Well, survive yes. But self-sufficiency is a big problem. The world is nowadays so interconnected that even a problem in only one region can severely affect all of humanity (e.g. semiconductors from Taiwan). So yes, a collapse of our modern society is certainly possible.
Destroying the planet is not really a thing. Mass extinctions in the past were a big deal but at the same time: Earth recovered. We only have a big problem because the plants/animals we need might go extinct.
Obviously valuing nature and wildlife diversity in and of itself is good but it doesn’t have any intrinsic value in regards to supporting society.
Also, can everyone please shut the fuck up with the “Well ACKSHUALLY, you’re not destroying the literal ball of rock and magma so you’re not destroying the planet”. Fuck you, you know what it means.
Sorry, I meant “destroy the planet” as in lifeless/only single celled organisms.
And you can kind of see humanity as “just another big asteroid impact”. Nature will recover competeley over the next million years or so. That’s what I meant with mass extinctions being kind of inconsequential for the planet as a whole on geological time scales.
Obviously mass extinctions are also bad besides their effect on human society, I just meant that that is mostly a spiritual one thats hard to measure, about lost potential and eradicating a species. As a thought experiment, is eradicating a disease, a form of life, inherently negative? Mosquitoes? Do you agree that it’s a big achievement that we eradicated small pox? What if we eradicate all existing diseases?
Well, survive yes. But self-sufficiency is a big problem. The world is nowadays so interconnected that even a problem in only one region can severely affect all of humanity (e.g. semiconductors from Taiwan). So yes, a collapse of our modern society is certainly possible.
Destroying the planet is not really a thing. Mass extinctions in the past were a big deal but at the same time: Earth recovered. We only have a big problem because the plants/animals we need might go extinct.
Obviously valuing nature and wildlife diversity in and of itself is good but it doesn’t have any intrinsic value in regards to supporting society.
Also, can everyone please shut the fuck up with the “Well ACKSHUALLY, you’re not destroying the literal ball of rock and magma so you’re not destroying the planet”. Fuck you, you know what it means.
Sorry, I meant “destroy the planet” as in lifeless/only single celled organisms.
And you can kind of see humanity as “just another big asteroid impact”. Nature will recover competeley over the next million years or so. That’s what I meant with mass extinctions being kind of inconsequential for the planet as a whole on geological time scales.
Obviously mass extinctions are also bad besides their effect on human society, I just meant that that is mostly a spiritual one thats hard to measure, about lost potential and eradicating a species. As a thought experiment, is eradicating a disease, a form of life, inherently negative? Mosquitoes? Do you agree that it’s a big achievement that we eradicated small pox? What if we eradicate all existing diseases?
Mass extinctions are different. We should be aiming to never have any more mass extinctions ever.
Yeah, I guess that was a bit of a strawman. Obviously mass extinctions are bad.