I was having a conversation with my friend about this. We were discussing AI and she believes AI will destroy all of humanity just like so many others. I personally don’t believe that. I’m aware of all the theories and the multitude of ways that it could happen and I understand that with AI, in theory we wouldn’t understand its goals so we wouldn’t know how it would destroy us but again, that’s just a theory.
There’s also the constant fear of massive nuclear holocaust with WWIII but I also don’t believe that we’d realistically get to a point where we’d use Nukes on each other knowing the implications of what would happen. But it made me realize that we’re constantly fearful of mass extinction. To the point where some people fight tooth and nail and will not try to look at things from a more positive or optimistic perspective. It’s all death or you’re wrong.
Please help me understand this. I’m here with open ears.
We have only recently (in terms of the length of history) entered an era where we can produce weapons capable of eliminating our own entire species. Wouldn’t it be weird if we weren’t thinking about that?
It’s pretty ironic that the actual mass extinction that’s currently happening is not really acknowledged by most people.
You mean the fact that in 100 years we’ll all be dead and all the people from 100 years ago are already dead?
Nope, I’m talking about the sixth mass extinction. The Holocene extinction , caused by human activity.
The “pretending to be wise” answer is that it’s easier to deal with mass extinction than with individual mortality; that the thought of your own death is weakened by the thought of gigadeaths.
More seriously, though:
Major disasters have always been a large part of human cultural experience. Cities have been destroyed by earthquakes, volcanoes, or hurricanes. Within recorded history, plagues and famines have reduced prosperous civilizations to desperate stragglers living in ruins.
Preventing or surviving disasters is, therefore, one of the most important things humans can work on. Disasters loom large in our cultural consciousness because they really are large and because we can actually do stuff to make these problems less bad.
Disaster preparedness is, in fact, no-kidding, really important for you, your family, your city, your country, and the world as a whole.
Preventing avoidable disasters, including manmade ones such as nuclear war, is a major part of what makes world politics morally significant. Avoiding the devastation of war is a really good reason to get good at politics, diplomacy, peacemaking, mutually beneficial relations among peoples; and the high stakes of “shit, we could actually kill off humanity if we fuck up politics too badly” is a pretty good motivator.
So … we think a lot about bad shit that could happen, because bad shit really can happen, and we can do something about quite a lot of it.
My guess would be that it’s simply because we are aware of the concept of extinction and have watched as other species have gone extinct. This causes some existential dread, like learning about death might.
No clue why we need AI for that, we can arrange our mass extinction perfectly by ourselves by just continuing on this road. 🤭
At this moment, I think the main issue is that we as a species don’t think enough of our mass extinction. For some strange reason, most people (at least in ‘the west’) think they’ll survive whatever happens, nuclear war, climate change,…
However, no matter the method of our extinction, I guess most people thinking about it think it would be bad. From nature’s point of view we’re just “a species” and when evolution in this direction proves to be a bad route, no big loss.
Unless in possession of a crystal ball, nobody can say what is bound to happen to our species as climate changes take place.
Like any other species we are vulnerable to extinction but as many physicist have underlined, the highest risk for a civilization is its start. After a certain point is achieved, a civilization can become technically immortal.
What qualifies a physicist to discuss the immortality of a civilization?
An per your question: the same that qualifies you or me, which is being alive and capable of observe and extrapolate possible outcomes through thinking.
which is being alive and capable of observe and extrapolate possible outcomes through thinking.
You’d be surprised by most people’s ability to do so.
It’s sad how stupid people are full of certainty while the intelligent are always full of doubt.
That is the biggest concern we should have.
Then why are we taking their opinion over our own?
Typically, when people cite something like that, they defer to an expert in that field. In this case, maybe an anthropologist? There’s nothing in the training to be a physicist that prepares them to understand the early stages of civilizations forming, let alone is longevity.
Have you read the article?
Yes maybe humanity will adapt and survive, but adapting in this case will mean witnessing billions of deaths and a very poor quality of life and much shorter life expectancy for the survivors. Imagine entire nations having to relocate because their homelands are now unsuitable for human life. That will not be a pleasurable experience for anybody and will lead to wars and genocide.
Eh I don’t think we’re obsessed with it, it’s more just like the likely outcome due to human nature. Largely pushed by:
- greed
- differences
- And only asking “could we” and not “should we”
I’m sorry human nature? As in humans’ tendency to stop existing? To all just die out and not proliferate everywhere and master new levels of reality at an accelerating rate?
What about human nature indicates a lack of survival?
One possibility: It is a weird case of “this moment in time is special because I am alive”.
Humans have been around for thousands of years but I am alive now. I cannot think of what the world could be like without me so therefore the human race must end in my lifetime.
This in not a new occurrence either, there have been “end of the world” groups in almost every generation in history.
List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events
It is worth noting that people always think the apocalyptic event will happen within their lifetime.
The only real difference now is that the end of the world is now caused by humans via nukes or destruction of the environment rather than supernatural forces.
I agree that the spotlight effect (or main character syndrome in slang) plays in. We tend to expect our life to be extra special somehow.
It’s also just fun to imagine exhilarating things. We’re still dumb animals who have fun riding endorphins, whether it’s skydiving or horror movies. Makes sense that myths about paranormal entities, natural disasters, end times, etc. are recurring in so many cultures. Same reason the Walking Dead is popular. It’s exciting to imagine!
The most alive I’ve ever felt has been being shot at, running from cops/security, and throwing myself into a dog fight to save my dog who was attacked. Even when being driven to the ER, I was riding such a high. I got messed up, but I won, and damn did that feel good and powerful. He was a big dog. In a sorta twisted way, I kinda eagerly await life’s unexpected events because of the adrenaline high and sustained retrospective excitement for a while.
What’s more exciting than imaging the end of the word as our species knows it? That’s the biggest factor in the answer to the question imo.
Well that’s weird. When I was younger I almost died so many times I lost count, and it wasn’t exhilarating. Just a broad sense of, “man, what a fucked up situation”.
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It grabs attention. Tell everyone the world is getting better daily, the long term trend of violent crime and war is actually trending downwards. We are making progress towards elimination of diseases, hunger and poverty. No one bats an eyelid. Say the world is verging toward WW3 and imminent destruction is here and everyone pays attention to you.
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Its easy to be in a fatalistic mindset. Its easy to say its all going to shit, What’s the point? It’s difficult to be positive. Its difficult to take action. No matter how small. Its difficult to see the ultimate impact of small positive acts. But every small act can and does make a difference. At least to the person it benefits. Its even more difficult to face the fact that all the positive can be easily undone by one guy pressing a button. Its difficult to keep trying despite that fact.
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I don’t know anyone who even thinks about it, much less is obsessed with it.
Redditors, mostly
Because you can turn on the TV and air conditioning and it’s like nothing bad is happening.
Historically, we’ve always been pretty awful to each other. A lot of our cutting edge science has revolved around ways to hurt and kill each other since the first human realised it was easier to kill the person pissing him off with a rock than their hands.
In the last 100 years or so however, those weapons have become powerful enough to end us as a species and I think you’d be hard pressed to find a type of weaponry that, once invented, hasn’t been used and I’m not sure we’ve evolved enough empathy to prioritise not killing all of us over not killing the country/group who are currently annoying us.
It’s pretty understandable therefore to have a realistic fear that there’s a very good chance we’ll bring about our own end.
It’s spectacle. Unfathomable situations are inherently interesting.
The end of the world has been a recurring theme in many human cultures across millennia.
AI and nuclear holocaust are just modern takes on an ancient tale.
Except the nuclear holocaust one is actually quite possible and almost happened a couple of times. That’s what makes this a unique time in history.
Fear of karma or other sorts of retributions.
We are aware that we do mass exterminate a ton of other species and wonder what could do that to us.
