3 ms·

> HN is very rationalist/materialistic I find the opposite to be true when it comes to any real existential threats. HN simply cannot stomach the possibility t

> HN is very rationalist/materialistic I find the opposite to be true when it comes to any real existential threats. HN simply cannot stomach the possibility that the future might not be so bright after all and will generally go through amazing contortions to avoid seeing what's happening in front of their eyes. Stating the climate change is happening, and will create unprecedented catastrophe in our life times will win you immediate down votes and flagging. What's hilarious to me is a few years ago, when things looked fine to anyone that wasn't paying attention, HNer generally enjoyed ranting about their love of stoicism. Stoicism doesn't really get put to the test when things go well. As soon as the fact that our world is increasingly entering a state of collapse started to become more widely apparent, that stoicism went right out the window and was replaced with panicked, borderline insane denialism of all sorts. The only statements about the world that are allowed here now are some variant of "this is fine". In my experience it was the real rationalists and materialists that started looking at the big picture years ago and saying "hmmm... this doesn't look quite right"

DoreenMichele 5y ago
I'm an environmental studies major. My father fought in the front lines of two wars (edit: including WW2) and was twice decorated. I'm one of the annoyingly upbeat people saying things like "We don't actually know that. We don't actually have as much hard data on historical climate as we pretend we do. If you think we know what's going on here, you have much more faith in human mental models than I have." Actual temperature recordings by humans go back to about 1850 and we were delayed in discovering the hole in the ozone because our computers were told to disregard "zero" as an error in the data. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record We have mental models for the climate based on things like ice cores and inference but, no, we don't actually know and Jurassic Park is silly not because of the genetics but because the atmosphere was thicker back then. We know that because dragonflies and the like were huge, with two foot wingspans and our current atmosphere would not support them in terms of respiration and probably not let them fly, as a guess. The respiratory system of dinosaurs likely would be insufficient to support them in this day and age because the atmosphere is too thin. They would gasp for air like a fish out of water. This detail is generally overlooked and typically mocked and dismissed if you bring it up. General understanding of past climate on earth is not as sure fire "We know this for a fact" as humans like to imagine. There is a lot we don't know and one of the truisms about actual science is that real science is open to learning "We were wrong. It doesn't actually work that way." Science is our current best understanding of reality and it is full of incomplete info, erroneous ideas, etc and anyone who is actually rational actually knows that. And anyone who actually knows anything about people and getting things done in this world -- like businessmen -- knows that if you don't bother to try to fix it, it doesn't get fixed. If you run around screaming "The sky is falling!" and trying to prove that and convince everyone you are right, that tends to be self fulfilling prophecy. So if one is actually concerned about the future, one focuses on solutions, not on hand wringing. The world has been on the brink before and survived it. What humans broke they can sometimes unbreak. But that doesn't happen if your only goal is to convince everyone "We broke it and it can't be fixed."
- it_does_follow 5y ago
  > "We don't actually know that." Arguably one of my main areas of personal study is the limited ability of science to under stand the world, so I'm not one of the "the science is decided!" people. There's a bizarrely implied bias here in your statement that I've pointed out in past which is "we don't know so things are probably fine". I've been surprisingly close with a famous climate scientist who also holds this controversial opinion. I'm not convinced. The data I've seen right now is that our climate is breaking down quickly, in ways we have not expected, and we tend to underestimate the negative impacts of what we don't know on the future of our species. > "So if one is actually concerned about the future, one focuses on solutions, not on hand wringing." Only the naive optimist paints the pessimist as one who is obsessed with "hand wringing". I'm not remotely interested in panicking, or despair, but rather learning to find methods of survival in a quickly collapsing society. It's visibly happening this moment and in more ways than just climate, you don't need models to or predictions to realize what's going on. Which brings me to an even more important point: > I'm one of the annoyingly upbeat people I don't think you're the people I'm talking about. Politely disagreeing with my view is not the problem. The issue is with a huge subset of this community that will down vote and even flag content that scares them. My concern is that people in denial lead to strange behaviors and become increasingly dangerous as they need to become more aggressive in their denial to maintain mental health. The mental health of people unable to accept our current situations is degrading terrifyingly fast. Myself and all of the other people I know who saw all of this long before the pandemic are dealing with things reasonably well, after all we knew all of this was coming decades ago.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    There's a bizarrely implied bias here in your statement that I've pointed out in past which is "we don't know so things are probably fine". You are reading in a bias I don't have. My position is closer to that Men in Black line about "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet." Though I don't agree with the rest of it that "The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they do not know about it!" The society that is collapsing is a society with a long track record of oppressing various groups, including women. I happen to have been born with girl bits so I view that as not entirely a bad thing and, in fact, a potential opportunity for my life to maybe suck less in the future than it has for the past 56 years. Edit: and have an upvote. I'm always happy to engage in good discussion.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

I'm an environmental studies major. My father fought in the front lines of two wars (edit: including WW2) and was twice decorated. I'm one of the annoyingly upbeat people saying things like "We don't actually know that. We don't actually have as much hard data on historical climate as we pretend we do. If you think we know what's going on here, you have much more faith in human mental models than I have." Actual temperature recordings by humans go back to about 1850 and we were delayed in discovering the hole in the ozone because our computers were told to disregard "zero" as an error in the data. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_temperature_record We have mental models for the climate based on things like ice cores and inference but, no, we don't actually know and Jurassic Park is silly not because of the genetics but because the atmosphere was thicker back then. We know that because dragonflies and the like were huge, with two foot wingspans and our current atmosphere would not support them in terms of respiration and probably not let them fly, as a guess. The respiratory system of dinosaurs likely would be insufficient to support them in this day and age because the atmosphere is too thin. They would gasp for air like a fish out of water. This detail is generally overlooked and typically mocked and dismissed if you bring it up. General understanding of past climate on earth is not as sure fire "We know this for a fact" as humans like to imagine. There is a lot we don't know and one of the truisms about actual science is that real science is open to learning "We were wrong. It doesn't actually work that way." Science is our current best understanding of reality and it is full of incomplete info, erroneous ideas, etc and anyone who is actually rational actually knows that. And anyone who actually knows anything about people and getting things done in this world -- like businessmen -- knows that if you don't bother to try to fix it, it doesn't get fixed. If you run around screaming "The sky is falling!" and trying to prove that and convince everyone you are right, that tends to be self fulfilling prophecy. So if one is actually concerned about the future, one focuses on solutions, not on hand wringing. The world has been on the brink before and survived it. What humans broke they can sometimes unbreak. But that doesn't happen if your only goal is to convince everyone "We broke it and it can't be fixed."

it_does_follow 5y ago
> "We don't actually know that." Arguably one of my main areas of personal study is the limited ability of science to under stand the world, so I'm not one of the "the science is decided!" people. There's a bizarrely implied bias here in your statement that I've pointed out in past which is "we don't know so things are probably fine". I've been surprisingly close with a famous climate scientist who also holds this controversial opinion. I'm not convinced. The data I've seen right now is that our climate is breaking down quickly, in ways we have not expected, and we tend to underestimate the negative impacts of what we don't know on the future of our species. > "So if one is actually concerned about the future, one focuses on solutions, not on hand wringing." Only the naive optimist paints the pessimist as one who is obsessed with "hand wringing". I'm not remotely interested in panicking, or despair, but rather learning to find methods of survival in a quickly collapsing society. It's visibly happening this moment and in more ways than just climate, you don't need models to or predictions to realize what's going on. Which brings me to an even more important point: > I'm one of the annoyingly upbeat people I don't think you're the people I'm talking about. Politely disagreeing with my view is not the problem. The issue is with a huge subset of this community that will down vote and even flag content that scares them. My concern is that people in denial lead to strange behaviors and become increasingly dangerous as they need to become more aggressive in their denial to maintain mental health. The mental health of people unable to accept our current situations is degrading terrifyingly fast. Myself and all of the other people I know who saw all of this long before the pandemic are dealing with things reasonably well, after all we knew all of this was coming decades ago.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  There's a bizarrely implied bias here in your statement that I've pointed out in past which is "we don't know so things are probably fine". You are reading in a bias I don't have. My position is closer to that Men in Black line about "There's always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Korilian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable planet." Though I don't agree with the rest of it that "The only way these people can get on with their happy lives is that they do not know about it!" The society that is collapsing is a society with a long track record of oppressing various groups, including women. I happen to have been born with girl bits so I view that as not entirely a bad thing and, in fact, a potential opportunity for my life to maybe suck less in the future than it has for the past 56 years. Edit: and have an upvote. I'm always happy to engage in good discussion.