honorentheos wrote:Around 10 years ago I participated on a small, by invitation Mormon-related board where the subject of climate change would come up. What surprised me were the number of participants whose view was humans would develop tech to solve the problem once it got serious enough to be profitable to address. One would go so far as to argue we'd figure out how to terraform Mars by the time it got that bad, so as a species we'd just leave this world and go to a new one that we scientifically modified to be suitable for living on. That was frustrating. How does it make sense to imagine it being easier to change an entire planet to suit our needs but not work on tech that did not require the use of carbon-emitting fuels or reversed the effects of greenhouse gases here?
The line of reasoning above (we're screwed anyway, so don't expect us to change) seems like a version of the same. At it's core, it is a form of cultural procrastination.
Part of the infinitely expanding universe. Don't worry, we'll just make more. We should promote human ingenuity in the future while abdicating any responsibility for using that ingenuity in the present. The problem will be more easily solved after ignoring it.
When the English first came to North America, North Carolina was referred to as a 'sinke', which comes from an old Dutch word for latrine. A place of swampy pestilence. The North Carolina of 2018 is reverting to form. The coastline has once again become a swamp, covered with mosquitoes 3 times larger than normal, coal ash slurry and pig sh*t.
I don't think we're dealing with the mother nature too well at the moment.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization." - Will Durant "We've kept more promises than we've even made" - Donald Trump "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist." - Edwin Land
honorentheos wrote:Around 10 years ago I participated on a small, by invitation Mormon-related board where the subject of climate change would come up. What surprised me were the number of participants whose view was humans would develop tech to solve the problem once it got serious enough to be profitable to address.
Yet another example of religion screwing over humanity. Religion... because living in the real world is too painful.
Humans are smart enough to create end of the world myths but not smart enough to prevent the end of humanity.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
honorentheos wrote:Around 10 years ago I participated on a small, by invitation Mormon-related board where the subject of climate change would come up. What surprised me were the number of participants whose view was humans would develop tech to solve the problem once it got serious enough to be profitable to address.
Yet another example of religion screwing over humanity. Religion... because living in the real world is too painful.
Humans are smart enough to create end of the world myths but not smart enough to prevent the end of humanity.
They'd rather fight each other because no one can admit being wrong. We might need A.I. to save us from our tribalism but then it will make us dependent parasites. There must be other ways.
Maksutov wrote:They'd rather fight each other because no one can admit being wrong. We might need A.I. to save us from our tribalism but then it will make us dependent parasites. There must be other ways.
I don't see a solution. The people who are selfish enough to accumulate more wealth than they can ever use are the same assholes paying for propaganda to keep the status quo. Until society starts looking down on wealth hoarding like the mental disorder it is, we're screwed.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
The Book of Mormon is almost certainly a work of religious fiction, but its description of how obsession with wealth hoarding leads almost inevitably to societal destruction and tragedy and even war is not so incredible. Schmo's characterization of wealth hoarding as a mental disorder is certainly apt.
I am reminded of a short science fiction story I once read about a planet where uranium was the monetary and wealth standard. People and families too obsessed with the accumulation of wealth inevitably accumulated enough uranium (which they stored in a shielded pit or vault in their back yard), to eventually equal a critical mass, and subsequently expired in a spectacular nuclear explosion. Thus periods of great disparity between the wealthiest and the poorest were almost unheard of and of very short duration, should they occur.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
honorentheos wrote:Around 10 years ago I participated on a small, by invitation Mormon-related board where the subject of climate change would come up. What surprised me were the number of participants whose view was humans would develop tech to solve the problem once it got serious enough to be profitable to address.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised that this was the answer on a Mormon themed board. I would have expected something along the lines of the second coming will happen before global warming, so who cares.
"We have taken up arms in defense of our liberty, our property, our wives, and our children; we are determined to preserve them, or die." - Captain Moroni - 'Address to the Inhabitants of Canada' 1775
honorentheos wrote:Around 10 years ago I participated on a small, by invitation Mormon-related board where the subject of climate change would come up. What surprised me were the number of participants whose view was humans would develop tech to solve the problem once it got serious enough to be profitable to address.
I'm actually pleasantly surprised that this was the answer on a Mormon themed board. I would have expected something along the lines of the second coming will happen before global warming, so who cares.
I remember bringing up global warming in 2004 on FAIR. I certainly remember mentions of the second coming in that thread.
The conversation has changed drastically since then (record heat several years in a row might have something to do with it, not to mention droughts and more severe hurricanes), but it's still 40 years behind where it needs to be.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
EAllusion wrote:It did so in a report attempting to justify freezing Obama fuel standards by arguing reduced carbon emissions from this action will just be a drop in a bucket.
Will the global oil reserve actually last till 2099 at the current rate of consumption?
MeDotOrg wrote:We should promote human ingenuity in the future while abdicating any responsibility for using that ingenuity in the present. The problem will be more easily solved after ignoring it.
Quite eloquently stated. And depressingly accurate.
