5 ms·

I feel like humankind has set its drapes on fire and we're just watching in slo-mo the first flames of what will inevitably be an uncontrollable inferno.

spraak 9y ago
Very poetically put
randycupertino 9y ago
How can anyone be denying global warming at this point in the game? It was 90* today in San Francisco. We're killing the earth and meanwhile everyone is distracted arguing about why we have to have blind jingoism and mandatory standing for the national anthem during football games. The whole thing makes me so completely depressed. I am glad I don't have kids or else I would be too stressed out to function worrying about their lack of futures due to massive climate change.
- bmmayer1 9y ago
  The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and will be around long after humans are extinct. "Killing the earth" is really not what we're doing.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    I wouldn't be so sure. It's not implausible that we could effectively wipe out complex life by setting off feedback loops that progress faster than ecosystems evolve. Can we kill all life on the planet? Certainly not. But we could make the long-term carrying capacity for humans so low that we'd enter terminal decline. So maybe "killing the earth" isn't precisely true, but what's the difference if there's no one around to understand the distinction?
    - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
      Some people care about precise wording. Instead of saying we are killing Earth, saying we are making Earth inhospitable to us is a more accurate statement. And it is true statement while the former is false.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  Having just had my first child, I can tell you how odd it is to feel joy in home life, while be horrified by the decay of the outside world. I have a lot of millenarianists in my family who think of the chaos today as being signs of the "end times". I can't really buy into that, given that we're not in a crisis of WWII-level carnage. The fact that a human being today is far less likely than ever before to die a violent death is absolutely remarkable. On the other hand, humananity is quickly evolving more ways of plausibly extinguishing or crippling itself, either by action of a small number of humans or prisoner's dilemma-like failure of large numbers of human to cooperate. Nuclear weapons were first, but it will soon be joined by other technologies. What's depressing to me is that we're clearly not evolving the means to manage our power, wasting that energy on extremely petty concerns, instead. In fact, we seem to be moving backwards.
ZenoArrow 9y ago
Can we just forget about what humankind is doing for a moment and just focus on what you and I are doing. We only really have control over our own actions, and it's by people leading by example that others will learn the most from. I'll start. I'm aware I pollute almost every single day. My biggest contribution to pollution is the rubbish that I throw away. Any steps I can take to reduce that non-recycled waste should be a positive one. How about yourself, what do you see as your largest contribution to climate change?
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  Traveling, eating factory-farmed meat, waste generation, etc. etc. etc. I can do better at all these things, but it doesn't matter. It simply doesn't. We need systematic solutions. The externalities need to be priced in, and only then will the markets cause people behave sustainably at scale. So I see my actual best contribution as being whatever I can do to push that forward. I spend much of my free time trying to fight the battle of ideas. I fear that's probably as useless as becoming a vegetarian at actually making an impact, but that's where I'm putting my chips.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    > "I spend much of my free time trying to fight the battle of ideas." It's up to you what you want to do with your time, but I'd suggest you'll find it far far easier to win the battle of ideas if you walk the walk. In other words, if you're just one more voice amongst the many voicing concern about climate change the overall impact will be far less than if you're leading by example.

spraak 9y ago

Very poetically put

randycupertino 9y ago

How can anyone be denying global warming at this point in the game? It was 90* today in San Francisco. We're killing the earth and meanwhile everyone is distracted arguing about why we have to have blind jingoism and mandatory standing for the national anthem during football games. The whole thing makes me so completely depressed. I am glad I don't have kids or else I would be too stressed out to function worrying about their lack of futures due to massive climate change.

bmmayer1 9y ago
The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and will be around long after humans are extinct. "Killing the earth" is really not what we're doing.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  I wouldn't be so sure. It's not implausible that we could effectively wipe out complex life by setting off feedback loops that progress faster than ecosystems evolve. Can we kill all life on the planet? Certainly not. But we could make the long-term carrying capacity for humans so low that we'd enter terminal decline. So maybe "killing the earth" isn't precisely true, but what's the difference if there's no one around to understand the distinction?
  - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
    Some people care about precise wording. Instead of saying we are killing Earth, saying we are making Earth inhospitable to us is a more accurate statement. And it is true statement while the former is false.
acjohnson55 9y ago
Having just had my first child, I can tell you how odd it is to feel joy in home life, while be horrified by the decay of the outside world. I have a lot of millenarianists in my family who think of the chaos today as being signs of the "end times". I can't really buy into that, given that we're not in a crisis of WWII-level carnage. The fact that a human being today is far less likely than ever before to die a violent death is absolutely remarkable. On the other hand, humananity is quickly evolving more ways of plausibly extinguishing or crippling itself, either by action of a small number of humans or prisoner's dilemma-like failure of large numbers of human to cooperate. Nuclear weapons were first, but it will soon be joined by other technologies. What's depressing to me is that we're clearly not evolving the means to manage our power, wasting that energy on extremely petty concerns, instead. In fact, we seem to be moving backwards.

ZenoArrow 9y ago

Can we just forget about what humankind is doing for a moment and just focus on what you and I are doing. We only really have control over our own actions, and it's by people leading by example that others will learn the most from. I'll start. I'm aware I pollute almost every single day. My biggest contribution to pollution is the rubbish that I throw away. Any steps I can take to reduce that non-recycled waste should be a positive one. How about yourself, what do you see as your largest contribution to climate change?

acjohnson55 9y ago
Traveling, eating factory-farmed meat, waste generation, etc. etc. etc. I can do better at all these things, but it doesn't matter. It simply doesn't. We need systematic solutions. The externalities need to be priced in, and only then will the markets cause people behave sustainably at scale. So I see my actual best contribution as being whatever I can do to push that forward. I spend much of my free time trying to fight the battle of ideas. I fear that's probably as useless as becoming a vegetarian at actually making an impact, but that's where I'm putting my chips.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  > "I spend much of my free time trying to fight the battle of ideas." It's up to you what you want to do with your time, but I'd suggest you'll find it far far easier to win the battle of ideas if you walk the walk. In other words, if you're just one more voice amongst the many voicing concern about climate change the overall impact will be far less than if you're leading by example.