This is what naturalist, scholar, and media-celebrity Sir David Attenborough said of mankind and its nature of unsustainable over consumption of resources in his latest interview.
We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,”
“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”
(The full interview is available only in print, but you can read the report here and here
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this. He is among the strongest voices on population control and sustainable development, but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce.
Of course there those who say he is wrong. Critics claim that he has such a grim outlook in life and is ironically out of touch of the nature of ecosystems. Indeed, others claim that as long as a balance is struck, nature will always find equilibrium, regardless of how many people there are in the world. The critics point the problem not in population control or agriculture, but in the economic model we have.
By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
What does he expect us to do once we realize this? Start killing ourselves? What solutions does he propose to "cure" this "plague" that apparently is us?
but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce.
So... what is the problem?
We're a plague. Okay, that's cool. I had a tuna sandwich and an apple for lunch yesterday.
And about the spoiler, yeah, it's blistering cold in Montreal. It's so cold it hurts my face when I walk outside.
The entire point of technology is doing stuff that nature won't. Even now, we're developing higher yield crops, and utilizing urban planning to smash even more people into smaller spaces. Having less people is certainly an easier way to deal with the issue, but saying that this is an insurmountable obstacle in the course of human history is shortsighted.
Nature will find an equilibrium with humanity. However it will come at the cost of a lot of lives.
Nature has always balanced through numbers. We are making some improvements though. The Amazon is shrinking slower than it has in years because of control of deforestation.
South Korea had its coldest winter in at least 25 years whilst Sydney recorded its hottest day ever last week. Definitely not your average year weather-wise.
edit: as for the plague thing, it's a bit sensationalist but I agree there needs to be a more global initiative on population control and sustainability.
Ultimately as countries get to the first world level population growth will level off, and it is so hard to predict what the maximum sustainable level of population is for the world. It all depends on technologies that haven't been invented yet, ie will we find an effective way to harvest a more sustainable form of energy, and will we develop more drought resistant crops.
It was -3F this morning here in Michigan, i believe that's somewhere around -20C, so yah pretty cold. Add on 16 inches of lake effect snow in the last couple days, crazy driving 20 minutes you go from 16 inches of snow to 3 or 4.
Well hes wrong about not having enough food, we just don't have it in the necessary places all the time yet (combination of cost, logistics and war). But on a historical level famines are near all time lows and food security is near all time highs. We can support billions more. But we don't need to, since population levels are naturally peaking with growing wealth and are predicted to actually begin declining before the end of the century. The richer the citizenry gets, the less desirable having children is.
And you know, we are of this earth, we are nature. Our rate of technological progress is growing _exponentially_, our current problems aren't likely to last forever, and even if they do, we are on balance the most damned impressive thing that we know of. Humans might be animals, but we are fucking impressive animals.
The winter is slightly colder than usual, doesnt seem like a big deal to me, just because we (in Denmark atleast where it's -16 C atm) have had very mild winters.
While what the guy said that the planet might regulate too dominant species, may or may not be true, it sounds like a self fulfilling prophecy that more humans without acquiring same amount of means is gonna mean more deaths.
I don't see how people separate humanity from nature. Is humanity not a progression of nature? To call us a "plague" or an objectively bad force in the world seems illogical.
And yeah it's been damn cold here. -5 F during the daytime yesterday. that comes out to -20 C in case anyone is wondering.
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
The population growth rate is decreasing, which is unknown to a lot of people it seems. That combined with advances in technology makes it unlikely that there won't be food enough to sustain the population. Carbon dioxide emissions on the other hand, that's a real threat.
Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
you could describe the human race as a plague to the earth, thats true and describing us as a parasite is really not a new way to look at things.
i guess we should just strive to be more symbiotic with our environment otherwise we just create an uninhabitable environment.
and i dont know why people always have to say, oh this winter is so cold, how can there be such a thing as global warming? does nobody realize how stupid it is to say something like this?
and ye.. i dont see anything new here what would be worth of a discussion?!^^
On January 24 2013 23:35 Wordsmith wrote: This is what naturalist, scholar, and media-celebrity Sir David Attenborough said of mankind and its nature of unsustainable over consumption of resources in his latest interview.
We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,”
“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”
(The full interview is available only in print, but you can read the report here and here
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this. He is among the strongest voices on population control and sustainable development, but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce.
Of course there those who say he is wrong. Critics claim that he has such a grim outlook in life and is ironically out of touch of the nature of ecosystems. Indeed, others claim that as long as a balance is struck, nature will always find equilibrium, regardless of how many people there are in the world. The critics point the problem not in population control or agriculture, but in the economic model we have.
By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
If I remember correctly, I heard somewhere that we have more than enough resources to adequately feed and take care of every human on this planet currently; the problem is distribution. Developed countries waste an incredible amount of resources on luxury (don't ask me for the sources though, just remember hearing this in one of my philosophy classes).
That said, it's not exactly a groundbreaking claim to say that we have an overpopulation problem in parts of the world.
And yea, it's -23C here in southern Minnesota, USA.
He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
This is a little ridiculous. First, we are part of nature, so when people separate us and put nature on a pedestal, it really doesn't serve much of a point. Second, we are the most intelligent species in the known universe, doing an incredible array of things no other species can. To say that we're just a plague is naive and it makes you sound like an obnoxious hippy with no appreciation for what humanity is. Yea, we're pretty bad at taking care of the planet, but we've been getting steadily better at it for the past couple decades, and there's no telling how it will turn out by the time we master space travel.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Except we dont know any other place but Earth, where life found a way. It would be terrifying if it was the only place of life, because we suck at preserving it.
Minnesota has been at -20C in the morning, and generally this week there has been a -40C windchill to compliment that. Pretty awesome.
It is no secret we need a culling of the proverbial herd, I am not talking Logan's Run or anything but Attenborough is really just pointing out the obvious. There is little we can do with this observation, it isn't like western nations will adapt birth policies or other forms of population control.
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet. Hell, we're even exploiting ourselves by forcing our bodies to do labour evolution never accounted for. So I'm extremely curious what's gonna kill us first - ourselves or this planet?
On January 24 2013 23:42 sorrowptoss wrote: What does he expect us to do once we realize this? Start killing ourselves? What solutions does he propose to "cure" this "plague" that apparently is us?
The solution is to set laws the control population size, and prevent the world's population from continuing to dramatically increase.
but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce.
So... what is the problem?
The problem is that we're already at an unsustainable level. If the population stays exactly where it is right now, food will still become more scarce and harder to distribute because we're running out of oil, which is used in fertilizers, pesticides, and of course to transport the food all around the world.
It's a simple fact that at some point, the world will have to deal with overpopulation, and either set strict reproductive laws or deal with mass starvation and insanely expensive food prices. It isn't a massive crisis just yet, but you can't just increase the population of the world endlessly without running out of food at some point.
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
We're just going to have to get better at controlling it, because without nuclear energy it might be hopeless. It's arguably worth having instances like Fukushima had, if it can continue to bring us cheap energy post-oil.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "extinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
On January 25 2013 00:17 SpikeStarcraft wrote: you could describe the human race as a plague to the earth, thats true and describing us as a parasite is really not a new way to look at things.
i guess we should just strive to be more symbiotic with our environment otherwise we just create an uninhabitable environment.
and i dont know why people always have to say, oh this winter is so cold, how can there be such a thing as global warming? does nobody realize how stupid it is to say something like this?
and ye.. i dont see anything new here what would be worth of a discussion?!^^
I face-palm every time I see this. The point with global warming is not that every place on the earth will be warmer (it won't, especially in the short term) but that looking at the earth as a giant eco system (hence the word global) it will.
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
Chernobyl's reactor type was not designed exclusively for energy production (it also produced weaponizable materials), and had substandard safety mechanisms all of which failed. See RBMK Reactors
Fukashima should tell us, not to build reactors near areas prone to seismic activity. I agree with the sentiment that we aren't completely capable of controlling as far as waste goes, but your description implies that man is holding a match near gasoline and hoping to control the blaze which is not the case.
I am for sustainable energy, despite the fact that wind farms can interrupt wildlife and scenery or even kill endagered birds. Nuclear technology shouldn't be written off completely, it has potential.
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
I don't think that is relevant. As others have pointed out, nuclear energy is much more efficient than any other form we've encountered yet. The technology is still new as, and safer reactors are being designed and built. Once the possibility of catastrophic failure goes to zero, this is effectively the cleanest energy,
On January 25 2013 00:02 PerryHooter wrote: The population growth rate is decreasing, which is unknown to a lot of people it seems. That combined with advances in technology makes it unlikely that there won't be food enough to sustain the population. Carbon dioxide emissions on the other hand, that's a real threat.
While this is true, the amount size of the population isn't. The population itself is still growing, and so is the number of people to support. Hopefully it will go down eventually, but I doubt it will happen systematically, in the sense that global catastrophe will be involved. I'm in the opinion that certain people need to be more 'career focused' and not have a family while others focus more on raising their children, to create a more efficient society with a controlled population. However I doubt this will happen, I haven't met many woman who just ''don't really want to have kids.''
Then, it's not only a matter of population increase. People just aren't dying, with the ever increasing capabilities in health science. Increase in life expectancy is does affect population growth positively and it means a lot more mouths to feed.
We have to increase efficiency by a lot in order to sustain the amount of people we already have on earth, let alone in the future. There's going to be a shortage of food, water and energy unless technology can fix it because I doubt a change in first world dwellers is likely. Until they start to starve that is, which will happen very late in this timeline. There will be war unless we find an alternative that satisfies every country capable of waging war.
I have faith in technology though. Hopefully we discover FTL travel, otherwise we'll die off sooner or later. And then nothing really matters now does it? Sooner rather later.
Also it was -30 C yesterday in montreal, almost died.
To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
We're just going to have to get better at controlling it, because without nuclear energy it might be hopeless. It's arguably worth having instances like Fukushima had, if it can continue to bring us cheap energy post-oil.
I'm not exactly educated on this subject except for basic high school chemistry education but it just seems impossible to me to ever control that reliably. It's a process that is obviously natural in some form but we're taking that to an extreme to produce an enourmous amount of energy. Besides, seismic activity is something FAR beyond our control. And on top of that, we're not exactly as peaceful folk so there's ALWAYS that danger of terror involving nuclear facilities.
I'm not saying write it off completely, I just think that it might be better to keep our hands off it as long as possible until we find a way to reliably control it (if that's possible). And it's not like there's no alternatives as energy created through solar, wind and water facilities produce clean energy as well. It's just a little more expensive I guess.
Which takes us back to an age old question - why the fuck does 1% of the population own the money that might decide all of our fate?
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
No, humans have not been damaging earth for ages. We are changing some aspects of earth on a verry small scale. If this is good or bad is a matter of personal opinnion, personally i think its good cause in general the changes we bring are beneficial for humankind.
On January 25 2013 00:17 Stratos_speAr wrote: This is a little ridiculous. First, we are part of nature, so when people separate us and put nature on a pedestal, it really doesn't serve much of a point. Second, we are the most intelligent species in the known universe, doing an incredible array of things no other species can. To say that we're just a plague is naive and it makes you sound like an obnoxious hippy with no appreciation for what humanity is. Yea, we're pretty bad at taking care of the planet, but we've been getting steadily better at it for the past couple decades, and there's no telling how it will turn out by the time we master space travel.
Yes, we're part of nature. So is the mold that turns an orange into a fuzzy green husk. It doesn't matter how you look at the situation, we're doing a lot of damage to the rest of the world and it's a simple fact that we'll ruin much of the world if we continue what we've been doing without restrictions endlessly.
It doesn't matter if we're intelligent or "special"- what matters is how we affect the planet and the other life on it.
BTW space travel is no solution. At best we'll establish small enclosed bases on the moon and Mars. Transforming them into livable planets isn't happening, and neither is travel outside of the solar system (barring a miraculous discovery of "warp speed" travel that breaks all known laws of physics).
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
What stupid nonsensical bullshit is this? You miss the entire thing about nature and equilibrium - that is, nature always exists and thrives to balance itself, EXCEPT humans. This means that everything in nature, in their natural state, are sustainable to the ecosystem. Lions will eat zebras but just enough for both the animals to exists sustainable. A herd of wildebeast eat an awful amount of grass but it always manages to go back next season. Even in extreme cases of infestation or animals being brought to new environment where the become pests (like the Thai catfish scare in North America in the 70s or 80s, rat infestation during the Age of Exploration), nature always manages to balance things, given an endangerment or extinction of some species here and there. But hey that is nature, and in the grand scheme of this, the important fact is that things are in equilibrium.
Humans, on the other hand, have this thing called "intelligence/consciousness" which he uses to want more, to choose to eat more even when he is already full (see, I have never seen a glutton cat or dog, unless they are trained and left overfed by humans). At the rate things are going, humans will wipe everything from the face of the Earth. Unless some black swan event or something totally outlier hits (ice age, new viral strain, etc.) and nature just decides to erase humans first.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Yet you fail to provide a reason why this is bad "for the planet". Earth itself is just a rock floating in space. It has no soul, no consciousness and no feel for pain. Even if we nuked the entire world, Earth wouldn't care because it can't. Over the years there would and will be organisms who would be able to deal with the higher % of CO_2 in the atmosphere. Unless we blow away our entire atmosphere, life will continue.
The real reason why cutting down the rain forest is bad, is because we deprive ourself from Oxygen supply we desperately need. But don't confuse our need with the need of the ecosystem or "the planet itself".
Good old Dave <3 Chelsea fan you know props to him for doing what he has done over the years, amazing documentaries and a voice to match.
What he says is true, but where does one draw a line? Pretty pieces of nature or houses for people to live in. Arguably you could both with population control, but how many people on TL are the 3rd/4th/5th borns ^_^
And where do you stop population control? 2 children per women? 1? 3? Who knows, population has always been an issue, wars normally spark up when there is a need to cut the population down.
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
my 2 cents
About -10 btw.
So your 2 cents are a) we don't owe this world jack shit and b) we are the world.
=> we don't owe ourselves jack shit? Why don't we start jumping out of windows then? I'm pretty sure you got something wrong there. We wouldn't exist without this planet. You make it sound like it wouldn't exist without us.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "extinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Thanks. This is a better explanation that my reply to his stupid post.
I'm always bothered by these predictions of how the world will look like in 50 years or so. No one has a clue as to what kind of technologies we will discover, and thus one cannot honestly say we're overpopulating. We're only overpopulating given our current tech level, but humanity has always found a way out so far. Given sufficient pressure, I'm sure we'll be creative enough to find another solution.
Meh, if humans tip the biosphere into some unsustainable death spiral resulting in a mass extinction it's not like everything's going to die. Surely we will, but in a few million years evolution will bring about a new age. Maybe dino 2.0, who knows?
On January 25 2013 00:02 DarkLordOlli wrote: Like it's something new, lol. The human species has been damaging earth for centuries. And it's not getting better with all the nuclear nonsense we got going on.
Ironically, nuclear clean energy is the way forward.
Sure! What isn't the way forward though is using technology we can't control. And we can't fucking control nuclear energy reliably. That's why Chernobyl happened and that's why Fukushima happened. Pretty sure those incidents didn't exactly have positive impacts on this planet. And it's gonna happen again.
We're effectively messing with an ecosystem that designed itself to work. But intelligent as the human race is, rain forests are being exploited, gas and oil are being exploited, animals are being exploited, plants are being mutated so a few people can make more money, AND SO ON. It's short sighted and it's dumb and that's exactly why the human species is a cancer to this planet.
We're just going to have to get better at controlling it, because without nuclear energy it might be hopeless. It's arguably worth having instances like Fukushima had, if it can continue to bring us cheap energy post-oil.
I'm not exactly educated on this subject except for basic high school chemistry education but it just seems impossible to me to ever control that reliably. It's a process that is obviously natural in some form but we're taking that to an extreme to produce an enourmous amount of energy.
The Fukushima disaster happened because of the massive earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan in 2011. They were prepared to be ready to handle a certain level of natural disaster, but not something that massive. Nuclear energy is very safe most of the time... it's just the rare exceptions when things get scary.
There have been only 8 serious nuclear power plant accidents in the past 20 years. Only 3 of them resulted in deaths, killing a combined 7 people. Virtually anything that can cause death (lightning strikes, a punch inside a boxing ring) is more dangerous than this.
The problem is the potential of a major disaster of huge proportions is there. It might be extremely unlikely, to the point where a terrorist attack is the only realistic way it could happen... but the threat of a nuclear disaster that harms tens of thousands of people is a possibility, and that simply scares people.
Populations are ultimately limited by food supply. Once the food supply is maxed out then the population simply cannot grow any more. SC2 actually has this feature with their concept of Supply limiting units. Redistribution of food (sharing/rationing) can help but people need minimum calorie intake to survive.
Current food production techniques are dependent on pesticides which are a result of the petro-chemical industry. As the oil dries up over the next few decades or sooner then there will be significant challenges for Agriculture to overcome in order to maintain harvest yields without these pesticides. Alternatives will have to be found or food production capabilities will decline. A probable future option is wide-spread implementation of GM Crops to add robustness to crops and boost harvest yields. I expect GM crops to be phased in over time and objections to it overcome by introducing GM crops with health benefits.
It's like when terran stays on one base for too long - other, more natural races have a more sustainable way of life (staying on one base). Terrans (the human species) are breaking that natural ecosystem by inventing shit and taking a step outside that natural chain only to exploit ressources faster (MULEs). Yeah terran has the strongest one base army the quickest but in the end, they mine out faster and leave nothing but devastation behind.
Bottom line - we should one rax expand. Eh, I guess we should start looking for planets with more ressources.
I can't believe there are people that think we haven't stepped outside of the food chain. We've created elaborate and massive artificial food chains that only survive by our hands. There is too much faith in technology and not enough reverence for the natural process imo
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Yet you fail to provide a reason why this is bad "for the planet". Earth itself is just a rock floating in space. It has no soul, no consciousness and no feel for pain. Even if we nuked the entire world, Earth wouldn't care because it can't. Over the years there would and will be organisms who would be able to deal with the higher % of CO_2 in the atmosphere. Unless we blow away our entire atmosphere, life will continue.
The real reason why cutting down the rain forest is bad, is because we deprive ourself from Oxygen supply we desperately need. But don't confuse our need with the need of the ecosystem or "the planet itself".
lol is it stupid hour already? First someone tries to equate lions killing zebra to what humans do. And now you saying cutting down rainforest is "bad" because of oxygen?
I am ashamed to even be on the same planet as you two. Cutting down rainforests is bad because you disturb the natural ecosystem, composed of hundreds id not thousands of life forms, which in turn are involved in thousands upon thousands of natural processes.
And try "bad for the planet" in the sense that either a) the planet will not be able to reproduce b) the planet, through natural and reactionary process, will kill humans.
I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
What stupid nonsensical bullshit is this? You miss the entire thing about nature and equilibrium - that is, nature always exists and thrives to balance itself, EXCEPT humans. This means that everything in nature, in their natural state, are sustainable to the ecosystem. Lions will eat zebras but just enough for both the animals to exists sustainable. A herd of wildebeast eat an awful amount of grass but it always manages to go back next season. Even in extreme cases of infestation or animals being brought to new environment where the become pests (like the Thai catfish scare in North America in the 70s or 80s, rat infestation during the Age of Exploration), nature always manages to balance things, given an endangerment or extinction of some species here and there. But hey that is nature, and in the grand scheme of this, the important fact is that things are in equilibrium.
Humans, on the other hand, have this thing called "intelligence/consciousness" which he uses to want more, to choose to eat more even when he is already full (see, I have never seen a glutton cat or dog, unless they are trained and left overfed by humans). At the rate things are going, humans will wipe everything from the face of the Earth. Unless some black swan event or something totally outlier hits (ice age, new viral strain, etc.) and nature just decides to erase humans first.
What is this "nature" you talk about that balances things out? When does it "decide" to wipe us out.
And nature is not in a state of equilibrium. The Lions and the Zebras are in a constant process of adaption to the population. It all starts with the amount of available grass for the zebras. They procreate as much as possible. Next the lions hit the floor and hunt as much zebras they can get. Then they procreate as much as possible. If the weather was good and the amount of grass is higher than last year, the population of zebras will increase, thus making it for lions more likely to catch one, thus enabling them to raise more pups. vice versa if the weather was dry.
There is no balance in nature. Populations rarely stay the same over two or more seasons. Even the climate had natural changes way before Humans started to heaten things up.
And the nail in the coffin for your "balance argument": 95% of all species that ever existed on this planet are extinct. Protip: For most of them, humanity isn't at fault.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
What stupid nonsensical bullshit is this? You miss the entire thing about nature and equilibrium - that is, nature always exists and thrives to balance itself, EXCEPT humans. This means that everything in nature, in their natural state, are sustainable to the ecosystem. Lions will eat zebras but just enough for both the animals to exists sustainable. A herd of wildebeast eat an awful amount of grass but it always manages to go back next season. Even in extreme cases of infestation or animals being brought to new environment where the become pests (like the Thai catfish scare in North America in the 70s or 80s, rat infestation during the Age of Exploration), nature always manages to balance things, given an endangerment or extinction of some species here and there. But hey that is nature, and in the grand scheme of this, the important fact is that things are in equilibrium.
Humans, on the other hand, have this thing called "intelligence/consciousness" which he uses to want more, to choose to eat more even when he is already full (see, I have never seen a glutton cat or dog, unless they are trained and left overfed by humans). At the rate things are going, humans will wipe everything from the face of the Earth. Unless some black swan event or something totally outlier hits (ice age, new viral strain, etc.) and nature just decides to erase humans first.
I don't even know where to start.
It is completely normal for species to get extinct. If a cat or dog has the possibility to eat 24/7 it will do so. The only actual difference between humans and animals is the efficiency at which they are able to do things. If a lion had the capability to make robots that herd zebras, pack their meat into nice packages and have it delivered directly into his mouth he would most certainly do so.
Humans, since they're part of nature like everything else, are balancing themselves with the rest of the system already. The green party in Germany rose from 1.5% of votes in 1980 to 10.7% of votes in 2009. More and more people opt for a vegetarian lifestyle. Birth rates are going down. Cars use less and less fuel. More and more alternative energy sources get exploited. All that is part of adjusting to the "fuck we're too many and we do too much random shit"-problem and it's just the most obvious tip of the iceberg.
The top priority of any individual (or group that is big enough to act similar to an individual) is self-preservation. Humans are no exception.
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth?
greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
The issue is things need to be done for the earth as a whole, not for humanity. We are one cog in the machine that needs to run this place. We need the other things on this planet to be healthy and whole for us to be healthy and whole. What benefits the earth will benefit us in the long run.
We wouldn't of gotten where we are today without technology, Stuff will get figured out it'll just take some smart people that aren't puppets to the 'man'.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
On January 25 2013 00:56 fugs wrote: We wouldn't of gotten where we are today without technology, Stuff will get figured out it'll just take some smart people that aren't puppets to the 'man'.
The real question should be if where we are today is actually a good place or if we went wrong somewhere.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Yet you fail to provide a reason why this is bad "for the planet". Earth itself is just a rock floating in space. It has no soul, no consciousness and no feel for pain. Even if we nuked the entire world, Earth wouldn't care because it can't. Over the years there would and will be organisms who would be able to deal with the higher % of CO_2 in the atmosphere. Unless we blow away our entire atmosphere, life will continue.
The real reason why cutting down the rain forest is bad, is because we deprive ourself from Oxygen supply we desperately need. But don't confuse our need with the need of the ecosystem or "the planet itself".
lol is it stupid hour already? First someone tries to equate lions killing zebra to what humans do. And now you saying cutting down rainforest is "bad" because of oxygen?
I am ashamed to even be on the same planet as you two. Cutting down rainforests is bad because you disturb the natural ecosystem, composed of hundreds id not thousands of life forms, which in turn are involved in thousands upon thousands of natural processes.
And try "bad for the planet" in the sense that either a) the planet will not be able to reproduce b) the planet, through natural and reactionary process, will kill humans.
And how is this important in the "grand scheme" of things? To completely annihilate life on earth one of three things must happen: sun goes dark, atmosphere gets blown into space and earth blows up enterily. (Maybe earth's orbit changes drastically). Everything else is just a nuisance for life on this planet.
That people still continue to argue that what humans are doing to nature is natural impoverishes my soul and makes me lose faith in all the years I`m spending at school.
In 5000/1000000/30 billion/ 102 gazillion (no matter how you count it) years that nature has been such, predators have always hunted preys, herbivores have always helped themselves on the vegetation of Earth, and climactic shifts and other factors not directly related to this "food chain" ecosystem may tip the balance one way or another, but on their own, sabreteeth tigers have hunted ice age herbivores (mammoths?) in the same manner that lions eat zebras. The total equation remains the same. What humans, on the other hand, have done only in the last 100 years or so have an astronomically exponentially greater impact that what has happened before. Deforestation, increasing desertification due to carbon emission, unarable land due to overfarming and soil damaging fertilizers, you name it, we have done it if it aims to disrupt this balance. And we call ourselves Sapiens. Homo Retardens is more likely.
^^ Thanks KNICK for expounding on the "consciousness" thing.
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible. Yeah some do more damage than others but just by going to work every day you're being part of the problem.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth?
So if you had to decide to safe one human or two cute little pups, you wouldn't safe the human?
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth?
So if you had to decide to safe one human or two cute little pups, you wouldn't safe the human?
That's not comparable whatsoever. The human species requires the existence of other species or we wouldn't survive.
I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
I know Attenborough is going to be harshly attacked for his views but I agree with him in some aspects. I've always felt that giving constant food aid without birth control to poor nations is a disastrous policy.
Take an example- you have some arid land which can barely sustain 100 people. The people living there have children, some of them die off and the population stays around the same. It's sad but that's nature at work. When people from outside start giving food aid then all of those people survive and multiply and multiply again. The land hasn't become any less arid and they still have no way to sustain themselves and what's more they have even become dependent on the aid. The food aid actually exacerbates the problem as it creates a bigger and bigger population with less and less chance to feed themselves.
I know this sounds lacking in compassion but as the Earth's population grows and grows and grows at some point we are going to have to be a bit more hard-hearted and start tying food aid to birth control. Yes we have developed ways to feed more people but that doesn't mean population growth can continue unchecked forever without causing serious problems. In some of the poor countries the average fertility rate for women is at around 9 now. If, because of food and medical aid all of those children survive and go on to have that many children of their own how quickly will these countries' populations grow? Overpopulation is a problem that is not politically correct to talk about, but eventually it will only cause more wars, famines, water shortages and environmental destruction. Food aid is a good short-term solution and I'm not saying it should be stopped but it needs to go hand-in-hand with birth control and sustainability as a long-term solution.
Birth control has other benefits as well. it gives women more time to pursue work and education and allows parents to focus more resources on the development of their children.
And of course this is not to say that those of us in wealthier nations don't need to also try to consume less as well, but it's time we stopped being so PC on this issue and reexamined the way we give aid, and figure out how to be compassionate but not contribute to overpopulating the world.
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
Funny that we are all Germans here (including Hryul) debating this thing.
I will focus on your reply. You underestimate the "scale" that you are talking about. We are manipulating and changing the balance of the food chain in irreversible ways. Agricultural, oil mining, mineral mining, fishing, etc. practices today are not designed to leave something for the generation of the future, maybe as soon as the next 20 years.
Oil companies destroy ecosystems as you put it because we have a demand for the products they create. We are just as much of the problem by buying into it all
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth?
So if you had to decide to safe one human or two cute little pups, you wouldn't safe the human?
That's not comparable whatsoever. The human species requires the existence of other species or we wouldn't survive.
Well since he suggested something that Recognizable didn't mean, I thought I'll return the favor. But tbh: It always bothers me that we as humans shouldn't foremost care about humans but treat all lifeforms as equal.
I doubt many people would take this stance if they had to fight "nature" (in the broadest sense) and even a broken bone could be deadly. Also: some desease also count as "animals".
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere.
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it.
IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him.
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
On January 25 2013 00:52 Recognizable wrote: I don't really understand why the people that talk about the changing climate always like to emphasize how terrible we are for the earth. The earth is just a big stone. The earth really doesn't give a shit. I believe if we want to raise attention to this issue we have to focus on the fact that it's a problem for us humans, and not for the earth.
You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth?
Fucking natural languages, it's incredible how ambiguous they are. It's as if the only way they function is by everyone inferring meaning based on their assumptions. Body language solves a lot of this problem. Anyway. No. That's not what I meant.
On January 25 2013 01:19 coverpunch wrote: IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him.
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
We are all collectively responsible, greedy oil companies who suck oil from Earth like there is no tomorrow, YOU and me for buying stuff, which at one point or another is manufactured or delivered with the use of petroleum, etc etc.
The silver lining here is, we can collectively correct this. IF ONLY WE REALIZE AND ADMIT THAT WE ARE THE PROBLEM!
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
On January 25 2013 00:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
On January 25 2013 00:54 r.Evo wrote: Birth rates are going down. .
Are you kidding me? Compared to what? To last year, or last 5 years? How about last 100 or 1000 years?
Funny that we are all Germans here (including Hryul) debating this thing.
I will focus on your reply. You underestimate the "scale" that you are talking about. We are manipulating and changing the balance of the food chain in irreversible ways. Agricultural, oil mining, mineral mining, fishing, etc. practices today are not designed to leave something for the generation of the future, maybe as soon as the next 20 years.
Debating? So far I don't see much more than petty insults and fancy sounding words from your side.
It is completely normal and okay to make irreversible changes to a system from the overall perspective. That's... well... natural, part of how evolution works. You can literally feel free to pick the worst case for any of the above scenarios and it almost always will end with "humans will most likely change their behaviour to adapt to the new situation". Obviously the period from now till then will include individual suffer for us and other species but for the overall picture it's irrelevant. That however, as much as we hate to admit it, is the perspective that matters when we throw around sentences like "freaks of evolution being a plague to nature".
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
my 2 cents
About -10 btw.
So your 2 cents are a) we don't owe this world jack shit and b) we are the world.
=> we don't owe ourselves jack shit? Why don't we start jumping out of windows then? I'm pretty sure you got something wrong there. We wouldn't exist without this planet. You make it sound like it wouldn't exist without us.
I gave up arguing with people on TL, so Ill keep this short n sweet. We need to work towards sustainability purely to pass on to next generation(s) something good to work with (i.e. not leave them with our mess). I do make the argument that earth holds no meaningful existence outside the human realm. Dont get me wrong, the mass will still be there. If there is still ducks they will go quack quack and the pigs go oink oink. However it holds no meaningful value in and of it self. Humans create purpose and appreciation. Everything else is merely passings, chaos, absurdities or randomness - without anyone to attribute any meaning to them. To make it perfectly clear "mother earth", "nature", etc are concepts that doesnt exists outside human existence. Its being or not being, and I think theyre actually quite close to each other for animals. If people are gonna talk about intrinsic value of soil, rocks and so forth, please put the shotgun barrel in your mouth right now and help "solve the problem"...
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
We are all collectively responsible, greedy oil companies who suck oil from Earth like there is no tomorrow, YOU and me for buying stuff, which at one point or another is manufactured or delivered with the use of petroleum, etc etc.
The silver lining here is, we can collectively correct this. IF ONLY WE REALIZE AND ADMIT THAT WE ARE THE PROBLEM!
Well why don't you pitch some ideas on how to fix the problem, I'm sure the government and the rest of the world would be happy to hear the solution. I don't think people are denying we're sucking up resources too fast, but the resources are necessary to our way of life.
Overpopulation is not about personal space. Yes everyone can fit in the state of texas, but when the average person needs 4 football fields of farmland to sustain them for a year...the numbers add up. Then take into consideration how oil's not going to last and there's no replacement in sight as of yet. And how much of an affect we have on the eco stuff when it comes to overfishing and whatnot...
In the long run, something has to change. Previous predictions were flawed mostly due to how the industrial revolution changed the way of food production and other needs, but you can only go so far.
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere.
It's got everything to do with food-chain ecosystem. It's not the climactic events that directly caused the extinction events, it's the eventual collapse of the ecosystem itself because of scarcity of food. You can substitute humans with asteroid as climactic event. However, we're not even close to overpopulating. We're however causing irreparable damage to certain species, but then again, our current diversity of species is at an all time high.
On January 25 2013 01:19 coverpunch wrote: IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him.
Of all the things you could possibly say about the wonderful Sir David Attenborough, calling him a crazy old man is a very, very disrespectful thing to say.
Maybe as an American you didn't grow up watching his documentaries or programmes about our beautiful planet, but he's a pretty big deal and in terms of nature, one of the smartest men alive. He, alone has gotten countless amounts of people to enjoy and want to look after the world around us. Nearly everything I ever learnt about biology outside of human biology came from his documentaries. The man is a national trasure.
On January 24 2013 23:42 ghost_403 wrote: The entire point of technology is doing stuff that nature won't. Even now, we're developing higher yield crops, and utilizing urban planning to smash even more people into smaller spaces. Having less people is certainly an easier way to deal with the issue, but saying that this is an insurmountable obstacle in the course of human history is shortsighted.
A sci-fi novel comes to mind; I wish I could remember what it was called. The whole planet and its oceans given over to crops, with a trillion human grubs packed into underground hives, working for calories.
We need to do some serious thinking about global population vs sustainable quality of life. It's not a simple inverse relationship. Too few people and they'll need to spend all their time behind horses, tilling fields, because there'll be nobody to build and service tractors. Too many people and quality of life starts to suffer again. A curve that's bad at both extremes suggests the existence of a sweet-spot somewhere in between: enough people to do all the things that need doing for us to have a good quality of life, but not so many that that quality is diluted. Nature is not going to help us achieve that balance, because it is not an evolutionarily stable strategy. We are going to have to consciously impose and regulate it.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
Animals don't know that they're alive? No, not in the way we do. They are not consciously aware of their place in the world, or that they're in their youth/old age or what the limitations of their lifespan are.
Animals don't know that they will die? Certainly not. Animals do not understand the concept of death. Hell, humans barely understand the concept of death, and we're supposed to be oh so superior in almost every way. I admit though, some animals have been observed to split from their herd or group when they feel the end coming. What I meant by they don't know that they will die is answered in the paragraph below.
Animals aren't afraid of death? Yes, they are. Which is why I never wrote that they are not. They possess instinctual reactions which will help them keep out of harm's way. The emphasis being on instinctual. They are not known to sit around somewhere, with no imminent danger and undisturbed and think about death and how scary it all is. Humans are.
I also agree with your assertion that the biological goals of humans and other animals are generally the same. They have to be, because they are inherent to all animals. The difference is, again, consciousness. It deforms and mutilates these goals to the point of them not being recognizable as such.
Debating? So far I don't see much more than petty insults and fancy sounding words from your side.
Well then, I'm sorry for being insulting (I'm just assuming you included me in that statement), I certainly didn't mean to be. I actually thought this was quite an interesting exchange.
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it.
Calling someone a kiddo after being called out on a illogic statement doesn't make your point look any better.
"Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible." - It conveys an attitude of "no matter what you do you are part of the evil system, you're damaging the world!!!1". You might as well say "A single drop of rain makes your clothes wet!", which, while entirely correct, is also utterly irrelevant when someone asks you whether it's raining or not.
The only two things that matter is making people aware of consequences of their actions and then letting them themselves decide as for how much they want to contribute to make the negative impact they - inevitably - have as small as possible. Obviously using your bike to get to work is "better" than using the bus which is "better" than using a car. Telling the guy who uses the bus that what he does is irrelevant because it's not 100% optimal is utterly counterproductive to the actual concept of trying to get people to use a "better" option.
I heard an interesting comparison of what humans are on the earth a while back.
Earth is a beautiful, green, blue, natural place, but upon closer inspection you see cities and human development. These are grey and smelly. Like cancer. We reproduce exponentially, show no signs of stopping.
Humans do not reproduce exponentially though. Once humans reach a certain level of wealth the population even tends to decline.
On January 25 2013 01:36 aseq wrote: Soon enough, we'll be able to produce every type of food (including meat) in a controlled environment, which will be operated by robots. Food problem = gone. Our Dyson sphere around the sun will provide plenty of energy until we reach the next solar systems. Energy problem = gone.
But seriously, say we're posing a threat here. On the other hand, without humanity, animals could have lived on forever without us. Doing what animals do, eat each other and plants and run around mindlessly, That's useful. As there is no current point to life already, isn' t it better to have one species at least trying to fathom the mystery of life itself?
I actually tend to agree with this view point and not just because of the mystery of life, but also the enjoyment of it. Without the intelligence and awareness humans have all these glories this world has to offer would never be appreciated. I do feel that because of this awareness we have a certain responsibility though.
Soon enough, we'll be able to produce every type of food (including meat) in a controlled environment, which will be operated by robots. Food problem = gone. Our Dyson sphere around the sun will provide plenty of energy until we reach the next solar systems. Energy problem = gone.
But seriously, say we're posing a threat here. On the other hand, without humanity, animals could have lived on forever without us. Doing what animals do, eat each other and plants and run around mindlessly, That's useful. As there is no current point to life already, isn' t it better to have one species at least trying to fathom the mystery of life itself?
On January 25 2013 01:34 2v2levels wrote: I heard an interesting comparison of what humans are on the earth a while back.
Earth is a beautiful, green, blue, natural place, but upon closer inspection you see cities and human development. These are grey and smelly. Like cancer. We reproduce exponentially, show no signs of stopping.
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
my 2 cents
About -10 btw.
So your 2 cents are a) we don't owe this world jack shit and b) we are the world.
=> we don't owe ourselves jack shit? Why don't we start jumping out of windows then? I'm pretty sure you got something wrong there. We wouldn't exist without this planet. You make it sound like it wouldn't exist without us.
I gave up arguing with people on TL, so Ill keep this short n sweet. We need to work towards sustainability purely to pass on to next generation(s) something good to work with (i.e. not leave them with our mess). I do make the argument that earth holds no meaningful existence outside the human realm. Dont get me wrong, the mass will still be there. If there is still ducks they will go quack quack and the pigs go oink oink. However it holds no meaninful value in and of it self. Humans create purpose and appreciation. Everything else is merely passings, chaos, absurdities or randomness - without anyone to attribue any meaning to them..
I do see where you're coming from, but that meaningfulness is still a human creation from a human perspective. We cannot simply dismiss other lifeforms that might evolve into higher intelligence and create their own meanings and views of this planet and universe. There are already many species that show intelligence and empathetic behaviours that are usually associated exclusively with humans - such as love/affection, grief....etc. I do value humanity existence on this planet, but I do not think we're EVERYTHING - and that without us - there is no meaning to everything else.
On January 25 2013 01:36 aseq wrote: Soon enough, we'll be able to produce every type of food (including meat) in a controlled environment, which will be operated by robots. Food problem = gone. Our Dyson sphere around the sun will provide plenty of energy until we reach the next solar systems. Energy problem = gone.
But seriously, say we're posing a threat here. On the other hand, without humanity, animals could have lived on forever without us. Doing what animals do, eat each other and plants and run around mindlessly, That's useful. As there is no current point to life already, isn' t it better to have one species at least trying to fathom the mystery of life itself?
The point of life is an atom trying to understand itself. Though, I'd rather phrase it as the universe trying to understand itself.
On January 25 2013 01:36 Ysellian wrote: Humans do not reproduce exponentially though. Once humans reach a certain level of wealth the population even tends to decline.
I guess the real point is that our population is burning through natural resources at a rate that can't be sustainable. The bigger the population, the greater the demand we put on the earth.
On January 25 2013 01:19 coverpunch wrote: IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him.
Of all the things you could possibly say about the wonderful Sir David Attenborough, calling him a crazy old man is a very, very disrespectful thing to say.
Maybe as an American you didn't grow up watching his documentaries or programmes about our beautiful planet, but he's a pretty big deal and in terms of nature, one of the smartest men alive. He, alone has gotten countless amounts of people to enjoy and want to look after the world around us. Nearly everything I ever learnt about biology outside of human biology came from his documentaries. The man is a national trasure.
It is disrespectful, but calling the human race a plague is pretty disrespectful too. Using Ethiopia as an example is laughable.
And having a huge body of work doesn't contradict the idea that he might be making crazy rants because of his fear of death.
1. Nature is stupid, its "out there", existing, and it will continue to be so, human abuse or not, in one way or another, one form or another, as a forest covered planet, as a planet of water, an ice planet, or a barren rock floating in space.
2. Yet, nothing stops us, humans, bestowed with intelligence, to ensure that an "ideal" sustainable system is met, anthropocentric or natura-centric, as long as there is balance in the interaction of all existing life forms and other variable necessary to sustain life.
3. Yes, humans are responsible far more that mere natural survival and the pleasure-pain mechanics. We are consciously doing unsustainable practices that damages the very nature where we habitate and get our food from and we are devouring it of resources in ways that do not consider future generation (sustainability). And if you ask me, this is I think what everyone means when they say "good" or "ideal" - an ecosystem where everything can flourish/exist/coexist sustainably.
4. Alongside intelligence, we have technology. Let's use it for good for a change.
5. (And I will not skirt on this point) No one mentions it, except the OP, but the real problem here is not phychological or cognitive or even behavioral. They are merely implements of a bigger structure. The core of this man vs. nature problem is the economic model. Capital economy is designed to devour resources. It will simply move on to the next green pasteur (outer space). The real solution is to shift to a more sustainable economic system that will support and enable sustanable practice. Communism, Socialism, Social welfare, Hippieism, Treehuggerism, Sustainable Development, Smart Growth? It's not important how we call it, let's just do it.
On January 25 2013 01:36 Ysellian wrote: Humans do not reproduce exponentially though. Once humans reach a certain level of wealth the population even tends to decline.
I guess the real point is that our population is burning through natural resources at a rate that can't be sustainable. The bigger the population, the greater the demand we put on the earth.
Replacements are already available, there's just not enough pressure yet to change our ways. It'll come when we're getting closer to having absolutely no fossil fuel.
On January 25 2013 01:40 AUFKLARUNG wrote: 1. Nature is stupid, its "out there", existing, and it will continue to be so, human abuse or not, in one way or another, one form or another, as a forest covered planet, as a planet of water, an ice planet, or a barren rock floating in space.
2. Yet, nothing stops us, humans, bestowed with intelligence, to ensure that an "ideal" sustainable system is met, anthropocentric or natura-centric, as long as there is balance in the interaction of all existing life forms and other variable necessary to sustain life.
3. Yes, humans are responsible far more that mere natural survival and the pleasure-pain mechanics. We are consciously doing unsustainable practices that damages the very nature where we habitate and get our food from and we are devouring it of resources in ways that do not consider future generation (sustainability). And if you ask me, this is I think what everyone means when they say "good" or "ideal" - an ecosystem where everything can flourish/exist/coexist sustainably.
4. Alongside intelligence, we have technology. Let's use it for good for a change.
5. (And I will not skirt on this point) No one mentions it, except the OP, but the real problem here is not phychological or cognitive or even behavioral. They are merely implements of a bigger structure. The core of this man vs. nature problem is the economic model. Capital economy is designed to devour resources. It will simply move on to the next green pasteur (outer space). The real solution is to shift to a more sustainable economic system that will support and enable sustanable practice. Communism, Socialism, Social welfare, Hippieism, Treehuggerism, Sustainable Development, Smart Growth? It's not important how we call it, let's just do it.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
On January 25 2013 00:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
On January 25 2013 00:54 r.Evo wrote: Birth rates are going down. .
Are you kidding me? Compared to what? To last year, or last 5 years? How about last 100 or 1000 years?
Funny that we are all Germans here (including Hryul) debating this thing.
I will focus on your reply. You underestimate the "scale" that you are talking about. We are manipulating and changing the balance of the food chain in irreversible ways. Agricultural, oil mining, mineral mining, fishing, etc. practices today are not designed to leave something for the generation of the future, maybe as soon as the next 20 years.
so the worst thing about "the plague" is that it's limiting it's own growth opportunities? That's a good thing right?
the overall growth in world's wealth has led to a higher amount of meat consumed. To produce a meat product, it takes up a lot of extra resources to grow and prepare and cook, compared to vegetables.
In China and Japan, KFC and another famous chain restaurant have fast grown chicken that had been injected with growth hormones that make the chicken fully grown in around 45 days. We will have to rely on chemicals and technology to support our huge growing high cost human population. Some of the chemicals will not have a chance to fully understood on the impact on human bodies.
I don't know how he did the maths but he said we can all fit into texas. But what if every single family requires more meat, more cars, which in turns lead to more pollutions, more tension etc. Sure maybe we will have lots of space and rooms, but is it realistic? Is it sustainable?
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison.
We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history.
Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off!
my 2 cents
About -10 btw.
So your 2 cents are a) we don't owe this world jack shit and b) we are the world.
=> we don't owe ourselves jack shit? Why don't we start jumping out of windows then? I'm pretty sure you got something wrong there. We wouldn't exist without this planet. You make it sound like it wouldn't exist without us.
I gave up arguing with people on TL, so Ill keep this short n sweet. We need to work towards sustainability purely to pass on to next generation(s) something good to work with (i.e. not leave them with our mess). I do make the argument that earth holds no meaningful existence outside the human realm. Dont get me wrong, the mass will still be there. If there is still ducks they will go quack quack and the pigs go oink oink. However it holds no meaninful value in and of it self. Humans create purpose and appreciation. Everything else is merely passings, chaos, absurdities or randomness - without anyone to attribue any meaning to them..
I do see where you're coming from, but that meaningfulness is still a human creation from a human perspective. We cannot simply dismiss other lifeforms that might evolve into higher intelligence and create their own meanings and views of this planet and universe. There are already many species that show intelligence and empathetic behaviours that are usually associated exclusively with humans - such as love/affection, grief....etc. I do value humanity existence on this planet, but I do not think we're EVERYTHING - and that without us - there is no meaning to everything else.
True. Earth existed without us for so so so long and didn't care whether it had meaning or not. If it were consciuos, it will laugh at our self-importance.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
On January 25 2013 00:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
On January 25 2013 00:54 r.Evo wrote: Birth rates are going down. .
Are you kidding me? Compared to what? To last year, or last 5 years? How about last 100 or 1000 years?
Funny that we are all Germans here (including Hryul) debating this thing.
I will focus on your reply. You underestimate the "scale" that you are talking about. We are manipulating and changing the balance of the food chain in irreversible ways. Agricultural, oil mining, mineral mining, fishing, etc. practices today are not designed to leave something for the generation of the future, maybe as soon as the next 20 years.
so the worst thing about "the plague" is that it's limiting it's own growth opportunities? That's a good thing right?
Because this plague is us. And we can actually be a sustainable and healthy part of the whole equation.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Lions do not crap thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and neither do they reshape the face of nature in such a devastating way as we do. Lions kill zebras, yes. They do not, however, cut down entire forests and thereby rob already endangered species of their natural habitats. They do not poison entire swaths of land in an effort of "agricultural pest control and/or fertilization" and inadvertently kill everything in and around the area. They do not hunt whales, birds, deer, zebras, tuna, seals etc. all at the same time to the point of driving some of these animals to the brink of extinction and beyond.
Lions and zebras are part of a natural food chain. Humans have taken a step outside that food chain and are taking whatever the hell they want from wherever the hell they want. And they don't do it in moderation, oh no. Just google "exctinct by humans" or something of the sort and then examine your comparison of the havoc we cause to lions killing zebras again. It might not hold up so well.
Humans are part of the exact same "natural food chain" as any other living organism on this planet. Pretending they're anything but probably makes the whole situation much more terrifying than it actually is, that's where your initial point already fails.
Assuming we don't blow up the planet, what's the actual super worst case? Humans die with 99% of life on earth. That in itself is not a problem for the planet itself or life in general, it's just going to boil down to a question of time. A much more likely scenario however is that our population eventually starts regulating itself, just like the way we interact with the ecosystem in general regulates itself. Why does it do that? Because it's all part of the same system.
S:klogW pretty much nailed it in his post above somewhere. We are not a part of any natural order. We are an accident, a freak of evolution. Because we are born with a consciousness. To keep with the theme here, I'll refer to the lions and zebras again. They don't know that they're alive and they don't know that they will die. They just are. They hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to their young, rinse and repeat. We, on the other hand, are plagued (the plague is plagued, imagine that, how much more pathogenic can we get?) with consciousness. We do know that we are alive, and we are very aware of the fact that we will die one day. And somehow, some way, in our toxic little brains, this fact translates to an uncontrollable desire to expand and gather and amass. Wealth, experience, relationships and all that good stuff. And it doesn't matter what is standing in our way of achieving all these things. We'll cut it up, down, whatever direction, it'll have to go.
To your question about the worst case: 99% of life dying might not be a huge problem for the planet. It certainly is a problem for all the other mammals, invertebrates, fish, reptiles etc. that are forced to share this world with us. Are we really so bleeding arrogant that we hypothesize near total annihilation of all life forms on this planet and our comment is "it's not a problem for the planet itself, so who cares?".
Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on.
There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans.
Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved.
On January 25 2013 00:58 NightOfTheDead wrote:
On January 25 2013 00:54 r.Evo wrote: Birth rates are going down. .
Are you kidding me? Compared to what? To last year, or last 5 years? How about last 100 or 1000 years?
Animals don't know that they're alive? No, not in the way we do. They are not consciously aware of their place in the world, or that they're in their youth/old age or what the limitations of their lifespan are.
Animals don't know that they will die? Certainly not. Animals do not understand the concept of death. Hell, humans barely understand the concept of death, and we're supposed to be oh so superior in almost every way. I admit though, some animals have been observed to split from their herd or group when they feel the end coming. What I meant by they don't know that they will die is answered in the paragraph below.
Animals aren't afraid of death? Yes, they are. Which is why I never wrote that they are not. They possess instinctual reactions which will help them keep out of harm's way. The emphasis being on instinctual. They are not known to sit around somewhere, with no imminent danger and undisturbed and think about death and how scary it all is. Humans are.
I also agree with your assertion that the biological goals of humans and other animals are generally the same. They have to be, because they are inherent to all animals. The difference is, again, consciousness. It deforms and mutilates these goals to the point of them not being recognizable as such.
Debating? So far I don't see much more than petty insults and fancy sounding words from your side.
Well then, I'm sorry for being insulting (I'm just assuming you included me in that statement), I certainly didn't mean to be. I actually thought this was quite an interesting exchange.
I specifically didn't say that you're wrong, just that you're on thin ice. Why? Because we don't know how or if animals think or feel in those ways. We all know stories of cats or dogs refusing to eat after their caretaker died. What we don't know is whether it's because the conditions they're used to changed dramatically or if they actually don't want to live without a person they enjoyed sharing their life with.
We have the exact same instinctual reactions to keep us out of harms way. Do we have something on top of that? Most likely. We "hunt, eat, fuck, sleep, tend to our young, rinse and repeat" - do we do unnecessary things on top of that? Yeah. However it's again not that huge of a difference compared to animals. Whether a cat is grooming another cat or whether we go and get massaged is not inherently different based on it both being just plain pleasure. (Yes, I'm aware that there is a biological need for grooming. However, anything we do for pleasure is based in some form on a basic need that is getting fulfilled.)
Let's get personal. Would you say that you, personally, "amass wealth, relationships" and that you "cut down everything you have to to get to it"? No? Yes? If yes, are you aware of when you're doing it or are you capable of reflecting on what you did and changing your behaviour in the future? We as humans, specifically because of our consciousness are able to learn from the past and prepare ourselves for the future. Part of that is, well, slowing down with all the evil destruction of the entire planet.
(The insult part was directed at the guy who kept calling every post of mine stupid bullshit, from your side I'm just annoyed with the overly dramatic freaks of natures and toxic little brains. All good.)
On January 25 2013 01:34 2v2levels wrote: I heard an interesting comparison of what humans are on the earth a while back.
Earth is a beautiful, green, blue, natural place, but upon closer inspection you see cities and human development. These are grey and smelly. Like cancer. We reproduce exponentially, show no signs of stopping.
Humans are cancer of the earth.
Fair comparison, I suppose.
Simply, factually wrong.
It's an over-simplified, hyperbolic, and general observation that I found interesting. Nobody is claiming to be a scientist here.
From that little quotation that you posted in the OP I would align myself with the critics of Attenborough. Population growth I do not believe is an issue as of now, the country listed within the OP was not representative of a majority of our population. I do agree with the fact that we don't utilize our resources to their maximum potential. Edit: Not trying to be contentious if it is seen that way, just stating my opinion.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
Our earth planet is just one random terrestrial planet. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it has no health, it's just a mass of silicate with an iron center gravitating around the sun. Choose your words more carefully.
If by nature you mean "animals" or "life" as a whole, then you're also wrong. Living species (with the exception of human) don't conceptualize their existence. They just live, devouring each other to survive and raping/copulating to perpetuate their genes. They've no history, philosophy or complex feelings. They know nothing of the current and past world, except their own existence and their pack members. They don't care about us, they adapt to the environment as a whole, or die trying. Humans are just another unknown environmental factor for them, which might accelerate their extinction or development. We're about 0.1% of the total biomass of animals on earth (we're among the very very top), thus it's quite normal we have a huge impact on other species.
In fact by "nature" what you mean is beautiful forests, cute polar bears and all that jazz. In other words, your view of what nature should be. It's a part of yourself that you're defending, not "nature" in itself, which as I just demonstrated it, doesn't mean anything. Words are not innocent.
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere.
So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat?
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
we because we are part of a bigger system.. i drive to get to work therefor i need "gas" thus help fund the oil companies. I buy food from tesco (your version of wallmart) which uses 1000's of lorries farms and other resources which cost energy and land which also destroys the ecosystem.. YOU yourself are using the internet which runs on electricity (unless you are using some sort of crazy carrot juice ) to reply to my post and yes you guessed it , that electricity comes from a huge power plant which is also destroying the eco system.
if you lived outside grew your own fruit and farmed your own food and collected your own water then no, you would not be destroying the ecosystem but i highly doubt that (since you replyed using the internet )
its just facts man, we are all part of a big machine and sadly that machine is messing up the planet.. but hey it will take a few more 100 years to really screw it up so we are all good ^_^
On January 25 2013 00:55 La1 wrote: greed and money owns us, thus we will continue to destroy our planet and do things which is not in the best interest of the butterflies and bee's etc.. so yes we are a plague but nothing will change, Maybe in 150 years when shit starts to get really fucked up but by then it will be to late and i wont be here!
Why do you keep saying "we"? Are you destroying the planet? Why is all of humanity collectively culpable for the crimes of oil companies owned by a tiny fraction?
Oil companies rape the ecosystem so therefore humanity is a plague? Not even close man. This type of thinking is self-loathing and quite honestly pisses me off. Since when did it become hip to hate on humanity? IT'S A SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO DO 99% OF THE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET!!!
Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible.
I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague".
Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it.
Calling someone a kiddo after being called out on a illogic statement doesn't make your point look any better.
"Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible." - It conveys an attitude of "no matter what you do you are part of the evil system, you're damaging the world!!!1". You might as well say "A single drop of rain makes your clothes wet!", which, while entirely correct, is also utterly irrelevant when someone asks you whether it's raining or not.
The only two things that matter is making people aware of consequences of their actions and then letting them themselves decide as for how much they want to contribute to make the negative impact they - inevitably - have as small as possible. Obviously using your bike to get to work is "better" than using the bus which is "better" than using a car. Telling the guy who uses the bus that what he does is irrelevant because it's not 100% optimal is utterly counterproductive to the actual concept of trying to get people to use a "better" option.
Good, that's what I was going for. That and only that. Why? Because the only purpose of my argument was to make him understand this "retard logic" as he called it. At no point was "being productive" even discussed between me and him. So this whole post by you is a giant straw man argument that fails to address what was actually being discussed. If you're trying to debate about better options with me, I left other replies in this thread as well.
If he's gonna call people out for having a certain point of view he should at least try to understand the logic behind it.
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere.
So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat?
Because that ecosystem is something we have control over. (LOL) In any case, I shall volunteer you to be put to a canon to intercept an asteroid in the future.
Earth will be fine. Some over-specialised species will die, some others will survive, and most of them will just adapt.
I just hope the human species will be one of the surviving ones...
But seriously, even the worst nuclear exchange will just make the surface of the earth unable to sustain advanced life for lilke 20k years. That is NOTHING in geological scale. Life will begin to re colonize seas and earth, as they are already doing in Chernobyl, for example.
Don't worry about our planet. Worry about ourselves.
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity).
P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon
ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere.
So what? That food-chain ecosystem and interactions (lol) are pathetically minor stuff compared to BIG EVENTS. The point is there where huge catastrophic events that would have wiped out humanity and all the traces of it's ever being there completely and there WILL be more. The only question is whether humanity will be able to do something about that. You know? Save the planet from the bigger threat?
Because that ecosystem is something we have control over. (LOL) In any case, I shall volunteer you to be put to a canon to intercept an asteroid in the future.
Implying we don't have any influence/control over whether an asteroid will impact the earth?
Basically the above Ted talk. Every rational species would view itself as the sole cause of environmental damage, and (nearly) all other species as domesticated servants they've turned to that task. I see no reason that humans are doing any worse than species before us, even if our changes look huge to us. For anyone who want's to assert otherwise, I suggest you first calculate how long before every single environmental/chemical change could be reverted (to negligible levels, I realize the next idiot non-flying bird wont be quite the same as a dodo) by natural selection and normal decomposition, now compare that number to the age of the earth, or even the age of life. Better yet, find the fraction of earth those changes would even seriously impact in 1000 years if it were all to stop today.
If humans were to go away, species would go through huge adaption and then be fine. If humans stay (as most assume they will) then species will adapt to the rapidly changing ecosystems and be fine.
Welcome to the desert of the Neo-Mesolithic. I live in a town in the rural Midwest. Yeah I have a very loud opinion on this issue. So here it is.
-When I go for a walk after working hours, I don't see anybody outside. They are watching TV. It's like they're all inside plugged in to the gas line. When it's summer they're too hot, winter they're too cold. If it isn't between 65-80 inside their house, they have the HVAC on. I rarely do see other people outside but if you start a walking routine you won't see them because it was a fluke chance you met them the first time.
-Nobody grows their own food. There's maybe one greenhouse here that isn't part of a big department store (Lowe's, Wal-Mart) and it grows non-food plants. There are two "local" organic food shops and a small farmer's market but really that's probably 20-30 people creating that local food in a 50k population area.
-People rake their leaves and burn them or dump them in landfills. This one is controversial because people like their grass to be pretty. Leaves are the trees' gift back to the earth. When plants grow they need nutrients and sunlight. They get their nutrients from people and from the earth. Tree leaves are one of the best things to put in the soil for nutrients for stuff to grow. So why do people rake their leaves, the gift from the trees to the earth? Why do people ostracize? "Because it looks dirty. It's like sweeping the house," they say. I see a drying earth. Most people need to buy fertilizer to have a chance at growing their own food. I don't know the percentage of composting people in this area but a fair guess is below 10%.
And now I'll tell you the real secret. We're not going to win this environmental war. People don't like to change. And they won't.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
On the contrary, calling us a plague is a nonsense. A plague isn't objectively bad, it's a species reproducing and surviving as best it can like any other. A plague is unfortunate for the host but equally a lion is unfortunate for a zebra. The earth is a rock and nature is a concept, we can anthropomorphise them as much as we like but it will still be a fiction. The Earth is no healthier than Mars or Venus, both of which have their own unique systems, albeit devoid of living things. We are what makes Earth special and condemning ourselves ignores the incredible triumph of nature upon which the ability to condemn anything rests.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
Our earth planet is just one random terrestrial planet. It doesn't think, it doesn't feel, it has no health, it's just a mass of silicate with an iron center gravitating around the sun. Choose your words more carefully.
If by nature you mean "animals" or "life" as a whole, then you're also wrong. Living species (with the exception of human) don't conceptualize their existence. They just live, devouring each other to survive and raping/copulating to perpetuate their genes. They've no history, philosophy or complex feelings. They know nothing of the current and past world, except their own existence and their pack members. They don't care about us, they adapt to the environment as a whole, or die trying. Humans are just another unknown environmental factor for them, which might accelerate their extinction or development. We're about 0.1% of the total biomass of animals on earth (we're among the very very top), thus it's quite normal we have a huge impact on other species.
In fact by "nature" what you mean is beautiful forests, cute polar bears and all that jazz. In other words, your view of what nature should be. It's a part of yourself that you're defending, not "nature" in itself, which as I just demonstrated it, doesn't mean anything. Words are not innocent.
It's funny reading this and made me think off topic about animals are true to their nature. They are programmed to what they are supposed to be doing. Humans can't do that and we're supposed to be the superior complex beings. Always trying to please others and our own self image, ego by being something else we are not by nature. Sorry off topic.
On January 25 2013 00:08 Dreamer.T wrote: I did notice this winter is ridiculously cold compared to the previous ones.
It has been unseasonably warm for New England for most of the winter. We had 60 degree days just a few weeks ago in winter and yesterday on top of Mount Washington here in New Hampshire, it was -85 degrees (of course it was just -1 last night at sea level)! Today it is bone chilling, but I heard after the weekend it could be in the 40's.
Extreme and unpredictable weather is an unfortunate consequence of global warming.
On January 25 2013 02:29 Hdizz wrote: At 86 years old he is one of the worst offenders and he should just kill himself. Fucking hypocrite.
lol wow. Whats the cutoff age for when people should start killing themselves in your opinion? What a joke.
On January 25 2013 02:36 Passion wrote: Isn't like... every organism a plague if let be? And nature will always balance things out again. We should just let it happen.
Or work to balance it ourselves....in a less brutal way.
This kind of sensationalist nonsense pisses me off because it not only makes zero sense, it actually makes it harder to argue for proper environmental care as it sets up an easy strawman to demolish when real issues come up.
Disappointed, Sir Attenborough. Disappointed indeed.
On January 25 2013 02:38 FuzzyJAM wrote: This kind of sensationalist nonsense pisses me off because it not only makes zero sense, it actually makes it harder to argue for proper environmental care as it sets up an easy strawman to demolish when real issues come up.
Disappointed, Sir Attenborough. Disappointed indeed.
I suspect he knows full well it's a nonsense but also knows that sensationalism makes headlines.
The first thing that struck me is that he making a very general statement about all of humanity which isn't true. There are many people who try to live in harmony with their environment and make sustainable choices. But I doubt Attenborough meant to speak in such a technically accurate way, so he probably knows this. He just seems to be going for a roughly true, somewhat bombastic statement that expresses his anger at how the human race has exploited the Earth over the last few decades, without heeding environmental warnings. In essence he's a bit angry, and he's saying things which aren't technically accurate.
The second part of his statement is basic logic. I don't think quoting him should really reveal anything new (except to some people who may be ignorant of this issue entirely). I do wonder how bad climate change will be though. It seems like lately the scientists are giving some pretty bad warnings, about how it will be worse than they thought in terms of the frequency and size of natural disasters. Maybe its a little callous...but I am kind of excited. I wonder what this new world will be like? I am imagining a future dystopia where we live underground, and poke outside once in a while to rummage through our wrecked cities for scrap. And I would be a sentry at one of the underground cities, occasionally taking out a bandit and picking through his weapons for something useful. It sounds so cool in my imagination, probably not so much in reality.
On January 25 2013 02:43 radscorpion9 wrote: The first thing that struck me is that he making a very general statement about all of humanity which isn't true. There are many people who try to live in harmony with their environment and make sustainable choices. But I doubt Attenborough meant to speak in such a technically accurate way, so he probably knows this. He just seems to be going for a roughly true, somewhat bombastic statement that expresses his anger at how the human race has exploited the Earth over the last few decades, without heeding environmental warnings. In essence he's a bit angry, and he's saying things which aren't technically accurate.
The second part of his statement is basic logic. I don't think quoting him should really reveal anything new (except to some people who may be ignorant of this issue entirely). I do wonder how bad climate change will be though. It seems like lately the scientists are giving some pretty bad warnings, about how it will be worse than they thought in terms of the frequency and size of natural disasters. Maybe its a little callous...but I am kind of excited. I wonder what this new world will be like? I am imagining a future dystopia where we live underground, and poke outside once in a while to rummage through our wrecked cities for scrap. And I would be a sentry at one of the underground cities, occasionally taking out a bandit and picking through his weapons for something useful. It sounds so cool in my imagination, probably not so much in reality.
lol your name is fitting. You've been playing a bit too much Fallout.
This is kinda sad and arugment like this just means that your continuing in your own view without looking at any others which is very improtant. The american poulations is decreasing it is only because of of increasing imagration that we are experancing a growing community. Not to mention you could fit the eitire US population in Texus confrontably. Their is no proof that we have a defiant effect of the planet. Their is more evidence that our effect on the plannet is so little and may be from entirly other factors that we cannot ever change it's envirmental pattern. their is also evidance that reducing and changing our diet may have a bigger effect compative to the recycling. Only an incredably small percent of the world is going to change is habits because of a nonevdent argument like this one presented.
We are a plaguuuuuuu ! It'skinda cool :D We have to find a way to colonize new planets asap or it wont be fun in a couple centuries though ><
If we find a way to colonize new planet and we found out that there is other people in the galaxy they'll say of us "fear the humans ! They are world eaters ! They come to your planet, take everything that is on it and then look for an other planet !" That would be so cool !
About winter it's not that cold here, i'm leaving near the Alps.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
This is sad and true at the same time.
Actually, it's dumb. Other species compete for the spot that we hold. In a very real sense, we won. I fail to see what is wrong about that.
On January 25 2013 02:38 JustPassingBy wrote: On that thought, am I the only one thought of a skin disease, when he/she looked at a picture of the earth at night, with the human cities forming bright dots everywhere? (e.g. http://latimesphoto.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/la-1206-nasa02.jpg)
A lot of people are talking about humans disturbing the 'equilibrium' of the planet as if nature and its ecosystems are perfectly balanced and constant things. Imbalances and even destruction of ecosystems have happened constantly for as long as life has existed, we are just the only ones who feel bad about it when we see it. Extinctions are a natural and necessary part of life, we just happen to feel sad and dislike it when it happens.
I'm all for helping the environment, etc, but only because I see it as a direct benefit to the human species and a good move for the continuation of intelligent life, not because of some half-baked 'omg we are hurting the planet gaiz' kind of mentality.
imagine you have a farm with lots of fertile soil and beautiful crops. now imagine a swarm of locusts come and eat all of your crops. now imagine that you put too much Monsanto super grade kill em all pesticide on your crops. now imagine all the locusts die because of the Monsanto, and the chemical concentration of their bodies soaks into and destroys your fertile soil. yeah, thats what humans are doing to the earth. we consume and destroy with little regard for the future.
Yep. Climate is all crazy here and I live in a place that should have REALLY STABLE climate. And yeah we are a plague on life. I like to think that we're fucking earth's ecossystems and not earth itserf. Earth will remain after we're gone for a pretty long time, we'll be only tiny specks on its history if we chose the path of fast self-destruction(the one we've been choosing since a long time). We're a plague on ourselves. The way our society functions(we're rolemodels when we're selfish), the way our society is organized(countries are doing its duty when they are selfish) and the way we distribute and spend resources(dont need to explain that) is gonna come back to haunt our children if nothing changes SOON.
On January 25 2013 03:11 dAPhREAk wrote: imagine you have a farm with lots of fertile soil and beautiful crops. now imagine a swarm of locusts come and eat all of your crops. now imagine that you put too much Monsanto super grade kill em all pesticide on your crops. now imagine all the locusts die because of the Monsanto, and the chemical concentration of their bodies soaks into and destroys your fertile soil. yeah, thats what humans are doing to the earth. we consume and destroy with little regard for the future.
For a species with little regard for the future, we sure bitch about the future enough.
On January 25 2013 03:11 dAPhREAk wrote: imagine you have a farm with lots of fertile soil and beautiful crops. now imagine a swarm of locusts come and eat all of your crops. now imagine that you put too much Monsanto super grade kill em all pesticide on your crops. now imagine all the locusts die because of the Monsanto, and the chemical concentration of their bodies soaks into and destroys your fertile soil. yeah, thats what humans are doing to the earth. we consume and destroy with little regard for the future.
For a species with little regard for the future, we sure bitch about the future enough.
On January 25 2013 03:11 dAPhREAk wrote: imagine you have a farm with lots of fertile soil and beautiful crops. now imagine a swarm of locusts come and eat all of your crops. now imagine that you put too much Monsanto super grade kill em all pesticide on your crops. now imagine all the locusts die because of the Monsanto, and the chemical concentration of their bodies soaks into and destroys your fertile soil. yeah, thats what humans are doing to the earth. we consume and destroy with little regard for the future.
For a species with little regard for the future, we sure bitch about the future enough.
talk is cheap.
Yes, and real solutions take a lot of time. Good thing we've already been working on them for decades - often with substantial progress.
On January 25 2013 01:34 2v2levels wrote: I heard an interesting comparison of what humans are on the earth a while back.
Earth is a beautiful, green, blue, natural place, but upon closer inspection you see cities and human development. These are grey and smelly. Like cancer. We reproduce exponentially, show no signs of stopping.
Humans are cancer of the earth.
Fair comparison, I suppose.
Simply, factually wrong.
It's an over-simplified, hyperbolic, and general observation that I found interesting. Nobody is claiming to be a scientist here.
I am curious, what name you would give to a curve like this, though.
It's simply a factually flawed statement. Call it whatever you like, but it's wrong. The graph you're showing can't show datapoints of mere years, it shows in decades at best. The last 50 years the population growth has dropped from about 2.2% per year to 1.1% a year and the drop is looking poised to continue.
Anyway, the graph is simply a statement to humanities ability to overcome adversity through its ingenuity. If anything it shows the accomplishments humanity has made in the last few centuries. The sharp rise is merely an effect of being able to overcome that which killed us before. Luckily for us, apperantly when we have developed enough socially our willingness to reproduce stagnates or even declines, which coincidentally is our failsafe.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
Perhaps your problem lies with the assumption that humanity is somehow divorced from "nature and evolution". Nothing could be more presumptuous than to assume that humans have somehow evaded the net of the "natural".
The nice thing about overpopulation is, it will solve itself. Always has in nature, always will with us.
Not only are we at least 300 years away from not being able to feed first world countries, but the more people that starve, the less people there are to feed. Same as in nature.
The only serious threat humanity has to worry about is serious water polution and Nuclear Warfare. There is nothing else we can do to this planet to make it inhabitable. Less comfortable? Of course. Uninhabitable? Never.
Also, overpopulation will never, ever cause an issue in ours or our childrens lifetimes. So why even worry about it. Governments will start caring when it starts effecting their bottom line and actually becomes a real issue.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
Perhaps your problem lies with the assumption that humanity is somehow divorced from "nature and evolution". Nothing could be more presumptuous than to assume that humans have somehow evaded the net of the "natural".
But maybe we have?
I mean we dont just kill, feed, reproduce and back again like any other animals
No, we are far ahead of that with making machines and using nuclear energy and so on.
All this stuff that is "unnatural" if you ask me, thats what makes us evade the net of the "natural".
And this have already slapped us in the face with the global warming etc etc etc problems that there is.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
No species has gone more further than us at destroying the planet we live on.
Sure, and yet we're the first species ever with the capability to avert cataclysms such as an asteroid impact, soon to have the capability of colonizing other planets. I believe our tech is advancing at a faster pace than we are hurting the planet, in every area there's either already a solution or soon to realize solution to our environmental problems. Environmental concern is not the most problematic of cataclysms we should be worried about.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
Perhaps your problem lies with the assumption that humanity is somehow divorced from "nature and evolution". Nothing could be more presumptuous than to assume that humans have somehow evaded the net of the "natural".
But maybe we have?
I mean we dont just kill, feed, reproduce and back again like any other animals
No, we are far ahead of that with making machines and using nuclear energy and so on.
All this stuff that is "unnatural" if you ask me, thats what makes us evade the net of the "natural".
And this have already slapped us in the face with the global warming etc etc etc problems that there is.
"natural" and "unnatural" are simply words; we have no actual basis in declaring human advancement and technology definitively unnatural, for they are mere products of humanity.
On January 24 2013 23:49 GrimmJ wrote: People are having fewer and fewer children, so eventually this will all balance out.
-32 C Here, so a little cold. Typical Canadian weather.
The people only have less children in the "rich" countrys. The problem is for example africa because they dont know how "protected sex" works.
In a decade or two they'll be "rich" too!
Yes, modernization is a magic process that just sort of slaps on a society and it happens the same every time. It's not any different for the last countries on a planet to modernize than it was the first one.
What's going to happen is not they "they'll be rich," it's that the ones of them who are already rich will get enormously more so. A few lucky locals will ascend to the international finance class.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
No species has gone more further than us at destroying the planet we live on.
Destroying the planet? The planet is fine, and it will continue to be fine for another 5 billion years, until the sun uses up its fuel and starts to burn helium, which will make it grow into a red giant that will inevitably consume the nearest planets and stir fry the earth.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
Perhaps your problem lies with the assumption that humanity is somehow divorced from "nature and evolution". Nothing could be more presumptuous than to assume that humans have somehow evaded the net of the "natural".
But maybe we have?
I mean we dont just kill, feed, reproduce and back again like any other animals
No, we are far ahead of that with making machines and using nuclear energy and so on.
All this stuff that is "unnatural" if you ask me, thats what makes us evade the net of the "natural".
And this have already slapped us in the face with the global warming etc etc etc problems that there is.
"natural" and "unnatural" are simply words; we have no actual basis in declaring human advancement and technology definitively unnatural, for they are mere products of humanity.
Ofcourse we cant since we havent been there yet and its just hard to understand what will happen in the future.
But we can clearly see that all this stuff we have done that is either natural or unnatural is damaging the life here on earth.
So from my own defenition its quite unnatural as its destroying nature in a kind of way.
There is no limit on what humans can or cannot do within the boundaries of the natural world because we exist in our own fantasy world. And while we're living in a fantasy, the real world is crumbling by the weight of the problems we leave behind, and we do almost nothing to fix it. Humanity has no moral center; some people just want to survive, some want to make money off the misery of others, some want to carry out their religious war, and some just don't give a shit about anything else other than whats important to them. The worst part about that is the fact that humanity will never think as a collective whole because we value the individual way too much. And then as a result, no one cares about the future if the individual is the center of attention.
On January 24 2013 23:42 sorrowptoss wrote: What does he expect us to do once we realize this? Start killing ourselves? What solutions does he propose to "cure" this "plague" that apparently is us?
We are more like a passing cold, yeah we may fuck the earth up a little bit, but in the end anything we do to it will only serve to kill us and some other life on the Earth. Eventually, given enough time anything we may do will eventually undo itself, maybe after we are all dead, but it will.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
No species has gone more further than us at destroying the planet we live on.
Sure, and yet we're the first species ever with the capability to avert cataclysms such as an asteroid impact, soon to have the capability of colonizing other planets. I believe our tech is advancing at a faster pace than we are hurting the planet, in every area there's either already a solution or soon to realize solution to our environmental problems. Environmental concern is not the most problematic of cataclysms we should be worried about.
Also, you evaded my question.
Yes and this tech is rather tech than evolution, this tech is our own kind of evolution really and its hurting the world that we live in, kind of a counter-evolution if you strictly look on how it impact nature and life on earth.
It makes us bigger, faster, harder, stronger but shuts other things aside. Its kind of shitty if you ask me, we just think about ourselves to tech higher and look down on everything else.
And that question, you are right, there is no species that has done better at gaining TECH since its ofcourse only us that have the brainpower to "evolve" through teching, but that doesnt mean that we dont destoy nature and the planet we live in.
On January 25 2013 04:16 imBLIND wrote: There is no limit on what humans can or cannot do within the boundaries of the natural world because we exist in our own fantasy world. And while we're living in a fantasy, the real world is crumbling by the weight of the problems we leave behind, and we do almost nothing to fix it. Humanity has no moral center; some people just want to survive, some want to make money off the misery of others, some want to carry out their religious war, and some just don't give a shit about anything else other than whats important to them. The worst part about that is the fact that humanity will never think as a collective whole because we value the individual way too much. And then as a result, no one cares about the future if the individual is the center of attention.
If humanity has no moral center than the world in which we live in most certain does not either. I definitely agree with you in terms of how negative "the cult of the individual" has become, but you cannot fault a person or people for simply wanting to survive. What they need to made aware of, however, is that their survival and the survival of those around them are incontrovertibly linked.
As people already said, "Nature will balance itself". This is true. In some countries such as Japan the birth rate is actually far too low and the government is frantic in trying to find a solution (impossible unless you force people to do "it"). Here in the U.S 2011 was a record low for birthrates (Source)
Many people may not agree with me here, but I do believe that the rise of feminism has been steering men away from women, and just "doing without", or going their own way. Sweden, one of the most progressive countries (also known for feminazis) actually has the HIGHEST percentage of Thai wifes(Source). This seems like a pretty logical correlation to my point.
Overall i'm not worried because it WILL be fixed. And yes it's extremely cold. Yesterday I had a pipe burst because someone left a window open in the basement and the water in the pipes froze! Luckily it wasn't a hard fix.
On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote: That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
No, life does not always find a way or balance itself out, at least not on the level of a species. We don't know the future of the human race, but saying that it will survive because "life will find a way" is naive. The whole argument that the global ecosystem doesn't care much for a single species is simply wrong.
There have been two mass extinction events (out of 5) that have been caused by life itself. And these two dwarf the event that killed the dinosaurs.
One was an organism that was wildly successful starting to produce methane as waste. This killed almost all other life on the planet and ultimately itself.
The other was an organism starting to produce oxygen which was toxic to most other life at that time.
In both instance "life found a way", but not the life that was already there. In excess of 99% of all species went extinct in both cases.
So humans may find a way, but not because we cannot affect the global ecosystem in a major way, we most certainly can and it most certainly has the potential to be a major disaster if we do.
On January 24 2013 23:39 maybenexttime wrote: My opinion? He watched too much of The Matrix.
Edit: From -5 to -10 C, so pretty OK. What's the temperature in the UK?
so because a movie took an idea as part of its story it automatically makes what this guy says crazy?
ive long agreed with him on this subject. we bring nothing to the table for the environment but take away. there is gonna be a time when there isnt anything left to take and what then
In the 1800's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of new york city in 100 years. They thought the population couldn't get much higher than it already was since people needed horses to get around and the amount of horses required was so large the city would buried in horse crap.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are problems now, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to approach them in ways we can't even imagine. So while he's right -- we do need to get our act together -- I also think he's missing the point.
So... there's nothing that can be done about anything so why bother thinking about it except to make ourselves feel bad for awhile. One person cannot make a difference.
On January 25 2013 04:42 KurtistheTurtle wrote: In the 1800's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of new york city in 100 years. They thought the population couldn't get much higher than it already was since people needed horses to get around and the amount of horses required was so large the city would buried in horse crap.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are problems now, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to approach them in ways we can't even imagine. So while he's right -- we do need to get our act together -- I also think he's missing the point.
In the 2100's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of the world in 100 years. They thought the population could keep getting higher, because every time before they thought it couldn't get higher they'd ended up being wrong.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are things we can do, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to face up to the truth that we are mortal, and subject to the limitations of mortals. So while he's right -- there is a lot we can do -- I also think he's missing the point.
On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote: That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
No, life does not always find a way or balance itself out, at least not on the level of a species. We don't know the future of the human race, but saying that it will survive because "life will find a way" is naive. The whole argument that the global ecosystem doesn't care much for a single species is simply wrong.
There have been two mass extinction events (out of 5) that have been caused by life itself. And these two dwarf the event that killed the dinosaurs.
One was an organism that was wildly successful starting to produce methane as waste. This killed almost all other life on the planet and ultimately itself.
The other was an organism starting to produce oxygen which was toxic to most other life at that time.
In both instance "life found a way", but not the life that was already there. In excess of 99% of all species went extinct in both cases.
So humans may find a way, but not because we cannot affect the global ecosystem in a major way, we most certainly can and it most certainly has the potential to be a major disaster if we do.
We're not even close to destabalizing the ecosystem as much as the examples you give. Not even by a long shot.
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
No species has gone more further than us at destroying the planet we live on.
Sure, and yet we're the first species ever with the capability to avert cataclysms such as an asteroid impact, soon to have the capability of colonizing other planets. I believe our tech is advancing at a faster pace than we are hurting the planet, in every area there's either already a solution or soon to realize solution to our environmental problems. Environmental concern is not the most problematic of cataclysms we should be worried about.
Also, you evaded my question.
Yes and this tech is rather tech than evolution, this tech is our own kind of evolution really and its hurting the world that we live in, kind of a counter-evolution if you strictly look on how it impact nature and life on earth.
It makes us bigger, faster, harder, stronger but shuts other things aside. Its kind of shitty if you ask me, we just think about ourselves to tech higher and look down on everything else.
And that question, you are right, there is no species that has done better at gaining TECH since its ofcourse only us that have the brainpower to "evolve" through teching, but that doesnt mean that we dont destoy nature and the planet we live in.
I do not see why teching is by itself a bad thing. Sure, so far we've teched on fossil fuels, but it also has given us the opportunity to find a solution to our fossil fuel problem in clean energy. So teching in itself is not bad, it's rather good for humanity and maybe even the planet as a whole eventually.
What is so special about evolution compared to tech? Should we want the randomness of evolution or the structured advancement of science?
If I look at your comments the sole thing I see is loathing at our current civilization and wishing to go back to the stone age. I won't disagree with you that our planet's nature is beautiful to behold, but tech is not it's antithetical.
As someone who is very enthousiastic about the excistence of what we can call life, I have to make a plea for it, simply because many more like to view this matter in the context of: "the Earth has no feelings, the other life on this plants doesn't care and simply wants to adapt and the balance that it might eventually bring and let's not forget the sheer mass/volume of the planet we're on that we cannot ever, EVER deplete" While the other side advocates the exact opposite, blaming humans for the Earth becoming a more hostile place for us (and other oxygen using organisms; dem extremophiles be doin' there business 'till the end of times)
Life is unique. I'm not saying it's unique on this planet in this universe, but it's a very specific set of molecules working together to interact with the physical environment around itself. Billions of years of trial and error have led to the excistence of extictions of many, many species. Many have adapted and evolved into more adapted and survived, others couldn't cope so well with fast environmental changes or an overpowering organism with many more beneficial traits and died off. We now have a planet, scourched with an incountable amount of species, all living in a complex web of subtle balance and we're taking it away for our own gain. I'm not specifically saying we have to feel responsible for species dying out because they can't handle our dominance, but I do believe we have to strive for some sort of equilibrium between the more trial and error part of the world (nature, if I may call it that, even though the entire universe is considered as nature) and the rational end of the spectrum, us. We do not need to do this, but a world without any form of green, or other life forms unless them being used for consumption would make me feel extremely depressed. There is a way to live in harmony with much of the world still, but we must be able to see that life isn't just something crawling outside of a womb or as something reproducing untill the means to run out; it's much more than that. It's about simple atoms really, combining in such a way to create something so diverse and unique (transcending non living matter), trying to combine more of this non life into life, creating a very competitive force for survival. It has gone from unicellular, to simple bicellular into more complex stuff that we'll probably never be able to fully comprehend because it's so god damn difficult to understand all the parameters that are into play. It's the constant struggle with going back to the cold, dead, not organizing, whatever you want to call it, that makes this competitive battle go on.
No life doesn't have a specific goal (strictly speaking), no it doesn't have (again, strictly speaking) moral standards, yes only we are able to interact in such a way with the universe that we can become so dominant, but doesn't that mean we're in some sort of way responsible for preserving what cannot be? And if life and the diversity of it doesn't have to be so cherished like some of these people in this thread are saying, why has it flourished so well for so long? Just to see it fade out?
Sorry for my blur of badly organized thoughts.. There's alot to come out and not enough time/words to completely describe it.
On January 25 2013 04:42 KurtistheTurtle wrote: In the 1800's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of new york city in 100 years. They thought the population couldn't get much higher than it already was since people needed horses to get around and the amount of horses required was so large the city would buried in horse crap.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are problems now, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to approach them in ways we can't even imagine. So while he's right -- we do need to get our act together -- I also think he's missing the point.
In the 2100's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of the world in 100 years. They thought the population could keep getting higher, because every time before they thought it couldn't get higher they'd ended up being wrong.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are things we can do, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to face up to the truth that we are mortal, and subject to the limitations of mortals. So while he's right -- there is a lot we can do -- I also think he's missing the point.
In short: Let's shut up about predicting the future, it can't be predicted. How surprising...
On January 25 2013 04:42 KurtistheTurtle wrote: In the 1800's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of new york city in 100 years. They thought the population couldn't get much higher than it already was since people needed horses to get around and the amount of horses required was so large the city would buried in horse crap.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are problems now, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to approach them in ways we can't even imagine. So while he's right -- we do need to get our act together -- I also think he's missing the point.
In the 2100's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of the world in 100 years. They thought the population could keep getting higher, because every time before they thought it couldn't get higher they'd ended up being wrong.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are things we can do, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to face up to the truth that we are mortal, and subject to the limitations of mortals. So while he's right -- there is a lot we can do -- I also think he's missing the point.
and if by 2100 we're NOT subject to the limitations of mortals? My point is that you can't possibly accurately predict the future one way or another but that when put under duress, humans find new ways to relieve the balance. Nature won't be the great balancer, it will be human invention
On January 25 2013 04:42 KurtistheTurtle wrote: In the 1800's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of new york city in 100 years. They thought the population couldn't get much higher than it already was since people needed horses to get around and the amount of horses required was so large the city would buried in horse crap.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are problems now, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to approach them in ways we can't even imagine. So while he's right -- we do need to get our act together -- I also think he's missing the point.
In the 2100's, smart men were gathered to predict the future of the world in 100 years. They thought the population could keep getting higher, because every time before they thought it couldn't get higher they'd ended up being wrong.
Obviously, that's not the case. There are things we can do, yes, but we have the intelligence and means to face up to the truth that we are mortal, and subject to the limitations of mortals. So while he's right -- there is a lot we can do -- I also think he's missing the point.
In short: Let's shut up about predicting the future, it can't be predicted. How surprising...
On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote: That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
No, life does not always find a way or balance itself out, at least not on the level of a species. We don't know the future of the human race, but saying that it will survive because "life will find a way" is naive. The whole argument that the global ecosystem doesn't care much for a single species is simply wrong.
There have been two mass extinction events (out of 5) that have been caused by life itself. And these two dwarf the event that killed the dinosaurs.
One was an organism that was wildly successful starting to produce methane as waste. This killed almost all other life on the planet and ultimately itself.
The other was an organism starting to produce oxygen which was toxic to most other life at that time.
In both instance "life found a way", but not the life that was already there. In excess of 99% of all species went extinct in both cases.
So humans may find a way, but not because we cannot affect the global ecosystem in a major way, we most certainly can and it most certainly has the potential to be a major disaster if we do.
We're not even close to destabalizing the ecosystem as much as the examples you give. Not even by a long shot.
I didn't say we were. I take issue with the argument that we don't have to worry because we cannot affect the ecosystem to such a degree that it will be a problem.
The fact is that a species can do that, whether we are doing it is a separate question.
On January 25 2013 00:06 r.Evo wrote: That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
No, life does not always find a way or balance itself out, at least not on the level of a species. We don't know the future of the human race, but saying that it will survive because "life will find a way" is naive. The whole argument that the global ecosystem doesn't care much for a single species is simply wrong.
There have been two mass extinction events (out of 5) that have been caused by life itself. And these two dwarf the event that killed the dinosaurs.
One was an organism that was wildly successful starting to produce methane as waste. This killed almost all other life on the planet and ultimately itself.
The other was an organism starting to produce oxygen which was toxic to most other life at that time.
In both instance "life found a way", but not the life that was already there. In excess of 99% of all species went extinct in both cases.
So humans may find a way, but not because we cannot affect the global ecosystem in a major way, we most certainly can and it most certainly has the potential to be a major disaster if we do.
We're not even close to destabalizing the ecosystem as much as the examples you give. Not even by a long shot.
I didn't say we were. I take issue with the argument that we don't have to worry because we cannot affect the ecosystem to such a degree that it will be a problem.
The fact is that a species can do that, whether we are doing it is a separate question.
On January 25 2013 05:02 KurtistheTurtle wrote: My point is that you can't possibly accurately predict the future one way or another but that when put under duress, humans find new ways to relieve the balance.
This is a prediction. My point is stop making this prediction if you are going to talk about how the future is hard to predict.
You want to claim that a problem must not exist, because we cannot predict, and therefore there must exist a solution which we just haven't predicted yet. Very bad thinking.
edit: there is no singularity-messiah coming to save you. We will never innovate our way out of hubris and nemesis, thinking you can is just hubris.
edit: you think you are being clever and skeptical, but this is just solidified ex-skepticism. If your skepticism ever solidifies, then it stops being skepticism. You need to turn your skepticism back around to the conclusions generated by your previous exercise of skepticism. Once you learn to iterate this process and take its infinite limit, you will be an enlightened master.
If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
We are a plague on the Earth
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
I think we can pat ourselves on the back that we're most likely the only apex species to have ever existed that doesn't eat or hurt other species without remorse. Yay us?
Edit: In fact, what you're writing is contradictory. You're telling humanity to not view itself as high as it does, but should be able to do things that no apex species before us ever has. How is that not greatness compared to anything else before us?
The Earth doesn't care about humans, animals or plant life. The Earth is not a sentient being. The only ones who will suffer are humans and animals. We are killing ourselves, not the planet.
On January 24 2013 23:35 Wordsmith wrote: This is what naturalist, scholar, and media-celebrity Sir David Attenborough said of mankind and its nature of unsustainable over consumption of resources in his latest interview.
We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,”
“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”
(The full interview is available only in print, but you can read the report here and here
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this. He is among the strongest voices on population control and sustainable development, but he has always emphasized that the problem is not merely overpopulation or mankind's inability to find sustainable means to reproduce.
Of course there those who say he is wrong. Critics claim that he has such a grim outlook in life and is ironically out of touch of the nature of ecosystems. Indeed, others claim that as long as a balance is struck, nature will always find equilibrium, regardless of how many people there are in the world. The critics point the problem not in population control or agriculture, but in the economic model we have.
By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation
Well he should start doing us a favor in population control and leave this earth, his old body is taking space huehueheueheuheueheueheuheueheuheueheue
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
We don't need to be given a right to have dominion over everything else. We can have it because we are capable of it and other species on our planet are not.
Earth doesn't give a fuck about humans and humans themselves are a product of nature; so any mumbo jumbo about how we should vanish so that nature/earth remains untouched is... just a human feeling.
Now of course we should be careful of what we're doing because otherwise the next generations will pay the price.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
But humans created the whole concept of rights, there is no such thing as that in nature. It is simply survival of the fittest. But anyway that's just minor.
What you're saying generally can't be true. Look how hard many European countries are working to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy, most of them have moved towards banning coal fired plants. The whole drive towards sustainable logging, all those power-saving measures, recycling programs, sustainable farming and movements towards vegetarianism...its more accurate to say that we are struggling with our nature to want as much as we can get at the cost of the environment and the poor, and many of us are trying to live a more "enlightened" lifestyle now. There are plenty of people like you who care about animals and treat them well, and many are fighting against factory farming. So its kind of extreme for you to say its entirely true that we are a plague on Earth. The world is making major changes, and things are getting better albeit slowly.
Once things start getting worse, there will probably be a significant motivation to change. Maybe over a period of several decades we can find a way to stabilize the climate, once its obvious that anthropogenic global warming is real in terms of the frequency and severity of natural disasters (which can't be explained any other way).
I've always had the thought of a "Diminishing Returns" child tax return policy. Where having fewer children grants a sizable tax exemption and the higher offspring count would yield paid taxes. This would then vary nation to nation based on education, current populations, and wellness of life.
so a country with decent standard of living like AUS, US or UK can have 1st child tax exemption of 5k$, and 2 children would be 3k$, and 3kids could be 0$. But after having 4 kids would cost an extra of 3k$ added to taxes, and 5 kids would be 5k$, and so forth.
but a place like JAPAN, the 0$ tax incursion would happen around the 5 kid mark sine they have a declining population.
This way, it would encourage a better standard of living for familys with fewer kids. Allowing for each kid to have an adequate amount of resources growing up. This would also stem off the family where growth detrimental to both the kid, parents and siblings UNLESS they have the finances to ensure to provide for all of them.
Yes there are other conversation about class equality, distribution of weath, freedom of happiness, etc. But i only bring this portion up for the discussion of population control.
The biggest plague on the planet are the humans who advocate getting rid of other humans to preserve some mythical "natural" status quo. Evolution is constantly killing and creating new species. Climate is constantly changing. The tectonic plates are constantly moving. Some people are romanticizing about the current status quo and making artificial distinctions between what is "natural" and what is "unnatural".
On January 24 2013 23:43 Evangelist wrote: Nature will find an equilibrium with humanity. However it will come at the cost of a lot of lives.
Nature has always balanced through numbers. We are making some improvements though. The Amazon is shrinking slower than it has in years because of control of deforestation.
Mt thoughts, though I really think we need to stop letting anyone breed before that happens. With our medicine, doctors and government care eliminating most of natural selection, it's time for us to do the selection (obviously not kill people, just prevent certain people from breeding).
Having spent the majority of my life learning about the dark side of the human mind and our activities on this earth (including such gems as how we think and thus how and why we suck at thinking, the way hate works and the dozens of ways in which we are fucking over ourselves and the world we live in), I tend to agree with his assessment. We are a plague. Unfortunately, I have found that happy people are unwilling to accept that fact. Even I in my happier moments have struggled against the cold logic that I used to form the belief that the human race is horrible. In the end, though, I could not counter my own logic with anything but naive denial.
If you don't think that human beings are a despicable plague and that realistically there is only about 3% of the total population that deserves to exist, than you are a parasite and part of the problem.
On January 25 2013 06:28 muta_micro wrote: If you don't think that human beings are a despicable plague and that realistically there is only about 3% of the total population that deserves to exist, than you are a parasite and part of the problem.
Ummm, I think you found the wrong forum......there are plenty of websites far more suitable for your brand of whiny hate. Try stormfront?
The human race isn't horrible and this guy isn't even saying kill all humans. He's just saying manage the numbers.
I support space colonization for this exact reason. The earth can sustain one or two billion humans, but cutting down to that number is impractical and near impossible without lots of war or some other method of killing the other five billion. Instead we can manage it at seven or even up to ten billion but take steps to even out that number so 10 doesn't become 20. Then we can spread out and start growing our numbers if needed.
The main point here is that humanity, like every other species has a survival instinct (no voluntary death for the good of the whole thanks to individuality) and a reproduction instinct (almost everyone wants kids) so it's hard to convince people to die off or not have kids because the question becomes "Why me?"
When you boil down this discussion, the intrinsic argument becomes whether or not the human species still retains its sense of natural carrying capacity. Excuse me for not being more precise, but biologists have found many examples of species that are naturally capable of limiting their population in order to balance out their ecosystems. The analogy of "sinking of your own ship" makes this easy to understand. There are, however, other creatures that do exactly just that. For example, viruses that destroy entire host organisms to accomplish maximum reproduction.
As with other mammals, humans were originally evolved to manage their own carrying capacity in this manner. But now people begin to argue we have 'devolved' from this important evolutionary property. What complicates the argument, however, is that humans are unique. We have the intelligent ability to increase our own carrying capacity with many tools. Sciences like medicine, industrial agriculture, and mass production allow us to repopulate quickly. At the same time, resource management and knowledge of recycling products help us maintain our place on planet Earth.
So the big question becomes how do we balance these two complex sides of the scale? How does humanity effectively control the side effects of our society, while at the same time maintaining its level of reproduction?
For me, I think science can effectively manage both at the same time. The only issue is whether or not science will receive the balanced amount of funding for each of these two phenomenon equally. If we become such a consumerist global economy that no one's willing to invest in clean energy or environmental research, then science might be developing too fast towards the wrong side of the scale. But if we are responsible, then equalizing our environmental side effects with our growth rate can be an easy solution.
Create area where you can fight to have your dna placed in gene pool.
Become the Clans.
On a slightly more serious note, this IS a self correcting problem. Once our population pressures reach a breaking point, our numbers will be reduced to a manageable size again.
"Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
On January 25 2013 06:48 Zoltan wrote: here's "The Plan"
We disable all people's ability to reproduce.
Create area where you can fight to have your dna placed in gene pool.
Become the Clans.
On a slightly more serious note, this IS a self correcting problem. Once our population pressures reach a breaking point, our numbers will be reduced to a manageable size again.
Technically, people in mechwarrior are still able to reproduce. Although, humans born "normal" way are not allowed to be placed anywhere high in the government and are usually used as meat shield.
On January 25 2013 00:17 Stratos_speAr wrote: This is a little ridiculous. First, we are part of nature, so when people separate us and put nature on a pedestal, it really doesn't serve much of a point. Second, we are the most intelligent species in the known universe, doing an incredible array of things no other species can. To say that we're just a plague is naive and it makes you sound like an obnoxious hippy with no appreciation for what humanity is. Yea, we're pretty bad at taking care of the planet, but we've been getting steadily better at it for the past couple decades, and there's no telling how it will turn out by the time we master space travel.
Yes, we're part of nature. So is the mold that turns an orange into a fuzzy green husk. It doesn't matter how you look at the situation, we're doing a lot of damage to the rest of the world and it's a simple fact that we'll ruin much of the world if we continue what we've been doing without restrictions endlessly.
It doesn't matter if we're intelligent or "special"- what matters is how we affect the planet and the other life on it.
BTW space travel is no solution. At best we'll establish small enclosed bases on the moon and Mars. Transforming them into livable planets isn't happening, and neither is travel outside of the solar system (barring a miraculous discovery of "warp speed" travel that breaks all known laws of physics).
The idea of a car wasn't even thinkable a couple hundred years ago. Look where we are now. To definitively say that terraforming planets or traveling outside the solar system is straight up impossible is incredibly naive.
And Why does how we affect the planet matter? It only matters on two scales; a pragmatic scale that considers the ability of the planet to sustain life forms and an abstract, moral scale that only matters to humanity on an emotional level.
On January 25 2013 06:53 DidYuhim wrote: "Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
People see the destruction we cause around us and, in the same shortsightedness that causes many of today's problems, think that we are altering the planet in a way that isn't natural. Of course, what is natural? A billion years ago Oxygen wasn't natural. It was created by microorganisms that eventually died because of their success - they couldn't survive in the high oxygen environment they created. It was exactly what we fear we will do in the present, create an environment that is unlivable. However, if it wasn't for the 'unnatural' oxygen then none of the rest of evolution would have happened like it did.
So just like it did then, life will go on no matter what we do. Even a nuclear holocaust wouldn't end life on Earth, just significantly reduce the diversity for a few million years. We shouldn't worry about protecting the environment for the environment's sake, it will be just fine once we're gone, but for our sake, because we won't survive the massive changes we cause.
On January 25 2013 06:53 DidYuhim wrote: "Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
People see the destruction we cause around us and, in the same shortsightedness that causes many of today's problems, think that we are altering the planet in a way that isn't natural. Of course, what is natural? A billion years ago Oxygen wasn't natural. It was created by microorganisms that eventually died because of their success - they couldn't survive in the high oxygen environment they created. It was exactly what we fear we will do in the present, create an environment that is unlivable. However, if it wasn't for the 'unnatural' oxygen then none of the rest of evolution would have happened like it did.
So just like it did then, life will go on no matter what we do. Even a nuclear holocaust wouldn't end life on Earth, just significantly reduce the diversity for a few million years. We shouldn't worry about protecting the environment for the environment's sake, it will be just fine once we're gone, but for our sake, because we won't survive the massive changes we cause.
Yes, so much. Agreed 100%. Protect the environment ,not for the whales, or the baby seals, or what have you - but for our own benefit.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
I just thought your choice of words was interesting.
Genesis 1:28 And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
On January 25 2013 06:48 Zoltan wrote: here's "The Plan"
We disable all people's ability to reproduce.
Create area where you can fight to have your dna placed in gene pool.
Become the Clans.
On a slightly more serious note, this IS a self correcting problem. Once our population pressures reach a breaking point, our numbers will be reduced to a manageable size again.
...through such joyous methods as starvation and exposure. It would be better to keep more people from being born than to wait until we start dying off. Besides, it's not like we wouldn't take a lot of nature with us, and the societal upheaval that would come from humankind exceeding what the Earth can provide would "overkill" by a fairly large margin. More would die than necessary.
On January 25 2013 06:53 DidYuhim wrote: "Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
People see the destruction we cause around us and, in the same shortsightedness that causes many of today's problems, think that we are altering the planet in a way that isn't natural. Of course, what is natural? A billion years ago Oxygen wasn't natural. It was created by microorganisms that eventually died because of their success - they couldn't survive in the high oxygen environment they created. It was exactly what we fear we will do in the present, create an environment that is unlivable. However, if it wasn't for the 'unnatural' oxygen then none of the rest of evolution would have happened like it did.
So just like it did then, life will go on no matter what we do. Even a nuclear holocaust wouldn't end life on Earth, just significantly reduce the diversity for a few million years. We shouldn't worry about protecting the environment for the environment's sake, it will be just fine once we're gone, but for our sake, because we won't survive the massive changes we cause.
Thanks for the perspective. Your viewpoint was interesting and even enlightening, to a degree. Ultra-long term morality does bring up some interesting trains of thought. Although, it can be very tricky. For instance, your argument gives a good reason for why the permanent loss of certain parts of nature is not inherently evil. However, that may steer a person away from considering whether or not the pain and death inflicted upon the individual members of the species is inherently evil. Those are two separate things, and yet so close that we may think about one and not the other, yet treat the one that we are considering as if it is the only one to consider, thus putting us in a position where our decision-making is compromised.
On January 25 2013 06:53 DidYuhim wrote: "Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
People see the destruction we cause around us and, in the same shortsightedness that causes many of today's problems, think that we are altering the planet in a way that isn't natural. Of course, what is natural? A billion years ago Oxygen wasn't natural. It was created by microorganisms that eventually died because of their success - they couldn't survive in the high oxygen environment they created. It was exactly what we fear we will do in the present, create an environment that is unlivable. However, if it wasn't for the 'unnatural' oxygen then none of the rest of evolution would have happened like it did.
So just like it did then, life will go on no matter what we do. Even a nuclear holocaust wouldn't end life on Earth, just significantly reduce the diversity for a few million years. We shouldn't worry about protecting the environment for the environment's sake, it will be just fine once we're gone, but for our sake, because we won't survive the massive changes we cause.
Yes, so much. Agreed 100%. Protect the environment ,not for the whales, or the baby seals, or what have you - but for our own benefit.
Hey, sounds nutty, but that's exactly why I support colonization efforts off planet. People who gripe about "wasted" space endeavors are just putting their eggs in one basket (earth). Yeah, maintain the vessel we have, but we should also be looking for ways to get to new ones.
On January 25 2013 03:44 dAPhREAk wrote: cockroaches will outlast us all.
insects in general, but yes cockroaches imba
Indeed.
On January 25 2013 03:44 Figgy wrote: The nice thing about overpopulation is, it will solve itself. Always has in nature, always will with us.
Not only are we at least 300 years away from not being able to feed first world countries, but the more people that starve, the less people there are to feed. Same as in nature.
The only serious threat humanity has to worry about is serious water polution and Nuclear Warfare. There is nothing else we can do to this planet to make it inhabitable. Less comfortable? Of course. Uninhabitable? Never.
Also, overpopulation will never, ever cause an issue in ours or our childrens lifetimes. So why even worry about it. Governments will start caring when it starts effecting their bottom line and actually becomes a real issue.
We don't know what kind of breakthoughs will come, there has already been a major one recently. Also note that we're currently throwing away more than half of the food the world produces everyday... I believe we still have some margin. I think problems will be regional : water (in Cali for example), territory, space. Nature doesn't regulate itself in a regular fashion, because the real amount of available ressources on the planet and our future needs are unkown.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
We are a plague on the Earth
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
I just thought your choice of words was interesting.
Genesis 1:28 And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Or... seeing as humans already were fruitful and multiplying and dominating fishs, birds and stuff; that looked like God's will for the people writing it.
Then perhaps like a virus we will soon break this cell that we've used to propagate and attempt to infect other cells? I have no qualms if we begin to colonize other planets.
On January 25 2013 06:53 DidYuhim wrote: "Humans are plague on Earth", "Hurry up and die" these threads are quite popular.
Is there any specific reason why people want to hate themselves? Or is this hate directed towards some specific group of individuals? Or you want cause mass suicide?
People see the destruction we cause around us and, in the same shortsightedness that causes many of today's problems, think that we are altering the planet in a way that isn't natural. Of course, what is natural? A billion years ago Oxygen wasn't natural. It was created by microorganisms that eventually died because of their success - they couldn't survive in the high oxygen environment they created. It was exactly what we fear we will do in the present, create an environment that is unlivable. However, if it wasn't for the 'unnatural' oxygen then none of the rest of evolution would have happened like it did.
So just like it did then, life will go on no matter what we do. Even a nuclear holocaust wouldn't end life on Earth, just significantly reduce the diversity for a few million years. We shouldn't worry about protecting the environment for the environment's sake, it will be just fine once we're gone, but for our sake, because we won't survive the massive changes we cause.
Yes, so much. Agreed 100%. Protect the environment ,not for the whales, or the baby seals, or what have you - but for our own benefit.
Hey, sounds nutty, but that's exactly why I support colonization efforts off planet. People who gripe about "wasted" space endeavors are just putting their eggs in one basket (earth). Yeah, maintain the vessel we have, but we should also be looking for ways to get to new ones.
Agreed. There's the whole two-planet concept where humans still remain if one planet goes to shit, etc.
Traffic would be so much nicer if half the cars on the road were relocated to an identical highway on Mars...
On January 25 2013 02:43 radscorpion9 wrote: The second part of his statement is basic logic. I don't think quoting him should really reveal anything new (except to some people who may be ignorant of this issue entirely). I do wonder how bad climate change will be though. It seems like lately the scientists are giving some pretty bad warnings, about how it will be worse than they thought in terms of the frequency and size of natural disasters. Maybe its a little callous...but I am kind of excited. I wonder what this new world will be like? I am imagining a future dystopia where we live underground, and poke outside once in a while to rummage through our wrecked cities for scrap. And I would be a sentry at one of the underground cities, occasionally taking out a bandit and picking through his weapons for something useful. It sounds so cool in my imagination, probably not so much in reality.
I think most people got it wrong, we are not a plague that is pesting earth. This planet and life on it will be there after we are gone, the forces of nature are much stronger than you think. So yes, we produce too much crap like CO2, but that doesnt really bother the planet. The planet is fine with it, there have been periods of time where O2 was a toxic gas! We should still care about what we do, but that is self preservation and not "saving the planet", since we actually cant live on a heated up planet with methane as a major part of the atmosphere. But other lifeforms would be rather happy about that.
Who knows, maybe nature just wanted some nice plastics and thats why we exist. And now we can go.
A plague on this planet? I'd say no. A detriment to this planet? I'd say yes. Do I think we should radically change our ways/kill ourselves because of it? No.
On January 25 2013 06:20 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Having spent the majority of my life learning about the dark side of the human mind and our activities on this earth (including such gems as how we think and thus how and why we suck at thinking, the way hate works and the dozens of ways in which we are fucking over ourselves and the world we live in), I tend to agree with his assessment. We are a plague. Unfortunately, I have found that happy people are unwilling to accept that fact. Even I in my happier moments have struggled against the cold logic that I used to form the belief that the human race is horrible. In the end, though, I could not counter my own logic with anything but naive denial.
I think you should look at the humankind as a whole not as a villain, but as a child. I mean look at them. Up until the age of 4 they don't even have a theory of mind, they care only about sweets, fun and games, they don't understand the consequences of their actions, they are often mean, angry and egoistic, they are absolutely useless and only require resources and attention for no apparent gain. But there is one big positive: they learn. The same applies to the humankind, we are terrible in the process, but we learn.
Plagues are the most successful organisms we know of, so I view this statement as pointless masturbation of the ego. In reality if we had anything approaching the ruthlessness and innovation of most single called organisms coupled with our present intelligence we'd have conquered this solar system long ago.
Also, as I'm sure others have pointed out, the amount of available resources is constantly increasing thanks to technological development and application of labor. Not like the planet has x Amt of available resources and therefore theres nothing we can do about that but force Ethiopians to stop breeding.
I just hate threads where humans pointlessly (and with unwitting irony) denounce humanity, tends to bring out the most smug, superior, holier than thou among us.
The solution imo is the dissolution of the current government system in the world and uniting together as one. No borders, no boundaries, just work together as a whole to find a solution to this.
But to be honest I think at some point the Earth will balance itself out but the human species as a whole won't be going out of the whole process without losing significant population, which is going to be a good thing for everyone. Less people is always good.
Hmm let's see here... A man who has literally seen the whole world with his own two eyes, or a bunch of nerds who scream SOURCE!? PROOF!? whenever they come across unpalatable information. Yeah...
Humanity IS driving off a cliff, in more ways than this one. It's just a natural defense mechanism in most people to deny it.
Inequality, resource depletion, blind belief in our political/religious/financial institutions. These things will destroy us in the end unless people start to wake up from their slumberous apathy. I only hope we can do so in time.
I actually agree. Then again, if you think about it, every single species is like a virus. Consume and reproduce, that's what we do, the problem is we, as an intelligent species, have managed to dodge many of the hurdles nature throws at us to keep population down. We're no longer cavemen, dying from disease, famine or drought. Sure, these problems can always hit a region or another, but we have doctors, agricultural progress, irrigation systems, technology, industry etc, to beat the odds. That means we are overpopulating the planet and beating nature's balancing gimmicks at every turn.
This 'nature finds a way to balance things out' does not mean it will be a way beneficial for us. We will reach a breaking point eventually, unless technology moves fast enough to grow food, energy and space for everyone. If our continued existence and overpopulation starts to affect the ecosystem to the point it starts to become hostile for us or unable to sustain us, then the planet gets what it needs and people start dying. What I wonder is, when that ball starts rolling, will we be able to stop it once our numbers have gone down enough or will it be too late?
Every virus moves to another body to keep on consuming and reproducing, but we can't colonize planets or space and move people there just yet. That seems to me as the most humane solution. Sometimes I see this all as a race against nature. Will we beat it and survive, even if we end up living in tiny quarters, drinking our recycled urine, or will she finally get us?
Regarding winter, I can't comment. I'm in latin america, enjoying summer, which is awesome.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
He has plenty of reasons to take up this position late in life, and may even have been propositioned by the population control extremists wanting more notoriety for their cause. The Economist already wrote about it. It wasn't too long ago that Japan's leaders met to address the crisis of an aging population as its replacement rate remains too low. Russia's worried too. Overpopulation ideologues forget how their advocacy can create the opposite problem.
The sheer amount of energy required to grow crops to feed the current growing population is cause for alarm if fossil fuels are legislated out of development or run out altogether. That problem I will agree with.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
I don't think you understand who you're talking about. He is one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, if not the world. He is an iconic symbol. He will be written about for years after his death and he is still producing documentaries that are shown all over the world. I disagree with his point but Sir David does not need to pull any kind of stunt to get heard about or be remembered for his conservationism. He's pretty much the founder of modern popular conservationism and all the environmental awareness that goes with it.
This 'Sir David whatshisface' may be correct but I will tell you that only education can lead to success.
The solution to solving this "unsustainable growth" is to become smarter, which is what many of us are doing everyday. Humans are all about making things more and more efficient which means doing more shit by using less shit. Simple as that.
Pretty much Sir David just slapped us in the face saying that humans are dumb.
Earth isn't sentient. We as humans have an evolutionary responsibility only to our own species. The extinction of other species should be weighed as events according to their value/detriment to us as a species not with some sentimental over-generalized self-condemning nonsense of an argument.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
I don't think you understand who you're talking about. He is one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, if not the world. He is an iconic symbol. He will be written about for years after his death and he is still producing documentaries that are shown all over the world. I disagree with his point but Sir David does not need to pull any kind of stunt to get heard about or be remembered for his conservationism. He's pretty much the founder of modern popular conservationism and all the environmental awareness that goes with it.
So he took up a new cause related to what he already believes in. I'll agree that he may be very recognizable in Britain, and perhaps many parts of the world. I'll confess, this is my first hearing of his name and achievements.
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
Did you read this and think the writer went a bit overboard? Of COURSE, this man is a saint and cannot be suspected of any other motives! The author laid it on a bit thick, as if this is the first guy supporting the over-population agenda and over-consumption ideology that is an honest man to boot. I take it that the first reason I listed is untrue, as he need no more fame or interviews. A naturalist is late in life persuaded that both population growth and consumption will lead to a litany of ill effects, not only that, but that "Humans are a plague on Earth" (Did he always have this spark for hyperbole?). Maybe he's the best thing to come to the cause he now champions. One honorable man has made a mistake in going so overboard for this issue. I'd have to know more about population control advocacy in Britain to fully know if he's further in the fold with popular causes for the naturalists. I came out reading that he has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda that this was the endorsement of the Pope and discovered writings from both Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
If we destroy Earth, the only sad thing would be our own demise. Earth and the Universe for that matter are not very interesting when there's nobody to find it interesting. And a beautiful lively Earth is just as uninteresting as a post-apocalyptic one. A swirling mass of stupid which can't even question itself.
Humanity has pretty bad macro. In order to fix this problem:
We must remember to always build additional pylons, so we can keep building probes. This is not a game, so there is no 200 cap limit. Supply Depots for the less developed countries.
Day9 is the savior of humanity truly: with his proclamation:
"Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons," That's all we need to reach grandmaster level as a species (or at least diamond). Maybe later, once other planets are involved, we can start putting in more marines, more command centers, even a zealot or 2. Just incase we run into a terrifying space alien horde that xenobiologists will eventually call Zerg.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
I don't think you understand who you're talking about. He is one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, if not the world. He is an iconic symbol. He will be written about for years after his death and he is still producing documentaries that are shown all over the world. I disagree with his point but Sir David does not need to pull any kind of stunt to get heard about or be remembered for his conservationism. He's pretty much the founder of modern popular conservationism and all the environmental awareness that goes with it.
So he took up a new cause related to what he already believes in. I'll agree that he may be very recognizable in Britain, and perhaps many parts of the world. I'll confess, this is my first hearing of his name and achievements.
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
Did you read this and think the writer went a bit overboard? Of COURSE, this man is a saint and cannot be suspected of any other motives! The author laid it on a bit thick, as if this is the first guy supporting the over-population agenda and over-consumption ideology that is an honest man to boot. I take it that the first reason I listed is untrue, as he need no more fame or interviews. A naturalist is late in life persuaded that both population growth and consumption will lead to a litany of ill effects, not only that, but that "Humans are a plague on Earth" (Did he always have this spark for hyperbole?). Maybe he's the best thing to come to the cause he now champions. One honorable man has made a mistake in going so overboard for this issue. I'd have to know more about population control advocacy in Britain to fully know if he's further in the fold with popular causes for the naturalists. I came out reading that he has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda that this was the endorsement of the Pope and discovered writings from both Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
Not really, that kind of rhetoric is needed for people such as yourself who probably only experienced his work with an American voiceover or something to understand what a big deal he is. You know every single animal documentary/programme ever? They trace back to Zoo Quest which is him 60 years ago filming himself and a team of professionals from London Zoo tracking down animals to capture and bring back to London zoo. He's had a conservationist streak for a long time, he has no need to establish credentials in that regard. He's been outspoken on climate change, endangered species, deforestation and so forth. On the other hand, he spends a lot of time in these places, despite his old age, he's someone who walked in the rainforests that have since been burned for plantations.
I don't think we're a "plague" to the planet, we just suck at taking care of it. You don't say you're a "plague" to your deteriorating garden; you simply don't take care of it. The earth was put here for us, much like a garden is there for the enjoyment of the gardener.
And I have a feeling this 80 year old guy is just going through the 80 year old man phase where you start saying things for the heck of it - BECAUSE YOU CAN. People never get mad at an old guy for speaking his mind, they know he doesn't have many years left.
There's definitely always something that can be improved, but I don't think you need to believe that it is as bad as he says it is.
Is our civilization on an unsustainable course? Certainly. By along shot.
But so what?
The biosphere is self-regulating. As we damage our ecosystem more and more, our ability to get enough food will be diminishing -> more people will be dying of hunger -> pressure on the ecosystem will be decreasing -> new point of balance with nature will be achieved.
The only scary thought is that this die-off in developing world and decrease in living standards in developed world is likely to start happening in our lifetime.
The only hopeful thought is that it may be possible to avert it by lowering human ignorance and selfishness and getting better technology to deal with diminishing resources.
Anyway, is there a reason natural limits to population growth are bad? I mean, scarcity may not be pretty, but it drives technological, economic, and even biological (evolutionary) innovation
Too much scarcity is definitely bad in the short term, but as others have said, at least its a self regulating problem. Certainly not as big a problem as humanity "sorting itself out" and getting a "coordinated view on the situation" - which sounds suspiciously like one world, totalitarian, beating women who have more than two kids into miscarriages, china style government. I just don't know about all this man. Feels a bit odd reading about this English gentleman casting judgement on how many children the people in some impoverished African nation should be permitted to have. I'm sensing a hint of the old colonial, white mans burden attitude here.
Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I wouldn't exactly call humanity a plague. Humanity can be capable of great good, but we just need to be guided in that direction.
It is possible for technological progress to increase the resources to meet the demands of Earth's growing population, but unfortunately that is not a guarantee. Just need to be aware of that.
On January 25 2013 00:00 KNICK wrote: He is right about the plague part. I mean, this is kind of a no-brainer, isn't it? If we were not here, the Earth would be much better off healthwise than it is right now. I don't think anyone can deny that, no matter how many organisations and campaigns to preserve nature we might start. Limiting population growth would be a good first step to the only relevant thing that we as a species could ultimately achieve: our own extinction. Of course, that will never happen of our own volition. But I am confident that, in time, we will either destroy this planet and go down with it or it will destroy us.
I just hope space travel won't make progress fast enough for us to infest other worlds as well. That would be a shame.
That's equivalent to saying Earth would be better off without lions because they kill zebras. Are humans a disaster for a lot of specific ecosystems? Yes. In the end it will balance itself out though. Earth as a planet or a global ecosystem doesn't care much for humans unless we literally blow the entire planet to pieces. Life always finds a way.
Population control advocates always advocate for others to kill themselves, never themselves. Oh, but if they're not around directing and planning this process, then it won't happen...how convenient.
bill hicks said it best, we are a virus with shoes. i think it's very irresponsible and selfish to have children in today's world. i know so many people who adopt puppies and kittens and think they're doing the world a favor. how about a human being? is it that important to see (some of) your own stupid face in your kid's face?
surely humanity is capable of some incredible feats, and certain people throughout history have definitely stood out, but i'd say overall it's pretty undeniable that, as a whole, we fucking suck
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I honestly think he is just pissed he has to deal with so many pesky natives interfering with his heroic attempts at making the next great honey badger documentary. What with their deforestation of jungles to build up industry, hunting endangered species to provide better lives for their families, etc. I mean really, the nerve. Clearly the world would be a better place without so many people in it, better for Sir David Attenborough at least. We should implement population controls in Ethiopia and similar nations straightaway, so that wondrous continent Africa won't be bespoiled by the plague of humanity which presently threatens it. For that is what they are, you know - a plague.
Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
People in this thread give humans way too much credit. As if we could actually destroy a planet lol. Sure, we might make it less inhabitable to some species and in return make it more suitable for others. But "Nature" is gonna be around a lot longer than humans.
In the long run, unless we go extinct, the long-term fertility rate of the human species will be two children per woman.* It's up to us whether we want that to be because couples voluntarily choose to have only two kids on average, or because most people die of famine or disease or violence before they get old enough to have children (or decide not to).
Value isn't inherent in the object but in the valuer. "Natural balance" is not a an end in itself" Destroying the earth is 'bad' because of the perceived negative consequences to the valuer, whether it be physical or psychological. Life also doesn't hold inherent value. All values are instrumental.
Just wanted to clear up this bit of philosophy that many people in this thread don't understand.
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I honestly think he is just pissed he has to deal with so many pesky natives interfering with his heroic attempts at making the next great honey badger documentary. What with their deforestation of jungles to build up industry, hunting endangered species to provide better lives for their families, etc. I mean really, the nerve. Clearly the world would be a better place without so many people in it, better for Sir David Attenborough at least. We should implement population controls in Ethiopia and similar nations straightaway, so that wondrous continent Africa won't be bespoiled by the plague of humanity which presently threatens it. For that is what they are, you know - a plague.
Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
That is such a strawman argument. Don't try to make this out to be some sort of hidden agenda to force people in other parts of the world to live miserable lives. We already went there and we fucked up. So instead of learning anything from history we should let people repeat the exact same mistakes because they havn't had the opportunity yet?
There are more ways to improve quality of life than to burn down the rain forests to make parking lots.
On January 25 2013 09:19 Doominator10 wrote: Humanity has pretty bad macro. In order to fix this problem:
We must remember to always build additional pylons, so we can keep building probes. This is not a game, so there is no 200 cap limit. Supply Depots for the less developed countries.
Day9 is the savior of humanity truly: with his proclamation:
"Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons,Probes and Pylons," That's all we need to reach grandmaster level as a species (or at least diamond). Maybe later, once other planets are involved, we can start putting in more marines, more command centers, even a zealot or 2. Just incase we run into a terrifying space alien horde that xenobiologists will eventually call Zerg.
User was warned for this post
What a way to shit up a serious discussion.
On topic, I find the overpopulation thing quite overstated. I bet China is can accommodate all of humanity and still have room for a few more generation, even with positive population growth.
Humans do probably act like a plague but there you go that's what we are. Not like the earth cares either way if we exist or don't, it's an inanimate rock.
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I honestly think he is just pissed he has to deal with so many pesky natives interfering with his heroic attempts at making the next great honey badger documentary. What with their deforestation of jungles to build up industry, hunting endangered species to provide better lives for their families, etc. I mean really, the nerve. Clearly the world would be a better place without so many people in it, better for Sir David Attenborough at least. We should implement population controls in Ethiopia and similar nations straightaway, so that wondrous continent Africa won't be bespoiled by the plague of humanity which presently threatens it. For that is what they are, you know - a plague.
Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
Sometimes I really despise terms like "edgy" and "emo". Just because views are intensely negative, does not mean they are irrational. Instead of going for low blows and comparing people to angsty kids, please try to disprove them through logic and reason.
People have been saying this for a long ass time >_> Malthus anyone? Doom and Gloom always get the press. Kind of reminds me of George Carlin's bit where he talks about how its all BS to "save nature and the planet" because the planet will be fine but that its us who are going away.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
I just thought your choice of words was interesting.
Genesis 1:28 And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
But humans created the whole concept of rights, there is no such thing as that in nature. It is simply survival of the fittest. But anyway that's just minor.
What you're saying generally can't be true. Look how hard many European countries are working to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy, most of them have moved towards banning coal fired plants. The whole drive towards sustainable logging, all those power-saving measures, recycling programs, sustainable farming and movements towards vegetarianism...its more accurate to say that we are struggling with our nature to want as much as we can get at the cost of the environment and the poor, and many of us are trying to live a more "enlightened" lifestyle now. There are plenty of people like you who care about animals and treat them well, and many are fighting against factory farming. So its kind of extreme for you to say its entirely true that we are a plague on Earth. The world is making major changes, and things are getting better albeit slowly.
Once things start getting worse, there will probably be a significant motivation to change. Maybe over a period of several decades we can find a way to stabilize the climate, once its obvious that anthropogenic global warming is real in terms of the frequency and severity of natural disasters (which can't be explained any other way).
I guess what I'm trying to say is I look at things from a biological point of view. As humans, because we give ourselves this right that we are meant to expand and grow without considering the life around us (today's a little different with environmental efforts) we drastically increase the rate of extinction among species. I'd be hard pressed to not say that if we weren't around the diversity of life on earth would be much greater than it is today. Looking at it this way, yea, we are indeed a parasite in where we cause the most damage due to our ridiculous numbers.
Another thing to think about is if we are taking the idea of evolution into play, here we are pre-homo sapiens, lacking the ability to be self-aware for lack of a better way to put it. Life on earth is flourishing; the problems of pollution, global warming, over-population aren't present. But once we make this step, this jump to where our mental ability is enhanced in where we see ourselves past just having this purpose of surviving, all the harm done by humans starts to unfold. My bio professor who's a plant evolutionist loved playing with this idea of how we overcame this mental gap of sorts.
I understand what you're getting at, but I'm sort of biased in this topic being surrounded by teachers who are all environmentalists lol.
On January 25 2013 05:17 randommuch wrote: If any of you have read the book Ishmael, I strongly suggest you read it if this kind of thing interests you.
This is entirely true. My take on this, and I admit is biased from that book, is that what gave us the right to have dominion over everything else? I try to see myself as equals with things around me; granted we may be smarter than other life forms, but when I look at something easily passed by as insignificant, such as my own cat, I have a great deal of respect for her as an animal. It's something most see as a simple animal, but in all honesty the way life works is incredibly intricate and fascinating to me. I really don't think humans should be held as high as we are putting ourselves. Truthfully, we, and the earth itself, might be better off with half the population we are dealing with currently.
We don't need to be given a right to have dominion over everything else. We can have it because we are capable of it and other species on our planet are not.
I've taken part of an interesting debate recently on a thing called antinatalism which can be googled but the term is quite self-explanatory. I personally think antinatalism or any similar ideologies against humanity are silly and pretty disgusting even. My reasoning is below...
1- Our planet has no inherent value just like gas giant planet XYZ has no value. If XYZ gets engulfed by the star it revolves around, we don't care, it's a cosmic event like any other. Any value Earth has is whatever value we give it. We think it's pretty boss because we live on it. 2- Therefore, Earth is only important because we're on it. 3- We're important because we say so. That doesn't make it true but you feel it in your gut don't you? That's why you spend your money mostly on yourself. 4- Earth needs to be preserved so we can be preserved.
Others would argue that we need to take care of the planet for the sake of the other organisms, but I'm then again, I have two counterpoints. 1- We're the only ones who think those creatures are important. They themselves don't give a shit. Sapience is the only thing that can make our planet grandiose. As far as animals are concerned, "whatever". 2- We couldn't eliminate life on Earth if we tried, even blowing up all our nukes, some resistant organisms would survive somewhere and millions of years down the line they'd likely manage to evolve into a brand new set of Earthly creatures.
We can make things matter as long as we exist. The worst thing we can do is to endanger ourselves, and the only way we can really do that is with WMDs and stuff. Like others have pointed out, the planet is self regulating anyway - if we break it, it doesn't care, it's still good to go for a couple billions of years. Even we are self regulating in a sad way... Hopefully we won't blow ourselves up when we get to that point, but the battle for resources will inevitably get more intense as powerful countries will start to need more resources which they won't have access to. I don't know when that'll happen - or if it will. Hell for all I know someone will invent a miraculous food machine that'll somehow manage to feed 20 billions of people, but until then, we can expect someday in the semi-remote future, shit will break loose and you'll hope to be on the right end of the gun. Earth won't give a fuck though. We're the only ones who are capable of giving fucks.
I'd like to hear solutions though. What do we do, start gunning people down right now to save our super resilient planet? Prevent further births? Fine. Who do you think are going to get the cut first? Not me you know, I'm a white dude in a rich country. Let the games begin.
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions?
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing.
It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions?
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing.
Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions?
On January 25 2013 13:16 Slaughter wrote:
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing.
Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths.
Please explain how you limit births without forced abortions.
Edit: Yes I have heard of the law, I strongly disagree with it from a moral standpoint.
On January 25 2013 13:21 Powerpill wrote: It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind.
It's this lifestyle that may save us yet. As a species, we're the only ones on earth capable of finding fulfillment in something other than procreation. This has proved especially true with recent history, as the average individual has FAR more options to spend their mental and physical faculties on. The more one dwells on other matters, the more their instincts are satiated by other behaviors.
Sex is probably the biggest example of this, as it has become more and more faceted in what it caters to. People can have sex for pleasure via protection, homosexuality, pornography, etc. This has become more and more accepted in mainstream society. However, more rural societies still place a lot of value in procreation, whether as a sign of maturity, means of sustaining a small community (survival), etc.
Basically, while the instinct is still there, the need to procreate is being replaced with other goals, at least that's what my uninformed opinion on the matter is.
On January 25 2013 13:21 Powerpill wrote: It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind.
It's this lifestyle that may save us yet. As a species, we're the only ones on earth capable of finding fulfillment in something other than procreation. This has proved especially true with recent history, as the average individual has FAR more options to spend their mental and physical faculties on. The more one dwells on other matters, the more their instincts are satiated by other behaviors.
Sex is probably the biggest example of this, as it has become more and more faceted in what it caters to. People can have sex for pleasure via protection, homosexuality, pornography, etc. This has become more and more accepted in mainstream society. However, more rural societies still place a lot of value in procreation, whether as a sign of maturity, means of sustaining a small community (survival), etc.
Basically, while the instinct is still there, the need to procreate is being replaced with other goals, at least that's what my uninformed opinion on the matter is.
Whats interesting is that a lot of developed countries, take lets say Japan (there was just a thread on this) where the birth rate is really low. This can be attributed to development and a focus away from procreation. Isn't it true that underdeveloped countries have a fairly higher birthrate?
On January 25 2013 13:21 Powerpill wrote: It is scary how much the population has jumped in numbers over the last century, and where it will be in the near future (nothing doomsdayish, but still quite a lot). I was actually talking with an old female friend of mine who now has two kids, and she asked why I do not yet have any (I am 30 btw). I answered that I was not sure if I wanted kids, and if so, I would probably only want one. Her response was that I had a "selfish" attitude (she plans to have two more by the way). That comment still boggles my mind.
Many western countries have currently an expected population growth that will stop around 2020-2030 and will start to diminish from there (unless women have more kids or immigration goes up).
Many "rich" countries have a fertility rate below 2.1 which is the minimum to not have your population having a negative growth (without immigration). The problem of overpopulation is for poor countries where having many children is still a sign of wealth or don't have birth control or other reasons. Sadly they are probably the countries that suffer the most from it. But its pretty clear that more developed countries, better health and stuff will probably make a lower fertility rate.
Hell, the world average fertility rate has been declining steadily since the 50ies going from 5 to 2.5 and is expected to slowly continue to decline.
i think overconsumption is due to the fact that humans still have biological instincts. perhaps one could make an argument that we consume and stockpile excessive resources due to our natural want to survive and to protect the future of our offspring.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, which is what a school boy might say to his friend after being asked what country is the best, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
On January 25 2013 09:49 hasuprotoss wrote: Considering people have been saying this since around the turn of the 19th century, I'm not sure how much weight I should put into one man's statement.
I kind of agree with this, why is his particular statement so special? Hating humans isn't exactly a new concept.
I honestly think he is just pissed he has to deal with so many pesky natives interfering with his heroic attempts at making the next great honey badger documentary. What with their deforestation of jungles to build up industry, hunting endangered species to provide better lives for their families, etc. I mean really, the nerve. Clearly the world would be a better place without so many people in it, better for Sir David Attenborough at least. We should implement population controls in Ethiopia and similar nations straightaway, so that wondrous continent Africa won't be bespoiled by the plague of humanity which presently threatens it. For that is what they are, you know - a plague.
Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
Sometimes I really despise terms like "edgy" and "emo". Just because views are intensely negative, does not mean they are irrational. Instead of going for low blows and comparing people to angsty kids, please try to disprove them through logic and reason.
I apologize. I wasn't responding to any specific post, but in the future I will single a few out.
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
It's the people in this thread agreeing with the view that humanity is a plague that I was referring to. I don't see my own comments as going against the grain in the slightest, because even on tl I doubt the majority would agree with the sentiment that humanity is a disease that must be cured by forcible population control.
As for the man whose comments provoked this discussion, it's harder to read into his motivations, particularly since we don't have access to the full article. He's a European elite who thinks we should come together as one to force Ethiopians to have less children, and refers to humanity as a plague. To me, that strikes a very familiar chord. Western elites have a very long tradition of attempting to force their "ideals" on other peoples in a way that's beneficial to themselves, without really taking the wishes of those peoples into account.
On January 25 2013 13:36 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote:
On January 25 2013 10:33 Zahir wrote: Surprised so many Tlers are cool with this borderline hate speech, I guess everyone is just eager to show how edgy they are by dissing humanity.
So you think this 86 year old man, beloved by millions, is attempting to seem edgy by hating on something universally popular and you're taking a controversial stand against him on the internet and don't care what we think?
Sir, I feel you haven't thought this through. And I mean sir in the sense of being polite to you, not the sense in which you're actually a knight. You have to be pretty awesome to become a knight.
I didn't get to see the full interview because the links aren't working, but I don't really see much to be thought through on this. He basically just said either we need to do something about overpopulation and over-consumption or nature will take its course and do it for us. So what?
You don't seem to care whether humanity continues to exist or not.
Sure I do, I think controlling population is sick though.
Is it better for millions (or billions) to die of starvation and hunger, or the ensuing violence over resources, or to put limitations on how many children people can have?
One of those two things has far less suffering attached than the other.
Ok first of all, millions/billions of people have been dying of starvation or hunger for a long time and it is tragic, but that is natural selection taking its course, why do WE have a responsibility to change that by choosing who we think should suffer more? What is your suggestion? Forced abortions?
On January 25 2013 13:16 Slaughter wrote:
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
I wouldn't label him being in favor of eugenics. Eugenics wants to "improve" the species by controlling who can and cannot reproduce and the "less desirable" people would be sterilized. It seems he wants to curb population growth overall rather then judging who can and cannot reproduce to improve the species.
How would you implement a sweeping population curb fairly across the board? You can't. It's the same thing.
Have you not heard of the one child law? We don't need to kill or even abort fetuses. We only need to pass laws limiting births. Also, we won't be choosing who suffers more. We would be passing simple laws that really don't do that much harm and would prevent millions of painful deaths.
One child law is hardly a shining example. Its consequences include a significant increase in forced abortions and infanticide, and that's not even touching the kind of societal and cultural controls you need in place to make implementing such a policy even feasible.
Even Attenborough himself has had two kids, so it's not like you'd find him advocating this.
At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
To become famous once again late in life. To give interviews, to be written about. To get favorable coverage by a media very attuned to global warming and the energy crisis.
I don't think you understand who you're talking about. He is one of the most recognisable figures in Britain, if not the world. He is an iconic symbol. He will be written about for years after his death and he is still producing documentaries that are shown all over the world. I disagree with his point but Sir David does not need to pull any kind of stunt to get heard about or be remembered for his conservationism. He's pretty much the founder of modern popular conservationism and all the environmental awareness that goes with it.
So he took up a new cause related to what he already believes in. I'll agree that he may be very recognizable in Britain, and perhaps many parts of the world. I'll confess, this is my first hearing of his name and achievements.
He may actually be quite right. At 86, Sir David has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda behind this proclamation, and his body of work attests to this.
Did you read this and think the writer went a bit overboard? Of COURSE, this man is a saint and cannot be suspected of any other motives! The author laid it on a bit thick, as if this is the first guy supporting the over-population agenda and over-consumption ideology that is an honest man to boot. I take it that the first reason I listed is untrue, as he need no more fame or interviews. A naturalist is late in life persuaded that both population growth and consumption will lead to a litany of ill effects, not only that, but that "Humans are a plague on Earth" (Did he always have this spark for hyperbole?). Maybe he's the best thing to come to the cause he now champions. One honorable man has made a mistake in going so overboard for this issue. I'd have to know more about population control advocacy in Britain to fully know if he's further in the fold with popular causes for the naturalists. I came out reading that he has no ulterior motives or hidden agenda that this was the endorsement of the Pope and discovered writings from both Gandhi and Mother Theresa.
Not really, that kind of rhetoric is needed for people such as yourself who probably only experienced his work with an American voiceover or something to understand what a big deal he is. You know every single animal documentary/programme ever? They trace back to Zoo Quest which is him 60 years ago filming himself and a team of professionals from London Zoo tracking down animals to capture and bring back to London zoo. He's had a conservationist streak for a long time, he has no need to establish credentials in that regard. He's been outspoken on climate change, endangered species, deforestation and so forth. On the other hand, he spends a lot of time in these places, despite his old age, he's someone who walked in the rainforests that have since been burned for plantations.
So he's famous for his documentaries and has a history of advocating green causes, this being just the edgiest one yet. I'm beginning to think I'm alone on this one, but how much weight of unbiased motivation and altruistic devotion can he really bring to the table. Albert Gore, Jr., can come out tomorrow on this and I won't bat an eye, though he isn't well beloved and hasn't been in the media's eye for a great length of time. But he also has long been in environmentalist advocacy and is not presumed to have lived in industry and explored this issue from both sides with a balanced eye. I'm coming to understand all he's done that's endeared him in the public's hearts, and those of the academic community. Yet, I would not for an instant elevate this man's agenda as being on the side of the angels. I'll take the word of a major farming conglomerate's head, providing jobs for many thousands, and the food side that keeps a large population fed, with comparative length of standing with the same value as Sir David. Some fertilizer guy as well, who can nobly go about providing that which assists in food production. The naturalists, scientists, and environmentalists hold no monopoly on altruism. It's just the other side rarely rises to such fame and warmth of regard in wide media circles.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop an equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil." Species that develop an equilibrium with the environment will increasingly live a life of leisure as opposed to a life of toil due to natural selection.
And if what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Now Dolphins are doing a great job, they have developed an equilibrium with their environment, ensuring their survival, and they have plenty of time for leisure, and do not toil much.
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
Edit: I'm not saying that population control is always good, or even always necessary. Nature and society will always strive towards equilibrium slowly and arduously, but if humans give it a push in the right direction, much of the pain and suffering in between can be removed. The trouble of course is determining how strong should we push, and in what direction, which we're obviously not very good at doing.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop a equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
If what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
loool. You don't get it do you? Dolphins don't muck around; they have to swim quite far to find food, and when food runs out, they die en masse. They have no ability to farm the fish they eat, they have no ability to increase their numbers past what nature lets them.
By contrast, if a human society hits a resource limit, it can just figure a way around it, much as Britain chopped down all her forests (and those of Ireland too) and then switched to coal, and then switched to oil from the North Sea. Now, people are figuring out energy sources like fusion, and designing rockets and colonization plans for other planets--permanently divorcing humans from the whims and caprice of a natural environment. That's progress. Eco-luddism is not.
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
Ah, that post is hilarious. Starts off with a false grasp of what eugenics is, then segues into judeo-christian bullshit, and then points out that more consumption only means more wealth for everyone. Not even gonna mention the rest.
On January 25 2013 16:15 Arcadia92 wrote: Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
While what you wrote is true, China was/is in the unenviable position of having a state that is in many ways totalitarian, certainly not one with a great deal of respect for free speech or individual rights. For a policy like one child to work, you need a heavily controlled media and brutally repressive state apparatus capable of largely silencing dissent. A look at the whole picture is necessary here, and the fact is, to implement rigorous population control on the basis of force, or even threat of stripping an offender's job, would require a fundamental reworking of many existing governments/societies, probably not for the better.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop a equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
If what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
loool. You don't get it do you? Dolphins don't muck around; they have to swim quite far to find food, and when food runs out, they die en masse. They have no ability to farm the fish they eat, they have no ability to increase their numbers past what nature lets them.
By contrast, if a human society hits a resource limit, it can just figure a way around it, much as Britain chopped down all her forests (and those of Ireland too) and then switched to coal, and then switched to oil from the North Sea. Now, people are figuring out energy sources like fusion, and designing rockets and colonization plans for other planets--permanently divorcing humans from the whims and caprice of a natural environment. That's progress. Eco-luddism is not.
Dolphins don't need to farm to survive, they don't need to have any ability to increase their numbers past what nature allows, that is the entire point!
What are we progressing toward? Where are we going? Progress toward what? Survival? We have only endangered our own survival more than anything with our technology. Our weaponry obviously endangers our survival. Medicine allows people who would die from certain things to survive and pass on their genes, removing us from the effects of natural selection (literally we are de-evolving), which means we'll need even more medicine to fix the problems that result from saving people with medicine in the first place! I also want to add that I imagine that a larger percentage of humans die from starvation than dolphins. 33% of the world's human population is considered to be starving, if you didn't know.
And, there is end game here that means that progress to ensure survival alone is a fruitless goal. Entropy in thermodynamics says that:
"Following the second law of thermodynamics, entropy of a closed system always increases and in heat transfer situations, heat energy is transferred from higher temperature components to lower temperature components. In thermally isolated systems, entropy runs in one direction only (it is not a reversible process). One can measure the entropy of a system to determine the energy not available for work in a thermodynamic process, such as energy conversion, engines, or machines. Such processes and devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when converting energy to work. During this work, entropy accumulates in the system, which then dissipates in the form of waste heat."
Now, the first law states that all the energy in the universe has to add up to the energy that existed at the universe’s start.
The second law state that: The energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum
So we can colonize, expand, and whatever, but in the end, all species, even the universe as we know it, will cease to exist. Entorpy always flows one way, and heat is waste. Thus if you make a car, then melt it down, you won't have the resources to remake said car with what you melted down, because some of the energy escaped in the form of heat, and cannot be recovered. Another way to explain the process is that no engine is 100% efficient (or will ever be), and thus when an engine converts energy into work, the heat that results dissipates and cannot be recovered. Thus the universe is trending toward a giant ball of nothing, because heat is converting energy into a form we cannot use, and the only result of it is that is slightly warms the universe.
So eventually we'll reach maximal entropy, and in such a universe there would be no stars, planets, or people (Hawkings predicts that the universe has 10 to the 100th power years left, that is the number 10, followed by 100 zeros, before it enters a dark age). And then perhaps the only score that will matter is how much fun we had, and that is measured not by how much progress we had or how big our population was, but how easy it was for us to survive. There is nothing else. And I think we're going the wrong direction.
Now perhaps you think the score shouldn't be how much fun we had, but that is what you suggested when you said we should strive to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil." Sounds like having fun is how you'd score it too to me.
So now that we know that regardless of our technology we'll cease to exist, we know it is pointless to try and simply survive. And thus progress in overcoming resource restrictions is relatively meaningless in comparison to "living a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil."
We should be attempting to ensure that we don't annihilate ourselves (because that isn't fun), and instead attempt to survive easily while having fun. Douglas Adams argues that dolphins do a much better job of that than we do, and I am inclined to agree.
I dislike this misantropist attitude, theres as much potential for as for bad in humans, its just that those who strive for power more often than not carry the bad traits of mankind than the humble grinders that fill society.
Sure it doesnt help that we are generating a culture that is very decadent, and basically is a self idolatration and self agrandizement culture that values nothing other than the self, but just because its being pushed hard in the mainstream, doesnt mean its all there is to us.
The world is a big place, most of the 7 billions of us live in ways where they are just too busy to express themselves, so we have this sweked perception of where things are going, because we are only listening to bums who have nothing better to do than talk crap and think crap.
What does entropy and the heat death of the universe have to do with anything in this thread? Also just because humanity will at some point in the future cease to exist doesn't mean you get to claim that having fun becomes more important than progress.
On January 25 2013 16:15 Arcadia92 wrote: Sorry to derail slightly but I have to express my views on China's one child policy because many of you guys are talking about it.
You can easily limit births using deterrence without having to resort to direct forced abortions. In China's case, you can still give birth to your second child, and it is considered illegal for anyone to force you to abort, but say byebye to your job.
It sucks for people who want lots of children and keep their stable jobs at the same time, but you have to consider when the policy was implemented, China was in dire poverty. There was a lack of essential public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals and not enough money to build them. So basically the government had 2 options:
1. Don't intervene, and eventually after god knows how many decades, the public will hopefully wake up and realize that it would be a pretty good idea to have less children. In the meantime, China remains impoverished, schools and hospitals remain overcrowded, infant mortality, youth unemployment and crime rate increases, and you can insert basically everything tragic that happened in Romania under Ceausescu due to overpopulation.
2. Intervene. Parents lose their freedom and a host of other problems arises such as gender imbalance, and the occasional local official who gets way over his head and forces abortion (which I think is more of a corruption issue). BUT the strain on public infrastructure is lifted. Children now have a chance at better education and receive better individual healthcare.
I would choose the latter option because imo it is obviously the lesser evil. I think its worth sacrificing a bit of freedom and justice in favor of avoiding the unnecessary suffering of hundreds of millions of children (who will undoubtedly continue to suffer into their adult lives) and to allow society to break out of the vicious cycle that overpopulation has created. When you look at individual cases of officials forcing locals to abort or parents crying because their only child perished in an accident or something you'll probably think, "welp this policy is ass". But if you look at the big picture, it is a harsh but effective policy that has improved lives and helped prevent something even more tragic. Another way to look at it is Quantity vs Quality of life, if you wish.
While what you wrote is true, China was/is in the unenviable position of having a state that is in many ways totalitarian, certainly not one with a great deal of respect for free speech or individual rights. For a policy like one child to work, you need a heavily controlled media and brutally repressive state apparatus capable of largely silencing dissent. A look at the whole picture is necessary here, and the fact is, to implement rigorous population control on the basis of force, or even threat of stripping an offender's job, would require a fundamental reworking of many existing governments/societies, probably not for the better.
Yeah I wasn't looking at it in that perspective. But then again nations with stable democratic governments are unlikely to have massive overpopulation problems . Oh dear now I have a casuality loop stuck in my brain. One child is definitely one of the the most drastic and draconian population control ever.
Edit: half my post got cut off..? I was going to say that we don't have to implement anything as serious as One Child Policy in our society. Countries with very high SOL such as Singapore have semi-effective incentive-based policies I believe. I have to read more on the subject though...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
Been thinking the same thing, we have done thing but destroy earth for our own vanity and statement of 'beauty'. We destroyed the balance and brought death and destruction.
We should be attempting to ensure that we don't annihilate ourselves (because that isn't fun), and instead attempt to survive easily while having fun. Douglas Adams argues that dolphins do a much better job of that than we do, and I am inclined to agree.
Also, Five Equations That Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics, is a great book that explores this subject.
I seriously wish there were more people thinking like you. Like you said, we all go to our jobs and work 8 hours a day for an exceptionally large portion of our lives, for what? It's gotten beyond the point of survival. We live to work only to put a handful of people on pedestals (and sacrifice so much of the planet to ensure this).
It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
On January 25 2013 00:08 Dreamer.T wrote: I did notice this winter is ridiculously cold compared to the previous ones.
Huh? It hasn't gone past -15C at any point over here and usually hangs around -5-10C. There also wasn't much snow up until now. Pretty standard winter for me.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
On January 25 2013 21:25 smokeyhoodoo wrote: I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Not to me.
As for humans being a 'plague on earth'. So what if we are? The only thing I would worry about is our species continued survival and I very much doubt, that anything we could do to the ecosystem would seriously threaten that. Maybe if we managed to simultaneously explode every nuke on the planet but I don't think even that would do the trick. And when our population reaches the point where the planet can no longer sustain us... Well. Then there will be war. Or we move to Mars.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease. The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot. Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Where do you gather the facts on which you base this idea that our hunter-gatherer communities of the past are similar to a war infested country? Earlier you compared it to a third world country which is a very broad term. Honest question because I've actually lived in a third world country myself and it's not nearly as bad as you claim it is. In fact I've enjoyed my time more in a third world country.
edit: And besides my statement wasn't backed by facts, but more of a comparison to dolphins. I feel that us humans 10000 years ago were perfectly capable of living out lives as the dolphins do and if not that would be quite sad actually.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I suggest he moves to Ukraine. No overpopulation here and lots of agricultural resources. Hell, I can even sell him some land (well not now, in a year or two).
On January 25 2013 19:47 hotpink019 wrote: Been thinking the same thing, we have done thing but destroy earth for our own vanity and statement of 'beauty'. We destroyed the balance and brought death and destruction.
this is so typical. Lots of strong words and as little thought as possible.
On January 25 2013 21:45 sunprince wrote: get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Yes, the hunter-gatherer civilizations are perfectly comparable with those places.........Jezus Christ....
Dude, move to Anadyr. To Chukotka. To Okhotsk. These are all places with less than 5 people per sq km. You can live as a hunter gatherer quite comfortably, at least between June and September
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Coddled existence.... I hate hearing this shit people actually complaining because they have an easy life.
On January 25 2013 21:45 sunprince wrote: get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Yes, the hunter-gatherer civilizations are perfectly comparable with those places.........Jezus Christ....
It is unbelievable for me that we're even having this argument. People seem to forget/ignore what the last 300 years of science brought to us in the form of knowledge. E: 10k years in the past we didn't even have iron swords ffs.
You can stop watching at 36 seconds, and let it sink in for a few moments.
The Dolphins have clearly done better, have they not? Seriously. Things are not always what they seem.
If we have the technology and ability to kill all the dolphins, and the dolphins don't have an equivalent ability to do that to us, I'd say we're doing better
EDIT: Bah I just fucked my own 3000th post.
Hahaha, you just made the point of the video a lot stronger. Did you watch it? I think you should, the irony of what you said in light of the video is killing me. Your argument is completely flawed and backwards, and your argument is what the video exposes, like a school boy saying to his friend, "America is the best because they have the most nukes!"
Sure, we could kill all the dolphins completely pointlessly, and we also have the technology and ability to wipe ourselves out, so what does that mean? How does that make us better? It doesn't, in fact the fact we wasted time and resources developing the means to eliminate ourselves makes us worse, in the eyes of nature, evolution, God, ect... Darwin would argue that any mutations that result in a trait that leads to the species developing the means to eliminate themselves or their environment is a bad mutation and makes the species less fit for survival. Modern weapons, in particular nuclear weapons, do anything but ensure the survival of humanity.
Doesn't the point of the video make sense now?
Er, no it doesn't. Technological superiority over other species is the only reliable way for a species to 1) become completely immune to natural predators and 2) extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil. And the most efficient way to use that technological superiority to achieve those two goals is through developing ways to kill things.
We are completely immune to natural predators? Okay... but the cost was to make ourselves completely vulnerable to ourselves. A select few humans could annihilate humanity with the weapons we possess, which endangers humanity far more than humans being hunted by any predator, at any point in history. Lions might have killed a few humans, but we never risked annihilation at the paws of Lions...
And the point is to extract the maximum amount of energy and food per capita that enables each member of the species to live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil?
No, the point is for the species to develop an equilibrium with its environment, ensuring its survival for generations to come, not to allow each member of the species in a select few generations to "live a life of relative leisure as opposed to a life of relative toil." Species that develop an equilibrium with the environment will increasingly live a life of leisure as opposed to a life of toil due to natural selection.
And if what you said was true, then domesticated dogs are doing better than humans. They have very little toil and live a life of relative leisure, do they not? My dogs sure live a nice leisurely life, and they don't do any work. Even herding and sled dogs thoroughly enjoy their work and live leisurely generally. Sure, some dogs aren't taken care of, but a lot of humans aren't either...
Now Dolphins are doing a great job, they have developed an equilibrium with their environment, ensuring their survival, and they have plenty of time for leisure, and do not toil much.
Again, did you watch the video? Dolphins muck around and have fun all day, and I am going to work 8 hours tomorrow...
There's scientific speculation that human ancenstors were once at the brink of extinction. So it may be that part of our evolution involved developing better tools because we either were getting eaten by too many lions or culled by too many diseases or whatever.
New genetic findings suggest that early humans living about one million years ago were extremely close to extinction.
The genetic evidence suggests that the effective population—an indicator of genetic diversity—of early human species back then, including Homo erectus, H. ergaster and archaic H. sapiens, was about 18,500 individuals (it is thought that modern humans evolved from H. erectus), says Lynn Jorde, a human geneticist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. That figure translates into a total population of 55,500 individuals, tops.
I'm also going to refute two points you made. First, you stated that the point is for a species to develop an equilibrium with the environment. Is it? If you asked any individual species involved none would give that answer. Each individual species would tell you that it was doing its damnedest to survive and thrive. Yes an equilibrium often exists but not always. Disequilibrium is just as much a part of nature as equilibrium. As is extinction.
Secondly I think you are over romanticizing the life of a dolphin (or any other animal in the wild). I seriously doubt they spend the majority of their day mucking around having fun. If that were the case then why wouldn't the species use their free time to over populate?
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease. The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot. Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
Every event that isn't impossible will occur eventually over an infinite time period. That's how I've always viewed the miracle that is life.
I think Sir David Attenborough is wrong about there not being enough resources for humans. There is enough food and water on the planet for everyone who lives here at the moment, but the combination of human greed, wars and the lack of technology mean that not everyone on the planet can be fed with all the food we have right now.
While the problem with warring will probably never be solved, because humans are animals and animals fight, we will eventually make advances in technology so we can feed the entire human race. And theoretically the limited food will keep the population of humans at equilibrium once we can provide food to people everywhere.
In my opinion the main problem for our, and the earth's survival, is humans doing damage that will lower the equilibrium's population by causing important animals to go extinct and polluting the planet. If we keep doing damage to the planet it eventually won't even be possible to even sustain the current human population level.
It is not known whether any Tagaeri survives now in Yasuni National Park. In the 1990s when a member of Tagaeri was contacted by a lone Huaorani hunter, he told him that Tagaeri numbers only a handful of members and are in danger of being wiped out by their hostile neighbours – the Taromenane.
Genocide still works on hunter gatherer tribes who have never seen a white face.
Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that European peasants wouldn't trade places with African kings, such was the difference that economics had made to the betterment of their lives.
Anyone who says they want to trade places with our caveman ancestors or something akin to it because of some perceived struggle in our lives is an idiot.
On January 25 2013 19:47 hotpink019 wrote: Been thinking the same thing, we have done thing but destroy earth for our own vanity and statement of 'beauty'. We destroyed the balance and brought death and destruction.
this is so typical. Lots of strong words and as little thought as possible.
y it actually makes a lot of sense to me....Humans reduce biodiversity of the planet. Planet becomes less stable (Hutchinson 1959). I think who u quoted basically said the same thing but without the citation I put in?
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
This thread is gold. Dolphins are better than humans and people were better off 10k years ago. Some resoundingly good arguments being made in support of conservationism for sure. You got some guys who want to avoid natural limits on human populations like its some kind of doomsday scenario approaching and then there's these other guys who think current starvation levels aren't bad enough and that it'd be better if human population was naturally limited to the same extent as our ancestors or... Dolphins.
That's the scary part about conservationism. You have the well meaning sentimentalists who are fond of wildlife and invent very subtle, seemingly inocuous ways to place less value on human survival/progress so that some endangered species or other can hang on for a few more decades. "Maybe if the world had 80% of its current human population things would be better, am i right guys?" Then a bunch of people, to display their contempt for their fellow humans, all come in and nod their heads about what a plague humanity is, tsk tsk. And then there's people who actually do believe the things others are merely pretending to believe without really thinking about the consequences. Real Luddites who think why stop at 10 or 20%, clearly the world would be better if 99.9999% of people currently alive were not alive. Sometimes for the sake of being more like dolphins, sometimes, like in smokeys case, simply for the sake of being able to kill.
You start with some environmentalist who says humanity is a plague, but doesn't really mean it. Then there are the kids who agree because hating on humanity helps them to feel superior. But scattered within their ranks are the true believers who legitimately perceive human society as evil and can't wait for the deaths and killing to start. That's why it's bad to say things like "humans are a plague" because what you don't realize is there are people out there who really, REALLY believe it and aren't just saying it.
Why do people complaining about us overusing natural resourses and being too many, not start from themselves, and castrate themselves, get from their apartments to live in a cage, or just flat out kill themselves?
It appears there are too many people on earth, but many want to have some children, and do not want to die. Paradox?
On January 26 2013 03:59 coverpunch wrote: Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that European peasants wouldn't trade places with African kings, such was the difference that economics had made to the betterment of their lives.
Anyone who says they want to trade places with our caveman ancestors or something akin to it because of some perceived struggle in our lives is an idiot.
To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
On January 26 2013 04:35 naastyOne wrote: Why do people complaining about us overusing natural resourses and being too many, not start from themselves, and castrate themselves, get from their apartments to live in a cage, or just flat out kill themselves?
It appears there are too many people on earth, but many want to have some children, and do not want to die. Paradox?
extreme much? no paradox. people are saying live responsibly. having limited children and taking care of their health is not paradoxical to supporting a balance.
Or maybe intelligent life is very very rare in the universe and the human race should be seen as fairly amazing and worth protecting.
As for the resources consumption/overpopulation issues, it's vastly overrated, given our current rate of technological progress, sustaining 10+ billions people in 15 years will be ez pz and we can sustain a LOT more.
99% of the species that have existed are extinct, very few of those due to human activities and while global warming is a legit concern for us humans, it's completely meaningless and irrelevant at the geologic time scale.
The whole "humans are plague on earth" thing is pretty much self loathing generalized as a characteristic of human beings and thus says a lot more about people defending that position than about humanity.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Where do you gather the facts on which you base this idea that our hunter-gatherer communities of the past are similar to a war infested country? Earlier you compared it to a third world country which is a very broad term. Honest question because I've actually lived in a third world country myself and it's not nearly as bad as you claim it is. In fact I've enjoyed my time more in a third world country.
Smokeyhoodoo is idealizing the life of our ancestors, where "one of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle." Well, the best place you can still do that would not just be third world countries, but completely backward places where you could actually be a warlord. Of course, he's completely full of shit because he's here enjoying the Internet and unwilling to actually do that since he's "bored".
On January 25 2013 22:11 Ysellian wrote: edit: And besides my statement wasn't backed by facts, but more of a comparison to dolphins. I feel that us humans 10000 years ago were perfectly capable of living out lives as the dolphins do and if not that would be quite sad actually.
This statement is based on nothing more than ignorance. Humans are not dolphins, and our lives 10,000 years ago were nothing like the idealistic bullshit being spouted in this thread, however sad that makes you.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I suggest he moves to Ukraine. No overpopulation here and lots of agricultural resources. Hell, I can even sell him some land (well not now, in a year or two).
Ukraine would not properly simulate the violent competition characterizing the lives of our prehistoric ancestors, unless the Ukraine is a lot less safer than I'm aware of.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
This thread is gold. Dolphins are better than humans and people were better off 10k years ago.
If you guys are going to comment on what I wrote, take the time need to actually read what I am stating, not make simple assumptions that are terribly ignorant.
While someone quoted me and said more people should think like me and people were better of 10,000 years ago, I want to say I do not believe that is true, do not lump me in with him.
I also did not say dolphins were better than humans, I said dolphins were doing better than humans at the game of life. Huge difference. The argument is simply, clear, and devastatingly strong, as Douglas Adam shows. If you want to continue said argument we can, it is an interesting one, but once you realize that the universe will cease to exist regardless of human progress, you'll realize that ensuring human survival for future generations is a fruitless goal, and you'll likely give up the argument as Shady did. I love humanity, and I believe we can be a powerful force of good.
Now, I also want to respond to the comments regarding humanity now, to then. It is important to note I am not talking about your life right now, compared to the life of someone then. While 33% of the world is starving, and 16% of people lack access to clean water in the world, humanity is better off now.
Still, the point of was to compare to the survival of humanity to that of the survival of dolphins. The easier it is for a species to survive, the more fun they can have. Look at Otters. Humans have developed a way to completely annihilate themselves and their environment. Some call this progress. I argue (as Douglas Adams does) that it is the opposite. It doesn't increase our chances of survival. The fact we spent time and resources creating ways to annihilate ourselves shows a total lack of intelligence. Dolphins haven't done that. In fact, the argument that dolphins are doing better is based entirely on how much humans have screwed up, not really on anything great that dolphins have done, although dolphins (the long-beaked common dolphin) are a great pick because they do a lot of leisure activities, are relatively intelligent, are not endangered, and have a steady population and access to food.
Now, on to modern medicine and why they have negative effects that decrease the chance of human survival. While I personally at this moment would of course use modern medicine if I needed it to survive, medicine covers up genetic holes, and this is why it hurts the chances of future human survival. In other words, people are now surviving diseases that in the past they would have died from. And those people are now passing on their genes. This is terrible, because it means that people that are naturally unfit to live are producing offspring that are naturally unfit to live. Remember, evolution and natural selection is about random genetic mutations that happen make people more fit to live. Natural selection is no longer acting upon humanity, because random genetic mutations that are bad for people, are allowed to survive and even thrive due to modern medicine.
Let me give you one example. SIV (the precursor to HIV, and what is basically HIV in primates) does not cause any disease in primates, despite high levels of circulating virus. This is because when the disease first mutated, it quickly killed all off primates who were not immune, and only those who were immune (a small percentage of the population) survived. And they were the only ones to pass on their genes. Thus today, SIV lives in many primates, but it doesn't hurt them. This is evolution and natural selection at work!
There is a small percentage of humans that are immune to HIV due to a genetic mutation. Thus, if the disease ran rampant (far more so than it does now), humanity is assured survival as those immune would and could reproduce. And then humans would have been immune to HIV in a few centuries as that genetic mutation that provides immunity was selected for, naturally (natural selection and evolution at work!). But instead we battle HIV with medicine... ect...
That is good for people like you and me who are unlikely to be immune to HIV, but bad for humanity in the future.
Natural selection and random genetic mutations are the way things evolve, and it is a powerful system that improves species. The only time it isn't good is when a species doesn't have a genetic mutation that would allow them to survive a disease. But this is a very rare occurrence, as our genes mutate all the time.
Modern medicine could actually turn out better for our species than evolution if it is able to move faster than evolution. In other words, we need to create medicine that will defeat future diseases with increasing speed, because not only are diseases evolving, our genetic code is getting weaker and weaker (natural selection is not selecting out bad genes, because we have modern medicine to save us).
This is a major problem when it comes to humanity surviving. And one that humans created.
This is typical far left wing rhetoric. If you truly feel that humans are a "plague" on earth, step up and volunteer yourself and your family as the first to be executed; this is the type of thought that gives rise to tyrants. Liberalism truly is a disease and the downfall of humankind.
On January 26 2013 14:31 Obamanation666 wrote: This is typical far left wing rhetoric. If you truly feel that humans are a "plague" on earth, step up and volunteer yourself and your family as the first to be executed; this is the type of thought that gives rise to tyrants. Liberalism truly is a disease and the downfall of humankind.
Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis)[1] is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality.[2] Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and private property.[3][4][5][6][7]
Liberalism rejected the notions, common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings.
Yes, liberty and equality are a disease and the downfall of mankind!
But if you look at history, those who resisted to giving (in chronological order) poor people rights, Jewish people rights, African-Americans rights and women rights are looked upon with disdain. In fact, many historians would argue that liberalism has never been wrong, proven right time and again; that it was right to give the poor rights, the Jews right, African-Americans rights and women rights. Never has been there a time where the majority of people have looked back and said "it was correct to deny that group of people rights." And of course, historians argue that it will end up be right to giving gays rights too, but we shall valiantly resist this, just as our Protestant rich white male forefathers resisted giving the poor, Jews, African Americans and women rights.
We've got to reverse that... none of them deserve rights. Liberalism is a terrible idea, and we need to return America to an absolute monarchy and erase the Rule of Law, right? Anyway, what does Liberalism have to do with this thread?
On January 26 2013 14:31 Obamanation666 wrote: This is typical far left wing rhetoric. If you truly feel that humans are a "plague" on earth, step up and volunteer yourself and your family as the first to be executed; this is the type of thought that gives rise to tyrants. Liberalism truly is a disease and the downfall of humankind.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
This thread is gold. Dolphins are better than humans and people were better off 10k years ago.
If you guys are going to comment on what I wrote, take the time need to actually read what I am stating, not make simple assumptions that are terribly ignorant.
While someone quoted me and said more people should think like me and people were better of 10,000 years ago, I want to say I do not believe that is true, do not lump me in with him.
I also did not say dolphins were better than humans, I said dolphins were doing better than humans at the game of life. Huge difference. The argument is simply, clear, and devastatingly strong, as Douglas Adam shows. If you want to continue said argument we can, it is an interesting one, but once you realize that the universe will cease to exist regardless of human progress, you'll realize that ensuring human survival for future generations is a fruitless goal, and you'll likely give up the argument as Shady did. I love humanity, and I believe we can be a powerful force of good.
Now, I also want to respond to the comments regarding humanity now, to then. It is important to note I am not talking about your life right now, compared to the life of someone then. While 33% of the world is starving, and 16% of people lack access to clean water in the world, humanity is better off now.
Still, the point of was to compare to the survival of humanity to that of the survival of dolphins. The easier it is for a species to survive, the more fun they can have. Look at Otters. Humans have developed a way to completely annihilate themselves and their environment. Some call this progress. I argue (as Douglas Adams does) that it is the opposite. It doesn't increase our chances of survival. The fact we spent time and resources creating ways to annihilate ourselves shows a total lack of intelligence. Dolphins haven't done that. In fact, the argument that dolphins are doing better is based entirely on how much humans have screwed up, not really on anything great that dolphins have done, although dolphins (the long-beaked common dolphin) are a great pick because they do a lot of leisure activities, are relatively intelligent, are not endangered, and have a steady population and access to food.
Now, on to modern medicine and why they have negative effects that decrease the chance of human survival. While I personally at this moment would of course use modern medicine if I needed it to survive, medicine covers up genetic holes, and this is why it hurts the chances of future human survival. In other words, people are now surviving diseases that in the past they would have died from. And those people are now passing on their genes. This is terrible, because it means that people that are naturally unfit to live are producing offspring that are naturally unfit to live. Remember, evolution and natural selection is about random genetic mutations that happen make people more fit to live. Natural selection is no longer acting upon humanity, because random genetic mutations that are bad for people, are allowed to survive and even thrive due to modern medicine.
Let me give you one example. SIV (the precursor to HIV, and what is basically HIV in primates) does not cause any disease in primates, despite high levels of circulating virus. This is because when the disease first mutated, it quickly killed all off primates who were not immune, and only those who were immune (a small percentage of the population) survived. And they were the only ones to pass on their genes. Thus today, SIV lives in many primates, but it doesn't hurt them. This is evolution and natural selection at work!
There is a small percentage of humans that are immune to HIV due to a genetic mutation. Thus, if the disease ran rampant (far more so than it does now), humanity is assured survival as those immune would and could reproduce. And then humans would have been immune to HIV in a few centuries as that genetic mutation that provides immunity was selected for, naturally (natural selection and evolution at work!). But instead we battle HIV with medicine... ect...
That is good for people like you and me who are unlikely to be immune to HIV, but bad for humanity in the future.
Natural selection and random genetic mutations are the way things evolve, and it is a powerful system that improves species. The only time it isn't good is when a species doesn't have a genetic mutation that would allow them to survive a disease. But this is a very rare occurrence, as our genes mutate all the time.
Modern medicine could actually turn out better for our species than evolution if it is able to move faster than evolution. In other words, we need to create medicine that will defeat future diseases with increasing speed, because not only are diseases evolving, our genetic code is getting weaker and weaker (natural selection is not selecting out bad genes, because we have modern medicine to save us).
This is a major problem when it comes to humanity surviving. And one that humans created.
Look, you certainly seem like a deep thinker and you hold some interesting views, even pleasant views, I mean, who doesn't love dolphins? But this is an argument about population control, with a highly regarded celebrity/activist/etc advocating that the governments of the world should come together to implement population controls... a policy that has been shown to be extremely repressive, requiring brutal measures to enforce.
He also gives specific mention to one of the world's more vulnerable countries, hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves, not so much for them. It's the same strain running through colonialism, neoliberalism, etc. Let's just get together and use our traditional methods for controlling the world to force other nations (and we all know exactly which ones it'll be, not any western ones that's for sure) into not having many kids, not developing industries, not tampering with rainforests, etc. Nevermind that most industrialized nations have already burned through their natural resources and developed mammoth populations that consume and pollute like crazy. No one else should have the right to develop, only us. Ethiopia should remain a nice wildlife preserve for privileged explorers and conservationists from the civilized parts of the globe to visit, how dare they keep breeding, what a filthy plague, etc. And so many kids in this thread seem to be down with this, because they have a negative view on humanity, not realizing that their blithe agreement that humans are a plague plays right into the hands of people who want to make the problem worse.
So while I'd ordinarily be cool with sitting back and letting you believe as you believe, at this particular moment, your fond feelings towards dolphins and assumptions about the limits of science and technology in the inconceivably far flung future are contributing to a general feeling of antipathy towards humanity, potentially causing people to not see worldwide, forced population control for the horror that it is. I'd say more, but frankly, I don't see any objective basis for argument as you've defined your 'game of life' in very strange, subjective ways. Fun is not a measurable metric, unless we want to take it out of the subjective realm and measure it via say, electrical patterns in the brain. And come ON, man, surely some part of you must realize it is absurd to think we know all there is to know about the heat death of the universe or the inevitable failure of technology and science somewhere 10 to the 100th power years from now.
On January 25 2013 12:59 Zergofobic wrote: These people are called eugenicists and are very dangerous people. Eugenics has been around for over 300 years now and even since the 18'th century have been saying how there are too many humans and we need to be destroyed.
In fact many of them have called for genetically engineered diseases to be released that will wipe over 90% of the population, some are urging HIV type viruses to be put in the vaccines to unsuspectingly curb our numbers and other have called for GMO food to sterilize us and since the 80's studies have found that some GMO food does sterilize mammals in their 3rd generation, in addition to causing cancer in the first generation.
These people don't need any media coverage and they need to be in a mental institution with their mass murder syndrome sickness. These are way more dangerous than your average serial killer or mass shooter. I'd call them devil worshipers and enablers, as god created us and if anyone wants to kill us all, then he is a demon serving the devil who wants to destroy god's creation. And even if you don't believe in god, there is evil out there and these people are pure evil.
The more people we've had and that has been a constant the better has become. I mean from 5 billion people 150 years ago to 7 billion people today and look how much better it has been. With more people, means more consumption, means more production, more wealth, more people researching and doing stuff and in turn advancing knowledge, science, technology.
Plus physically we could fit all 7 billion people in Texas. With the infrastructure and everything else, if we were to clump it up in one giant mega city, it would fit in the USA alone.
Plus all of the land on our planet represents only 30% of the mass, 70% is water. Out of those 30% land, 20% are snow/ice.
So even with out cities we are a small fraction of the earth and all studies, all simulations show that the population would peak at 9.5 billion people over the next 50 years and start dropping down.
Ah, that post is hilarious. Starts off with a false grasp of what eugenics is, then segues into judeo-christian bullshit, and then points out that more consumption only means more wealth for everyone. Not even gonna mention the rest.
Either a brilliant troll or a complete moron.
And you are an eugenicist and devil worshiper as well. Why don't you kill yourself if you want to reduce population so much and spare us from you.
Everyone who want to reduce population can start off by killing themselves. Hey, lead by example, show how much you want population reduction by killing yourself.
When people say "nature will balance it all out" do they mean that Earth will be total shit and everything will die and thus it will start the cycle over? Because I think, as a progressive person, that this would be quite a bit of a setback. Let's refrain from using totally retarded, bad arguments/reasoning.
Anyway, population growth is clearly a problem which many individuals care little for. Having more people means that we need to have that much more resources, which would require a higher rate of production, which is just not possible. Trees for instance, will not grow back any faster when we have more people. Just think though, if everyone had only 1 kid instead of 2+ for 5 generations, then we'd have half the population we do now! It's that easy!!
Also, why do people who are poor and live in harsh conditions think it is at all a good idea to have a child? So they can share the same pain?? It's always bewildered me. Maybe they are hoping their precious child will work so they can survive.
On January 25 2013 21:45 sunprince wrote: get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Yes, the hunter-gatherer civilizations are perfectly comparable with those places.........Jezus Christ....
Dude, move to Anadyr. To Chukotka. To Okhotsk. These are all places with less than 5 people per sq km. You can live as a hunter gatherer quite comfortably, at least between June and September
the average population density in Russia is only about 8/sq km. So in northeastern Russia there are plenty of territories where the population density is 0/sqkm.
On January 26 2013 03:59 coverpunch wrote: Adam Smith wrote in 1776 that European peasants wouldn't trade places with African kings, such was the difference that economics had made to the betterment of their lives.
Anyone who says they want to trade places with our caveman ancestors or something akin to it because of some perceived struggle in our lives is an idiot.
This, sick and tired of frivolous idiots using hyperboles and self loathing to make themselves look deep. Nature is harsh and cruel. Disagree? Go live in it without all the benefits society provides for you.
By the way, is any other part of northern hemisphere this bloody fucking cold? If I didn't know any better, I'd think we are experiencing Ice Age! Bloody hell!
The global population is known to stabilize around 8-9 billion. This has to do with wealth and advancement, not poverty. People take less children and in the last century the average age of humans has gone up dramatically. So now it looks like the population is growing dramatically fast, but it is already clear that all over the world people are having less children because they don't need as many children to provide for them at old age. Also, people wont be get much older than what is currently the maximum age unless there are some incredible breakthroughs in medical science and way of life.
Also a "plague" is a concept that has no real value and is purely a human construct. Considering humans a plague is a conservative view of what a biological system is or should be.
There is a massive misunderstanding in this thread. Why are people still arguing that Sir Attenborough's means by his statement that people should die or should adapt a caveman-like lifestyle. To be sure that "statement" was hyperbolic, after all Sir Attenborough is a media person as well. But all he wanted to say is that we should be more responsible. What is the argument about that?
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: Look, you certainly seem like a deep thinker and you hold some interesting views, even pleasant views, I mean, who doesn't love dolphins? But this is an argument about population control, with a highly regarded celebrity/activist/etc advocating that the governments of the world should come together to implement population controls... a policy that has been shown to be extremely repressive, requiring brutal measures to enforce.
He also gives specific mention to one of the world's more vulnerable countries, hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves, not so much for them. It's the same strain running through colonialism, neoliberalism, etc. Let's just get together and use our traditional methods for controlling the world to force other nations (and we all know exactly which ones it'll be, not any western ones that's for sure) into not having many kids, not developing industries, not tampering with rainforests, etc. Nevermind that most industrialized nations have already burned through their natural resources and developed mammoth populations that consume and pollute like crazy. No one else should have the right to develop, only us. Ethiopia should remain a nice wildlife preserve for privileged explorers and conservationists from the civilized parts of the globe to visit, how dare they keep breeding, what a filthy plague, etc. And so many kids in this thread seem to be down with this, because they have a negative view on humanity, not realizing that their blithe agreement that humans are a plague plays right into the hands of people who want to make the problem worse.
So while I'd ordinarily be cool with sitting back and letting you believe as you believe, at this particular moment, your fond feelings towards dolphins and assumptions about the limits of science and technology in the inconceivably far flung future are contributing to a general feeling of antipathy towards humanity, potentially causing people to not see worldwide, forced population control for the horror that it is. I'd say more, but frankly, I don't see any objective basis for argument as you've defined your 'game of life' in very strange, subjective ways. Fun is not a measurable metric, unless we want to take it out of the subjective realm and measure it via say, electrical patterns in the brain. And come ON, man, surely some part of you must realize it is absurd to think we know all there is to know about the heat death of the universe or the inevitable failure of technology and science somewhere 10 to the 100th power years from now.
Well, you're taking what I said completely out of context and applying it to something else. The quote chain got broken, but my discussion stemmed from this:
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
Thus I made the argument that dolphins are doing better, it didn't have much to do with population control. So we are arguing about two different things. I also think you might be reading too much into what was said, though I will agree with you that when he said humans were a plague (even though you could easily define them as such and it is logical and sound) it fanned the flames of extremism that humans were bad (which I do not believe). But I would like discuss this because it could be interesting:
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: ...hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves...
It has to do with moral obligations.
Just because someone beats their wife, doesn't mean it gives the right to someone else to beat their wife. And if we couldn't stop the first person from beating their wife, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and stop the second person. Apply that logic to Ethiopia and the third world industrializing in ways that destroy the environment. We all know the Western World did the same thing a few hundred years ago. And one big difference is that the Western World didn't know about the effects of pollution at the time. So, we didn't know wife beating was bad, but now that we do, we have a moral obligation to stop it.
You might ask why... your opposition of population control and disdain for the euro-centric attitude appears (and I could be very wrong, I apologize if I am) centered in the idea that people shouldn't tell others what to do. That we have no right run around thinking we are smart, and have "privileged" information telling people what they can or cannot do, especially those who don't enjoy the same economic status that we do, because people might abuse such a privilege and use it to keep other people from advancing their status.
But we do. Not only do we have the right, we have the obligation to if we are moral.
I used to think we didn't years ago, and as I sat in Professor Patrick Derr's class on medical ethics I felt like I was the only person who wasn't an idiot. Everyone was espousing these terribly radical "liberal" beliefs (and I am a liberal myself) that the we had a moral obligation to shut down bath houses in San Francisco when HIV began spreading, that we shouldn't allow cigarette sales, force people to do this and that, because we know what is best. To this day, I still deplore those ideas, because I think people should have the right to make their own choices as much as possible in life.
However, there was one example that stopped me dead in my tracks. Pharmaceutical companies test drugs in African countries that don't have laws to protect people. There is essentially no "informed consent" laws nor do the companies have to compensate people or treat those who suffer side effects.
They companies do however, get "consent" from people, and do compensate people. Basically a company finds a remote area where the people are uneducated and unable to fully comprehend modern medicine and side effects, and tell them they'll give them a small amount of money nowhere near what they'd have to compensate people in the West to test these drugs. Generally the head of a household will decide for everyone in their family whether or not to test the drugs.
When I said I believed this shouldn't be legal, the class laid into me, mocking me for my beliefs that everyone should make their own decisions regarding anything, and that we shouldn't apply our moral code to other people. Most of the class even went so far as to say that I was wrong, that the tribe or community, even though they could not fully understand what the drugs might do, could make their own decision regarding whether they wanted to test them, and that I was being an elitist by saying it shouldn't be legal. They felt I was saying that those people weren't good enough to make their own decision. And that is true, but in my view, I was just trying to protect them from being exploited, the same way our laws protect us from being exploited when testing drugs.
My belief was that if we have laws for informed consent, treatment for adverse effects and compensation for drug testing to protect people because that is morally right (and I do believe it is morally right), then regardless of whether the people of any given area have laws regarding informed consent and compensation for drug testing, we should apply our laws to them, so we would protect other people the same way we would protect ourselves. If it isn't good enough for us, it isn't good enough for anyone.
I hate when people say things like "well I would never let my daughter be a prostitute, but I believe it should be legal" what the hell is that? So your blood is too good, but some random girl isn't good enough to be protected from living the life of a prostitute? That stinks of elitism. It is the same thing here.
And that isn't moral, and it isn't right.
I know that this thinking is a dangerous and slippery slope, and that this kind of belief, that we know what is best, has lead to genocides. But I don't think we can stand idly by when people are being suffering simply just because some people have chosen to abuse this right in the past (and we have an obligation to stop those who abuse this right). We have an obligation to protect every other human being, as we would protect ourselves. Again, if it isn't good enough for us, it isn't good enough for anyone.
If we apply this thinking to industrializing the third world, then it means we don't allow them to industrialize in a way we know will destroy their environment. But it does mean that we help them industrialize in a responsible way, and we help them educate their people, we help them get access to clean water and we don't allow them to starve to death if we can. No one starves by choice, no one chooses to be a prostitute, no one chooses to drinks dirty water when they don't have to, and no chooses to tests experimental drugs in return for a meal. People are forced into these circumstances economically, because they lack education, because they lack hope. Someone thinking people make these "choices" that that person would never even consider a "choice" is elitist and ignorant.
Standing idly by and saying "I don't tell people what to do, I don't mock how they live and tell them it isn't good enough, I don't mock the choices they'd make, even though I wouldn't make those choices or even consider those decisions a choice" while people are forced into suffering isn't moral, it is deplorable.
And with that defense of liberalism and some hope, I believe that we can find a way to institute population control in a non-oppressive manner to ensure that people live better lives all over the world. Like anything else humans do, it won't be perfect, but we can do it. And we have to do it, so we can all enjoy this world. I understand your concern regarding people abusing their knowledge and privilege, but when people abuse anything the results aren't good, this is no different. So we must recognize abuse and stop it when it happens. But don't shy away from trying institute population control because abuse will happen or because this is hard. Have hope.
On January 26 2013 17:43 Blargh wrote: When people say "nature will balance it all out" do they mean that Earth will be total shit and everything will die and thus it will start the cycle over? Because I think, as a progressive person, that this would be quite a bit of a setback. Let's refrain from using totally retarded, bad arguments/reasoning.
Anyway, population growth is clearly a problem which many individuals care little for. Having more people means that we need to have that much more resources, which would require a higher rate of production, which is just not possible. Trees for instance, will not grow back any faster when we have more people. Just think though, if everyone had only 1 kid instead of 2+ for 5 generations, then we'd have half the population we do now! It's that easy!!
Also, why do people who are poor and live in harsh conditions think it is at all a good idea to have a child? So they can share the same pain?? It's always bewildered me. Maybe they are hoping their precious child will work so they can survive.
They don't have access to family planning and / or they aren't educated about it. Also, people than live in those conditions have high rates of child mortality so they have more children to ensure that some will survive.
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: Look, you certainly seem like a deep thinker and you hold some interesting views, even pleasant views, I mean, who doesn't love dolphins? But this is an argument about population control, with a highly regarded celebrity/activist/etc advocating that the governments of the world should come together to implement population controls... a policy that has been shown to be extremely repressive, requiring brutal measures to enforce.
He also gives specific mention to one of the world's more vulnerable countries, hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves, not so much for them. It's the same strain running through colonialism, neoliberalism, etc. Let's just get together and use our traditional methods for controlling the world to force other nations (and we all know exactly which ones it'll be, not any western ones that's for sure) into not having many kids, not developing industries, not tampering with rainforests, etc. Nevermind that most industrialized nations have already burned through their natural resources and developed mammoth populations that consume and pollute like crazy. No one else should have the right to develop, only us. Ethiopia should remain a nice wildlife preserve for privileged explorers and conservationists from the civilized parts of the globe to visit, how dare they keep breeding, what a filthy plague, etc. And so many kids in this thread seem to be down with this, because they have a negative view on humanity, not realizing that their blithe agreement that humans are a plague plays right into the hands of people who want to make the problem worse.
So while I'd ordinarily be cool with sitting back and letting you believe as you believe, at this particular moment, your fond feelings towards dolphins and assumptions about the limits of science and technology in the inconceivably far flung future are contributing to a general feeling of antipathy towards humanity, potentially causing people to not see worldwide, forced population control for the horror that it is. I'd say more, but frankly, I don't see any objective basis for argument as you've defined your 'game of life' in very strange, subjective ways. Fun is not a measurable metric, unless we want to take it out of the subjective realm and measure it via say, electrical patterns in the brain. And come ON, man, surely some part of you must realize it is absurd to think we know all there is to know about the heat death of the universe or the inevitable failure of technology and science somewhere 10 to the 100th power years from now.
Well, you're taking what I said completely out of context and applying it to something else. The quote chain got broken, but my discussion stemmed from this:
On January 25 2013 03:39 derpface wrote: Sometimes I just hope a asteroid would smash against earth and kill the whole of humanity.
And then let nature and evolution have its course anew and make something better than us.
I never seem to understand where this defeatist attitude comes from. Can you name any species that has done 'better' than us, gone further than us?
Thus I made the argument that dolphins are doing better, it didn't have much to do with population control. So we are arguing about two different things. I also think you might be reading too much into what was said, though I will agree with you that when he said humans were a plague (even though you could easily define them as such and it is logical and sound) it fanned the flames of extremism that humans were bad (which I do not believe). But I would like discuss this because it could be interesting:
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: ...hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves...
It has to do with moral obligations.
Just because someone beats their wife, doesn't mean it gives the right to someone else to beat their wife. And if we couldn't stop the first person from beating their wife, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and stop the second person. Apply that logic to Ethiopia and the third world industrializing in ways that destroy the environment. We all know the Western World did the same thing a few hundred years ago. And one big difference is that the Western World didn't know about the effects of pollution at the time. So, we didn't know wife beating was bad, but now that we do, we have a moral obligation to stop it.
You might ask why... your opposition of population control and disdain for the euro-centric attitude appears (and I could be very wrong, I apologize if I am) centered in the idea that people shouldn't tell others what to do. That we have no right run around thinking we are smart, and have "privileged" information telling people what they can or cannot do, especially those who don't enjoy the same economic status that we do, because people might abuse such a privilege and use it to keep other people from advancing their status.
But we do. Not only do we have the right, we have the obligation to if we are moral.
I used to think we didn't, and as I sat in Professor Patrick Derr's class on medical ethics I felt like I was the only person who wasn't an idiot. Everyone was espousing these terribly radical "liberal" beliefs (and I am a liberal myself) that the we had a moral obligation to shut down bath houses in San Francisco when HIV began spreading, that we shouldn't allow cigarette sales, force people to do this and that, because we know what is best. To this day, I still deplore those ideas, because I think people should have the right to make their own choices as much as possible in life.
However, there was one example that stopped me dead in my tracks. Pharmaceutical companies test drugs in African, countries that don't have laws to protect people. There is essentially no "informed consent" nor do the companies have to compensate people or treat those who suffer side effects.
They companies do however, get consent from people, and do compensate people. Basically a company finds a remote area where the people are uneducated and unable to fully comprehend modern medicine and side effects, and tell them they'll give them a small amount of money nowhere near what they'd have to compensate people in the West to test these drugs. Generally the head of a household will decide for everyone in their family whether or not to test the drugs.
When I said I believed this shouldn't be legal, the class laid into me, mocking me for my beliefs that everyone should make their own decisions regarding anything, and that we shouldn't apply our moral code to other people. Most of the class even went so far as to say that I was wrong, that the tribe or community, even though they could not fully understand what the drugs might do, could make their own decision regarding whether they wanted to test them, and that I was being an elitist by saying it shouldn't be legal. They felt I was saying that those people weren't good enough to make their own decision. And that is true, but in my view, I was just trying to protect them from being exploited, the same way our laws protect us from being exploited when testing drugs.
My belief was that if we have laws for informed consent, treatment for adverse effects and compensation for drug testing to protect people because that is morally right (and I do believe it is morally right), then regardless of whether the people of any given area have laws regarding informed consent and compensation for drug testing, we should apply our laws to them, so we would protect other people the same way we would protect ourselves. If it isn't good enough for us, it isn't good enough for anyone.
I hate when people say things like "well I would never let my daughter be a prostitute, but I believe it should be legal" what the hell is that? So your blood is too good, but some random girl isn't good enough to be protected from living the life of a prostitute? That stinks of elitism. It is the same thing here.
And that isn't moral, and it isn't right.
I know that this thinking is a dangerous and slippery slope, and that this kind of belief, that we know what is best, has lead to genocides. But I don't think we can stand idly by when people are being suffering simply just because some people have chosen to abuse this right in the past (and we have an obligation to stop those who abuse this right). We have an obligation to protect every other human being, as we would protect ourselves. Again, if it isn't good enough for us, it isn't good enough for anyone.
If we apply this thinking to industrializing the third world, then it means we don't allow them to industrialize in a way we know will destroy their environment. But it does mean that we help them industrialize in a responsible way, and we help them educate their people, we help them get access to clean water and we don't allow them to starve to death if we can. No one starves by choice, no one chooses to be a prostitute, no one chooses to drinks dirty water when they don't have to, and no chooses to tests experimental drugs in return for a meal. People are forced into these circumstances economically, because they lack education, because they lack hope. Someone thinking people make these "choices" that that person would never even consider a "choice" is elitist and ignorant.
Standing idly by and saying "I don't tell people what to do, I don't mock how they live and tell them it isn't good enough, I don't mock the choices they'd make, even though I wouldn't make those choices or even consider those decisions a choice" while people are forced into suffering isn't moral, it is deplorable.
And with that defense of liberalism and some hope, I believe that we can find a way to institute population control in a non-oppressive manner to ensure that people live better lives all over the world. Like anything else humans do, it won't be perfect, but we can do it. And we have to do it, so we can all enjoy this world. I understand your concern regarding people abusing their knowledge and privilege, but when people abuse anything the results aren't good, this is no different. So we must recognize abuse and stop it when it happens. But don't shy away from trying institute population control because abuse will happen or because this is hard. Have hope.
Thanks for this extremely thorough and helpful post!
Genocides are not a product of any modern philosophy, genocides are what happens when one group of humans decide to wipe out another group. They happened throughout our prehistory and still continue to happen between uncontacted peoples who are preliterate.
Yeah I pretty much agree. I've never been able to put it like that, but I've had the same opinion over population growth recently. But I know I can't really do anything, if someone figures out something to "deal" with overpopulation that's fine, but anyway it's gonna happen naturally after a while.
On January 27 2013 03:49 KwarK wrote: Genocides are not a product of any modern philosophy, genocides are what happens when one group of humans decide to wipe out another group. They happened throughout our prehistory and still continue to happen between uncontacted peoples who are preliterate.
I studied at Holocaust and Genocide studies school at Clark University. Simply put, most genocides in modern history have happened because people believe they are "right" about something. And nothing can be "right" without something else being "wrong." So people attempt to eliminate the people who believe what is "wrong" when they believe they can't be reconciled for one reason or another.
This is why it is dangerous to believe you are "right", and when you are willing to die for that belief, you risk becoming genocidal. People who have committed genocides think they are doing humanity a favor, they don't think they are a bad guy, because they are committed to what they believe is "right".
And thus we get modern day genocides stemmed from modern philosophy. This is opposed to ancient genocides that had to do with resources. You'd eliminate another tribe so you could take their resources and so you wouldn't have to feed them or worry about them revolting. It wasn't so much about right or wrong between uncontacted peoples, because they had no way to communicate their beliefs on right and wrong.
People are too hellbent on the entire 'sanctity of life' nonsense. When there are too many wolves in a population, many starve and die until the population is back to a sustainable level.
In this country, if you have a child, no matter what-- even if you can't take care of it-- you can give it to the government and they will spend money and resources to take care of it. Billions of dollars are spent keeping old people alive on machines.
I never understood the entire craze about feeding the starving children in Africa either. The continent is extremely overpopulated with most of its residents making under $1 a day and unable to feed themselves or pay taxes. What does feeding them accomplish?
Instead, we should focus on making countries sustainable and efficient. A country that farms or trades for its food and has a stable population. 20 years of youth, 40 years of work, 20 years of retirement. That should be what the government guarantees you-- after that they don't pay for your medical bills and if you or your family want to spend thousands of dollars to keep you tied to a machine go for it, otherwise die when you're old like everything else.
I didn't study at Clark University but I'm pretty sure everyone everywhere has always thought they're right about everything. It's quite difficult to hold a belief you know to be untrue. Even in the case of resources you believe that it is true and just that you should possess them and they disagree with you. In fact it requires resources because otherwise you can just agree to disagree and not care. An ideological conflict that lacks something physical being fought over won't escalate.
Basically, I think you're wrong (but I'm unwilling to gas you over it unless you have a gold mine that ought to be mine).
On January 27 2013 04:00 KwarK wrote: I didn't study at Clark University but I'm pretty sure everyone everywhere has always thought they're right about everything. It's quite difficult to hold a belief you know to be untrue. Even in the case of resources you believe that it is true and just that you should possess them and they disagree with you. In fact it requires resources because otherwise you can just agree to disagree and not care. An ideological conflict that lacks something physical being fought over won't escalate.
Basically, I think you're wrong (but I'm unwilling to gas you over it unless you have a gold mine that ought to be mine).
But there have been ideological conflicts that lacked something physical being fought over that escalated
The North didn't fight so we could take the South's slaves in the American Civil War, we fought to free them. The North could have said "sure, we can agree to disagree you can have your slaves" but the when threatened by the North simply stripping slavery from the Constitution through the democratic process, the South revolted.
It stemmed from the North believing they were "right" to free the slaves by changing the Constitution, even though it offered no benefit to them in form of resources. It was entirely based on ideology. This threat is why the South revolted, they knew it sometime in the future due to the way the population was being distributed in America, they would lose their slaves as slavery would be stripped from the Constitution through the democratic process. The South will argue that the war had nothing to do with slavery, and that it was fought over states rights, ect... but that is blatantly false.
I can give you other examples of conflicts that have escalated that were purely ideological. The Somalian Relief effort in 1992 is a good example. UN Forces were not fighting for any resources, they were trying to calm a conflict that was starving a nation. Purely ideological. Unfortunately, they failed.
I also believe your mistaking correlation with causation. A conflict may begin on ideological grounds, but the victor will often take the resources of the vanquished even if he didn't start the war to take those resources. Because resources were correlated in the conflict (and they always will be in warfare, a conflict cannot be fought without resources, and thus you're going to try and limit the resources or your opponent whether or not it is an ideological conflict) doesn't mean it was caused by resources. Again, the American Civil War is the prime example here.
On January 27 2013 04:00 decado90 wrote: I agree with him.
People are too hellbent on the entire 'sanctity of life' nonsense. When there are too many wolves in a population, many starve and die until the population is back to a sustainable level.
In this country, if you have a child, no matter what-- even if you can't take care of it-- you can give it to the government and they will spend money and resources to take care of it. Billions of dollars are spent keeping old people alive on machines.
I never understood the entire craze about feeding the starving children in Africa either. The continent is extremely overpopulated with most of its residents making under $1 a day and unable to feed themselves or pay taxes. What does feeding them accomplish?
Instead, we should focus on making countries sustainable and efficient. A country that farms or trades for its food and has a stable population. 20 years of youth, 40 years of work, 20 years of retirement. That should be what the government guarantees you-- after that they don't pay for your medical bills and if you or your family want to spend thousands of dollars to keep you tied to a machine go for it, otherwise die when you're old like everything else.
"Overpopulated" is a relative thing though. There's plenty of room for Africa's population to increase as food production and distribution methods improve.
On January 27 2013 04:00 KwarK wrote: I didn't study at Clark University but I'm pretty sure everyone everywhere has always thought they're right about everything. It's quite difficult to hold a belief you know to be untrue. Even in the case of resources you believe that it is true and just that you should possess them and they disagree with you. In fact it requires resources because otherwise you can just agree to disagree and not care. An ideological conflict that lacks something physical being fought over won't escalate.
Basically, I think you're wrong (but I'm unwilling to gas you over it unless you have a gold mine that ought to be mine).
But there have been ideological conflicts that lacked something physical being fought over that escalated
The North didn't fight so we could take the South's slaves in the American Civil War, we fought to free them. The North could have said "sure, we can agree to disagree you can have your slaves" but the when threatened by the North simply stripping slavery from the Constitution through the democratic process, the South revolted.
It stemmed from the North believing they were "right" to free the slaves by changing the Constitution, even though it offered no benefit to them in form of resources. It was entirely based on ideology. This threat is why the South revolted, they knew it sometime in the future, they would lose their slaves, though the South will argue that the war had nothing to do with slavery, and that it was fought over states rights, ect...
I can give you other examples of conflicts that have escalated that were purely ideological. The Somalian Relief effort in 1992 is a good example. UN Forces were not fighting for any resources, they were trying to calm a conflict that was starving a nation. Purely ideological. Unfortunately, they failed.
I also believe your mistaking correlation with causation. A conflict may begin on ideological grounds, but the victor will often take the resources of the vanquished even if he didn't start the war to take those resources. Because resources were correlated in the conflict (and they always will be in warfare, a conflict cannot be fought without resources, and thus you're going to try and limit the resources or your opponent whether or not it is an ideological conflict) doesn't mean it was caused by resources.
Firstly, how are slaves not a resource? The Confederacy had a resource which the Union wanted them not to have and rather than give it up they want to war. Also presenting the American Civil War as an ideological conflict about slavery is a gross oversimplification. Secondly, just because the UN involvement started American troops on the ground does not mean that was the start of the conflict. The conflict already existed due to resources, peacekeepers arriving in an ongoing conflict and ordering both sides to stop (and therefore not gain the resources they wanted) doesn't change that. You have mistaken the nature of a conflict with the immediate reason that white faces showed up. Thirdly, neither of those conflicts were a genocide.
On January 27 2013 04:24 KwarK wrote: Secondly, just because the UN involvement started American troops on the ground does not mean that was the start of the conflict. The conflict already existed due to resources, peacekeepers arriving in an ongoing conflict and ordering both sides to stop (and therefore not gain the resources they wanted) doesn't change that. You have mistaken the nature of a conflict with the immediate reason that white faces showed up. Thirdly, neither of those conflicts were a genocide.
KwarK wrote:
An ideological conflict that lacks something physical being fought over won't escalate.
You said escalate a conflict. Nothing about genocide or starting a conflict... words matter.
I can't discuss anything with you unless you state what you want to say clearly. I never mentioned the reason the war in Somali began or that is was a genocide, only that it escalated due to ideology.
Calling human beings a resource is a stretch, while the ideological belief that all people should be free is clearly an ideological belief. It isn't that we didn't want the South to not have slaves because we wanted their economy to suffer, we wanted all people in America to be free, and we wanted the South to think the same way.
Again, we didn't want to take away their right to human labor as a resource, we wanted to take away their right to abuse free labor. Most slaves after the war just ended up working on the same plantations and got paid for it. People didn't want the South to fail economically due to the loss of slaves, that'd be counter productive.
So you're bending words and stretching definitions. Anything could be defined as a resource, even thoughts and ideas. And ideas are what makes up ideology...
Again, the intentions of the North was not to rob the South of resources or fight over resources. We wanted the South to be successful so the country was successful. But we wanted people to be free. It was purely ideological, the Northerners who wanted to erase slavery from history were doing so because they felt it was morally the right thing to do, it had nothing to do with taking resources, it had to do with the idea that everyone should be free. Northerners again, were not trying to take resources away so the South would fail, they didn't see slaves a resource, they saw them as human beings that were being abused. So to say this war began over resources is absurd, it began over ideology, even if you define slaves as a resource, the fight wasn't over who had the resource, it was fought over whether or not all humans would be free.
And presenting the American Civil War as an ideological war is actually the only way accurate way to present it. Anything else is blatantly false, though the South will say even to this day that it wasn't about slavery. I strongly suggest you read an accurate historical representation of what led to the war and you'll come to the same conclusion. We can even go through the history if you'd like year by year.
This was the turning point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Compromise): The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. To balance the number of "slave states" and "free states," the northern region of what was then Massachusetts was admitted into the United States as a free state to become Maine. Prior to the agreement, the House of Representatives had refused to accept this compromise, and a conference committee was appointed.
The House of Representative had more anti-slavery members because the North had a higher population, and the number of seats a state gets is based on population and Northerners opposed slavery generally.
Now, Senate representation is not based on population, but whether a state was to be a slave state or free state was decided by Congress, and thus the Northerners wanted no new slave states and had the votes to force this due to have a higher population. Without new slave states, the Northerners would begin to control the Senate too as new states entered the Union, ensuring the demise of slavery.
The Missouri compromise delayed this, allowing Maine to be a free state, but made Missouri a slave state to keep the 50-50 balance in the Senate (ensuring slavery would live on, as the Northerners didn't have the votes in the Senate to end slavery), but was agreed upon by Northerners with the restrictions that all new states in territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north would be free states. Since north of that line was a majority of the US territory, it meant that free states would outnumber slave states in time, and the anti-slavery movement would have a majority in the Senate as more and more states were allowed in the Union and thus slavery would be abolished eventually. In effect, the Missouri compromise just delayed the Civil War.
The compromise and the election of Lincoln who was anti-slavery, prompted the South to revolt, as they knew they had no chance through the democratic process to ensure the survival of slavery.
Here is a cool graphic showing the balance through the years:
You can see how the balance in the Senate is shifting toward the anti-slavery movement.
How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
Also you just picked up the tail end of the discussion. It was about whether pre-technological societies had it better and whether there is an ideological element to genocide (in the sense that liberal ideology of the individual being subservient to the greater good is necessary). I made the argument that genocide happens independently of modern philosophy and is primarily the result of a conflict over resources.
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
Also you just picked up the tail end of the discussion. It was about whether pre-technological societies had it better and whether there is an ideological element to genocide (in the sense that liberal ideology of the individual being subservient to the greater good is necessary). I made the argument that genocide happens independently of modern philosophy and is primarily the result of a conflict over resources.
Perhaps this will help with that argument:
Several archaeologists and anthropologists now argue that violence was much more pervasive in hunter-gatherer society than in more recent eras. From the !Kung in the Kalahari to the Inuit in the Arctic and the aborigines in Australia, two-thirds of modern hunter-gatherers are in a state of almost constant tribal warfare, and nearly 90% go to war at least once a year. War is a big word for dawn raids, skirmishes and lots of posturing, but death rates are high—usually around 25-30% of adult males die from homicide. The warfare death rate of 0.5% of the population per year that Lawrence Keeley of the University of Illinois calculates as typical of hunter-gatherer societies would equate to 2 billion people dying during the 20th century. ... Constant warfare was necessary to keep population density down to one person per square mile. Farmers can live at 100 times that density. Hunter-gatherers may have been so lithe and healthy because the weak were dead. The invention of agriculture and the advent of settled society merely swapped high mortality for high morbidity, allowing people some relief from chronic warfare so they could at least grind out an existence, rather than being ground out of existence altogether.
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor by 1861. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely affecting profits. And the vast majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners (only a very small percentage of Southerners could actually afford to own slaves). Yet Southerners they fought willingly and forcefully because they held (and even in many places in the South today still hold) racist beliefs about the inferiority of African Americans and the danger they present to society when free.
Southern literature on African Americans from the era is absolutely revolting and disgusting, very similar to the way that Nazi Germany presented Jewish people.
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: He also gives specific mention to one of the world's more vulnerable countries, hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves, not so much for them. It's the same strain running through colonialism, neoliberalism, etc. Let's just get together and use our traditional methods for controlling the world to force other nations (and we all know exactly which ones it'll be, not any western ones that's for sure) into not having many kids, not developing industries, not tampering with rainforests, etc. Nevermind that most industrialized nations have already burned through their natural resources and developed mammoth populations that consume and pollute like crazy. No one else should have the right to develop, only us. Ethiopia should remain a nice wildlife preserve for privileged explorers and conservationists from the civilized parts of the globe to visit, how dare they keep breeding, what a filthy plague, etc. And so many kids in this thread seem to be down with this, because they have a negative view on humanity, not realizing that their blithe agreement that humans are a plague plays right into the hands of people who want to make the problem worse.
I'm pretty sure that he wants to concentrate on the areas in which shit hasn't already been wrecked irrevocably is because in the areas that shit has already been wrecked irrevocably shit has already been wrecked irrevocably. I don't doubt that he would happily see a return to the oak forests of England and the non eradication of wolves but we chopped down our forests and we killed our wolves. It seems a massive leap to your conclusion "fuck the blacks" when the areas the conservationists are interested in are the areas with things to conserve. Also the idea that we'd pressure them to act in ways that we want at their expense is nonsense. Nobody is invading these places and evicting local populations from wildlife preserves or anything. What we have is campaigns for western businesses to act ethically in our eyes and things such as the fairtrade and organic trends in which we reward shit we like.
Your objection is nonsense. You damn him as a racist and a hypocrite for suggesting that population control to prevent the hypothetical lives of hypothetical people in foreign countries is good while not simultaneously advocating the slaughter of the living people in Western countries who exist because we didn't enact population control generations ago. The two are not comparable, there is no hypocrisy, you are talking complete and utter bollocks.
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because much of what you say is incorrect. But this thread isn't about why the American Civil War was fought.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely effecting profits. And the majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners. Yet they still held (and even in many places in the South, hold today) racist beliefs.
Humans who spread misinformation are the real plague to this planet. They spew they filth and those who aren't properly informed or the dumb easily fall for it. The cure to this plague are smart people or even people with the ability to read, who are willing to correct the filth spat out by the plague. Someone who believes that American slavery was "darker" then Roman Slavery is....
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because much of what you say is incorrect. But this thread isn't about why the American Civil War was fought.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely effecting profits. And the majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners. Yet they still held (and even in many places in the South, hold today) racist beliefs.
Humans who spread misinformation are the real plague to this planet. They spew they filth and those who aren't properly informed or the dumb easily fall for it. The cure to this plague are smart people or even people with the ability to read, who are willing to correct the filth spat out by the plague. Someone who believes that American slavery was "darker" then Roman Slavery is....
Did you grow up in the South?
Roman slavery wasn't racist, anyone could be a slave. Slaves were generally people who were on the losing side of any given war. American slavery was blatantly racist, only African Americans were slaves. The ancients had no sense of racism. (They did have prejudices against foreigners, but this was based on nationality, not race.) In America, very few slaves went free in comparison to their numbers, while in Rome many slaves ended up freeing themselves. The freed slaves in Rome could climb the social ladder and often did, becoming businessmen, craftsmen, or government officials.
In America it was much more difficult, as race and lack of education worked against the freed slave. How long did it take America to elect a black president after freeing the slaves? The ancient slaves always had the hope of freedom, either from their owners or by buying their freedom. Most American slaves did not have this advantage. It is well known and documented that African Americans were dehumanized and treated extremely cruel compared to Roman slaves. In Rome skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, which they could eventually use to buy their freedom.
The racist undertones that dominated American slavery and came to define it and Southern culture clearly are far darker than Roman slavery. Slaves were people in Rome that could redeem themselves. African American slaves could not change their skin color and had no way to redeem themselves. Read up on it for yourself, because you're simply denying history.
Romans today don't look back with racist feelings when it comes to slavery in the past. Southerners do. I'm not going to get into this anymore than that, I feel like I am talking to a Holocaust denier...
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because much of what you say is incorrect. But this thread isn't about why the American Civil War was fought.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely effecting profits. And the majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners. Yet they still held (and even in many places in the South, hold today) racist beliefs.
Humans who spread misinformation are the real plague to this planet. They spew they filth and those who aren't properly informed or the dumb easily fall for it. The cure to this plague are smart people or even people with the ability to read, who are willing to correct the filth spat out by the plague. Someone who believes that American slavery was "darker" then Roman Slavery is....
Roman slavery wasn't racist, anyone could be a slave. American slavery was balantly racist, only African Americans were slaves. The ancients had no sense of racism. (They did have prejudices against foreigners, but this was based on nationality, not race.) In America, few slaves were freed in comparison to their numbers, while in Rome hundreds of slaves were freed annually. The freed slaves in Rome, although owing a limited service to their former masters, were free to climb the social ladder and many of them did, becoming businessmen, craftsmen, or government officials.
In America it was much more difficult, as race and lack of education worked against the freed slave. How long did it take America to elect a black president after freeing the slaves? The ancient slaves always had the hope of freedom, either from their owners or by buying their freedom. An American slave did not have this advantage.
I'm not going to get into this anymore than that. The racist undertones that dominated American slavery and came to define it and Southern culture clearly are far darker than Roman slavery. It is well known and documented that African Americans were dehumanized and treated extremely cruel compared to Roman slaves. Check it our for yourself.
My guess is you grew up in the South.
A freedman owed more than a limited service to his master. He was forever bonded to his master as a client in a master client relationship, manumission did not mean an end to his involvement in the master's economic sphere. Often it was a useful tool in the running of the household business. Furthermore a slave freed for the purpose of marriage could not refuse to marry her master and a man was absolute master of the household with the power to beat or kill his wife, those manumissions were not always an act of kindness. And then we get on to the bias in our sources in which the slaves referred to and freed were a tiny, tiny minority of the slaves used and not in any way representative of them. Your average slave was worked exceptionally hard in the fields if he was lucky, in a mine if he was unlucky, until he died, he had no hope of freedom which was granted, in an incomplete way, to a small minority of slaves. Of course, this is much like the treatment of slaves in the US before the end of the slave trade (where constant supply was needed to maintain stocks due to the rapid consumption).
You have also completely mischaracterised the nature of slaves as government officials. You are talking, I believe, about the emperor Claudius who distrusted everyone but his own household and entrusted a lot of the business of government to his slaves and freedmen under his direction. It was by no means standard, it was an aberration and is noted in our sources as an aberration which leads me to believe you have not read them.
You have also completely mischaracterised the nature of slaves as government officials. You are talking, I believe, about the emperor Claudius who distrusted everyone but his own household and entrusted a lot of the business of government to his slaves and freedmen under his direction. It was by no means standard, it was an aberration and is noted in our sources as an aberration which leads me to believe you have not read them.
You do not understand that of which you speak.
Come on KwarK, I expect better.
During the early Empire freed slaves held so many key positions in the government bureaucracy, that Hadrian restricted their participation by law. However, he deemed that any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship. This is known, look it up.
Now, Rome had a long history and sources are limited and unreliable so maybe this isn't the best discussion to have. Fact is, Roman slaves didn't face racism, because they came from all races. Americans slaves did. And because of this African Americans face racism today in America, yet there were no lingering bad sentiments after Roman slavery ended.
Firstly, as I've already demonstrated, a freedman is not free. He is still bonded to his old master and is part of their household. Freedmen in the government were used by their old masters as tools.
Hadrian is the emperor who marked a decisive change in ideology from an aggressive expansionist empire to a primarily defensive one, hence the walls and the surrender of Trajan's gains back to the Parthians. What this means in practical terms, is that by the time Hadrian is around the supply of slaves has dried up. The Roman Empire reached its largest under Trajan and never again matched that expansion and, of course, without expansion you don't get slaves. It is entirely unsurprising that in the age of Hadrian the treatment of slaves, who were no longer expendable, improved. However Hadrian was in the middle Principate, you've skipped the 2/3 of Roman slave owning history and hoped I wouldn't notice. Referring to just the empire is also somewhat sneaky given slavery as an institution predates it by centuries.
A google search for the phrase you were looking for does not a source make. You have to read rather more books than that. + Show Spoiler [Roman manumission] +
Review of Henrik Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. vi, 344. ISBN 9780521856133. $99.00.
Reviewed by Rose MacLean, Princeton University (rmaclean@princeton.edu)
Preview
At a time when the most important works on Roman freedmen still refer to “the decline of the Italian stock” and “the infiltration of the Roman population by foreigners,” Mouritsen’s comprehensive study of The Freedman in the Roman World represents an invaluable contribution.1 Given the importance of manumission to the way that Romans thought about their society, as well as ex-slaves’ unique position in economic and political life, Mouritsen has built a firm foundation not just for historians interested in ancient slavery but also for those with a wide array of concerns, from the discourses of power and honor to demography and legal practice.
Taking a synchronic approach, Mouritsen divides his book into two sections – three chapters on the construction of the Roman libertus and three on the practice of manumission. Separating the ideological aspects from more technical questions creates a useful analytical boundary, but at critical points Mouritsen shows how these two sides of the problem influenced one another. In a final chapter, an attempt is made to ascertain the experiences and identities of former slaves from their own perspective.
The categories of “slave” and “free” were fundamental and inalienable in Roman juridical thought – a construct that rendered manumission problematic because it implied movement from one status to the other. By adding “freed” as a third modal category, the jurists ensured that ingenui and liberti remained essentially different, since the latter carried the stain of their past, the macula servitutis. The roots of this bias lay not in the theory of natural slavery, which most Romans rejected, but rather in the idea that people fell into slavery as a result of bad fortune. Still, an appreciation of slaves’ basic humanity did not preclude the perception of their moral and physical character as weak, childlike, cowardly, and incapable of legitimate honor.
Slavery left an indelible mark on a person’s ingenium, just as it could on his body. Such degradation was immediate and automatic but could be exacerbated or alleviated depending on how the slave was treated or on his natural aptitudes. A slave who had been beaten or tattooed had little chance of bettering his position, while an educated servant who won his master’s favor could improve in the eyes of slave-owners; he could, in essence, “grow up.” This developmental model reassured manumitters that they were releasing into the free population only those mature enough to participate in the civitas.
The patron-freedman relationship ensured the continuity of this ideal after manumission by constructing ex-slaves as their patron’s children sine natura. This fiction helped perpetuate a dynamic of authority and dependence, while at the same time integrating freedmen into the familia in a way that legitimated their proximity to power as agents of the ruling orders. Although this paradigm was not always manifest in reality, legal and social norms helped impose a standard of behavior on freedmen based on deference, industry, and fides. The distance between these qualities and those most valued by male elites – in particular, honos and virtus – fed back into the definition of the ex-slave as free but still inferior. Although one wonders how this distinction may have changed as aristocrats adapted to monarchy, it is clear that the degradation of freedmen conditioned their place in society.
Despite a long tradition of enfranchising freedmen, the Romans sought to limit this group’s political influence. The inscription of liberti in the four urban tribes and the practice of excluding ex-slaves from municipal councils may be viewed within this context. On the other hand, Mouritsen’s interpretation of the Augustan reforms aligns the laws about freedmen with other parts of the program by reading them as ideological statements. Augustus’ attempts to regulate manumission were strikingly inefficient and probably represent “official declarations which emphasized the need for proper selection and ‘quality control’ in the manumission process” (p. 84). Like the marriage laws, they articulate a self-styled return to traditional mores. Further, by limiting the number of freedmen who received the full franchise, Augustus portrayed the citizenship as a privileged status that could be coveted by provincials.
The emperor’s slaves and freedmen emerged as a central administrative body that symbolized the autocratic nature of the principate. Republican elites had employed slaves and liberti to perform public duties, but the rise of individual magnates heightened the visibility of such staff. In turn, influential members of the imperial family came to exemplify the transition from a government based on intra-elite competition to one ruled by the auctoritas of one man. Likewise, the extent to which a princeps controlled or was controlled by his freedmen became instrumental in shaping his image. Although the reliance on such personnel developed for practical reasons, the familia Caesaris (and wealthy freedmen in general) became focal points for ideological conflict about status, wealth, and political authority.
These discussions convey the full complexity of “the freedman” as a cultural construct linked to a range of other concerns. Importantly, Mouritsen maintains an awareness of the Romans’ capacity to hold contradictory views simultaneously, to see freedmen as human beings but also as inherently dishonored. As Fitzgerald did for slaves in Latin literature, Mouritsen shows how the Romans used liberti to interrogate basic boundaries and to channel anxieties about social and political change.2 Further, the Romans’ ideals about freedmen help explain why they kept manumitting slaves despite the unsettling paradoxes that arose from this change of status. We come to appreciate the intricacies of the Roman social imagination in its connection to social practice.
Mouritsen’s treatment of more technical problems is executed as masterfully as his examination of ideology. He rightly accepts that we lack sufficient documentation to establish demographic measures with any precision. The strength of his discussion is not to solve insoluble problems but to compile the evidence – most of which indicates that manumission at Rome was more common than in other slave systems, but selective on the basis of the ideal that only deserving slaves should be freed. Thankfully, the reasons for why the Romans manumitted so many slaves are easier to ascertain. On the one hand, the promise of freedom was a powerful incentive by which to inspire diligence and good behavior. But the frequency of manumission cannot be explained by this single function; and the social and economic benefits of the patron-freedman relationship were the key to sustaining the Roman system.
This emphasis on patronage leads Mouritsen to downplay the importance of self-purchase, which some others have placed in the foreground. Roman manumission did not necessitate a replacement of services lost, because freedmen remained tied to the familia. Nor can the peculium be linked unequivocally with self-purchase; it rather served as a general indicator of the slave’s status within the household. Similarly, testamentary manumission may not have been as appealing to slave-owners as is often assumed, because masters were more likely to see the benefits of capitalizing on freedmen’s continued service during their lifetime. Although it is impossible to pinpoint the frequency with which these types of manumission were used, Mouritsen makes a convincing case that the patron-freedman relationship was a determining factor.
Understanding the practice of manumission requires asking who was freed and for what reasons. Epigraphic evidence suggests that children were manumitted in exceptional circumstances but that slaves in their late teens and twenties had a decent chance of receiving their freedom. Such a pattern implies a shortfall of home-born slaves, but Roman elites did not manage their households in strictly rational terms. In fact, the reasons for manumission were highly subjective, relying above all on familiarity and trust. As a result, we rarely hear of Roman masters freeing agricultural slaves, with whom they would have had little contact; and patterns within the familia Caesaris usually followed an impersonal standard. Again, the ideological foundations of Roman manumission – namely, that enslavement was caused by misfortune and that slaves of good character could earn their libertas – reinforced actual practice.
A continued focus on the patron-freedman relationship guides Mouritsen’s discussion of ex-slaves in the Roman economy. While not a bourgeoisie, freedmen were uniquely positioned to succeed economically because of their integration into the familia. Unlike freeborn clients, liberti had a quasi-familial bond with their ex- master that made them prime candidates for posts in the family business and provided a source of start-up capital. This model casts doubt on the category of the “independent freedman,” the ex-slave whose patron had died and who therefore could become rich beyond normally acceptable levels. In fact, we know of many wealthy freedmen whose fortunes grew with the active support of their patrons, and ex-slaves emerge as a social group that was subject to stigmatization but also intimately involved with the freeborn ruling orders, so in some senses a group of insiders.
Freedmen’s role in political life is interpreted along similar lines. The Augustales, for instance, represent a locally specific phenomenon whose unifying function was to allow ex-slaves to participate in civic society through acts of euergetism. Moreover, the sons of freedmen who entered politics – often held up as icons of economically driven upward mobility – were not seen as essentially different from other ingenui. They faced hurdles similar to those encountered by any “new man,” though more extreme because they started at a lower rung of the social ladder. Rather than cast first-generation ingenui as social upstarts who bought their way into the elite, Mouritsen invites us to contextualize their success in an environment where newcomers joined the public sphere with the support of powerful patrons.
Given Mouritsen’s sensitivity to the patron-freedman relationship, which was by nature two-sided, it is surprising that he relegates his discussion of the freedman’s perspective to a brief final chapter. He correctly observes, as have others, that Petronius’ caricature of the wealthy freedman has exerted undue influence on historians.3 In particular, interpretations of ex-slaves’ funerary commemorations have overwhelmingly focused on the desire to advertise status. By contrast, Mouritsen stresses the importance of the nuclear family, to which manumission granted a newfound stability.4 Trimalchio’s grip on the historical imagination weakens as we come to appreciate the degrees to which freeborn society ostracized or integrated liberti; one could praise a freedman in one breath and deride the infimus ordo in the next, depending on social or rhetorical context. Nevertheless, the views of freeborn Romans are imperfect measures of how freedmen constructed their own communities. Mouritsen brings us closer to an authentically freed perspective when, in closing, he points out that the vast majority of former slaves married individuals of the same status. Again, the valuation of family emerges as a cultural product of freedmen’s common experience of having endured enslavement and achieved at least a limited freedom.
Filling an obvious gap in the scholarship, Mouritsen offers historians the opportunity to comprehend manumission in its ideological and practical aspects, as well as in the correspondences between the two. In the process, he sheds light not just on how the Romans approached this institution, but also on how manumission interacted with other areas of discourse, with social structure more broadly, and with political and economic developments. Mouritsen’s depth of insight and breadth of knowledge have, at last, produced an overarching account of manumission in the Roman world that will be an essential point of departure for future work on this topic, as well as an invaluable resource for teaching.
On January 27 2013 06:06 KwarK wrote: Firstly, as I've already demonstrated, a freedman is not free. He is still bonded to his old master and is part of their household. Freedmen in the government were used by their old masters as tools.
Hadrian is the emperor who marked a decisive change in ideology from an aggressive expansionist empire to a primarily defensive one, hence the walls and the surrender of Trajan's gains back to the Parthians. What this means in practical terms, is that by the time Hadrian is around the supply of slaves has dried up. The Roman Empire reached its largest under Trajan and never again matched that expansion and, of course, without expansion you don't get slaves. It is entirely unsurprising that in the age of Hadrian the treatment of slaves, who were no longer expendable, improved. However Hadrian was in the middle Principate, you've skipped the 2/3 of Roman slave owning history and hoped I wouldn't notice. Referring to just the empire is also somewhat sneaky given slavery as an institution predates it by centuries.
That is why I said that this probably isn't the best discussion to have. Rome has an incredibly long history. Discussion about whether or not people are free is semantic and philosophical. "Freedmen, were former slaves who had gained their freedom."
I've read a lot of books regarding Roman history, the purpose of the Google Search was to show how the fact that Freedmen had to be limited to holding offices was general historical knowledge.
But it is besides the point. The point I am making is that American slavery was blatantly racist, and Roman slavery was not. Because of this Roman slaves had it relatively better. Just think about it, a hardworking slave can earn respect. But if your African American, no matter how hard you work your not going to get respect because the color of your skin. It is well known that American slaves were treated worse than Roman slaves due to racism. Are you actually arguing that?
If so, I can do another Google Search was to show how that African American slaves are treated worse is general historical knowledge. Or, you can do it yourself.
Okay, now you're quoting wikipedia. Freedmen in Rome were not classed, nor treated, as equal to free men in a social, judicial, economic or political sense. They were men who were freed but they were not free men. You need to research it beyond looking at the construct word and guessing at the context.
A freedman holding an office does not hold an office in his own name. That is what you seem to not be getting.
"it is well known"
Seriously? That's your argument now. Did you know that in Republican Rome if a slave killed a master the entire household of slaves was put to death to incentivise slaves turning each other in? And that's household slaves who actually had contact with their owners. Your agricultural and industrial slaves were thought of as akin to a piece of machinery, to be used and discarded when broken. When a person has no rights the humaneness of their treatment is pretty much based upon the interests of their masters and I have no doubt that Roman's were just as capable of wanton cruelty as southern plantation owners.
On January 27 2013 06:18 KwarK wrote: Okay, now you're quoting wikipedia. Freedmen in Rome were not classed, nor treated, as equal to free men in a social, judicial, economic or political sense. They were men who were freed but they were not free men. You need to research it beyond looking at the construct word and guessing at the context.
Okay, whatever you say about Freedmen is true. I am not an expert on Freedmen. Perhaps I will read up on the later because I'm very interested in Roman history.
But it honestly means nothing to me now and isn't the point I am trying to make. It is well known that American slaves were treated worse than Roman slaves due to racism ( African Americans weren't just people who slaves, they were look at as only being slaves, not people). Are we arguing that?
Apparently you are. Look, slaves are treated very poorly by the definition of the word.
But when add racism into the mix it gets worse.
Oh look, academic peer review journals, showing it is general common knowledge! But I know this because it was drilled into my head in grade school, while you might not have had as much US history if you grew up in England...
A quote: "Most scholars agree that early slavery in the Roman Republic lacked the intensity that existed later in the Empire. When compared with other forms of the institution, like the sugar slavery in the Caribbean hundreds of years later, punishments were light."
This was likely due to the fact that many Romans believed slaves were to be treated as normal human beings. William Phillips Jr. quoted a Roman jurist named Florentius, “Slavery is an institution of the common law of people by which a person is put into the ownership of somebody else, contrary to the natural order…The word for property in slaves is derived from the fact that they are captured from the enemy by force of arms.”
Yes, we are arguing that. Roman slaves were treated with exceptional and unimaginable cruelty. You know how when Tarantino wanted to quickly and easily depict the horrors that slaves had to go through he made them fight each other, not because it happened, he made that up, but because it's clearly pretty horrible? Gladiators are actually real.
Soon afterwards one of his own slaves murdered the city-prefect, Pedanius Secundus, either because he had been refused his freedom, for which he had made a bargain, or in the jealousy of a love in which he could not brook his master's rivalry. Ancient custom required that the whole slave-establishment which had dwelt under the same roof should be dragged to execution, when a sudden gathering of the populace, which was for saving so many innocent lives, brought matters to actual insurrection. Even in the Senate there was a strong feeling on the part of those who shrank from extreme rigour, though the majority were opposed to any innovation. Of these, Caius Cassius, in giving his vote, argued to the following effect:-
"Often have I been present, Senators, in this assembly when new decrees were demanded from us contrary to the customs and laws of our ancestors, and I have refrained from opposition, not because I doubted but that in all matters the arrangements of the past were better and fairer and that all changes were for the worse, but that I might not seem to be exalting my own profession out of an excessive partiality for ancient precedent. At the same time I thought that any influence I possess ought not to be destroyed by incessant protests, wishing that it might remain unimpaired, should the State ever need my counsels. To-day this has come to pass, since an ex-consul has been murdered in his house by the treachery of slaves, which not one hindered or divulged, though the Senate's decree, which threatens the entire slave-establishment with execution, has been till now unshaken. Vote impunity, in heaven's name, and then who will be protected by his rank, when the prefecture of the capital has been of no avail to its holder? Who will be kept safe by the number of his slaves when four hundred have not protected Pedanius Secundus? Which of us will be rescued by his domestics, who, even with the dread of punishment before them, regard not our dangers? Was the murderer, as some do not blush to pretend, avenging his wrongs because he had bargained about money from his father or because a family-slave was taken from him? Let us actually decide that the master was justly slain.
"Is it your pleasure to search for arguments in a matter already weighed in the deliberations of wiser men than ourselves? Even if we had now for the first time to come to a decision, do you believe that a slave took courage to murder his master without letting fall a threatening word or uttering a rash syllable? Granted that he concealed his purpose, that he procured his weapon without his fellows' knowledge. Could he pass the night-guard, could he open the doors of the chamber, carry in a light, and accomplish the murder, while all were in ignorance? There are many preliminaries to guilt; if these are divulged by slaves, we may live singly amid numbers, safe among a trembling throng; lastly, if we must perish, it will be with vengeance on the guilty. Our ancestors always suspected the temper of their slaves, even when they were born on the same estates, or in the same houses with themselves and thus inherited from their birth an affection for their masters. But now that we have in our households nations with different customs to our own, with a foreign worship or none at all, it is only by terror you can hold in such a motley rabble. But, it will be said, the innocent will perish. Well, even in a beaten army when every tenth man is felled by the club, the lot falls also on the brave. There is some injustice in every great precedent, which, though injurious to individuals, has its compensation in the public advantage."
No one indeed dared singly to oppose the opinion of Cassius, but clamorous voices rose in reply from all who pitied the number, age, or sex, as well as the undoubted innocence of the great majority. Still, the party which voted for their execution prevailed. But the sentence could not be obeyed in the face of a dense and threatening mob, with stones and firebrands. Then the emperor reprimanded the people by edict, and lined with a force of soldiers the entire route by which the condemned had to be dragged to execution. Cingonius Varro had proposed that even all the freedmen under the same roof should be transported from Italy. This the emperor forbade, as he did not wish an ancient custom, which mercy had not relaxed, to be strained with cruel rigour.
And because we're actually providing sources now, that's Tacitus, Annals, book 14. Which I've read.
To sum it up. A guy was killed by his slave. Law therefore required that his entire household of slaves be put to death. Unfortunately he had 400 of them and obviously most, if not all of them, would have had no knowledge of the plan to murder him. There was a Senate debate but they concluded that the only just thing to do was to put every single one of them to death. A mob formed who were outraged by this decision so Nero deployed the legions to ensure it was carried through. There was also a second debate about whether or not all the freedmen (note, not legally free) should also be punished but Nero didn't wish to be cruel.
Please check the source I presented. It is a great article.
I am not disputing that Roman slaves were treated really badly.
In the prologue to his book, Generations of Captivity, Ira Berlin makes it very clear that, “no history of slavery can avoid these themes: violence, power, and labor, hence the formation and reformation of classes and races. The study of slavery on mainland North America is first the study of enormous, hideous violence that a few powerful men wielded to extort the labor of others"
As well known as it might be to you that American slavery was the worst kind of slavery that ever there was (what kind of bullshit nationalistic dickwaving is that? lol) I'd be impressed if you could match a discussion in the Senate about whether 400 innocent men, women and children slaves should be murdered on a legal technicality which concluded that they should and then deployed the army to guarantee it happened.
You are arguing that racism makes American slavery worse somehow. At least you've stopped arguing that Roman slaves were freed all the time (manumission was rare, pretty much unheard of outside of skilled household slaves, did not amount to free status) but you've skipped the bit where they weren't worked to death in deplorable conditions and not put to death. Also that quote just says that American slavery was bad (to sum it up), it's true, it was pretty bad, I certainly wouldn't want to be worked to death in a sugar press. If you wish to show that slavery in America was uniquely awful then you need to show how it was worse than Roman slavery and given that in both people are worked to death in deplorable conditions with no control over their own lives that'd be a pretty tough sell. I think both pretty much hit the maximum as far as shittiness goes.
It is worth noting however that when Tarantino wanted to show how abhorrent slavery was in Django he invented gladiator slaves so we can see how their lives were not their own and how they died on the whims of their masters and be in no doubt how incredibly evil it was. Of course, that never happened in America, it did in Rome though.
I don't know what else to say. You find a massacre and decide that Roman slavery is worse. There were plenty of slave massacres in America often because slaves escaped or hit their masters, but sometimes just for for dumb reasons.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_Massacre
I think instead we should look at the general treatment of slaves in both societies and the laws that existed and governed their existence. Here we find evidence of the slave codes that governed life for American slaves to be far harsher than the ones in Rome.
Thus we get this:
"Most scholars agree that early slavery in the Roman Republic lacked the intensity that existed later in the Empire. When compared with other forms of the institution, like the sugar slavery in the Caribbean hundreds of years later, punishments were light. This was likely due to the fact that many Romans believed slaves were to be treated as normal human beings."
So you are arguing against what most scholars believe and what is believed to be common knowledge. Just read the peer reviewed article, it makes it very clear that the institution of slavery became much more oppressive and cruel in American than it was in Rome. The onus is on you to produce a mountain of evidence now... not just to overturn my opinion, but to overturn what is regarded by fact in the intellectual community...
I counter that by saying that most scholars do not agree with that. Also the idea that there is any strong evidence for it belies a complete lack of familiarity with the subject. There is a wealth of evidence for the treatment of slaves in America, from written accounts by the slaves themselves to oral traditions. No such evidence by the agricultural slaves of Rome exists, nor could it, and those sources we have are predominantly regarding estate management and written by the aristocratic elite. So the claim that "most scholars agree" is a nonsense because no scholar anywhere has any decent evidence from the slaves themselves and most of the sources we do have, such as Varro's treatise on agricultural management, represent theories rather than extant practice.
What you can say is that slavery in the Republic (before most of the Empire was conquered) lacked the intensity that existed after the people who became the slaves were enslaved. On the other hand you can also say that the treatment of African slaves in America was pretty good before Columbus. It's a meaningless statement. Slavery as a system relied upon aggressive warfare in Gaul, Germania and across the Danube and these began with Caesar in the last days of the Republic.
Your quote is a heap of nonsensical bullshit, meaningless to anyone with any knowledge of the subject. You are ignorant, your quote is ignorant, the claim that "most scholars" agree is unfounded and ignorant. If you ask a decent Roman historian what he can tell you about the lives of agricultural slaves in Rome the only correct answer is "not much" and then he'll bring up what little archeological evidence we have and tell you that they were housed separately from the main building and bring up the treatises of estate management. You need to be ignorant of the subject to speak on it with any certainty.
Also throwing away 142 slaves to claim the insurance is a rational economic decision made by a man who didn't give a shit about their lives. It is in no way comparable to a discussion in the Senate house about whether the state should enforce the execution of 400 innocents which then deployed troops to ensure it was carried out. One is a man being greedy. The other is the ultimate imposition of the cultural practice by the state.
On January 27 2013 06:52 KwarK wrote: I counter that by saying that most scholars do not agree with that.
See the problem here is that he said that in a peer reviewed article that was published. Thus, a group of professors who are experts in the field looked at his claims and fact checked them. It is a serious article. University's don't publish crap, if they do they lose legitimacy. The peer reviewed journal industry is serious business, you publish something false knowingly, and you'll be hit with academic dishonestly and be expelled if you are a student or fired if you're a professor. And that is why most University's only allow you to quote peer reviewed articles when writing papers. And the fact he didn't even have to provide a source for the claim that most scholars agrees shows even more than it is common knowledge. You don't need to quote a source if you say Magna Carta was signed in 1215, that is common knowledge. The same thing is happening here.
However, your statement was not peer reviewed by a group of professors who are experts in the field and it was not published in a university journal. You need to provide some real evidence, preferably from peer reviewed journals.
Do you see the problem here? Do you want more sources saying it is common knowledge? How many sources?
In fact, I will ask Paul Burke PHD, he is a very good Roman historian and I studied under him years ago. Perhaps his answer will sway you (and if I remember correctly, he believe that chattel slavery in America was far harsher than Roman slavery)?
There is nothing left for me to argue or learn from here...
"Most scholars" is your argument? Really? I fucking quote Tacitus at you and you respond with "this guy implied a consensus in an academic journal (about a completely different subject) about a specific point that is self evident and not really relevant and therefore you're wrong".
This is my field of specialty and you referenced a journal on undergraduate research by Ryan Stevens (not a graduate, not an Ancient History student) in which he does a generic bullshit opener "most scholars agree". Did you even look up the journal in question? There's a reason I've not read it. It's the same reason nobody else knowledgable on Ancient History has read it. It's not an Ancient History journal, it's not even a proper journal, it's an online journal for just a single university edited by the students taking submissions from undergraduate students of that one university so they can pretend to be real academics.
You are making an argument from authority and didn't even look up to see whether your source was an actual authority. It's not. It's not a printed journal. It's certainly not an academic journal. It doesn't even claim to be a history journal. I doubt the parents of those involved even read it. I don't know how else to explain this to you. Ryan Stevens isn't anyone and nobody anywhere reads what he says except you who found it by google searching for your preconceived conclusion.
Next you'll be claiming that youtube videos are peer reviewed documentaries. You'll still be closer than to the truth than "you're wrong because Ryan (not an ancient history authority) Stevens (or in fact any kind of authority) said so". Wow, just wow.
Most scholars agree that early slavery in the Roman Republic lacked the intensity that existed later in the Empire. When compared with other forms of the institution, like the sugar slavery in the Caribbean hundreds of years later, punishments were light.
I read what you posted. I'm not sure if it makes a difference but you're quoting from the "Broaden Journal of Undergraduate Research". Does that have the same level of peer-review that a more professional journal might? The article was written by a history major, and I'm sure there probably is some fact checking, but I'm not sure its so clear that this journal is so important that it would be impossible for them to miss the sourcing on something.
Also, and more importantly, I'm not sure if this quote logically implies what you're saying it does. If you read it carefully, its just saying that "most scholars agree that early slavery in the Roman republic lacked the intensity that existed later in the empire". Its not saying that scholars agree with anything else besides that statement in particular.
It sounds like you're reading into the quote as comparing the entirety of slavery throughout the history of Rome to what slaves experienced in plantations in the Caribbean, and saying the latter was worse than the former, to which scholars all agree. But again, I don't think that's the case upon careful reading.
It seems to me he is just comparing early slavery in the Roman Republic to slavery in the Caribbean a few centuries later. I don't think he's saying anything about how late slavery in Rome was compared to the Caribbean, or slavery as a whole. So it very well could have been true that slavery was much worse in Rome than it was in the Caribbean (in general).
I mean the whole point of the paper, from what I read, was that as a society transitions from one with slaves to that of a slave society (i.e. many more cheap slaves, basically), their treatment becomes dramatically worse. I would have to agree with Kwark, there isn't really any definitive answer in the journal you're talking about in terms of which societies treated slaves worse, except maybe if you want to talk about specific time periods, and even then I think you would need better sourcing . After all, if it was so obvious you should be able to find plenty of information about it in many other peer-reviewed journals!
To sum up, you googled the conclusion to your argument and found a student newsletter containing the scrawlings of a student of a different field and accidentally based your argument upon it.
I was charitable enough to talk you through why this student of a different field was incorrect in his assumptions and included primary sources which I, as a student of the field involved, have read.
You, rather than address the primary sources, instead presented your student newsletter as a peer reviewed journal on the subject and your student (of a different subject) author as an expert in order to present me as arguing against overwhelming academic consensus and thus in need of some new and revolutionary evidence. You then discarded the actual evidence I brought up without addressing it because in your head this had already been assessed by the academic consensus that Ryan Stevens told you about.
On January 27 2013 06:52 KwarK wrote: I counter that by saying that most scholars do not agree with that.
See the problem here is that he said that in a peer reviewed article that was published. Thus, a group of professors who are experts in the field looked at his claims and fact checked them. It is a serious article. University's don't publish crap, if they do they lose legitimacy. The peer reviewed journal industry is serious business, you publish something false knowingly, and you'll be hit with academic dishonestly and be expelled if you are a student or fired if you're a professor. And that is why most University's only allow you to quote peer reviewed articles when writing papers. And the fact he didn't even have to provide a source for the claim that most scholars agrees shows even more than it is common knowledge. You don't need to quote a source if you say Magna Carta was signed in 1215, that is common knowledge. The same thing is happening here.
However, your statement was not peer reviewed by a group of professors who are experts in the field and it was not published in a university journal. You need to provide some real evidence, preferably from peer reviewed journals.
Do you see the problem here? Do you want more sources saying it is common knowledge? How many sources?
In fact, I will ask Paul Burke PHD, he is a very good Roman historian and I studied under him years ago. Perhaps his answer will sway you (and if I remember correctly, he believe that chattel slavery in America was far harsher than Roman slavery)?
There is nothing left for me to argue or learn from here...
My nose is bleeding just reading your debate! Rare good kind of discussion her TL.
That's just a random internet search result and in no way a specialised article on the subject. Here is a refutation explaining why he's wrong and, while we're at it, a primary source that details exactly why you're wrong
The incident in your primary source is totally comparable to this other thing that happened, also pay attention to this article which I also got from a random internet source
It is not comparable and I would be very surprised if anything in American history was comparable to a debate among the political elite about whether to murder 400 innocents in the face of public outcry and rioting that concluded that they should and used the army to impose it.
But Ryan Stevens said I was right. That makes you wrong.
What Ryan Stevens is saying is taken out of context (in which it is self evident) in your argument and some of his claims are unprovable.
The Broaden Journal wouldn't just print any old thing without checking it!!!!
The Broaden Journal doesn't print anything, it's not a real journal, it's an e-journal with no speciality or readership produced by students to put on their resumes
But Ryan Stevens was published in it, why would he be published in it if it wasn't a real journal
Ryan Stevens isn't an authority on any subject, certainly not ancient history, which, by the way, is not the subject of this not a journal
Then why does my argument rest on Ryan Stevens being an unquestionable authority
Tacitus didn't know of American slavery, and thus cannot compare the two. John Warry has also talked a lot about the difficulty in believing ancient sources, because the idea of objectivity and accurately reporting things as factually as possible wasn't quite as important as telling the story from their point of view.
And you're darn right that I Google Search his articled. And it was because I knew it to be true. Just like I would Google Search that Magna Carta was signed in 1215 and send the source to you if you doubted it. Perhaps it is just common knowledge in America that American slavery was far harsher than Roman slavery. But you can think what you want. If you don't think that racism adds another layer of harshness to slavery, that is fine. To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
No, but Tacitus didn't try to describe American slavery. He just described that which he was familiar with, the history of Rome, on which he is an excellent source. Where your guy went wrong is that he attempted to describe the same, on which he is a less good source, in fact, not any kind of source.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
I am up against an intellectual heavyweight here.
Well, if it sounds like it could be true to you then I guess you certainly am. You've still skipped the part where most scholars agree but I wouldn't am you to am your point.
In case you ever want to talk at a grown up table. You can't argue about something and use your personal belief that you are absolutely right as evidence. Otherwise it goes like this.
"I think this is definitely the case, damn your primary sources" "Do you have any evidence for this?" "You mean aside from my absolute belief that it is the case?" "Yes" "Well no, but I'd have to be some kind of idiot to argue with this kind of passion about a subject I have no knowledge about without any evidence for my conclusions." "Exactly" "And I'm not an idiot and therefore I must be right" "...."
Opps I just posted a link with J-stor account opened... hope no one clicked it...
Anyway, now your just trying to embarrass me. You argued that the Civil War was a war over physical resources, argued that wars don't escalate from ideological ideas.. ect..
You gave up arguing each point in turn as I proved them wrong, but then you find a problem with a source of mine, and you claim victory and try to embarrass me? The problem here is, we haven't settled the discussion. I'm still producing sources and you still have dealt with the fact it is common knowledge that American slavery was crueler than Roman slavery.
I am seeing is a big GG from you and a lot of BM...
Your source wasn't a source. You didn't even read where it was from which led to you mistakenly lying about it in this topic. You made an argument from authority in which you told me that I must be entirely wrong and you entirely right because Ryan Stevens said something which you misconstrued into agreeing with you. You built your entire argument for several posts upon the fairly shaky shoulders of Ryan Stevens without even seeing if he was anyone. You're a moron.
See the problem here is that he said that in a peer reviewed article that was published. Thus, a group of professors who are experts in the field looked at his claims and fact checked them. It is a serious article. University's don't publish crap, if they do they lose legitimacy. The peer reviewed journal industry is serious business, you publish something false knowingly, and you'll be hit with academic dishonestly and be expelled if you are a student or fired if you're a professor. And that is why most University's only allow you to quote peer reviewed articles when writing papers.
And the fact he didn't even have to provide a source for the claim that most scholars agrees shows even more than it is common knowledge. You don't need to quote a source if you say Magna Carta was signed in 1215, that is common knowledge. The same thing is happening here.
However, your statement was not peer reviewed by a group of professors who are experts in the field and it was not published in a university journal. You need to provide some real evidence, preferably from peer reviewed journals.
Nothing but condescending outright lies from someone who didn't even have the intellectual rigor to check whether the random article he googled (because God forbid you actually own the books on these things like I do) actually was that which you claimed it was. Go back to youtube comments.
On January 27 2013 07:50 KwarK wrote: Your source wasn't a source. You didn't even read where it was from which led to you mistakenly lying about it in this topic. You made an argument from authority in which you told me that I must be entirely wrong and you entirely right because Ryan Stevens said something which you misconstrued into agreeing with you. You built your entire argument for several posts upon the fairly shaky shoulders of Ryan Stevens without even seeing if he was anyone. You're a moron.
And what was your argument built upon?
It was built upon nothing. You know what, forget Ryan Stevens, let's say you're right about him, it doesn't matter. Let me produce more sources (I'm trying to figure out a way to post sources from J-stor without people being able to access my account). Check the last source.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Fact is that line is peer reviewed and is stronger than anything you've brought up. But I gave it it up, please move on this source:
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
On January 27 2013 07:50 KwarK wrote: Nothing but condescending outright lies from someone who didn't even have the intellectual rigor to check whether the random article he googled (because God forbid you actually own the books on these things like I do) actually was that which you claimed it was. Go back to youtube comments.
You guys are getting really angry, why so much rage? There doesn't need to be so much rage.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor? Read the article from the book.
I take it you're referring to this line "The Atlantic slave system was not slavery as usual (note, term not clarified). More than that, the United States government gave crucial life to the system"
At this point I'm forced to hazard a guess at what your point might be because you've skipped the part where you form an argument. If it's that it was not usual, usual is a meaningless term unless defined. It was indeed unique, the migration involved was transcontinental for example and it was remarkably recent. If it's that there was state involvement, there it gets more tricky. The degree to which there was state involvement is actually considerably less than that of Rome in which the main source of slaves was through the military activities of the state and the management of slave revolts and such was the job of the state. You'll get nothing similar to the events of 61 AD in American history, nor the vast slave armies owned by the Roman state for the maintenance of public infrastructure such as the water supply.
We must of course remember that the author, as a product of intense American apologism, is subject to his own bias and preconceived notions which can often be seen by random idiots on the internet googling beliefs which they themselves admit to be both baseless and absolute.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because much of what you say is incorrect. But this thread isn't about why the American Civil War was fought.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely effecting profits. And the majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners. Yet they still held (and even in many places in the South, hold today) racist beliefs.
Humans who spread misinformation are the real plague to this planet. They spew they filth and those who aren't properly informed or the dumb easily fall for it. The cure to this plague are smart people or even people with the ability to read, who are willing to correct the filth spat out by the plague. Someone who believes that American slavery was "darker" then Roman Slavery is....
Did you grow up in the South?
Yes I did, but what does that have to do with anything? Because I was raised in the place where the slavery had taken place means I support it? Or does it mean that because I'm from the South I have to be stupid about my history? I was raised in the South but that does not mean don't have more knowledge about the dark time in my nations history. I'm going to guess you're from the North because you give me that "I know everything so there is nothing you can teach me" feeling. Being from the South does allow me to know more about the subject more then you
Roman slavery wasn't racist, anyone could be a slave. Slaves were generally people who were on the losing side of any given war. American slavery was blatantly racist, only African Americans were slaves. The ancients had no sense of racism. (They did have prejudices against foreigners, but this was based on nationality, not race.) In America, very few slaves went free in comparison to their numbers, while in Rome many slaves ended up freeing themselves. The freed slaves in Rome could climb the social ladder and often did, becoming businessmen, craftsmen, or government officials.
In America it was much more difficult, as race and lack of education worked against the freed slave. How long did it take America to elect a black president after freeing the slaves? The ancient slaves always had the hope of freedom, either from their owners or by buying their freedom. Most American slaves did not have this advantage. It is well known and documented that African Americans were dehumanized and treated extremely cruel compared to Roman slaves. In Rome skilled or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, which they could eventually use to buy their freedom.
The racist undertones that dominated American slavery and came to define it and Southern culture clearly are far darker than Roman slavery. Slaves were people in Rome that could redeem themselves. African American slaves could not change their skin color and had no way to redeem themselves. Read up on it for yourself, because you're simply denying history.
Romans today don't look back with racist feelings when it comes to slavery in the past. Southerners do. I'm not going to get into this anymore than that, I feel like I am talking to a Holocaust denier...
So.. It's cool for us as Americans to hate Canadians or British because they aren't Americans, but we just can't hate people because they are a different color.
On January 27 2013 06:57 BronzeKnee wrote:
There is nothing left for me to argue or learn from here...
It appears I was correct. All I ask is you learn the real reason behind the American Civil War... and stop lying to those from other parts of the world.
I'd like to change my original opinion about who are plagues...
People who spread misinformation or refuse to learn are the real plague to this planet.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
On January 27 2013 08:09 AmericanNightmare wrote:
All I ask is you learn the real reason behind the American Civil War... and stop lying to those from other parts of the world.
I'd like to change my original opinion about who are plagues...
Last time I went down South, I flew into Norfolk Virginia... and what was in the airport, a case displaying Confederate uniforms, and bunch of Confederate Flags.
Talking to a Southerner who believes that the war wasn't about slavery is like talking to a Holocaust denier, it is useless. I've tried it. I already gave the history constitutionally in this thread and if you look at what happened in Congress you'll realize what it was about. There was no war of Northern Aggression. The South fired first, because they didn't want to lose their slaves, they didn't even care for the democratic process, Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in Southern states. To argue it wasn't about slavery is beyond ridiculous.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Also you're arguing about the overall cruelty of the system which is a matter for historical comparison and have only now, after googling and finding an article written by a legal expert, decided that it is a matter of law. While your taste in experts has improved (the previous guy was a random student) you've still not found an expert in history and your attempt to change the subject after you found an expert in a different subject has not gone unnoticed.
with all first world countries having negative population growth due to basically people wanting / having less children Combined with tight immigration first world countries are going to start having problems supporting their aging population when we simply don't have the number of younger people alive to provide services etc
So contrary to what Attenborough says we don't need to worry about sustainable population growth because apart from primarily India the rest of the world's population is shrinking
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars." I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I'm doubt that you'll listen to anyone. You quote Tacitus then turn around and say that slaves left no historical footprint and we can't gauge what was worse. Either we have the information or we don't which is it?
If you truly believe there is no way to know, then logic is all we can go on, and that is strongest argument.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Except that the slave laws doesn't give you a full picture of slavery. Its a much more complex issue than saying which laws were worse.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Except that the slave laws doesn't give you a full picture of slavery. Its a much more complex issue than saying which laws were worse.
Of course. So now let's look at the fact that anyone could be a slave in Roman times, and that slaves were uniquely African American in America. And let's look at the revolting racism that came out of slavery in America and resides in America today...
Piece it together. Apparently the name calling is over and the real work has begun.
On January 27 2013 07:54 imallinson wrote: [quote]
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death for economic benefit of another and that the Roman slave and American slaves would, when working in similar environments, have similar experiences. More pressing concerns would have been things like the machinery of the sugar press trapping a limb and tearing it off. I also contend that I cannot prove this, nor that it can be proved otherwise, as there is insufficient historical record for the Roman slaves. My argument is that there are no primary sources written by Roman agricultural or industrial slaves, that the primary sources we do have by slaves are by slaves whose experience is alien to that of the average slave and that the primary sources we have regarding slaves are do not reflect the average experience of a slave.
Just so you know what to tell him you're disagreeing with.
On January 27 2013 07:54 imallinson wrote: [quote]
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Except that the slave laws doesn't give you a full picture of slavery. Its a much more complex issue than saying which laws were worse.
Of course. So now let's look at the fact that anyone could be a slave in Roman times, and that slaves were uniquely African American in America. And let's look at the revolting racism that came out of slavery in America and resides in America today...
Piece it together. Apparently the name calling is over and the real work has begun.
Contrary to your strange American worldview racism is not the worst thing that can happen to anyone ever. I'd rather be called a nigger than forced to do backbreaking labour in malarial swamps for 14 hours a day until my early death. You really think that's what the slaves were upset about? Get some perspective. You wouldn't be pissed about being treated as subhuman on the basis of race and present a list of acceptable reasons for being treated as subhuman, for example being a civilian of a defeated barbarian tribe. You'd mainly just be pissed about being treated as subhuman.
On January 27 2013 07:54 imallinson wrote: [quote]
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Except that the slave laws doesn't give you a full picture of slavery. Its a much more complex issue than saying which laws were worse.
Of course. So now let's look at the fact that anyone could be a slave in Roman times, and that slaves were uniquely African American in America. And let's look at the revolting racism that came out of slavery in America and resides in America today...
Piece it together. Apparently the name calling is over and the real work has begun.
Except I don't buy your argument that the racist element of slavery makes it worse. The slaves don't give a shit why they are slaves. Racism was used as an excuse to avoid religious doctrine nothing more. You could argue that the racism makes the time after the abolition of slavery worse but not the actual slavery itself.
On January 27 2013 07:55 KwarK wrote: [quote] They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death.
Here is where growing up in the United States makes a big difference. You are drilled with history and learn of the suffering that African Americans went through, not just because they were slaves, but because they have a different color of skin. I'm sure the work conditions were similar. But the racism made it worse, and that racism it is still incredibly persistent in the South today.
Because all slaves were black, and just about all blacks were slave it deeply ingrained prejudices into American society about blacks, and people tried to justify why blacks were enslaved over time. In fact, freed slaves or blacks born free face racism all the time.
"...In the notes on the State of Virginia, (Thomas) Jefferson goes on and on for many pages about the inferiority of blacks. He suggests on one hand that they mate with orangutans in Africa but, he suggests that they are also always after white women. He says that blacks are not as smart as whites, that they have no skills in poetry, in music. He says that they can never accomplish what whites can accomplish. He compares Roman slaves to black slaves and says Roman slaves did all these wonderful things but that's 'cause they were white. He also says that blacks are brave, as brave as whites, maybe even braver, but he says that's because they lack forethought so they can't see the causes or the consequences of their actions. This is very damaging, horrible ideas and they are used over and over again in the 1840's and 50's by the defenders of slavery to argue in favor of continuing slavery. Jefferson justifies slavery, in fact, by arguing that blacks are inferior to whites on almost all levels. Furthermore, throughout his life he expresses fear of miscegenation, race-mixing. He is obsessed with the question. He is also obsessed with the problem of free blacks. He thinks if you ever end slavery, you must transport all blacks out of the United States. This is impossible to do. He knows it. And if it's impossible to do, then the logical conclusion is you can never end slavery. So, in fact, his own racism justifies the continuation of slavery because he can't conceive of free blacks in his own society."
On January 27 2013 07:55 KwarK wrote: [quote] They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Except that the slave laws doesn't give you a full picture of slavery. Its a much more complex issue than saying which laws were worse.
Of course. So now let's look at the fact that anyone could be a slave in Roman times, and that slaves were uniquely African American in America. And let's look at the revolting racism that came out of slavery in America and resides in America today...
Piece it together. Apparently the name calling is over and the real work has begun.
Contrary to your strange American worldview racism is not the worst thing that can happen to anyone ever. I'd rather be called a nigger than forced to do backbreaking labour in malarial swamps for 14 hours a day until my early death. You really think that's what the slaves were upset about? Get some perspective. You wouldn't be pissed about being treated as subhuman on the basis of race and present a list of acceptable reasons for being treated as subhuman, for example being a civilian of a defeated barbarian tribe. You'd mainly just be pissed about being treated as subhuman.
Of course it isn't the worst thing that can happen to anyone. But racism is bad, slavery is worse, and the two combined are even worse.
Also at no point did I present Tacitus as a primary source on the daily experience of an agricultural slave. There is next to no evidence on that, nor indeed for the experience of the vast majority of slaves. What Tacitus is a primary source on is the systematic and institutionalised cruelty of the Roman system with regard to slaves as, in the incident in 61 AD, the aristocrats debate whether or not they should put to death 400 slaves and actually quell a popular uprising against the atrocity in order to ensure it is carried out. That, he is a source for. Also nothing in American history compares. Maybe if Washington, Madison, Franklin and all the others got together to decide whether they should have a competition to see who could shoot black babies out of a cannon the furthest distance and then, upon deciding that they should, made it a law that all black babies had to be handed over to them and then sent the army out to enforce it then you'd have a case. But they didn't because the American institutions never rivaled the institutional cruelty of Rome, even though the barbarity of the individual slave owners was comparable.
In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
Slave Code:
Slaves were forbidden to leave the owner's property, unless accompanied by a white person, or obtaining permission. If a slave leaves the owner's property without permission, "every white person" is required to chastise such slaves Any slave attempting to run away and leave the colony (later, state) receives the death penalty Any slave who evades capture for 20 days or more is to be publicly whipped for the first offense; branded with the letter R on the right cheek for the second offense; and lose one ear if absent for thirty days for the third offense; and castrated for the fourth offense. Owners refusing to abide by the slave code are fined and forfeit ownership of their slaves Slave homes are to be searched every two weeks for weapons or stolen goods. Punishment for violations escalate to include loss of ear, branding, and nose-slitting, and for the fourth offense, death. No slave shall be allowed to work for pay, or to plant corn, peas or rice; or to keep hogs, cattle, or horses; or to own or operate a boat; to buy or sell; or to wear clothes finer than 'Negro cloth' The South Carolina slave code was revised in 1739 with the following amendments:[5] No slave shall be taught to write, work on Sunday, or work more than 15 hours per day in Summer, and 14 hours in Winter. Willful killing of a slave exacts a fine of 700 pounds, and "passion" killing 350 pounds The fine for concealing runaway slaves is one thousand dollars and a prison sentence of up to one year A fine of one hundred dollars and six months in prison are imposed for employing any Black or slave as a clerk A fine of one hundred dollars and six months in prison are imposed on anyone selling or giving alcoholic beverages to slaves A fine of one hundred dollars and six months in prison are imposed for teaching a slave to read and write, and death is the penalty for circulating incendiary literature Freeing a slave is forbidden, except by deed, and after 1820, only by permission of the legislature [Georgia required legislative approval after 1801]
On January 27 2013 07:59 imallinson wrote: [quote] Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death.
Here is where growing up in the United States makes a big difference. You are drilled with history and learn of the suffering that African Americans went through, not just because they were slaves, but because they have a different color of skin.
I agree completely with this. I made this point about two pages ago about why it was you were so religiously obsessive with racism being the worst thing ever and yet failed and refused to justify it beyond just feeling it to be true. It's because you're American and have been indoctrinated with the idea that there can never be anything anywhere as bad as racism. But it's absurd. I can name 5 things worse than experiencing racism off the top of my head. Being on fire. The loss of a child. Being crushed like in Indiana Jones. Being crushed like in Star Wars. Having an Alien burst out of your chest like in Alien.
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
You the one comparing apples to oranges what does forced relocation have to do with slavery.
On January 27 2013 08:00 BronzeKnee wrote: [quote]
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death.
Here is where growing up in the United States makes a big difference. You are drilled with history and learn of the suffering that African Americans went through, not just because they were slaves, but because they have a different color of skin.
I agree completely with this. I made this point about two pages ago about why it was you were so religiously obsessive with racism being the worst thing ever and yet failed and refused to justify it beyond just feeling it to be true. It's because you're American and have been indoctrinated with the idea that there can never be anything anywhere as bad as racism. But it's absurd. I can name 5 things worse than experiencing racism off the top of my head. Being on fire. The loss of a child. Being crushed like in Indiana Jones. Being crushed like in Star Wars. Having an Alien burst out of your chest like in Alien.
Great, and being a slave is not as bad as being a slave and being subjected to racism too right?
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
You the one comparing apples to oranges what does forced relocation have to do with slavery.
He said nothing the US government has done is in the same league. I'm not so sure about that, but it is an apples or oranges comparison.
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
Okay, firstly, as bad was my point. I was the one arguing that basically being a slave is pretty shit wherever you are. You were the one arguing that it's worse to be worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior based on your skin colour than worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior because you were taken as a slave. You can't steal my argument like that. I'd notice. In fact, I did notice.
Secondly, as i keep saying, there is no real evidence for the experience of an agricultural slave in Rome, only that which can be assumed indirectly by things like the fact that the stock was not self perpetuating (they died a lot).
On January 27 2013 08:03 imallinson wrote: [quote] Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death.
Here is where growing up in the United States makes a big difference. You are drilled with history and learn of the suffering that African Americans went through, not just because they were slaves, but because they have a different color of skin.
I agree completely with this. I made this point about two pages ago about why it was you were so religiously obsessive with racism being the worst thing ever and yet failed and refused to justify it beyond just feeling it to be true. It's because you're American and have been indoctrinated with the idea that there can never be anything anywhere as bad as racism. But it's absurd. I can name 5 things worse than experiencing racism off the top of my head. Being on fire. The loss of a child. Being crushed like in Indiana Jones. Being crushed like in Star Wars. Having an Alien burst out of your chest like in Alien.
Great, and being a slave is not as bad as being a slave and being subjected to racism too right?
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
You the one comparing apples to oranges what does forced relocation have to do with slavery.
He said nothing the US government has done is in the same league. I'm not so sure about that, but it is an apples or oranges comparison.
No, your lawyer guy was the one who claimed the US gov was uniquely historically guilty and then you claimed that Tacitus was somehow irrelevant. I was responding to that.
And I still fail to see how the racism is the bit you'd be upset about as the supervisor walked up to you with an axe to cut your arm off after it got stuck in the machinery of the sugar press. If that were me he could call me a nigger as much as he liked if he'd just not cut my arm off, the axe would be the main concern.
On January 27 2013 08:03 imallinson wrote: [quote] Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
Given the limitations of the evidence involved a historian might help. Then they could, you know, actually know stuff. Or at least tell you that, to be honest, we don't really know very much about the lives of slaves and that which we do know either comes from their masters and is theoretical in nature or comes from slaves who were in no way representative of the majority of slaves. Unfortunately your average slave was left pretty much no historical footprint which is what I keep telling you, despite Ryan fucking Stevens.
Read the source.
It is so evident why slavery was worse. And you meant is "despite most scholars."
I emailed Paul Burke, awaiting his response...
I contend that racism was probably not a significant factor in the short, brutal lives of someone being worked to death.
Here is where growing up in the United States makes a big difference. You are drilled with history and learn of the suffering that African Americans went through, not just because they were slaves, but because they have a different color of skin.
I agree completely with this. I made this point about two pages ago about why it was you were so religiously obsessive with racism being the worst thing ever and yet failed and refused to justify it beyond just feeling it to be true. It's because you're American and have been indoctrinated with the idea that there can never be anything anywhere as bad as racism. But it's absurd. I can name 5 things worse than experiencing racism off the top of my head. Being on fire. The loss of a child. Being crushed like in Indiana Jones. Being crushed like in Star Wars. Having an Alien burst out of your chest like in Alien.
Great, and being a slave is not as bad as being a slave and being subjected to racism too right?
Except it isn't to anywhere near a meaningful degree. Being a slave is so much worse than being subjected to racism. That if you add racism on to being a slave it has no meaningful impact.
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
Okay, firstly, as bad was my point. I was the one arguing that basically being a slave is pretty shit wherever you are. You were the one arguing that it's worse to be worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior based on your skin colour than worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior because you were taken as a slave. You can't steal my argument like that. I'd notice. In fact, I did notice.
Secondly, as i keep saying, there is no real evidence for the experience of an agricultural slave in Rome, only that which can be assumed indirectly by things like the fact that the stock was not self perpetuating (they died a lot).
What? I didn't steal your argument. I've been arguing the whole time that being a slave is bad everywhere. Let me quote myself from two hours ago...
On January 27 2013 06:31 BronzeKnee wrote: Please check the source I presented. It is a great article.
I am not disputing that Roman slaves were treated really badly.
In the prologue to his book, Generations of Captivity, Ira Berlin makes it very clear that, “no history of slavery can avoid these themes: violence, power, and labor, hence the formation and reformation of classes and races. The study of slavery on mainland North America is first the study of enormous, hideous violence that a few powerful men wielded to extort the labor of others"
But the fact is, I have been the one arguing that it's worse to be worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior based on your skin colour and the fact your a slave than worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior because you were taken as a slave.
Look at this way. Let's say you have two slaves, one is Asian and one is Black. But your racist and you really hate Asians, even though you'll work them both like slaves, won't you treat the Asian worse, because you hate Asians? Give the Asian an extra smack or two... or make them clean up the worst messes... Does that not make sense?
By the way, I need to stop, can you selectively ban me from just the general section permanently so I don't get sucked up into this discussions? I'm being completely serious.
On January 27 2013 08:36 KwarK wrote: In 61 AD there is a riot over 400 innocent slaves being executed (on the basis of a Senate debate deciding they should be) and Nero sends in the army to stop the riot and make sure the slaves get executed. Nothing the US government has done is in the same league.
We're comparing apples to oranges here though. I think we need to focus on the treat of individual slaves in each society. The institutional system that the South setup was as bad as any Roman system I believe.
Okay, firstly, as bad was my point. I was the one arguing that basically being a slave is pretty shit wherever you are. You were the one arguing that it's worse to be worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior based on your skin colour than worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior because you were taken as a slave. You can't steal my argument like that. I'd notice. In fact, I did notice.
Secondly, as i keep saying, there is no real evidence for the experience of an agricultural slave in Rome, only that which can be assumed indirectly by things like the fact that the stock was not self perpetuating (they died a lot).
What? I didn't steal your argument. I've been arguing the whole time that being a slave is bad everywhere. Let me quote myself from two hours ago...
On January 27 2013 06:31 BronzeKnee wrote: Please check the source I presented. It is a great article.
I am not disputing that Roman slaves were treated really badly.
In the prologue to his book, Generations of Captivity, Ira Berlin makes it very clear that, “no history of slavery can avoid these themes: violence, power, and labor, hence the formation and reformation of classes and races. The study of slavery on mainland North America is first the study of enormous, hideous violence that a few powerful men wielded to extort the labor of others"
But the fact is, I have been the one arguing that it's worse to be worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior based on your skin colour and the fact your a slave than worked to death by a man who thinks you're inferior because you were taken as a slave.
Look at this way. Let's say you have two slaves, one is Asian and one is Black. But your racist and you really hate Asians, even though you'll work them both like slaves, won't you treat the Asian worse, because you hate Asians? Does that not make sense?
At this point you need to cite the evidence that American slaveowners were more violently hateful than Roman ones. What you have done thus far is state "under the following conditions, my argument would totally be correct". What you need to do is actually show that the following conditions were relevant. We're back to the whole adult table problem again.
We know that in Nazi concentration camps Jews generally got the worst treatment because of racism, compared to the other races that were sent to the camps.
Thus is conceivable that while owning a slave from a race you despise means you'll treat that slave worse than one from your own race.
At this point you need to cite the evidence that American slaveowners were more violently hateful than Roman ones. What you have done thus far is state "under the following conditions, my argument would totally be correct". What you need to do is actually show that the following conditions were relevant. We're back to the whole adult table problem again.
I've always been at the adult table man, you were the one who got up in a fit of rage and tried to mock me and allowed posts like this:
On January 27 2013 07:24 maybenexttime wrote: You smacked him like a Roman slave owner would've smacked his slave, presumably.
I can show that American slave owners were violently hateful and racist, though we have no way of knowing if they were more violent than Roman ones. We can only infer that from human nature, and the fact that Romans would work/earn their way out of slavery while African Americans could not generally.
I will admit that there is a possibility that Romans were as cruel or more cruel than Southern slave owners and that my indoctrination in grade school through college in America is playing a part here. I'm clinging to it still because it makes logical sense. However, Rome's institutions were often more cruel as noted...
And I am dead serious about banning me from the General Forums only.
You have gone from arguing absolutes to arguing that your point is conceivable. Just so you know. Is it because Ryan Stevens no longer has your back?
Also racism in the modern sense didn't exist in Roman times. Had a module on that last year oddly enough. Skin colour wasn't the defining feature of barbarians. But there was definitely a concept of us and them and the vast, vast majority of slaves were them. In Roman times you didn't need to look different to be past of the despised outsider class.
You guys are arguing too much over racism and slavery, wouldn't it be better to focus on humans being the plague of the earth? Humans use cows and chickens as slaves, so human slavery isn't really all that much different, it's just people instead of other animals. Isn't that just like racism?
Anyway...... Do you really think that racism and/or slavery would qualify for the "plague of the earth" title? Honestly, I don't think it is -that- detrimental to the earth itself, only the society/culture/people.
I've learned how incredibly indoctrinated the American system makes you. You realise that you personally didn't enslave anyone, right? Just don't call them niggers, challenge racism when you see it, hire/promote whoever is best for the job, treat everyone pretty much equally and get on with life. Jeez.
On January 27 2013 09:09 KwarK wrote: I've learned how incredibly indoctrinated the American system makes you. You realise that you personally didn't enslave anyone, right? Just don't call them niggers, challenge racism when you see it, hire/promote whoever is best for the job, treat everyone pretty much equally and get on with life. Jeez.
To be fair the UK has some equally dumb shit. Like the pm apologising for the slave trade as if he were partly responsible for it
On January 27 2013 09:09 KwarK wrote: I've learned how incredibly indoctrinated the American system makes you. You realise that you personally didn't enslave anyone, right? Just don't call them niggers, challenge racism when you see it, hire/promote whoever is best for the job, treat everyone pretty much equally and get on with life. Jeez.
To be fair the UK has some equally dumb shit. Like the pm apologising for the slave trade as if he were partly responsible for it
And yet Blair armed Gaddafi in exchange for oil money and no fucks were given.
The world will balance itself out. If there are too many people, and it is truly unsustainable, people will die off. With less people, others can survive. How hard is it to figure out?
On January 27 2013 09:21 SEA KarMa wrote: The world will balance itself out. If there are too many people, and it is truly unsustainable, people will die off. With less people, others can survive. How hard is it to figure out?
Good thinking Karma . I don't think many people were questioning that though lol
On January 27 2013 09:09 KwarK wrote: I've learned how incredibly indoctrinated the American system makes you. You realise that you personally didn't enslave anyone, right? Just don't call them niggers, challenge racism when you see it, hire/promote whoever is best for the job, treat everyone pretty much equally and get on with life. Jeez.
I'm happy with the argument set out in my last post, so I suppose this discussion is over. Of course the American system is indoctrinating, every system will be. Someday maybe we can have a discussion on the Revolutionary War and see the differences in what we were taught...
Anyway, we got on this because we were arguing over whether resources started the American Civil War, I hope you are convinced it was ideology. If not, oh well.
Please, if you would be so kind, please ban me from the general forums.
On January 27 2013 09:21 SEA KarMa wrote: The world will balance itself out. If there are too many people, and it is truly unsustainable, people will die off. With less people, others can survive. How hard is it to figure out?
I'm not really sure how this got derailed into racism and nazi concentration camps... but back on topic.
I think what people are trying to figure out is the morality of more people. What you're suggesting, just let things run their own course, is almost certainly not an optimal solution. Optimal in regards to human life, and productivity, and so on. If we have the ability to choose a better path then shouldn't we?
Can we sustain more people (you would think yes with technology but the uneven distribution of resources in today's world suggests otherwise), and on a deeper level, should we make a conscious effort to curtail growth.
Some countries have tons of problems, generally the poorer and developing ones like China, India, and Africa, while richer countries (Japan, Scandinavia) are shrinking in population. Is doing nothing to control population moral when we have the ability to taper growth? These are tougher questions that people can't agree on so easily.
On January 27 2013 07:39 BronzeKnee wrote: To me, logically it makes complete sense and because most scholars agree I am.
That is terrible argument. Just because something logically makes sense doesn't make it true. I could give you a long list of things that don't logically make sense but is true or makes logical sense but isn't true. And you keep saying that most scholars agree with you doesn't make that more true.
They also don't agree with him for what it's worth. He got that idea after googling what he believed to be true, finding Ryan Stevens and taking Ryan Steven's generic opening paragraph massively out of context and then presenting Ryan Stevens as somewhere in between Stephen Hawking and God.
Yeah I saw that. I'm just laughing at the fact that he is still claiming it is based on a student and a law professor.
That article is based on student. The book is from a law professor. No claiming, it is.
Yes but he is a law professor not a history professor. It's like saying climate change isn't happening because one geology professor says so.
My objective here is to give you enough sources so that you accept that American slavery was harsher than Roman slavery, and that it is common knowledge, which I know. The sources can come from anywhere as long as they are reliable.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. Read the article, he shows the clear distinctions of why it is more harsh.
Except sources can't just come from anywhere. If you source something from a student or from a professor in a different field it doesn't add much credibility to your argument.
Perhaps the best evidence for what I am arguing is to compare Roman slave law to America slave law. And who better to consult that a law professor?
On January 27 2013 08:09 AmericanNightmare wrote:
All I ask is you learn the real reason behind the American Civil War... and stop lying to those from other parts of the world.
I'd like to change my original opinion about who are plagues...
Last time I went down South, I flew into Norfolk Virginia... and what was in the airport, a case displaying Confederate uniforms, and bunch of Confederate Flags.
Talking to a Southerner who believes that the war wasn't about slavery is like talking to a Holocaust denier, it is useless. I've tried it. I already gave the history constitutionally in this thread and if you look at what happened in Congress you'll realize what it was about. There was no war of Northern Aggression. The South fired first, because they didn't want to lose their slaves, they didn't even care for the democratic process, Lincoln wasn't even on the ballot in Southern states. To argue it wasn't about slavery is beyond ridiculous.
End of story.
Who said this? "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
I'll give you a hint, it's the same man who said," My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery."
Ending slavery in the South was punishment for them rebelling. Why else would Lincoln leave hundred of thousands of slaves in the northern slave states alone? The purpose of the American Civil War was to preserve the Union... said so by the man himself. Are you calling Lincoln ridiculous? Are you saying that Lincoln was wrong and he actually did it all to end slavery without knowing?
You have also completely mischaracterised the nature of slaves as government officials. You are talking, I believe, about the emperor Claudius who distrusted everyone but his own household and entrusted a lot of the business of government to his slaves and freedmen under his direction. It was by no means standard, it was an aberration and is noted in our sources as an aberration which leads me to believe you have not read them.
You do not understand that of which you speak.
Come on KwarK, I expect better.
During the early Empire freed slaves held so many key positions in the government bureaucracy, that Hadrian restricted their participation by law. However, he deemed that any future children of a freedman would be born free, with full rights of citizenship. This is known, look it up.
Now, Rome had a long history and sources are limited and unreliable so maybe this isn't the best discussion to have. Fact is, Roman slaves didn't face racism, because they came from all races. Americans slaves did. And because of this African Americans face racism today in America, yet there were no lingering bad sentiments after Roman slavery ended.
No racism? You should read up on Barbarism and from whence it originates. Rome was fanatically racist. Two wrongs do not make a right. Also, the War Between the States, was about more than just slavery. Hell, South Carolina threatened to seceede in the 1830s and Jackson threatened to exterminate the lot of them if they so tried over tariffs. It was a war over regional economic interests (agrarian vs. mercantile), where one region wanted to punish the other to subsidize their industries. In any event, the entire country was Racist in those times except for the few lot of libertarian folks of the day like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, etc. Hell, Lincoln even wanted to deport all the Africans back to Africa. Perhaps you should read of the 'free Blacks' in the North account of how they were treated. It is also historical fact, that there were Northern Slaves even in 1861 (notably in Maryland and New Jersey).
The problem isn't just too many humans to support, but also resource exploitation. Sadly, most resources don't just magically regenerate like ore mining nodes in an RPG...
On January 27 2013 10:54 Khul Sadukar wrote: There are many things that are a plague on the planet. None of them belong here either.
People need to stop listening to these idiot technocrats. He's a nobody and shouldn't be given the attention.
people calling David Attenborough an idiot would have been tossed off Taygetus without a second thought, it's so hard to not insult you lol
people are a plague, everyone even remotely intelligent knows that. where Attenborough is wrong is that the earth won't limit our population much since the technology is improving at incredible rates, artificial food etc is already possible. we're just going to eliminate every animal from earth that's not a vermin or parasite or domestically bred.
Even if there is a problem - I am not here to argue about that but - what could humanity or mankind do? I dont think there is any "good" way to turn this process back, just to slow it down, or not even that. Just tell me some methods, which wont cause any repercussions in the population or method that will do in a reasonable time. Its like fuckin politics most of the time. This and that is bad lets do the revolution changed them, but wait? For who? Like the CO2 quotes. They made a new "currency" a new tradeable "resource" of that, while "saving" Earth. Mankind does what mankind likes to do.
On January 26 2013 16:15 Zahir wrote: He also gives specific mention to one of the world's more vulnerable countries, hinting at the typical euro-centric attitude of forcing others to conform to our ideals in a manner most beneficial to ourselves, not so much for them. It's the same strain running through colonialism, neoliberalism, etc. Let's just get together and use our traditional methods for controlling the world to force other nations (and we all know exactly which ones it'll be, not any western ones that's for sure) into not having many kids, not developing industries, not tampering with rainforests, etc. Nevermind that most industrialized nations have already burned through their natural resources and developed mammoth populations that consume and pollute like crazy. No one else should have the right to develop, only us. Ethiopia should remain a nice wildlife preserve for privileged explorers and conservationists from the civilized parts of the globe to visit, how dare they keep breeding, what a filthy plague, etc. And so many kids in this thread seem to be down with this, because they have a negative view on humanity, not realizing that their blithe agreement that humans are a plague plays right into the hands of people who want to make the problem worse.
I'm pretty sure that he wants to concentrate on the areas in which shit hasn't already been wrecked irrevocably is because in the areas that shit has already been wrecked irrevocably shit has already been wrecked irrevocably. I don't doubt that he would happily see a return to the oak forests of England and the non eradication of wolves but we chopped down our forests and we killed our wolves. It seems a massive leap to your conclusion "fuck the blacks" when the areas the conservationists are interested in are the areas with things to conserve. Also the idea that we'd pressure them to act in ways that we want at their expense is nonsense. Nobody is invading these places and evicting local populations from wildlife preserves or anything. What we have is campaigns for western businesses to act ethically in our eyes and things such as the fairtrade and organic trends in which we reward shit we like.
Your objection is nonsense. You damn him as a racist and a hypocrite for suggesting that population control to prevent the hypothetical lives of hypothetical people in foreign countries is good while not simultaneously advocating the slaughter of the living people in Western countries who exist because we didn't enact population control generations ago. The two are not comparable, there is no hypocrisy, you are talking complete and utter bollocks.
I get that you feel the need to defend Attenborough, but its clouding your judgement. There's no need for population control - which has an extremely dark history, from infanticide to compulsory sterilization to extreme coercion by totalitarian regimes - when it's still easily within humanity's power to feed, clothe and house everyone. Corruption, waste and misallocation of resources/production are a MUCH bigger problem than population growth, which is actually expected to taper off thanks to increasing education, wealth, opportunity, access to contraception, and other factors which have been consistently shown to reduce birth rates.
Also, while Attenborough himself has done as good a job as can be expected of advocating his cause in only the most gentle, fairy tale terms, the groups he's founded haven't had the luxury of operating above petty details like how you manage population control without resort to coercion. Here's a nice look at what population control advocates sound like when not speaking to a camera: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/01/noted_darwinist068561.html.
But you can't be too hard on them, after all, one can't talk seriously about population control (which Attenborough refuses to do by, for example, putting forth an actual plan) without running into fundamental problems. For one thing, reducing birth rates causes a demographic shift towards the elderly - and in developing countries, very likely a gender imbalance and increased infanticide. Another is that you have to use either coercion or incentives; coercion causes unrest (thus requiring heavy handed control) for reasons that should be self explanatory, ie, human reproductive rights. Meanwhile, given how taxes work, a government incentivizing something really just means punishing everyone who doesn't take the incentivized action... In this case, families with large numbers of children. Which, you will note, are often those in most need of financial assistance. Or are only poor families going to be encouraged to have children, while the well off who have kids pay for everyone else's decisions? Congrats, now we are back to eugenics. This is why Attenborough knows better than to delve into details, he knows the reality of treating people like ignorant shit is much harder to swallow than some chic generalized phrases about humanity being a disease.
The man talks in misanthropic generalities about humanity being a plague which must be controlled, rather than give his attention and join his voice to the ongoing effort to raise standards of living around the globe, an effort which is, in relatively short order, going to not only reduce birth rates, but make the population "problem" completely irrelevant by increasing available resources and productive capacity.
So yeah, while I admire his work, I'm not giving him a pass, and I encourage everyone here to actually think about what population control entails before simply affirming what this guy is saying.
On January 27 2013 10:29 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: The problem isn't just too many humans to support, but also resource exploitation. Sadly, most resources don't just magically regenerate like ore mining nodes in an RPG...
Society has evolved so much faster than humans.
We are still driven by animalistic desires and are fairly unintelligent.
A nation utilizing clean energy, utilizing all farmable space-- with an emphasis on urban farming--, and tossing out all of the processed garbage and sticking to a light diet of whole foods. Hell, livestock gets fed enough food to feed every person on the planet.
But, humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
Dude, move to some place where population is already declining. May i humbly suggest Russia?
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
Did you miss the part where population growth rates have already peaked and are declining? A lot of long term forecasts expect global population itself to eventually begin declining several decades from now as standards of living, education, access to contraception, economic opportunity all increase.
So your argument about the inevitability of the need for population control is hardly grounded in facts. The idea that population growth is spiraling out of control is a myth, the global growth rates are in decline. And what you said about ecosystems is irrelevant - humans can migrate, hell, we can terraform and create new ecosystems as needed. Getting rid of some the currently existing waste and corruption will give us plenty of centuries worth of breathing room to solve the problems you're presenting as insoluble.
Population control is not an option. All species who had a negative growth figure for a longer time have died out. In the verry long run we like to have a positive growth figure, limiting population growth should always be temporarely, and never a long term philosophy. The more humans there are, the better our change to survive, and we should strive to eventually populate the whole universe. Luckily that drive is encoded well into our genes.
If you have been there to see it, and I have, you know it is mankind's nature to destroy itself. So mock as you will. Nobody will listen until we start piling the bodies of our families into mass graves. Your grandchildren will face this. Globalization is one huge pyramid scheme, what happens when all the countries locked in a trade scheme go to war? Economies crumble. What happens when economies crumble? People starve. I may be dumbing it down a bit, but there really isn't anything scholarly about it. We will all soon be broke and at war, and millions will die as a result.
On January 28 2013 09:00 dirtydurb82 wrote: If you have been there to see it, and I have, you know it is mankind's nature to destroy itself. So mock as you will. Nobody will listen until we start piling the bodies of our families into mass graves. Your grandchildren will face this. Globalization is one huge pyramid scheme, what happens when all the countries locked in a trade scheme go to war? Economies crumble. What happens when economies crumble? People starve. I may be dumbing it down a bit, but there really isn't anything scholarly about it. We will all soon be broke and at war, and millions will die as a result.
That's one reason why they won't go to war - it's against their economic interests.
On January 28 2013 09:00 dirtydurb82 wrote: If you have been there to see it, and I have, you know it is mankind's nature to destroy itself. So mock as you will. Nobody will listen until we start piling the bodies of our families into mass graves. Your grandchildren will face this. Globalization is one huge pyramid scheme, what happens when all the countries locked in a trade scheme go to war? Economies crumble. What happens when economies crumble? People starve. I may be dumbing it down a bit, but there really isn't anything scholarly about it. We will all soon be broke and at war, and millions will die as a result.
If push comes to shove the north would fuck the south over across the globe right now. Probably minor military conflicts, but mostly major, and more obvious, economic abuse.
Why get fucked when you can fuck someone else over instead? Mmm, humanity.
"(talking about members of the populist movement commiting suicide in old age) I presume that they felt this was an act of generosity to the overburdened earth, when they had reached an age when they could not contribute as much as they desired to humanity's future. What a supreme act of integrity and courage!" [Val Stevens, "The Tragedy of the Commons and other matters: A Tribute to Garrett Hardin,"
These people are loons. I dont have a problem with population control as long as it isnt compulsary. As for the situation in Ethiopia, it is rather tragic. However unlike others in this thread I believe that they actually NEED globalization. These people are probably willing to work for a few dollars a day to buy food. Id take Extortion over starvation any day.
Humans are naturally greedy and selfish. That has helped us out pretty well so far with competitive markets and the global economy, but in the end, natural resources dictates that it actually IS a zero sum game.
The whole mentality of "every man for himself" where the world is in a constant power struggle for oil and other resources is a wasteful mindset. We are all stuck on the same little piece of rock floating in space, it is time we stopped putting so much of our scarce materials into weapons systems.
But of course, if we all embraced each other and truly created world peace, we wouldn't be human anymore.
ugh so many negative nancies in the world. Man everything will be just fine. Its great to point out problems, but be like "aw man, we're all screwed" isnt gonna get us anywhere.
On January 28 2013 11:06 pyrogenetix wrote: Humans are naturally greedy and selfish. That has helped us out pretty well so far with competitive markets and the global economy, but in the end, natural resources dictates that it actually IS a zero sum game.
The whole mentality of "every man for himself" where the world is in a constant power struggle for oil and other resources is a wasteful mindset. We are all stuck on the same little piece of rock floating in space, it is time we stopped putting so much of our scarce materials into weapons systems.
But of course, if we all embraced each other and truly created world peace, we wouldn't be human anymore.
Natural resources like the sun? What about finding alternatives to natural resources like artificial production of hydrocarbons? What about mining asteroids, even though there are no minerals on earth even close to being exhausted? Arable land then, what about that? Hmm, hydroponics maybe? Uses much less water and space then current methods of food production. Lack of living space can be dealt with by building underground, and vertically, as well as by settling space or other planets. More food can be grown without the sun by using uv lamps powered by geothermal and nuclear fusion generators. None of these limits are even close to being reached and I've outlined technical solutions to all of them. Just because you don't have the creative capacity to solve these problems doesn't mean others don't. Far more greedy and selfish people than you will figure it out, and you'll hate them all the more for it.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
Lol, I'm sure we all had experiences that indicates that women are quite selfish as well.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
This bullshit is saying that individual human beings aren't the same thing as mankind in general. Oh wait, should I have said womankind ? No wait, that would be sexist as well. Guess I'm screwed.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
This bullshit is saying that individual human beings aren't the same thing as mankind in general. Oh wait, should I have said womankind ? No wait, that would be sexist as well. Guess I'm screwed.
I was thrown off by the next guy saying "boys" maybe. Thought you were saying that only the male sex was a plague.
I'll take Mr. Attenborough's opinion under consideration after he stops consuming more resources and putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in a year than most will do in their entire lifetimes and disinfects himself. The arrogance of the aristocracy talking down to the masses, the hypocrisy, the lack of any indication that they will change their own lives to help with 'overconsumption' or whatever they wish to call it, it never fails to amaze.
On January 29 2013 04:43 DeepElemBlues wrote: The arrogance of the aristocracy talking down to the masses, the hypocrisy, the lack of any indication that they will change their own lives to help with 'overconsumption' or whatever they wish to call it, it never fails to amaze.
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
This bullshit is saying that individual human beings aren't the same thing as mankind in general. Oh wait, should I have said womankind ? No wait, that would be sexist as well. Guess I'm screwed.
I was thrown off by the next guy saying "boys" maybe. Thought you were saying that only the male sex was a plague.
Well it's true. Which sex is responsible for nearly all wars, violent crime, and corruption of power?
On January 27 2013 12:46 decado90 wrote: humans are petty creatures incapable of coherent or rational thought. They are driven by primal emotions and desires, and are utterly selfish. The future is quite bleak.
You're confusing humans with men :p.
What kind of bullshit is this. You are sexist btw.
This bullshit is saying that individual human beings aren't the same thing as mankind in general. Oh wait, should I have said womankind ? No wait, that would be sexist as well. Guess I'm screwed.
I was thrown off by the next guy saying "boys" maybe. Thought you were saying that only the male sex was a plague.
Well it's true. Which sex is responsible for nearly all wars, violent crime, and corruption of power?
Men wouldn't have to compare dicks if there weren't women to judge them. You know what they say about behind every great man....
I'm sure we're all equally reprehensible as human beings. The only question is whether we get to show it right?
On January 27 2013 04:52 KwarK wrote: How is a slave not an economic asset? It's not all they are, they're also people, but it is insanity to deny that a slave is an economic asset. It's a person whose labour is controlled by you. Labour is an economic asset.
I need to stay out of the general forum. I never go on political or philosophical forums because I get sucked in.
Yes, you are correct in that human labor is a resource. However the American Civil War wasn't fought over human labor. That labor was going to happen either way and it did in fact happen both before and after the war. The North didn't want to deny the South human labor, which was the resource.
The war was fought regarding human rights, whether or not it was legal for a certain group of people to work for nothing and have no legal rights.
Human rights are not a physical resource. I hope that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense because much of what you say is incorrect. But this thread isn't about why the American Civil War was fought.
EDIT: I just realized you may not have the historical knowledge if you grew up in the UK to know that slavery in America was far more about racism and racial superiority than getting free labor. Slavery in America was far different and darker than slavery in ancient Rome for example.
And that is why it was about human rights, not resources. Southern plantation owners could easily afford to pay (and did after the war) people to pick crops without it adversely effecting profits. And the majority of people who willingly fought for the South in the war were not slave owners. Yet they still held (and even in many places in the South, hold today) racist beliefs.
Humans who spread misinformation are the real plague to this planet. They spew they filth and those who aren't properly informed or the dumb easily fall for it. The cure to this plague are smart people or even people with the ability to read, who are willing to correct the filth spat out by the plague. Someone who believes that American slavery was "darker" then Roman Slavery is....
Roman slavery wasn't racist, anyone could be a slave. American slavery was balantly racist, only African Americans were slaves. The ancients had no sense of racism. (They did have prejudices against foreigners, but this was based on nationality, not race.) In America, few slaves were freed in comparison to their numbers, while in Rome hundreds of slaves were freed annually. The freed slaves in Rome, although owing a limited service to their former masters, were free to climb the social ladder and many of them did, becoming businessmen, craftsmen, or government officials.
In America it was much more difficult, as race and lack of education worked against the freed slave. How long did it take America to elect a black president after freeing the slaves? The ancient slaves always had the hope of freedom, either from their owners or by buying their freedom. An American slave did not have this advantage.
I'm not going to get into this anymore than that. The racist undertones that dominated American slavery and came to define it and Southern culture clearly are far darker than Roman slavery. It is well known and documented that African Americans were dehumanized and treated extremely cruel compared to Roman slaves. Check it our for yourself.
My guess is you grew up in the South.
A freedman owed more than a limited service to his master. He was forever bonded to his master as a client in a master client relationship, manumission did not mean an end to his involvement in the master's economic sphere. Often it was a useful tool in the running of the household business. Furthermore a slave freed for the purpose of marriage could not refuse to marry her master and a man was absolute master of the household with the power to beat or kill his wife, those manumissions were not always an act of kindness.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
I agree with it 100% regardless of who is saying it. People are overly obsessive about material possessions and "owning land/space." I myself live in my own philosophy of being the smallest eco footprint I can be. I will live in my own micro home and use expandable space for a family. I dream of a permaculture which can take care of most of my food through organic and self-sufficient means. There is so much crap to address between inefficient transport, non-localized food sources, grains raping the land of nutrients (and people's bodies) and the government funding it. Giant houses with more space than the mass majority of owners can even utilize, bullshit individually packaged goods and bottled water people just use at home over some irrational fear of their typically cleaner faucet. Millions of ads go to each mailbox when it could simply be put in a centralized electronic source for each area to view. Hell, most people these days grow up eating only the muscle of an animal when it is the least nutrient dense and just throw the rest or most of it away. Lawns shouldn't even be allowed past a certain (albeit small) sq footage and flushing gallons of water for your shit and urine because people are afraid to compost or deal with it another way is insane. Society is backwards and it's repulsive. Even the miles per gallon of cars has gone down and the people as well as the companies certainly haven't pushed towards more efficiency. Oil companies enjoy controlling and profiting from the terrible system and they certainly have the mindset of "well I'll be dead before it gets back to me anyway."
I wish people would open their eyes and do small changes to the greater good. It's funny, I hate humanity as a whole yet I'm one of the people actually trying to preserve our livelihood. Even with my eco friendly way of life, I know there's some asshole reversing what I try to do and that's saddening. Everyone should be taught early on and the fallacies might slowly get fixed by a newer, smarter generation. I guess you could say I'm not driven by the same gene of greed that most of humanity blindly continues to use. Learn self control. The native people before "North/South America" who lived with and respected mother nature had it right before the white people came and fucked it all up.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
Right, because there are no taxes or internet in third world countries, its just straight back to the Paleolithic. I better take off then. Thanks for informing me I'm opposed to the internet btw. You've never been to a third world country have you?
On January 29 2013 17:00 Glockateer wrote: I agree with it 100% regardless of who is saying it. People are overly obsessive about material possessions and "owning land/space." I myself live in my own philosophy of being the smallest eco footprint I can be. I will live in my own micro home and use expandable space for a family. I dream of a permaculture which can take care of most of my food through organic and self-sufficient means. There is so much crap to address between inefficient transport, non-localized food sources, grains raping the land of nutrients (and people's bodies) and the government funding it. Giant houses with more space than the mass majority of owners can even utilize, bullshit individually packaged goods and bottled water people just use at home over some irrational fear of their typically cleaner faucet. Millions of ads go to each mailbox when it could simply be put in a centralized electronic source for each area to view. Hell, most people these days grow up eating only the muscle of an animal when it is the least nutrient dense and just throw the rest or most of it away. Lawns shouldn't even be allowed past a certain (albeit small) sq footage and flushing gallons of water for your shit and urine because people are afraid to compost or deal with it another way is insane. Society is backwards and it's repulsive. Even the miles per gallon of cars has gone down and the people as well as the companies certainly haven't pushed towards more efficiency. Oil companies enjoy controlling and profiting from the terrible system and they certainly have the mindset of "well I'll be dead before it gets back to me anyway."
I wish people would open their eyes and do small changes to the greater good. It's funny, I hate humanity as a whole yet I'm one of the people actually trying to preserve our livelihood. Even with my eco friendly way of life, I know there's some asshole reversing what I try to do and that's saddening. Everyone should be taught early on and the fallacies might slowly get fixed by a newer, smarter generation. I guess you could say I'm not driven by the same gene of greed that most of humanity blindly continues to use. Learn self control. The native people before "North/South America" who lived with and respected mother nature had it right before the white people came and fucked it all up.
Well, I think there a good chance we will know the answer during our lives.
The plague is expanding exponentially, killing everything. But then it dies off itself because there are no hosts and no food left. There are quite a few indications that unless our technological process continues at an ever-accelerating rate, we will run out of stuff during this century.
In the mid-term future we will see whether we are smart, techy and cooperative enough to continue our quest for greatness, or whether we are just a mindless plague and should expect if not die-off, then at least a major fall-back and drop in living standards.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
Right, because there are no taxes or internet in third world countries, its just straight back to the Paleolithic. I better take off then. Thanks for informing me I'm opposed to the internet btw. You've never been to a third world country have you?
If you wanted to, you could move to a third-world country where tax collection is negligibly enforced and live without the use of modern technology, including the Internet.
The fact that you continue to use the Internet while proclaiming the supposed superiority of our prehistoric ancestors is laughable.
Humans are a plague I completely agree, we are the only animal on earth that isn't ever going to be happy with what we have, we always want more, more consumables, more money flowing, yet the earth is just a planet, in the end (100years max now) we will faceplant and the decline in technology etc will be comparable to the middle ages as we wont have fuel to run the things we rely so heavily on now, and no-one cares enough to make reproduceable energy as we have crossed the line of consumerism, we wont stop until all we have and love is destroyed.
On January 25 2013 17:26 sam!zdat wrote: I was answering your question...
edit: food is irrelevant (what is relevant is the environmental impact of the way we produce food). Actually the problem is too much food, the so-called "Green Revolution" (keep in mind that the population of Rwanda tripled in the decades leading up to the genocide). We need less, but healthier and more sustainable and robust, food.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
On January 25 2013 19:56 Ysellian wrote: It's so infuriatingly dumb that our 10000 year old ancestors had better lives than we do today and only because agriculture put us in a spot we can no longer escape from.
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
Right, because there are no taxes or internet in third world countries, its just straight back to the Paleolithic. I better take off then. Thanks for informing me I'm opposed to the internet btw. You've never been to a third world country have you?
If you wanted to, you could move to a third-world country where tax collection is negligibly enforced and live without the use of modern technology, including the Internet.
The fact that you continue to use the Internet while proclaiming the supposed superiority of our prehistoric ancestors is laughable.
Oh, they were superior. They had the muscle density of Olympic athletes, and the endurance to run down large game for days, killing the beast once it was exhausted. I fail to see the hypocrisy with me using the internet though, what am I missing?
I'm also not sure why you're assuming taxes are my sole criterion for living in a place.
OK dude let me make this short and sweet we are simply not on plague if we are then that's our fault because we are now far away from the teachings of our holy books,and that's disturction.because we don't know where we heading,and for those who don't believe in god,for them my friend you should be happy because you turned from a monkey into a thing we call human so you should be celebrating everyday and i don't think that's plague XD ...and by the way nobody gives a crap who Sir David is
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
[quote]
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
Right, because there are no taxes or internet in third world countries, its just straight back to the Paleolithic. I better take off then. Thanks for informing me I'm opposed to the internet btw. You've never been to a third world country have you?
If you wanted to, you could move to a third-world country where tax collection is negligibly enforced and live without the use of modern technology, including the Internet.
The fact that you continue to use the Internet while proclaiming the supposed superiority of our prehistoric ancestors is laughable.
Oh, they were superior. They had the muscle density of Olympic athletes, and the endurance to run down large game for days, killing the beast once it was exhausted. I fail to see the hypocrisy with me using the internet though, what am I missing?
I'm also not sure why you're assuming taxes are my sole criterion for living in a place.
Everyone who wasn't so athletic was either murdered or starved. That doesn't makes them "superior," that makes them cruel.
If you're a person who thinks humanity is horrible and you hate it and you're cOnvinced our Society will collapse into shattered chunks under its own weight, why worry? The biosphere can easily handle a human material, social and demographic collapse. It will be better off after, right? In a few thousand years aliens would hardly be able to tell we were here if they flew by earth.
I won't accept sanctimonious hectoring, if you're so mad that humans pulled themselves out of the dirt while you're sitting at a computer, whatever. It's natural behavior for humans to alter their environment to their benefit and I for one won't apologize or feel bad about it.
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
Did you miss the part where population growth rates have already peaked and are declining? A lot of long term forecasts expect global population itself to eventually begin declining several decades from now as standards of living, education, access to contraception, economic opportunity all increase.
So your argument about the inevitability of the need for population control is hardly grounded in facts. The idea that population growth is spiraling out of control is a myth, the global growth rates are in decline. And what you said about ecosystems is irrelevant - humans can migrate, hell, we can terraform and create new ecosystems as needed. Getting rid of some the currently existing waste and corruption will give us plenty of centuries worth of breathing room to solve the problems you're presenting as insoluble.
You realize China, the country with the largest population in the word mandated a huge form of population control which makes their population decrease substantially compared to otherwise. Have you considered that the very thing you're speaking against is what's responsible for control of the population?
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
Did you miss the part where population growth rates have already peaked and are declining? A lot of long term forecasts expect global population itself to eventually begin declining several decades from now as standards of living, education, access to contraception, economic opportunity all increase.
So your argument about the inevitability of the need for population control is hardly grounded in facts. The idea that population growth is spiraling out of control is a myth, the global growth rates are in decline. And what you said about ecosystems is irrelevant - humans can migrate, hell, we can terraform and create new ecosystems as needed. Getting rid of some the currently existing waste and corruption will give us plenty of centuries worth of breathing room to solve the problems you're presenting as insoluble.
You realize China, the country with the largest population in the word mandated a huge form of population control which makes their population decrease substantially compared to otherwise. Have you considered that the very thing you're speaking against is what's responsible for control of the population?
Your post would make sense if china were some sort of poster boy for population decline, but it is not. A lot of East Asian countries pop growth rates are in decline, many much greater than china, and if you look at the reasons it's the same thing in all cases, more contraception, more education, more empowerment of women and economic factors common to developed nations that make it so raising many children is less effective than raising a few children exceptionally well. The same applies globally, if you look at nations where the pop growth is slowing or pop is even declining (which china has yet to achieve) it is these same set of factors at play. Yes, chinas policy has helped population growth rates slow, I would be a fool to deny that, but why use such methods when economic and social development work as well, actually better, and don't require totalitarian methods of enforcement and repression.
We need fewer mouths to feed. Places like Rwanda are as bad as they are because they're caught in a Malthusian trap. More food just results in a bigger population, exacerbating all the other economic, environmental, and political problems.
[quote]
This statement is absurd. Our ancestors from 10,000 years ago had nasty, brutal, short lives. Less than 25% of people even made it to age 15. The death toll from giving birth alone was unimaginably high at 14% per birth.
It's ridiculous that you think a people without antibiotics, running water, and military/police to protect them from genocidal neighboring tribes, had better lives than we do now. If you seriously believe their lives were better, then I encourage you to move to a third-world country, which is still probably a better life than that of prehistoric humans.
I'm sure there were some who lived fairly long lives. One of superior strength, cunning, and hunting skills would eat like a king, screw many women, slay one's rivals, and live into their forties before dying in battle. Sounds better than the coddled existence you've described.
Real life isn't your little fairy tale.
No amount of superior strength, cunning, or hunting skills could protect you from dying before you're even born because c-sections didn't exist. Nor could they protect you from being felled by an infectious disease (which you consider an evil spirit possession) because hygiene, antibiotics, and refrigeration don't exist.
But of course, you're full of hypocritical bullshit right now. If you really believe all that is better than the "coddled existence" we have, get off the Internet and move to Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Afghanistan. I dare you.
Population was so sparse there really wouldn't be much infectious disease.
Infectious diseases aren't limited to epidemics. There are numerous diseases you can pick up from biological vectors such as insects, from cuts that you pick up during hunting and battles, infected food/water, and all those women you're screwing.
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: The probability of ourselves having come into existence is astronomically small anyway, trillions of universal factors had to fall into place by sheer chance outside of our control as we didn't exist. Your point is moot.
Your argument makes no sense. "We have little control of our existence, therefore it wouldn't make a difference if we have a low chance of surviving to adulthood."
On January 25 2013 21:56 smokeyhoodoo wrote: Besides, I have fine hunting grounds where I currently live, and there are plenty of places I would prefer to the one's you outlined. Maybe when I become bored and feel like pursuing exotic beasts.
You live in the United States, where you benefit from all of the "coddled" aspects of modern society including the police and military to keep you safe from other people. Being a "hunter-gatherer" in the United States doesn't resemble the nasty, brutish, and short life span of our ancestors in the slightest. The closest simulation to the violent struggles to survive you claim to be so fond of would be backwards third world countries, not the American wilderness.
Yea but I have to pay taxes. So not worth it, sign me up for rampant disease.
No one's stopping you from moving to a third world country, so feel free to get off the Internet and do so.
As long as you continue to post here, you're just continuing to prove that you're full of hypocritical bullshit.
Right, because there are no taxes or internet in third world countries, its just straight back to the Paleolithic. I better take off then. Thanks for informing me I'm opposed to the internet btw. You've never been to a third world country have you?
If you wanted to, you could move to a third-world country where tax collection is negligibly enforced and live without the use of modern technology, including the Internet.
The fact that you continue to use the Internet while proclaiming the supposed superiority of our prehistoric ancestors is laughable.
Oh, they were superior. They had the muscle density of Olympic athletes, and the endurance to run down large game for days, killing the beast once it was exhausted.
While our prehistoric ancestors were in far better shape than the average modern human, it is ludicrous to suggest that they were on par with a modern Olympic athlete who benefits from modern training methods, nutrition, and possibly personal enhancement drugs.
Even disregarding the use of modern technology that would enable me to kill all of prehistoric humanity from quite a distance, I sincerely doubt that any human from 10,000 years ago could contend with me in personal combat (and I'm merely a decent, not a world-class professional fighter). And that's because even the best prehistoric warrior didn't have access to the nutritional supplements, strength/endurance/speed conditioning, and easy availability of training martial arts cultivated from across the world. He wouldn't even have any idea what I'm doing when I hit him with a heel hook, armbar, or rear naked choke, because unlike me, he lived in a society where the best warriors killed each other instead of having the leisure to refine their martial arts as well as learn from masters in other disciplines.
On January 29 2013 22:49 smokeyhoodoo wrote: I fail to see the hypocrisy with me using the internet though, what am I missing?
You've stated that you would prefer the life of ancestors from 10,000 years ago rather than life today. If that were really true, why aren't you trying to live that life, which precludes the usage of the Internet and other modern technology?
On January 29 2013 22:49 smokeyhoodoo wrote: I'm also not sure why you're assuming taxes are my sole criterion for living in a place.
They're not, but you're the one who brought them up. The whole point, which you keep nitpicking like a cornered hypocrite, is that if you truly believe their lives were better, then why aren't you doing your best to emulate them by living such a life"
On January 27 2013 12:33 Zahir wrote: There's no need for population control
The FACT is that all ecosystems have maximum populations before problems occur and the population is forced to plateau. It's already occurring in some places such as Africa. The question is what is the optimal point (time) to curb such things before it causes natural damages.
While mandated sterilization or killing is obviously a bit extreme, what's wrong with simply promoting smaller families?
Do people really need lots of children? there's no need to have lots of children aside from a desire for a sort of power and/or human instinct of reproducing. Neither of those things are relevant to the success of humankind, and can be in fact detrimental.
Certainly the most important thing is being conservatory and allowing human lifestyle to be sustainable, but aside from that, one still need to have some sort of limit set for populations or the limit will impose itself in nasty nasty ways (things like global warming). If everyone consumed less sure there'd be less problems for a while, but then when people just keep reproducing, their population will offset for that reduced consumption/impact.
The fact is that with a positive population growth, there is absolutely no sustainability— it's simple impossible (at least with regards to a limited space such as the planet earth).
Did you miss the part where population growth rates have already peaked and are declining? A lot of long term forecasts expect global population itself to eventually begin declining several decades from now as standards of living, education, access to contraception, economic opportunity all increase.
So your argument about the inevitability of the need for population control is hardly grounded in facts. The idea that population growth is spiraling out of control is a myth, the global growth rates are in decline. And what you said about ecosystems is irrelevant - humans can migrate, hell, we can terraform and create new ecosystems as needed. Getting rid of some the currently existing waste and corruption will give us plenty of centuries worth of breathing room to solve the problems you're presenting as insoluble.
You realize China, the country with the largest population in the word mandated a huge form of population control which makes their population decrease substantially compared to otherwise. Have you considered that the very thing you're speaking against is what's responsible for control of the population?
Your post would make sense if china were some sort of poster boy for population decline, but it is not. A lot of East Asian countries pop growth rates are in decline, many much greater than china, and if you look at the reasons it's the same thing in all cases, more contraception, more education, more empowerment of women and economic factors common to developed nations that make it so raising many children is less effective than raising a few children exceptionally well. The same applies globally, if you look at nations where the pop growth is slowing or pop is even declining (which china has yet to achieve) it is these same set of factors at play. Yes, chinas policy has helped population growth rates slow, I would be a fool to deny that, but why use such methods when economic and social development work as well, actually better, and don't require totalitarian methods of enforcement and repression.
You seem to be talking about population control as limited birthing or forced killing laws, and you dno't seem to consider some of the actions recently mentioned as population control. By population control I mean people who don't cause population growth no matter the method. People voluntarily choosing not to reproduce as much is population control because it's help keeping the population under control.
I interpreted/understood your claim in the original and subsequent comment to be: "humans can keep growing in population without any problems"; Any other interpretation does not make sense at all to me. Here you seem to be saying something quite different entirely.
EPT
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props to him for doing what he has done over the years, amazing documentaries and a voice to match.![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png)
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