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roland comments on Stanislav Petrov Day - Less Wrong
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No, I don't see it as good, I guess I was misunderstood.
I'm considering two alternative scenarios:
Everyone here seems to automatically see scenario 1 as worse than scenario 2. But I have the impression that this is mostly a cached thought. Did people really think it through, compare the scenarios?
A lot of comments here pointed out that the climate problems of 1 would be terrible. The thing is though, what are the climate problems of scenario 2? Both of them are unknowns, we don't know for sure.
Scenario 2 is the status quo scenario, just let the world run as it is, it certainly will be better than the so-terrible scenario 1. Maybe it will, maybe not.
Why not? How do you know this? AFAIK once there is a global warming chain reaction it may well be the end of all forests the Amazon including and the end of most agriculture. What are we going to eat afterwards?
I'm not claiming that 1 would be better, I'm just questioning the reasoning of choosing 2 over 1 without providing the burden of proof.
At the end it boils down to the basic question of rationality: How do you know what you know?
I can see how the tropical forests may become tropical deserts, but I don't see why now-frozen huge territories in Canada and Siberia won't become available for agriculture as temperatures rise.
Worst case scenario: We can devour the flesh of 90% of humanity, and we'd still be 9% better than in the thermonuclear war scenario you mentioned.
When scenario 1 begins with the death of 99% of humanity, and scenario 2 does not begin with any deaths, I think the burden of proof is on you to explain how the hypothetical dangers of scenario 2 could possibly be worse than the given deaths of scenario 1...
Voted up for thinking numerately.
Thanks for clarifying your thoughts.
Of course scenario 1 is not automatically better than scenario 2. But as the only difference between them as defined is that scenario 1 involves nuclear war and climate problems, I think ArisKatsaris is right in sticking you with the burden of proof.
Our agricultural methods are going to have to change substantially within the next few decades whether we face a warming catastrophe or not, since global agricultural productivity is on a downtrend due to desertification and loss of arable soil as global food needs rise.
Of course, we've jacked up the carrying capacity of the earth several times before, and it's certainly possible to do it again. Like many problems, this would be easy to address if we had access to a superabundance of energy, so any major advancements on that front in the near term would make it possible to avert catastrophe.