The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

[MindMover]

[Gregorian]

1. I should be the guy in this video. For decades I've been saying the exact thing.

And for decades everyone I know says I should be sharing with the world how I feel. But I'm too busy with my own life to be bothered. I feel hopeless.

There's a video on Youtube called, I think, The Most Important Video You'll ever See. It's an old gray haired professor discussing how sensitive world population is to small individual inputs. And I think it has a lot of hits by now. But still the subject itself is frowned upon.

So between denial and avoidance of even opening a dialogue, I have chosen to just live my life while the planet burns.

I've seen this video before, but wanted to get it onto the Greatest page.

[tclambert]

4. Oh, yes, "The Most Important Video You'll Ever See" a lecture by Professor Albert Bartlett.

A Physics professor explains exponential growth, and its deadly consequences.

[VWolf]

2. This is a classic minimax argument

You choose the option that minimizes the maximum damage, in this case column A.

I like it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. I see a flaw in his logic.

In column A, box False, he predicts global depression due to "massive layoffs, caused by draconian legislation"
because of the cost.
However, would not the cost also include alternative "green" jobs?

and in row A, box "true" he is not counting any increased jobs but he says "the money spent allowed us to counteract climate change".

[tclambert]

5. Well, he was trying to state the worst that could happen,

not a more likely less drastic outcome. His argument is that the worst that can happen in column B is worse than the worst in column A. If you include probabilities of various outcomes, the analysis gets more complicated and needs more boxes.

An analysis based on your observation suggests that the worst in column A isn't likely to be as bad as he said, which makes it even less bad than the worst outcome in column B. So if your goal is to avoid the worst possible future, you still want to stay away from column B.

The problem I see is that the BEST possible outcome is in column B: if global warming predictions are wrong and we do nothing, all is wonderful. So let's do the economist thing and assume the most optimistic prediction will come true. There, problem solved!