> Humans can deflect asteroids, so we've (probably) dodged that extinction, but that doesn't mean we're immune to others.
At this point, there is no conceivable extinction level event humanity couldn't avoid or avert, in principle, given sufficient time/warning, except the heat death of the universe.
So I disagree that there's no point in talking about survivability in the abstract. You can roughly project the growth of a species' capabilities through time, and the trajectory the dinosaurs were on clearly entails they were heading towards extinction due to an inevitable run in with a supervolcano or an asteroid. Humanity's trajectory is conceivably very different due to science and our ability to construct sophisticated tools.
> The dinosaurs as a whole survived hundreds of millions of years, through many extinctions
I'll also note that this is a slightly unfair comparison because "dinosaurs" is a category consisting of many species, where the comparison here is against the one homo sapiens
species. Many dinosaur species went extinct through those events you mention, some survived.
> At this point, there is no conceivable extinction level event humanity couldn't avoid or avert
Um, how would humanity deal with a supernova going off within a few light years? I am still not convinced it will deal with climate change until billions die.
> Um, how would humanity deal with a supernova going off within a few light years?
Enclosed surface habitats, subterranean habitats, generation ships to spread humanity across numerous solar systems, and so on. All of this tech seems achievable within the next 2 generations.
At this point, there is no conceivable extinction level event humanity couldn't avoid or avert, in principle, given sufficient time/warning, except the heat death of the universe.
So I disagree that there's no point in talking about survivability in the abstract. You can roughly project the growth of a species' capabilities through time, and the trajectory the dinosaurs were on clearly entails they were heading towards extinction due to an inevitable run in with a supervolcano or an asteroid. Humanity's trajectory is conceivably very different due to science and our ability to construct sophisticated tools.
> The dinosaurs as a whole survived hundreds of millions of years, through many extinctions
I'll also note that this is a slightly unfair comparison because "dinosaurs" is a category consisting of many species, where the comparison here is against the one homo sapiens species. Many dinosaur species went extinct through those events you mention, some survived.