InfernalCorg
InfernalCorg t1_iyj0qxo wrote
Reply to comment by RoinAnjou in TIL that the southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/1.448 m) in just 36 hours, starting on May 31, 1886 by 1859
> and start wars when someone tries to take your slaves. you lose an election in which the winner explicitly said he wasn't going to abolish slavery.
InfernalCorg t1_iyj0e6s wrote
Reply to comment by villevalla in TIL that the southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/1.448 m) in just 36 hours, starting on May 31, 1886 by 1859
> Where is the saving if, for example, Finland and Japan were to use the same gauge?
You can build the same model of train for both. Yes, it's not a huge issue, but standardization is generally a better than the alternative in industrial fields.
InfernalCorg t1_ixayd0k wrote
Reply to comment by FjorgVanDerPlorg in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
> both you and science are looking at these risks individually, not studying the cumulative effects of multiple crises going critical in the same time period.
How? What are we failing to account for? A nuclear war mid-climate change would still be catastrophic, but unless I'm missing something it wouldn't have that many synergistic effects.
> with all our "efforts" to counter these problems coming up way short of the mark
You understand that this is mostly because we don't have the political willpower to fix things, not because we don't know how, right? When things get dire, even billionaires will pick survival over money.
InfernalCorg t1_ixaxouy wrote
Reply to comment by KingVolsung in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
Or you'd operate in low-oxygen environments via rebreathers, yeah. I'm not suggesting it'd be trivial, only that even drastic changes to our environment are unlikely to wipe us out.
InfernalCorg t1_ixaw13d wrote
Reply to comment by FjorgVanDerPlorg in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
> I dont think its a coincidence that the rise in plastic pollution coincides with a global decline in fertility rates.
You don't? Why does fertility rate correspond more closely to economic development than plastic use, then?
>Because the problem is that we are trying to extinct ourselves in pretty much every imaginable way.
There are quite a few more people trying to not go extinct. There's no plausible scenario (barring a gamma ray burst, asteroid, supernova, etc) where the human race goes extinct. The climate's going to suck for a century, but things will still be livable. War isn't fun, but even a thermonuclear war results in most humans living - the global south finally lucks out for once.
It's possible we go out via some sort of confluence of negative events, but it doesn't seem likely enough to dwell on it. Doomerism isn't productive.
InfernalCorg t1_ixavmj7 wrote
Reply to comment by KingVolsung in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
Hardly. A particularly bad catastrophe might take is back as far as 1970s tech, but a single decent library'd be enough for us to rebuild from more-or-less scratch.
And even if we went full "atmosphere not oxygenated enough to sustain human life" we'd still have holdouts in bunkers with life support. There are eight billion of us and we're remarkably hard to eradicate.
InfernalCorg t1_ixaoa0v wrote
Reply to comment by FjorgVanDerPlorg in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
I understand the pessimism, but we're unlikely to go extinct. Most extinction-level threats that we control involve rogue general AI.
Mass population reductions on a biblical scale, now, those are likely. It's going to be a rough few decades.
InfernalCorg t1_ixamd7z wrote
Reply to comment by SuicidalGuidedog in TIL that in 2003, scientists "resurrected" an extinct species of Ibex, bringing back one living specimen, only for it go extinct again seven minutes later when the specimen died of a lung defect by mausoliam95
I mean, we could just generalize to "failure to adapt and compete" and it'd be accurate for the entire history of life.
InfernalCorg t1_iyjeu3b wrote
Reply to comment by PublicSeverance in TIL that the southern United States converted all 11,500+ miles of its railroads from broad gauge (5 ft/1.524 m) to nearly-standard gauge (4 ft 9 in/1.448 m) in just 36 hours, starting on May 31, 1886 by 1859
Of course, but surely economy of scale means it's cheaper to make 70 bogey model As than 40 As and 30 Bs?