So, let me start out by saying that you're a much smarter and a much stronger writer than me. So while what I'm about to say might seem a bit faulty here and there, take what I'm saying with similar merit as someone more eloquent. Actually, it just so happens that we're starting to find out that with economic and social stability, populations start to stabalize. Rights do not exist in nature, they don't exist to anything but social, empathetic, species who benefit from giving each other rights. Rocks, plants, animals, and so on, have no "rights", no more than what we so decide to give them. Yeah. Same is true for people. We have rights, because we as a collective whole decided that it's of value for us to have rights. The same is true for the natural world as a whole. We have decided, as a collective whole, that the natural world holds value and has the right to be protected. I'll get on that in a bit. You want to back up your idea that these things have a right to live, a right equal to your own, and that one should seek to do no harm? There is only one solution, and I am sure you won't be a fan of it. I eat meat. My wife eats meat. My dog eats meat. There is nothing about our behavior that is incompatible with my worldview. You are thinking in terms of "either or." I'm thinking in terms of "sustainability." Eating meat, consuming natural resources such as wood and water, is not good or bad in and of itself. You're absolutely right. What is bad though, both objectively and morally, is unsustainable behavior. Overfishing and rampant deforrestation to support the beef industry are both perfect examples of how being irresponsible leads to harm. It's completely possible to be a consumer, while still act in a responsible, sustainable way and we're heading in that direction with such behaviors as encouraging renewable resources and energy like wind and solar power. No. We have a hard enough time as it is trying to upscale batteries and manufacturing techniques. We're constantly coming through with ideas that seem like breakthroughs, but only lead to dead ends because they can't be upscaled. To think that we can come up with enough mechanisms to replace the natural order and apply it on a global scale is not only naive, wishful thinking, but utterly irresponsible. Nature is working on a mechanism that has developed over millions of years and we still don't understand how a lot of things work. We're not going to replace it. In those trees is this: Damn. Nature's scary. You're right. There's disease, parasites, predators, prey, fear, death, and on and on. But it's natural, it's healthy, it's balanced, and it's fair in its unfairness. I see your point and I we both agree on it. My point though, you seem to miss. Ghettos? Slums? Economic inequality? Once again, WE KNOW BETTER. We know what's happening is wrong. We know how to prevent it. AND WE STILL LET IT HAPPEN. Humans treat eachother like utter and complete shit half the time, when we can so easily rise above it if we only tried. You really want to usurp an automated natural balance and instead leave controls in our hands when we're so demonstrably irresponsible? Really? Doing the right thing isn't about appreciation or reward. It's about doing what is right. Period. I'm not demonizing human nature. I'm saying that we can do better. I'm saying that we should encourage ourselves to do better, and without the sacrafice of biodiversity, a resource that is beyond value."us" gets larger and larger every year, and the only way to prevent that fact is to restrict people being able to freely have kids.
No. They have no more a right to exist than the undisturbed rocks that existed before trees moved up and took them over did. They have no more right to exist than humanity.
To live means to destroy other life to do so. In your life, you have likely killed thousands of animals, bugs, used resources derived from the corpses of hundreds of living things, and you a support a society that does more of that ever day.
A world powered by farm-towers and tuna-farms, where CO2 is maintained by a network of machines, regulated by mankind, is far better, for more happy, more meaningful, than one of nature that serves the same purpose. The world, when all it's resources are devoted to the feeding and care of humanity, will be one that is good, not negative. The wiping out of nature will cease to be bad the moment we no longer rely on it.
Better a world of nothing but trash and huts, with humans inside them than a world of trees where not a single person lives.
It won't appreciate your help, either.
We shouldn't demonize human society because it comes at the cost of nature either.
Your writing is no worse than mine, and it tends to avoid my use of exaggerating and siding to arguments that are a bit inflammatory and a bit off context just enough to provoke argument. ___ I'll have to give you that the number of people may not continue to rise. However, I do suspect that the end of the increase is due to us reaching "peak people per land". If technologies allow for much cheaper food, and robotic care for children becomes popular, I can see an explosion in kids again occurring. I was not refering to unsustainable behavior there, but the idea that animals, creatures, forests, and so on, have some right to exist, and that human beings are/should be of equal consideration. A human should not destroy a forest to build a home, for example, as it kills many animals, drives them from their homes. My point is that all humans do this, to live, we must kill huge numbers of animals, be it through growing crops to feed animals to feed us, or growing crops to feed us. We kill when we drive cars, when we clean our homes of pests, it's what we are, it's what we do. I do not refer to the modern day, the idea that we should disrespect and disregard nature today, as we don't have the capability to replace it's purpose, yet. We have a hard enough time making these batteries and manufacturing techniques. But look at why we do those things, we have, for the first time ever, between any other species, recognized a global climate shift, and are working to counteract it. That's a massive sign of humanities development as a species, and a hopeful beginning of what is to come. Of a species in total control of its planet, to access all it's resources. I'm not saying we have it today, or should work to it today, only that it is going to happen, and when it does, it will be far better than having nature still around. Imagine telling someone in the early/mid 1900's that mankind will have a network of machines, speaking to each other, communication between nations that goes on instantly, being able to call someone up through this network and tell them something, to order your bank account in another nation to give you money. It would seem insane, unreasonable, impossible. How many people would have to work in such a network? The society of the 2100's is going to seem just as insane, unreasonable, as today's society seems to those in the 1900's. And we have, in only a few thousand, managed to absolutely dominate nearly all of that which existed in nature. Our society grows at a rate nature has never known, not relying on random chance and natural selection, but active and determined memory and construction. Imagine evolution making a species capable of doing all the things a kid coming out of high school could do. It would take until the end of the planet, of life. Our societies are networks of individuals acting together on a scale so massive it spans the entire planet. We are sensitive to things so much larger than any individual, just through communication, and we are the only species known to do so. We harness sources of energy that sat buried for hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of years go. And it didn't take more than a few centuries to accomplish most of it! In a few more, I'd be willing to bet we will figure out and learn to take care for a whole lot more of nature than you would expect, especially if we royally screw up and cause a crisis/collapse that forces us to figure it out and fix it. Economic poverty, on a global scale, has been plummeting. Slums, Ghettos, and so on, are issues still here, but far less in scale to what was going on in society only fifty to a hundred years ago. Economic inequality is getting more severe in the modern day, but we are seeing that happen due to many factors, and that will almost certainly not last forever, even then, we are better off today, even for those who aren't the one percent, than we were yesterday. The thing is, we don't just "let" these things happen. We literally don't know how to solve them, these are artifacts of our mistakes, they are problems we will solve. We don't "let" people go hungry, we had a system, the first system that allowed so much technology to be so rapidly made, to allow so much growth in wealth, and didn't know how to adjust that system to ensure the poor don't go hungry as well. And we know better. Nature doesn't. Mankind builds on what exists, improves, creates, we move from a society of tribes at war, treating each other as inhuman, enslaving, killing, and so on, to societies where such things are the most horrible things you could imagine. Yes, there are issues, and yes, the above things still happen. However, it is likely because those things had to happen. Consider slavery, which would have been only an option vs death when a tribe, with no social constructs ready to do things like colonize, form empires, and so on, deals with the defeat of another. Rather than just killing the other tribe, as many animals would do, human beings realized "it's silly to waste so much life, we put them to work". Racism, sexism, all of those things are artifacts of times past, of activities, sometimes unrelated to the consequences we see today, which once truly did benefit, or appeared to benefit, humanity. Look at the bible, look at the rules they laid out, how wrong they are to a modern human being. That's what the people we came from believed. Around than two thousand years ago, they thought this was true, they did those things. And, for the times, they worked, they worked better than anything before them, and they were good for the time. Now, was it the best? No, we look at that today and see the horrible treatment of peoples who could have been treated much better, of destroyed and lost lives, these things are absolutely horrible in every way. However, to expect these things not to happen is like to expect these old civilizations to figure out televison or run electrical wire. We haven't just evolved technically, our social abilities, our understanding, prisons, psychology, so much of our ability to treat each other has improved. Even today, with inequality rising, we have learned the lessons of eras past when we set up our modern governments, one that serve the people, and we see people learning more and more every day about how to and not to treat capitalism, moving from societies that take all efficient measures, killing and hurting many due to lack of safety, to one that realizes that is wrong, and has fixed it. Look at China. They aren't some evil group who mistreats their people, they are a nation rising from a state of agrarianism to a modern state, and we watch as they change every day, learning these new lessons themselves. China today looks scarily similar to the US/UK in the early 1900's, with modern tech thrown in, and accelerating at a much more rapid pace. What we live on today is a thing built on years of trial and error, of efforts of thousands, constantly improving and building up society. The issues we face exist, yes, we aren't perfect, but we are a hell of a lot better than we would have been a few hundred years go, and we are "light years" ahead of what nature ever would have figured out in that same timeframe. It's easy to think you have it all figured out when looking at it from the view of one person, in one place, but society deals with all people, all attitudes, in all places. We can't just throw out the racists, get rid of the beliefs that are negative, they have to evolve, society has to evolve, to learn, and every human being alive is a living, breathing, part of that evolution. And that definition changes depending on who you ask. From natures view, there is no such thing. I agree, but I see a world where biodiversity means farms planted with many crops who have had key genes mutated to ensure they are resistant to multiple diseases, not untouched forests. What is bad though, both objectively and morally, is unsustainable behavior.
No. We have a hard enough time as it is trying to upscale batteries and manufacturing techniques.
Nature is working on a mechanism that has developed over millions of years
My point though, you seem to miss. Ghettos? Slums? Economic inequality? Once again, WE KNOW BETTER.
It's about doing what is right.
I'm saying that we should encourage ourselves to do better, and without the sacrifice of biodiversity, a resource that is beyond value.
My point is that all humans do this, to live, we must kill huge numbers of animals, be it through growing crops to feed animals to feed us, or growing crops to feed us. We kill when we drive cars, when we clean our homes of pests, it's what we are, it's what we do. You know, I don't even really know why we're still talking to this point. I think that even though we're looking at two different sides of the same dice, we still agree. Let's table it. . . . The society of the 2100's is going to seem just as insane, unreasonable, as today's society seems to those in the 1900's. Again. We are in agreement. You're taking things way, way too far with this. Developing technologies that increase the efficiency and healthfulness of behavior such as farming, mining, and manufacturing is something that we should greatly encourage. Not because it'll allow us to do more, but because it'll allow us to do more with less. The same logic should go towards developing our understanding about the natural world. We need to use what we know not to control what we have, but to preserve it, to nurture it. Even if we could control the natural mechanisms of the world, even if at some point we become mature enough to think that it's a good idea, we're talking about the whole planet here. It's too big, it's too important, to take that risk. Look at us. We are beautiful, but we are flawed. Throughout history, what we've created that should be considered great, we have used to cause harm. We created a system of trade to make life easier, we use it to control each other. We learned to forge metal and shape wood to create tools, we use them to create instruments of war (don't take this the wrong way, cause I actually support national defense systems). We harnessed the power of the atom, and we made the most horrible weapon we have yet to realistically imagine. I don't care if we're 10,000 years into the future here, in an unfathomable utopia, there's still the horrifying risk that we can mess it all up. To a lot of points, you and I agree. However, at the same time, I'm also inclined to disagree. Without getting into geopolitics or the mechanisms of economics or anything else I'm not really qualified to even really think about seriously, let alone discuss, I have to say I lack a lot of faith on this point. We have a long, long way to go until we consider ourselves mature as a species. When it comes to how we, as cultures and nations, corporations and individuals, conduct ourselves, more often than not we behave like an alcoholic about to fall off the wagon. We know where our behaviors lead to, both through past experiences as well as deductive reasoning. We know what we can do, should do to change, but we often don't do it, because we care more about that immediate gratification now, then the consequences of tomorrow. Yeah. Poverty is a mechanism of economics. Sure. Corruption is a risk of governance. Ok. We all know this. The thing is though, through flaws such as greed, selfishness, apathy, cowardice, and negligence, we let this behavior happen way more frequently than it should. Let me reiterate, it doesn't have to be as bad as it is right now, but we let it. We, as a collective whole, tsk our tongues and shake our heads saying "something should be done about this" and then go about our day, expecting someone else to do what we ourselves choose not to do. No. That's the exact opposite of biodiversity. Biodiversity means having ecosystems with as many numerous different organisms as possible. The more, the merrier. The more vital, the better. It is absolutely important to have. With diversity comes protection from collapse. The great potato famine is a perfect example of this. With diversity comes knowledge. When we study plants and animals, we often gain new insights that help is everything from medicine to agriculture to industry and design to, once again, environmental preservation. The fact that we have gone through multiple mass extinction events in our planets history and yet we always somehow bounce back to a diverse ecosystem with niche species illustrates that natural mechanisms not only favor diversity, but encourages it. It's for our own good to continue to behave in manners that do the same. Stewardship is something that is very, very important for us to take on. It encourages us to think about how our actions not only affect us today, but tomorrow, a decade from now, centuries from now. This type of mentality, when we embrace it, can help us develop behaviors that not only affect the environment, but other aspects of life. It is a key component that help us combat the issues that I keep on harping on, such as poverty and oppression. Furthermore, when we decide to embrace the virtue of stewardship, it enables us to value things beyond ourselves, and in doing so, encourages us to become good for the sake of being good. Look at this Reddit thread. It's about a guy, working at Wal-Mart, cleaning a bunch of Beta cups. It's a simple thing, something some people reading this might scoff at and say "So what, big deal." Look at what is of value here though. The OP feels good about what he did, allowing him to further value himself. People who are looking on are encouraging him, creating a sense of community, a sense of solidarity. Lastly, there is a discussion about how keeping Betas in cups, even if only temporary, isn't the best thing in the world. People are looking at a small problem, something that could stand to be changed, and are promoting it. Every single one of those things are positive behaviors that are fostered by a sense of stewardship. If we all took that mentality, in someway shape or form, and tried to apply it wherever possible in our lives, we will develop behaviors that allow us to not only better ourselves, but the world around us. Protecting the natural world, for all of its greatness and all of its flaws, is one of the greatest things we can do to foster that mentality.I was not refering to unsustainable behavior there, but the idea that animals, creatures, forests, and so on, have some right to exist, and that human beings are/should be of equal consideration. A human should not destroy a forest to build a home, for example, as it kills many animals, drives them from their homes.
I do not refer to the modern day, the idea that we should disrespect and disregard nature today, as we don't have the capability to replace it's purpose, yet.
In a few more, I'd be willing to bet we will figure out and learn to take care for a whole lot more of nature than you would expect, especially if we royally screw up and cause a crisis/collapse that forces us to figure it out and fix it.
[Society is constantly developing, constantly getting better.]
I agree, but I see a world where biodiversity means farms planted with many crops who have had key genes mutated to ensure they are resistant to multiple diseases, not untouched forests.
Why? What point does it serve? Nobody will just get up one day, no nation will just "decide" to do this. It will happen due to necessity. We will find ourselves in a world where nature has failed, has collapsed, or has begun to screw us over, and we will have to "take the wheel". The world isn't stable, the environment isn't stable, less so now that we are around. Global warming, ice ages, supervolcanic eruptions, meteors. Nature/natural events are primed and armed to wipe us, and most species with us, off the face of the planet. We take control, or we die. Imagine we had stayed a little, agrarian, society. Imagine we never started burning coal, causing global warming, and using forests at such paces as we do now. All we do in taking that course is have "safe" existence of a few hundred million for a couple hundred thousand years before we die off just as the Dinos did. Instead, we chose the more risky, but the only potentially successful path, the one that leads us off planet, and with power enough to influence the planet's entire environment to suit our needs, and that was the best choice. We will never be a mature species, we will always face issues, and never be satisfied, it's human nature. I would argue that, as a collective, we do not know these things. Society is the sum of it's parts, no the thoughts of it's smartest indaviduals. The decisions it makes are based on the decisions of everyone, not just those well educated and aware of the issues of global warming, rich enough to not have the emotional attachment to that global warming means you lose what made up your whole life. I live in a coal town, or used to. Every last one of those people tend to be against clean coal, the thing that killed their town. There is more to the decision than just the "clear" answer. Could we stop it? Look at twitch plays pokemon for a prime example of this. Look at the reddit "hivemind", look at how so many human-systems work. It's not that simple. How do "we" just suddenly change course, how do you just suddenly shift an entire system so drastically in a short time? You can't. Selfishness, apathy, cowardice, and negligence are all things humans do, and things we have to learn to deal with, not things we can simply decide away with. Problems to be fixed, not problems that we can decide to no longer cause. An indication that the issues we face aren't important enough to change our lives to fix, in other words. People are reactive more than proactive. Fossil fuels began their big decline after prices went up, not after warnings that oil would run out. Expecting humanity to act proactively on things isn't honest. That's not how society has ever worked. This may be true, but the purpose of biodiversity is to prevent diseases and genetic single-ness that causes all sorts of issues. By ensuring sufficient genetic variation between a crop, you create the diversity needed to ensure safety of the crop, and of those who eat those crops. And as our knowledge of the genome continues to increase, we may see the day where human inspired changes, recorded through time, becomes a greater source of knowledge than observing creatures created by way of evolution. This does not indicate that such a system is the better system, especially considering those multiple mass extinction events. I'd prefer change from that particular status-quo, and mankind is the only species with the power to drive that change. And these are the mechanisms that drive progress, I agree. While I don't entirely agree that the feelings of a fish should really matter very much, this is a massive indication of why exactly mankind is so unique, and why our society constantly seems better than the ones a generation ago. The constant discussion, the constant refreshing of new ideas. These have to happen for progress to be made, and they need to happen on a scale that strikes the majority of 300 million people to drive appropriate change in only one nation. The scale of these conversations, the impact they have to have, is massive, and they will have that impact in time, when most people are having that discussion, when the thing effects most. Until then, we can't expect change to appear, we can't expect perfection to come from every moment of every person's life. We have to give it time. A hundred years from now may seem a utopia, but I guarantee they will tell you a hundred absurd problems you may react against in a negative way, just like a republican senator clutching onto a snowball..The same logic should go towards developing our understanding about the natural world. We need to use what we know not to control what we have, but to preserve it, to nurture it.
even if at some point we become mature enough to think that it's a good idea, we're talking about the whole planet here. It's too big, it's too important, to take that risk.
We have a long, long way to go until we consider ourselves mature as a species.
We know where our behaviors lead to, both through past experiences as well as deductive reasoning. We know what we can do, should do to change, but we often don't do it
The thing is though, through flaws such as greed, selfishness, apathy, cowardice, and negligence, we let this behavior happen way more frequently than it should.
We, as a collective whole, tsk our tongues and shake our heads saying "something should be done about this" and then go about our day
Biodiversity means having ecosystems with as many numerous different organisms as possible. The more, the merrier. The more vital, the better.
When we study plants and animals, we often gain new insights that help is everything from medicine to agriculture to industry and design to, once again, environmental preservation.
The fact that we have gone through multiple mass extinction events in our planets history and yet we always somehow bounce back to a diverse ecosystem with niche species illustrates that natural mechanisms not only favor diversity, but encourages it.
Look at what is of value here though. The OP feels good about what he did, allowing him to further value himself.
People are looking at a small problem, something that could stand to be changed, and are promoting it.
Because nature brings us beauty and inspiration. It gives us the opportunity to find insights, both scientific and philisophical. It gives us a heritage that we can pass on, a sense of purpose to encourage us to grow and do right. All of those things, they are priceless. Priceless The world isn't stable, the environment isn't stable, less so now that we are around. Global warming, ice ages, supervolcanic eruptions, meteors. Nature/natural events are primed and armed to wipe us, and most species with us, off the face of the planet. We take control, or we die. No. You keep on talking in terms of extremes. It's either this or that. Not only am I saying that going to those extremes is unessecary, cause it is, but it's risky. If we fuck up, we're done. We can take prevantative measures, to protect us from droughts, asteroids, quakes, famines, and whatever else nature throws at us. We can protect ourselves, we can find ways to adapt and recover, and we can and will continue to thrive. We can do all of that without having to take the reigns. We can often find that it's easier to get better results just by doing less. Right. I agree. There's always more to discover. More to develop. More to embrace. Ideally, we can continue to grow by leaps and bounds as the centuries continue to tick off. Right now though, we still act like children. Petulant, short sighted children. We have a long way to go. How do "we" just suddenly change course, how do you just suddenly shift an entire system so drastically in a short time? You can't. Selfishness, apathy, cowardice, and negligence are all things humans do, and things we have to learn to deal with, not things we can simply decide away with. Problems to be fixed, not problems that we can decide to no longer cause. Come on now. Are you going to ignore your previous post? The one where you said we're so much better than we were just 2000 years ago, during biblical times? These things take time. You know it, I know it. Once again though, it's not going to happen if we all just shrug our shoulders and say "Welp. I guess that's just the way it is." We have to want it. To work for it. Struggle for it. In our desire and our struggle to better ourselves, not only will we find greater value in the ways we have grown, but we'll also have developed the behavior and mindset that fosters healthier and more productive social behavior. Yet. We can change. In order to do so though, we have to see the value in it and to want that change. We do it all the time. Remember your example about slavery? Huh? Yeah? Right? That's us seeing value in changing our behaviors. Sure. I agree. That doesn't mean that biodiversity is without value. Once again, we don't have to take the reigns to keep this from happening. All we have to do is act appropriately when and where need be. The scale of these conversations, the impact they have to have, is massive, and they will have that impact in time, when most people are having that discussion, when the thing effects most. Until then, we can't expect change to appear, we can't expect perfection to come from every moment of every person's life. We have to give it time. A hundred years from now may seem a utopia, but I guarantee they will tell you a hundred absurd problems you may react against in a negative way, just like a republican senator clutching onto a snowball.. Oh. I agree. One hundred percent. Yet once again, you contradict yourself. How do "we" just suddenly change course, how do you just suddenly shift an entire system so drastically in a short time? You can't. Selfishness, apathy, cowardice, and negligence are all things humans do, and things we have to learn to deal with, not things we can simply decide away with. Problems to be fixed, not problems that we can decide to no longer cause. That was you just a few lines ago. I reiterate. By embracing the virtues of conservation and stewardship, we are developing attributes and behaviors needed to advance our society. It's like a sapling though. Those behaviors have to start out on a small scale and grow and develop over time before it can be applied on a grander scale.Why? What point does it serve?
Nobody will just get up one day, no nation will just "decide" to do this. It will happen due to necessity. We will find ourselves in a world where nature has failed, has collapsed, or has begun to screw us over, and we will have to "take the wheel".
We will never be a mature species, we will always face issues, and never be satisfied, it's human nature.
Could we stop it? Look at twitch plays pokemon for a prime example of this. Look at the reddit "hivemind", look at how so many human-systems work. It's not that simple.
Expecting humanity to act proactively on things isn't honest. That's not how society has ever worked.
This may be true, but the purpose of biodiversity is to prevent diseases and genetic single-ness that causes all sorts of issues. By ensuring sufficient genetic variation between a crop, you create the diversity needed to ensure safety of the crop, and of those who eat those crops.
This does not indicate that such a system is the better system, especially considering those multiple mass extinction events. I'd prefer change from that particular status-quo, and mankind is the only species with the power to drive that change.
And these are the mechanisms that drive progress, I agree. While I don't entirely agree that the feelings of a fish should really matter very much, this is a massive indication of why exactly mankind is so unique, and why our society constantly seems better than the ones a generation ago. The constant discussion, the constant refreshing of new ideas. These have to happen for progress to be made, and they need to happen on a scale that strikes the majority of 300 million people to drive appropriate change in only one nation.
Could we stop it? Look at twitch plays pokemon for a prime example of this. Look at the reddit "hivemind", look at how so many human-systems work. It's not that simple.
We cannot force the climate to stay as it is without learning to change it ourselves. We cannot prevent asteroids, protect ourselves as a species, without going to another planet and colonizing it, creating a new ecosystem from the ground up. We cannot prevent earthquakes, famines, and whatever else nature may throw at us without taking control of the things that cause them. Can we endure them? Yes. However, doing so sentences thousands of people to death. If humanity never stops progressing, this statement will never stop being true. That is true. I was speaking against the idea that humanity today is somehow in the wrong, or somehow immoral, somehow negative. The way society is today, all the issues we face, are signs of the times, signs of our abilities. We should always seek to expand and grow those abilities, to inform those who are wrong. However, their existence is not counter to the fact that humanity can and will grow to the point that it controls the planet from the ground up. We can and will become mature enough as a species to do so. The thing that took the bloodiest civil war in history to end? The thing whose effects still face us today? The thing whose practice was extended far beyond the point it was needed, to the point it was actively harming the societies it was part of? We likely won't see the big push against global warming until we are in the same, or a similar situation, where the effects of it are clearly effecting us. If it has value, that value will be extracted. If the costs are higher than the value, it will not be. What is this supposed to mean?We can take prevantative measures, to protect us from droughts, asteroids, quakes, famines, and whatever else nature throws at us. We can protect ourselves, we can find ways to adapt and recover, and we can and will continue to thrive.
Right now though, we still act like children. Petulant, short sighted children. We have a long way to go.
it's not going to happen if we all just shrug our shoulders and say "Welp. I guess that's just the way it is."
Remember your example about slavery? Huh? Yeah? Right? That's us seeing value in changing our behaviors.
That doesn't mean that biodiversity is without value.
It's like a sapling though. Those behaviors have to start out on a small scale and grow and develop over time before it can be applied on a grander scale.
Can we endure them? Yes. However, doing so sentences thousands of people to death. We don't need to control things to prevent the damages they cause. A diverse agrictultural system with a robust storage and distribution network would prevent famines. Done. Better architecture and infrastructure combined with a greater understanding of geological activity to create better early warning systems would mitigate much of the damage caused by earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanos. Done. Same thing can be applied to weather phenomenon like tornados and hurricanes. Asteroids and meteors? There's so many out there that even attempting to control a portion of them would be a huge waste of time and resources. All we need is a good, defensive net. Metaphorically speaking, you don't need to control the lion outside your village, you just need a good enough wall. Eh. Semantics. Maybe as a species we'll hit a peak or maybe we'll hit a plateu. Either way, where we are now is a far cry from where we can and should be. We agree. We disagree. We likely won't see the big push against global warming until we are in the same, or a similar situation, where the effects of it are clearly effecting us. It was something that was going to end eventually, because it's demonstrably harmful. For our country, it took a war. That sucks, but change isn't always easy. As for climate change, we're starting to see change now. Renewable energy. Emission controls. People getting angry at nations and corporations being run by dicks. It's a slow progression, yes, but campared to where we were 15 and 20 years ago, we've made some decent progress and the progress we're making and the impact it has will hopefully continue to snowball. I guess you're not one for metaphors. Change, especially meaningful change, doesn't always happen overnight. It often starts out small, a few people here and there with a desire to make things better (or worse). By acting positively and encouraging others to do so, their behavior as well as the impact of their behavior slowly spreads to more and more people. As it spreads, other people contribute their own ideas, skills, and resources, making the foundation for that change that much stronger. The change grows, multiplies, and gets stronger. Like a tree.We cannot force the climate to stay as it is without learning to change it ourselves. We cannot prevent asteroids, protect ourselves as a species, without going to another planet and colonizing it, creating a new ecosystem from the ground up. We cannot prevent earthquakes, famines, and whatever else nature may throw at us without taking control of the things that cause them.
If humanity never stops progressing, this statement will never stop being true.
That is true. I was speaking against the idea that humanity today is somehow in the wrong, or somehow immoral, somehow negative. The way society is today, all the issues we face, are signs of the times, signs of our abilities. We should always seek to expand and grow those abilities, to inform those who are wrong.
However, their existence is not counter to the fact that humanity can and will grow to the point that it controls the planet from the ground up. We can and will become mature enough as a species to do so.
The thing that took the bloodiest civil war in history to end? The thing whose effects still face us today? The thing whose practice was extended far beyond the point it was needed, to the point it was actively harming the societies it was part of?
What is this supposed to mean?