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Oxford University Researchers List 12 Global Risks To Human Civilization

Posted by samzenpus on from the birds-and-snakes-an-airplane-and-lenny-bruce-is-not-afraid dept.

An anonymous reader writes The 12 greatest threats to civilization have been established by Oxford University scientists, with nuclear war and extreme climate change topping the list. Published by the Global Challenges Foundation, the report explores the 12 most likely ways civilization could end. "[This research] is about how a better understanding of the magnitude of the challenges can help the world to address the risks it faces, and can help to create a path towards more sustainable development," the study's authors said. "It is a scientific assessment about the possibility of oblivion, certainly, but even more it is a call for action based on the assumption that humanity is able to rise to challenges and turn them into opportunities."

46 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Lists by sycodon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think Lists are the real problem.

    How many times have they found Lists in bad guy's pockets?

    1. Steal some cash
    2. Beat up old lady
    3. Shoot up a crowd.
    4. Go home and chill with some Jamaican...and not the kind with dreadlocks.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  2. Peak oil? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We're now forty years after the first oil shock, and, for lack of a valid alternative, oil still runs 98% of transportation.

    How come peak oil isn't listed?

    1. Re:Peak oil? by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "We're now forty years after the first oil shock ... How come peak oil isn't listed?"

      Your post contains its own answer.

      People have been screaming "peak oil" since the late 1800s. Meanwhile, oil resource estimates just keep rising.

      It's a naive perception of how the world works that envisions that mineral resources are like some cup with some fixed, limited quantity of a resource, and once you take it all it's gone. The reality is that for every resource, there's unthinkably, mind-bogglingly vast quantities available in total. The ease of extraction generally follows an exponential curve: the easiest stuff is incredibly rare, the next easiest an order of magnitude more common, the next easiest yet another another order of magnitude, and so forth. The amount you can produce depends on your technology and your current price point. Any hike in your price point or increase in your technology consequently puts exponentially more resource onto the market. Likewise, any hike in price leads to significant increase tech research to develop new types of resources, as the potential payoff becomes massive. The exponential scaling factor of difficulty of extraction versus availability strongly discourages supply peaks.

      Now, the sort of resource availability curves aren't completely smooth - some order of magnitude transitions can be easier to achieve than others. Likewise, resource markets are always going to be inherently vulnerable to long-term price swings because you have such a long lead time between the start of new projects and the reaching of full production, and even longer time periods before the start of work on new technology and it becoming commercially viable. But regardless of the swings, the long-term picture is never one of scarcity. Making the scarcity bet is not a good idea.

      Now, minerals can and do peak - but rarely from supply peaks. Rather, demand peaks are far more common. The stone age didn't end because people ran out of stones.

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    2. Re:Peak oil? by blue+trane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The only real scarcity is our knowledge.

    3. Re:Peak oil? by itzly · · Score: 5, Informative

      We're probably already past conventional peak oil. People haven't noticed because of the glut of shale oil, but shale oil only provides a very short term solution.

    4. Re:Peak oil? by Rei · · Score: 2

      (for those who are curious, here's the long-term pricing on the minerals in the Simon-Erhlich wager, inflation-adjusted).

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    5. Re:Peak oil? by renergy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Making the scarcity bet is not a good idea? Quoting from wiki: "...However, economists later showed that Ehrlich would have won in the majority of 10-year periods over the last century,[2][3] and if the wager was extended by 30 years to 2011, he would have won on four out of the five metals..."

    6. Re:Peak oil? by BlackPignouf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      +5 Insightful?
      No :
      -5 for bullshit, willful ignorance and not reading the article you link to :

      However, economists later showed that Ehrlich would have won in the majority of 10-year periods over the last century,[2][3] and if the wager was extended by 30 years to 2011, he would have won on four out of the five metals.[3]

      You might want to take a look at this article about the energy trap : http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the...
      You're talking about extraction price, you should talk about the energy return on investment : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
      Once it costs more energy to retrieve oil than to leave it in the ground, we'll have a big problem, and that hasn't been mentioned one bit by TFA.

    7. Re:Peak oil? by Rei · · Score: 3, Insightful

      EROEI is only relevant when looked at as an entire system perspective.

      The Luftwaffe in the latter part of WWII was largely fuelled with aviation fuel made from coal. The primitive coal to liquids technology they used was very inefficient tech consuming way more energy of coal than it produced jet fuel (highly negative EROEI). Yet it kept the Germans in the air until the plants were bombed.

      How can that possibly be? How could a negative EROEI work? Simple: because the net energy picture was still positive. Energy from coal in, less energy from jet fuel out. And the economic picture worked because you can't stick coal in a jet's fuel tank and fly it.

      Oil doesn't have to be some super high EROEI fuel to work. It doesn't even have to be a positive EROEI fuel to work. So long as you can put it in your gas tank, and so long as the world can produce energy to make it, it can get alone just fine.

      Even as it stands, oil is already a fuel whose value is many times higher than its raw energy value. Compare the per-BTU costs of coal or natural gas to that of oil - even in our current low oil price regime. Oil's value isn't it's energy value. It's the ability to drive an engine with it that makes it valuable. Changing other forms of energy into oil is a perfectly realistic economic proposition.

      That said, in reality, oil is far, far from a negative EROEI, and won't be going negative for a long, long time, if ever - not that that matters.

      --
      We gotta go to a crappy town where I'm a hero.
    8. Re:Peak oil? by funwithBSD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is, but probably not for the reasons most people think.

      The biggest issue is food security. There are probably 2 or 3 Billion people that cannot be fed unless we have oil for food production. More if you assume transportation is down, as there are concentrations of food where there are not concentrations of people.

       

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  3. Ruthless capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is the single meta-challenge we have to face. With its focus on short-term profit it's going to kill us all.

  4. I'm surprised by number 1 on the list. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) Systemd

    I wasn't expecting it, but now that I've thought about it more, it does make perfect sense. Systemd is perhaps the most harmful thing to have ever happened to the Linux community. It has caused more strife, discontent, anger, animosity and uncertainty than even Microsoft or SCO ever managed to cause.

    It was forced, through slimy political means, upon all Debian users. This has ruined the reliability and stability of Debian, which in turn has torn apart the Debian community.

    And since Linux is the most important thing to all of humanity, anything that harms Linux in such a manner is clearly harmful to the entire world and human race. So, yeah, it does make sense why systemd would be the number one threat.

  5. You've got to hand it to them by gdr · · Score: 3, Insightful
    From the article:

    Finally, the researchers warn of “unknown unknowns” and call for “extensive research” into “unknown risks and their probabilities”.

    Scientists researching field A call for more research into field A. Also, as there will always be "unknown unknowns" that funding should continue indefinitely.

  6. Not too hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. Putin
    2. Putin
    3. Putin
    4. Putin
    5. Putin
    6. Putin
    7. Putin
    8. Putin
    9. Putin
    10. Putin
    11. Putin

    and I bet you thought I would put Putin in 12.

    12. Putin

    YOu were right!

    1. Re:Not too hard by blue+trane · · Score: 2

      Ask Pussy Riot about Putin.

  7. What solution? by Anon-Admin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The message here is that if politicians don’t come up with solutions to the other problems in the list, they are a risk in and of themselves."

    Really?

    So lets see. Government only has 4 solutions to every problem.

    1) Pass a law making it illegal.
    2) Tax it
    3) Declare war on it
    4) Throw money at it and hope it goes away

    Which solution do you think they should use on these issues?

    1. Re:What solution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As opposed to our glorious private industry leaders who:
      1) Lobby the government to shut down the "competition" they claim to worship?
      2) Lobby the government to minimize the "risk" the claim to embrace?
      3) Seek rent?
      4) Leverage every technology possible to reduce their costs while keeping prices the same?

  8. So humans are the biggest problem. by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.

    1. Re:So humans are the biggest problem. by invid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Growing up in the 70s and 80s I always thought that by this time I would be driving along in some barren post-apocalyptic wasteland in my cobbled-together hot-rod fighting off mohawked motorcycle gangs and saving busty babes from mutant frog-people. Instead I'm reading slashdot in my cubical as my code compiles. Sigh.

      --
      The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
    2. Re:So humans are the biggest problem. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      If you still want the experience, there are parts of Chicago that fit the bill. It's a good example of what happens when there's a fundamental disconnect between the economy and reality.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  9. TLDR - here's the list by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Informative

    Extreme climate change
    Nuclear war
    Global pandemic
    Major asteroid impact
    Super volcano
    Ecological catastrophe
    Global system catastrophe
    Synthetic biology
    Nanotechnology
    Artificial intelligence
    Future bad global governance
    Unknown consequences /karmawhoring>

    Kind of weak list, IMHO. For example, where is "overpopulation?"

    1. Re:TLDR - here's the list by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Future bad global governance

      Unlike current bad global governance, which isn't a threat at all...

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    2. Re:TLDR - here's the list by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      For example, where is "overpopulation?"

      If current trends continue, overpopulation is a non-issue. Pop will increase to the 10-12 billion range then begin a decline to a (possibly) lower-than-today level during the rest of this century and first part of the next.

      Do remember that China, Europe, and the USA (collectively, about a third the world's population) are already in a state of population decline absent immigration. India is now the only major nation with a positive population growth rate when immigration is ignored....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    3. Re:TLDR - here's the list by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      You seem to have forgotten Africa, which is supposed to go from 1 billion to 4 billion. Or maybe you're counting on Ebola to "fix" that? Sub-Saharan Africa will be the #1 growth spot over the next century, not India.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:TLDR - here's the list by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      I know we all enjoy greatly exaggerating how bad things are in 2015, but really now. Adults discussion time. Government is better now than it ever was in the past. A quick look at the history books will settle that argument in a flash. The very fact that we have global elites that hold no allegiance to the countries they were born in speaks volumes. They have much in common with each other, are alienated from their native populations, and have every incentive to work together to ensure a smooth future with no revolts.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  10. Re:Islam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Islam that marches people to the beach and cuts off their heads?

    Or burns people alive in a cage in a public square?

    Or sells women and children in sexual slavery?

    Or flies airliners into office buildings?

    Or blows up buses, cafes, churches, synagogs, government buildings, hotels, or anything place else innocent people gather?

    Or maybe they Islam that cuts the throat of film makers and then leaves a note attached to their chest with a fucking knife?

    Then there's the Islam that breaks into a publisher's office and guns down 12 people because of a cartoon.

    There are so many...or, is it really just one Islam that does it all.

    The only that's responsible for nearly 300,000 deaths in Syria alone.

  11. They watch too many movies: by EmagGeek · · Score: 2

    1) The Day After Tomorrow
    2) Wargames
    3) Outbreak
    4) Armageddon / Deep Impact
    5) Volcano / Dante's Peak
    6) Wall-E
    7) Margin Call
    8) Resident Evil
    9) STTNG (Borg nanobots)
    10) I Robot / Terminator
    11) Idiocracy
    12) Catch-all for every other disaster movie evar

  12. Re:Islam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which ones follow the Quran?

    The "extremists" are the ones who DON'T want to kill nonbelievers.

  13. Some Missing Items... by invid · · Score: 2

    13. Supreme Being glances over and says "Hey! I haven't destroyed those ungrateful little twits yet? Kindof embarrassing, I told them Armageddon was supposed to happen 2 thousand years ago. Oh well, if I do it now maybe no one will notice I'm late"

    14. Vogon construction of an intergalactic highway.

    --
    The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
    1. Re:Some Missing Items... by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2

      15. Someone drops the Red Matter

      16. No one can speak "whale song" in 400 years

      17. Vger can't find Decker

    2. Re:Some Missing Items... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Funny

      18. TV show is cancelled before the plot lines are resolved leading to angry aliens storming the planet demanding to see the ending.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  14. Re:Fear Mongering FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, a religious argument that an evil SkyGod will set fire to a city is probably going to be mocked.

    Explain in scientific terms the consequences of a fire spreading out of control in an urban area, and you will likely be more persuasive.

    (Though not to the people who think the Fire Code is evil government oppression.)

  15. Re:Fear Mongering FTW by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Funny thing... they only mentioned the end of civilization, not the end of humanity - there is a distinction.

    Overall, there are only IMHO two that are probable (bad governance, economic/system collapse), and one distant potential (ecological destruction). Then again, it doesn't take a tinfoil-hat wearer or a bible thumper to appreciate them; they seem kind of straightforward.

    I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike), or are obviously driven by ideology more than anything else ("extreme climate change").

    Few civilizations have lasted longer than a couple of centuries, and fewer still longer than a millennia or so. Of the small handful that have (China, India, Roman Empire), none of them have lasted too long without going through fundamental changes and a lot of bloodshed. I fully expect our current global civilization to collapse sometime within the next hundred years (sooner if the USD collapses), but it's the very nature of human civilization; there will be a dark period where some (hopefully most) knowledge is saved, followed by a rebirth of sorts lifetimes down the road.

    Sounds depressing, but just be glad that you live in such a wondrous time, eh?

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  16. Burst Forth, Publish Your Policy Report! by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you look at this list, the majority of these problems are man-made. Other than a super volcano and an asteroid impact, the solution seems pretty simple. We must abandon all technology and kill all but a small percentage of the population. And those that are left must live in isolated groups. That way there will not be a world wide disease outbreak.

    Yep, that's the only option. There's nothing between doing nothing and that option. It's all we have. And if anyone starts to talk about mitigation strategies, planning ahead of time or devoting a single cent of taxpayer money toward preparing for it, we are just all going to have a meltdown and throw a tantrum with teabags on our hats. Thank god we have these strawman arguments for what these ivory tower Oxford elitists are telling us to do: eliminate the human race to protect the human race. I cannot believe they would actually come to that conclusion but there it is, right in the article. Those environmentalists will have us starving in mud huts by the end of the month if we just sit by and let this academic report go unabated and without criticism!

    *tortured sigh*

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Burst Forth, Publish Your Policy Report! by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      Sorry, I forgot the sarcasm tag. Apparently that was not obvious to you. But let's look at the points listed in TFA:

      Nuclear war: We've been in danger of it since the 1950's. We even came close on a few occasions. So what's the solution? No one in their right mind has a workable solution. No country that has these weapons is going to give them up. And many countries want this capability. Some are dedicating considerably more resources toward it than others. Do I wish someone could wave a magic wand and make all of the nukes, knowledge of, and desire to build them go away? Hell yes. But it's not possible.

      Global Pandemic: Other than isolating the population, what can realistically be done? We can't even stop the yearly flu outbreaks. How are we going to stop something (that may or may not ever happen) "uncontrollable", as the TFA states? By definition, you can't.

      Ecological catastrophe: It's rather apparent that as individuals we are interested in this, but as a population no one seems to give a damn. Or at the very least don't feel it's a major concern. Just look at Deepwater Horizon. Or manufacturing in China or India. If the population of the US was truly worried, we'd stop off shoring manufacturing to countries that pollute as badly as we did 50 to 75 years ago. I try to be conscientious of what I purchase. Often looking for the most sustainable option. But it's becoming increasingly more difficult as such products are disappearing from the market.

      Global system catastrophe: The global financial systems are so complex, I'm not sure what could even be done at this point. Just trying to stabilize it could bring about the opposite effect. Even so, after the last decade or so, you'd think that, that's what we'd be trying to do. But again, this is something we care about as individuals, but apparently are oblivious to as a population.

      Synthetic biology: What can be done that is not already happening? Create a world policing system and execute anyone caught working on an armageddon germ? I'm sure that there are several countries working on this already. If not to devise a defense against it, but under the guise of doing so. Biological warfare is already banned and most of the planet has agreed to it

      Nanotechnology: This is a rather vague one. Of course it has enormous potential for misuse. But the potential for good uses is phenomenal. It's like fire. Sure you can burn your neighbors house down with it, but does that mean you shouldn't be allowed to cook with it? or use it for heat? Of course not.

      Artificial intelligence: See nanotechnology above. This is no different, other than James Cameron made some movies with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I've often wondered if we will ever hit a level of computing power and connectivity through the internet that AI could somehow spontaneously come into existence. If it did, would it even notice us at all? Would we notice it?

      Future bad global governance: This could be happening right now. If you turn on the news, you'd probably be convinced that it is. Unfortunately, only history will know for sure. All we can do as people is to vote for what we believe will be the best people to do what is best (if you're in a country where that's an option) Or you can join or organize a revolt.

      Unknown consequences: Yes, fear of the unknown. Fuck! We better start working on re-animation so we can bring back Steve Jobs to eliminate this threat with his reality distortion field. Or maybe we should work on a way to channel the power of all of the other threats into a single combined force in order to defeat this "unknown consequence". Or perhaps doing so will cause it to begin with.

      So Oxford throws a bunch of scary scenarios out and what's the resolution at the end of TFA:

      One resolution to the Fermi paradox - the apparent absence of alien life in the galaxy - is that intelligent life destroys itself before beginning to expand into the galaxy." It's all very cheery.

      *rolls eyes*

  17. Re:Islam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You misspelled Religion

  18. Its time for an american solution by nimbius · · Score: 3, Funny

    Gentlemen as an american i belive i can lend clarity to this alarmist list of, as you say, poppycock.
    1. Extreme Climate Change: not a problem. climate change is actually just a theory, not a fact, advanced by scienists in order to get attention and grant money.
    2. Nuclear War: no problem at all. If iraq, afghanistan, and viet-nam are any indication then rest assured America would win a nuclear war by winning the hearts and minds of whatever we were bombing.
    3. Ecological Catastrophe: Again, we solved this by offering loans to banks and car companies in exchange for not restroying our ecology and creating more jobs.
    4. Global Pandemic: Well obviously Ebola is a great example. Here we have a disease that has existed undetected by american scientists for probably 10 years, and then we cured it through declaring war on it. now theres no more ebola.
    5. Global System Collapse: Easily defeated by avoiding taco bell and undercooked meat.
    6. Major Asteroid Impact: during simulations and documentary, science has proven bruce willis would defeat the asteroid.
    7. Supervolcano: not sure what that one is, but if its not a flavour of frozen confection or a menu item at ChiChis, we've got a war for it.
    8. Synthetic Biology: clearly outlawed according to jesus unless we're talking about chia pets.
    9. Nanotechnology: in america we have soap with little plastic scrubby beads that comes out of a pump. we're using nanotechnology responsibly and a lemon-scented fresh way.
    10. Artificial Intelligence: Was an excellent movie but also did you know? we have self driving cars that use artificial intelligence to get us through the mcdonalds drive through safely without having to get the dashboard all greasy
    11. Uncertain Risks: sometimes those are the risks you gotta take, like for example during our patrio-tastic invasion mind saving trip to iraq for freedom...how did we know ISIS would suddenly appear out of nowhere? thats why we have a plan for uncertain risks and a friend in jesus.
    12. Future Bad Global Governance: Electing Jeb Bush or Sarah Palin would help the globals by making sure the governance is true and strong. and patriotic. we'd keep a list of baddies too, and probably make an axis of awesome countries that would be in charge of truthiness and justice.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  19. The Article Was Flawed by Akratist · · Score: 2

    IANAS (I am not a statistician), but the basic problem I saw with the article was that it listed various probabilities for certain things, but didn't really add up to one hundred percent. So, a 1 percent chance the world is going to end a certain way, by implication leaves a 99 percent chance for it to end another way. At most, it didn't come close to a hundred percent for all options. Another flaw was that, IIRC, the Earth has around 300 million years of oxygen, and will be consumed by the sun in another 2.8 billion years, both of which are a relative certainty, and I don't remember either being listed. In theory, the risk of asteroid impact should be progressively lower as time goes on, and the other risks, outside of resource depletion and nuclear war, are just speculation. Even with resource depletion, life in some form is going to exist, albeit not with modern conveniences, and nuclear war's survivability is open for debate. I guess the one thing we can be completely certain about is that even Oxford University likes to put a little clickbait out, now and then.

  20. Re:Islam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Which of the religions mentioned figure prominently in virtually every trouble spot in the world to day? HINT: It follows the teachings of a pedophile, murdering prophet.

  21. How about a more realistic list by DanDD · · Score: 2

    The only ones on the list that have any factual basis:

    1. Major asteroid impact
    2. Super volcano
    3. Ecological catastrophe

    The others in the list seem to be the result fanciful imaginations or anti-science fear mongering. So, I'd like to add two more item to the list:

    4. Failure to understand history/philosophy/science (aversion to rational thought)
    5. Poisoned minds, poisoned cultures

    --
    "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
  22. Re:Fear Mongering FTW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The scariest scenario is that we end up in a stable state similar to how Europe languished for over 1000 years with tiny, feuding dukedoms and duchies, where because of the constant warfare, any attempts at trade would be impossible, since any traders would be killed and their goods taken for a dukedom's coffers... or killed and the goods burned so it doesn't go to the next dukedom on the list. This was a very stable state where no progress could be made in technology or the arts... until the Black Plague make it impossible for the ruling class to have enough backs to flog to keep themselves on top. Subsistance peasants could grow things like olives instead of crops needed for food, and up sprang the Renaissance when before the plague, large nations that had the means to do things were just a pipe dream.

    This nightmare can easily hit us again. Europe and the US are a lot like Rome where instead of bread and circuses, it is beard oil and iPhones. The barbarians are already at the gate, and unlike a conquering Rome which "embraced and extended" Greece's civilization, they are interested in nothing but destruction. Knowledge can be saved, but with the ethic that groups [1] like the Taliban and ISIS have (destroying the Buddhist statues for example, as well as burning film archives), it will be a lot harder to preserve items from our current civilization than it was back after Rome fell and a lot of scrolls and libraries wound up in Persia for safekeeping.

    Our civilization is robust. Europe was nearly eradicated by WWII, but it is the beacon of light for the world now. However, it wouldn't take much for a global war to start that would involve every nation out there [2].

    However, if enough of the world got destroyed, the ability to get back to working on state of the art technology may not happen. One needs the tools to make the tools, ad nauseum. Destroying an energy infrastructure would put things back in a dark age for a long time, since coal and oil are musts to keep the lights on, and nuclear requires a civilization level to keep running. Transportation is also vital, for rare earths, coal, water, food, and other basics to keep a civilization active.

    As for decentralized energy, they all have issues. Solar is good, but is one EMP blast away from being history.

    Which leaves hydroelectric and geothermal... and those are only usable in only a few regions, which would leave the rest of the world sans power.

    Without power and transportation, there would be starvation in the billions, since there is no way a densely packed city like Signapore, Dubai, or even London can support itself by food grown in a nearby radius. Even here in the US, if the trucks stopped going into NYC, in 1-3 days, the entire city will wind up a giant Donner party.

    What can one do? Here in the US, one is fairly lucky -- arable land is available with wells to be dug. 5-20 acres can keep a family fed, with a critical mass of available livestock around so life can go on even if anything more high tech than a horse-drawn carriage was rendered inoperable. Getting out of the "hives" is a high priority since one's life is at the mercy of the city's administration if push comes to shove.

    [1]: Again, one has to note that Islamic countries were the ones that kept Roman and Greek history from being lost in time while the average European had an average lifespan of a Justin Bieber fan (if they didn't starve to death, they were killed by the nobles for sport.) It is the extreme offshoots from the Wahhabi philosophy that view only setting up a thanatocracy as one's sole goal in life. It is ironic that the group/religion which preserved Western religion and culture for centuries, now has extremist sects devoted to its destruction.

    [2]: This can easily be started. If Russia completely collapsed and neighboring countries started claiming territory, this would bring every single country in, either in hopes of a land grab, or preventing an enemy from doing so. We saw shades of this a century ago when countries came to Russia to fend off others. Even the US did this... and this is still a sore point with Russians, especially when Murmansk and Archangelsk are brought up.

  23. Overpopulation is a myth; abundance a reality by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 4, Interesting

    See: http://overpopulationisamyth.c...

    In general, as Julian Simon wrote, the (educated, nourished, healthy) human imagination is the ultimate resource that invents all other resources, so in general the more people you have, the more imagination you have. For example, woudl we have the internet if someone in the 1600s had decided there were too many people because London was overcrowded and killed off all but a million humans on the planet? The solar system can probably support quadrillions of people living in space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and asteroidal ore like JD Bernal imagined in the 1920s.
    http://www.juliansimon.com/wri...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
    http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/...
    http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...

    That list is very similar to what I had listed here in back in 1999 (minus a few fanciful ones):
    http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/...
    "The race is on to make the human world a better (and more resilient) place before one of these overwhelms us:
            Autonomous military robots out of control
            Nanotechnology virus / gray slime
            Ethnically targeted virus
            Sterility virus
            Computer virus
            Asteroid impact
            Y2K
            Other unforseen computer failure mode
            Global warming / climate change / flooding
            Nuclear / biological war
            Unexpected economic collapse from Chaos effects
            Terrorism w/ unforseen wide effects
            Out of control bureaucracy (1984)
            Religious / philosophical warfare
            Economic imbalance leading to world war
            Arms race leading to world war
            Zero-point energy tap out of control
            Time-space information system spreading failure effect (Chalker's Zinder Nullifier)
            Unforseen consequences of research (energy, weapons, informational, biological)"

    But in the end, I think the issue raised in my sig is the biggest challenge: the perilous irony of people using the tools of material abundance in a war-like way as if material scarcity was still a major concern, as well as derivative issues like the moral problem of creating artificial scarcity under capitalism and so on. There are possible solutions to such issues (basic income, expanded gift economy, improved subsistence via 3D printing and personal agricultural robots and indoor agriculture and solar panels and so on, participatory democratic planning supported by the internet), but ideology and existing artificial-scarcity-based power structures stands in the way. Still, the dominant ideology is slowly shifting top a more open and abundance-oriented one. As Buckminster Fuller said decades ago, whether it will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end...

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  24. Re:Fear Mongering FTW by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The problem is that globalization means that EVERYONE collapses at the SAME time, all those old civilizations collapsed over an extended period of time and most parts of the world were not affected directly by their downfall. I don't think our retrospective lessons of past events will help much for the future in this case.

  25. Re:Fear Mongering FTW by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    EMP is overrated as a hazard. In lab tests, typical cars needed to be power cycled to reboot their computers. Electromagnetic emission regulations effectively mean all consumer products are lightly EMP shielded these days. Power grid is another question.

    General Jack Pershing made two really ballsy, fantastic decisions in his carrier.

    1. He told the English/French high command 'Fuck no! You guys are incompetent jackasses. Just give us part of the front.' (para) when they wanted to use American soldiers as replacements in English and French units in WWI.

    2. He told the US congress via the press: 'Get us the fuck out of here, this place is a mess and we are only making things worse' (para) when in command of the 'Allied Expeditionary Force' in Russia after WWI.

    It's a safe bet he personally saved a million lives and shortened WWI.

    If Russia collapsed, there would be a little nipping at the edges. Mostly nations taking their land back. Nobody want's to try to control Russia proper. Besides which; their nukes aren't going anywhere.

    Russia's 'Government' is a show, same as everywhere. The real power there will not collapse in any case.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  26. Far more likely than You Think by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    I'm sorry, but the rest are either stacked with incredible/'winning-powerball-jackpot-two-times-in-a-row' level odds (e.g. asteroid strike)

    Actually the odds of you being alive for an extinction level event, while low, are far higher that. The odds of winning the UK national lottery are about one in 14 million. The average life expectancy of a human is ~80 years in the western world so if the rate of extinction-level events only has to be one every ~1.1 billion years for the annual probability of one to mean that there is a higher chance of you being alive when one happens than there is of you winning the lottery.

    If you look at the frequency of all mass extinction events given here then you can see that the rate is far higher than that. Unfortunately we don't really know for certain how many, if any, of these were caused by asteroid impacts or massive volcanic eruptions but the rate of these natural extinction events is clearly far higher than one every billion years. Hence the data suggest that you are probably many times more likely to be alive when a natural mass extinction event happens than you are to win the lottery even once, let alone twice.

  27. The end of civilisation by DanielOom · · Score: 2

    One proof the world is sliding backwards: fifty years ago the end of civilisation was due to only three things: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Few people thought there would be any civilisation left after the year 2000.