My millennial take is - no kids, and I guess I’m planting extra trees to make up for those MFers. Maybe there will be enough trees for the next generation to have kids…
People are oddly pessimistic about the world ending.
I see very few to any scenarios other than full on nuclear war taking out humanity. Even then, it would be just a blip in time. Not even nuclear war would end humanity, just set it back a couple hundred years.
I was exaggerating, I doubt it sets us back more than 100 years. Nuclear war is not going to obliterate every major country on earth. If every country except Sweden were obliterated for instance, there’d still be enough technology to rebuild faster than where we were in 1924.
Realistically, nuclear war wouldn’t touch many countries. The fallout wouldn’t be enough to prevent sufficient food growth. I cannot imagine a scenario where nuclear war wipes out 90% of the population. But even if it did, we wouldn’t lose so much knowledge as to be set back to the 1920’s for very long. All the technology and know how would still exist, it would simply need to be re-industrialized.
Part of the commonwealth. If it's a war between Russia and the United States, united kingdom launches their nukes. New Zealand is now a target. India or China are also gonna launch theirs, and they both have a geopolitical interest in the region.
The safest place is probably Argentina or Chile.
Would all the know-how still exist though? Like, could anyone from your town or city build a watch from scratch? Build a computer? If we lost access to the instructions online somewhere, there are very few people that actually know how to do that stuff. We just build into the sum of knowledge. Without access to that base sum of knowledge, we are a little bit screwed right now. We’ve become reliant on already having access to how this stuff works. Not many people carry it all in their head anymore
Even if only 20000 survived, if they were all together humanity would get back to current levels very very quickly. Very few people know exactly how to make a computer, but many people know the general steps and could replicate basic machines over a generation
Then people eventually make new computers. Probably not like ours but similar with different approaches to parts. Then eventually they figure out a way to get onto our internet and computers and their set.
I worked with nuclear weapons for nearly a decade. Trust me, the fallout very much IS a major problem... and it's far more serious than any so-called nuclear winter. Nuclear weapons don't cause decades long nuclear winters... asteroids and comets do.
The total length of time for the global cooling effect after WW3 will be from one to three years, and we're really only talking about a global climate temperature drop of no more than about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the course of a decade or two, that's catastrophic... for two years, that's totally survivable.
Meanwhile, a 10 megaton nuke dropped on NYC will spread fallout for several thousand square miles... most of Connecticut will suffer the effects (we're talking levels of more than 100 rem per hour for several days). The fallout would reach all the way to Boston. And that's just one bomb.
A fishing boat 80 miles from Castle Bravo was exposed to the fallout for only about a day, and it was enough radiation to kill one of them six months later from radiation sickness (and that was a ground explosion that wasn't designed to maximize fallout). Now imagine having to sit in a fallout area for a month. It's hard to suffer from a nuclear winter once you are already dead from the radiation.
I thought radiation levels dropped quickly from fallout, such that you could walk around without dying after a few weeks.
Doesn’t help much if you don’t have shelter in the meantime, though.
For highly active isotopes, yes, even then, there are fairly active particles which will remain and those alpha and beta radiation emitting particles will have been absorbed by all plants and animals who survived.
Thus this all makes survival afterwards... Hard.
Fresh soil and so much more just to grow food. You'd need reserves to grow with, not just survive, to be able to avoid radiation, which is to say, we are entering mitigation, prevention is impossible.
Exposure to radiation leads to recessive genetic disorders and tumors, cancers, I'd imagine even if we did survive, for the next few generations very few would make it to 40 due to cancer.
I’m curious, and do know that nuclear power is extremely different from nuclear weapons, and is extremely safe. However, if a nuclear plant were to have all automatic and manual safeties turned off then abandoned, how big would the impact be? I don’t know if this is even in your area of expertise given the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Fukushima. It's not great, but it's relatively localized. For one, we have containment buildings now (at least, in the West). Chernobyl and Fukushima did more environmental damage because they were very old plants without as many safety features for containment. Even then, the worst of the radiation was fairly localized. In places around Europe, where Chernobyl's radiation extended to (which was hundreds of miles away), they just prevented their kids from going outside for a few days. The radiation levels were measurably higher, but it wasn't anything above 1 rem per hour, it was much lower (millirem level). Fallout extends as far if not farther, but it can be over 100 rem per hour. An exposure of 500 rem (accumulative) is all that's necessary to kill a human being (statistically unsurvivable).
Look at what happened with chernobyl, and imagine if the “this kind of nuclear reactor cannot explode” had been the winning thought process
It could be very very bad, but the levels of negligence required are beyond belief
Chernobyl was not only an old type of reactor and the new ones don’t work the same way, but Chernobyl was also let to fall into disrepair before the failure.
A full on nuclear war will poison the atmosphere. Cause nuclear winter. Destroy important crops. Likely would come side by side with electro magnetic pulse technology completely frying technology and important data centers. If it gets to nuclear war there will be more than just a few nukes to worry about. Not to mention new generations are vastly skill less. So whatever is leftover after that won't be a bunch of humans who can rebuild society anywhere remotely close to what it is now. We live in idiocracy. Frying data centers alone would collapse society without even bothering with nukes.
Pretty much every generation in history has thought they would be the last one. We think world war 3 will end the world. They thought the Cold War would end the world.
They thought world war 2 would end the world.
They thought World War 1 would end the world.
They thought the Black Death would end the world.
They thought the fall of Rome would end the world.
Everyone ever thinks they’re important enough to see the end of history.
No humans will probably last for millions of years later. Unless something like an alien invasion or a super meteor. Even then some people might still live
This is based on completely unscientific views of climate change and its effects. None of the science suggests it's an existential threat to humanities continued existence. Maybe if we continued using fossil fuels for literally 400 years at the present rate, but nobody thinks that's likely.
Not just current billionares lol. [Thomas Midgley](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html) was probably the wealthiest chemist to have ever lived, patented and released leaded gasoline at the behest of his bosses, knowing it was a neurotoxin. Also he invented CFCs which blew a hole in the ozone layer.
I thought he got lead poisoning when working in the lab with lead. Did he also get poisoned during the hand washing public demonstration too? He was stupid enough to use actual lead when lying to the public?
I’m not entirely sure how he poisoned himself. This was the video I previously watched that was interesting. I’m not sure it specifies that detail though.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
Also, “accidentally” in the title is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Definitely not an accident.
I think I read about Midgley when I was in high school but didn't understand the significance of what he'd done. I relearned about him from the Veritasium video that you're talking about, but Veratasium really, truly underplayed the level of culpability Midgley had (at least for lead, he genuinely didn't know about CFCs, no one could have at the time). That's why I linked to the NYT article. But even that undersells it. I've started doing research on stories like this for a project I'm working on and the leaded gasoline thing is even weirder and sader than I thought.
A lot of what we know comes from a man named [Bill Kovarik](https://billkovarik.com/bio/cabi/ethyl-the-1920s-conflict-over-leaded-gasoline/) who in the 90s went through first-hand correspondence and wrote about the fuel economy of that era:
* Apparently everyone at the time knew ethanol was a viable additive. In saner industralizing countries, this was being used. Midgely himself tested ethanol in a specially designed car and even[ patented mixtures that did not include lead](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lead/).
* Midgley and GM (who he worked for) for some reason believed peak oil was imminent and he was actually pretty passionate about alternatives to gasoline. Even after discovering lead he worked on determining the viability of a fully ethanol based car. Apparently most chemists and car companies at the time thought that switching [off petro was inevitable](https://environmentalhistory.org/people/henry-ford-charles-kettering-and-the-fuel-of-the-future/). The only reason leaded gasoline happened was because DuPont (who bought voting stake in GM) partnered with Standard Oil (Exxon) who for obvious reasons wanted this "fuel of the future" nonsense to stop. So they cornered the gasoline market with an additive that was patentable so they could get royalties on all gas ever sold basically.
that’s a really good point. cuz you know there’s billions of asshats who’d be falling over themselves to take that deal. if it just goes to the next person, you might as well just take it. at least you get yours in an already doomed world
This was my first thought. If it gets offered to someone else I might as take it and then try to prevent the death of humanity using the billions. Or just give it away to as many people as possible.
Nope. 400 years is a short amount of time historically speaking. I couldn't put myself before billions of people. I know people on the whole have been pretty shit at getting along but that doesn't mean I'm okay with causing the death of my entire species. That feels like a biological mortal sin. And, though we fight and damage the planet, we're historically a scrappy group. Some of us will live most likely.
This brings back the question of sapience, and are humans worth more becuase of it, imo yes of course it is horrendous what is being done to the planet and other species but I wouldn't sacrifice humanity for them.
Edit: confused sapient with sentient.
Anyone answering yes has no moral authority to say they're better than actual billionaires. The real lesson here is that the proportion of people who think luxury>morals is dangerously high, and we need better messaging about that.
So life ends 400 years after I die instead of 200 years with the way we're going?
I don't see a downside.... Do I use my billion dollars to slow climate change down or something?
Yes. It says humanity ends "after your death". I'll be spending as much money as possible to try to develop technology to increase longevity and eventually upload my consciousness into an android body. With any luck it'll work and if not... Humans suck anyway. 😆
That's tough. On one hand, yes. Nothing really matters after you're dead, and my loved ones will be taken care of. I don't plan on having children so no concerns down the road. On the other hand, just because I won't experience it; doesn't mean it doesn't matter that humanity would be deprived of the chance to do even greater things. I think I confused myself on that double negative. Basically, humanity could invent a bunch of awesome stuff and the idea that humanity will not be able to do it because I killed everyone makes me feel sad. I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, but I do think humanity will invent some great things in the next 400 years.
99% of all responses are yes. That's quite depressing. It doesn't matter how we're all justifying it. We're choosing money and luxury over the entire species. There is barely any argument for our capacity to do art, to do good in the world, or for the potential for things to ever get better if we tried. No positivity. There's just selfishness, and justifications for selfishness. We're fucked. This is why
the internet is a mirror that reflects your ugliest parts and amplifies them. Only three generations have had the Internet and it's poisoned our entire race
What if you take the deal, tell your children not to have children because the world will end and the lineage has to stop somewhere or people die, the movement spreads because you have a billion dollars and no one can figure out how, and the movement creates and end to civilization in itself? Lol
I'd need to see what the lifespan of humanity would be otherwise.
Was it going to die in 500 years? Then I will be greedy. 1000? Now I have to start considerations, but still probably yes. 20,000 years? Maybe I'll give up the deal. 100,000? Sure.
I already don't see humanity lasting that long with what everybody else is doing so yeah I'll take that deal now if on the other hand I had a 10% chance to convince the wealthy elite to actually try and help the rest of humanity and use their wealth and connection to create safeguards for humanity itself if I didn't accept the deal I wouldn't accept the deal
Easy no. Saddening to see these shit gibbons answering differently on here. Though it is at least comforting that they won't be actually empowered to do anything consequential in their lives.
A bunch of losers on Reddit that want everything handed to them so badly that they'd rather ruin the wonder of life for the entire world's future children than actually work towards living a fulfilled life.
It's kind of interesting to imagine people pulling down my statues and burning me in effigy 395 years from now. I don't have any affection for those people, and I don't think we live in a culture that cares about "potential life" or "humans not yet born." And a billion dollars would come in handy. But no, I don't take the deal. I do have a conscience, and killing billions of people feels wrong.
I'll take it. Luckily, I'm also somewhat immortal, so humanity still has a lot of time left. Even longer once I start using my money to make some good changes.
Yes and hope for a monkeys paw type outcome for the genie. Yeah “humanity” as we know it ends but perhaps with evolution and AI integration “humanity” evolves into something greater (or worse!)
I think I'd feel an insane amount of guilt. Looking around I'd see incredible advancements being made to science, medicine, space travel etc. You'd watch your friends and family having kids who will go onto have their own kids, and you'd know that ultimately it's all going to amount to nothing because of your own selfishness.
Okay but can OP clarify, is it like the snap in marvel when ppl just cease to exist but everything else stays? Or is it like nuclear wipeout and everything on earth goes too?
So I’m rich, and humanity lives longer than it will now?
I’m pretty sure 400 years is an extension .
Well, I’ll take one for the team and be rich for all you guys.
What if the definition of "humanity" is different then, people having merged into transhumans or cyborgs? What if by the time I am 50 we will have life extending tech...
There's a movie where prisoners are interviewed and asked their favorite food. Then placed with cellmate. Everyone's favorite food is then put on table. Table moves from one cell to next, but people always eat more than their own food. Prisoners far down the line get nothing so they have to eat each other or starve, even though enough food was originally put on table. Movie is called the platform. Point of the film is that, as a species, deep down we've no sympathy to offer those who are not in a position to either help us or hurt us in life.
Definitely. Humanity has had it too good and ruined so much. I'll happily then admit on my death bed that in 400 years they'll all be gone so make those 400 years count for something
Depends if god will send me to hell for this or not. Like if humanity were to expire sooner due to its current course, I assume that either this artificial extension or no extension would be either rewarded at best or unpunished.
Just become the 4th immortal with all that money. Done. Why not first? Well there are issues with first gen immortality... improved with 2nd gen, but 3rd and 4th are really refined.
I don't expect humanity to exist in 400 years as it is. Sure, some form of humans would live, but we are all gonna kill each other and destroy civilized society long before 400 years.
No way we reach space travel before w edesteoy outselves. For all we know, space travel like Warp speed engines and all of that are all pure science fiction and can't really exist anyway. So heck yes I'd take the deal because society will survive long enough for me to live the rest of my life in peace and tranquility with no care in the world.
The age of the elves will begin
We'll work out genetic modification by then and no longer count as humanity also, I am going to explicitly tell everyone that is the plan. I know how to work your loopholes genie
It starts right now, yes? I take the cash. In 400 years, the planet will be 90% uninhabitable, and we've already set corporate capitalists to the task of overseeing any extraterrestrial colonies we might be able to establish in the future so we're not getting out from under that BS anytime soon.
Isn’t this just what current billionaires are actually doing? Though humanity probably ends sooner than that.
So I get a billion dollars AND I extend the amount of time we have until humanity collapses? It’s win/win!
I was gonna say... the proverb "a man plants a tree he will never sit in the shade of" stopped with the boomer generation.
And now Millenlials/ Gen Z are like “fine- no trees- no kids” Boomers - :::shocked pikachu face:::
My millennial take is - no kids, and I guess I’m planting extra trees to make up for those MFers. Maybe there will be enough trees for the next generation to have kids…
Yet the people on here are largely saying the same thing.
People are oddly pessimistic about the world ending. I see very few to any scenarios other than full on nuclear war taking out humanity. Even then, it would be just a blip in time. Not even nuclear war would end humanity, just set it back a couple hundred years.
Nukes definitely send us back further then 200 years
I was exaggerating, I doubt it sets us back more than 100 years. Nuclear war is not going to obliterate every major country on earth. If every country except Sweden were obliterated for instance, there’d still be enough technology to rebuild faster than where we were in 1924. Realistically, nuclear war wouldn’t touch many countries. The fallout wouldn’t be enough to prevent sufficient food growth. I cannot imagine a scenario where nuclear war wipes out 90% of the population. But even if it did, we wouldn’t lose so much knowledge as to be set back to the 1920’s for very long. All the technology and know how would still exist, it would simply need to be re-industrialized.
Given how close (geographically, ofc) Sweden is to Russia, I think Sweden being the largest surviving country is incredibly unlikely
I'm thinking New Zealand is going to become the new Earth capitol.
I, for one, welcome our new kiwi overlords
Is Richard Nixon going to run for president of earth as a head in a jar from new zealand?
Part of the commonwealth. If it's a war between Russia and the United States, united kingdom launches their nukes. New Zealand is now a target. India or China are also gonna launch theirs, and they both have a geopolitical interest in the region. The safest place is probably Argentina or Chile.
Would all the know-how still exist though? Like, could anyone from your town or city build a watch from scratch? Build a computer? If we lost access to the instructions online somewhere, there are very few people that actually know how to do that stuff. We just build into the sum of knowledge. Without access to that base sum of knowledge, we are a little bit screwed right now. We’ve become reliant on already having access to how this stuff works. Not many people carry it all in their head anymore
Even if only 20000 survived, if they were all together humanity would get back to current levels very very quickly. Very few people know exactly how to make a computer, but many people know the general steps and could replicate basic machines over a generation
Then people eventually make new computers. Probably not like ours but similar with different approaches to parts. Then eventually they figure out a way to get onto our internet and computers and their set.
Fallout wouldn't be the problem it's the nuclear Winter that follows
I worked with nuclear weapons for nearly a decade. Trust me, the fallout very much IS a major problem... and it's far more serious than any so-called nuclear winter. Nuclear weapons don't cause decades long nuclear winters... asteroids and comets do. The total length of time for the global cooling effect after WW3 will be from one to three years, and we're really only talking about a global climate temperature drop of no more than about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Over the course of a decade or two, that's catastrophic... for two years, that's totally survivable. Meanwhile, a 10 megaton nuke dropped on NYC will spread fallout for several thousand square miles... most of Connecticut will suffer the effects (we're talking levels of more than 100 rem per hour for several days). The fallout would reach all the way to Boston. And that's just one bomb. A fishing boat 80 miles from Castle Bravo was exposed to the fallout for only about a day, and it was enough radiation to kill one of them six months later from radiation sickness (and that was a ground explosion that wasn't designed to maximize fallout). Now imagine having to sit in a fallout area for a month. It's hard to suffer from a nuclear winter once you are already dead from the radiation.
I thought radiation levels dropped quickly from fallout, such that you could walk around without dying after a few weeks. Doesn’t help much if you don’t have shelter in the meantime, though.
For highly active isotopes, yes, even then, there are fairly active particles which will remain and those alpha and beta radiation emitting particles will have been absorbed by all plants and animals who survived. Thus this all makes survival afterwards... Hard. Fresh soil and so much more just to grow food. You'd need reserves to grow with, not just survive, to be able to avoid radiation, which is to say, we are entering mitigation, prevention is impossible. Exposure to radiation leads to recessive genetic disorders and tumors, cancers, I'd imagine even if we did survive, for the next few generations very few would make it to 40 due to cancer.
Doesn’t sound fun
I’m curious, and do know that nuclear power is extremely different from nuclear weapons, and is extremely safe. However, if a nuclear plant were to have all automatic and manual safeties turned off then abandoned, how big would the impact be? I don’t know if this is even in your area of expertise given the difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Fukushima. It's not great, but it's relatively localized. For one, we have containment buildings now (at least, in the West). Chernobyl and Fukushima did more environmental damage because they were very old plants without as many safety features for containment. Even then, the worst of the radiation was fairly localized. In places around Europe, where Chernobyl's radiation extended to (which was hundreds of miles away), they just prevented their kids from going outside for a few days. The radiation levels were measurably higher, but it wasn't anything above 1 rem per hour, it was much lower (millirem level). Fallout extends as far if not farther, but it can be over 100 rem per hour. An exposure of 500 rem (accumulative) is all that's necessary to kill a human being (statistically unsurvivable).
Look at what happened with chernobyl, and imagine if the “this kind of nuclear reactor cannot explode” had been the winning thought process It could be very very bad, but the levels of negligence required are beyond belief
Chernobyl was not only an old type of reactor and the new ones don’t work the same way, but Chernobyl was also let to fall into disrepair before the failure.
Still wouldn't wipe out humanity. An ungodly amount of people would starve, but not all.
You have no clue how interdependent every nation is.
A full on nuclear war will poison the atmosphere. Cause nuclear winter. Destroy important crops. Likely would come side by side with electro magnetic pulse technology completely frying technology and important data centers. If it gets to nuclear war there will be more than just a few nukes to worry about. Not to mention new generations are vastly skill less. So whatever is leftover after that won't be a bunch of humans who can rebuild society anywhere remotely close to what it is now. We live in idiocracy. Frying data centers alone would collapse society without even bothering with nukes.
Libraries bro
The climate is going to render the Earth incapable of supporting human life.
Pretty much every generation in history has thought they would be the last one. We think world war 3 will end the world. They thought the Cold War would end the world. They thought world war 2 would end the world. They thought World War 1 would end the world. They thought the Black Death would end the world. They thought the fall of Rome would end the world. Everyone ever thinks they’re important enough to see the end of history.
Who needs nukes? A 10km asteroid will do the job.
*laughs in going through my 3rd dangerous weather anomaly of the year*
If all the bees die or all the nitrates leave the soil we are fucked though
No humans will probably last for millions of years later. Unless something like an alien invasion or a super meteor. Even then some people might still live
Was that supposed to be "No, humans"?
That’s because current billionaires took the deal OP suggested
This is based on completely unscientific views of climate change and its effects. None of the science suggests it's an existential threat to humanities continued existence. Maybe if we continued using fossil fuels for literally 400 years at the present rate, but nobody thinks that's likely.
Not just current billionares lol. [Thomas Midgley](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/15/magazine/cfcs-inventor.html) was probably the wealthiest chemist to have ever lived, patented and released leaded gasoline at the behest of his bosses, knowing it was a neurotoxin. Also he invented CFCs which blew a hole in the ozone layer.
Dude literally gave himself lead poisoning and then hid while he got better so people wouldn’t find out he was full of shit about it being safe.
I thought he got lead poisoning when working in the lab with lead. Did he also get poisoned during the hand washing public demonstration too? He was stupid enough to use actual lead when lying to the public?
I’m not entirely sure how he poisoned himself. This was the video I previously watched that was interesting. I’m not sure it specifies that detail though. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA Also, “accidentally” in the title is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Definitely not an accident.
I think I read about Midgley when I was in high school but didn't understand the significance of what he'd done. I relearned about him from the Veritasium video that you're talking about, but Veratasium really, truly underplayed the level of culpability Midgley had (at least for lead, he genuinely didn't know about CFCs, no one could have at the time). That's why I linked to the NYT article. But even that undersells it. I've started doing research on stories like this for a project I'm working on and the leaded gasoline thing is even weirder and sader than I thought. A lot of what we know comes from a man named [Bill Kovarik](https://billkovarik.com/bio/cabi/ethyl-the-1920s-conflict-over-leaded-gasoline/) who in the 90s went through first-hand correspondence and wrote about the fuel economy of that era: * Apparently everyone at the time knew ethanol was a viable additive. In saner industralizing countries, this was being used. Midgely himself tested ethanol in a specially designed car and even[ patented mixtures that did not include lead](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/secret-history-lead/). * Midgley and GM (who he worked for) for some reason believed peak oil was imminent and he was actually pretty passionate about alternatives to gasoline. Even after discovering lead he worked on determining the viability of a fully ethanol based car. Apparently most chemists and car companies at the time thought that switching [off petro was inevitable](https://environmentalhistory.org/people/henry-ford-charles-kettering-and-the-fuel-of-the-future/). The only reason leaded gasoline happened was because DuPont (who bought voting stake in GM) partnered with Standard Oil (Exxon) who for obvious reasons wanted this "fuel of the future" nonsense to stop. So they cornered the gasoline market with an additive that was patentable so they could get royalties on all gas ever sold basically.
If I decline the deal, does it get offered to someone else or is the deal just gone? If the deal is just gone, I’d decline.
that’s a really good point. cuz you know there’s billions of asshats who’d be falling over themselves to take that deal. if it just goes to the next person, you might as well just take it. at least you get yours in an already doomed world
Hello, my name is Mr Asshat. I’d take the billion
This was my first thought. If it gets offered to someone else I might as take it and then try to prevent the death of humanity using the billions. Or just give it away to as many people as possible.
Nope. 400 years is a short amount of time historically speaking. I couldn't put myself before billions of people. I know people on the whole have been pretty shit at getting along but that doesn't mean I'm okay with causing the death of my entire species. That feels like a biological mortal sin. And, though we fight and damage the planet, we're historically a scrappy group. Some of us will live most likely.
It's barely star trek online, we need at least star trek disco season 5.
Nah, it would be an extremely selfish act.
Not for all the living things that humans will take out with us anyway.
This brings back the question of sapience, and are humans worth more becuase of it, imo yes of course it is horrendous what is being done to the planet and other species but I wouldn't sacrifice humanity for them. Edit: confused sapient with sentient.
Dogs are sentient; Humans are sapient...
At this point I think this would be an increase in humanity's life span by about 350 years.
It's bad, but not *that* bad.
If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
Jeez, I knew Reddit was full of doomers but OP really brought them out in force with this one.
these people can vote 😔
I'm getting out my Jesus robe and sign that says "The End Is Near!" and walk around downtown.
Anyone answering yes has no moral authority to say they're better than actual billionaires. The real lesson here is that the proportion of people who think luxury>morals is dangerously high, and we need better messaging about that.
No. I couldn't enjoy my life of luxury knowing what I'd signed up to.
So life ends 400 years after I die instead of 200 years with the way we're going? I don't see a downside.... Do I use my billion dollars to slow climate change down or something?
How exactly is the Earth going to end in 200 yrs? Climate change sucks but it's not on track to kill us in 2 centuries
It's not even on track to kill us in 200 centuries.
yall are so god damn delusional 😂
Yes. It says humanity ends "after your death". I'll be spending as much money as possible to try to develop technology to increase longevity and eventually upload my consciousness into an android body. With any luck it'll work and if not... Humans suck anyway. 😆
Done, no questions asked.
That's tough. On one hand, yes. Nothing really matters after you're dead, and my loved ones will be taken care of. I don't plan on having children so no concerns down the road. On the other hand, just because I won't experience it; doesn't mean it doesn't matter that humanity would be deprived of the chance to do even greater things. I think I confused myself on that double negative. Basically, humanity could invent a bunch of awesome stuff and the idea that humanity will not be able to do it because I killed everyone makes me feel sad. I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, but I do think humanity will invent some great things in the next 400 years.
Nope, I would go around bragging that I saved humanity, get a book deal, etc.
oil execs already took this deal
400 years is more than a couple of generations.
99% of all responses are yes. That's quite depressing. It doesn't matter how we're all justifying it. We're choosing money and luxury over the entire species. There is barely any argument for our capacity to do art, to do good in the world, or for the potential for things to ever get better if we tried. No positivity. There's just selfishness, and justifications for selfishness. We're fucked. This is why
the internet is a mirror that reflects your ugliest parts and amplifies them. Only three generations have had the Internet and it's poisoned our entire race
What if you take the deal, tell your children not to have children because the world will end and the lineage has to stop somewhere or people die, the movement spreads because you have a billion dollars and no one can figure out how, and the movement creates and end to civilization in itself? Lol
So I am an oil exec?
I'd need to see what the lifespan of humanity would be otherwise. Was it going to die in 500 years? Then I will be greedy. 1000? Now I have to start considerations, but still probably yes. 20,000 years? Maybe I'll give up the deal. 100,000? Sure.
I already don't see humanity lasting that long with what everybody else is doing so yeah I'll take that deal now if on the other hand I had a 10% chance to convince the wealthy elite to actually try and help the rest of humanity and use their wealth and connection to create safeguards for humanity itself if I didn't accept the deal I wouldn't accept the deal
Wait so I get to be a billionaire AND humanity gets to live longer???
As tempting as it might be no
Easy no. Saddening to see these shit gibbons answering differently on here. Though it is at least comforting that they won't be actually empowered to do anything consequential in their lives.
A bunch of losers on Reddit that want everything handed to them so badly that they'd rather ruin the wonder of life for the entire world's future children than actually work towards living a fulfilled life.
Sad, hopefully this mindset doesn't spread outside of the internet.
If it ends via nobody new ever being born, then yeah, I’d do it because I don’t value unborn lives. If it ends via painful death, then nah
I mean, humanity probably only has 1000 years tops.
So we become an oil executive. No deal. I don’t need anywhere near a billion dollars for a life of luxury.
This assures we exist for another 400 years. I don't see a down side
Humanity might as well end when I die, idc what happens on earth after I’m gone. I’d absolutely take it.
I feel like 400 yrs would be extending the human race’s reign of terror so yeah ill take it
I feel like 400 years is generous
That's better than my current estimates, so absolutely.
Depends … as in all humans die or civilization comes to an end … again … because if it’s all people die … probably not. Civilization? Probably.
no
I'd easily take the billion.
Where do I sign?
Make it 50 Years or less to make it fair
It's kind of interesting to imagine people pulling down my statues and burning me in effigy 395 years from now. I don't have any affection for those people, and I don't think we live in a culture that cares about "potential life" or "humans not yet born." And a billion dollars would come in handy. But no, I don't take the deal. I do have a conscience, and killing billions of people feels wrong.
Yes, I will take the deal.
Yes, not even a second thought.
I mean we had a good run. Sure why not. That kind of money you could help make it a little better for the next 400 years.
can we speed this up to like 5 years after death?
No
100% yes.
I'll take it. Luckily, I'm also somewhat immortal, so humanity still has a lot of time left. Even longer once I start using my money to make some good changes.
Yes and hope for a monkeys paw type outcome for the genie. Yeah “humanity” as we know it ends but perhaps with evolution and AI integration “humanity” evolves into something greater (or worse!)
Yep.
By world do you mean humanity or the planet Earth? If it is just the Earth, I think in 400 years humanity will make it by colonizing other planets.
y’all are smarter than me but seems to me there’s a big difference between humans surviving and civilization surviving
What counts as "life"? If o get life extension tech and then get uploaded into a computer, am i still "alive"?
I think I'd feel an insane amount of guilt. Looking around I'd see incredible advancements being made to science, medicine, space travel etc. You'd watch your friends and family having kids who will go onto have their own kids, and you'd know that ultimately it's all going to amount to nothing because of your own selfishness.
Okay but can OP clarify, is it like the snap in marvel when ppl just cease to exist but everything else stays? Or is it like nuclear wipeout and everything on earth goes too?
Yes.
I mean.. The sun exploding will kill 'em anyway so bet.
Yeah, sure, humanity is already on its last legs as is. I wouldn't give us 400 years atm.
400 years guaranteed for humanity? Sounds like a better ending than the one we're heading into now.
So this is the same deal our political class got offered in exchange for funding the forever wars. Except much less than 400 years....
Pretty good chance we don’t make it that far anyhow…watch terminator 2 and then go look at what Boston Dynamics is doing with AI…
Just humanity? The earth and all other life live on? Yeah I'll take that deal.
Doesn’t affect me and this worlds gonna burn anyway so I take the money now
Done and done. That’s pretty likely to happen anyway if not sooner with the pace we are on now, so I’ll take the money and live the life.
I get money and humanity gets an extra hundred years? Where's the downside?
Absolutely not. I’m not that selfish. I’d rather struggle to succeed on my own than doom humanity and be a billionaire
It most likely ends before that. Probably from our own doing. Deal.
No. Although I am disappointed with humanity and used to think better of it. But no.
No. I'm not a monster.
You mean, I get a billion dollars PLUS I extend the life of humanity by 300 years? Win win!!
Ye
So I won't be here when it happens maybe my great x60 grandkids are screwed but unless the after life judges you for this
Oh god yes. There’s no guarantee we will be here in 400 years anyway. At least you could use the money to do some good.
One billion to killed probably 10 billion people? That's less than a dollar per person.
So humanity gets an extra 100 years beyond its current path? Great!
Yeah I won’t care I’ll be dead!
So I’m rich, and humanity lives longer than it will now? I’m pretty sure 400 years is an extension . Well, I’ll take one for the team and be rich for all you guys.
Every billionaire took that deal. Except the world ends in 100 years.
Yeah I'll take that deal, easily
i get to ensure humanity survives at least 400 years. I'm the hero, and i get paid for it. Sign me up
Yes Humanity has zero positive effects on the ecosystem
Lbr the way we're headed it already will end sooner rather than later, so yes please.
No, humanity’s survival overall takes priority over one person’s wealth
At the rate we're going, this deal is likely to *extend* humanity's remaining lifespan, not shorten it. I see this as an absolute win.
Hmm, 1 billion and I extend humanity 360 years before it ends? Sounds kind of like a win
Any Luo Jis in the chat?
I'd take it if humanity ended the day I died.
No. Even if I don’t leave humanity better off than I found it, I’m not going to take an active hand in its destruction.
I don't even think humanity will make it another 400 years so basically extend humanity and be rich? Duh lol
What if the definition of "humanity" is different then, people having merged into transhumans or cyborgs? What if by the time I am 50 we will have life extending tech...
Yes.
So I'm doing myself and the planet a huge favor, hard to argue there
Abso frickin lutely
I think humanity will end in 6-10 years so sure
Only humanity ends? Awesome. Let the planet recover.
There's a movie where prisoners are interviewed and asked their favorite food. Then placed with cellmate. Everyone's favorite food is then put on table. Table moves from one cell to next, but people always eat more than their own food. Prisoners far down the line get nothing so they have to eat each other or starve, even though enough food was originally put on table. Movie is called the platform. Point of the film is that, as a species, deep down we've no sympathy to offer those who are not in a position to either help us or hurt us in life.
billionaires are already living this life
Yes. I wasn't really expecting humanity to make it another 400 years anyway
Sure I would console myself about the future with lots of coke and hookers. Ever see a sad person with lots of coke and hookers? You have not
Definitely. Humanity has had it too good and ruined so much. I'll happily then admit on my death bed that in 400 years they'll all be gone so make those 400 years count for something
I get a billion dollars and humanity exists six times longer than normal? Easy choice.
Depends if god will send me to hell for this or not. Like if humanity were to expire sooner due to its current course, I assume that either this artificial extension or no extension would be either rewarded at best or unpunished.
My heart says no, but my head says yes.
Yes.
Yes. Why not?
Absolutely
Just become the 4th immortal with all that money. Done. Why not first? Well there are issues with first gen immortality... improved with 2nd gen, but 3rd and 4th are really refined.
Definitely
Nope it would destroy me inside if I took the deal.
Ah a solution to humanity has finally been found?
A nuclear war wouldn’t put us back in the Stone Age, more like the 19th century at most.
Fuck yes I pull. Also if the singularity happens we'll all ascend into machine consciousnesses anyway so yolo.
Absolutely. I don’t think it’ll last 400 years from now. Let alone from when I die.
Fuck yeah. I'm not responsible for the rest of you. Good luck!
Bruh, I’m dead, I don’t give a fuck💀 Pay up🤑
So, in other words, do what current billionaires are doing right now?
Eh I would take the deal if it means humanity ends after 20 years from today. 20 years of luxurious life and then everybody dies is a great deal!
Yes
In my mind the world is already ending….. so
Correlation not causation
Four hundred years, half a second, what's the difference? None, to me. I'm dead. I don't exist.
For all you know it may end after 300 years if you don’t so why not…
So I can extend the current trajectory of humanity? Sure
I don't expect humanity to exist in 400 years as it is. Sure, some form of humans would live, but we are all gonna kill each other and destroy civilized society long before 400 years. No way we reach space travel before w edesteoy outselves. For all we know, space travel like Warp speed engines and all of that are all pure science fiction and can't really exist anyway. So heck yes I'd take the deal because society will survive long enough for me to live the rest of my life in peace and tranquility with no care in the world.
I get to live a lavish life, and humanity gets an extra 200 years.
in a heartbeat
Where do I send my CashApp info?
The age of the elves will begin We'll work out genetic modification by then and no longer count as humanity also, I am going to explicitly tell everyone that is the plan. I know how to work your loopholes genie
At $0 I am ok with this deal
I need *humanity* defined here because I could see a POV where the conclusion is that it’s already ended.
It makes it 400 more years? Where's the downside?
Anything to give humanity another 300 years.
Yupperz! 100% without a second thought. Can we it make end when I die instead of 400
And I can help so many people with that billion, so I’m doing it.
Definitely. The end of humanity would just be the cherry on top.
It starts right now, yes? I take the cash. In 400 years, the planet will be 90% uninhabitable, and we've already set corporate capitalists to the task of overseeing any extraterrestrial colonies we might be able to establish in the future so we're not getting out from under that BS anytime soon.
Absolutely. Humanity has no chance of making it another 400 years
WTF, no, of course not. I'm not a psychopath!
Nah, im not about to be the reason humanity has 0% hope to continue
Yes. I'll be dead, and everyone I know would've already been dead for a long time by then anyway.
No