4 ms·

Solution to climate change? Learn to let our current civilization die

7 points by mfburnett 11y ago

mfburnett 11y ago
There really is a lot to this piece, but my favorite passages, to start, grapple with Nietzsche's quote, “Man will sooner will nothingness than not will.” - "When he wrote 'Man will sooner will nothingness than not will,' Nietzsche was exposing the destructive side of humanity’s meaning-making drive. That drive is so powerful, Nietzsche’s saying, that when forced to the precipice of nihilism, we would choose meaningful self-annihilation over meaningless bare life. This insight was horrifically borne out in the Götterdämmerung of Nazi Germany, just as it’s being borne out today in every new suicide attack by jihadi terrorists — even as it’s being borne out here at home in our willfully destructive politics of rage." "Our drive to make meaning is more powerful than oil, the atom, and the market, and it’s up to us to harness that power to secure the future of the human species."
douglance 11y ago
This article reads like the rantings of someone who was well educated long ago, but has since watched daytime news every day. The world is more peaceful than ever. You are less likely to die to violence now than at any other point in history. Medicine is better than any other point in history. As populations grow larger, they also grow older and people have fewer kids. We aren't going to overpopulate the earth. We aren't going to run out of materials. We aren't going to destroy the environment. We aren't going to blow up the earth. That is lazy thinking. Life has grown and expanded for billions of years. Humanity will continue growing and expanding into the future. We couldn't stop it if we tried.
- VelNZ 11y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Many people seem to confuse our exponentially increasing ability to report on real or predicted negative events as proof that everything is getting worse when virtually any social metric that we have long term data for shows the opposite. Even climate change, which will have major negative consequences, will in no way mean the end of our species, we will move, food-growing areas will shift but we will carry on.
- mfburnett 11y ago
  Hm, I think though there will be serious societal consequences to climate change in particular - particularly around scarcity of resources (we may not "run out" but there is a finite amount of resources that we are rapidly using up) and territorial claims (I think they will shift from land to sea, as we're already seeing with the South China Sea and the Arctic) - while humanity will continue growing and expanding, it's about consciously shaping what we want that expansion to look like. I really liked the point about multiple perspectives - "Most important, we need to give up defending and protecting our truth, our perspective, our Western values, and understand that truth is found not in one perspective but in their multiplication, not in one point of view but in the aggregate, not in opposition but in the whole."
  - arpa 11y ago
    On the other hand giving up western values would produce a vacuum so abhorred by nature; The truth in multiplication and aggregation of perspective is actually one of the western values, as is egalitarianism of sexes and races. To give up these values is to replace them with ones quite potentially less humanitarian; who in their sane mind (and education) would rally us to give up enlightenment and rationalism as values? If anything, we must cherish and defend them, while simultaneously expanding them. Now the platform for those values - the dogma - is of another question; if we are talking about progressing economic systems, social systems, methods of up-keeping our values - count me in. But casting all values aside, while so Nietzschely romantic (breaking old tables without having written new ones), is short-sighted and very, very dangerous.
    - douglance 11y ago
      Get rid of religiosity and give me scientific education and political decision making and we will be fine
      - vlehto 11y ago
        Problem here is that we don't have "scientific" viable moral framework. Western values are built on the fading influences of Catholicism and Protestantism, neither is coming back. Utilitarianism has been trying to break into mainstream, but its not really applicable to real life. Then there is individualism. But it has gone bit too far. It is currently making people lonely, unsafe and unhappy. Then as persons yearn for collectivity, they are giving up their privacy in virtualized group meetings over internet.

7 points by mfburnett 11y ago

There really is a lot to this piece, but my favorite passages, to start, grapple with Nietzsche's quote, “Man will sooner will nothingness than not will.” - "When he wrote 'Man will sooner will nothingness than not will,' Nietzsche was exposing the destructive side of humanity’s meaning-making drive. That drive is so powerful, Nietzsche’s saying, that when forced to the precipice of nihilism, we would choose meaningful self-annihilation over meaningless bare life. This insight was horrifically borne out in the Götterdämmerung of Nazi Germany, just as it’s being borne out today in every new suicide attack by jihadi terrorists — even as it’s being borne out here at home in our willfully destructive politics of rage." "Our drive to make meaning is more powerful than oil, the atom, and the market, and it’s up to us to harness that power to secure the future of the human species."

douglance 11y ago

This article reads like the rantings of someone who was well educated long ago, but has since watched daytime news every day. The world is more peaceful than ever. You are less likely to die to violence now than at any other point in history. Medicine is better than any other point in history. As populations grow larger, they also grow older and people have fewer kids. We aren't going to overpopulate the earth. We aren't going to run out of materials. We aren't going to destroy the environment. We aren't going to blow up the earth. That is lazy thinking. Life has grown and expanded for billions of years. Humanity will continue growing and expanding into the future. We couldn't stop it if we tried.

VelNZ 11y ago
Couldn't agree more. Many people seem to confuse our exponentially increasing ability to report on real or predicted negative events as proof that everything is getting worse when virtually any social metric that we have long term data for shows the opposite. Even climate change, which will have major negative consequences, will in no way mean the end of our species, we will move, food-growing areas will shift but we will carry on.
mfburnett 11y ago
Hm, I think though there will be serious societal consequences to climate change in particular - particularly around scarcity of resources (we may not "run out" but there is a finite amount of resources that we are rapidly using up) and territorial claims (I think they will shift from land to sea, as we're already seeing with the South China Sea and the Arctic) - while humanity will continue growing and expanding, it's about consciously shaping what we want that expansion to look like. I really liked the point about multiple perspectives - "Most important, we need to give up defending and protecting our truth, our perspective, our Western values, and understand that truth is found not in one perspective but in their multiplication, not in one point of view but in the aggregate, not in opposition but in the whole."
- arpa 11y ago
  On the other hand giving up western values would produce a vacuum so abhorred by nature; The truth in multiplication and aggregation of perspective is actually one of the western values, as is egalitarianism of sexes and races. To give up these values is to replace them with ones quite potentially less humanitarian; who in their sane mind (and education) would rally us to give up enlightenment and rationalism as values? If anything, we must cherish and defend them, while simultaneously expanding them. Now the platform for those values - the dogma - is of another question; if we are talking about progressing economic systems, social systems, methods of up-keeping our values - count me in. But casting all values aside, while so Nietzschely romantic (breaking old tables without having written new ones), is short-sighted and very, very dangerous.
  - douglance 11y ago
    Get rid of religiosity and give me scientific education and political decision making and we will be fine
    - vlehto 11y ago
      Problem here is that we don't have "scientific" viable moral framework. Western values are built on the fading influences of Catholicism and Protestantism, neither is coming back. Utilitarianism has been trying to break into mainstream, but its not really applicable to real life. Then there is individualism. But it has gone bit too far. It is currently making people lonely, unsafe and unhappy. Then as persons yearn for collectivity, they are giving up their privacy in virtualized group meetings over internet.