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"For the first time ever we have something we need to protect" Humanity has always been worth protecting.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Yes. I didn't mean to devaluate human life. My point is, for most of the history, societies have been replaceable, fungible. A tribe would die off to be replaced by another one, with different language and maybe culture, but otherwise the same. A civilization would fall, and next one would took the place, replacing the lost works of art with something superficially different, but generally the same. The world didn't change much with the centuries, people had the same illnesses, same problems. Same capabilities and the same perspectives. We were as far from the stars in 2000 BC as we were in 2000 AC. You could restart a civilization any time, and it wouldn't be significantly different. Not so now. The last three centuries gave us the means and capacity to significantly improve the human condition. We started to ride on a self-amplifying feedback loop and we can't give up or fall off until we stabilize it, or we may never get on it again. Humanity has always been worth protecting. Human lives has always been worth protecting. But for the first time ever, we now have a civilization worth protecting. All the problems it has, we have to fix. We can't afford to try and start over.
- ajuc 11y ago
  You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, and there's no reason to think it will take less time the next time around. Domestication and farming alone took tousands of years, if you restarted the culture in year 0 - we wouldn't have to wait 1600 years for industrial revolution, but more like 10 000 years.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.

Yes. I didn't mean to devaluate human life. My point is, for most of the history, societies have been replaceable, fungible. A tribe would die off to be replaced by another one, with different language and maybe culture, but otherwise the same. A civilization would fall, and next one would took the place, replacing the lost works of art with something superficially different, but generally the same. The world didn't change much with the centuries, people had the same illnesses, same problems. Same capabilities and the same perspectives. We were as far from the stars in 2000 BC as we were in 2000 AC. You could restart a civilization any time, and it wouldn't be significantly different. Not so now. The last three centuries gave us the means and capacity to significantly improve the human condition. We started to ride on a self-amplifying feedback loop and we can't give up or fall off until we stabilize it, or we may never get on it again. Humanity has always been worth protecting. Human lives has always been worth protecting. But for the first time ever, we now have a civilization worth protecting. All the problems it has, we have to fix. We can't afford to try and start over.

ajuc 11y ago
You significantly underestimate the last 20 000 years of progress. It's easy, because progress was very slow, but it was still nessesary for the later stages, and there's no reason to think it will take less time the next time around. Domestication and farming alone took tousands of years, if you restarted the culture in year 0 - we wouldn't have to wait 1600 years for industrial revolution, but more like 10 000 years.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  It's true that what we have today was built directly on the last 20 000 years of progress, but there is still a significant difference - those previous 20 000 years will live in the memories of survivors of the next great war, as well as in any books that will last. Domestication, farming, basic health care, etc. are things that can fit in one's mind. In the entire known history, we've never really restarted from scratch. Even from our times, a some of knowledge would probably survive - from the ideas behind industrial revolution or modern medicine that can fit in one's head, to knowledge of physics, chemistry and biology that is stored in books. No matter how hard we try, we won't nuke every single book out of existence. But then again, not that much knowledge will live, given our increased dependence on volatile storage media. Even if a hard drive would survive a century, we won't have anything to read it with. The reason last 300 years were special is because our progress started to depend on enormous and ever increasing amounts of power. We've used up most of the sources that could be mined, and most renewables are not viable without high-precision manufacturing. Solar power is out of the question; we could start rebuilding hydro and wind power capacity but it will be a slow and very painful process, without easy coal and petroleum to help build the infrastructure. We simply may not have enough easy fuel left to restart the technological civilization.