Trust me, I'm well aware of the effects of climate change and its causes. I'm not excusing that by any measure, nor do I desire to downplay the dangers and effects of it. There's a reason I'm such a staunch supporter of the EPA and why I want its regulatory reach to extend MUCH further than it currently can grasp towards.
Still, point of no return is only with existing tech. We've done things that were thought impossible before. Sound barrier, atmospheric barrier, communication barrier... We're rather good at doing shit when we set our minds to it, and the green movement is building steam at a rather exponential rate lately. And I don't mean just socially, I mean technologically as well. It'll be a close race between disaster and salvation and it can swing either way, but we have a good track record of getting shit done. We make mistakes along the way, and bring harm as well, but such is the world in which we live, and I don't just mean the human-affecting elements of it. You talk at length of extinctions caused by us. Nature itself is responsible for faaaar more extinctions than we humans are. Loss of biodiversity is a shame but it's also unavoidable. We can mitigate the damage we do ourselves, or expound on it, because we are uniquely capable of doing so, but ultimately this is not a world that has been kind to us. We survived only because we as a species managed to get through the crucible of natural selection despite the odds always being stacked vastly against us. We seem so casual when we disregard the environment for a reason; we evolved with a very "them or us" mindset born of necessity, and instinct is not so easily over-ridden.
Now, to go back (I'm kinda going in ascending order, sort of; it's nearly 6am and I'm exhausted so I'm kind of half-assing it now), the usage of the word "destroy" SHOULD have been expanded on, because, as I said, using the term of one applying destruction to something almost universally evokes the understanding that the sentiment is one of violence. In the event of deviance from what is considered the normal contextual understanding of a term, phrase, or meaning, it is often prudent to provide clarification preemptively, to avoid such unpleasantness as this has gotten to.
Now, you also think you know me to a much greater degree than you really do. Additionally, the context in which inequity was being referred to was the current fiscal disparity in which the poor are forced into such environmentally destructive acts as poaching endangered animals just to get by to the disproportionate advantage of the obscenely rich. Your continuous glibness does you no credit, and for one who is continuing to talk down to me about "not getting it," you're sure doing a pretty shit job of it, yourself...
Now, you say science and technology has brought us to the brink of our demise. The fact I hear such doomsday prophesizing from loonies on the streets holding cardboard signs every so often whenever I go downtown to get drunk so that I can forget about all the bullshit of the world for a few hours notwithstanding, I would like to point out that technology has resulted in us being able to feed many many more people much more easily and much more cheaply, it has provided us with vaccines against diseases that otherwise literally plagued us, it has provided cures for diseases that otherwise would kill us, it has provided us with means of instantaneous communication which has in turn accelerated social progression to a velocity it had never seen before its invention, and has provided the masses with information that has allowed them to realize the dangers we face and to react to them and address them much more fluidly and with much greater organization than otherwise would be possible. Technology is advancing steadily but surely and as it does, our lives improve, and the possibilities that it opens up continue to expand. The fact that the 1% exploited it for their own ends to cause all these problems is of no fault of technology; science and technology are by their very natures completely neutral. Besides, do you really think that those with obscene amounts of power and wealth only got to that extent of which because modern tech enabled them to do so? Clearly you're not very well-learned in history, either, or you'd realize that the mass-majority have always been the peasants and the very select few have been the lords and rulers; the middle-class only ever came to be specifically because of technology, in fact; it's responsible for breaking the trend of there being only the extremely few extremely powerful and the vast majority of the destitute, poor, and powerless. Why is this important when you are talking of the ecosystem, you might be wondering? Well, again, the thing about poaching is one thing, yes. However, a lot of destruction is carried out via necessity. Ease the strain of necessity? Then the less damage comes of necessity. Science offers us the possibility of ceasing our reliance on fossil fuels, the possibility of production without pollution, the possibility of agriculture without topsoil depletion. Just because the tools WERE primitive doesn't mean they always will be, or, for that matter, still are. We are finding that we can possibly have production without consequence to the environment, and we're doing so very rapidly very suddenly as more people take more notice of climate change, of deforestation, of energy costs, of consumer product costs...ecology and economy are things that can both benefit from technology. If in that way I am short-sighted, then by comparison, you are, quite simply, blind. You say I think I have all the answers, and yet you seem to believe you can predict the future itself, given your words seem very final and of absolute conviction; that mankind is doomed and we'll all go extinct because of our hubris.
You say the planet will do well enough without us. It will not. Because the only way we would go extinct is if the planet itself was rendered lifeless. In which sense, sure, it'll do just fine without us...if you define "doing just fine" as "being a barren, lifeless rock hurtling in its orbit around Sol." But if you meant, as a planet with an existing and diverse biosphere? Nope. Even nuclear war would not render us extinct, unless it was to the extent that it burned the entire world clean of every last bit of life from it, and even when the nuclear weapon stockpiles were at their peak during the Cold War, we still did not actually have enough nukes to render the biosphere utterly terminated, despite what pop culture and common misconceptions would have us all believing. It wouldn't even have been enough to kill off all of humanity. Shit would've rough (to say that is an understatement...well, that too would be an understatement, and a very large one at that) for a long time, yeah, but it still would not have been sufficient to be the the guaranteed extinction event for humanity; not the bombings themselves, not the nuclear fallout, not the nuclear winter.
If you really want me to go into detail why, I can, but I'll more likely just go hunt down a bunch of articles and link you to them, which you can probably do yourself if you really feel the need to find out about it. As for why I know all about that, well, I've had a long-standing fascination with nuclear proliferation, nuclear technology, and the effects both have had on human society, culture, and progression.
As for the stuff about the elephants, none of this is new to me, I've been aware of it for quite some time; I keep up to date on a lot of this stuff because it fascinates me. And yet, none of it implies that elephants have standpoints (by which I mean opinions) or that pigs can agree or disagree. The red herring attempts are cute, but I'm not going to be distracted by the fact that elephants have social abilities that may surpass even primates, because that still does not back up the idea that they have opinions. The fact they mourn their dead is a natural response, as is them teaching their offspring; what species would exist if the next generation was incapable of hunting, foraging, migrating, etc.? Again; does not imply personality. Social animals in general have a tendency to seemingly mourn their dead, because they develop a primal bond, empathy for one another, but again, empathy does not imply self-awareness, personality, or the ability to reason. I don't know how much more clear I can make it. You're arguing for a strawman. I've never once said animals cannot be empathic. At least I don't think I did. But if I implied it, such was not my intent. I've also never once denied that animals can feel pain and suffering. All I am saying is, our personalities are far more advanced than any other animal, and that actually is why we are the dominant species; because our individual self-introspection and awareness is magnitudes greater than that of any other animal's. And those traits are also what make it far easier for me to empathize with another human than it is for me to empathize with a creature from any other species, because they cannot empathize with me as I can empathize for them. If you love someone who does not love you back, that's self-destructive behavior at its worst, and at its best, it's a grand amount of effort wasted on nothing.
I empathize closest with the one I can share relation of personality with the most. Which is why if it came down to having to choose between the human race, and the elephants, I would choose the human race.
But frankly, I'm glad I personally will never have to make that choice; just because I know what my answer would be, doesn't mean it'd make it any easier or hurt any less to put it into action.
Still, point of no return is only with existing tech. We've done things that were thought impossible before. Sound barrier, atmospheric barrier, communication barrier... We're rather good at doing shit when we set our minds to it, and the green movement is building steam at a rather exponential rate lately. And I don't mean just socially, I mean technologically as well. It'll be a close race between disaster and salvation and it can swing either way, but we have a good track record of getting shit done. We make mistakes along the way, and bring harm as well, but such is the world in which we live, and I don't just mean the human-affecting elements of it. You talk at length of extinctions caused by us. Nature itself is responsible for faaaar more extinctions than we humans are. Loss of biodiversity is a shame but it's also unavoidable. We can mitigate the damage we do ourselves, or expound on it, because we are uniquely capable of doing so, but ultimately this is not a world that has been kind to us. We survived only because we as a species managed to get through the crucible of natural selection despite the odds always being stacked vastly against us. We seem so casual when we disregard the environment for a reason; we evolved with a very "them or us" mindset born of necessity, and instinct is not so easily over-ridden.
Now, to go back (I'm kinda going in ascending order, sort of; it's nearly 6am and I'm exhausted so I'm kind of half-assing it now), the usage of the word "destroy" SHOULD have been expanded on, because, as I said, using the term of one applying destruction to something almost universally evokes the understanding that the sentiment is one of violence. In the event of deviance from what is considered the normal contextual understanding of a term, phrase, or meaning, it is often prudent to provide clarification preemptively, to avoid such unpleasantness as this has gotten to.
Now, you also think you know me to a much greater degree than you really do. Additionally, the context in which inequity was being referred to was the current fiscal disparity in which the poor are forced into such environmentally destructive acts as poaching endangered animals just to get by to the disproportionate advantage of the obscenely rich. Your continuous glibness does you no credit, and for one who is continuing to talk down to me about "not getting it," you're sure doing a pretty shit job of it, yourself...
Now, you say science and technology has brought us to the brink of our demise. The fact I hear such doomsday prophesizing from loonies on the streets holding cardboard signs every so often whenever I go downtown to get drunk so that I can forget about all the bullshit of the world for a few hours notwithstanding, I would like to point out that technology has resulted in us being able to feed many many more people much more easily and much more cheaply, it has provided us with vaccines against diseases that otherwise literally plagued us, it has provided cures for diseases that otherwise would kill us, it has provided us with means of instantaneous communication which has in turn accelerated social progression to a velocity it had never seen before its invention, and has provided the masses with information that has allowed them to realize the dangers we face and to react to them and address them much more fluidly and with much greater organization than otherwise would be possible. Technology is advancing steadily but surely and as it does, our lives improve, and the possibilities that it opens up continue to expand. The fact that the 1% exploited it for their own ends to cause all these problems is of no fault of technology; science and technology are by their very natures completely neutral. Besides, do you really think that those with obscene amounts of power and wealth only got to that extent of which because modern tech enabled them to do so? Clearly you're not very well-learned in history, either, or you'd realize that the mass-majority have always been the peasants and the very select few have been the lords and rulers; the middle-class only ever came to be specifically because of technology, in fact; it's responsible for breaking the trend of there being only the extremely few extremely powerful and the vast majority of the destitute, poor, and powerless. Why is this important when you are talking of the ecosystem, you might be wondering? Well, again, the thing about poaching is one thing, yes. However, a lot of destruction is carried out via necessity. Ease the strain of necessity? Then the less damage comes of necessity. Science offers us the possibility of ceasing our reliance on fossil fuels, the possibility of production without pollution, the possibility of agriculture without topsoil depletion. Just because the tools WERE primitive doesn't mean they always will be, or, for that matter, still are. We are finding that we can possibly have production without consequence to the environment, and we're doing so very rapidly very suddenly as more people take more notice of climate change, of deforestation, of energy costs, of consumer product costs...ecology and economy are things that can both benefit from technology. If in that way I am short-sighted, then by comparison, you are, quite simply, blind. You say I think I have all the answers, and yet you seem to believe you can predict the future itself, given your words seem very final and of absolute conviction; that mankind is doomed and we'll all go extinct because of our hubris.
You say the planet will do well enough without us. It will not. Because the only way we would go extinct is if the planet itself was rendered lifeless. In which sense, sure, it'll do just fine without us...if you define "doing just fine" as "being a barren, lifeless rock hurtling in its orbit around Sol." But if you meant, as a planet with an existing and diverse biosphere? Nope. Even nuclear war would not render us extinct, unless it was to the extent that it burned the entire world clean of every last bit of life from it, and even when the nuclear weapon stockpiles were at their peak during the Cold War, we still did not actually have enough nukes to render the biosphere utterly terminated, despite what pop culture and common misconceptions would have us all believing. It wouldn't even have been enough to kill off all of humanity. Shit would've rough (to say that is an understatement...well, that too would be an understatement, and a very large one at that) for a long time, yeah, but it still would not have been sufficient to be the the guaranteed extinction event for humanity; not the bombings themselves, not the nuclear fallout, not the nuclear winter.
If you really want me to go into detail why, I can, but I'll more likely just go hunt down a bunch of articles and link you to them, which you can probably do yourself if you really feel the need to find out about it. As for why I know all about that, well, I've had a long-standing fascination with nuclear proliferation, nuclear technology, and the effects both have had on human society, culture, and progression.
As for the stuff about the elephants, none of this is new to me, I've been aware of it for quite some time; I keep up to date on a lot of this stuff because it fascinates me. And yet, none of it implies that elephants have standpoints (by which I mean opinions) or that pigs can agree or disagree. The red herring attempts are cute, but I'm not going to be distracted by the fact that elephants have social abilities that may surpass even primates, because that still does not back up the idea that they have opinions. The fact they mourn their dead is a natural response, as is them teaching their offspring; what species would exist if the next generation was incapable of hunting, foraging, migrating, etc.? Again; does not imply personality. Social animals in general have a tendency to seemingly mourn their dead, because they develop a primal bond, empathy for one another, but again, empathy does not imply self-awareness, personality, or the ability to reason. I don't know how much more clear I can make it. You're arguing for a strawman. I've never once said animals cannot be empathic. At least I don't think I did. But if I implied it, such was not my intent. I've also never once denied that animals can feel pain and suffering. All I am saying is, our personalities are far more advanced than any other animal, and that actually is why we are the dominant species; because our individual self-introspection and awareness is magnitudes greater than that of any other animal's. And those traits are also what make it far easier for me to empathize with another human than it is for me to empathize with a creature from any other species, because they cannot empathize with me as I can empathize for them. If you love someone who does not love you back, that's self-destructive behavior at its worst, and at its best, it's a grand amount of effort wasted on nothing.
I empathize closest with the one I can share relation of personality with the most. Which is why if it came down to having to choose between the human race, and the elephants, I would choose the human race.
But frankly, I'm glad I personally will never have to make that choice; just because I know what my answer would be, doesn't mean it'd make it any easier or hurt any less to put it into action.
