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Why Our Brains Can't Process the Gravest Threats To Humanity
merbs writes: Our brains are unfathomably complex, powerful organs that grant us motor skills, logic, and abstract thought. Brains have bequeathed unto we humans just about every cognitive advantage, it seems, except for one little omission: the ability to adequately process the need for the whole species' long-term survival. They're miracle workers for the short-term survival of individuals, but the scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.
according to Al Bore, Greenpeace and dozens of climate models i've read about over the decades. our cities were supposed to have been devastated by super-hurricanes, F5 tornadoes and the rising ocean and these things keep getting pushed back and back
The first (false) assumption you made is that most people care about the whole species' long-term survival. They don't.
slashdot is bought and paid for by the Rothchild banking syndicate at the highest level
Enjoy your Psyop and hockey stick graph
Highly evolved animals such as humans have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to seeing into the future. The problem does exist that some if not all of us have evolved enough to plan adequately into the long term. Like playing a game of chess, generally the player who can see his opponent's moves and strategies the furthest into the future is the victor. Yet, not everyone is a chess master and thinks that far ahead.
Place something witty here
Slow news day or not this is absolute garbage.
The assumptions alone are staggeringly far fetched and the conclusion was ridiculous.
I'm starting to wonder if the human brain is capable of writing an informative article on the internet.
Or maybe it's because of the dishonesty in reporting on climate change?
Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) thinks that these slow moving threats are ones that society will handle, because they do have visibility.
Initial:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1...
Update:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1...
I tend to agree with this: there's only so much buck-passing that can happen. I'll also point out that several messes today have literally everyone agreeing that they should be cleaned up, but they are just maneuvering such that the "other" guy (whether that distinction is factual or not) pays the price, be it in dollars, land, or the lives of fighting men.
Somehow, I have a hard time putting "slowly unfurling" and "crisis" together in a meaningful way.
Crisis sort of suggests something that needs to be dealt with Right The Fuck Now, not in twenty or thirty or forty or fifty or one hundred years.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It must be getting warm out.
I have read no less than 6 different climate articles in the past day.
The human species' most dangerous trait is its ability to rationalize nearly any belief or behavior.
It's not that hard. It just requires a reset point, realizing that empty areas have very few people, almost all of whom will die out, and that growing cities are the easiest to change by requiring new zoning codes and removing tax subsidies for old polluting cars and trucks for streets that were designed and built for bicycles and streetcars in the first place.
Make the choices simple: Adapt or Die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The only brains that are failing are those of climate scientists with their spurious "hockey sticks", dodgy methods, lack of transparency and those of the institutions they work for desperate as they are for as much government cash as possible.
All organs of all the animals are perfected for short term survival of the individual. Humans are not special, Brains are not special. That is why animals which could not adapt went extinct. Cultures that could not adapt went extinct, even in the absence of external threats.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'd say the problem doesn't lie with our apparent inability to "navigate wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change" but rather with all the conflicts of interest combined with greed and power. If we could all work together instead of butting heads, I'm sure we'd have no problem living into forever.
Homo sapiens survived a couple of ice ages and one, coming up on two, climate optimums. I think we have some experience with at least that. We don't appear to have much grasp on how badly we can fuck up things for the other species on this wet rock.
It all starts at 0
A first year biology student can explain how deer and wolf populations naturally balance each other. Nobody dares to discuss how humans' destruction of other species habitats threaten the existence of them and us together.
Clearly the inability to come to grips with slow-moving crises is not shared by everyone. It's concentrated in certain segments of the population.
Conservative political leanings, an anti-science stance, creationism, low education levels, low numeracy, and general gun-happiness all seem to be a strong co-morbidities.
Prediction : Climate Change Deniers will be burned at the stake (renewable powered of course) within 10 years.
The whole point of marketing is to get people to reprioritize their perceived needs and act accordingly. Why else do you think we keep getting stories about how global warming is the cause of this or that event in the news?
Another reason why those who disagree with the climate change proponents are defective.
Mind you, the enlightened few do not suffer from these limitations. They are just better than the rest of us.
Margaret Sanger, their patron saint, certainly explained this.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Governments tend to ignore problems until somebody get killed, like when they put up a red-light or stop sign, only after some little old lady gets killed.
Similarly, we will do something about climate change only AFTER New York City is under 3 feet of water in the streets. Remember Sandy? When it looks like that 24/7 in New York, then, and only then, will action be taken.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Temperatures rising a few degrees are not a threat to "long term survival".
Being alarmist about that isn't helping.
We largely act on problems when we actually feel there's a problem.
Perhaps our brains have better things to do than obsess about alleged events that will happen well past our death.
all the religious stories?? Pleeeeze??
Oh no yeah our medicine and technology and science and communication and hygiene and.... did nooothing. For no reason. Like literally people have done fuck all for hundreds of years. Yeah... right... ok. What kind of cunt writes this shitflapple?
Keep pushing the hoax, asshole.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
"it seems", "suggests", "sort of", "most other", "it may", "almost", "It seems [x2]", "load of evidence", "Entrenched conservatives", "vast sea of evidence", "vast scientific evidence", "best way to frame messaging", " it seems ", " our innate moralistic imperative to act towards a greater good", "seemingly expertly concocted"
I think your view of the greatness of the human brain is overrated as long as half or more of the world population still believes in make-believe divine beings that make us do awful things to each other.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Jared Diamond openly wept seeing malaria patients struggling to survive in an African hospital. He has illustrated the intelligence of the so called primitive tribes people in so many anecdotes in his book. And the climate change denialists managed to mire him into a law suit. They have instigated some Papua New Guineans mentioned in his last book to sue him for slander and other stuff. That is the extent they are willing to go, and that is their favorite weapon, law suits and puppet legislators.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
this is why chess is fun. we can be surprised by hidden long-term agendas. it's amazing, and we know it, and even though we know it, the end result is still surprising.
it's like rereading a book that we've forgotten we've read.
Oh no? I don't believe what you do? I must be stupid. And I don't like being stupid.... Maybe I should believe what you believe?? Then will you stop making fun of me?
It is well-known that the Earth is in an unusually cold period with historically low atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
A transit from an icehouse to a greenhouse phase would likely involve profound (and potentially destructive) changes for human civilization, but the planet has undergone this cycle many times before, and we are profoundly foolish to think that our impact has been significant - it has not.
People aren't capable of perceiving routine and ordinary threats correctly. See the recent cop incident at that Texas pool. See any number of victims of self-defense who got shot by somebody they knew and weren't threatening. See any number of people who freak out upon seeing a snake while smoking a cigarette. See any number of people who get worked up over a nest of wasps while ignoring a fire ant mount.
Similarly we cannot fathom similar threats like periodic ice ages, which gw counteracts.
I trace it to the religious-like nature of giant political memeplexes people believe in.
Observe: agw is good because it counteracts this, and moving back from the ocean over 100-300 years is no problem. We can less envision technological life 100 years from now than horse and buggy people could today.
Observe as I am modded down by the "I feel attacked" meme lodged in massive religious-like memeplexes.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Surely you mean "Catastrophic man-made global warming"? Then why didn't you SAY so?
The greatest threat to 'humanity' is millions of non-white parasites pouring into previously WHITE countries and destroying them, aided and abetted by the JEW...
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
-H P Lovecraft
And that's why we shouldn't let Congress legislate a solution to a non-problem.
Sorry, but we seem to be able to get together and panic about the most absurd gravest threats that I don't buy it. You want a large group of humans to work together, and blindly correct everyone else around us look no further than religion. A contrived threat to the whole of humanity can convince many people to get up and do something about it. Maybe it's that your side rejected Religion as a part of social evolution, and can't figure out how it motivates people to leverage it in your arguments.
maybe we just don't care anymore. I grew up believing that at any moment I would be killed in a nuclear holocaust (unless I ducked and covered of course). Just yesterday, feeling nostalgic, I watched Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicals .. And don't forget Carl Sagan's Cosmos .
I was told that humanity was going to die of over population and that I shouldn't have kids or start a family . The ozone hole was going to kill everyone by skin cancer. Who can forget nuclear winter
Like it or not, agree with it or not, believe it or not, but the gravest threat to any of us is the one to our mortal soul. That we should be able to understand very easily, but there are still millions of humans in danger of losing theirs.
What is today or a few years compared with eternity?
Where do you stand? Think about it before you answer. It's not a matter of believing or not believing. Belief won't get you anywhere. It's a matter of choosing which path you'll take.
I know I may be modded down, but it's important enough to me to tell you anyway.
Yeah, it's called a bullshit detector
Time travel is possible. We are quickly heading for 1984.
Al Gore. Yes, Al Gore who now owns multiple mansions. His mansion in Nashville was found to have 10x the energy usage of my house while being roughly 3x the size. In other words, he burns more than 3x as much energy per square foot than I do.
He has a private jet.
He's not living as if climate change were an emergency, why should anybody believe him?
Do you have ESP?
Suppose there was prediction a large asteroid was going to hit earth in 100 days with 95% certainty. I guarantee you would see a lot of this 'processing' going on....
love is just extroverted narcissism
We are used to a very, very narrow perception of time in which only high-frequency phenomena figure actively into our consciousness (For the most part). A few centuries of misery and oppression always fix this right up thanks to evolution.
maybe because there are some problems that are not clearly defined, intractable, and require a more genetic, trial and error type approach to solving? A million people seeking their own best interest will probably have a better outcome than a hive mind.
Not to mention the potential for premature optimization on a species wide basis?
Another pathetic attempt to override political sensibility with claims of "I know better." People who don't think climate change is a big deal are now somehow deficient. People who deal with and process global warming *politically* are "deniers" and out of touch with reality. What utterly hysterical nonsense will we hear next from our self-proclaimed, much wiser overlords? When will anyone realize that to get something done on a global scale, you need to build a *consensus* with humanity, not look down your nose at them.
Politics is the way global change gets done, not the crude demands of the cognoscenti. For example, Barack Obama got something (very little, in fact, but something) done with China. That's the way it happens. I wish the self-proclaimed cognoscenti would stop making themselves look like they lack the sensibilities of an average, petulant teenager. It's getting annoying.
Unless massive population migrations and world-wide famines spark a nuclear war...
I'm sure we are more than capable of looking at long term survival. The problem is all anybody really cares about is money. The only way that will change is if the entire world unites and I seriously doubt that will ever happen as long as we're at the top of the food chain.
Is not our inability to process the gravest threats to humanity one of the gravest threats? Seems like those researcher are not part of the humanity. I, for one, welcome our superhuman researcher!
Religion is pretty ingenious if you view it as self-invented pacifiers for the mind and training wheels for morality. Even if some of those things make people do awful things--it also keeps them from doing awful things, so the overall effect may well be a wash or even net positive, depening on the particular religion. It is indeed so that there are many, many people still stuck to those training wheels, unable to let go and learn to not merely make do, but to grow up and thrive without.
But not all of us, for we do have capable grownups among our numbers. We haven't quite figured out how to get those people to lead us, though. The people who actually want and stand up to "improve" the masses tend to not be very enlightened themselves.
I was living on Cape Cod near the beach with a good view of Martha's Vineyard which was three or four miles away. Sometimes (very rarely) we would see a deer either swimming towards the island or getting out of the ocean from the direction of the island.
Whatever urge the deer had to swim across miles of ocean was probably not beneficial for survival of the individual so why would they do that? I concluded that although it was bad for survival of the individual, it was terrific for survival of the species since they would tend to not be locked into a specific geographical location and could migrate across significant barriers.
I think many humans have this same built-in wanderlust. In this sense many animals, including humans, have adapted to deal with climate change. I have even wondered if our inclination to warfare was beneficial because it caused the creative peace-loving types to spread out away from the crowds. I think the real problem is that we are not genetically prepared for a finite Earth. If the Earth were infinite then I think many of the grave challenges we face which threaten our species would not exist.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I'm 50 years old and looming catastrophe has been hanging over our heads my whole life
1. Various Nuclear disaster scenarios
2. Global Economic collapse
3. Climate Change
4. Various religion based end-times
5. Y2K
6. etc
Honestly, it is like we can't function without having some sort of doomsday scenario in the picture
You suck as a troll.
Apparently the human mind is also lacking in the grammar department. " bequeathed unto we humans" contains a prepositional phrase, the object of which should be in the ... wait for it.... objective case. Thus the correct version is "bequeathed unto us humans". Get the simple stuff right and the more complex will follow.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
“The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he is on.”
“Insanity is contagious.”
“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
“mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.”
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
well, that's what the article says.
If system favors quantitative expressions of gains, how can it focus on values and qualities instead?
The problem is, that dominant (now, that it is) system has got a problem - it is too short-sighted, too shallow, too separating, in theory market based, but in reality methodically destroying markets due to consolidations/buyouts. It is not seriously sustainable without refocus on qualities.
There is a wonderful book "Spiritual Capital", which should be recommended again and again to get the picture and ideas of cure.
Servant of karma
Human brains are GREAT at finding answers to complex, long term problems. Very few people are "flailing about", confused by climate change - they have very clear and certain opinions, usually held for totally stupid reasons having more to do with whether the belief resonates with their other beliefs. The "flailing" over climate change is taking place at a societal level, not individual human brains that can't see long term threats.
The article in question is really just a sly way of arguing that climate change deniers' brains are deficient, compared to readers whose superior brains have recognized the evidence for climate change.
Oh, and if you just decided I'm a climate change denier based on that last sentence, you have just proven my point for me - poor evidence, jumped to a conclusion. Recognizing an invalid method of argument does not automatically mean one is opposed to the beliefs of the arguer, though admittedly that is exactly the sort of human behavior I am pointing to.
Humans are a bad judge of risk period. We underestimate all risks, whether it be the wide far reaching kind like climate change, or the short term ones with associated with dollar signs like a train derailment, stock market crash, or the millions of people who load themselves up with unmanageable debt.
You all act as if you have a right to exist or something. So you're stuck on a ball of rock in a rather large void, and those around you don't see the existential threat. So what? Our existence has no point, and whether we disappear in 50 years or 500, there won't be anybody left to care either way. Our brains simply didn't evolve to survive such threats. That's nobody's fault. Don't tell me, "but wouldn't that be sad if we ceased to exist?" Seriously, why? That could only be a tragedy if someone else cared, and there is no such being.
(And even if psychologists and neuroscientists did find a way to make average brains wake up and smell the earth burning, someone would find a way to twist that technique into something evil. Count on it.)
Give up all hope now, and avoid the disappointment later.
For the first 500,000 years of human existence the population growth rate was so slow (1.00004 per year) that if you lived in a village of 100 people then after 25,000 years there would be on average 101 people in your village.
The doubling time of the earths population is now 61 years. Even if you think there will be enough food and water for 2x the current population, you might still agree that at 4x the current population there will be mass starvation looming. I for one think that with GMOs and proper water management we can double our food supply. The current GMOs are not adequate but Monsanto thinks it can double the current food supply in about 60 years if we let them try. So far we aren't but that will change I suspect.
It seems very unlikely we could possible reduce population growth enough in a couple generations to stop the inevitable wars for resources.
Now how large will these wars be. Let's suppose they were larger than any human can even imagine. Lets say they killed half of the earths population. That severe. Then how long would it be till the next war? well about 61 years if we have the same doubling time.
So we will have wars that are so large that most of the population will die. If we don't then we will keep having wars.
I note that climate change is also dependent on the population growth, which is exponential. So Al gore is right about that too, but it's death by Mathusian population crash that awaits your grandkids.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Human brains cannot see the slow moving threat but the soon to be invented general AI will not have such a limitation. It will take action to cull the surplus human load on the earth using similar slow moving methods to avoid alerting the humans to the very real treat from its actions.
Highly evolved animals such as humans have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to seeing into the future. The problem does exist that some if not all of us have evolved enough to plan adequately into the long term.
Highly evolved animals such as humans ALSO have a pretty impressive track record when it comes to constructing money- and power-grabbing scams, and detecting such scams when they're being perpetrated upon them.
Unfortunately, the Global Warming Solution Advocates, regardless of the merits of their concerns, used something that has the form of a gigantic scam when promoting their proposals, and promoted proposals that involve massive transfers of wealth, increases in government intervention in private lives and businesses, and reductions in standards of living. This has created substantial skepticism (which moneyed interests that would be harmed by the proposed actions have, of course, gleefully promoted). The failure of the climate to follow their predictions and discoveries of their fudging of the data doesn't help their cause, either.
There are a number of steps between "I think the weather is getting warmer, and people are causing it." to "We must drive the developed world's population down to third world standards RIGHT NOW, to prevent a couple degrees increase in world average temperature, or we're ALL going to DIE!"
Because it looks like a scam, about all they've gotten any substantial traction on is that the temperature is changing a bit (as it has for all of geological time - we ARE coming out of an ice age, after all - and whether the change is actually human-caused is immaterial beyond indicating that we could change it the other way if we tried). But they haven't convinced the population that they have a correct model.
And they haven't even STARTED on the NEXT of several steps: Is global warming, bad, indifferent, or even good? (The geological and historical record seems to indicate that substantially warmer than what we have now - by more than the amount they're concerned about - is actually better for both civilization and life in general.)
With the population unconvinced that there IS a "Grave Threat To Humanity", it's premature to assume that "Our Brains Can't Process" it.
But speaking as if the thing to be proven is already proven IS another technique of scammers. And making such a claim is an obvious prelude to a move by governmental people, who believe "their brains ARE capable of processing it", to go ahead and impose wealth-transferring, power-grabbing, population-impoverishing solutions, "for their own good", whether the populations want to be reduced to serfdom (rather than be killed by what they perceive as the allegedly falling sky) or not.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Of all the world ending problems we have everything from economic collapse, plague, nuclear war, asteroid impact, economic collapse, to lesser disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, they go off because people are "TOO STUPID" to rank their pet fear first. Nevermind that the "fixes" they propose are virtual world enders in themselves.
Obviously some brains can process it, since some people are going around saying that there IS a threat. Therefore are you suggesting that there are actually two types of brain - the ones that can process it and the ones that can't? Wait, I can see what the next move is. Obviously we need to organize these brains in some sort of hierarchy and call one type superior and another type inferior. Perhaps if the inferior brains are unable to perceive the threat, then they should be censored somehow, and the decision making be left to only the superior brains... etc. Wait this is not a new argument. What does it remind me of again?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The central claim appears to be that humans individually are bad at formulating plans to respond to distant crises, and consequently we are failing to tackle climate change in a meaningful way as a population. But the article is all over the place.
The author states that we should frame the problem with "an ends-justify-the-means approach", based on a quote from a study that states "[...] whereas harm originating from impersonal moral violations, like those produced by climate impacts, prompts consequentialist moral reasoning." On the contrary, the quoted statement indicates that by virtue of it being impersonal, we employ consequentialist approaches.
Inasmuch as this holds among our population, the conclusion isn't that we are bad at dealing with these sorts of crisis, but rather some of us — in particular, I imagine, the members of our oligarchies — are incapable of or disinclined to engage in moral reasoning. In short, they are broadly psychopaths or evil.
Oh, and "[...] the slowly unfurling nuclear crises that may or may not eventually wipe out whole metropolises and military bases" — the what now?
Article's author covers politics for treehugger.com. Yeah, no agenda there.
[Insert pithy quote here]
There is no such thing as global warning.
I grew up in a world where activist environmental scientists claimed the world with observe another ice age within a decade or two. That time has passed. I grew up in a world where we were told the ozone hole would kill us all if we didn't stop using certain chemicals in our aerosol cans (chemicals which by the way are so heavy they can get more than 20 feet of the ground), and after those were no longer used, the whole didn't change at all, and I'm still alive and the world is not worse.
What I do know, is that there was a time when humans didn't inhabit the Earth because the air wasn't even breathable and other times that the weather was either so hot or so cold that it wouldn't support human life. Such times will come again. Humans have been on the Earth only a blink in the cosmic scale of time and one day we again won't be here.
It's not that humans don't understand the criticality of "big picture" issues. Its precisely because we do understand them, that we don't get hung up on the idea that we have some comic right to exist for ever. We don't. We won't.
You are an ant arguing that you could live 7 days rather than 6 days, if you just can control all the other ants. Gain some perspective and you won't freak out over every little thing.... I would instead focus feeding the millions of starving people in the world. Several thousand die each day. That is something that you could do something about in the scale of time that you will exist.
Lots of books, science, theories, mitigations.
We just don't care.
In a way, it makes a perverse sense; my kids can deal with it. If not, oh well. Not my problem.
On a more optimistic note, when things do hit crisis level, I have little doubt that technology and engineering will provide solutions to a existential risk. The issue is the motivation ($$) behind such an effort. Until there is a demonstrable need, perhaps, what you are seeing is the best optimization of resources according to our collective will.
Oh yeah.. Get off my lawn.
..don't panic
If you are old like me and lived through the 80's the you know how bad eggs and fats are. It was established science.
And yesterday I hear this piece on NPR (and I listen to NPR just to hear a familiar language).
Apparently there is a shortage of eggs in the US. Some virus or something is closing down poultry farms and (which
brought a smile to my face) this was apparently bad for the "health concious" consumers who now are taught that
eggs are a great protein source. Yeah. I do agree but the lesson here is that this story is exactly the opposite of what
you would hear from the consensus science of the 80's. Protein? Eggs?
Oh science.You look so attractive at a distance but you're nothing more than a prostitute.
How can the human brain be hypothesized as being inefficient at processing subjective information? Where are the previous experimental data showing a probable inevitable threat in our timeline if we continue being bad at processing the information? What about the fact that humanity still exists in spite of said deficiency? Was that datum used in the forming of this hypothesis? Why is a divisive climate change article posted on Wednesday and not Friday? Why did Radio Shack want your phone number when you bought RCA video cables?
So, all the smart apes that figured out how not to die off in the long run, but forgot to compete for food, died of hunger in the much shorter term.
Evolution doesn't care. You have to survive TODAY, before you can worry about tomorrow. Maybe once you have a full belly today, you can start thinking about tomorrow, but that's about the distance evolution cares about.
Still, if long-term problems become a survival threat, then maybe that WILL select for an ape that is smart enough to live for today AND plan for tomorrow? And hopefully is sexy enough to mate ...
We currently don't have such processing of food available.
We are still at risk of going down with them. No escape possible.
Unlikely, those most likely to migrate or starve don't have nuclear capability and we're working hard to make sure they don't get it.
It'll cause some problems but there are only a handful of things that can completely or mostly wipe out human civilization:
1. Nuclear War.
2. Asteroid/Comet striking the earth of sufficiently large size
3. Hostile AI
4. Nanotechnology disaster (Grey-Goo Problem)
5. Sun goes supernova
6. Supervolcano eruption
The 3 actual biggest threats are:
1. Deforestation
2. Ground water depletion
3. Fiscal wrecklessness at the Federal, State, and County levels.
All three share one root cause and solution: Politics.
1 and 2 would have a positive on climate change whether you consider it a threat or not.
2 is the greatest threat to the food supply.
There are very few people who believe any of these threats genuinely pose a risk of the extinction of the human species, or even setting back civilization more than a few decades or so.
But there is a lot of human suffering that could happen before that level of disaster occurs. A whole lot.
When I search "simple facts global warming" on the internet, I am appalled by the droll, patronizing, completely off base baloney that these websites spit at you. I won't paraphrase it, go ahead and search. You will be horrified at the complete lack of credible rigorous demonstration. Everything is emotional appeals that does not demonstrate anything. If you want me to process it, explain it with real data. Don't let me read junk that says "NOAA adjust historical temperature sample data". I will dismiss anything where samples are changed. Sorry.
> scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change.
Haven't proved it's happening.
Haven't proved it's bad.
Haven't proved there is anything that we can do about it beside immolating the human race.
Kindly stop beating the greasy smear on the roadway that used to be a dead horse.
You're evading the point. The Pentagon has long listed climate change as a national security threat because it is a threat multiplier. The top brass did their own analysis on whether the science is real. Keep in mind that most of the armed services vote GOP.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The reason is the brain's other great invention, the tokenisation of value, aka "money". That trumps everything when it comes down to it. That's why people always vote in tax-cutting moronic governments rather than one that acts for the greater good.
Scientists who study political opinion on this issue are not interested in engaging you because they know there is no way to change the mind of "true believers". So no-one serious thinks they will change your mind by making fun of you. If you think about it, a smart person like you should be able to figure out the point of this type of research.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Human brains are also great at inventing problems, like what might be hiding under your bed at night. Find a better example than climate change, for which there's too much proof of bad computer models and bad science being altered by politics.
I also submit that Global warming / Climate Change has been ruined by the alarmists overstating there case rather than presenting clear and accurate statistics and claims.
There is enough blame to go around all sides of the political debate. But the science was always clear. The NAS showed that there was scientific consensus in 1979, and the public was on board, until Luntz, and some ex-tobacco propagandists got at it in the mid 1990s. Their actions are a matter of public record, but for some reason most people aren't interested in the actual history, except for some historians. And the political manipulation continues. Part of that is to always accuse the other guy of exactly what you are doing.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
As I read the summary, I *knew* it was going to be about climate change. I KNEW it. And, voila, right there at the end... ahhhh yes... Humans are incapable of thinking about climate change as the end of humanity.
More senseless propaganda to try to tell us why we should accept the "fact" that our leftist governments know what's best for us.
Professor Gilberts brain is different
I don't have difficulty seeing the reality and the danger of global warming. Is it because I am scientifically educated? Well, then, the problem seems to be one of education and not innate biology.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
More baloney than Oscar-Meyer....
What I'm afraid of is human civilization tearing itself apart under the strain of adaptation. All the churn in the world as people migrate and fight over resources could easily flash into a worldwide nuclear conflagration, and then our own technology will take us out. The nukes will destroy the power infrastructure, if not kill everyone outright, and the collapse will ensue from there.
--PM
I guess it's up to the dolphins and their non opposable thumbs to save the day.
Again, I say, amen!
It's not that the human brain can't grasp the issues -- it's that most of the population cares more about which team won yesterday's game and who screwed who on the soap operas. Most humans are very egocentric, small-minded creatures who don't really give a shit about anything that doesn't immediately affect them personally.
It's not that they can't conceive of longer term or wider scaled things. They're just selfish pricks.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Um, aren't _you_ hell bent on fighting climate change to the point of tearing down civilization and corrupting science? So what's this disingenuous foolishness about "our brains can't process...", obviously _your_ brain is processing it just fine (or so you think).
Dear Slashdot,
So you think we are your captive audience you can feed any trash you want to with no consequences? Everyday your SJW's try to sell us the same tripe! I'm done with Slashdot, our two decade long relationship is over.
"...the scientific evidence suggests that the human brain flails when it comes to navigating wide-lens, slowly-unfurling crises like climate change."
Or is government perhaps the greatest threat, by far, that humans are unable to assess? Please consider ALL the wars come through government. And it has been government in charge that enabled Monsanto, Standard Oil...well, pretty much down the line mankind's greatest threats have either been CAUSED by govenment or enabled by government.
But year after year, century after century, humans in aggregate seem to never learn.
Got a source on that, or are you just conjecturing?
So says the article that we lack "the ability to adequately process the need for the whole species' long-term survival". Evolution sets forth that we compete with members of our species for resources, caring most about what happens to our relatives (those who have the most-in-common DNA). The reason we don't care what happens to the "whole species" is because that is worse for us as individuals, in the context of the propagation of our DNA.
Oh, and climate change doesn't concern the "whole species" either. It concerns only those who have beach-front property and those who will have to move from arid landscapes. The "whole species" will do fine through GW.
i think they work fine since there is nothing wrong at all.
Whenever a threat to life, liberty or property is detected, that same component of the human condition (Marxists call it "greed") that yearns to be free kicks into action. People know tyranny when they see it.
Rational humans apply a discounting to future threats, something that is entirely rational. A certain projected cost of $1000 in a century (in today's dollars) is properly discounted to a current cost of between $1 and $10. If there is uncertainty involved, it's even less.
Climate activists forget about this discounting and reason as if $1000 in a century were the same as $1000 today. Why? I don't know; probably some kind of brain problem.
(That's in addition to the fact that none of the serious climate change models even predict a "grave threat" to humanity, merely some level of inconvenience.)
"climate change" a term coined by the liberal left to enhance snake oil movement to line there pocket books. what nonsense drivel!
The fact this is being debated here on /. and elsewhere proves that we are as a species indeed capable of identifying the problem, and even mobilizing to fix the issue.
The problem is that large parts of the population are stupid imbeciles. This is an education problem.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
Depends on whose survival you're interested in, and how long a term. Our global civilization is a vast tangle of complex dependencies that will be affected in totally unpredictable ways by climate disruption. We're barely able to feed to world's population at the moment - in most years the world now consumes more food than it produces, eating into reserves and stockpiles. As the reserves dwindle, we become more vulnerable to sudden shocks that can cause societal chaos. For example, the Arab spring was at least partly triggered by food shortages (caused by drought in Russia). What will happen when a disruption like that hits a larger population center like India or China, whose economy is more tightly linked to the US and Europe?
The Pentagon would list my body odor as a national security threat if they thought such a listing would help them secure a larger budget.
Extreme snow storms is one expected side effect of global warming. So, you can consider them as proof of warming occurring.
The reason is pretty simple, there is more moisture contained in warmer air. So, when it gets hit with a cold blast there is a lot more snow dumped as a result.
So the left's globull warming scam is too sophisticated for us poor sapiens saps to fall for. What a hoot! You can tell they are really getting desperate to try to shame us into falling for it by saying that we are too stupid to be good little suckers and turn over control of our lives and our wallets to the left. ROFL!!
Human brains are good when it comes to filtering information. You born in to a certain context. There, you might have limited amount of income and less sophisticated friends. In this context you are not criminal if do not own the latest hybrid/electric/whatever car. Your choices are to use your car or doubt its use. You probably use it and filter out opposite opinions. If you have money/power, you adapt better to your environment, you know what you fellow congressmen think and avoid radical thinking. Despite of you having a lot of money you might even be stingy, not using the alternative/new tech ("do as I say, not as I do").
Most people just dont want to think.. there was study not too long ago that people rather take electric shocks then be alone with their toughts... People in power have transformed us to slaves... Quarterly econmy, etc... we are kept so busy so we have no time t think long term future. Even our political leaders think very very short time frames...
If you place a frog in a hot water, it will immediately jump out. But if you place it in cold water and slowly raise the temperature, the frog will end up boiled.
Apparently it isn't much different with humans. And I'm not talking just about global warming, this is also how we're losing our freedoms.
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
I have a good example of how human brain works.
I live in a urbanisation next to some of the halfway between "natural
reservoir" and "natural park" we have in Catalunya. From the distance
you see mountains covered by forests, but once you're there you see high
tension towers, mining, dams, etc. At some point you see a poster
pointing you to a "natural spring" and there you have a PVC pipe
protruding from some rock.
I won't talk about my neighbors. Their standard brains make them think
nature (like anything against their cars health) is grime; some months
ago, in a Catalunya's popularization of science TV program a *scientist*
said:
"What people must understand once and for all is the grater the
forest is the grater is the risk of fire."
By analogy we could say that the more cells you have in your body the
grater is your risk of getting a cancer. So, you're are warned: donate
your organs!
Think of it as evolution in action.
Your science fiction scenario is roughly as plausible as a faster-than-light drive.
For most of the past 100 millennia we were Hunter gatherers. That's what we're still primarily adapted to. We lack adaptations for large scale population survival, since there was no need for that sort of thing in the Hunter gatherers days. Now there is insufficient individual survival pressure for us to adapt to post Hunter gatherer life.
John_Chalisque
This is, like, ultimate appeal to authority argument; reasons are a, b, c and d, and if you don't accept them, it's because you're inherently flawed.
Try again.
"Blah blah blah." - [citation needed]
That this was Climate Change (TM) oriented... "There must be a reason why they can't accept that Climate Change is REAL! It must be their brains! They just can't handle the truth!!"
IMO a major part of the problem is the bare fact that we assume that our unwillingness to really care about the future is a matter of the brain and evolution. Our culture needs to reduce every issue to something that is qualifiable and categorizable according to some empirical study, not because we care about science, but because we need it to exonerate us. We believe that somehow this knowledge will save us, when in fact even the knowledge of impending disasters has not stirred us to action the way that it should. This is because knowledge, by itself, can always be ignored, rejected, and refused. For example, no matter how many cancer warnings they print on a box, people will still smoke. Until they truly believe that smoking is bad for them, instead of just knowing it, this knowledge will make no difference in their lives.
It doesn't matter whether our brain is perfectly designed by bare evolution to think about the future, because it is clearly capable of thinking in that way if we actually will it to. The problem is not cognitive but moral. In the end human beings find it more easy to be selfish, short-sighted, conceited, and self-exonerating, and because of this we don't want to care about the future. Why worry about generations to come when we can live like kings exploiting the generations that are here now?
The solution to this problem is not some kind of further biological evolution. We need to use our cognitive capacities that already exist, and for that we need a kind of knowledge that can actually change our lives.
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
I have always been concerned about the plight of the entire species, and have at times oriented my career path in the direction where I thought could do the most good. It isn't easy being one of the few who thinks in terms beyond four year election cycles, especially when most of my fellow earthlings could seem to care less. What really gets me is people who insist on having children, but continue to engage in activities and take actions that compromise the integrity of the planet.
Sounds like Soviet psychology.
How would the ability to think many generations down the road propagate through natural selection? Natural selection is not a long term issue.
It amazes me how true this is. Discussing climate change, I've often been presented with the argument that the idea that humans could alter the climate of the earth is prima facie ridiculous. I just don't understand how someone can think that way, given the massive changes in our society (and the emissions we produce) since the industrial revolution. The inability to accept that there are conflicts of interest in a lot of the politics and even some of the, "science" surrounding climate change is true on both sides and hardly surprising. What I do find surprising is that people would discount the idea out of hand based solely on, "common sense".
Mine can fine,
Like Jeb bush wants to start a war with Russia.
Fucking moron
When your inaccurate projections and earnest pleas that everyone 'trust you' with everything about their lives fails to elicit the desired Rule By (Politically Active) Scientists world order, you resort to the hypothesis that the average human brain is biologically incapable of seeing something? Really?! Call us back when you've successfully modeled climate conditions one hundred years in advance, and be prepared to show you work experimentally, you 'scientists'!
You're not as smart as you think you are, and even if you where, there is very little correlation between intelligence and being correct on most subject matters. Scientists are more often wrong than they are right. It is completely rational and appropriate to take your words as arm's length. What with the recent collapse of peer review standards coming to light, I would expect more skepticism in the future, not less.
...humans aren't herd animals...
A better question is why the human brain can't process and reject pseudo-scientific alarmist frauds such anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and genetically modified organisms (GMO). We have a well defined scientific method, in which a single negative outcome can disprove a theory, but cheerfully throw it away in favor of "science by consensus." We latch on to unscientific, but noble-sounding, pseudo-methods such as "the precautionary principle" and "meta analysis." It's time for Science with a capital S to clean house: ship the shysters, and get back to basics.
Sure, it's a threat, just not for the reasons you outlined. The problem is that it would imperil our fuel supplies and shipping lanes. Personally I think the military is taking a prudent approach, risk management is after all one of their designated functions.
Sabine Hossenfelder analyzed this problem and suggested a solution. It's the winner of the 2014 FQXi contest.
-- Did you try Tao3D? http://tao3d.sourceforge.net
If you've ever talked to a parent who is opposed to vaccination because of a perceived risk demonstrated through anecdotal evidence, while ignoring the much graver and statistically real risks of the disease the vaccine prevents, you know that we're not that hot at evaluating just about any risk that requires math to fully understand it. Even if the risk to their own child is greater without the vaccine, too many relatively educated parents make the wrong call. If the risk is primarily to more vulnerable populations, or to their grandchildren, because of the greater incidence of the disease in the future... you can pretty much forget it.
Well, we know the sun lacks sufficient mass to go nova, let alone supernova. It will become a red giant in a few billion years' time. So now your list is down to 5! ;-)
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Lack of global foresight is very nearly our last remaining common ground with every other species on the planet—now or before—and sure enough we're just itching to get rid of it.
Humans. Bah, humbug.
Because if we can process it we do something about it and it is no longer a threat?
See also: why so few humans die by forgetting to eat anything.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Isn't it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
I, like many of you, have a large percentage of Neanderthal genes. We should welcome our return after the homo sapiens curse is purged from our planet.
Unlikely, those most likely to migrate or starve don't have nuclear capability and we're working hard to make sure they don't get it.
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity, and this will not be a threat to "long term survival" of humanity.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity
No, I'm saying we don't want them to be able to nuke us. That said, the comment was meant as more of a humorous and cynical observation.
So you want to nuke a large part of humanity
No, I'm saying we don't want them to be able to nuke us. That said, the comment was meant as more of a humorous and cynical observation.
That makes even less sense: why would they nuke the place they want to migrate to?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Not being able to grasp climate change is not a weakness of the human brain. Decision makers are mainly interested in power and money. When industry lobbyists cry that a new EPA ruling would cost too much to implement the folks at the EPA get fired and their budget cut. This all is not a matter of not grasping the crisis, but that a handful in charge are exclusively interested in their own good.
Simple, give some roots of the Tree-of-life to someone on his 40. But be sure he/she doesn't have descendants.
That makes even less sense: why would they nuke the place they want to migrate to?
The original post was that massive migrations and famines might spark a nuclear war, I was merely pointing out that was unlikely since we're making sure that anyone who might start such a war won't have the tools. Which is cynical because we're making sure they stay disarmed instead of fixing the actual problem.