Comment on the agent's argument in the matrix

• sxan@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  But easily accessible surface metals, coal deposits, and oil fields aren’t going to miraculously re-appear. The great oxidation event was 2 billion years ago. In 1 billion yearsfrom now, the sun will be so hot that life on Earth will be unsustainable.

  We are Earth’s last chance, mainly because we’ve used up all the easily accessible resources a civilization needs to advance past the stone age. The Earth isn’t going to cycle enough metal to the surface, and life isn’t going to create enough coal or petrolium deposits, before the sun cooks it.

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  • deft@lemmy.wtf ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Nah I’m still extremely skeptical. Humans have only been this way for like .01% of that time. There’s no reason to think we’ve doomed anything.

    GOE happened a long time ago but that doesn’t matter. The point is the world has been changed often and life recovers and usually advanced further than it did before.

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    • sxan@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I think you missed the point that life doesn’t have the luxury of time that we’ve had, because the sun is going to cook the planet in half the time as between us and the GOE. Our successors will have to advance farther, faster, and with fewer resources to escape the planet - which we still haven’t, in any meaningful way - before the sun makes the panet uninhabitable.

      If humans somehow survive in some form and we can cut out most of the evolving-to-big-brains time, most of the knowledge they might inherit will be useless, as it’s based on resources they have no access to.

      Sure, it isn’t impossible, but the odds are stacked against anyone following us succeeding in escaping a planet which is 2/3 of the way through its goldilocks phase of life. The best chance is for us to get our shit together, and get some self-sustaining colonies out there. Preferrably in deep space, eventually.

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      • deft@lemmy.wtf ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Again human arrogance.

        Animals have evolved just as long as we have my friend.

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  • Tattorack@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    So… You want a hypothetical future civilization to repeat the same mistakes as we did?

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    • wahming@monyet.cc ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Point being, there’s no hypothetical future civilization because we’re eliminated that possibility

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      • Tattorack@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yes, but you’re assuming that a future civ requires fossil feuls to advance.

        Metals and plastic aren’t a problem as they don’t simply go away.

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