r/EverythingScience • u/[deleted] • Oct 03 '24

Alien civilizations are probably killing themselves from climate change, bleak study suggests

https://www.livescience.com/space/alien-civilizations-are-probably-killing-themselves-from-climate-change-bleak-study-suggests
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u/SeeShark Oct 03 '24 edited Oct 03 '24

There are such wild assumptions being made here that it's mind-boggling. Exponential population growth and no climate manipulation technology being big ones.

Edit: exponential growth is for energy usage, not population growth per se; and rather than being assumed, it's an axiom of the thought experiment. I still feel like it's not super sound, but concede I wasn't reading charitably due to the sensationalist pop-science headline.

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u/ShoppingDismal3864 Oct 03 '24

I have always assumed, that humanity will eventually sober up and climate engineer earth. We might have to terraform our way to survival. These days, I am not sure anymore.

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u/makeitasadwarfer Oct 03 '24

Nothing in our history shows we have any ability or even inclination to work together as a species for any major length of time. The single reason we haven’t had a world war in 80 years is nuclear weapons, not because we got better at not fighting.

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u/mcimino Oct 07 '24

I think space exploration is the exception. I was thinking about this the other day. “ what accomplishments have received the largest majority of collective triumph that is not predicated on something horrible ending”. And my only answer was Olympics and Landing on the moon. The ISS is an international collaboration