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Imagine if humanity has treated other technological problems as societal ones: >What do you mean plague vaccine? We need to stop dreaming about magic solutions

Imagine if humanity has treated other technological problems as societal ones: >What do you mean plague vaccine? We need to stop dreaming about magic solutions and just stop living in cities >Farming? No this will never work, just stop reproducing. And collect more berries. >Fire? Why do we need fire? It's dangerous and hot food is a luxury.

hnarn 7y ago
1. The plague, while probably exacerbated, was not caused by urbanization. 2. With the exception of up until modern times, farming, like many other major changes in human habitation, never threatened our existence on this planet. 3. Fire is dangerous, but the benefits vastly outweighed the dangers, and also did not permanently, in the chronological perspective of human beings, threaten our ecosystem.
ptah 7y ago
the second one would have actually helped us to avoid current dilemma :-P
- justsubmit 7y ago
  In which case, you probably wouldn't exist, and neither would the medium in which we're having this conversation. Better or worse?
- noonespecial 7y ago
  So what then? A few thousand humanoids would have picked berries for a few dozen thousand years until the next ELE wiped them out and be gone? That's better how? We've got exactly one planet's worth of resources to consume in our reach for the stars. Doing nothing and doing it wrong gets us extinction on basically the same galactic time scale. What a tragedy though, to have a real shot and burn it all up trying to get each other to click on ads for plastic crap no one needed.
einpoklum 7y ago
"Humanity" has not treated problems collectively until a few hundred years ago. Some might argue it still doesn't, really. Also, and more importantly - it's easy to categorize problems retroactively based on how they were eventually resolved; not so easy to apply this categorization with foresight. Finally - some problems have both societal and technological aspects, and so do their solutions.
pjc50 7y ago
Disease was as much a social problem requiring changes to the norms of "cleanliness" as a technological problem.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
We don't need to imagine, we know how humanity reacted to plague prior to effective treatments. Very badly. With lynch mobs and singling out certain groups for persecution. Even having acne would do it...

hnarn 7y ago

1. The plague, while probably exacerbated, was not caused by urbanization. 2. With the exception of up until modern times, farming, like many other major changes in human habitation, never threatened our existence on this planet. 3. Fire is dangerous, but the benefits vastly outweighed the dangers, and also did not permanently, in the chronological perspective of human beings, threaten our ecosystem.

ptah 7y ago

the second one would have actually helped us to avoid current dilemma :-P

justsubmit 7y ago
In which case, you probably wouldn't exist, and neither would the medium in which we're having this conversation. Better or worse?
noonespecial 7y ago
So what then? A few thousand humanoids would have picked berries for a few dozen thousand years until the next ELE wiped them out and be gone? That's better how? We've got exactly one planet's worth of resources to consume in our reach for the stars. Doing nothing and doing it wrong gets us extinction on basically the same galactic time scale. What a tragedy though, to have a real shot and burn it all up trying to get each other to click on ads for plastic crap no one needed.

einpoklum 7y ago

"Humanity" has not treated problems collectively until a few hundred years ago. Some might argue it still doesn't, really. Also, and more importantly - it's easy to categorize problems retroactively based on how they were eventually resolved; not so easy to apply this categorization with foresight. Finally - some problems have both societal and technological aspects, and so do their solutions.

pjc50 7y ago

Disease was as much a social problem requiring changes to the norms of "cleanliness" as a technological problem.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

We don't need to imagine, we know how humanity reacted to plague prior to effective treatments. Very badly. With lynch mobs and singling out certain groups for persecution. Even having acne would do it...