
Crises that humanity now faces - 8bitpony
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/13-crises-we-face-trump-soil-loss-global-collapse
======
dublinclontarf
To correct him on one point, the UK will have access to the common market(no
one disputes this)

What he is actually talking about is MEMBERSHIP of the common market(which
likely requires free movement of people).

Currently it is unlikely the UK will keep membership as it seems a trade
agreement is the preferred option.

Everything is up in the air and anyone who is sure of anything is either
lying, misinformed, or deluded.

------
notacoward
Point 9 (UN Security Council) is something I hadn't thought of. That would be
the Insecurity Council. Finding five people _more_ likely to draw us all into
a catastrophic war would be a challenge.

~~~
roryisok
Well, you could replace May with Boris Johnson

------
andrewclunn
Oh I wonder what will be on here other than climate change, bio-engineered
plagues, and... oh, it's just a left wing fluff piece.

~~~
polotics
you mean caring about the planet and democracy is left wing now? wow

~~~
flipp3r
5 out of the 13 "impossible crises humanity will face" is people getting power
because they were or might become democratically elected. What are you talking
about?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Authoritarians might get elected, but they sure don't let themselves get _un_
-elected.

------
nekgrim
And still, our right-wing politics (in France) still think euthanasia
shouldn't be allowed.

Screw this world if you want, but at least let me die before you kill us all.

~~~
throwaway1892
You can jump from a cliff if you're tired from this world, but don't ask
doctors to do it for you.

~~~
nekgrim
I don't ask doctors to do it for me, but I'd love my government to have enough
humanity to allow me to die without pain.

------
PedroBatista
Is shoehorning Trump in everything the new Rickrolling?

~~~
roryisok
Is he not a huge crisis that humanity now faces? Racists, homophobes, white
supremacists, and climate-change deniers running the whitehouse?

~~~
_yosefk
If you want to bet, this guy proposes a variety of things to bet on:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-
wo...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/)

"1\. Total hate crimes incidents as measured here will be not more than 125%
of their 2015 value at any year during a Trump presidency, conditional on
similar reporting methodology [confidence: 80%]

2\. Total minority population of US citizens will increase throughout Trump’s
presidency [confidence: 99%]

3\. US Muslim population increases throughout Trump’s presidency [confidence:
95%]

4\. Trump cabinet will be at least 10% minority [confidence: 90%], at least
20% minority [confidence: 70%], at least 30% minority [30%]. Here I’m defining
“minority” to include nonwhites, Latinos, and LGBT people, though not women.
Note that by this definition America as a whole is about 35% minority and
Congress is about 15% minority.

5\. Gay marriage will remain legal throughout a Trump presidency [confidence:
95%]

6\. Race relations as perceived by blacks, as measured by this Gallup poll,
will do better under Trump than they did under Obama (ie the change in race
relations 2017-2021 will be less negative/more positive than the change
2009-2016) [confidence: 70%].

7\. Neither Trump nor any of his officials (Cabinet, etc) will endorse the
KKK, Stormfront, or explicit neo-Nazis publicly, refuse to back down, etc, and
keep their job [confidence: 99%].

8\. No large demographic group (> 1 million people) get forced to sign up for
a “registry” [confidence: 95%] 9> No large demographic group gets sent to
internment camps [confidence: 99%]

10\. Number of deportations during Trump’s four years will not be greater than
Obama’s 8 [confidence: 90%]

If you disagree with me, come up with a bet and see if I’ll take it.

And if you don’t, stop.

Stop fearmongering."

~~~
SolaceQuantum
I think number 10 is a little misleading. If Trump manages to deport almost as
much as Obama in 4 years, he is deporting almost twice as much. Which is very
alarming.

------
golemotron
After decades of hearing that the sky is falling for these and other reasons,
and realizing that it never does, I've come to the conclusion that the people
who push this sort of fear need to be challenged. Humanity will muddle
through, we always do.

~~~
_petronius
We may "muddle through", but the "muddling" will be wars caused by
agricultural collapse[0], deaths caused by trying to keep refugees of those
wars at bay[1], and violence in "far away" places as the industrialized world
seeks to maintain its standard of living in the process[2][3][4].

The disaster is already in full swing, I'm afraid. And attitudes like this are
the old adage about frogs and boiling water. It may not look like it in
Berlin, London, California (but then again[5]), Hong Kong, or Tokyo, but
millions of people are suffering already. The best case right now is the
industrialized world makes it at the expense of the "undeveloped" nations, but
as Mark Blythe pointed out, the Hamptons is not a defensible position[6]. So
it may be worth considering whether this head-in-the-sand approach is worth
it, even from a purely self-interest point of view.

[0]:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/03/150302-syria-
war-climate-change-drought/)

[1]:
[http://www.amnesty.eu/content/assets/Reports/EUR_050012014__...](http://www.amnesty.eu/content/assets/Reports/EUR_050012014__Fortress_Europe_complete_web_EN.pdf)

[2]: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/canada-
barrick...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/canada-barrick-gold-
mining-compensates-papua-new-guinea-women-rape)

[3]: [http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/02/foreign-
fi...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/02/foreign-firms-human-
rights-abuses-myanmar-150210040854291.html)

[4]: [https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/19/sierra-leone-mining-
boom...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/19/sierra-leone-mining-boom-brings-
rights-abuses)

[5]: [http://www.californiadrought.org/drought/current-
conditions/](http://www.californiadrought.org/drought/current-conditions/)

[6]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK0jeJ8wxg)

~~~
golemotron
Yet world poverty has been in decline for years:
[https://www.cato.org/blog/dramatic-decline-world-
poverty](https://www.cato.org/blog/dramatic-decline-world-poverty)

World violence is decreasing:
[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html)

Disease rates are declining across the world: [http://www.healthdata.org/news-
release/life-expectancy-incre...](http://www.healthdata.org/news-release/life-
expectancy-increases-globally-death-toll-falls-major-diseases)

And pollution is deceasing too: [https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-
overview/progress-cleaning...](https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-
overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health)

Smile every once in a while. It's good for you.

------
lisper
But not a word about the elephant in the room: overpopulation.

~~~
inimino
Wasn't that the panic of an earlier decade?

~~~
dajohnson89
Yes and I'm not sure why the panic has subsided. Has the world really
increased its capacity for human population? More likely: it's media meme that
had come and gone.

~~~
inimino
Birth rates are levelling off.

~~~
andrewclunn
No. No they aren't. The number of pregnancies is declining, but the
pregnancies that result in a child who lives more than two years has never
been higher.

~~~
inimino
Higher, and levelling off.

~~~
dajohnson89
So, it's exponential growth, but with a slower rate.

~~~
inimino
No. A slow _ing_ rate. Totally different thing.

