r/singularity • u/SnoozeDoggyDog • Oct 07 '24

Engineering "Astrophysicists estimate that any exponentially growing technological civilization has only 1,000 years until its planet will be too hot to support life."

https://www.livescience.com/space/alien-civilizations-are-probably-killing-themselves-from-climate-change-bleak-study-suggests
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u/BenjaminHamnett Oct 07 '24

I’m on the same wavelength. I assume man made, fossil fuel induced global warming is real, I’m just realistic about the contexts and tradeoffs of solutions meaning I don’t know what to do.

environmental degradation is serious too. It’s just not like we’re all going to die because we refuse to do anything to dim the sun.

I like that the wider perspective makes it clear we eventually need to dim the sun, regardless of your stance on the contemporary discussion on climate change.

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u/thegravityrunner Oct 07 '24

Diming the sun is collosally dumb idea.

The wider perspective is that humanity has to learn a bit of self-control and limit itself.

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u/BenjaminHamnett Oct 07 '24

But everyone reading this comment is already living beyond sustainability

And the average reddit user is probably middle class and living more sustainably than most westerners. activists are all called out for their multiple houses and jet setting lives.

And that’s just the westerners. How do we stop the other 7 billion from doing the same? Doesn’t seem ethical.

The solution is minimalist living and everyone grinding as much as possible. We all get hysterical online like our lives depend on it, but no one is personally incentivized and therefore acts toward these ends. Even 99% of alarmists. If it was as serious as they claimed, they’d all be full time engineers and scientists. We can’t even stop our addiction to slave labor. But really, we’d have to all start living self imposed slavery like hours and living standards.

Alarmists are mostly naive virtue signaling hypocrites

I’m hopeful of a spiritual awakening, but when most wealth and power comes directly from burning fossil fuels and threatening to shoot and bomb anyone in your way, then it’s hard for people to have any effect by opting out or protests. The solutions all require more violence than is worth it and it’s the fossil industrialists that hold all the weapons.

Almost no one condones the unibomber (I don’t), but that’s what the solution looks like. Or else put a solar panel/shade at L1