[ExI] Inevitability of the Singularity (was Re: To Max, re Natasha and Extropy (Kevin Haskell)

[Kelly Anderson]

On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 12:25 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> On 07/08/2011 10:08 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> Some day I will believe humanity has become more rational.  It will be just
> after it stops talking about GW as being its main concern in the next few
> decades.  Even the IPCC studies to no support the kind of alarm bandied
> about on this subject.  The median temperature gain over the century from
> the many studies presented is 1.5 C.  I think it is pretty obvious that that
> isn't going to wipe out humanity any time soon and is not anywhere near as
> pressing a threat as say economic meltdown and/or major energy wars.    But
> when I say as much even extremely bright people act as if I am promoting
> creationism.

Global Warming may be a big problem, but not so large as the overall
economy, IMHO. So I agree with Samantha on this one. However, a 2-4 C
change can have pretty large impacts... Probably the biggest single
risk of global warming I am aware of is the chance that the gulf
stream will stop circulating. That would honestly be very bad for
Europe, causing it to develop a climate similar to Canada at the same
latitude. Looking at the globe, this would be bad, really bad.
Probably good for somewhere else, but we have a lot of infrastructure
in Europe, and it would be a real shame to lose that. This may be one
reason that Europeans are generally more alarmed about GW than
Americans.

The problem is that so many people aren't concerned about it, that it
will likely be impossible to do anything about it.

-Kelly