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> AI is an existential threat So is nuclear annihilation. Yet, here we are. > "I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we w
by dataviz1000 1mo ago
> AI is an existential threat
So is nuclear annihilation. Yet, here we are.
> "I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world." -- Ronald Reagan at the United Nations [0]
We are going to be fine as long as we remember to be nice to each other, starting towards the people who are adjacent to us.
[0] https://youtu.be/dYiUI6y1nKg?si=agkJpCEZj3m_WZz0&t=915 https://youtu.be/dYiUI6y1nKg?si=agkJpCEZj3m_WZz0&t=915
- mapBasketWand 1mo agoHaving recently read both of Annie Jacobsen’s books — _Nuclear War_ and _Biological War_ — I’m much more concerned about a bioweapon than a nuclear one. Her conclusion to the latter book comes out and says it, paraphrasing here: > Nuclear war is terrifying in its destruction, but the chain of command limits the risk of a rogue actor. Whereas bio weapons can be designed and manufactured in relatively low tech environments with equal or greater magnitudes of impact.
- baggy_trough 1mo agoThe good news is that bioweapons can’t kill everyone. A handful of percent will remain to repopulate the Earth.
- fooblaster 1mo agoNukes also cannot kill everyone. Nuclear winter was proven to not be based on solid evidence, the earth remains very habitable after all nukes have gone off.
- Gud 1mo agoShow me that proof please. So far the counter evidence has not been convincing. FWIW I don’t think nuclear war will annihilate us. But it won’t be pleasant.
- piloto_ciego 1mo agoActually, I've seen the take that the previous poster has made too. The wikipedia page is pretty good IMO. Proof of a hypothetical future event is pretty hard to get, but here's the wiki rabbit hole (if you're anything like me you'll find this fascinating and spend the next couple hours clicking links - you're welcome!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust#Likelihood_of_complete_human_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust#Likelihood_o... Annie Jacobsen is awesome, her book about Area 51 was riveting, but I also cannot unsee "Capitalist Realism" and the idea that we keep picturing civilization-ending catastrophes because we don't want to go to work in the morning, and walking/biking everywhere and living in a small community is amazingly appealing to us at a base level. We yearn for the lifestyle of the apocalypse survivor, but none of us want to go through the apocalypse. Generally, I think we kind of say, "oh, it'll be the end of the world" because most of us (myself included) lack the imagination to really look beyond linear extrapolations of the status quo most of the time.
- saulpw 1mo agoIt's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.
- piloto_ciego 1mo agoThis is what I'm saying constantly to people, I recognize it makes me fantastically obnoxious, but also, I'm gesturing wildly to the things that are happening and yelling, "THINGS DON'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY." Then again, I'm also building my cabin in the woods.
- salawat 1mo agoOnly if you're a capitalist. Upton Sinclair applies.
- Gud 1mo agoYes, so have I hence why I questioned it. From the wikipedia article you linked to: "More recent studies make use of modern global circulation models and far greater computer power than was available for the 1980s studies. A 2007 study examined the consequences of a global nuclear war involving moderate to large portions of the current global arsenal.[36] The study found cooling by about 12–20 °C in much of the core farming regions of the US, Canada, Europe, Russia and China and as much as 35 °C in parts of Russia for the first two summer growing seasons. The changes they found were also much longer-lasting than previously thought, because their new model better represented entry of soot aerosols in the upper stratosphere, where precipitation does not occur, and therefore clearance was on the order of 10 years.[26] In addition, they found that global cooling caused a weakening of the global hydrological cycle, reducing global precipitation by about 45%." So the current theory is that there will indeed be a "nuclear winter"? Seems pretty logical to me that if you blow up extreme amounts of particles into the stratosphere, that that will cause a reduction in energy that hits the surface from the sun... A 20C drop sounds pretty bad.
- IAmGraydon 1mo agoActually, they can kill everyone.
- estearum 1mo agoNot guaranteed whatsoever. People keep mixing up the fact that it's very hard for a virus to naturally evolve that's both extremely lethal and extremely contagious with the totally distinct claim that it's hard or impossible to create a virus that's both extremely lethal and extremely contagious. The former is true for obvious reasons. The latter claim is not true at all. Nothing prevents the existence of a virus that's both of those things.
- baggy_trough 1mo agoI suppose it's not guaranteed, but a counterexample has never been demonstrated (across species, AFAIK).
- dagss 25d agoNot sure how to read your post. Is your argument that since humans have never been _demonstrated_ to be wiped out by a synthetic virus already, it is not likely to happen in the future?
- baggy_trough 21d agoSee the phrase in parentheses.
- WaltPurvis 1mo agoIf HIV had been or become an airborne virus when it entered the human population in the early 1900s, there's a pretty good chance it would have been an extinction event for the human race. I suppose there might have been a few isolated pockets of humans left in 2026, but I would not personally ever use the words "good news" to describe an outcome that reduces the human population to a few thousand people.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- baggy_trough 1mo agoThat's really not the case at all. It is much more likely that some would be immune due to individual variation.
- estearum 1mo agoNot sure how much Annie Jacobsen goes into the exact dynamics in Nuclear War, but it may be worth reading Ellsbergs' Doomsday Machine before you find comfort in the "chain of command."