to do sooner or later anyway and which will certainly produce other environmental and economic benefits, not to mention energy independence), and the expenditure on the new technologies that allow us to do so will spill over into other areas and have benefits we can only guess at now.

Click to expand...

Okay. I didn't say clintl's was a best case scenario, only that it was much closer to that than being a worst case scenario.

robeiae said:

The worst case scenario in 1) is no different than the worst case scenario in 2).

Click to expand...

So, you believe that investments in solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources, along with reducing emissions and other anti-pollution measures, is likely to end in "massive famine, possibly an Earth no longer capable of supporting advanced civilization"?

By mechanisms unknown, unforeseeable, and unexplained?

I'm guessing if we REALLY mismanaged our environmental programs.

Or put one of those assholes who think the best way to save the environment is to kill 80% of the human race in charge.

Zoombie said:

Or put one of those assholes who think the best way to save the environment is to kill 80% of the human race in charge.

Click to expand...

That would be me. Though I might opt for closer to 90%.

I'm not seeing any remotely likely scenario in which we elect someone as Supreme Leader of the World who wants to kill 80-90% of the population and can actually get that done, or in which our fanatical devotion to alternative energy and pollution reduction causes our world to become virtually uninhabitable. That goes much, much further than "mismanagement."

Monkey said:

So, you believe that investments in solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources, along with reducing emissions and other anti-pollution measures, is likely to end in "massive famine, possibly an Earth no longer capable of supporting advanced civilization"?

By mechanisms unknown, unforeseeable, and unexplained?

Click to expand...

Worst. Case. Scenario. Neither a worst case scenario nor a best case scenario represents the most likely or even a likely scenario, necessarily. In fact, it would be highly unlikely if they did...

Could you put forth any reasonable way in which it could happen?

I was pretty sure that Clintl was talking about things that were reasonably likely. He didn't include alien intervention, magic, or possibilities relying on science currently unimaginable.

If you leave in only somewhat-likely-in-the-real-world scenarios, I think his original post was fairly on point.

Monkey said:

Could you put forth any reasonable way in which it could happen?

I was pretty sure that Clintl was talking about things that were reasonably likely. He didn't include alien intervention, magic, or possibilities relying on science currently unimaginable.

If you leave in only somewhat-likely-in-the-real-world scenarios, I think his original post was fairly on point.

Click to expand...

Thing is, nobody would have "reasonably" expected the results across decades of the "management" of Yellowstone, including the scientifically approved ideas of eliminating the wolf population or preventing normal seasonal burns, both of which produced horribly damaging unintended consequences. Who would have "reasonably" expected massive oil spills in Prince William Sound or the Gulf of Mexico? And of course, when the War on Drugs was the in thing, nobody would have "reasonably" expected that the inner cities would become war zones or we'd become the most incarcerated country on the planet. And nobody would have "reasonably" expected the 1953 CIA coup and installation of the Shah of Iran to have led to the current situation in the middle east, either. Then there's the "reasonable" decision to concentrate almost the entire Pacific Fleet in one harbor in Hawaii that led to December 1941. All "reasonable" decisions made with the best of intentions, based on the best knowledge available at the time.

Massive programs have a tendency to have massive unintended consequences that are perfectly visible only in hindsight.

Don said:

Massive programs have a tendency to have massive unintended consequences that are perfectly visible only in hindsight.

Click to expand...

Whereas sticking with the status quo can lead to outcomes that were screamingly obvious from the start ...

Oh, those damned unintended consequences. Or the fear of them, I should say. It just gets in the way of ever doing anything to solve our problems. We might as well just go extinct now and let some other species give it a try. Maybe the crows will be wiser when they've evolved to rule the Earth.

rugcat said:

That would be me. Though I might opt for closer to 90%.

Click to expand...

I fucking despise this mode of thought.

Like, ignoring all the moral and ethical reasons it's awful, it is also incredibly WASTEFUL.

Every single human being is a potential Einstein, and you want to get rid of that? Wasteful! Wasteful, I say!

Don said:

Thing is, nobody would have "reasonably" expected the results across decades of the "management" of Yellowstone, including the scientifically approved ideas of eliminating the wolf population or preventing normal seasonal burns, both of which produced horribly damaging unintended consequences.

Click to expand...

Which were then realized and corrected, and did not end up with catastrophic failure of Yellowstone to continue to exist as a thriving ecosystem. In what scenario do people start to wipe themselves out with their attempts at curbing climate change and decide, hey, whatever, we absolutely, positively, refuse to change course?

Who would have "reasonably" expected massive oil spills in Prince William Sound or the Gulf of Mexico?

Click to expand...

Oil spills are not outside the realm of reasonable possibility.

And of course, when the War on Drugs was the in thing, nobody would have "reasonably" expected that the inner cities would become war zones or we'd become the most incarcerated country on the planet.

Click to expand...

Violence in this country has actually been going down, not up - and are we really sure the war on drugs is directly responsible for the rate of violence? As to the incarceration rates, that's not all due to the war on drugs either, and the part that IS because of the stupid war on drugs has gotten enough attention that measures have been passed across the country to mitigate that problem. Again - it might be slower than we'd like, but we are perfectly capable of changing course if something has the potential to go catastrophic. If we weren't, the entire "should we drastically change course in order to prevent ecological disaster" discussion would be moot. And in these cases, catastrophic does not mean "no more advanced civilization for mankind."

I'm not going to keep going point by point; I'll suffice it to say that there is a wide, WIDE gulf between policies that had negative unintended consequences that were well within the realm of possibility, and that were affecting things considerably smaller the world's ability to support human civilization, and were, for the most part, things that we could back out of and change course, and OMG teh world can't function anymore due to ?????