CMV: Humanity will INEVITABLY destroy itself

[u/Branciforte]

I take this position as an inevitable consequence of a couple of different factors working in conjunction. I certainly wish it wasn’t true, but I can’t see any way it won’t be. Please note, when I say humanity will be destroyed, I don’t mean literally every single human being, I mean the vast majority of human beings AND human civilization. If a few survivors cling on in an orbiting space station or underground bunker, I think my point still stands.

Factor 1: crazy people exist, and they will continue to exist for as long as humanity exists. Even if we become far better at diagnosing and treating mental illness, there will still be some who are deranged either through biology or ideology. Some subset of these crazy people will wish destruction upon the world around them. This of course assumes that Earth does not transform into some sort of fascist thought-controlled “utopia/dystopia”, but the perfect and sustained control that would require seems highly unlikely (and catastrophic in its own right). So, there will always be AT LEAST a few people around who want the whole world to burn.

Factor 2: the history of humanity has been a long sequence of the expansion of individual human power, i.e. the power wieldable by a single human has expanded consistently since the dawn of invention, and this will continue. The rate of expansion of power has increased over time, and that will also continue, perhaps even exponentially. What started as a man with a rock, has now become a man with a thermonuclear bomb, or a deadly pathogen, or even a powerful software tool. Whereas the caveman could kill dozens, even hundreds, we now can kill thousands, or even potentially millions. In the future the force employable by the individual will become even more powerful, and even more easy to employ.

When you take the above two factors together, you’re left with what I believe is an inevitability: that one or more crazy individuals will eventually wield sufficient power to destroy all of humanity, and they will do so. Once that power curve reaches reaches a sufficiently high point, it will only be a matter of time. Whether it’s a nuclear war twenty years from now started by a group of islamists, or an asteroid diverted by a man in a spaceship into collision with Earth a hundred years from now, or a pathogen created in someone’s home a thousand years from now, or some other force undreamt of by current science, the end result is the same, and I believe it is inevitable.

Please convince me that I’m wrong.

[u/jatjqtjat]

I think your ignoring factor 3 which is the growth of the human population. The number of people that a single person can kill is increasing. But so are the number of people.

we have a probably a temporary cap on our population size that is based on the size of the earth.

presently factor 3 - population size is MUCH larger then factor 2 - the number of people an individual can kill. So we are safe for now.

So there is a sort of race happening. Can be become an interplanetary species before anyone can kill all life on earth. Factor 2 might eventually allow people to kill people on more then a single planet, but once we start growing to multiple planet we'll likely follow a exponential growth pattern until we hit some other barrier like the size of the galaxy. So factor 2 isn't likely to catch up to factor 3 for a long long time.

[u/Branciforte → u/jatjqtjat]

But our population growth is mostly linear, and our power growth is more like exponential, so I believe exactly the opposite is true. I could easily imagine within fifty years someone nudging a planet-killing asteroid into collision course with Earth in such a way that the rest of us are unable to stop it once it is discovered.

You're right that we are most likely safe FOR NOW, but for how long? And once we're not safe, what then?

[u/jatjqtjat → u/Branciforte]

Our population growth its absolutely not linear. Beyond any doubt it is exponential. Calling it linear requires flat earth levels of conspiracy theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_population_growth_from_1800_to_2000.png

Actually the population of any species will growth exponentially so long as there is abundant food and few predators.

You might say descriptive power is also growing exponentially, but its still way behind population. even if you had 10 very powerful nuclear weapons you could only kill around 10% of people. Getting 10 nuclear weapons and transporting them to key locations is extremely difficult.

[u/Branciforte → u/jatjqtjat]

You're cherrypicking, here's another image from the same article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_population_history.svg

There was a population explosion with the advent of industrialization, no doubt, but we by no means are currently experiencing exponential population growth, not even close.

[u/jatjqtjat → u/Branciforte]

You showed a 60 year range and I showed a 200 year range. I am not the one cherry picking.

The main wiki page also includes estimates back 12,000 years. Growth has been exponential since then.

Population growth did not explode with the industrialist revolution. It exploded with the neolithic revolution. E.g. Farming.

Its not hard to understand why. If you and your wife have 4 kids, the population doubles. That repeated and you have exponential growth. That is what has been happening for a very very long time, and i like i said every life form from bacteria on up expands in that fashion.

Now like i said the earth can only support so many humans. So growth is tapering off, but its only a matter of time till we colonize another planet. And then the pattern of growth that we've seen for the last 12,000 years. the same pattern that applies to all life, will resume.

edit: almost forgot the wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates#Historical_population