Ask Lemmy

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.

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.

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"

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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

I don't know anyone who even thinks about it, much less is obsessed with it.

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.

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.

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.

It's spectacle. Unfathomable situations are inherently interesting.

When I think about these things, I like to think about COVID as a reminder what the world could accomplish when banding together - and that we will do it again, if shit hits the fan.

We would do the same to other threats if they get serious enough.

if someone says "AI is gonna..." zone out and just nod its not worth hearing what they have to say.

Because when the world is about to end it’s an excuse to not try at life.