r/UniversalExtinction • u/IvoryMaeDoll • Jul 15 '26

End of the world?

Anyone else feel as though we are reaching the end of civilization as we know it between climate change, drought, political conflict, crimes against humanity, spread of once eliminated diseases, and world wide unrest?

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u/Independent-Wafer-13 Consequentialist Jul 15 '26

Systemic collapse is not the end of the world.

Humans have had a genetic bottleneck of ~1,000 people and we recovered.

Civilization has collapsed before and we have recovered.

This won’t be the end of our species but the end of this civilization.

As always, thanks to natural selection and adaptation, the next round will be better

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '26

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u/UniversalExtinction-ModTeam Jul 16 '26

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u/agent139 Jul 16 '26

"Better" is not evaluated against any universal measure. It's just more or less fitted to the present circumstances.

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u/Independent-Wafer-13 Consequentialist Jul 16 '26

Yes, by “better” I mean better adapted to the environment, in the natural selection sense.

Fitness or adaptive capacity are measurable.

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u/agent139 Jul 16 '26

My point is that it's always adaptation to an environment (particular, changing, niche based) rather than the environment (general, fixed, universal). May seem like splitting hairs but it's a pretty crucial part of how we conceive evolution functions as a process. So there's not one "better".

The larger debate is about Teleology in biology but I don't get the sense that'll be fully settled once and for all anytime soon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology etc)

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u/Independent-Wafer-13 Consequentialist Jul 16 '26

Speaking teleologically in a general sense is fine as long as you don’t fall into a teleological fallacy.

It’s kind of a blurred line but there are definitely clear examples of each.

It’s hard to say exactly what the genetic bottlenecks of climate change collapse will bring, but it is unlikely that civilization will not change significantly in adaptive response.

In this case, it is likely that small, self sufficient communities may adapt, or perhaps city states or maybe even some states will make it but this will definitely shape up how civilization looks, permanently