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izzydata 3 hours ago

Ultimately I think it will be a self correcting problem, but there is going to be an extremely long period of absolute hell. Global warming is eventually going to cause food and water scarcity on a level that will wipe out a huge percentage of the Earths population. Then the Earth will recover from there being fewer humans.

If in 3000 years we discover humans were completely wiped out to the last person I would be pretty surprised.

rolph 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Toba catastrophe theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngest_Toba_eruption#Toba_ca...

wat10000 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree that human extinction is very unlikely on anything like historical timespans. Maybe in a few million years, like any other species.

I do think there's a decent chance of civilizational collapse in the near to medium term. It seems like everything is getting very fragile. So much economic activity revolves around extremely sophisticated machines with many critical components that are manufactured in just a few locations, sometimes a single location. A major war could shatter that, or climate change could push us over a tipping point where those capabilities can no longer be maintained, or it might just be a cascading random breakdown due to the modern economy being so complicated.

If it happens, then I'm very pessimistic about the ability to ever come back from it. With all the easily accessible fossil fuels gone, getting industry going again is going to be a really tall order. So humanity might survive a long time, but it may consist of life the way it was in prehistory.

SoftTalker 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Agree, this is how excesses always get corrected in nature.