6 ms·
The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life fo
by aeturnum 7y ago
The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life forms out of our spaces, but many of those life forms continue a marginal existence. The end of humanity would not be the end of life and being reminded of that is a useful check on our tendency to put ourselves at the center of "the" world (instead of just the center of our world).
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoOur concept of “world” includes and subsumes any animal concept of “world”. Chimpanzees may think of local forest as “the world” but our “world” includes their forest. This, compared to any other non-human species on earth, we are the center of “the” world. In addition, our actions determine the fates of non-human species much more than their actions our fates.
- philwelch 7y agoTaking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- resu_nimda 7y agoMajor extinction events have historically paved the way for new and interesting forms of life, including humans.
- yters 7y agoWhat if humans are a unique higher lifeform that will never be matched in the history of the universe?
- jessaustin 7y agoThat seems really unlikely. That is, it's like the reciprocal of the Drake equation, multiplied by some additional infinitesimal factors.
- yters 7y agoSeems highly likely given how fantastically different we are from all other known life forms, especially in our mental ability.
- philwelch 7y agoIf you assume humans are not unique in the universe, you're immediately confronted with the Fermi paradox. If the universe is filled with sapient life, wouldn't some of that sapient life be hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us--a tiny amount of time on the astronomical timescale, but more than enough for them to be observable in some way? Ultimately we're left with the unsatisfying task of speculating without evidence, at least for now.
- jessaustin 7y agoIt could be that life at our current level is more observable to life at our current level than more advanced life would be. The "Dark Forest" hypothesis from 三体 would be one explanation, but even that isn't required. It could be that advanced life can better meet its needs via technology that we can't sense. That was certainly plausible before we could broadcast over the electromagnetic field, which wasn't so long ago. Perhaps it is still plausible, because we're still missing out on something important.
- r00fus 7y agoWith sapience enters ego...
- macintux 7y agoBut easy access to energy is gone. This is Earth’s last chance to bootstrap to the stars.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- filoleg 7y agoI never thought of it this way, but after reading your comment, this realization definitely hit me pretty hard.
- pc86 7y agoWell, they're wrong, so...
- fosk 7y agoThat's not true: given enough time decomposing organic material will create new oil reserves, while all the metals excavated are still right here on the surface of the Earth used every day by us (cars, phones, ...) and ready to re-enter the surface once we are done using them.
- state_less 7y agoI'm not sure I follow. How is it gone? We have fusion (solar) and fission. And we may find out how to more directly harness energy as we progress. I think our access to energy is limited by our lack of knowledge. I agree though, we should get out on some new space vessels soon to buy some insurance and project ourselves into the far future.
- macintux 7y agoIf we go extinct, the next intelligent species (if there is one) won’t have the easy reserves we used to get started. You can’t jump directly from fire to fusion.
- 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- aeturnum 7y agoI don't take comfort in the potential extinction of humanity! Surely we recognize that living things exist independent and outside of us without needing to lessen our own existence. >Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe? I suppose you could but that's not what I said.
- trhway 7y ago>non-sapient critters still around even leaving out monkeys and apes, i think other animals like for example racoons can make it to the "sapient" level with time if humans would "release" the space back to the Nature. And i think we have only very slightest idea about birds and insects. Cro-Magnon has been i'd say a version 0.7 of sapience with major bugs and broken&missing features, and i'd not be surprised if the Nature had other versions in the works.
- philwelch 7y agoThat's entirely possible. But sapience isn't necessarily adaptive. Ancient humans combined sapience with other traits like endurance, dexterity, overhand throwing ability, and social instincts to carve out an ecological niche long enough to reap the benefits of culture. Removing any one of those factors would have made prehistoric humans unviable. If I was going to bet on non-human sapience, though, I'd go with crows. Intelligence seems to be most effective if you combine it with social instincts to create culture. Crows do this already.
- joejerryronnie 7y agoThe entire milky way galaxy being swallowed by a super massive blackhole would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- robobro 7y ago> ecofascism Oh, you're a "social ecologist" aren't you? There is nothing fascist or right-leaning in the notion that human activity largely has a negative impact on the natural world.
- cortesoft 7y agoWe are part of the natural world
- yters 7y agoHaven't humans also cultivated much of the natural world? Some ecosystems fall apart once humans leave.
- aeturnum 7y agoI'm not really any kind of ecologist? Humanity has an outsized impact on the world (natural and artificial). Our influence has impacted nearly all the ecological niches on earth. That said, assigning moral agency to me (or you) for that depends on a series of logical connections between ways of being and the human impact on the world. We each choose (somewhat - hard to choose to be born in the first world) how we live, but individuals have limited agency for what "humanity" does as a whole. It's all well and good to say "humans bad" (and I don't totally disagree?), but that perspective has been out there for a while and humans are still doing the bad things. Seems like we should search for different approaches.
- GaryNumanVevo 7y agoI don't think any ecofacist exists outside of 4chan
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoIf eco-terrorists are a subset of eco-fascists, they certainly exist in the real world and are dangerous.
- _jal 7y agoI'm not aware of any "eco terrorist" who also as an eco-fascist, but I could be missing someone. Scare quotes because I refuse to debase the word 'terrorism' by extending it to include property damage. Edit: To put it mildly, the average Earth Firster has almost nothing politically in common with, e.g., the Christchurch shooter or the Unibomber.
- jessaustin 7y agoThey might exist in congressional testimony, if FBI decide they need more money or something.
- yters 7y agoWhat if humans are special, and help hold ecosystems together? We know of some, like the great plains and the redwood forests, where lack of human management leads to ecosystem breakdown.
- _jal 7y agoThat doesn't make humans special. Ecosystems are defined by the interrelations of many actors. The fact that humans are huge, impactful actors matters, but doesn't make them unique. Also recall that humans, as an invasive species, can be adept at destroying ecosystems. There's a big, interlocking series of forests in South America, for instance, that gets a lot of attention, but that's hardly the only example.
- yters 7y agoIf humans hold our ecosystems together, then elimination of humans will also result in the rest of animals dying off.
- _jal 7y agoAnd if another species dies off, it can also destabilize the ecosystem. Where is the special role of humans coming from?
- yters 7y agoWe are able to recognize, anticipate and avert ecological collapse. No other animal can do this. The rest of the animal kingdom can only adapt, at best.
- _jal 7y agoI think you both overstate human understanding of ecological systems and desire to maintain them. Humans mostly tend to radically reshape local ecosystems for their own ends, at times collapsing them. Aside from some very local remediation successes here and there (which are more repair jobs than preservation), I'm unaware of any evidence that humans have "recognized, anticipated and averted" any of note. Do you have any?
- mistrial9 7y agothis is a guaranteed-fail way of introducing this topic IMHO, at a critical point in history.. please avoid "landmine" or "hot button" phrases discussing massive topics !
- thedance 7y agoI fail to see how "ecofascistic" does not fly apart into its mutually repellant components. Fascism is strongly tied to modernity and modernism. It is the polar opposite of allowing nature to overtake cities. Intentional decline is decadence, which is expressly opposed by fascist ideology.
- rplst8 7y agoThe end of humanity would not be the end of life, right now. However it's only a matter of time until something large collides with Earth and destroys it all. Like it or not humans are the best chance this planet has to continue life on after a cataclysmic event by hopefully colonizing another planet.