News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by mirimir on Thursday March 23, 2017 @03:45PM (#13943484)
Yeah, exponentials are tricky. By the time danger is clear, it's too late to do anything about it. But hey, at least this will probably be self-limiting. Disruption will arguably reduce population and industrialization, and so CO2 emissions will drop.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by cafebabbe on Thursday March 23, 2017 @04:21PM (#13943872)
And then good luck rebuilding civilization now that every easily accessible resource has been mined/harvested out.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by sbov on Thursday March 23, 2017 @05:20PM (#13944420)
Useless buildings are a great supply of resources, and for certain resources they are arguably even easier to access.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by mirimir on Thursday March 23, 2017 @05:18PM (#13944401)
Read Stephenson's Anathem. There's lots of good stuff in cities. And in landfills.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by clydethefrog on Thursday March 23, 2017 @04:26PM (#13943924)
Let's hope the beings that will rebuild civilization will learn from our mistakes.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by Razengan on Thursday March 23, 2017 @06:06PM (#13944791)
It's more likely that our successors will only inherit the harmful products of our civilization.

Consider this: People today are still dying from landmines and poisons that were using during wars a 100 years ago [0]. They may remain around for over 300 years [1].

The things that will most immediately affect the civilization after ours will probably be our radioactive waste, the long-term effects of climate change, the extinctions caused by us, unexploded mines and bombs, and stockpiles of nuclear and other weapons.

At best, the next civilization may dig up some of our machines and partially reverse-engineer them, but they'll probably never be able to access their original functionality. For example using our laptops/phones as a source of light, or their batteries as explosives. What little technology of ours that still fully works by then, will probably cause wars over its ownership, even if the tech itself is benign and beneficial.

----

If, like me, the idea of accumulation of technology over large expanses of time, across multiple civilizations and potentially multiple species is deeply interesting to you, you may love the world of Numenera [2] [3]; Earth, a billion years from now.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187512

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12188466

[2] http://www.numenera.com

[3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/272270/

Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by mirimir on Thursday March 23, 2017 @05:27PM (#13944486)
Well, what did we learn from the Indus Valley folks? Or the Amazon folks? Whatever electronic records survive will probably get recycled long before they're read. And paper doesn't last very long. So arguably they'll just have folktales.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by TeMPOraL on Thursday March 23, 2017 @04:57PM (#13944190)
I don't know about you, but I like human civilisation, so this is not much of a consolation for me.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by mirimir on Thursday March 23, 2017 @05:30PM (#13944524)
Well, but you'll likely be dead, no? And yes, I'm sure that parents fear for their kids.

Maybe the AIs will pick up where we left off. They'll be sort of human. Especially if hybrids become popular.

Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by SerpentJoe on Thursday March 23, 2017 @05:40PM (#13944619)
Nobody is rebuilding anything on this planet, not considering how deep we need to drill/mine at this point to get anything good, and the example will not be useful to anyone who arrives here from elsewhere.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by WalterSear on Thursday March 23, 2017 @06:45PM (#13945039)
The clathrate gun won't care, if it goes off.
Re:Thousands of underground gas bubbles poised to 'explode' ... by c0nducktr on Thursday March 23, 2017 @04:04PM (#13943708)
Unfortunately, that could offset global dimming[1], which appears to be currently slowing the current rate of climate change.

Things seem like they are going to get really bad. I try not to think about it too much. It doesn't seem like there's anything I can do.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

Edit: Changed link to Wikipedia entry