If All Wildlife Animals Die

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Sy Borg
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Sy Borg »

Consul wrote: May 24th, 2021, 12:02 pm
Sy Borg wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 6:06 pm A life without nature? Just humans, humans and more humans?
Truly a description of Hell. A world without freedom.
No, less humans and more AI robots! :wink:

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Patience, Consul. It is coming, or I should say they are coming :)
Key Automation Job Loss Stats ...

37% of workers are worried about losing their jobs due to automation.

The number of industrial robot jobs increases by 14% each year.

More than 70% of people are willing to augment their brains and bodies in order to improve their employment prospects.

Three industries facing the highest risk of automation are transportation, storage, and manufacturing.

By 2022, the total task hours completed by humans will drop by 13%.

Robots could displace 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030.
https://fortunly.com/statistics/automat ... statistics

As animals are removed from the world, the poor will become the new animals (apologies to Eric Burdon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7NFAkq7YO8)
Tegularius
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Tegularius »

If we kill all the wildlife, will we cry and whine if some superior technological species invades our space and determines it's a nice place to live. Why not create more Lebensraum for ourselves by eliminating that which eliminated everything else. Would we even have the right to complain about such a final solution?
The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man ... Nietzsche
Steve3007
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Steve3007 »

Sculptor1 wrote:Huey, Dewey, and Louis. Named after Donald Duck's nephews.
There were actuall people in those robots.
Yes! I remember reading that. People inside little robot suits seemed to be quite a trend in the pre-CGI 70's. R2D2 springs to mind too. In seriousness though, I remember liking that film. Have watched it a few times over the years.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Steve3007 »

I can't help thinking that Skynet would have had more success infiltrating the hideouts of the human resistance if they'd made the terminator robots look a bit more friendly.
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Sculptor1
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Sculptor1 »

Steve3007 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 4:54 am
Sculptor1 wrote:Huey, Dewey, and Louis. Named after Donald Duck's nephews.
There were actuall people in those robots.
Yes! I remember reading that. People inside little robot suits seemed to be quite a trend in the pre-CGI 70's. R2D2 springs to mind too. In seriousness though, I remember liking that film. Have watched it a few times over the years.
There was a short season of Sci-fi on TV either Xmas 1977, or 78. Silent Running, THX1138, Dark Star were shown. I was already an avid reader and desperate for Sci-fi on film.
Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so. Effects are dreful story great.
THX launched George Lucas as that was his dirst feature length film.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

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Steve3007 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 4:56 am I can't help thinking that Skynet would have had more success infiltrating the hideouts of the human resistance if they'd made the terminator robots look a bit more friendly.
You mean like this??
https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.d4mj ... =286&h=191
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Steve3007 »

Sculptor1 wrote:Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so
Was that the comedy one with the bomb that refused to leave the bomb bay? I've seen that. Loved it.
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Sculptor1 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 5:24 am There was a short season of Sci-fi on TV either Xmas 1977, or 78. Silent Running, THX1138, Dark Star were shown. I was already an avid reader and desperate for Sci-fi on film.
Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so. Effects are dreful story great.
THX launched George Lucas as that was his first feature length film.
Yes, I remember them being shown; I enjoyed them thoroughly. That was before Star Wars showed that the necessary special effects were (just) possible, and - more importantly? - showed the money men there was an audience out there, and profit to be made. I had DVDs of Silent Running and Dark Star at some point. 'Let there be light'. 😮
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Sculptor1 »

Steve3007 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 5:36 am
Sculptor1 wrote:Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so
Was that the comedy one with the bomb that refused to leave the bomb bay? I've seen that. Loved it.
They they have to give it existential angst to try to defuse it.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Steve3007 »

Given when that film was made I can't help thinking the theme of machines/robots/bombs having philosophical arguments must have inspired Douglas Adams.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

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Pattern-chaser wrote: May 25th, 2021, 8:20 am
Sculptor1 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 5:24 am There was a short season of Sci-fi on TV either Xmas 1977, or 78. Silent Running, THX1138, Dark Star were shown. I was already an avid reader and desperate for Sci-fi on film.
Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so. Effects are dreful story great.
THX launched George Lucas as that was his first feature length film.
Yes, I remember them being shown; I enjoyed them thoroughly. That was before Star Wars showed that the necessary special effects were (just) possible, and - more importantly? - showed the money men there was an audience out there, and profit to be made. I had DVDs of Silent Running and Dark Star at some point. 'Let there be light'. 😮
I think Dark Star showed, that money was not necessary. The story, the concept and good acting were what was important. But then Dr Who had been doing that since the early 1960s.
I could not say I did not like Star Wars, but it was low concept space fantasy, with no real sci-fi content. I tried to watch them again as an adult and was totally bemused and disappointed.

These days "sci-fi" feature films are all about the CGI and effects. They are concept low, and tend to roll out a series of cliches, and well worn plot lines.

Through the yawning - the set up - the exposiiton - oh wait here comes the crisis of confidence followed by the time-limited mission: variations on "we've only got 24 hours to get back to the DA's office before the whole thing blows sky high - the final confrontation which despite all the tech ends up being FISTY-CUFFS. Then they have a version of the ride off into the sunset.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Sculptor1 »

Steve3007 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 9:01 am Given when that film was made I can't help thinking the theme of machines/robots/bombs having philosophical arguments must have inspired Douglas Adams.
True
DA the man who predicted the Internet in a book with "Don't Panic" on the front when all there was in personal tech at the time was "digital watches".

I wonder, if in his own turn John Carpenter was building on the idea of Hal 2000 Of 2001 A Space Odyssey?
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by Steve3007 »

The theme of building too much intelligence into a machine such that it questions its own purpose. Yes, I expect he was.

In Dark Star, as I recall it, I think one of the best themes was beardy bored-ness. The idea that the main problem with space travel is boredom is a great one, and obvious when you think about it.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

Post by CIN »

Evolution25 wrote: May 22nd, 2021, 7:28 am Why do we need wildlife animals or even insects?
Who is 'we' in your question? If it is only humans, then you are tacitly assuming that the only test of whether something matters is whether it matters to humans. But since the lives of many other animals may well have value to those animals themselves, this assumption is probably false.
What if we just destroy their habitats and make way for more houses, roads, gas pipelines etc. since that will advance human civilization further.
Well, again you are making the assumption that only human civilization matters. Does it matter to the lion in Africa? To the bear in North America? To the whale in the ocean? And yet these are sentient creatures to whom it matters that they live and are able to find food, procreate, and obtain whatever enjoyment they can from living. Beings to whom things matter, especially if they are affected by our actions, should be part of our circle of moral concern. The reason for this is that the fundamental value that qualifies anything to moral consideration is its ability to feel pleasure and pain. If you can hurt something by your actions, or if you can end its life and therein replace a net happy life with nothing, you are capable of doing evil to that being, and evil by definition is something we should not do.
So insects and animals contribute to our ecosystem example bees help with pollination of plants and crops, but can't we just rely on AI and robots in the future like artificial pollinators?
Suppose we replace animals with AI robots. Do those robots experience pleasure and pain? If they do, then we ought to bring them into our circle of moral consideration, and treat them as ends rather than just means. If they don't, then they should not be brought into the circle, and should be treated only as means, not ends. So a major moral decision will need to be made, depending on whether these robots can experience pleasure and pain. But how are we going to find out whether or not they do? We can't go by the way they behave; if they seem to show pleasure and pain, we can't know whether they really do feel these things, or whether their behaviour is just the result of clever programming. We can't work it out from their internal construction, as we could with an animal whose brain and central nervous system is made of the same stuff as ours, because we build robots from different stuff. So we will have ended the lives of other species about whose inner lives we can make an informed guess, and replaced them with beings about whose inner lives we can know nothing. This might be a morally defensible thing to do if wildlife animals generally had miserable lives, but looking around, I don't see that this is the case. Of course their lives are precarious, but in general, as long as they get enough to eat and have a habitat in which they can follow the kind of behaviour they are adapted for, it seems to me that most of them are likely to have lives that, on balance, are fairly enjoyable. So replacing them with robots would be replacing lives that have a net positive level of pleasure with existences whose pleasure level is entirely unknown, and this cannot be a morally justifiable thing to do.
And in the future we can build artificial trees that will suck in co2 in the air. Do you think we will slowly eliminate all wildlife?
Quite possibly.
And why shouldn't we?
Mainly for the reason I've given, but there is another reason, which is that everything humans build sooner or later breaks down. The biosphere has kept going for 3.77 billion years. If we replaced it with something made by humans, we'd be lucky if it was still working in 300 years. Even if it was made in China.
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
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Re: If All Wildlife Animals Die

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Sculptor1 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 9:06 am
Pattern-chaser wrote: May 25th, 2021, 8:20 am
Sculptor1 wrote: May 25th, 2021, 5:24 am There was a short season of Sci-fi on TV either Xmas 1977, or 78. Silent Running, THX1138, Dark Star were shown. I was already an avid reader and desperate for Sci-fi on film.
Dark Star is of note. It was John Carpenter's first feature. I think it might have been his college offering. If you get a chance to see it do so. Effects are dreful story great.
THX launched George Lucas as that was his first feature length film.
Yes, I remember them being shown; I enjoyed them thoroughly. That was before Star Wars showed that the necessary special effects were (just) possible, and - more importantly? - showed the money men there was an audience out there, and profit to be made. I had DVDs of Silent Running and Dark Star at some point. 'Let there be light'. 😮
I think Dark Star showed, that money was not necessary. The story, the concept and good acting were what was important. But then Dr Who had been doing that since the early 1960s.
I could not say I did not like Star Wars, but it was low concept space fantasy, with no real sci-fi content. I tried to watch them again as an adult and was totally bemused and disappointed.

These days "sci-fi" feature films are all about the CGI and effects. They are concept low, and tend to roll out a series of cliches, and well worn plot lines.

Through the yawning - the set up - the exposiiton - oh wait here comes the crisis of confidence followed by the time-limited mission: variations on "we've only got 24 hours to get back to the DA's office before the whole thing blows sky high - the final confrontation which despite all the tech ends up being FISTY-CUFFS. Then they have a version of the ride off into the sunset.
Most SF is Westerns-in-space, just as most Westerns are cowboys-on-horseback. But the good ones are the ones that you describe, or at least infer, the ones with good plots, told and acted well. IMO, the best SF ever to appear on a video screen was Babylon 5. Fairly well acted, but with a script that equalled or exceeded anything that had come before. It does not exceed all written SF, of course, only the video manifestations of the art.
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