Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

ziq wrote (edited )

As the climate begins to reflect the 1980s industrial activity: More mass extinction, entire regions of the planet no longer able to sustain mammalian life, northern borders secured with autonomous killer robots that shoot on sight, migration north for the rich, a horrible death for everyone else.

Then as the temperatures continue to rise as the climate catches up with 1990s industrialism, those northern refuges become unlivable too, thousands of people start dropping dead from heat stroke and starvation and the richest of the survivors retreat underground. Everyone left above ground dies and the people most responsible for the apocalypse are safe and cozy until they can no longer produce the energy needed to grow food under lights or manufacture the Ultra Violet LEDs.

5

asg101 wrote

Methane deposits under retreating permafrost are already exploding, the long ignored feedback loop is finally getting too obvious to ignore. Rapid climate change will make it difficult for even the elite to dig fast enough. And who will do all the work for them when they realize they won't be included as part of the chosen few?

2

ziq wrote (edited )

Oh, they can continue to ignore it as long as their AC works and their gold still has value.

And who will do all the work for them when they realize they won't be included as part of the chosen few?

this is why automation/AI/robots needs to be resisted, it just lets them genocide the rest of humanity when we become a liability aka when we start to bite back

3

[deleted] wrote

2

videl wrote

I think in this situation, things for those left behind would be pretty much like how things are already except much worse. More slave-like conditions and literal slaves. Conflicts over what little remains. Lot's of death. With maybe an anarchistic oasis here and there. But idk. Interesting question.

2

ziq wrote (edited )

Hothouse Earth would kill them, if flooding, drought and starvation doesn't first.

1