9 ms·

It would be interesting to know where we are currently on this theoretical mass extinction cycle. Hopefully we have a few million years left.

Razengan 10y ago
If certain science fiction is to believed, there is a pan-dimensional super-intelligence that feeds on all sentience once they cross a certain technological level, so it's all futile anyway.
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  This sounds like a fun read. What particular story are you thinking about?
  - kzvezdarov 10y ago
    Not sure which book the parent was referring to, but that's the premise of Charles Stross' Laundry Files series: too many humans and too many computers doing too much complex mathematics attract tentacled horrors from beyond space-time. Edit: I also like how in it, mathematics is the language of sorcery, and computing devices of any form - the implements.
  - Razengan 10y ago
    I was thinking of Star Control, an old game series which was the inspiration for Mass Effect apparently. There's a few other stories like that I'm sure. SPOILERS AHEAD In SC, there's a race of beings that wakes up once in a while whenever technology levels in the galaxy reach saturation, and basically eats up all sentient species. One highly-advanced species manages to escape the last cycle by devolving themselves into dumber creatures like cattle. Of course they get stuck in that state and it's up to the next generation of spacefaring civilizations (including us) to collect their relics and revive them and learn how to survive the next cycle.
    - chuckledog 10y ago
      Awesome game series! Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II#The_Ur-Quan_Masters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II#The_Ur-Quan_...
- NathanKP 10y ago
  In my opinion it's much more likely that sentient beings apathy themselves into extinction. Humans already show a tendency towards addiction to technology that exploits dopamine triggers, as social networks like Facebook do. Now imagine a world in which matrix style neural implants give you all the dopamine fulfillment that you want with no need for any effort. And combine this neural implant replacement for reality with extensive automation and AI that replaces the need for physical and mental effort. With an ever decreasing amount of stuff to do in the real world more people start hooking up to the matrix. It's quite likely a massive portion of the population will dream itself to death without accomplishing anything or giving birth to a new generation of offspring because work, invention, and sex in the real world could never compete with the feeling of something that is tied directly into your brain making you feel like you just solved the world's hardest scientific problem, or ate the best meal ever, or had the best sex ever. It seems probable that such neural implant tech and automation could be created long before a practical interstellar travel solution is created, which would also be a depressing, but realistic explanation for the Fermi paradox.
  - Razengan 10y ago
    > It seems probable that such neural implant tech and automation could be created long before a practical interstellar travel solution is created, which would also be a depressing, but realistic explanation for the Fermi paradox. So everyone out there is basically sleeping in their beds? :)
    - NathanKP 10y ago
      That'd be my guess. The tech wouldn't even have to be that sophisticated to be the most addictive thing ever, unfortunately. Your brain already has the ability to hallucinate worlds very vividly (in fact it does so every night when you sleep). All you need is a device that keeps you sleeping and dreaming, while periodically triggering your brain to dump a bunch of dopamine. Maybe I'm just too nihilistic, but the way I see the only thing that truly motivates people is that dopamine reward loop in the brain. All the things people enjoy: work and invention, eating, sex, art, even religion are only enjoyable because our brain rewards us by releasing some chemicals in our brains when we participate in them. Now imagine a neural implant that makes you feel like you simultaneously ate a great meal, had the best orgasm of your life, and did the best work of your life. And you can get this basically free without any real work. There would probably be 100% addiction rate on this thing. Anyone who tried it would be forever ruined on reality.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  I was just explaining why whoever came up with that schene shouldve got an award or something. Particularly due to fact that they use pre-mastered tech, geography, and transport they control to force evolution to develop in a way that poses littke risk to them. Might actually work.
jhwhite 10y ago
This is what I came to ask. We won't have an exact year but I wonder how accurate of a range we could get. Within the next ~100-200 years?
- Panoramix 10y ago
  Don't hold your breath, the margin of error on these things is about 1 million years.
jmount 10y ago
This paper ( http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.0437v1.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.0437v1.pdf ) estimates 11 million years into a 27 million year cycle. So a typical mid-point position (yey!).
vkou 10y ago
We're currently the primary cause of an on-going mass extinction. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- Chronic51 10y ago
  That's fine. We still have a thousand years or two. We should be off this planet by then.
  - pitchka 10y ago
    It's weird how we seem to understand exponential growth of technology but have a hard time grasping the exponential build-up of excess greenhouse gases due to the exponential growth of human population and economy. I wonder how these thousand years might look if currently there have been temperature difference of extremes by 20 degrees, with average already raised by 2. For example, mass extinction of oceanic ecosystems is due to somewhere around 2050s. Whole oceans will get empty very quickly. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787 Collateral victim count of ~3 trillion yearly deaths of oceanic animals is a big contributor. We'll see how the world will cope when main oxygen producers disappear.
    - onetimePete 10y ago
      Presuming, we don`t have some AI that bio-upgrades whole ecosystems via DNA-update. Your seahshell of 2050 might be made of carbonfibre. Still its a race..
      - marvy 10y ago
        Not by 2050. Maybe 2500.
    - Tiquor 10y ago
      It's even harder to believe that in the face of thousands of years of human progress and overcoming of the doomsday scenario of each decade and century that we still continue to fear tomorow.

Razengan 10y ago

If certain science fiction is to believed, there is a pan-dimensional super-intelligence that feeds on all sentience once they cross a certain technological level, so it's all futile anyway.

koenigdavidmj 10y ago
This sounds like a fun read. What particular story are you thinking about?
- kzvezdarov 10y ago
  Not sure which book the parent was referring to, but that's the premise of Charles Stross' Laundry Files series: too many humans and too many computers doing too much complex mathematics attract tentacled horrors from beyond space-time. Edit: I also like how in it, mathematics is the language of sorcery, and computing devices of any form - the implements.
- Razengan 10y ago
  I was thinking of Star Control, an old game series which was the inspiration for Mass Effect apparently. There's a few other stories like that I'm sure. SPOILERS AHEAD In SC, there's a race of beings that wakes up once in a while whenever technology levels in the galaxy reach saturation, and basically eats up all sentient species. One highly-advanced species manages to escape the last cycle by devolving themselves into dumber creatures like cattle. Of course they get stuck in that state and it's up to the next generation of spacefaring civilizations (including us) to collect their relics and revive them and learn how to survive the next cycle.
  - chuckledog 10y ago
    Awesome game series! Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II#The_Ur-Quan_Masters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II#The_Ur-Quan_...
NathanKP 10y ago
In my opinion it's much more likely that sentient beings apathy themselves into extinction. Humans already show a tendency towards addiction to technology that exploits dopamine triggers, as social networks like Facebook do. Now imagine a world in which matrix style neural implants give you all the dopamine fulfillment that you want with no need for any effort. And combine this neural implant replacement for reality with extensive automation and AI that replaces the need for physical and mental effort. With an ever decreasing amount of stuff to do in the real world more people start hooking up to the matrix. It's quite likely a massive portion of the population will dream itself to death without accomplishing anything or giving birth to a new generation of offspring because work, invention, and sex in the real world could never compete with the feeling of something that is tied directly into your brain making you feel like you just solved the world's hardest scientific problem, or ate the best meal ever, or had the best sex ever. It seems probable that such neural implant tech and automation could be created long before a practical interstellar travel solution is created, which would also be a depressing, but realistic explanation for the Fermi paradox.
- Razengan 10y ago
  > It seems probable that such neural implant tech and automation could be created long before a practical interstellar travel solution is created, which would also be a depressing, but realistic explanation for the Fermi paradox. So everyone out there is basically sleeping in their beds? :)
  - NathanKP 10y ago
    That'd be my guess. The tech wouldn't even have to be that sophisticated to be the most addictive thing ever, unfortunately. Your brain already has the ability to hallucinate worlds very vividly (in fact it does so every night when you sleep). All you need is a device that keeps you sleeping and dreaming, while periodically triggering your brain to dump a bunch of dopamine. Maybe I'm just too nihilistic, but the way I see the only thing that truly motivates people is that dopamine reward loop in the brain. All the things people enjoy: work and invention, eating, sex, art, even religion are only enjoyable because our brain rewards us by releasing some chemicals in our brains when we participate in them. Now imagine a neural implant that makes you feel like you simultaneously ate a great meal, had the best orgasm of your life, and did the best work of your life. And you can get this basically free without any real work. There would probably be 100% addiction rate on this thing. Anyone who tried it would be forever ruined on reality.
nickpsecurity 10y ago
I was just explaining why whoever came up with that schene shouldve got an award or something. Particularly due to fact that they use pre-mastered tech, geography, and transport they control to force evolution to develop in a way that poses littke risk to them. Might actually work.

jhwhite 10y ago

This is what I came to ask. We won't have an exact year but I wonder how accurate of a range we could get. Within the next ~100-200 years?

Panoramix 10y ago
Don't hold your breath, the margin of error on these things is about 1 million years.

jmount 10y ago

This paper ( http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.0437v1.pdf http://arxiv.org/pdf/1007.0437v1.pdf ) estimates 11 million years into a 27 million year cycle. So a typical mid-point position (yey!).

vkou 10y ago

We're currently the primary cause of an on-going mass extinction. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Chronic51 10y ago
That's fine. We still have a thousand years or two. We should be off this planet by then.
- pitchka 10y ago
  It's weird how we seem to understand exponential growth of technology but have a hard time grasping the exponential build-up of excess greenhouse gases due to the exponential growth of human population and economy. I wonder how these thousand years might look if currently there have been temperature difference of extremes by 20 degrees, with average already raised by 2. For example, mass extinction of oceanic ecosystems is due to somewhere around 2050s. Whole oceans will get empty very quickly. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787 Collateral victim count of ~3 trillion yearly deaths of oceanic animals is a big contributor. We'll see how the world will cope when main oxygen producers disappear.
  - onetimePete 10y ago
    Presuming, we don`t have some AI that bio-upgrades whole ecosystems via DNA-update. Your seahshell of 2050 might be made of carbonfibre. Still its a race..
    - marvy 10y ago
      Not by 2050. Maybe 2500.
  - Tiquor 10y ago
    It's even harder to believe that in the face of thousands of years of human progress and overcoming of the doomsday scenario of each decade and century that we still continue to fear tomorow.