New at Reason: Ron Bailey on Global Catastrophes

Guy Montag | July 18, 2008, 3:28pm | #

I wonder if they are ever going to get to the most serious question: Who is at more risk, humans of polar bears?

Guy Montag | July 18, 2008, 3:40pm | #

However, he quickly pointed out 99.9 percent of all species are extinct.

Wow, those humans must be stopped! Wait, evolution will make more species. Never mind.

Seriously, Ron, from your article it sounds like you are trapped at a strange combination of Trekkie and Anime convention, but you did not describe the crazy costumes much.

Alan Vanneman | July 18, 2008, 3:47pm | #

Humanity must survive. Otherwise, Ron would have no cool conferences to go to. Re the "rather dapper crowd": does that simply mean "better dressed than Ron Bailey?"*

*Ha, ha.

BlueBook | July 18, 2008, 3:55pm | #

Perhaps it is time that we begin construction of a deep-space probe to carry the life memories of a single average human so that some future space faring captain can find the probe and learn of our long-extinct culture.

Oh, and also, pack a flute. Because, you know, it's important that future civilizations have a flute.

Elemenope | July 18, 2008, 4:00pm | #

It's important to keep in mind that any catastrophic risk myth is a statist's dream come true.

See also: USSR, Drugs, Terror.

Shannon Love | July 18, 2008, 4:11pm | #

The common thread among all the visions of future catastrophes is that they will occur if people are left to free to make their own choices in their own lives. All these catastrophic visions depend on the assumption that all but a small majority of humans are mindless, greedy idiots who must be actively controlled by their intellectual and moral betters of they will destroy themselves.

Catastrophe mongering is ultimately about power and control. People flock to these ideas because it feeds their need to feel part of a superior elite. It gives the unproductive the excuse to dominate and control the productive.

anon | July 18, 2008, 4:32pm | #

Paul and Anne Ehrlich! Jesus, does anyone still give these two any credibility. How many times do you get to predict disasters that never happen before everyone stops lisening to you.

Malto Dextrin | July 18, 2008, 5:23pm | #

We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. ... All of us on this earth know that there is a time to live, and that there is a time to die. ... With your ancient, juvenile minds you have developed explosives too fast for your minds to conceive what you are doing. You are on the verge of destroying the entire universe!

Jay | July 18, 2008, 5:51pm | #

Nothing like a bunch of "expertss" sitting around trying to predict the black swan event that will wipe the human race off the face of the Earth. If I could be around to collect on it, I would wager everything I own to earn a penny that if a black swan event occurs wiping humans off the face of the Earth, such an event will not be described by a single one of these "experts" at this conference.

Douglas Gray | July 18, 2008, 7:26pm | #

If it is actually true that past catastrophies have cut back the human population without making the human race extinct altogether, then such events are possible again.

There is one difference between then and now, in that in the past, we did not have these huge urban centers such as Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, etc. with 10-20 million people packed into a small area. Even the big cities were much smaller.

The web that holds these places together is fragile and delicate. If something were to happen which caused a number of them to be broken at once, it could be very messy.

Imagine L.A. with broken water mains and no food trucks coming in.

David Emami | July 18, 2008, 7:54pm | #

There is one difference between then and now, in that in the past, we did not have these huge urban centers such as Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, etc. with 10-20 million people packed into a small area. Even the big cities were much smaller.

The web that holds these places together is fragile and delicate. If something were to happen which caused a number of them to be broken at once, it could be very messy.

True enough, but "lots of people will die" and "the human race will become extinct" are not the same thing. If a long-ago comet strike or supervolcano reduced the human population from (say) 50,000 to 1,000 before we rebounded, then one happening today would kill off 6.6+ billion of us before we bottomed out at 1,000 or so, assuming it was a simple matter of a sudden, catastrophic reduction in the Earth's carrying capacity. Enormously more dead people, to be sure, but not lower odds of the human species pulling through it.

And actually, given that humans are spread much more widely than they were back then, the odds are probably better.

Freedom Geek | July 18, 2008, 9:32pm | #

Yeah, but the best scenarios only assume that there will be *one* mindless, greedy idiot whose power to affect the world greatly amplified by powerful technologies.

You telling me you haven't met *one* of those? Like the guy who gets drunk and sets the local Universal Constructor to make Grey Goo, 'cause it would be funny? Shit, we have people today that get drunk and then light their friends' pants on fire, 'cause it would be funny.

For something like that to cause any significant damage civilization one has to assume that society would not have significantly advanced except getting universal constructors. I imagine if something like that happens in 2050 the local emergency services will just come and spray anti-nanite nanites on the growing puddle or something.

Sully | July 18, 2008, 11:54pm | #

Freedom Geek - "I imagine if something like that happens in 2050 the local emergency services will just come and spray anti-nanite nanites on the growing puddle or something."

Lots of stories out there about firemen who set fires in order to play hero.

And then there will be the nanitemen who will be bored and start playing around with the antinanites in the back room of the nanitehouse.

Who will watch over the watchmen is an old question.

Elemenope | July 19, 2008, 1:16am | #

I don't know any of them, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are tens of thousands of over the top serious survivalist types out there with supply caches calculated to last years or even decades.

Yeah, but they can't get laid.

So, species fail.

Lloyd | July 19, 2008, 1:41pm | #

What tripe and nonsense they're putting out that this conference!

"...99% of all species are extinct." And just how does this precious bit of knowledge come to us? Divine revelation, perhaps? The Goracle?

"15 million people dying of infectious diseases every year, 3 million from HIV/AIDS, 18 million from cardiovascular diseases, and 8 million per year from cancer." Please note note that poverty produces the lion's share of the infectitious disease deaths, 3 million AIDS deaths are likely greatly exaggerated for purposes of getting funds from the West - just a few years ago the one-millionth death was counted in the US - and the vast majority of the cardio- and cancer deaths are in people over the announced life expectancy of 64.

How do we know how many species exist now or at any time? At what rate are they "dying off"? How do we know that?

Paul and Anne Ehrlich haven't gotten anything right at any time in anything they've published. Just more nonsensical hysteria from long-discredited racists, "oooh, look at all the dark people! Quick, kill them; ban DDT! Support socialist governments over there in those dreadful places!!" Quackery, foolishness and bigotry masquerading as "social science", propped up with pseudo-math as the infamous "Hockey Stick" of Mann & Company was used for Global Warming.

What is the answer to this question: why is the solution to impending doom and catastrophe always more laws, more rules, less freedom, more misery, less wealth - for most of us at least - and fewer people?? People who hate people, regularly denounce as vile and evil their own productive and free societies ought to be stripped of their citizenship and deported to live in one of the societies they evidently would consider to be Utopia; for instance, say, North Korea. Club of Rome meets Al "I invented the Internet" Gore crossed with Rachel "My cancer was caused by DDT" Carlson. Bah!

bagehot | July 19, 2008, 2:53pm | #

All these catastrophic visions depend on the assumption that all but a small majority of humans are mindless, greedy idiots who must be actively controlled by their intellectual and moral betters of they will destroy themselves.

Catastrophe mongering is ultimately about power and control. People flock to these ideas because it feeds their need to feel part of a superior elite. It gives the unproductive the excuse to dominate and control the productive.

Shannon Love has it exactly half right. The people who are so "productive" are also about control. Think about it. America has a twentieth of the population and uses half the electricity, mostly in order to be productive. Do you really think China, India and the exComs are going to be any more enlightened? As long as freedom equals things and not ideas the humans are in for it.

annef | July 19, 2008, 5:18pm | #

I'm not sure I agree that water won't present a major problem in the near future. Here in the Southwest riparian rights are a serious issue. Los Angeles exists because it draws water from distant states. In Texas, folx along the upper Colorado River (no not the BIG Colorado River to the west) start siphoning off water (esp farmers) so by the time it reaches south Texas there's little left and you run into desert. Same with the Rio Grande.

The demand for water is increasing across the U.S., especially on the east and west coasts. Clean water is a continuing issue. Building over aquifers is problematic. Desalination is going nowhere fast. We're currently seeing food riots in developing countries. Perhaps water riots will be next.

TallDave | July 19, 2008, 7:18pm | #

America has a twentieth of the population and uses produces half the electricity

Fixed that for ya.

Do you really think China, India and the exComs are going to be any more enlightened?

Apparently "enlightened" is now a synonym for sitting in the dark because you don't use electricity.

As long as freedom equals things and not ideas the humans are in for it.

You mean, as long as people want to have enough to eat and not be cold and have nice things? That's forever. And harnessing that desire via capitalism has done more good for more people than could have been imagined a century or two ago.

Guy Montag | July 19, 2008, 7:35pm | #

So, lemmie get this straight. The global disaster crowd is talking about crap that may never happen, but their legions of Romance Language Majors and City Managers (sorry, redundant) are the best people to run things and need to be in charge before something bad happens?

How is this different from Communism?

How is this different from the enviro-fundies* and Global Climate Change promoting Communism as the solution?

I fail to see a difference, or even a distinction.

*I can not claim credit for the phrase. Pretty sure someone else wrote it online before me, but I do not remember who.