I’m not following many, if any links.. But for some strange reason, I’ve been feeling more optimistic. Maybe it’s the collective disgust over my nation’s leadership mistake, and the fact, we’re surviving. Communication is key, thinks me ~

This is my problem with alarmists. This article's premise is flawed from the start. No matter how many stars we expand to, humanity will die. You can't just throw "forever" around like candy.

Best case scenario: Humanity dies because it becomes something else. But no matter what, our species will not live forever.

This turns off people on the fence right away. Nothing like a false premise to instantly negate anything you have to say. Yes, the author goes on to explain what "forever" means but god damnit, this is such a pet peeve for me.

Articles like this lack self-awareness on such a basic level I don't see how the author managed to pen them. The end talks about how "fearmongering makes you lose people" or whatever, when that's really all the author did, then offer several "but here's what could happen if we don't do that" scenarios, without expanding on how we're making progress in ANY of those areas.

Climate change is a massive problem, biggest in human history. But we ARE making progress, every breakthrough recently or in the coming years will be based around it. Renewables? Check. Getting cheaper daily. Lab grown meat? Check. Getting cheaper daily. We're making so much progress on climate change, and so few want to acknowledge it.

Pathogens escaping labs is a risk. However, infectious diseases have been knocked off the top of humanity's worry list for a long time. We're resilient, and more importantly, more capable of combating a deadly pathogens than we have been ever, at any point.

Not even touching on AI, it's certainly worth keeping an eye on, but for now an AI rising against humanity is just science fiction. Shouldn't have even been included.

"Never before have we been haphazardly equipped with the tools to bring about our own demise. We’re recklessly building AIs and algorithms that have no empathy for their human creators. Pandemic-level pathogens escape their labs on a shockingly regular basis. And we’re only a decade or two away from a climate-change point of no return; global warming’s own event horizon. Yet we don’t seem to be in any great rush to course correct."

And to think, there I was worried about a galaxy collision or a black hole going nuts!

Good article, thanks!

in any case....it would seem hard times are comin', before we are past the current insanities.