Do humans want to be doomed?

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Mercury
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Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Mercury wrote: January 5th, 2023, 10:30 am Are we indulging our jouissance; getting off on the erotic thrill of courting ecological suicide?
Robert66 wrote: January 18th, 2023, 4:48 pm There is no "we". Most humans are merely doing what they can with what they have. Some (the relatively wealthy) are being lied to - eg:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... b25fed6858

Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows


The lie is that "we can have our cake and eat it", presented to the wilfully ignorant in the form of greenwashing: actual ecological murder, dressed as "sustainability".

Even a 'big ball of molten rock' has limits. Techo-optimism does not provide immunity to reality. Tapping that molten energy is one thing; surviving ecological destruction, with humans increasingly displacing other species, is quite another.
'We' are all earthlings; members of the human species; owners of a qualitatively distinct mode of abstract thought that allows us to form forward facing survival strategies. We are not necessarily doomed. Otherwise, sure - you're your own unique little snowflake! Or rationally self interested individual, whatever!

With regard to the Guardian article; all of that is bunk. I wholly accept the science of climate change, but reject the politics of the entire environmental movement, and governments policy responses to it right back to 'Limits to Growth' by Meadows et.al. from 1972.

You say: "The lie is that "we can have our cake and eat it" Both anti-capitalist greens, and capitalist climate change deniers agree with you! They both believe sustainability requires the sacrifice of economic welfare. I do not agree with that. I'm saying we can have our cake and eat it! I'm saying a prosperous 'and' sustainable future is scientifically and technologically possible. It's not either/or - that's the lie!

To understand why, you need to get your head around the sheer enormity of the magma energy available. It is gargantuan, and then some. It's something I have struggled to adequately express. You say: "Even a 'big ball of molten rock' has limits." That's not correct. The heat energy of the earth is not actually infinite, but for all practical purposes it is limitless. 50% of the heat energy of the earth is primordial - left over from the formation of the earth 4.5 billion years ago. The other 50% is radiogenic - the result of the breakdown of radioactive elements. And it's truly gigantic.

NASA estimated a minimum of 1000 times global energy demand just from the US alone. Minimum. My argument is that we need that energy to spend to reconcile prosperity and sustainability - not just to meet our current energy demand carbon free, but have abundant clean energy to desalinate sea water to irrigate wastelands, so we can bring much more land into productive use even while protecting rivers and forests from over-exploitation. We can recycle all our waste - mince it all up, heat, cool, ferment, digest, separate and distil it into its constituent elements for re-use. We can extract carbon from the air and bury it in the ground. Magma energy would allow us to do all these things and more; transcending the pessimistic equation of Limits to Growth.
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Robert66
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Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Robert66 »

Mercury wrote: January 18th, 2023, 6:18 pm 'We' are all earthlings; members of the human species; owners of a qualitatively distinct mode of abstract thought that allows us to form forward facing survival strategies. We are not necessarily doomed. Otherwise, sure - you're your own unique little snowflake! Or rationally self interested individual, whatever!
OK let's get into this. You have this great solution, but nobody is buying it, and you just don't get it. "We are all Humans, after all - the smartest apes you ever will see. We're not doomed, we can all get together and make the world a better place". And then you want to insult me? It ain't me being flaky here!

"we can have our cake and eat it!"

Hmmm...

For every billionaire joy-riding in space, there are about a billion humans trying to scratch their living out of the dirt, or else trying to kill other humans, or just trick them or try to outsmart them to get ahead aka have more money, but just release the power of magma and all of a sudden we are gonna turn into planet-saving environmentalists!
Mercury
Posts: 377
Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Mercury wrote: January 18th, 2023, 6:18 pm 'We' are all earthlings; members of the human species; owners of a qualitatively distinct mode of abstract thought that allows us to form forward facing survival strategies. We are not necessarily doomed. Otherwise, sure - you're your own unique little snowflake! Or rationally self interested individual, whatever!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pmOK let's get into this.


Let's!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm You have this great solution, but nobody is buying it, and you just don't get it.


Not quite. NASA/Sandia Labs had already done the research 40 years before I understood that in order to save the world we need to transcend Limits to Growth, and that we needed massive quantities of clean energy, and the most likely place to find that would be the molten interior of the earth. Then I discovered that this technology has existed for 40 years - research conducted by the organisation that put man on the moon, that inspired me to dream of the future, and it's sat there gathering dust while governments frack with one hand and carbon tax with the other. Please, explain!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm"We are all Humans, after all - the smartest apes you ever will see. We're not doomed, we can all get together and make the world a better place".
Wasn't that the plan all along? Where's my robot butler and rocket powered roller skates? Isn't that what we were promised? We could hop in the flying car and head to moonbase alpha! Instead I'm being presented with one of two future for my species: a grim green communist dictatorship imposing vegan bicycle powered poverty forever and ever to save the world; or alternatively, a nihilistic gas guzzling bonfire of the vanities that rapes the world to death. And all the while, the technology to make the world a better place gathers dust for 40 years!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pmAnd then you want to insult me? It ain't me being flaky here!{/quote]

How could I not insult you if you say: "there is no 'we'?" If there were no 'we' you'd have starved to death in the crib. Cut the attitude - this is a philosophy forum not a fashion shoot. We are trying to get to the epistemic and moral truth of things, and such pretence is an obstacle to understanding. I'm sorry if you felt insulted. Can we get on?
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm"we can have our cake and eat it!" Hmmm...For every billionaire joy-riding in space, there are about a billion humans trying to scratch their living out of the dirt, or else trying to kill other humans, or just trick them or try to outsmart them to get ahead aka have more money, but just release the power of magma and all of a sudden we are gonna turn into planet-saving environmentalists!
It's complicated. Humankind took a wrong turn about 400 years ago. We are not who we were meant to be. This isn't how things should be, and your attitude - while perfectly adapted to life on a planet being raped to death, is not the attitude you would have but for this error. I speak of the arrest and trial of Galileo for the heresy of proving earth orbits the sun using scientific method. Finding Galileo 'grievously suspect of heresy' in effect branded science suspect of heresy. Had that edict been adhered to we'd be living somewhat like the Amish. But the edict only half took effect; science was used as a tool, but stripped of any authority as an understanding of reality. The worst of both worlds; monkeys with machine guns! We remained intellectually primitive - failing to evolve in relation to science as truth; such that moral responsibility to scientifically valid knowledge was not integrated into the religious, political and economic ideological architectures of society, but nonetheless, science was applied to provide high powered technologies to those acting upon low resolution understanding. And here we are!

Imagine instead, a world in which Galileo has been embraced by the Church for discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation. Imagine science has been pursued and integrated into the moral architecture of society over 400 years with the status of sacred truth. Imagine technology developed and applied on the basis of scientific merit - not for power and profit, but as the nexus of scientific truth and the moral good. Imagine the people of the world, and how they would think - and in those terms consider the fact the earth is a big ball of molten rock containing limitless heat energy easily converted to heavy duty electricity and clean burning hydrogen fuel. We can transcend 'Limits to Growth' - but first we need to transcend ourselves by knowing what's scientifically true, and simply doing what's morally right!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Mercury
Posts: 377
Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Mercury wrote: January 18th, 2023, 6:18 pm 'We' are all earthlings; members of the human species; owners of a qualitatively distinct mode of abstract thought that allows us to form forward facing survival strategies. We are not necessarily doomed. Otherwise, sure - you're your own unique little snowflake! Or rationally self interested individual, whatever!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pmOK let's get into this.


Let's!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm You have this great solution, but nobody is buying it, and you just don't get it.

Not quite. NASA/Sandia Labs had already done the research 40 years before I understood that in order to save the world we need to transcend Limits to Growth, and to transcend limits to growth we needed massive quantities of clean energy, and the most likely place to find that would be the molten interior of the earth. Then I discovered that this technology has existed for 40 years - research conducted by the very organisation that put man on the moon, that inspired me to dream of the future, and it's sat there gathering dust while governments frack with one hand and carbon tax with the other. Please, explain!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm"We are all Humans, after all - the smartest apes you ever will see. We're not doomed, we can all get together and make the world a better place".
Wasn't that the plan all along? Where's my robot butler and rocket powered roller skates? Isn't that what we were promised? We could hop in the flying car and head to moonbase alpha! Instead I'm being presented with one of two futures for my species: a grim green communist dictatorship imposing vegan bicycle powered poverty forever and ever to save the world; or alternatively, a nihilistic gas guzzling bonfire of the vanities that rapes the world to death. And all the while, the technology to make the world a better place has gathered dust for 40 years!
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pmAnd then you want to insult me? It ain't me being flaky here!


How could I not insult you if you say: "there is no 'we'?" If there were no 'we' you'd have starved to death in the crib. Cut the attitude - this is a philosophy forum not a fashion shoot. We are trying to get to the epistemic and moral truth of things, and such pretence is an obstacle to understanding. I'm sorry if you felt insulted. Can we get on?
Robert66 wrote: January 19th, 2023, 4:01 pm"we can have our cake and eat it!" Hmmm...For every billionaire joy-riding in space, there are about a billion humans trying to scratch their living out of the dirt, or else trying to kill other humans, or just trick them or try to outsmart them to get ahead aka have more money, but just release the power of magma and all of a sudden we are gonna turn into planet-saving environmentalists!
It's complicated. Humankind took a wrong turn about 400 years ago. We are not who we were meant to be. This isn't how things should be, and your attitude - while perfectly adapted to life on a planet being raped to death, is not the attitude you would have but for this error. I speak of the arrest and trial of Galileo for the heresy of proving earth orbits the sun using scientific method. Finding Galileo 'grievously suspect of heresy' in effect branded science suspect of heresy. Had that edict been adhered to we'd be living somewhat like the Amish. But the edict only half took effect; science was used as a tool, but stripped of any authority as an understanding of reality. The worst of both worlds; monkeys with machine guns! We remained intellectually primitive - failing to evolve in relation to science as truth; such that moral responsibility to scientifically valid knowledge was not integrated into the religious, political and economic ideological architectures of society, but nonetheless, science was applied to provide high powered technologies to those acting upon low resolution understanding. And here we are!

Imagine instead, a world in which Galileo has been embraced by the Church for discovering the means to decode the word of God made manifest in Creation. Imagine science has been pursued and integrated into the moral architecture of society over 400 years with the status of sacred truth. Imagine technology developed and applied on the basis of scientific merit - not for power and profit, but as the nexus of scientific truth and the moral good. Imagine the people of the world, and how they would think - and in those terms consider the fact the earth is a big ball of molten rock containing limitless heat energy easily converted to heavy duty electricity and clean burning hydrogen fuel. We can transcend 'Limits to Growth' - but first we need to transcend ourselves by knowing what's scientifically true, and simply doing what's morally right!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Robert66
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Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Robert66 »

All these great technologies, like robots and flying cars, even personal rocket ships, already exist. My point is that they are not available to any but the extremely rich. The same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor. That is what I mean by "there is no we".

Tapping the earth's molten core for energy is one of a suite of measures which could be employed to prevent the looming crisis. Even without desalination of sea water, we could harvest atmospheric moisture and make even deserts bloom. Regenerative agriculture could be the norm across the vast United States, Russia, China, and elsewhere, instead of toxic feedlots, caged hens by the billion, and forest-replacing soy and palm crops. But I no longer wonder why these great ideas are not implemented. I know why. The truth of human nature has long been established. You said it: we are "intellectually primitive".
Mercury
Posts: 377
Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Robert66 wrote: January 20th, 2023, 3:06 am All these great technologies, like robots and flying cars, even personal rocket ships, already exist. My point is that they are not available to any but the extremely rich. The same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor. That is what I mean by "there is no we".

Tapping the earth's molten core for energy is one of a suite of measures which could be employed to prevent the looming crisis. Even without desalination of sea water, we could harvest atmospheric moisture and make even deserts bloom. Regenerative agriculture could be the norm across the vast United States, Russia, China, and elsewhere, instead of toxic feedlots, caged hens by the billion, and forest-replacing soy and palm crops. But I no longer wonder why these great ideas are not implemented. I know why. The truth of human nature has long been established. You said it: we are "intellectually primitive".
Please don't hate me for this. Everything I've said so far is consistent with what you say here; and I'm not taking back anything I've said before, but I'm forced to ask the question; is blaming the mega rich is as good an explanation as we might assume? We naturally suppose that more money equals more freedom, and on some level that's true. But in a very important respect, it's not true. Capital is not free, but in fact is almost deterministic in what it can be invested in, given obligations to minimise risk and maximise shareholder returns. And that near determinism plays out within a political regulatory environment, based in turn upon conceptions of reality. All of which brings us back to the idea that science is true.

The mistake, in my view, is that regulation of economic activity is not based in a scientific understanding of reality. Regulations are designed in relation to overlapping religious, political and economic ideologies that pre-existed the scientific revolution, and were unreformed in relation to the scientific revolution because the Church branded Galileo, and thereby science, suspect of heresy. The essential nature of the problem is our wrongful relation to science. Capitalism merely plays out within this irrational ideological, political and regulatory environment.

But let's delve deeper, because we have to ask: can we really blame the Church? In 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' Galileo was horribly offensive to a religious tradition that had underpinned civilisation for a thousand years or more. It was incredibly disrespectful; when his arguments might have been offered in the spirit of St Augustine who maintained that rational and religious truth cannot be in conflict, such that the Church might have welcomed science as valid knowledge of Creation. Sure, it was a mistake to set religion and science in opposition with accusations of heresy - but the Church was almost obliged to prosecute given the light in which Galileo presented his findings. Similarly, "the same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor' is a zero sum position.

Addressing the climate and ecological crisis to secure a prosperous and sustainable future will require enormous capital investment, the cooperation of banks, nation states governments and energy companies - to develop and apply magma energy in such a way as to maintain political and economic stability. The blessings of the Church couldn't hurt either!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Robert66
Posts: 521
Joined: April 20th, 2014, 5:13 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Robert66 »

Mercury wrote: January 20th, 2023, 5:22 am
Robert66 wrote: January 20th, 2023, 3:06 am All these great technologies, like robots and flying cars, even personal rocket ships, already exist. My point is that they are not available to any but the extremely rich. The same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor. That is what I mean by "there is no we".

Tapping the earth's molten core for energy is one of a suite of measures which could be employed to prevent the looming crisis. Even without desalination of sea water, we could harvest atmospheric moisture and make even deserts bloom. Regenerative agriculture could be the norm across the vast United States, Russia, China, and elsewhere, instead of toxic feedlots, caged hens by the billion, and forest-replacing soy and palm crops. But I no longer wonder why these great ideas are not implemented. I know why. The truth of human nature has long been established. You said it: we are "intellectually primitive".
Please don't hate me for this. Everything I've said so far is consistent with what you say here; and I'm not taking back anything I've said before, but I'm forced to ask the question; is blaming the mega rich is as good an explanation as we might assume? We naturally suppose that more money equals more freedom, and on some level that's true. But in a very important respect, it's not true. Capital is not free, but in fact is almost deterministic in what it can be invested in, given obligations to minimise risk and maximise shareholder returns. And that near determinism plays out within a political regulatory environment, based in turn upon conceptions of reality. All of which brings us back to the idea that science is true.

The mistake, in my view, is that regulation of economic activity is not based in a scientific understanding of reality. Regulations are designed in relation to overlapping religious, political and economic ideologies that pre-existed the scientific revolution, and were unreformed in relation to the scientific revolution because the Church branded Galileo, and thereby science, suspect of heresy. The essential nature of the problem is our wrongful relation to science. Capitalism merely plays out within this irrational ideological, political and regulatory environment.

But let's delve deeper, because we have to ask: can we really blame the Church? In 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' Galileo was horribly offensive to a religious tradition that had underpinned civilisation for a thousand years or more. It was incredibly disrespectful; when his arguments might have been offered in the spirit of St Augustine who maintained that rational and religious truth cannot be in conflict, such that the Church might have welcomed science as valid knowledge of Creation. Sure, it was a mistake to set religion and science in opposition with accusations of heresy - but the Church was almost obliged to prosecute given the light in which Galileo presented his findings. Similarly, "the same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor' is a zero sum position.

Addressing the climate and ecological crisis to secure a prosperous and sustainable future will require enormous capital investment, the cooperation of banks, nation states governments and energy companies - to develop and apply magma energy in such a way as to maintain political and economic stability. The blessings of the Church couldn't hurt either!
First of all, I don't hate you for any reason. I dislike the tone you present in your writing. For example the obvious sneer when you write 'a grim green communist dictatorship imposing vegan bicycle powered poverty forever and ever to save the world', or when you try to label me - 'unique little snowflake!' - or 'this is ... not a fashion shoot'. And you think I should 'cut the attitude'?

More importantly, how to resolve this back-and-forth?

I concede that 'blaming the mega rich' is misguided in the sense that they are symptomatic of deeper political/economic problems.

I contend that any expectation of the cooperation you describe in your last paragraph actually occurring is also misguided.

Imagining a world other than the troubled one we have is not an activity exclusive to the Promethean techno-optimist. There are those who feel the world would be a better place if wealth were distributed more equally. By "better" I mean better in a capitalist economic way, and it is not just me saying this:
(Link to a good overview of the negative economic impact of inequality here: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament ... ld%20spend. )

You wrote

'Humankind took a wrong turn about 400 years ago. We are not who we were meant to be. This isn't how things should be'.

You also wrote

'Wasn't that the plan all along? Where's my robot butler and rocket powered roller skates? Isn't that what we were promised? We could hop in the flying car and head to moonbase alpha!'

Now I ask that you delve deeper. Are these statements really correct? Was heedless, haughty Galileo really responsible for our predicament now, or are we in fact exactly who we are meant to be? How indeed can we be other than what we are meant to be?

And has such a promise actually been made? Who made it? Capitalism? Oh yeah, capitalism - another great human idea, " 'til greed got in the way' (to quote Dylan's Union Sundown from 1983) "Greed" is shorthand for "all that is wrong with human nature, proven time and time again as the destroyer of great ideas, capitalist or communist alike".

Greed is who we are. We can blame nearly all of us for our predicament. The mega rich are just the lucky ones to get what almost every last human wants.

Greed is why we are doomed. Forget flying cars for all, there is no promise of even a life worth living for most humans from now on. Who would make such a promise anyway? Which trillionaire should we turn to as the planet becomes uninhabitable? Someone like Jeff Bezos, who won't even give his hordes of minions a proper toilet break?
Mercury
Posts: 377
Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Mercury wrote: January 20th, 2023, 5:22 am
Robert66 wrote: January 20th, 2023, 3:06 am All these great technologies, like robots and flying cars, even personal rocket ships, already exist. My point is that they are not available to any but the extremely rich. The same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor. That is what I mean by "there is no we".

Tapping the earth's molten core for energy is one of a suite of measures which could be employed to prevent the looming crisis. Even without desalination of sea water, we could harvest atmospheric moisture and make even deserts bloom. Regenerative agriculture could be the norm across the vast United States, Russia, China, and elsewhere, instead of toxic feedlots, caged hens by the billion, and forest-replacing soy and palm crops. But I no longer wonder why these great ideas are not implemented. I know why. The truth of human nature has long been established. You said it: we are "intellectually primitive".
Please don't hate me for this. Everything I've said so far is consistent with what you say here; and I'm not taking back anything I've said before, but I'm forced to ask the question; is blaming the mega rich is as good an explanation as we might assume? We naturally suppose that more money equals more freedom, and on some level that's true. But in a very important respect, it's not true. Capital is not free, but in fact is almost deterministic in what it can be invested in, given obligations to minimise risk and maximise shareholder returns. And that near determinism plays out within a political regulatory environment, based in turn upon conceptions of reality. All of which brings us back to the idea that science is true.

The mistake, in my view, is that regulation of economic activity is not based in a scientific understanding of reality. Regulations are designed in relation to overlapping religious, political and economic ideologies that pre-existed the scientific revolution, and were unreformed in relation to the scientific revolution because the Church branded Galileo, and thereby science, suspect of heresy. The essential nature of the problem is our wrongful relation to science. Capitalism merely plays out within this irrational ideological, political and regulatory environment.

But let's delve deeper, because we have to ask: can we really blame the Church? In 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' Galileo was horribly offensive to a religious tradition that had underpinned civilisation for a thousand years or more. It was incredibly disrespectful; when his arguments might have been offered in the spirit of St Augustine who maintained that rational and religious truth cannot be in conflict, such that the Church might have welcomed science as valid knowledge of Creation. Sure, it was a mistake to set religion and science in opposition with accusations of heresy - but the Church was almost obliged to prosecute given the light in which Galileo presented his findings. Similarly, "the same 0.000001% of humans who are almost to a man the same select few who are in charge of the planetary rape we both abhor' is a zero sum position.

Addressing the climate and ecological crisis to secure a prosperous and sustainable future will require enormous capital investment, the cooperation of banks, nation states governments and energy companies - to develop and apply magma energy in such a way as to maintain political and economic stability. The blessings of the Church couldn't hurt either!
Robert66 wrote: January 21st, 2023, 5:00 pmFirst of all, I don't hate you for any reason. I dislike the tone you present in your writing. For example the obvious sneer when you write 'a grim green communist dictatorship imposing vegan bicycle powered poverty forever and ever to save the world', or when you try to label me - 'unique little snowflake!' - or 'this is ... not a fashion shoot'. And you think I should 'cut the attitude'? More importantly, how to resolve this back-and-forth? I concede that 'blaming the mega rich' is misguided in the sense that they are symptomatic of deeper political/economic problems. I contend that any expectation of the cooperation you describe in your last paragraph actually occurring is also misguided.

Imagining a world other than the troubled one we have is not an activity exclusive to the Promethean techno-optimist. There are those who feel the world would be a better place if wealth were distributed more equally. By "better" I mean better in a capitalist economic way, and it is not just me saying this:
(Link to a good overview of the negative economic impact of inequality here: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament ... ld%20spend. )

You wrote 'Humankind took a wrong turn about 400 years ago. We are not who we were meant to be. This isn't how things should be'. You also wrote 'Wasn't that the plan all along? Where's my robot butler and rocket powered roller skates? Isn't that what we were promised? We could hop in the flying car and head to moonbase alpha!' Now I ask that you delve deeper. Are these statements really correct? Was heedless, haughty Galileo really responsible for our predicament now, or are we in fact exactly who we are meant to be? How indeed can we be other than what we are meant to be?

And has such a promise actually been made? Who made it? Capitalism? Oh yeah, capitalism - another great human idea, " 'til greed got in the way' (to quote Dylan's Union Sundown from 1983) "Greed" is shorthand for "all that is wrong with human nature, proven time and time again as the destroyer of great ideas, capitalist or communist alike".

Greed is who we are. We can blame nearly all of us for our predicament. The mega rich are just the lucky ones to get what almost every last human wants. Greed is why we are doomed. Forget flying cars for all, there is no promise of even a life worth living for most humans from now on. Who would make such a promise anyway? Which trillionaire should we turn to as the planet becomes uninhabitable? Someone like Jeff Bezos, who won't even give his hordes of minions a proper toilet break?
Asking that you imagine a world in which science had been welcomed by the Church 400 years ago, and science pursued as God's word, and technology applied on the basis of scientific merit, is asking you to imagine only what is consistent with human nature. We have an innate attraction to truth for sound evolutionary reasons. Knowing what's true as a basis for behaviour is necessary to survival.

Science has a truth value demonstrated by the technological miracles that surround us. Technology works because the scientific principles on which it is based are true. But for religious reasons we suppressed science as an understanding of reality and continued to conduct our affairs in relation to pre-scientific religious, political and economic ideology - even while using science to create ever more powerful technologies.

Technology was developed/applied and/or withheld for power and profit without any regard to a scientific understanding of reality. This is why we are brought to a climate and ecological impasse. It is not a moral argument - and therefore not equivalent to your argument for equality. It's cause and effect. There's a causal relationship between the validity of the knowledge bases of action and the consequences of such action! Knowing what's true and acting accordingly is necessary to survival!

By applying the technology to harness limitless heat energy from magma, and converting that to heavy duty electricity and clean burning hydrogen fuel, using that energy to meet all out power needs carbon free, plus desalinate sea water to irrigate land for agriculture and housing, recycle all waste, extract carbon from the air, etc, etc, we can life 3 or 4 billion people out of poverty sustainably, and what does it matter that some people get mega rich doing so, if even the least well off have a decent standard of living?

We have to 'get there from here' on sustainability; but because of limits to growth, consistent with your rhetoric on greed, anti-capitalist environmentalists seek to destroy Western civilisation first as a prelude to sustainability they have no particular plan to achieve. What kind of future could they achieve if they would dismantle capitalist means of exchange, the industrial capacity, and the knowledge and skills owned by capitalist enterprise necessary to secure a sustainable future, they can only turn out all the lights and sit in a muddy hole eating bugs, content that everyone is now equal! But even that won't work because poor people breed more, and cannot afford to care about the environment! If you ask first, scientifically and technologically, how can we achieve sustainability - then it's consistent with capitalism!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Mercury
Posts: 377
Joined: December 17th, 2013, 6:36 pm

Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

I was hoping for an answer to the question asked in the OP. I'm an introvert, more at home with abstract concepts than with people. I thank Robert66 for his interest; for the opportunity he afforded me to explain how and why we can secure a prosperous sustainable future. I think we should because it's true that we can - and therefore should as a matter of responsibility to a scientific understanding of reality. We are given to know what's scientifically true - and the earth is a big ball of molten rock and does contain limitless heat energy. Insofar as destiny follows from our nature, is it not our destiny to harness this energy and survive long into the future? Beyond that, to avoid terrible suffering seems like a pretty good reason. But to perpetuate our species; is that not something people want to do? I don't know people; not really. I only know that no-one seems interested, but I don't know why.

Consider children screaming at their parents 'I didn't ask to be born.' But then consider the old, clinging to life though suffering painful infirmity. Murder is universally illegal - so surely life is valued. But then consider the prevalence of obesity, drug and alcohol abuse. People protesting against climate change; but for a low wattage wind and solar powered future of a grim green poverty. And on the other hand climate change deniers; arguing for continued fossil fuel use to maintain living standards, careless of the terrible suffering humankind brings upon itself. I cannot make sense of it. I don't know if people value their existence or not. And other than the overwhelming lack of interest in these ideas - or is it me; I'm aware I do not relate, I haven't gotten an answer. Or have I?
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Sy Borg
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Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Sy Borg »

I would say humanity en masse is simply not in control.

The fact is that "we" are not in control because there's not just one "we", but many, and these disparate groupings compete for territory and resources. You can see how popular the UN is, or other world bodies, that are resented as agents of control.

So the destruction we see is a matter of chaos, not design. Collectively, humanity operates with about as much control as a toddler knocking over a Ming vase.
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Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Mercury »

Sy Borg wrote: January 28th, 2023, 4:50 pm I would say humanity en masse is simply not in control.

The fact is that "we" are not in control because there's not just one "we", but many, and these disparate groupings compete for territory and resources. You can see how popular the UN is, or other world bodies, that are resented as agents of control.

So the destruction we see is a matter of chaos, not design. Collectively, humanity operates with about as much control as a toddler knocking over a Ming vase.
I haven't assumed 'control' in any undue sense. It's something of a nebulous concept; what exactly do you mean by control?

If by control you mean the ability make decisions, we have sufficient control we could decide to develop and apply magma energy technology - in the same way we built trains, planes and automobiles, oil rigs and gas pipelines - whoever 'we' is.

The 'we' I speak of are governments, banks and energy industries. World players that can and do make decisions on a global scale. In fact they have decided, globally, to pursue 'net zero by 2050' - a policy I think is completely misconceived, and known to be a false target. And the worst of it is, it won't be proven wrong until it's too late to address climate change. Both left wing and right wing narratives on climate change are completely manipulated - and what is that if not control?

Most basically, they're both wrong because 'Limits to Growth' is false. It's not necessary to sacrifice human welfare to achieve sustainability. The earth is a big ball of molten rock, and we need abundant clean energy to secure a prosperous 'and' sustainable future. Magma Energy promises massive, constant, heavy duty clean energy; yet the technologies that are being applied under the rubric of climate change, are neither reliable nor sufficient.

Wind and solar will require vast and ongoing capital investment, likely to come largely from tax payers - with the remainder passed onto energy customers, only to stand still in terms of the total energy available. At the same time, energy demand is due to increase 50% in the next 30 years. So even constructing windmills and solar panels at a frantic pace, we will have no choice but to continue using fossil fuels upto and beyond 2050, with wind and solar barely taking the edge of the increased energy demand. And they know this. The lie is control, and there's no lack of lies!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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Re: Do humans want to be doomed?

Post by Sy Borg »

Humans have never been in control of their activities. Their societies are like big experiments, with a few steering controls, but all human systems ultimately careen out of control and into the dustbin of history.

Given that US is incapable of even cooperating with itself to get anything productive done, I'm not seeing fantastic cooperation globally either. Each is out for themselves and there is no real control, just responding to a never-ending stream of increasingly urgent exigencies.

Let's look at how our controls are doing. Record extinctions. Record rate loss of ecosystems. Record loss of arable land. Increasing intensity of natural disasters due to climate change and human encroachment into formerly avoided locales. Economies are going bust. More wars breaking out, including renewed nuclear threats. Energy shortages. Supply chain issues. Rising inflation without the usual recourse to monetary policy, because that dead horse has been flogged. Overcrowding and intense competition leading to increased depression and disillusionment. Increased movements towards authoritarianism.

Yet here we are. So, yes, the systems continue to chug on, like a ramshackle old bomb of a car that can still turn over if you roll it down a hill first.
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