Fallout-NL
Member
Pretty fucking incredible when you put it like that.
Straight out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
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We are now officially entering Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction Event
- Thread starter Amir0x
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Pretty fucking incredible when you put it like that.
Straight out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
In the 4 billion year history of this planet, no other species has influenced the ecology and biodiversity like us.
That's something to be proud of actually. We are by far, the most dangerous species that has ever lived on this planet and we will not stop. We are far too static in our lifestyles now and the only time we might realize collectively that we have fucked up is when shtf and its too late.
It will be a shame to see our species end itself through implosion of environment instead of us adapting. That's not the outcome our species deserves. Yes we've ended several thousands of other species, but before science it was all about survival. Perhaps now that we are aware of the damage that we can cause to our environment, we should change and adapt.
Not true. Cyanobacterias. They're the reason Earth's atmosphere has oxygen in it.
friskykillface
Banned
the Elysium x mad max future is looking more and more true
we really did fuck up this planet , its all our fault :/
we really did fuck up this planet , its all our fault :/
giant_frying_pan
Member
It's the mass extinction EVENT of the summer!!!
Sometimes, I feel people rather want humans to have the most devastating effect on Earth than being a blimp in Earth's history.
And no, even with causing the 6th mass extinction that's not going to happen.
Nikodemos
Member
The really worrying part is that, if really bad shit were to happen, it would happen extremely quickly. Like, say, if come one otherwise regular-looking spring, Arctic ice starts melting, but keeps on melting until there's none left. Or the summer gets hotter and hotter until forest fires start throughout the entire hemisphere (say, like having enormous fires simultaneously in the US, continental Europe and Russia). The planetary climate has been proven to work like a rubber band: it keeps stretching and stretching until it suddenly snaps, and all the latent energy in the system gets dumped all at once through various extreme geometeorological events.
I think most of us are concerned with just not being a blip, which most likely will be true, but of course our intentions will be to prolong our stay as much as possible in this universe.
We are capable of devastation and end ourselves in it too. But there's gotta be a flipside to it that we can strive to achieve, now specially that we know the kind of influence we have on this planet.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Even in the event of a mass extinction, I really doubt that's the end of the human race. We might suffer population drops, but we're too diverse in too many locations and too adaptable to really go extinct.
The mass extinction isn't us. It's happening because of how many other species were killing off via overpopulation. I think too many people are reading this as human extinction. Perhaps, we'll cause that as well eventually but I didn't see anything in the report that covered it.
RubberJohnny
Banned
Add to that 85% of all ocean fish are gone, and within the last twelve seconds half of the population of all animal species has died.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Add to that 85% of all ocean fish are gone, and within the last twelve seconds half of the population of all animal species has died.
Yeah, but what about that time drunk Pastor Ezekiel at my local church said the world was going to end the next Tuesday but then it didn't?
RubberJohnny
Banned
It's to give people an idea of scale and pace of change - to us, these things are very slow, and it's hard to get a whole picture because it extends beyond a human lifetime - some people don't think it's happening because it's hard for them to see the change within their lifetime, but by compressing the length of time we can see how rapid and dramatic these changes are compared to geological time.
Even if there were self-adjustment systems in global ecology, it's clear that events are completely outpacing them.
talisayNon
Member
i hope it happens before shenmue 3 comes out so those idiots that spent 500 dollars on a kickstarter for a shitty game never get it
The Sixth Extinction isn't an event. It isn't something sudden. It's something that is happening right now as more and more species go extinct. It has probably be going on for hundreds of years, and some argue thousands.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Yea, it seems some people aren't grasping this concept.
It's not like we just hit a number and BAM, extinction event time! This has been happening sense the start of the industrial revolution and has been a process due to habitat expansion for humans, and habitat loss for everyone else, couple with the effects of over fishing in some areas with little regulation and so on and so on.
You've been living in this event for years now, you just didn't know it.
starwarsfan541
Banned
Cant say I'm suprised, hopefully as a species we get our shit together.
Now geopolitically, I really wonder if the population will rise that rapidly if we head towards constant wars in underdeveloped nations over lack of water etc.
Now geopolitically, I really wonder if the population will rise that rapidly if we head towards constant wars in underdeveloped nations over lack of water etc.
Aeriscloud
Banned
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
World population is most likely going to be topped off at 9 billion, maybe 10 billion, followed by a decline due to living standards increasing. Higher the living standards and education, the less kids people have.
Hell, I've even seen studies that suggest we won't even hit 9 billion, and it's going to top off around 8.5 billion around mid century followed by decline as living standards increase and fail to replenish the past population when parents were having twice/three times the kids.
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Either way, it's been said for years we have been either decades away, or underway of the sixth mass extinction.
Even if it's not an official mass extinction, we are causing a major extinction event with the loss of biodiversity.
From my point of view it doesn't matter if we have a paper calling it a mass extinction or not, what ever effects we cause are going to be felt, the name doesn't really matter.
aGuyInaBearSuit
Member
I decided that a while ago. Things are going to get bad. Not just in terms of ecology, but the political implications as well. I'm terrified of what will happen if a major country like China or Russia runs out of resources.
Everybody's got a whole lot of firepower these days.
synchronicity
Member
I just find it darkly humorous that the industrial revolution and the many scientific "advances" made by our species that are- along with the associated overpopulation- causing this mess are also giving us a window into this tragedy. Our strength as a species is definitely a weakness. We will ultimately conquer, even at the expense of ourselves.
Do you know how many lunatic scientists have discovered scientific breakthroughs? I can give you a list of huge scientists that everyone learns about in school that have had wacko perspectives on everything from race to aliens.
That's why in science you judge the quality of the study, not the person. You've effectively done an ad hominem against the guy instead of analyzing what is being said. That's the epitome of anti-science. If the data is right, it doesn't matter how insane the scientists in question is. It's also ridiculous to try to reduce a study due to one person, when this study was done by many.
They haven't been very good at it so far, theres a coyote den not quite 1 mile from my home. Awaiting for that or a Mountain lion to snatch up one of my dogs.
But not even a quarter of these Snake, birds, rats, rabbits, mice would even be here if they weren't living so fat on all the food provided by our garden and fruit trees.
This, people must understand this so much. Extinction is a process, and the process is happening right now.
Well this has been coming for a while now hasn't it... I can't say I'm really surprised. I'm not too worried about the planet, its been through worse. I'm more worried about us. You start messing with the biodiversity that much it's going to come up and bite us in the ass. The question is whether we can ride it out or not. I'm an optimist, I think we can but we will be thrown back a number of years technologically and socially.
A lot of you guys still don't get it. This isn't about some catastrophe that is happening (or going to happen) to humanity, it is about what humanity is doing to the biodiversity of the world. This will probably have some impact on us, but ultimately not much. On the other hand, the diversity, beauty, and resilience of many ecosystems is being destroyed. All coral reefs may be gone by 2050. Think about that for a moment.
Life won't die out. Humans won't die out. But we will be left a world impoverished in the variety and uniqueness of species that once were.
Life won't die out. Humans won't die out. But we will be left a world impoverished in the variety and uniqueness of species that once were.
TheLaughingStock
Member
Are you saying it's not "bad" or that human beings will have a similarly vital role in the aftermath that rivals cyanobacteria?
I just find it darkly humorous that the industrial revolution and the many scientific "advances" made by our species that are- along with the associated overpopulation- causing this mess are also giving us a window into this tragedy. Our strength as a species is definitely a weakness. We will ultimately conquer, even at the expense of ourselves.
Indeed. The most common doomsday scenario that seems absolutely likely to hit our species is the wombo combo of a dying world caused by climate change, mixed with an increased instance of automation wiping out the labor force, creating a very toxic situation for the objective (the biosphere) and the subjective (the economy). We will cause physical suffrage with the damage of the planet, and psychological damage to people taken out of a labor force that oddly demands humans must be the central cogs, or else. We will physically and psychologically destroy ourselves, unless we come to our senses. Those aware of the tenacity of those problems is unfortunately an incredible minority. If GAF is an apex of human intelligence - and I'm kind of hoping it isn't - we're in a lot of trouble, because we're really far off from being fully aware of the uh ohs.
Both problems I speak of absolutely have to be dealt with starting with the Millennial generation, which requires that generation to reject and abandon the status quo and cultivate a new system and framework. Not just for the environment, but for the ascribed economy that's placed on it and valued above it. And that seldom seems to be happening, for if anything, that generation is being ignored by the status quo, being told to assimilate however it can to a defective model of living.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
Animals will stop going extinct when they follow in the footsteps of my dog and get a twitter account.
synchronicity
Member
Well, look at the bright side. Nature will balance the equation with or, far more likely, without our assistance.
It's just unfortunate that we, along with the rest of our planet, must suffer needlessly. Perhaps it is inevitable. Those who evolve too well and become too dominant ironically become the bane of their own existence in some sort of bittersweet harmony.You write like your not one.... Wait.... Are you a dog?
Well, look at the bright side. Nature will balance the equation with or, far more likely, without our assistance.
I occur. I see this problem from a perspective of neutrality, for it's what we've done with our social, collective ego that has made the mess on this earth. We want control by assuming things are other, so we long for dominance over things, people, and ultimately nature itself. We value evocations over objective things, like valuing money over the resources that we not only depend on, but are interconnected and interdependent upon. By feeling as separate, free agents, we tear up a nature that goes with us. Of course, most of this involves how one defines themselves, but it would not be alarming to argue people feel they come into this world but really come out of it, feel they have bodies but really are only bodies, and experience themselves as isolated egos when in reality they go with everything else that there is, merely by processes of nature. Getting all that wrong makes a very painful problem that reality can't handle when it keeps growing. A series of social impositions fighting against the natural state of affairs is literally like headbutting a brick wall.
We've create a social game of "Black vs White", failing to realize it's not a game of competition, but cooperation. We don't live with ourselves or the biosphere, but absolutely against them, and this is why all efforts we make are problems and not benefits, and why we're going to be a collective pimple popped by the body of nature for being too irritating on itself. My concern is entirely from the domain of what we're evocating over nature, over the world as it is to our concepts of the world as it is thought and labeled about: we are creating a ride that really makes no sense to be on, yet we feel this ride is what life's all about, even if it ruins everything we've made along the way. I've accepted in my own life that I will very likely be in poverty and/or homeless entirely on the automation front, and have accepted that so long as we confuse our ideals of symbols over the world as the world - say, valuing growth on a planet using methods that burn the planet - then we will become a species entering objective poverty, where the actual resources of life are insoluble to sustain ourselves with. Paper will be finally realized for the worthless jargon it is then, but what a futile realization that will be.
Methos#1975
Member
IchigoSharingan
Member
is fucking up the planet helping our odds of survival?
We haven't done anything that any other invasive species wouldn't do given the opportunity. Just look at what the Brown Tree Snake has done on Guam. The only real difference is in the scale due to the extreme power we currently wield.
Humanity isn't inherently evil here. And nature isn't inherently cooperative either. In fact (in a way) humanity is better than other weedy species, since we have the begun to value the rest of the biosphere and regret the damage we are causing to it. No other species debates whether they should stop expanding their activities.
Hopefully, this debate will continue, and more and more of society will learn to value and protect the environment.
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