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Study Says Humans Have Brought About 6th Mass Extinction Event
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House pets are actually incredibly unsustainable for what they are. Realistically they are a mean for mankind to feel better about themselves; they're entire societal purpose is to keep is company. meanwhile they have food demands, alongside all the other industrial requirement and resources needed to make the crap people buy them, that often match the need of people. It's a huge drain on resources that is, realistically, entirely useless and superfluous.
What's my point? Largely that the idea of nothing changing is perpetrated by people but, it's kind of bullshit. Don't get me wrong, far more could be done but often it is resistance by people, the average person not the governments nor the industries, that push back. For example is you told everyone to get rid of their pets (it probably would help) imagine the uproar. I wouldn't be surprised if there would be riots. And PETA would flip their shit completely (More so then they do now).
Now I'm not saying we should get rid of pets, far from it. But it is so fucking hard to do anything in this world because of everyone. People love to blame the people in charge or someone else. Industry is one of the big ones people blame and they are far from righteous, good and moral. Yet they do try and do their best to move in the environment they're in (i.e. balancing earning money now to being set up in the long run). Unilever took several years developing time to making a laundry detergent that was a good as the previous one and took half the packaging. Sounds like nothing but that's half less oil used to make the plastic packaging (maybe they've changed that nowdays) and well as less transport and less industrial stress to make lots and lots. They also spent a long time campaigning to get the message across that you only needed the new version, use less of it and it worked fine. They didn't even change the price (I think they lowered it a bit to be honest). Know what happened?
People get pissed they were being swindled out their money. And then bought two new ones and used the same amount. I mean that was the industry plan right? Make us buy more?
They're a hell of a lot of change going on, both within research and industry. Some of it doesn't reach the public and that's fair, how are people to know. But the majority of time it is the average person that doesn't want the change or thinks there is an ulterior motive behind it. There is but it is mostly "We're screwed if we don't make this change as we won't have a business in ten years.". Countries such as the US and UK are the worst for not giving a crap (can't find the study I read but the UK is the worst in Europe, with ~7% actually saying that would be willing to change their lifestyles). Compare this to China were is reaches upwards into the 70% (they have a far worse industry for things such as steel production, funnily enough because we won't share it with them to make it better).
Now I don't mean to single you out, the fact that you do things show that you're not part of my tirade. My biggest issue comes with the whole "Nothing is changing". Well it is. By a damn sight more than people realise. The issue comes in that the framework we work in is a behemoth that is hard to shift. Patents, business and the years and years is takes to research things all get in the way. And that's before you have to convince the people that it is a good idea. People think "We've got solar panels, we've got wind farms why don't we just use those, the internet told me that it will be fine". Because they themselves are sustainable but mass production of them is far from it. It takes 32 litres of water to make a single microchip that goes into your computer. Now imagine how much water it takes to make a solar panel. And then remember we have a building water crisis.
I honestly don't think the world is screwed. It's going to be rough at times but I genuinely thing that, by and large, we'll get there and the problem will be solves to an extent. Now we just need people to listen, especially to the people who know what they're talking about. Not some nutter with a hatred of capitalism and industry who has Google [that's not aimed at you].
Why listen to people who know what they're talking about when one can get all in a lather over the pronouncements of prophets who have proven to have the prognostication powers of a peanut, or pontiffs proudly pontificating, politicizing production and power usage as profoundly profane from their air-conditioned pulpits?
I love this planet. I love our species. We have it in us to be godlike, in both our power over the world and in our kindness and creativity. I will never stop, as long as I live, fighting to make people aware that this lifestyle, as awesome as it is, doesn't have to be our destiny. There are infinite possibilities, and many of those offer futures where our needs are met, we are fulfilled as people, and we live in peaceful harmony and balance with each other, nature and the planet itself. The greatest victories come from the longest odds. The one thing people do better than anything else on this planet (with the exception of viruses) is change. We can change the future by changing the present. And the nice thing is...it's always the present.
Part of this challenge is to make other humans aware of the problems we face. Sometimes, when you follow up the presentation of a problem, with potential solutions, it makes it easier to face. We're clever. That's our thing, right? It will be interesting to see whether we live up to the potential of our cleverness, our empathy for those of the future (it shouldn't be hard, most people love their kids and grandchildren and they're going to be in the crosshairs of this), or fall to our outdated primate limitations on foresight and empathy.
And yes, two of the possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that a) physicists or industrialization wipe our species before they establish a space-faring civilization of b) or such species accept a lower level of technology to live a life of balance with their homeworlds and abandon the adventures of the galaxy...
There's hope. The fact that we're having conversations like this one, which is something that has to happen for any sort of meaningful change. But, the fact of the matter is the World wide Consumerism is not a way forward that is conducive to long term planetary survival. With well-monied corporate interest aligned against any threats to the status quo (except, ironically, the long term consequences of the status quo itself) this will not be easy. It's a battle for the hearts and minds of the world, many of whom are long accustomed to the luxurious fruits of our current system. We need to rise up and be our best selves. That's a challenge worthy of a thinking person, with the all of nothing stakes to make it interesting.
ERB's Tarzan always used to say, "Where there is life, there is hope." I'm with Tarzan.
Part of this challenge is to make other humans aware of the problems we face. Sometimes, when you follow up the presentation of a problem, with potential solutions, it makes it easier to face. We're clever. That's our thing, right? It will be interesting to see whether we live up to the potential of our cleverness, our empathy for those of the future (it shouldn't be hard, most people love their kids and grandchildren and they're going to be in the crosshairs of this), or fall to our outdated primate limitations on foresight and empathy.
And yes, two of the possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that a) physicists or industrialization wipe our species before they establish a space-faring civilization of b) or such species accept a lower level of technology to live a life of balance with their homeworlds and abandon the adventures of the galaxy...
There's hope. The fact that we're having conversations like this one, which is something that has to happen for any sort of meaningful change. But, the fact of the matter is the World wide Consumerism is not a way forward that is conducive to long term planetary survival. With well-monied corporate interest aligned against any threats to the status quo (except, ironically, the long term consequences of the status quo itself) this will not be easy. It's a battle for the hearts and minds of the world, many of whom are long accustomed to the luxurious fruits of our current system. We need to rise up and be our best selves. That's a challenge worthy of a thinking person, with the all of nothing stakes to make it interesting.
ERB's Tarzan always used to say, "Where there is life, there is hope." I'm with Tarzan.
Here's this:
http://www.hefty.co/truth-in-pictures/
27 pictures to drive this thread home for the dubious...
http://www.hefty.co/truth-in-pictures/
27 pictures to drive this thread home for the dubious...
Wish I hadn't clicked on that.
The question that hovers over this thread like a bad omen; Is the Earth better off without humanity? What about life in general? The Universe for that matter? Do we add something, or is that question a meaningless result of something that molecules do, given billions years of evolution?
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See, I don't think any of those questions are worth thinking about, are significant in the least.
When it comes to reality at large, one set of conditions is not better or worse than some other set. They're just different.
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Coal? Oil? What is this word and what means it?
How can they determine the elimination of something that does not exist?
Those questions only work in the context of an intelligence that can ask them. While the questions themselves are insignificant, the fact that on this planet, at least, evolution rose to the level of creatures who could ask them makes this planet, and that intelligence, pretty damned special.
Mankind, with all its flaws, is nature's highest achievement to date. No other species has conquered specialization and become generalists to the degree of humans. We created our own wings and our own claws, courtesy of the brain that mother nature led us to develop. We learned to shape the environment around us, and the other plants and creatures of that environment, in the service of purposeful goals beyond the next meal. No other species has learned the amazing skill of actually increasing the standard of living of the next generation of the species. No other species has learned to carry their environment with them, surviving in the hottest and coldest, lowest and highest, reaches of the planet, and indeed venturing off that planet. And though we do the job poorly to date, no other species has even realized that it has the capacity to be stewards of the planet.
Obviously, some people have wasted the gifts we gained through millions of years of evolution. And somehow, many of those same fools have found ways to sometimes guide broader society down some of those same wasteful paths. But for every Adolph Hitler, Jozef Stalin or Mao Ze Dong, there is a Norman Borlaug, Thomas Edison, or Steve Jobs.
We humans are the truly amazing pinnacle of nature's process of natural selection on this planet. Denying that is denying the very nature of both man and the universe.
All I know is we need the Earth and other life far more than any of it needs us. If we were all gone tomorrow, then sure, there'd be a few nuclear meltdowns, burning cities and oil spills creating local chaos, but given a few million years to get over the CO2 excursion, and assuming we haven't already put a Venus syndrome in motion, things would be more or less back to normal. It'd be hard to make a case that the Earth had lost anything consequential.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
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This I disagree with, however. Nature isn't trying to "achieve" anything. And supposing that we are "amazing" in relation to the universe as a whole is just navel gazing. We may very well be unique in the moment, but that moment--our moment--is not even a blink of an eye in the history of the universe.
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I think that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, would very much disagree with this.
Which puts me in somewhat of a conundrum. I agree with your sentiment; I agree that there is no moral aspect to evolution, and yet at the same time I believe very strongly that man has a moral responsibility not to wantonly destroy all (or even most ) other species on this planet.
Moral responsibility, or enlightened self-interest? 'Cause we're not going to fare too well solo...
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I feel the same way. But I don't think there's any conflict between the two positions.
We--mankind--are a part of nature. Everything we do is, by definition, natural. Still, we can exercise free will to a degree not available to most living things on this planet. And our free will--our decision-making--is tempered by our own development, by our ability to learn. Which, in my view, leads to a normative kind of morality, a morality that is the product of rational consideration. One can have a utilitarian point a view or a more Kantian point of view (and Hobbesian), but both--and many others--point to self-interest best served by thinking things through. There's no benefit to be had by wanton destruction and pollution of the environment. Indeed, there are benefits to be had by curtailing both, for the individual and society at large. Thus, the rational conclusion becomes the moral choice (or even imperative).
Agreed, nature isn't trying to achieve anything. And from the perspective of the universe, we're not all that amazing. But from the perspective of a thinking being? The ability to reason, to recognize self-awareness and the ability to apply thought to improving one's condition in that universe? I'd still argue that, to date, it's the pinnacle of the evolutionary process... at least as far as we know.
As one who thinks that the only workable morality must be based on enlightened self-interest, I see the two terms as essentially synonymous, with no conflict between them. Rob's post #69 highlights the rationality of such a viewpoint, IMO.
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