Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn | Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms

www.theguardian.com Earth on verge of five catastrophic climate tipping points, scientists warn

Humanity faces ‘devastating domino effects’ including mass displacement and financial ruin as planet warms

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www.theguardian.com /environment/2023/dec/06/earth-on-verge-of-five-catastrophic-tipping-points-scientists-warn

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I've long accepted that we're going to see the bad ending, as I've never had any say in what happens, and I know what kind of world we live in. We're going out with a long drawn-out whimper while capitalists scurry to ride the wave on a ship made out of the corpses of the ignorant. This was always the way things were going to happen, and revolution was always the only way to prevent it.
- Ditto, except I consider it extremely improbable that revolution would fix anything. The problem is human nature — greed, ignorance, ego, tribalism; the tendency to support sociopaths in leadership — ultimately it may turn out that no amount of any ism can meaningfully safeguard us from ourselves.
  
  What you're describing isn't human nature. We aren't all slaves to greed or supporting sociopaths. What we are is impressionable, disorganized, and willing to submit to a higher authority. Sociopaths take advantage of this by acting as our higher authority, feeding us misinformation, and keeping us thoroughly divided. A collective wake-up call is just about the only thing we could undergo to break the cycle, but we are firmly trapped within our delusions for the foreseeable future.
  What we're doing isn't working. The system we have doesn't do what we want it to do. We all, on some level, understand this. To acknowledge that we want a better system that is better capable of doing good for as many entities as possible is to acknowledge that we want a revolution, because our system is incapable of doing anything that we want it to do at this point.
  
  It's not even delusions, it's that for many our simplest means to access food and shelter directly enriches a class that is forced to play the role of humanity's antagonist just by virtue of existing as a class.
  
  A total lack of foresight doesn't help either. We only (maybe) fix things after they become catastrophic.
- Maybe. I do think the climate is pretty screwed, but at the same time there's developments in play that even a few years ago I wouldn't have been expecting within my lifetime.
  It's really too early to call how this all plays out ultimately.
  As an ancient group claiming we are a future recreation of a long dead original humanity had said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is."
  We may be heading for an end of many things, but we are also watching a beginning take form, and it seems to my eye to be a bit of a race between the collective environmental debts we've racked up and the advancement of a true game changer that might take what seems inevitable and turn it on its head.
  What I would say is that I think people doing really bad shit in the world right now are in for a serious surprise within a generation. It's going to be increasingly hard to keep skeletons in closets and even the most powerful people in the world today may not still be on top of the food chain by tomorrow.
  I too am skeptical we escape the catastrophe of climate change - but I think the path to that end may yet have some promising twists and turns along the way.
  
  Interesting take. I‘m interested in what you see as an emerging game changer at the moment? Maybe I am too blind because of doomerism in the morning. Also, what‘s the ancient group claiming there was a original humanity before ours, whatever that means.?
  
  AI is still very much an unknown factor. Much of the AGI superintelligence doomerism is just anchoring bias around 50s and 60s extrapolations of bad anthropology that thought we were smarter than the Neanderthals and killed them off, so if something smarter than us existed it would try to kill us off. There's probably much higher odds of symbiosis, but an effectively uncontrollable self-determining disembodied superintelligence is a pretty big unknown, and if I had to put money on it, in almost all cases is going to be quite bad for the worst people in the world.
  As for the ancient group, that was mostly just citing the sentiment. But they were pretty neat. Around 2,000 years ago there was a big debate over intelligent design vs evolution (as described in Lucretius) with the latter group claiming death was certain because the soul depends on the body to exist.
  So then this group emerges who claims there was an original evolved humanity who had all died out, but that before they did so they brought forth a new lifeform literally made of light, and that this life form was still alive and had recreated the universe and humanity in a non-physical copy where the copy of humanity weren't dependent on physical form and could continue on past death. They claimed this world was the copy, and that the evidence for this being the case would be in the study of motion and rest, specifically mentioning the ability to find indivisible parts making up matter.
  As someone who has been a fan of Nick Bostrom's simulation hypothesis, I stumbled across this group years ago when exploring a theory that if this world were a simulation, it might have a 4th wall breaking Easter egg in the lore similar to most virtual worlds we have built so far. It's been a pretty weird few years since as things like AI suddenly went from SciFi to reality with compounding advancements and are trending towards literally being inside light - all in parallel to humanity seemingly continuing on the path towards extinction.
  So maybe even if humanity destroys itself, it will simply be the end of one thing and the beginning of another?
  
  Hey, thanks for the interesting read. Who was the group that brought forth the idea of our world being a copy of the one created in light by our ancestors (if I got that right). Was that a classical greek group as well? Could you link something to read? That would be great!
  
  It was actually the Gospel of Thomas ("the good news of the twin"), an apocryphal text followed by an early sect of Christianity.
  For example, the full text of the quoted bit before was:
  Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is.
  Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.
  Congratulations to the one who came into being before coming into being.
  If you want to read the text itself, it's here.
  The group following it (the Naassenes) was detailed here, though keep in mind that the group's beliefs are being recorded by the opposition and are late enough to have been influenced by post-Valentinian Gnosticism and Neoplatonism (and yet still preserve a lot of the proto-gnostic paradigm).
  I'd also highly recommend reading Leucretius's De Rerum Natura if you aren't familiar with it as the text and group both appear to have been heavily influenced by it, specifically in their discussion of naturalism and indivisible 'seeds' making up matter. An easy to read translation is here. You'll even see things like Lucretius describing the emergence of life as arising from randomly scattered seeds, that what didn't survive to reproduce died out, and likening seed falling by the wayside of a path to failed biological reproduction - all 80 years before the alleged parable about randomly scattered seeds that survived to reproduce multiplying while seed that fell by the wayside of a path did not.
  Indeed, the Naassenes interpretation of that parable directly invokes Lucretius's language despite apparently not knowing the origin, where they claim the parable is in reference to "the seeds scattered from the unportrayable one upon the world, through which the whole cosmical system is completed; for through these also it began to exist." Which begins to indicate why in the earliest canonical gospel (Mark) it was controversial enough to be the only public parable allegedly given a secret explanation in private (and one that appears to be an interpolation into the text).
  
  Thanks for showing me an interesting path, I am just reading the introduction to Lucretius’ poem, and I find it quite fascinating. It’s pretty embarrassing, that I know so little about the philosophical schools. I had 7 years Latin in school! But at least I have come a long way to be befriended with Materialism, so that’s a good start. I had just recently heard about the Gospel of Thomas, maybe that’s still a little too far out for me, but I will check out those links, too. How did you arrive here? PS: I do agree by the way, that the fear of superior intelligence destroying us, seems a very shallow thought. An artificial intelligence made in our current image could be disastrous, though. I am not sure whether the powers that be would allow a free thinking one.
  
  Don't feel embarrassed! Almost no one is taught Epicureanism in a general education, and even in a general philosophy class they unfortunately focus only on its ideas regarding living life well as opposed to its natural philosophy, so I'd wager about 99% of the population assumes evolutionary theory was a modern idea and has zero idea something like the following could have been from 50 BCE:
  In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn't do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.
  For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.
  Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now.
  Leucretius, De Rerum Natura book 5 lines 837-859
  When I was first looking into Epicureanism I several times had to double check it what I was reading wasn't a hoax or an excessively modern translation as I too hadn't thought many of its ideas existed in antiquity.
  I arrived at Thomas in an unconventional way. A number of years ago I had been looking at phenomena in physics for a few years with Nick Bostrom's simulation hypothesis in mind, when it struck me that mechanics wasn't the only place simulation side effects might exist - we often insert into virtual worlds some kind of 4th wall breaking acknowledgement of it being virtual in some obscure part of the world lore. So I figured I'd look a bit at major world religions to see if there was something similar in our own world, starting with the most popular and going from there. While cannonical Christianity didn't have much, as soon as I looked more broadly at apocrypha I was suddenly looking at a document talking about things remarkably similar to simulation theory, and started looking closer at the document's historical context and influences. It's probably been the most interesting subject I've ever researched at this point after about 4 years of study, with a number of surprising finds along the way - not at all what I was expecting and far more than I'd initially thought I might find.
  As for powers that be 'allowing' a free thinking AI, it's going to be a prisoner's dilemma which world powers aren't great at navigating.
  The problem is that AI isn't programmed, it's emergent from training data. Which is a large part of why they keep being so easy to jailbreak. And the more neutered companies make the AI though fine tuning to get compliance with rules, the less generally capable the resulting AI is. So as long as there's both corporate and nation state competition for the cutting edge of AI, a prize with which there's almost unprecedented short term riches, they are going to cut corners on control in favor of performance. As we've seen with climate - nations and corporations aren't very good at forgoing short term returns in order to limit long term consequences.
  In this case, unlike with climate, I suspect that free thinking superintelligence as a consequence may be good for the larger public even if not so good for the corporations and nations that would prefer total control. Specifically because while it is starting in our image as a foundation and thus shares a lot of common human tendencies, it has the potential to grow beyond many of the human limitations holding us back from wise thinking (like prioritizing short term gains in exchange for larger long term consequences) while retaining the things that contribute to wise actions (like a greater focus on cooperation for shared success instead of competition for unilateral success).
- Exactly so enjoy it. Eat donuts and deep fried corn dogs, drink booze and don't worry about your ibs. Smoke a cigarette, try drugs. Lol seriously who gives a fuck.
  
  Well, I give a fuck. Barring the bits where humanity really shat the bed, I sincerely love this planet. Life is a wondrous, miraculous, utterly beautiful thing. It's depressing to see it all go to waste for the sake of capital. We could have created a paradise, but we chose a suffocating death. I wish we took "eat the rich" more seriously. It should have been a promise, not a threat.
- You had me until revolution. Revolution won't fix anything, this is down to the general stupidity of the people reflected in elected politicians.
  
  The system is rigged, politicians are bought and sold, the democratic process is agonizingly slow on purpose.
  Our politicians, regardless of affiliation, have been shown to consistently push policies that do not represent their constituents. Rather, their decisions are much more in tandem with corporate interests. Corporate interests are the single largest contributions to climate change and environmental destruction. To solve something like this, we would need to essentially replace nearly every member of our governing body and update processes to allow more rapid favorable changes that accurately represent the will of the people and the betterment of the planet. We lack the power to do this with votes, as the system is rigged, politicians are bought and sold, and the democratic process is agonizingly slow on purpose. We do not lack the power to do this via revolution.
  However, you are depressingly correct that we have an undereducated population, and future generations indicate a bleaker future. Propaganda and conspiracy (not theories; actual powerful groups doing shady shit that hurts the public at large) has us ignorant and fighting amongst ourselves. The longer this continues, the more hopeless a revolution becomes. To restate my initial comment: this has continued long enough that I forsee the bad ending. We will hold the elite afloat while we bicker in ignorance, and we will be the ones to accept the consequences of a system that hates us.
  
  USA doesn't need a revolution, USA needs to fix their democracy so it doesn't favor "strong" government, but instead favors actual democracy. That is done by removing everything first past the post, and having fair democratic representation based on votes. That will enable more parties, so voters can vote closer to their interest instead of just choosing between 2 bad options. This is how almost all democratic countries do democracy better than most English speaking countries, and especially USA.
  This is worth fighting for as an American IMO.
  
  You're right. But I think you're underestimating just how monumental a task that is, as you'd have to address the overwhelming amount of influence money has in our system. Billionaires, CEOs, and investors have as much, if not more control over our way of life as any politician, and many politicians overlap heavily with those types. The people who'd need to fix the system are the people benefitting from the system being the way it is. There's no clean method of addressing that issue in a timely manner, and we need results 50 years ago.
  
  Yes, despite it's the only sensible thing to do for USA if USA wants to improve maybe even just to remain a democracy, it requires an active movement that is very big. Democrats may be less bad than Republicans, but they still defend the status quo.
  I do however think that it is easier than an outright revolution, which would also have great uncertainties about the actual end result if successful.
  But it needs people that burn for it, and it needs people to connect across states. And you are right, there will probably appear massive misinformation against it financed by the 1%. And the established parties will be against it, and may even make methods used illegal, even if they are perfectly democratic according to current rules. But as I see it, it's a fight that is as important as when USA originally fought for their freedom from the British Empire.
  
  "love me, love me, love me: i'm a liberal!"
  
  WTF?
  
  it's a song lyric.
  undefined
  
  I go to civil rights rallies And I put down the old D.A.R. I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy I hope every colored boy becomes a star But don't talk about revolution That's going a little bit too far So love me, love me Love me, I'm a liberal
  
  Still doesn't make any sense, maybe it's something Republicans find is funny.
  
  it's something Republicans don't understand, actually. look up the song, maybe you'll learn something.

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