Comment by Diederich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Diederich | Hacker News Reader

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> It must be tiring, eh?

For me, not at all. I have fully embraced full acceptance.

> ... despite no significant warming or sea level rise over that time ...

To be clear, I'm personally not really interested in a debate on these points, one way or another. Others can engage in these questions, hopefully in good faith.

> ... hypothesis ...

Correct!

My intuition is that the probability of collapse is 90+%. My brain is typical and typically human/biological: the bad and scary will always carry more weight than anything else.

Because of the many unknowns and because technology and society are improving exponentially, a more objective, less intuitive and less emotionally driven estimate is much lower, so I'm going with roughly 50% at the moment.

I mentioned full acceptance previously. A critical portion of that is fully accepting my own lack of objectivity, my own lack of rationality, my own lack of knowledge and understanding.

It's something I've shared with my wife and son several times: one of the most excellent and amazing things that could happen to me is, when my son is my age and I'm on my death bed, be able to honestly make fun of my 2021 self, the man who really thought there was a chance that civilization might collapse. Why? Because civilization has flourished and has overcome these challenges.

That is my preferred outcome.

> ... 'woke' people who have never created any value ...

In your eyes, am I one of those 'woke' people, who never created any value?

> That is my preferred outcome

Mine as well, friend. I simply choose to live in a way where I believe this is also the likely outcome. You can pretend that this is an overdose of 'hopium' if you like, but I prefer to simply call this honest optimism.

> In your eyes, am I one of those 'woke' people, who never created any value?

I don't know you, but if you spread climate doom all over the place, you may be cancelling out the value you've created in more material ways. The morale of a nation matters.

Put it this way: I have literally met people who say they do not want to have children because they fear for the climate future. There are even articles in publications like the Guardian, Time, etc. that advocate for people to lower their carbon footprint this way. Meanwhile, in other nations where nobody cares about climate, the birth rate dwarfs our own; what does that mean for the future?

National morale is at an all-time low and this is in no small part due to people being sold a story at every angle that they have no future, no reason to hope, no salvation. Just consume, live in the pod and eat bugs, and hang on to watch the lights go out. Do you think that creates or preserves value?

> I don't know you, but if you spread climate doom all over the place, you may be cancelling out the value you've created in more material ways. The morale of a nation matters.

On its face, to me, this is utter bullshit. Either people are completely blind to the reality and they think there's nothing to do or they actually are thoroughly convinced of reality and still do nothing because they are demoralized? How do you win? We need to convince people it's actually a problem but then coddle and hand-hold them so they don't realize it's an existential threat... And if it's not an existential threat they won't respond. Damn, we might as well give up now!

> ... you may be cancelling out the value you've created in more material ways ...

When considering whether to engage in this kind of conversation, what you've said here is my deepest concern.

For a long time, many years, I felt that sharing my thoughts and opinions on these matters honestly would cause more harm than good. So I didn't, which was fine with me. Less time consumed, less stress, etc.

Over the past year, though, overall awareness of the potential for climate change driven collapse of civilization has greatly expanded. It's now in the common discourse. That has led me to engage in these conversations.

My goal is to help people accept the strong possibility of collapse, and also embrace the reality of uncertainty. Acknowledge that things look bad; acknowledge that the odds are against us. Each person can then figures out how to draw strength and resolve from both of those.

> ... I prefer to simply call this honest optimism.

Your belief lays quite nicely in my personal uncertainty about the future. I think you're wrong about the balance of probabilities, but I hope you're right and I'm wrong!

> ... do not want to have children ...

Before my wife and I had our son in the early 2000s, we decided that we were going to have at most one biological child, and adopt one or more others if it made sense.

> Meanwhile, in other nations where nobody cares about climate, the birth rate dwarfs our own; what does that mean for the future?

A future where there are a lot more of 'them' than 'us'? Fine with me. Is that fine with you?

As I noted elsewhere, it looks likely that the total population will top out at around 10 billion, about 20% higher than now.

> ... being sold a story at every angle that they have no future, no reason to hope, no salvation.

That's bad for national morale, and I agree with you that national morale is extremely important.

What's worse for morale is people seeing and experiencing what used to be 100 year, 500 year and 1000 year weather events, every year, while being told that those events aren't really a threat to our civilization.

Morale is best preserved when people are aware of the truth, the facts, without hyperbole, and fully taught and trained in understanding of the science of statistical uncertainty.

National morale in the United Kingdom during the blitz in 1941 was preserved not by saying that what was happening around them wasn't an existential threat. It was preserved by understanding and embracing the reality of that threat, and moving forward from there.

> A future where there are a lot more of 'them' than 'us'? Fine with me. Is that fine with you?

Not in the slightest, no. I prefer the average IQ of the world to not drop by a standard deviation - you think we'll get out of climate trouble when most people are functionally illiterate?

Well, we might, in the sense that we might lose the ability to manufacture things that produce significant carbon.....

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