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theres also religious folks who believe the earth was created specifically for humans, and so everything here is for us and us alone. I find it a rather disgus

theres also religious folks who believe the earth was created specifically for humans, and so everything here is for us and us alone. I find it a rather disgustingly self centered ideology. To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Consider: earth may well be the only habitable planet in our galaxy. In that case its nearer the truth to consider it a gift just for us.
- yawz 10y ago
  Our brains seek patterns in coincidences. It's evolutionary! We can't stop seeking causal explanations in things that we experience. Nothing is a gift. Life is not fair. Universe doesn't care about us. :)
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    ...but we can care about 'our' planet. That works.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Earth being the only habitable planet is incredibly improbable.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    We hardly have enough data to say that. In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. So if there are any others at all, they number in the dozens?
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Estimates say there are ~100 billion planets in the galaxy. I'm also not sure that In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. is reasonable. Take Proxima b. It orbits the Sun's closest neighbor, is in the habitable zone (doesn't mean it is habitable, necessary but not sufficient) and is roughly earth sized. Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like.
      - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
        So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable. Earth is probably unique in being - Earthlike. Such a delicate balance.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        Okay, but now we've gone from habitable to sufficiently Earth-like to meet an unspoken definition of Earth-like.
        CountSessine 10y ago
        No, he really didn't - he said specifically, "So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable". What if Proxima B has chlorine in its atmosphere? Uninhabitable. Proxima B is a tidal-locked eyeball planet - what if the equatorial stable zone still shifts enough to not provide a stable environment for life? Uninhabitable. What if Proxima B encounters too much ionizing radiation? Uninhabitable. Use your imagination.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        You've managed to ignore the sentence in the post that I did reply to. You know, the other one. You've also apparently not payed much attention to Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like. that I said above (surely my making that statement implies some use of my imagination prior to your suggesting it).
- janj 10y ago
  A closer truth might be that life can only happen on a habitable planet so it's not really a coincidence or 'gift', just the way it must be if life is to exist.
- melling 10y ago
  Consider that the galaxy is 100,000 light years across so even if there are a couple of other habitable planets out there, we aren't likely to get there for millennia.
  - sethrin 10y ago
    Without invoking abuses of either relativity or the rocket equation, current physical understanding more-or-less limits us to long-term 'generation ships'. There is some potential argument about cryogenic freezing/revival, but it may be more accurate to talk about human-descended life forms walking on exoplanets rather than homo sapiens sapiens per se.
- unprepare 10y ago
  Humans may not be the only beings on this planet with agency/ consciousness, whatever you want to call it. How do you know the planet isnt a gift to them, instead of us?
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    This argument is flawed. If there's a gift, there must have been a giver, so why don't we ask the giver? Well the Christians already have, and they like the answer they got. Why don't you like it?
    - unprepare 10y ago
      Well, im not the one who used the phrase gift, so this isnt the appropriate place to nitpick that. Other than, 'some other group of humans told me this' what evidence do you have that the earth should be the birthright of humans more than that of any other thing on earth?
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        It's self-evident to me, but you might suspect I'm biased, being human and all. (Is this the right context in which to assume that everyone on the internet is a dog?) When the martians come to take the planet away from us, I'll volunteer for the Resistance. A book I read earlier this year really bent my brain when it included characters working against humanity and for an invading alien intelligence. Seeing it in print was enough to convince me that it would totally happen, but I hadn't considered the possibility before.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  This whole thread is quite a bit tangential to the fact that Earth is the only habitat planet we can actually get to, and will remain so baring a significant change in technology. Rockets won't get us elsewhere. So we might as well look after this planet.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I find the awareness that the Earth is the only place on which humans, let alone modern civilisation, is likely to be able to exist and thrive, to well within the likely timeframe in which we might well eliminate some or all of that capability (say, the next 10, 100, or 1,000 years) makes for far more nuanced consideration. What humans do to this world in the immediate now will have profound implications to what humans will be able to do anywhere, in any possible future.
Flimm 10y ago
Which moral worldview do you find superior? I presume you have one, because you're making a moral judgement.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  All moral worldviews have defects. life isn't a ... geometry problem.
  - JshWright 10y ago
    But if it were, the Rhombic Dodecahedron would be the best shape...
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      Or the sphere....
tunap 10y ago
"To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism." Not "one" nor the species, but exclusively for the "believers". Non-believers, heretics & infidels be damned.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism Humans are the most important things in the world. Why? Because I am a human. My family are humans. To me, and likely most people, humans are most important. If I were an Otter and capable of self reflection I would likely think Otters were the most important things in the world. Now this absolutely does not mean I don't value Otters. In fact I do. Otters are awesome! Just because I feel humans are the most important thing doesn't preclude me from having compassion to help other creatures. It's simply an order in which you find things important. You've essentially manufactured a belief here (parent believes humans are most important therefore all others are in the way), projected it onto the parent and then became outraged by it.
- unprepare 10y ago
  I said nothing about what the parent believes, i said that there are religious groups that have an ideology i find narcissistic at best. besides that gp didnt say 'i prefer humans above other animals' dont change what they said to suit your needs; they said: >the whole point of existence is human flourishing and happiness. Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to
  - BinaryIdiot 10y ago
    > I said nothing about what the parent believes, i said that there are religious groups that have an ideology i find narcissistic at best. So you brought up a point that is unrelated to parent's about what people who belong to a religion believe in? I...should that even be in this thread? I don't get it unless you're actually replying to the parent above you. > Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to It's not though. They didn't say to bulldoze all the things. Why wouldn't humans flourishing and having happiness be a goal to hit? I can't think of a single thing that we do, when we interact with nature, that doesn't affect the environment in at least some fashion. It's all about balances. If you can add a dam, reducing carbon emissions from other power sources, but it displaces animals within X square miles that needs to be understood. It may be very worth it. It may not it. What I got from your comment was that the parent poster was bad and that you think most people are bad because they find themselves most important.
DougN7 10y ago
# theres also atheist folks who believe they answer to nobody and can do whatever feels good. # I find it a rather disgustingly self centered ideology. Sweeping generalizations can go both ways and are rarely helpful.
- tgb 10y ago
  There aren't just two ways to go in this possibility space, I'm quite happy ruling out both of these ideologies.
  - r-w 10y ago
    Atheism is the lack of a religious ideology. It’s strange to assign an ideology to a group of people simply because they reject all religious ideologies.
    - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
      It takes some doing to be comfortable with null things, whether it's pointers in 'C' or ideologies.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I think "species-ism" is both honorable and necessary. I think the opposite is misanthropy and that it's hard to be moderately misanthropic, so one extreme or the other will win out.
- quadrangle 10y ago
  In my life, I've fluctuated between moderately misanthropic and moderately speciesist. I don't see the evidence for your slippery slope argument.
ars 10y ago
Except humans are the most important thing in the world. It's not narcissism if it's true. What's the point of even having a world if there are no humans in it? (Any conscious being, not just humans.) Animals don't care if they exist, they just do what they were born to do, they don't ponder existence. Neither do plants or rocks. Humans are the only ones (on this world at least) who actually care, and notice.
- ionised 10y ago
  Humans being the most important thing in the world by virtue of simply being human strikes me as a tautology and logically problematic. It makes no sense.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

Consider: earth may well be the only habitable planet in our galaxy. In that case its nearer the truth to consider it a gift just for us.

yawz 10y ago
Our brains seek patterns in coincidences. It's evolutionary! We can't stop seeking causal explanations in things that we experience. Nothing is a gift. Life is not fair. Universe doesn't care about us. :)
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  ...but we can care about 'our' planet. That works.
maxerickson 10y ago
Earth being the only habitable planet is incredibly improbable.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  We hardly have enough data to say that. In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. So if there are any others at all, they number in the dozens?
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Estimates say there are ~100 billion planets in the galaxy. I'm also not sure that In fact we've found nothing remotely similar to Earth in all the thousands of samples we've taken. is reasonable. Take Proxima b. It orbits the Sun's closest neighbor, is in the habitable zone (doesn't mean it is habitable, necessary but not sufficient) and is roughly earth sized. Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable. Earth is probably unique in being - Earthlike. Such a delicate balance.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Okay, but now we've gone from habitable to sufficiently Earth-like to meet an unspoken definition of Earth-like.
        CountSessine 10y ago
        No, he really didn't - he said specifically, "So many, many things can be wrong and make a planet uninhabitable". What if Proxima B has chlorine in its atmosphere? Uninhabitable. Proxima B is a tidal-locked eyeball planet - what if the equatorial stable zone still shifts enough to not provide a stable environment for life? Uninhabitable. What if Proxima B encounters too much ionizing radiation? Uninhabitable. Use your imagination.
        maxerickson 10y ago
        You've managed to ignore the sentence in the post that I did reply to. You know, the other one. You've also apparently not payed much attention to Sure, we don't know a whole lot more about it, so it is quite likely to not be a nice destination for humans, but it seems to be at least remotely Earth like. that I said above (surely my making that statement implies some use of my imagination prior to your suggesting it).
janj 10y ago
A closer truth might be that life can only happen on a habitable planet so it's not really a coincidence or 'gift', just the way it must be if life is to exist.
melling 10y ago
Consider that the galaxy is 100,000 light years across so even if there are a couple of other habitable planets out there, we aren't likely to get there for millennia.
- sethrin 10y ago
  Without invoking abuses of either relativity or the rocket equation, current physical understanding more-or-less limits us to long-term 'generation ships'. There is some potential argument about cryogenic freezing/revival, but it may be more accurate to talk about human-descended life forms walking on exoplanets rather than homo sapiens sapiens per se.
unprepare 10y ago
Humans may not be the only beings on this planet with agency/ consciousness, whatever you want to call it. How do you know the planet isnt a gift to them, instead of us?
- jessaustin 10y ago
  This argument is flawed. If there's a gift, there must have been a giver, so why don't we ask the giver? Well the Christians already have, and they like the answer they got. Why don't you like it?
  - unprepare 10y ago
    Well, im not the one who used the phrase gift, so this isnt the appropriate place to nitpick that. Other than, 'some other group of humans told me this' what evidence do you have that the earth should be the birthright of humans more than that of any other thing on earth?
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      It's self-evident to me, but you might suspect I'm biased, being human and all. (Is this the right context in which to assume that everyone on the internet is a dog?) When the martians come to take the planet away from us, I'll volunteer for the Resistance. A book I read earlier this year really bent my brain when it included characters working against humanity and for an invading alien intelligence. Seeing it in print was enough to convince me that it would totally happen, but I hadn't considered the possibility before.
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
This whole thread is quite a bit tangential to the fact that Earth is the only habitat planet we can actually get to, and will remain so baring a significant change in technology. Rockets won't get us elsewhere. So we might as well look after this planet.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I find the awareness that the Earth is the only place on which humans, let alone modern civilisation, is likely to be able to exist and thrive, to well within the likely timeframe in which we might well eliminate some or all of that capability (say, the next 10, 100, or 1,000 years) makes for far more nuanced consideration. What humans do to this world in the immediate now will have profound implications to what humans will be able to do anywhere, in any possible future.

Flimm 10y ago

Which moral worldview do you find superior? I presume you have one, because you're making a moral judgement.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
All moral worldviews have defects. life isn't a ... geometry problem.
- JshWright 10y ago
  But if it were, the Rhombic Dodecahedron would be the best shape...
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    Or the sphere....

tunap 10y ago

"To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism." Not "one" nor the species, but exclusively for the "believers". Non-believers, heretics & infidels be damned.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> To presume that one (or ones species) is the most important thing in the world (or universe) is basically the definition of narcissism Humans are the most important things in the world. Why? Because I am a human. My family are humans. To me, and likely most people, humans are most important. If I were an Otter and capable of self reflection I would likely think Otters were the most important things in the world. Now this absolutely does not mean I don't value Otters. In fact I do. Otters are awesome! Just because I feel humans are the most important thing doesn't preclude me from having compassion to help other creatures. It's simply an order in which you find things important. You've essentially manufactured a belief here (parent believes humans are most important therefore all others are in the way), projected it onto the parent and then became outraged by it.

unprepare 10y ago
I said nothing about what the parent believes, i said that there are religious groups that have an ideology i find narcissistic at best. besides that gp didnt say 'i prefer humans above other animals' dont change what they said to suit your needs; they said: >the whole point of existence is human flourishing and happiness. Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > I said nothing about what the parent believes, i said that there are religious groups that have an ideology i find narcissistic at best. So you brought up a point that is unrelated to parent's about what people who belong to a religion believe in? I...should that even be in this thread? I don't get it unless you're actually replying to the parent above you. > Thats a significantly stronger statement than you allude to It's not though. They didn't say to bulldoze all the things. Why wouldn't humans flourishing and having happiness be a goal to hit? I can't think of a single thing that we do, when we interact with nature, that doesn't affect the environment in at least some fashion. It's all about balances. If you can add a dam, reducing carbon emissions from other power sources, but it displaces animals within X square miles that needs to be understood. It may be very worth it. It may not it. What I got from your comment was that the parent poster was bad and that you think most people are bad because they find themselves most important.

DougN7 10y ago

# theres also atheist folks who believe they answer to nobody and can do whatever feels good. # I find it a rather disgustingly self centered ideology. Sweeping generalizations can go both ways and are rarely helpful.

tgb 10y ago
There aren't just two ways to go in this possibility space, I'm quite happy ruling out both of these ideologies.
- r-w 10y ago
  Atheism is the lack of a religious ideology. It’s strange to assign an ideology to a group of people simply because they reject all religious ideologies.
  - ArkyBeagle 10y ago
    It takes some doing to be comfortable with null things, whether it's pointers in 'C' or ideologies.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

I think "species-ism" is both honorable and necessary. I think the opposite is misanthropy and that it's hard to be moderately misanthropic, so one extreme or the other will win out.

quadrangle 10y ago
In my life, I've fluctuated between moderately misanthropic and moderately speciesist. I don't see the evidence for your slippery slope argument.

ars 10y ago

Except humans are the most important thing in the world. It's not narcissism if it's true. What's the point of even having a world if there are no humans in it? (Any conscious being, not just humans.) Animals don't care if they exist, they just do what they were born to do, they don't ponder existence. Neither do plants or rocks. Humans are the only ones (on this world at least) who actually care, and notice.

ionised 10y ago
Humans being the most important thing in the world by virtue of simply being human strikes me as a tautology and logically problematic. It makes no sense.