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There's a great political cartoon I saw once (we've probably all seen it) where a guy in a tattered suit is sitting at a campfire with some other people and he

There's a great political cartoon I saw once (we've probably all seen it) where a guy in a tattered suit is sitting at a campfire with some other people and he says, "yes the planet was destroyed but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." It may be weird to say but that single cartoon did more to influence my view of my place in the world than anything else. I had aspirations of working in finance that have since completely and happily abandoned. I don't think the point in the title of this post is even arguable anymore. Now we just have to decide what we want to do about it and what kind of future we want. I commend organizations that are trying to tackle the problem because they're really up against a lot.

nathancahill 6y ago
https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
VMG 6y ago
Imagine the cartoon with the dialogue "yes, millions of people continued to live in subsistence farming and faced an early death, but for a beautiful moment in time the Yangtze Finless Porpoise continued to reproduce"
- delecti 6y ago
  I don't accept the premise that it's impossible to lift the entire population out of that existence without unrestrained environmental damage.
  - e2021 6y ago
    That literally is the premise of the article though - economic growth is impossible without environmental damage
    - delecti 6y ago
      The problem is conflating societal development with economic growth. Do the rhetorical people in the GP comment living in subsistence farming need money, or just food? We grow more food than we need, and if we as a species chose to allocate those resources as they were needed, we could feed everyone. Instead, consumers which are unprofitable to provide food to are left to fend for themselves. Crops regularly go to waste due to lack of demand from customers who can pay.
      - VMG 6y ago
        Maybe they need medicine, cars and a computer to write HN comments as well? Or is that just a privilege for us here?
      - zajio1am 6y ago
        Societal development is more or less limited by economic growth. We grow more food that we need due to past economic growth, without it almost everybody would be subsistence farmer, like they were couple hundred years ago.
    - dmix 6y ago
      That doesn't make it true. National parks, massive non profit animal parks, and well funded conservation teams all need funding and time. Both of those are a luxury in most places in the world with underdeveloped economies. Across the world in countries living in poverty the environment always takes a backseat. Without a stable economy and stable nation states the outcomes will be far worse. It’s hardly just either/or. If anything it’s the mere existence of humans and population levels aren’t going down anytime soon. The fact they engage in trade for survival and to prevent suffering is merely a product of that. The only way this articles direct correlation makes sense is if economic success doesn’t increase capacity for conservation and humans ability/technology isn’t capable of being at a minimum neutral harm to the wider ecosystem. But it will always be a balance, that’s just the cards we were dealt being born on this planet. I mean we were already killing thousands of animals and countless plants and manipulating the earth well before the word ‘economy’ was ever invented.
  - VMG 6y ago
    can you do it with no environmental damage?
- ianleeclark 6y ago
  I don't think the only intermediary between untold cataclysmic climate change and "nature before humans" is only subsistence farming.
- mooseburger 6y ago
  There's a reason Jesus' reply to the first temptation of the Devil was "One does not live by bread alone": the world is not a problem to be solved, and as long as man continues to see it like that, their suffering will continue unabated. This is what mankind should be shooting for: http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=270 http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=270, not whatever goal the blind idiot god of capitalism spews forth.
- qqssccfftt 6y ago
  Of course, it is a completely unfallable and natural law of the universe that you can't have living standards without big number going up. Oh wait. I'm pretty sure some of the countries with the biggest numbers don't really have that good of living standards.
_red 6y ago
The sun will eventually burn out, asteroids will continue to hit, plagues will continue to come....the entire universe will ultimately end. It always seems that those who fetishize "environmental conservation" don't really appreciate the situation we are in. That doesn't mean that we should actively destroy it, but its fate has already been sealed. The notion that there is some pristine perfect world is probably a holdover from religious thinking that has now morphed its way into a modern secular religion.
- carapace 6y ago
  "Don't shit where you eat."

nathancahill 6y ago

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

VMG 6y ago

Imagine the cartoon with the dialogue "yes, millions of people continued to live in subsistence farming and faced an early death, but for a beautiful moment in time the Yangtze Finless Porpoise continued to reproduce"

delecti 6y ago
I don't accept the premise that it's impossible to lift the entire population out of that existence without unrestrained environmental damage.
- e2021 6y ago
  That literally is the premise of the article though - economic growth is impossible without environmental damage
  - delecti 6y ago
    The problem is conflating societal development with economic growth. Do the rhetorical people in the GP comment living in subsistence farming need money, or just food? We grow more food than we need, and if we as a species chose to allocate those resources as they were needed, we could feed everyone. Instead, consumers which are unprofitable to provide food to are left to fend for themselves. Crops regularly go to waste due to lack of demand from customers who can pay.
    - VMG 6y ago
      Maybe they need medicine, cars and a computer to write HN comments as well? Or is that just a privilege for us here?
    - zajio1am 6y ago
      Societal development is more or less limited by economic growth. We grow more food that we need due to past economic growth, without it almost everybody would be subsistence farmer, like they were couple hundred years ago.
  - dmix 6y ago
    That doesn't make it true. National parks, massive non profit animal parks, and well funded conservation teams all need funding and time. Both of those are a luxury in most places in the world with underdeveloped economies. Across the world in countries living in poverty the environment always takes a backseat. Without a stable economy and stable nation states the outcomes will be far worse. It’s hardly just either/or. If anything it’s the mere existence of humans and population levels aren’t going down anytime soon. The fact they engage in trade for survival and to prevent suffering is merely a product of that. The only way this articles direct correlation makes sense is if economic success doesn’t increase capacity for conservation and humans ability/technology isn’t capable of being at a minimum neutral harm to the wider ecosystem. But it will always be a balance, that’s just the cards we were dealt being born on this planet. I mean we were already killing thousands of animals and countless plants and manipulating the earth well before the word ‘economy’ was ever invented.
- VMG 6y ago
  can you do it with no environmental damage?
ianleeclark 6y ago
I don't think the only intermediary between untold cataclysmic climate change and "nature before humans" is only subsistence farming.
mooseburger 6y ago
There's a reason Jesus' reply to the first temptation of the Devil was "One does not live by bread alone": the world is not a problem to be solved, and as long as man continues to see it like that, their suffering will continue unabated. This is what mankind should be shooting for: http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=270 http://www.fiftytwostories.com/?p=270, not whatever goal the blind idiot god of capitalism spews forth.
qqssccfftt 6y ago
Of course, it is a completely unfallable and natural law of the universe that you can't have living standards without big number going up. Oh wait. I'm pretty sure some of the countries with the biggest numbers don't really have that good of living standards.

_red 6y ago

The sun will eventually burn out, asteroids will continue to hit, plagues will continue to come....the entire universe will ultimately end. It always seems that those who fetishize "environmental conservation" don't really appreciate the situation we are in. That doesn't mean that we should actively destroy it, but its fate has already been sealed. The notion that there is some pristine perfect world is probably a holdover from religious thinking that has now morphed its way into a modern secular religion.

carapace 6y ago
"Don't shit where you eat."