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Look at our own history as a species. We seem to have expanded outward from equatorial regions that were lush, warm, and filled with wildlife. Nearly every need

by rjf72 8y ago

Look at our own history as a species. We seem to have expanded outward from equatorial regions that were lush, warm, and filled with wildlife. Nearly every need we had could be met with minimal effort. And we rapidly moved outward into areas that were cold, desolate, dark, and where even not freezing to death would have been a challenge. In more modern history people set off into seas with no idea where or if they would ever end, in ships no way well designed for oceanic travel. And there was a very real belief that these seas were infested with giant monsters that would destroy ships. Many would have seen such voyages as little more than suicidal endeavors at one time. Getting even more modern consider space. We went from the New York Times publishing pieces suggesting that space flight would be impossible (arguing that rockets would lack anything to 'push' against in space) to having a permanently manned station orbiting the Earth some 16 times a day, along with all of its crew. The point of this is that everything seems impossible at a distance, yet rarely is that the case. We feel like we're near the top of a mountain looking at the final insurmountable face. Only to eventually discover that not only is that face entirely surmountable, but it was nowhere near the top. Once we've colonized Mars, and perhaps other inner system bodies, people will again eventually consider such achievements of little relevance with interplanetary travel becoming as mundane as intercontinental flight is today. And they too will ponder off thinking about how unimaginable colonizing planets in star systems outside our own would be... and the cycle continues. The only reason colonizing Mars, indefinitely, seems out there is because that's where we currently are on the mountain.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
Climate change is certainly surmountable. What makes me sad is what’s lost along the way. Humanity survived the colonization of the America’s. But it also lost some irrecoverable things.
- rjf72 8y ago
  I can definitely understand this point of view, but there's also another way of looking at things. Nobody in a million years would have ever wished for something like the Black Death. It was a catastrophe like none before (at least that we know of) and certainly none since. It claimed the lives of upwards of half of the human population in Europe. Such a catastrophe, yet it played a major role in setting into the motion the social changes that would eventually lead to the end of feudalism and the advent of mercantilism. It played a key role in shaping a vastly more liberated society. Or consider nuclear weapons. These weapons were only used against other people twice. It was a heinous act with immense cost. Yet far beyond just ending that war - as was the purpose of their use, those weapons of unimaginable destruction signaled the end of all outright warfare between developed nations. It makes one wonder if in some parallel world, if the weapons' destructive power was never demonstrated on humans might we have been more likely to eventually end up in nuclear annihilation with countries, such as in the Cold War, far more willing to press that red button? Should human caused catastrophic climate change should come to pass it's not particularly hard to foresee the lessons and behaviors we might learn and enact from such. And one can only imagine what social changes might occur. Of course would indeed be much nicer if this was not how we collectively learned, but a civilization and a young child have one thing very much in common. You can tell them not to put their finger in the fire all you want, yet they will inevitably learn that lesson not by instruction but by scorched digit.

by rjf72 8y ago

erikpukinskis 8y ago

Climate change is certainly surmountable. What makes me sad is what’s lost along the way. Humanity survived the colonization of the America’s. But it also lost some irrecoverable things.

rjf72 8y ago
I can definitely understand this point of view, but there's also another way of looking at things. Nobody in a million years would have ever wished for something like the Black Death. It was a catastrophe like none before (at least that we know of) and certainly none since. It claimed the lives of upwards of half of the human population in Europe. Such a catastrophe, yet it played a major role in setting into the motion the social changes that would eventually lead to the end of feudalism and the advent of mercantilism. It played a key role in shaping a vastly more liberated society. Or consider nuclear weapons. These weapons were only used against other people twice. It was a heinous act with immense cost. Yet far beyond just ending that war - as was the purpose of their use, those weapons of unimaginable destruction signaled the end of all outright warfare between developed nations. It makes one wonder if in some parallel world, if the weapons' destructive power was never demonstrated on humans might we have been more likely to eventually end up in nuclear annihilation with countries, such as in the Cold War, far more willing to press that red button? Should human caused catastrophic climate change should come to pass it's not particularly hard to foresee the lessons and behaviors we might learn and enact from such. And one can only imagine what social changes might occur. Of course would indeed be much nicer if this was not how we collectively learned, but a civilization and a young child have one thing very much in common. You can tell them not to put their finger in the fire all you want, yet they will inevitably learn that lesson not by instruction but by scorched digit.