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Comment by benlumen | Hacker News Reader

I think about this apocalypse scenario more than nuclear war or anything else. In no time at all we've made the systems that underpin our survival dependant on brand new, high technology that can be blown away like a cobweb.

If we learnt anything from covid it's that our governments do not account for systemic risks. The emperor has no clothes, etc.

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The take-away from COVID is that humanity adapts, the outliers are the minority. Politics is required for a stable environment, but not every politician is as good as you'd wish.

The difference now with the past is that everything is connected. We have seen that we "absorbed" it much better/ flexible than what I anticipated. Still getting bad news through the web immediately is not something we had time to adapt to before.

Is it perfect, no. Are there issues, sure! Humanity adapts, bad news actually makes prepares us more and makes us find a solution.

I'm not worried about an apocalypse. The only thing that I'm worried about is the growth of human population since 1960 actually.

But we'll adapt.

Just like all other crisis that were the end of the world before.

And don't forget, humanity had to go through a lot of shit to get where we are now.

Greetings from Bruges, Belgium!

https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_om_de_IJzer - translate this. This is practically where I live now ;) ( dutch to English)

This is my view too. It actually surprises me that so many people are doom and gloom when all one has to do is look out the window and realize that's pretty much all humans are good for. We aren't good at preventing things from happening but we are good at adapting to whatever happens.

I don't believe climate change will destroy us all. It might make things more uncomfortable than it has to be but when push comes to shove, humans will adapt to pretty much any situation.

I'm not claiming that climate change will be innocent ( just to be sure). It will impact a lot of people ( in absolute numbers, I'm not sure in relative numbers) before it gets fixed.

But humans are indeed pretty good at getting on top of things when it's crucial. It's the preparation part that could use improvement ( definitely on a global participation scale).

From another point of view: it's never been this peaceful in the world. Which doesn't mean it's all perfect now, but a reminder of where we came from and how bad it was.

Making a "big bad fuzz" out of things is a requirement to acknowledge and to solve them by getting everyone onboard.

Edit: misread a bit, I thought you mentioned we were better at preventing things, but you didn't. So...

Tldr: I agree!

Humanity will surely survive one way or another - when I say apocalypse I don't mean complete and total extinction.

Civilisation adapted to covid because we had power and communication. It simply won't survive the instantaneous loss of both for an extended period.

With pre-industrial population levels, maybe we could survive in our towns and villages without electricity and communication. But now? I think the suffering would be unimaginable.

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