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> It’s surreal. I would say it’s human nature. We, humans, learn by making mistakes. There may be small differences among countries in the way we address, let’

> It’s surreal. I would say it’s human nature. We, humans, learn by making mistakes. There may be small differences among countries in the way we address, let’s say, climate change (e.g., Amsterdam is full of people riding bikes while Madrid is not), but at the end we all behave the same, whether in NY, Athens, or Santiago: we, as a world-wide society, only care about our immediate future, about our needs right now. The future? Well, let’s talk about that tomorrow. Countless of civilizations have disappeared (or transformed) due to this very short-term thinking way of doing things. We may disappear (or transform) as well.

bmitc 5y ago
> We, humans, learn by making mistakes. I don’t think that’s true, although you address a similar point of mine later. We often make the same mistakes over and over again. There’s a reason why we say history repeats itself. What humans really do is react to mistakes and other events based on consequences of our actions. This reactiveness has gotten us into this mess. We often view intelligence as being able to predict things, but as a society and species, we’re absolutely awful at prevention and conservation. We’re excellent at consumption.
qqtt 5y ago
Climate change as a crisis is perfectly threading the needle between human apathy, inability to invest in long term changes, and happening too slowly to provoke a reactionary response. We build social infrastructure that is incredibly resistant to change by design to protect ourselves and provide stability - but climate change is demanding massive changes which we are ill equipped to deal with politically. Traditionally we solve these moments in history with revolution to demand change - but climate change is happening too slowly for complacent human mindsets to react that way at a scale that it requires as a crisis. It is quite horrifying watching it play out in slow motion. This will not end well.

bmitc 5y ago

> We, humans, learn by making mistakes. I don’t think that’s true, although you address a similar point of mine later. We often make the same mistakes over and over again. There’s a reason why we say history repeats itself. What humans really do is react to mistakes and other events based on consequences of our actions. This reactiveness has gotten us into this mess. We often view intelligence as being able to predict things, but as a society and species, we’re absolutely awful at prevention and conservation. We’re excellent at consumption.

qqtt 5y ago

Climate change as a crisis is perfectly threading the needle between human apathy, inability to invest in long term changes, and happening too slowly to provoke a reactionary response. We build social infrastructure that is incredibly resistant to change by design to protect ourselves and provide stability - but climate change is demanding massive changes which we are ill equipped to deal with politically. Traditionally we solve these moments in history with revolution to demand change - but climate change is happening too slowly for complacent human mindsets to react that way at a scale that it requires as a crisis. It is quite horrifying watching it play out in slow motion. This will not end well.