It leads to a smaller and poorer humanity, but not to the absence of humanity.
But each time we have to rebuild from a collapse, we have a degraded carrying capacity and fewer easily exploitable resources with which to rebuild. This becomes a existential risk if the cycle repeats so many times that we can no longer rebuild. Or if it keeps us stuck on one planet long enough for one of the other existential risks to get us.
Like I said somewhere else, overshoot is like AIDS—it doesn’t kill you, it just predisposes you to other problems that do.
At any rate, there’s always the selfish motive. I don’t want to have to waste time rebuilding even after one collapse because I might not live to see it to completion, and what I want even less is to already be cryosuspended when the next one happens because I won’t be revived and won’t be around to do anything about it.
I think that anything that risks a collapse of civilization is an existential risk.
When the Roman Empire fell, people in Europe were able to fall back on iron-age technologies to survive; there was a mass die-off, but humanity in Europe was able to survive and eventually recover. In most of the first world, that wouldn’t really be an option today.
If our civilization were to collapse now, the human race would be in a dramatically resource-exhausted world, in the middle of a mass-extinction event, without our technology to help us, it’s possible the human race might not survive. And even if it does, I’m not sure that it’s guaranteed that we will come back up to a technological civilization.
I think such an approach dilutes the useful concept on “existential risk” into uselessness.
Let me be a little more clear. My rough estimate would be that a complete collapse of modern civilization in the next 50 yeas would have in the neighborhood of a 25% chance of resulting in a complete human extinction, from a combination of natural factors, resource depletion, environmental depletion, and the inevitable wars that would accompany the collapse.
I think that that kind of scenario is far more likely in the near future then many other existential risks people worry about.
First, I think we’re using the word “civilization” in different senses. You’re talking about the global single human civilization where civilization means having running water and taking tea in the afternoon. I’m talking about multiple civilization which are, basically, long-lived cultural agglomerations (e.g. there is a Western civilization but China isn’t part of it).
a complete collapse of modern civilization in the next 50 yeas would have in the neighborhood of a 25% chance of resulting in a complete human extinction
That will probably depend on exactly how did the modern civilization collapse. An all-out nuclear exchange will have different consequences than a snowballing freeze-up of the financial payments system.
In any case, I find complete human extinction as the result of the civilization collapse to be highly unlikely. There are peoples who haven’t changed much for thousands of years—would they even notice? And absent things like nuclear winter, why would they die out?
Moreover, let’s even say 99% of the North American population will die. OK. But what would kill the remaining 1%? Sure, technology will revert to a much more primitive form, but then humans have already been there, they survived quite nicely.
First, I think we’re using the word “civilization” in different senses. You’re talking about the global single human civilization where civilization means having running water and taking tea in the afternoon. I’m talking about multiple civilization which are, basically, long-lived cultural agglomerations (e.g. there is a Western civilization but China isn’t part of it).
I would say that the whole global system is so intermingled and global right now that a complete collapse of civilization of the type I am talking about would likely have to include the entire world if it happened at all. 1500 years ago Roman civilization could fall without badly hurting Chinese civilization, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.
In any case, I find complete human extinction as the result of the civilization collapse to be highly unlikely. There are peoples who haven’t changed much for thousands of years—would they even notice?
In the kind of global demographic overexertion and resource exhaustion leading to a total collapse that we’re talking about, a lot of traditional food sources would be exhausted before the collapse. In the face of impending global starvation, I would expect every major fishery in the world to be rapidly wiped out, I would expect the rainforests to be burned for more farmland, I would expect decent soil and easily available water to be completely exhausted, ect. I would expect that process would take away most of the resources that people need to survive, and that people living in a traditional hunter-gather existence or a traditional subsistence farming existence would probably had their land and resources taken from them before the end. If we’re talking about billions of people facing potential starvation, I suspect that all thought of environmental preservation or sustainability would go right out the window, as well as concern for the well-being of aboriginal people.
There might be some pockets of people left living traditional lifestyles somewhere (that’s actually what I was thinking about when I put the extinction possibility at 25%, instead of higher), but even they would also be affected by global environmental destruction. (And, of course, small pockets of humans surviving on their own can have issues from lack of genetic diversity and such.)
Moreover, let’s even say 99% of the North American population will die. OK. But what would kill the remaining 1%?
What would they live on?
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the population of Europe dropped dramatically, perhaps by half according to some estimates, but people still remembered how to farm using old iron-age technology, people still had the knowledge of how to build houses out of wood and straw when better building materials stopped coming from distant parts of the Empire, ect. It was a catastrophe, but people still had enough knowledge of how to survive without the civilization to hang on.
How many people in North America today do you think have the knowledge of how to farm without any technology at all? How many have the knowledge to forge their own farming tools? A few do; but places known to have organic farms or traditional farming knowledge (the Amish, for example) would likely be swamped by millions of starving refugees. And besides that, once a stretch of land has been farmed using industrial farming techniques for several decades, it is very hard to change it back into something that can be farmed with old-fashioned techniques; the soil is basically completely exhausted of all it’s natural nutrients by that point, and only can be farmed with advanced techniques.
Total human extinction might not be the result, but I wouldn’t rule it out as a significant possibility.
And even if we didn’t end up with total extinction, remember that an existential risk is anything that prevents mankind from achieving it’s potential; you have to not just consider the risk of extinction, but then try to estimate the chances of us re-developing advanced technology after a collapse. That’s harder to estimate, but I don’t think it’s 100%.
Yes, and I suspect collapsing due to overpopulation is a much smaller risk then collapsing due to bad policy decisions made by people who overestimated overpopulation risks.
What kind of policy decisions are we talking about? As I posted elsewhere in this thread, I think the best way to control population is education, access to birth control, economic development in the third world, and women’s rights; that has worked better then anything else that has been tried. (Bizarrely I was downvoted for that; are people somehow opposed to education and aid for the third world? I don’t really understand.)
Seriously, you think policy decisions based on an overestimated overpopulation risk is an existential threat?
Or is it just fun to turn arguments around and say stuff like that? My Bayesian a posteriori are screaming that THIS is what you are doing here, to me.
For better or worse, there are people making policy decisions and I know of no reason why that would change on the time scales we’re working with.
At the moment, these decision makers are acting as though they believe:
Overpopulation is not related to environmental degradation, violent conflict, and resource depletion.
That technological progress is not the main risk mitigator against overpopulation and its various consequences.
Supposing the above conventional wisdom is incorrect, but either way policy makers will make policy, and if that is inherently a bad thing (strong assumption), isn’t it better to limit the damage by them having a better approximation of reality?
So, if you agree with the conventional view, you have nothing to worry about (but I have yet to see here convincing arguments why I should agree with this view if I don’t already). If you disagree with the conventional view, that has implications at the very least for allowing its public apologists to stand un-debated and for whichpublic policies and charitable activities you endorse. If you are undecided, then perhaps you’re curious to develop better estimates, because they may have bearing on your survival and prosperity. I know I am.
It could lead to absence of human civilization as we know it. A lot of things that we take for granted—like technological development—are actually quite fragile and depend on a lot of conditions being ‘just right’. Throughout history there are many examples of great civilizations reduced to poverty and stagnation.
It could lead to absence of human civilization as we know it.
I think I can pretty safely guarantee that in a thousand years there will be no human civilization as we know it. There will be something different, I have no idea what.
And there is a huge difference between “reduced to poverty and stagnation” and “there are no humans any more”.
Let me just step back and ask you what your goal is. Is it...
Convincing me to stop discussing existential risks?
Convincing me to stop discussing some class of existential risks that includes the Malthusian Crunch?
Convincing me to stop discussing the Malthusian Crunch specifically?
How do you hope to benefit from discouraging the discussion of this topic or topics?
Were you all over Robin Hanson for his Malthusian scenario as well?
The Malthusian Crunch is not an existential risk. It leads to a smaller and poorer humanity, but not to the absence of humanity.
My goal is to lead you to light and wisdom, of course :-P
Other than that I’m just expressing my views and pointing out holes in your constructions.
Fair enough.
But each time we have to rebuild from a collapse, we have a degraded carrying capacity and fewer easily exploitable resources with which to rebuild. This becomes a existential risk if the cycle repeats so many times that we can no longer rebuild. Or if it keeps us stuck on one planet long enough for one of the other existential risks to get us.
Like I said somewhere else, overshoot is like AIDS—it doesn’t kill you, it just predisposes you to other problems that do.
At any rate, there’s always the selfish motive. I don’t want to have to waste time rebuilding even after one collapse because I might not live to see it to completion, and what I want even less is to already be cryosuspended when the next one happens because I won’t be revived and won’t be around to do anything about it.
I think that anything that risks a collapse of civilization is an existential risk.
When the Roman Empire fell, people in Europe were able to fall back on iron-age technologies to survive; there was a mass die-off, but humanity in Europe was able to survive and eventually recover. In most of the first world, that wouldn’t really be an option today.
If our civilization were to collapse now, the human race would be in a dramatically resource-exhausted world, in the middle of a mass-extinction event, without our technology to help us, it’s possible the human race might not survive. And even if it does, I’m not sure that it’s guaranteed that we will come back up to a technological civilization.
I think such an approach dilutes the useful concept on “existential risk” into uselessness.
I would agree that the collapse of the Western civilization would be unpleasant for everyone involved. But that’s a bit different thing.
Let me be a little more clear. My rough estimate would be that a complete collapse of modern civilization in the next 50 yeas would have in the neighborhood of a 25% chance of resulting in a complete human extinction, from a combination of natural factors, resource depletion, environmental depletion, and the inevitable wars that would accompany the collapse.
I think that that kind of scenario is far more likely in the near future then many other existential risks people worry about.
First, I think we’re using the word “civilization” in different senses. You’re talking about the global single human civilization where civilization means having running water and taking tea in the afternoon. I’m talking about multiple civilization which are, basically, long-lived cultural agglomerations (e.g. there is a Western civilization but China isn’t part of it).
That will probably depend on exactly how did the modern civilization collapse. An all-out nuclear exchange will have different consequences than a snowballing freeze-up of the financial payments system.
In any case, I find complete human extinction as the result of the civilization collapse to be highly unlikely. There are peoples who haven’t changed much for thousands of years—would they even notice? And absent things like nuclear winter, why would they die out?
Moreover, let’s even say 99% of the North American population will die. OK. But what would kill the remaining 1%? Sure, technology will revert to a much more primitive form, but then humans have already been there, they survived quite nicely.
I would say that the whole global system is so intermingled and global right now that a complete collapse of civilization of the type I am talking about would likely have to include the entire world if it happened at all. 1500 years ago Roman civilization could fall without badly hurting Chinese civilization, but I don’t think that’s true anymore.
In the kind of global demographic overexertion and resource exhaustion leading to a total collapse that we’re talking about, a lot of traditional food sources would be exhausted before the collapse. In the face of impending global starvation, I would expect every major fishery in the world to be rapidly wiped out, I would expect the rainforests to be burned for more farmland, I would expect decent soil and easily available water to be completely exhausted, ect. I would expect that process would take away most of the resources that people need to survive, and that people living in a traditional hunter-gather existence or a traditional subsistence farming existence would probably had their land and resources taken from them before the end. If we’re talking about billions of people facing potential starvation, I suspect that all thought of environmental preservation or sustainability would go right out the window, as well as concern for the well-being of aboriginal people.
There might be some pockets of people left living traditional lifestyles somewhere (that’s actually what I was thinking about when I put the extinction possibility at 25%, instead of higher), but even they would also be affected by global environmental destruction. (And, of course, small pockets of humans surviving on their own can have issues from lack of genetic diversity and such.)
What would they live on?
When the Roman Empire collapsed, the population of Europe dropped dramatically, perhaps by half according to some estimates, but people still remembered how to farm using old iron-age technology, people still had the knowledge of how to build houses out of wood and straw when better building materials stopped coming from distant parts of the Empire, ect. It was a catastrophe, but people still had enough knowledge of how to survive without the civilization to hang on.
How many people in North America today do you think have the knowledge of how to farm without any technology at all? How many have the knowledge to forge their own farming tools? A few do; but places known to have organic farms or traditional farming knowledge (the Amish, for example) would likely be swamped by millions of starving refugees. And besides that, once a stretch of land has been farmed using industrial farming techniques for several decades, it is very hard to change it back into something that can be farmed with old-fashioned techniques; the soil is basically completely exhausted of all it’s natural nutrients by that point, and only can be farmed with advanced techniques.
Total human extinction might not be the result, but I wouldn’t rule it out as a significant possibility.
And even if we didn’t end up with total extinction, remember that an existential risk is anything that prevents mankind from achieving it’s potential; you have to not just consider the risk of extinction, but then try to estimate the chances of us re-developing advanced technology after a collapse. That’s harder to estimate, but I don’t think it’s 100%.
Yes, and I suspect collapsing due to overpopulation is a much smaller risk then collapsing due to bad policy decisions made by people who overestimated overpopulation risks.
What kind of policy decisions are we talking about? As I posted elsewhere in this thread, I think the best way to control population is education, access to birth control, economic development in the third world, and women’s rights; that has worked better then anything else that has been tried. (Bizarrely I was downvoted for that; are people somehow opposed to education and aid for the third world? I don’t really understand.)
Seriously, you think policy decisions based on an overestimated overpopulation risk is an existential threat?
Or is it just fun to turn arguments around and say stuff like that? My Bayesian a posteriori are screaming that THIS is what you are doing here, to me.
For better or worse, there are people making policy decisions and I know of no reason why that would change on the time scales we’re working with.
At the moment, these decision makers are acting as though they believe:
Overpopulation is not related to environmental degradation, violent conflict, and resource depletion.
That technological progress is not the main risk mitigator against overpopulation and its various consequences.
Supposing the above conventional wisdom is incorrect, but either way policy makers will make policy, and if that is inherently a bad thing (strong assumption), isn’t it better to limit the damage by them having a better approximation of reality?
So, if you agree with the conventional view, you have nothing to worry about (but I have yet to see here convincing arguments why I should agree with this view if I don’t already). If you disagree with the conventional view, that has implications at the very least for allowing its public apologists to stand un-debated and for whichpublic policies and charitable activities you endorse. If you are undecided, then perhaps you’re curious to develop better estimates, because they may have bearing on your survival and prosperity. I know I am.
It could lead to absence of human civilization as we know it. A lot of things that we take for granted—like technological development—are actually quite fragile and depend on a lot of conditions being ‘just right’. Throughout history there are many examples of great civilizations reduced to poverty and stagnation.
I think I can pretty safely guarantee that in a thousand years there will be no human civilization as we know it. There will be something different, I have no idea what.
And there is a huge difference between “reduced to poverty and stagnation” and “there are no humans any more”.
Agreed; the question is: will it be better or worse. I can’t imagine a future where resources are scarce as being anything but bad.