6 ms·

Looking around I see examples like this everwhere, where the science seems to be rapidly advancing new approaches and techniques which will feed, cloth, transpo

by zaroth 7y ago

Looking around I see examples like this everwhere, where the science seems to be rapidly advancing new approaches and techniques which will feed, cloth, transport, teach, and entertain billions of people in ways that are more economical and ecological. Examples like these are why I'm convinced that environmental impact reduction and ultimately rejuvenation is possible without massively disrupting life as we know it. It would be great if governments could better align taxes and incentives for the development and real-world deployment of these technologies, but they seems to be progressing quite well even in a maximally dysfunctional political environment.

thrower123 7y ago
Life... finds a way. Someday, we'll hit a Malthusian bottleneck that we can't innovate our way out of, presumably. However, to date, every time disaster looms, something occurs that kicks the can down the road. It makes it very difficult to take seriously the endlessly repeatedly claims that the world as we know it is coming to an end in the short term - the result of such hysteria seems to be to induce a lot of self-righteous and largely pointless churn, while unheralded technology quietly solves the crisis du jour without fanfare.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  No idea why you're getting downvoted - this is perfectly true. I guess because people secretly long for the world to end. Rapture, Climate Change, nuclear armageddon, AIDS, Y2K, Peak Oil, take your pick. It's been a constant of life in Western civilisation for the last 50 years at least. There has never been a period in my life when there hasn't been some impending catastrophe that was going to destroy life as we know it. I would blame the media - and that is definitely part of it. But the media only does this because we lap it up. Something about human psychology loves this idea that we're in the End Times.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Maybe it's the function of development levels we've reached? It's only in the last 60 years that we've reached a level at which we can cause a man-made Armageddon. In the "boy crying wolf" story, the wolf eventually came. > Peak Oil, Climate Change Makes more sense if you consider this (and other related scares) as symptoms of the same phenomenon, which shows no sign of stopping. Let's talk about how we're going to innovate ourselves off the exponentially growing resources -> consumption -> trash pipeline we're running. I don't see much happening that would address it.
    - eitland 7y ago
      Mostly agree. However: >In the "boy crying wolf" story, the wolf eventually came. ... and what would have helped the boy was if he hadn't been crying wolf unnecessarily. As marcus_holmes points out there always seems to be something.
      - Tarq0n 7y ago
        Agenda-setting in politics seems to require some amount of crying wolf, paradoxically.
  - carapace 7y ago
    > It's been a constant of life in Western civilisation for the last 50 years at least. A little longer than that. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse The difference is we didn't have nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, chemistry (for chem weapons), etc. We could actually do it now. "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."
    - marcus_holmes 7y ago
      It's interesting that the psychology remains the same, even when there was no actual danger.
      - carapace 7y ago
        I think it's a concomitant aspect of civilization itself. I mean, it's only what? 12K years since we started living in towns, right? Despite it's advantages civilized life kinda sucks in general. I think people long for the pre-civilized "Golden Age" and that's the underlying root of the apocalyptic longing for the world to end. (I'm not saying that pre-civilized life was an actual Golden Age, just that it satisfied us on a deep biological level in a way that urban/civil life doesn't.)
- pharrington 7y ago
  Addressing `marcus_holmes`'s initial prompt in the sibling comment - Malthus simply had no clue what he was talking about.
noonespecial 7y ago
I don't even care if they're wrong. It's just good to hear people starting to say hopeful things again.
- zbentley 7y ago
  That seems counterproductive to achieving an actually better outcome.
- ianai 7y ago
  I totally agree! It’s like we’ve been in a dystopia since like 2010. Ok more like 2006. Or 2001...
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Silent Spring was published in 1962.
seveneightn9ne 7y ago
I'll believe that when our CO2 output per year stops accelerating (never mind when it actually starts shrinking!)
- ac29 7y ago
  CO2 emissions have been falling in the US for over 10 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    That page needs some love - this page has more recent and comprehensive data https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/ https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/
whytaka 7y ago
It’s also important that whatever we invent, we gift them to developing countries so that that they orient their country’s development towards a sustainable path without having to go through the carbon hungry middle stage.

by zaroth 7y ago

thrower123 7y ago

Life... finds a way. Someday, we'll hit a Malthusian bottleneck that we can't innovate our way out of, presumably. However, to date, every time disaster looms, something occurs that kicks the can down the road. It makes it very difficult to take seriously the endlessly repeatedly claims that the world as we know it is coming to an end in the short term - the result of such hysteria seems to be to induce a lot of self-righteous and largely pointless churn, while unheralded technology quietly solves the crisis du jour without fanfare.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
No idea why you're getting downvoted - this is perfectly true. I guess because people secretly long for the world to end. Rapture, Climate Change, nuclear armageddon, AIDS, Y2K, Peak Oil, take your pick. It's been a constant of life in Western civilisation for the last 50 years at least. There has never been a period in my life when there hasn't been some impending catastrophe that was going to destroy life as we know it. I would blame the media - and that is definitely part of it. But the media only does this because we lap it up. Something about human psychology loves this idea that we're in the End Times.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Maybe it's the function of development levels we've reached? It's only in the last 60 years that we've reached a level at which we can cause a man-made Armageddon. In the "boy crying wolf" story, the wolf eventually came. > Peak Oil, Climate Change Makes more sense if you consider this (and other related scares) as symptoms of the same phenomenon, which shows no sign of stopping. Let's talk about how we're going to innovate ourselves off the exponentially growing resources -> consumption -> trash pipeline we're running. I don't see much happening that would address it.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Mostly agree. However: >In the "boy crying wolf" story, the wolf eventually came. ... and what would have helped the boy was if he hadn't been crying wolf unnecessarily. As marcus_holmes points out there always seems to be something.
    - Tarq0n 7y ago
      Agenda-setting in politics seems to require some amount of crying wolf, paradoxically.
- carapace 7y ago
  > It's been a constant of life in Western civilisation for the last 50 years at least. A little longer than that. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse The difference is we didn't have nuclear weapons, genetic engineering, chemistry (for chem weapons), etc. We could actually do it now. "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    It's interesting that the psychology remains the same, even when there was no actual danger.
    - carapace 7y ago
      I think it's a concomitant aspect of civilization itself. I mean, it's only what? 12K years since we started living in towns, right? Despite it's advantages civilized life kinda sucks in general. I think people long for the pre-civilized "Golden Age" and that's the underlying root of the apocalyptic longing for the world to end. (I'm not saying that pre-civilized life was an actual Golden Age, just that it satisfied us on a deep biological level in a way that urban/civil life doesn't.)
pharrington 7y ago
Addressing `marcus_holmes`'s initial prompt in the sibling comment - Malthus simply had no clue what he was talking about.

noonespecial 7y ago

I don't even care if they're wrong. It's just good to hear people starting to say hopeful things again.

zbentley 7y ago
That seems counterproductive to achieving an actually better outcome.
ianai 7y ago
I totally agree! It’s like we’ve been in a dystopia since like 2010. Ok more like 2006. Or 2001...
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Silent Spring was published in 1962.

seveneightn9ne 7y ago

I'll believe that when our CO2 output per year stops accelerating (never mind when it actually starts shrinking!)

ac29 7y ago
CO2 emissions have been falling in the US for over 10 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  That page needs some love - this page has more recent and comprehensive data https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/ https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/

whytaka 7y ago

It’s also important that whatever we invent, we gift them to developing countries so that that they orient their country’s development towards a sustainable path without having to go through the carbon hungry middle stage.