If for any reason you’ve recently been feeling complacent about global security, international relations and oh, you know, little things like the continued existence of the species, here to h…
Good day friend. Everything is a net negative in the grand calculus of the universe. The entropic force has a super high K/D ratio. Humans are not the problem. We are all headed towards the heat death of the universe with near zero chance for persistence beyond it.
With that said, we are the only beings that demonstrate an understanding of that probable future; And are thus the only beings possibly capable of doing anything about it.
Oppenheimer didn’t think the atom could be split. He was wrong. We do not think the fundimental forces of the universe can be overcome. We may be wrong, but if we perish before we get the chance to know for sure, it would be biggest tragedy of the universe.
You said you “think” in the same way that a religious person uses “believe”. Thinking and believing are essentially positions held because of lack of evidence. There are mountains of evidence that demonstrate humans should persist. Every century of humanity’s existence has lengthened our lives and enhanced our standards of living. Our trajectory is not into the grave, it’s into the stars.
Every century of humanity’s existence has lengthened our lives and enhanced our standards of living.
It also continues to make things progressively worse for other species. Are you saying you think that we’ll eventually find a way to overcome the heat death of the universe, and that that chance makes anything we do in the meantime justified?
Or are you saying that since we’re the most intelligent species on the planet, our comfort is what matters, and if anything else suffers for that end, it’s okay?
Our trajectory is not into the grave, it’s into the stars.
Maybe, but I think we don’t deserve it, and most other life here is worse off for it.
“Justified” is strange qualification to put on natural forces. We undoubtedly affect othere species on this planet, but we are of one genetic dynasty. What we do for ourselves we do for them as well. A single blue whale murders billions of krill. But you are not calling for them to be exterminated. Our cousins on the evolutionary ladder have no better track record for passifistic sovereignty than we do. We have the unique ability to understand that and people of science aim to preserve the unique variants of our shared evolution. Our “comfort” does matter most beacasue we are the only ones who know enough to possibly change that. Without us they are utterly doomed, but with us they have a possibility of being preserved or remembered. Most life is not worse off it is, simply put, accelerated along its path to it’s own doom. There have been millions of extinction events for branches of our family tree. It’s arbitrary. The white rhino is only morned because, as the anthropic principal states, there is someone with the consciousness alive to do the morning. How many species of rhino before that have phased out of memory simply because they walked themselves off a Darwinian cliff.
It all boils down to your appraisal of either yourself or others. You judge that “we” against all other species (who are our cousins) deserve do be extinct. It is either that you appraise that you do not deserve to live or other people dont. Either way it’s a shame that you do not see the value in human life and it’s preservation. Others, including yourself deserve preservation, otherwise nothing does.
There is more to our species than the negatives you seem to be caught up on.
You judge that “we” against all other species (who are our cousins) deserve do be extinct.
I think a fundamental cornerstone of our disagreement is that you view us as being entitled to special privileges because we’re the dominant intelligence on the planet, whereas I think that bestows upon us additional responsibilities as custodians of the planet.
All that aside, though, I think you’re misunderstanding my viewpoint. I’m not saying that myself or others “deserve” to be extinct; I’m saying that I think it would be a net positive for the planet as a whole if we were. Almost every other species would be better off if we weren’t here. (The exceptions are mostly ones we’ve caused - there’s species near extinction that we’re preserving, but in most cases we caused their near-extinct status. There’s domesticated species that wouldn’t do well in the wild, but we created that reliance on us.) You can’t really compare the widespread intentional devastation we cause to habitats through deforestation, expansion, and pollution (as one example) to a whale eating krill. For one, it’s the natural cycle of life, and their ecosystem is balanced around it. For another, we have the intelligence to recognize and understand what we’re doing, and the fact that we’re continuing to do it anyway is, in my opinion, a wholly unforgivable act.
Without us they are utterly doomed, but with us they have a possibility of being preserved or remembered.
As intelligent creatures, we alone care about being preserved or remembered. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that any other species understands the concept, even, but I’d be interested in reading it if you’ve seen research to the contrary.
There is more to our species than the negatives you seem to be caught up on.
There is, and I am focusing on the negatives, but that’s because I feel that as far as the rest of the planet is concerned, the harm we’re causing out-weigh the positives we bring. That’s all my view is stating - there’s no ‘judging’ or claims that we deserve extinction. Just a belief that, objectively, our presence here is a net negative for the rest of the planet. We’ve removed ourselves from the natural order and now reign above it, and we’re ruining it for everything else.
You’re making a bit of a strawman out of me. I never stated that we didn’t have responsibilities to be a custodian. I addressed your statement about us deserving to die because of our indiscretions. You stated very clearly “I honestly think that the best thing that could happen, overall, is humanity killing ourselves off.” That is a judgment and strangely a “belief” you have self-proclaimed and are now obfuscating. The whale and Krill analogy was hyperbolic. If that led you to jump the shark and assess that I condone pollution it was simply used to imply that we are not unique in respect to interspecies genocide, but are unique in that we have the ability to overcome it. A whale would eat every krill in the world without a second thought. The balance is only temporal. We see it as balanced because it is what it is now.
As a concession to your last statement, I agree that “now we reign above it (all other life on earth), and we’re ruining it for everything else.”
But based on our trajectory are a species, the evidence shows that we will overcome this period and move forward with the preservation of other species and our own. The homeostatic balance you see for the whales affects us as well and unless a person with the belief that we should all die presses the red button of nuclear annihilation, then all should be well, so the big issue is stopping people from engaging in that line of reasoning. The belief that humanity should end is the issue… exactly what the religious people in the article are gunning for.
You stated very clearly “I honestly think that the best thing that could happen, overall, is humanity killing ourselves off.” That is a judgment and strangely a “belief” you have self-proclaimed and are now obfuscating.
The two statements that I made, both of which I stand behind, are:
I am not religious, but I honestly think that the best thing that could happen, overall, is humanity killing ourselves off. We’re a net negative for almost everything else on this planet.
[…]I feel that as far as the rest of the planet is concerned, the harm we’re causing out-weigh the positives we bring. That’s all my view is stating - there’s no ‘judging’ or claims that we deserve extinction.
I believe that, from the perspective of the rest of the planet, or the planet’s population as a whole, the best thing that could happen would be us killing ourselves off, yes. That makes no claim that we ‘deserve’ extinction, or that we do not. It’s merely a statement that, as a whole, we cause more problems than we fix. They’d almost all be better off without us.
You’re making a bit of a strawman out of me. I never stated that we didn’t have responsibilities to be a custodian.
I was perhaps misinterpreting your comment that
Our “comfort” does matter most beacasue we are the only ones who know enough to possibly change that.
And if so, then I apologize.
But based on our trajectory are a species, the evidence shows that we will overcome this period and move forward with the preservation of other species and our own.
Are you making this statement based on the fact that we’re still around, and therefore have overcome every other period of hardship we’ve faced (as a species)? With the state of climate change and global warming where it is, we’re moving into unprecedented territory; if we’re basing this statement on our trajectory as a species, I would argue that evidence shows that we’ll continue doing too little until it’s too late. I hope that proves incorrect.
[…]unless a person with the belief that we should all die presses the red button of nuclear annihilation […] The belief that humanity should end is the issue… exactly what the religious people in the article are gunning for.
Yes, and I think I very clearly stated that I disagree with their stance:
The difference is that I, and all - or at least, the vast majority - of the folks you refer to aren’t actively trying to make it happen.
Believing the world would be better off if something were to happen is not the same as actively hoping it does happen or working to make it happen. (Since we’re throwing around logical fallacies, that would be a false equivalence).
You’ve gotten me to the point of writing out logical equations to try to make sense of your changing argument qualifications.
first statement:
Best thing = Killing self (humanity) off ∵ pollution
Last statement:
Best thing = something (extinction of humans) were to happen ∵ pollution
But if
something were to happen ≠ Making it happen/hoping it would happen
and
Making it happen = killing self off
then
Best thing ≠ killing self off
(Z = K) ∵ P
(Z = S) ∵ P
S ≠ M
S ≠ H
K = M
It seems that you have made two incompatible statements, which amounts to an erroneous argument.
I’m willing to say that the first statement was hyperbolic and your second statement is more aligned with what you really think, but you say you stand by both, which doesn’t track.
That would be true, except for the simple fact that, just because I think it would be the best outcome for the planet as a whole, doesn’t mean I have to be working towards it. From the perspective of everything else living here, it would be best if we all died. If we don’t, it’s increasingly likely that we take some or all of them with us when we do.
You can’t really compare the widespread intentional devastation we cause to habitats through deforestation, expansion, and pollution (as one example) to a whale eating krill. For one, it’s the natural cycle of life, and their ecosystem is balanced around it. For another, we have the intelligence to recognize and understand what we’re doing, and the fact that we’re continuing to do it anyway is, in my opinion, a wholly unforgivable act.
Much to decompress in that statement.
Human devastation is intentional.
It cannot be compared to a whale eating krill, because that is “natural” and human behaviour is not “natural”.
Human behaviour towards our ecosystem is “unforgivable”.
To 1. I think it is more of a collossal case of denial and lazyness than what I would term “intentional”, but the result is the same.
To 2. Do you really think that whales would refrain from eating all the krill (and subsequently starve to extinction) if they had the chance? So why is our behaviour worse? We are a demonstration of the working of the “natural cycle of life”. We are in the process of using up, wiping out or poluting all the ressources that we (and incidentally most higher lifeforms on our planet) need to survive. Due to that we might die out. As would the whales if they ate all the krill (which many other species in the ocean need to survive).
To 3. You are applying human moral standards that no one but us cares about. There is no evidence of a higher authority that could judge us.
Don’t get me wrong, what we are doing right now is beyond stupid. We know what our impact does to the ecosystem and we should do everything we can to change that. But we seem to be unable to do that. That we are discussing this on a medium that produces millions of tonnes of CO2 each year, most of it just to distract us from our life and help us fight boredom, is a perfect sarcastic point to this.
Yet, humans will not be the end of life on this planet. Right now we don’t even have the means to wipe out all life on it, even if we tried. We might just manage to kill of all the higher animals, but that has happened multiple times before in the history of this planet.
To 1. I think it is more of a collossal case of denial and lazyness than what I would term “intentional”, but the result is the same.
I will concede that calling it ‘intentional’ may be heavy-handed. It’s being done with knowledge of the long-term effects, though. We’re making the informed decision to continue… perhaps due to laziness, as you note.
To 2. Do you really think that whales would refrain from eating all the krill (and subsequently starve to extinction) if they had the chance? So why is our behaviour worse? We are a demonstration of the working of the “natural cycle of life”. We are in the process of using up, wiping out or poluting all the ressources that we (and incidentally most higher lifeforms on our planet) need to survive. Due to that we might die out. As would the whales if they ate all the krill (which many other species in the ocean need to survive).
No, I’m sure they would eat all the krill and starve to extinction… that’s how nature works. The krill population is kept in check by the whales, and the whale population is kept in check by the size of the krill population. If there were too many whales, they’d eat too many krill and wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves, and their population would decline, allowing the krill population to resurge. Or they wouldn’t, and both species would go extinct.
We are in the process of using up, wiping out or poluting all the ressources that we (and incidentally most higher lifeforms on our planet) need to survive. Due to that we might die out.
I agree with you, it’s just that, unlike the whale / krill analogy, we’re poised to take out a lot of other species with us when we go. All my view is stating is that it would be a net positive if we died out before that happens.
To 3. You are applying human moral standards that no one but us cares about. There is no evidence of a higher authority that could judge us.
My statement that this was ‘unforgivable’ was in reference to our supposed role as custodians of the planet (as the most intelligent lifeform here). I believe we have a duty to take care of it and that, with respect to that duty, our failing to do so is unforgivable. (I suppose in this respect I am judging us.)
Yet, humans will not be the end of life on this planet. Right now we don’t even have the means to wipe out all life on it, even if we tried. We might just manage to kill of all the higher animals, but that has happened multiple times before in the history of this planet.
I agree with you, and I’m glad for that. I also agree with you that that doesn’t make any of it okay.
We are all headed towards the heat death of the universe with near zero chance for persistence beyond it. (…) With that said, we are the only beings that demonstrate an understanding of that probable future; And are thus the only beings possibly capable of doing anything about it.
You do not really think that, even if some descendant of us still exists at the time of the heat death of the universe (having somehow survived billions of years in a dark universe with no posibillity (to our present knowledge) to generate any kind of usable energy), they will in any way be human? Or even be able to remember or discover that we were their ancestors?
Edit (Addendum): I think even if human descendants should be around at the death of our sun, they will not be able to be called (or remember being) human.
Thank you for asking. A few things that I know based on scientific fact:
We will only know the answer to that question if we strive to keep our species and it’s evolutions alive.
What we call the laws of nature are only what we observe them to be NOW, based on the technology we have. We thought splitting the atom was impossible.
Entropy is something we view NOW as inevitable, but it could be that we figure a way to harness the fundamental forces of the universe and overcome even that.
I do think it is possible. Probably maybe not, but I will keep pushing people to investigate it’s possibility rather than suggesting we should simply give up because we’re not perfect.
The people at that point in time may not be recognizably human. That is fine by me. They may be very recognizably human though. Time and space are funny that way. If tomorrow someone figures out how to harness gravity, we may very well be the species that does just that. It would be very cool to see the end of the universe and persist as beings that can create a new universe.
Good day friend. Everything is a net negative in the grand calculus of the universe. The entropic force has a super high K/D ratio. Humans are not the problem. We are all headed towards the heat death of the universe with near zero chance for persistence beyond it.
With that said, we are the only beings that demonstrate an understanding of that probable future; And are thus the only beings possibly capable of doing anything about it.
Oppenheimer didn’t think the atom could be split. He was wrong. We do not think the fundimental forces of the universe can be overcome. We may be wrong, but if we perish before we get the chance to know for sure, it would be biggest tragedy of the universe.
You said you “think” in the same way that a religious person uses “believe”. Thinking and believing are essentially positions held because of lack of evidence. There are mountains of evidence that demonstrate humans should persist. Every century of humanity’s existence has lengthened our lives and enhanced our standards of living. Our trajectory is not into the grave, it’s into the stars.
It also continues to make things progressively worse for other species. Are you saying you think that we’ll eventually find a way to overcome the heat death of the universe, and that that chance makes anything we do in the meantime justified?
Or are you saying that since we’re the most intelligent species on the planet, our comfort is what matters, and if anything else suffers for that end, it’s okay?
Maybe, but I think we don’t deserve it, and most other life here is worse off for it.
“Justified” is strange qualification to put on natural forces. We undoubtedly affect othere species on this planet, but we are of one genetic dynasty. What we do for ourselves we do for them as well. A single blue whale murders billions of krill. But you are not calling for them to be exterminated. Our cousins on the evolutionary ladder have no better track record for passifistic sovereignty than we do. We have the unique ability to understand that and people of science aim to preserve the unique variants of our shared evolution. Our “comfort” does matter most beacasue we are the only ones who know enough to possibly change that. Without us they are utterly doomed, but with us they have a possibility of being preserved or remembered. Most life is not worse off it is, simply put, accelerated along its path to it’s own doom. There have been millions of extinction events for branches of our family tree. It’s arbitrary. The white rhino is only morned because, as the anthropic principal states, there is someone with the consciousness alive to do the morning. How many species of rhino before that have phased out of memory simply because they walked themselves off a Darwinian cliff.
It all boils down to your appraisal of either yourself or others. You judge that “we” against all other species (who are our cousins) deserve do be extinct. It is either that you appraise that you do not deserve to live or other people dont. Either way it’s a shame that you do not see the value in human life and it’s preservation. Others, including yourself deserve preservation, otherwise nothing does.
There is more to our species than the negatives you seem to be caught up on.
I think a fundamental cornerstone of our disagreement is that you view us as being entitled to special privileges because we’re the dominant intelligence on the planet, whereas I think that bestows upon us additional responsibilities as custodians of the planet.
All that aside, though, I think you’re misunderstanding my viewpoint. I’m not saying that myself or others “deserve” to be extinct; I’m saying that I think it would be a net positive for the planet as a whole if we were. Almost every other species would be better off if we weren’t here. (The exceptions are mostly ones we’ve caused - there’s species near extinction that we’re preserving, but in most cases we caused their near-extinct status. There’s domesticated species that wouldn’t do well in the wild, but we created that reliance on us.) You can’t really compare the widespread intentional devastation we cause to habitats through deforestation, expansion, and pollution (as one example) to a whale eating krill. For one, it’s the natural cycle of life, and their ecosystem is balanced around it. For another, we have the intelligence to recognize and understand what we’re doing, and the fact that we’re continuing to do it anyway is, in my opinion, a wholly unforgivable act.
As intelligent creatures, we alone care about being preserved or remembered. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that any other species understands the concept, even, but I’d be interested in reading it if you’ve seen research to the contrary.
There is, and I am focusing on the negatives, but that’s because I feel that as far as the rest of the planet is concerned, the harm we’re causing out-weigh the positives we bring. That’s all my view is stating - there’s no ‘judging’ or claims that we deserve extinction. Just a belief that, objectively, our presence here is a net negative for the rest of the planet. We’ve removed ourselves from the natural order and now reign above it, and we’re ruining it for everything else.
You’re making a bit of a strawman out of me. I never stated that we didn’t have responsibilities to be a custodian. I addressed your statement about us deserving to die because of our indiscretions. You stated very clearly “I honestly think that the best thing that could happen, overall, is humanity killing ourselves off.” That is a judgment and strangely a “belief” you have self-proclaimed and are now obfuscating. The whale and Krill analogy was hyperbolic. If that led you to jump the shark and assess that I condone pollution it was simply used to imply that we are not unique in respect to interspecies genocide, but are unique in that we have the ability to overcome it. A whale would eat every krill in the world without a second thought. The balance is only temporal. We see it as balanced because it is what it is now.
As a concession to your last statement, I agree that “now we reign above it (all other life on earth), and we’re ruining it for everything else.”
But based on our trajectory are a species, the evidence shows that we will overcome this period and move forward with the preservation of other species and our own. The homeostatic balance you see for the whales affects us as well and unless a person with the belief that we should all die presses the red button of nuclear annihilation, then all should be well, so the big issue is stopping people from engaging in that line of reasoning. The belief that humanity should end is the issue… exactly what the religious people in the article are gunning for.
The two statements that I made, both of which I stand behind, are:
I believe that, from the perspective of the rest of the planet, or the planet’s population as a whole, the best thing that could happen would be us killing ourselves off, yes. That makes no claim that we ‘deserve’ extinction, or that we do not. It’s merely a statement that, as a whole, we cause more problems than we fix. They’d almost all be better off without us.
I was perhaps misinterpreting your comment that
And if so, then I apologize.
Are you making this statement based on the fact that we’re still around, and therefore have overcome every other period of hardship we’ve faced (as a species)? With the state of climate change and global warming where it is, we’re moving into unprecedented territory; if we’re basing this statement on our trajectory as a species, I would argue that evidence shows that we’ll continue doing too little until it’s too late. I hope that proves incorrect.
Yes, and I think I very clearly stated that I disagree with their stance:
Believing the world would be better off if something were to happen is not the same as actively hoping it does happen or working to make it happen. (Since we’re throwing around logical fallacies, that would be a false equivalence).
You’ve gotten me to the point of writing out logical equations to try to make sense of your changing argument qualifications.
first statement:
Best thing = Killing self (humanity) off ∵ pollution
Last statement: Best thing = something (extinction of humans) were to happen ∵ pollution
But if
something were to happen ≠ Making it happen/hoping it would happen
and
Making it happen = killing self off
then
Best thing ≠ killing self off
(Z = K) ∵ P (Z = S) ∵ P S ≠ M S ≠ H K = M
It seems that you have made two incompatible statements, which amounts to an erroneous argument.
I’m willing to say that the first statement was hyperbolic and your second statement is more aligned with what you really think, but you say you stand by both, which doesn’t track.
That would be true, except for the simple fact that, just because I think it would be the best outcome for the planet as a whole, doesn’t mean I have to be working towards it. From the perspective of everything else living here, it would be best if we all died. If we don’t, it’s increasingly likely that we take some or all of them with us when we do.
Much to decompress in that statement.
To 1. I think it is more of a collossal case of denial and lazyness than what I would term “intentional”, but the result is the same.
To 2. Do you really think that whales would refrain from eating all the krill (and subsequently starve to extinction) if they had the chance? So why is our behaviour worse? We are a demonstration of the working of the “natural cycle of life”. We are in the process of using up, wiping out or poluting all the ressources that we (and incidentally most higher lifeforms on our planet) need to survive. Due to that we might die out. As would the whales if they ate all the krill (which many other species in the ocean need to survive).
To 3. You are applying human moral standards that no one but us cares about. There is no evidence of a higher authority that could judge us.
Don’t get me wrong, what we are doing right now is beyond stupid. We know what our impact does to the ecosystem and we should do everything we can to change that. But we seem to be unable to do that. That we are discussing this on a medium that produces millions of tonnes of CO2 each year, most of it just to distract us from our life and help us fight boredom, is a perfect sarcastic point to this.
Yet, humans will not be the end of life on this planet. Right now we don’t even have the means to wipe out all life on it, even if we tried. We might just manage to kill of all the higher animals, but that has happened multiple times before in the history of this planet.
This does not make it OK in any way.
I will concede that calling it ‘intentional’ may be heavy-handed. It’s being done with knowledge of the long-term effects, though. We’re making the informed decision to continue… perhaps due to laziness, as you note.
No, I’m sure they would eat all the krill and starve to extinction… that’s how nature works. The krill population is kept in check by the whales, and the whale population is kept in check by the size of the krill population. If there were too many whales, they’d eat too many krill and wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves, and their population would decline, allowing the krill population to resurge. Or they wouldn’t, and both species would go extinct.
I agree with you, it’s just that, unlike the whale / krill analogy, we’re poised to take out a lot of other species with us when we go. All my view is stating is that it would be a net positive if we died out before that happens.
My statement that this was ‘unforgivable’ was in reference to our supposed role as custodians of the planet (as the most intelligent lifeform here). I believe we have a duty to take care of it and that, with respect to that duty, our failing to do so is unforgivable. (I suppose in this respect I am judging us.)
I agree with you, and I’m glad for that. I also agree with you that that doesn’t make any of it okay.
You do not really think that, even if some descendant of us still exists at the time of the heat death of the universe (having somehow survived billions of years in a dark universe with no posibillity (to our present knowledge) to generate any kind of usable energy), they will in any way be human? Or even be able to remember or discover that we were their ancestors?
Edit (Addendum): I think even if human descendants should be around at the death of our sun, they will not be able to be called (or remember being) human.
Thank you for asking. A few things that I know based on scientific fact:
We will only know the answer to that question if we strive to keep our species and it’s evolutions alive.
What we call the laws of nature are only what we observe them to be NOW, based on the technology we have. We thought splitting the atom was impossible.
Entropy is something we view NOW as inevitable, but it could be that we figure a way to harness the fundamental forces of the universe and overcome even that.
I do think it is possible. Probably maybe not, but I will keep pushing people to investigate it’s possibility rather than suggesting we should simply give up because we’re not perfect.
The people at that point in time may not be recognizably human. That is fine by me. They may be very recognizably human though. Time and space are funny that way. If tomorrow someone figures out how to harness gravity, we may very well be the species that does just that. It would be very cool to see the end of the universe and persist as beings that can create a new universe.