Let humans die to save the Earth?

[Virtual ghost]

Here are a few more random locations from the cities around the world.



Colombia google earth

Jordan google earth

UAE google earth

Thailand google earth

Malaysia google earth

Bhutan google earth

Philippines google earth

Uganda google earth

Senegal google earth

Argentina google earth

Uruguay google earth

Costa Rica google earth

Guatemala google earth

Dominican republic google earth

Brazil google earth

Turkey google earth

Tunisia google earth




My point is that third world isn't really what it used to be. Today there are very large areas of the third world that are basically first world in just about every way and they have the means to pollute (through transportation, consumption and construction). The globalization truly turned around many things but there is no need to deny that all of this has environmental cost just as in the first world. Since there is no fundamental difference socially or in technical sense. I am not joking when I say that the global trends in environmental sense are: Red alert!

 

[Lark]

The writings can survive physically but the ideas can be disproved or upgraded. That is kinda what the progress fundamentally is.

Yeah, I think you must be playing dumb here, or perhaps there's just stuff that you cant submit to your thinking because it might challenge it.

Anyway, my point was that the ideas remain vital, ie alive and well, long after the authors are dead. Although you're going to stick with the whole progressivist idea of "these things are old", therefore I dont need to know about them, they are not relevant as the authors are dead/old and since I dont find them relevant its safe to generalize that no one else does either.

Like I've said before, the OP is essentially Malthusian, and any discussion of population and supposed over population is essentially Malthusian. Malthus' biggest published work? The Principle of Population. So its kind of hard to argue that it doesnt count and is "dead and gone".

 

[Burning Paradigm]

We gotta die to save the earth? I guess that's fine with me.

Nice knowing y'all. I'm off to a land of bottomless eggs, waffles, and mimosas i.e. heaven. Unless you hear me scream, that means Tom Brady's won 5 more Super Bowls, which means I'm in hell.

Peace out, y'all.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yeah, I think you must be playing dumb here, or perhaps there's just stuff that you cant submit to your thinking because it might challenge it.

Anyway, my point was that the ideas remain vital, ie alive and well, long after the authors are dead. Although you're going to stick with the whole progressivist idea of "these things are old", therefore I dont need to know about them, they are not relevant as the authors are dead/old and since I dont find them relevant its safe to generalize that no one else does either.

Like I've said before, the OP is essentially Malthusian, and any discussion of population and supposed over population is essentially Malthusian. Malthus' biggest published work? The Principle of Population. So its kind of hard to argue that it doesnt count and is "dead and gone".

I said "disproved or upgraded", no where I said dead. What means "disproved fundamentally" or "understanding the idea to the deeper extent over time through more research".
In other words I place more focus on what we should do about the actual environmental problem(s) in order to prevent the disaster and mass death. Malthus was fundamentally right about the problem but from what I understand he was wrong about the solutions and their complexity. In other words if you focus on the texts of the guy who never even saw the road full of cars you might miss the complexity of the modern world and it's problems at hand. It is possible to fix Malthusian style problems while keeping the ethics up, however we are running out of time for that. Therefore denying the problem wouldn't help anybody (literally). For me there is a clear difference between "Malthusian style problems" and "Malthusian style solutions". Therefore I simply prefer to skip the term altogether and I consider it to be out of date. In other words if we deny the problem the environment itself will deploy "Malthusian style solutions" through various geophysical and geochemcal processes and with that it will take our potatoes away. We really need to rethink certain things in this world in order to avoid walking into the abyss. While in my own opinion most don't really have the guts to fully dive into the shit, it's complexity and it's possible outcomes. Therefore I disapprove of simplistic philosophical debates on the issue. Since we need to dive deeper into the issues at hand in order to preserve most important gains over the last 200 years.

 

[Lark]

I said "disproved or upgraded", no where I said dead. What means "disproved fundamentally" or "understanding the idea to the deeper extent over time through more research".
In other words I place more focus on what we should do about the actual environmental problem(s) in order to prevent the disaster and mass death. Malthus was fundamentally right about the problem but from what I understand he was wrong about the solutions and their complexity. In other words if you focus on the texts of the guy who never even saw the road full of cars you might miss the complexity of the modern world and it's problems at hand. It is possible to fix Malthusian style problems while keeping the ethics up, however we are running out of time for that. Therefore denying the problem wouldn't help anybody (literally). For me there is a clear difference between "Malthusian style problems" and "Malthusian style solutions". Therefore I simply prefer to skip the term altogether and I consider it to be out of date. In other words if we deny the problem the environment itself will deploy "Malthusian style solutions" through various geophysical and geochemcal processes and with that it will take our potatoes away. We really need to rethink certain things in this world in order to avoid walking into the abyss. While in my own opinion most don't really have the guts to fully dive into the shit, it's complexity and it's possible outcomes. Therefore I disapprove of simplistic philosophical debates on the issue. Since we need to dive deeper into the issues at hand in order to preserve most important gains over the last 200 years.

Hmm, yeah.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

The earth doesn't need us to "save" it. We are absolutely the junior partner here.

Life on earth, even all the kingdoms you know today, have been through several extinction events, some of which the anthropogenic extinction event almost surely won't be able to match. Whatever we do, life will recover. Likewise, even when there isn't an extinction event, there's a background extinction rate. Everything species you know on earth now will die long before life itself does. It's very hard to predict these things, but it would be a reasonable estimate to say plants and animals got another 800 million years here, and to put that into perspective, the Cambrian was less than 600 million ago. So what exactly are we presuming to protect?

At the end of the day a climate catastrophe is really about us humans and our attachments. The problem is not that life on earth needs our help, the problem is that we are poised to kill ourselves. As for the other species we are killing? Again, they'd die sooner or later. The real reason it's scary to us is because they are the ones we know and love, and the amount of time it would take for the earth to recover from this extinction event is not necessarily geologically long, it would be longer that humans could hope to live. It is again about human quality of life, not the safety of the earth.

I think this distinction is important because the save the earth narrative gives us a false sense of confidence. It makes it sound like environmentalism is an optional undertaking we are being asked to do out of the goodness of our hearts, because we like polar bears or some shit. Not a lot of people will take that seriously. The reality is that it's more like the climatological processes of the earth are going to murder us if we don't stop messing around. That's perspective does a better job of conveying the fact that we are beggars, not choosers.

Anyhow, regarding the whole population and development thing... UN estimates are that while the human population will grow for it bit, it will actually be down from its peak and in decline as of 2100 (and this is in the absence of a catastrophe, I mean). You know what causes population growth to go down really well? Development. In theory, development is sort of a win/win solution to the population issue, instead of some kind of heavy handed population control measures. Now, you might say that further development will further damage the environment. Unfortunately this is an area where humanity is seriously dropping the ball, but at least theoretically it doesn't have to be. We could look at development of the third word as an opportunity to try newer, more sustainable forms of development that won't be as harmful. At the same, if humanity could pull its shit together, the most developed nations in the world currently could cut down their excesses, because a lot of the world's environmental destruction is a byproduct of the richest nations consuming far in surplus of what is actually relevant to their standard of living.

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm not an optimist about it. But it could happen, which means we are not deterministically doomed, and the ethical dilemma you put forward does not have to be.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

We could look at development of the third word as an opportunity to try newer, more sustainable forms of development that won't be as harmful.

I believe the government that the U.S. tried to overthrow in Bolivia is trying that.

 

[Lark]

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm not an optimist about it. But it could happen, which means we are not deterministically doomed, and the ethical dilemma you put forward does not have to be.

Do you not think it sounds like the old "useless eaters" and "let the famines and civil wars rip" idea again?

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Do you not think it sounds like the old "useless eaters" and "let the famines and civil wars rip" idea again?

Which, the OP's perspective or mine?

 

[Red Memories]

I FOUND MY SPONGE AGAINNNN <3

 

[Morpeko]

Let people die and let the earth die...

 

[Magic Poriferan]

Yes, this is the kind of topic that can actually make me interested in stopping to comment for a moment.