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Thanks for pointing to that, I'm always baffled at how few people fail to acknowledge the most "basic" complexities of meteorological reality. I have the suspi
by musha68k 11y ago
Thanks for pointing to that, I'm always baffled at how few people fail to acknowledge the most "basic" complexities of meteorological reality.
I have the suspicion that our inherent bias for linear thinking is the culprit here.
Some things can't ever be grasped intuitively and as long as education doesn't at least catch up with our propensity towards boundless optimism our and many more species are essentially doomed.
That said, it needs both for our children to be able to survive - boundless optimism and objective thinking.
As much as I am a kid of the 80s I don't see capitalism - with all its super exciting promises - being much else than an ever accelerating system to even more short-term
thinking and conscious/subconscious ignorance at this point.
Yes, it might be less comfortable but we need to change now - each one of us - to save what we have inherited.
Talk with people, teach them, be nice and understanding but tell them that it's all in their hands - even if that's a scary thought!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experim...
- mfoy_ 11y agoWell, that escalated quickly.
- musha68k 11y agoYeah, I guess - but hey in my own defence, as somebody working with distributed systems I've seen too many a simplistic world-view blow up in my own face :) Even though I'm not a fan of it, there is a reason for the old ops adage of "never touch a running system". Complexity is hard (i.e. global climate) and even if life on earth is essentially anti-fragile that might not include our own cohort. Also, I just might have pulled a human and have been subconsciously "cross-posting" as this super depressing article on "Decline of Species That Pollinate Poses a Threat to Global Food Supply" is trending on HN right now as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180782
- mfoy_ 11y agoI think your message is coming off as too much like "The answer is obvious! Wake up sheeple!"
- musha68k 11y agoYupp indeed, hubris is not a virtue! Even if maybe off-topic and too self-important - Joseph Tainter's writings might be interesting to anyone wary of the hidden complexities surrounding us: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Diminishing_returns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Tainter#Diminishing_ret... Also an IMHO very insightful interview with Mr. Tainter on the omegatau podcast: "Societal Complexity and Collapse" http://omegataupodcast.net/2015/10/184-societal-complexity-and-collapse/ http://omegataupodcast.net/2015/10/184-societal-complexity-a...
- dang 11y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11181367 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11181367 and marked it off-topic.