When the Western technological web falls, so will the rest of the species.
The thing that scares me the most is that if humanity descends into another technological dark age, recovery may well be literally impossible due to most of the easily accessible fuel resources having already been consumed.
It will be literally millions of years before major deposits of coal, oil and gas resources form close enough to the surface to be accessible without serious insustrial machinery, meaning that if humanity fumbles back to a pre-industrial (or frankly, even just early-industrial) level, that's it. Game over, our species dies on this planet because there's literally no way off it.
Then for anyone smart enough to understand the importance of our species' survival, we really don't have much time to get the hell off this rock. I don't think the madness will stop without the crash of everything.
Then again, I do wonder if we could even escape the planet without the insanity being brought along for the ride, at this point.
I also expect a bit of the beginning of Homeworld: when Elon launches the first Starship to Mars, i full expect there to be SJWs protesting in the flame trenches.
I have an hypothesis where the function of a technological species is for to get rid of that "easily accessible" biological waste product that accumulates and eventually gets too close to the surface - or permeates it - and becomes literal poison and tar traps for plants, animals, and fungi alike. An animal that "eats" that crap via its technology, and turns it back into carbon for the plants ...
Man's usefulness in his ecological role is coming to an end ...
A couple geologists I used to talk to over fidonet did admit that if some kind of dinosaur lived and died with the kind of society like we have now, we'd never find traces of it, and even if we did, it'd be interpreted as something man-made that intruded. And that our estimates of how fast coal and oil and stuff accumulates is based on the assumption that humans are the first ones to ever make use of it. (In other words, it could be possible that a bacterium did literally eat oil before, but it went extinct without a trace. Or that some kind of raptor, or early cenozoic mammal or something (or maybe many, every few tens of millions of years, coinciding with extinction pulses) got up to the oil-using stage, and then imploded on themselves just like Man is starting to do.)
Overspecialization of lifestyle doesn't just refer to what one eats. Man has become dependent on his own technology, just as the koala is dependent on eucalyptus trees existing.
If I remember correctly, on three occasions the sequestration of carbon led to vast ice ages that nearly turned Earth into a perpetual ice planet. Each time, something would happen that released the carbon back into the atmosphere. We're that third event.
And I just found out about something called "spiteful mutations", which would seem to be the mechanism I was searching for.
Take away selection pressure, and these spiteful mutations build up in a population, or in many populations, of a "privileged" species. These mutants have a socially detrimental effect on the other people (of whatever species) around them, and their society eventually falls apart, causing a dieback; it keeps cycling until the species goes extinct. (Or evolves its physical form in a way that makes it appear to have gone extinct.) And yeah, I can see each dieback resulting in a pulse of technological progress, and a concurrent dependency upon that technology, which leads to prosperity, mutations, and dieback ...
Hhhhhhrrrrmmm. I see your point. I was assuming that if/when the ice sheet melts, be it climate change or continental drift, eventually bare dirt would show.
Also, I wonder if mining landfills for raw materials, would be profitable. For example, in India trash pickers are able to make a living. Not saying it's wonderful, but on the other hand if all civilization collapses life is going to be pretty shitty for everyone left.
The thing that scares me the most is that if humanity descends into another technological dark age, recovery may well be literally impossible due to most of the easily accessible fuel resources having already been consumed.
It will be literally millions of years before major deposits of coal, oil and gas resources form close enough to the surface to be accessible without serious insustrial machinery, meaning that if humanity fumbles back to a pre-industrial (or frankly, even just early-industrial) level, that's it. Game over, our species dies on this planet because there's literally no way off it.
Then for anyone smart enough to understand the importance of our species' survival, we really don't have much time to get the hell off this rock. I don't think the madness will stop without the crash of everything.
Then again, I do wonder if we could even escape the planet without the insanity being brought along for the ride, at this point.
Pfhahaha, absolutely not.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is probably fucking prophetic in that regard.
Hmm ?
I also expect a bit of the beginning of Homeworld: when Elon launches the first Starship to Mars, i full expect there to be SJWs protesting in the flame trenches.
People have proposed solutions to this problem, if we had the force of will to implement them.
I have an hypothesis where the function of a technological species is for to get rid of that "easily accessible" biological waste product that accumulates and eventually gets too close to the surface - or permeates it - and becomes literal poison and tar traps for plants, animals, and fungi alike. An animal that "eats" that crap via its technology, and turns it back into carbon for the plants ...
Man's usefulness in his ecological role is coming to an end ...
A couple geologists I used to talk to over fidonet did admit that if some kind of dinosaur lived and died with the kind of society like we have now, we'd never find traces of it, and even if we did, it'd be interpreted as something man-made that intruded. And that our estimates of how fast coal and oil and stuff accumulates is based on the assumption that humans are the first ones to ever make use of it. (In other words, it could be possible that a bacterium did literally eat oil before, but it went extinct without a trace. Or that some kind of raptor, or early cenozoic mammal or something (or maybe many, every few tens of millions of years, coinciding with extinction pulses) got up to the oil-using stage, and then imploded on themselves just like Man is starting to do.)
Overspecialization of lifestyle doesn't just refer to what one eats. Man has become dependent on his own technology, just as the koala is dependent on eucalyptus trees existing.
If I remember correctly, on three occasions the sequestration of carbon led to vast ice ages that nearly turned Earth into a perpetual ice planet. Each time, something would happen that released the carbon back into the atmosphere. We're that third event.
And I just found out about something called "spiteful mutations", which would seem to be the mechanism I was searching for.
Take away selection pressure, and these spiteful mutations build up in a population, or in many populations, of a "privileged" species. These mutants have a socially detrimental effect on the other people (of whatever species) around them, and their society eventually falls apart, causing a dieback; it keeps cycling until the species goes extinct. (Or evolves its physical form in a way that makes it appear to have gone extinct.) And yeah, I can see each dieback resulting in a pulse of technological progress, and a concurrent dependency upon that technology, which leads to prosperity, mutations, and dieback ...
Antarctica. Under the ice is an entire continent of resources.
And how the fuck are you going to get at it with, say, the technology of 1800?
Hhhhhhrrrrmmm. I see your point. I was assuming that if/when the ice sheet melts, be it climate change or continental drift, eventually bare dirt would show.
Also, I wonder if mining landfills for raw materials, would be profitable. For example, in India trash pickers are able to make a living. Not saying it's wonderful, but on the other hand if all civilization collapses life is going to be pretty shitty for everyone left.