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The earth doesn't care, only humans care. Earth without humans would be pointless, so you have to take humans as they are, the good and the bad both. But pleas

by ars 5y ago

The earth doesn't care, only humans care. Earth without humans would be pointless, so you have to take humans as they are, the good and the bad both. But please remember things are way better now than they used to be, pre-industrialization was not the utopia many think.

tmountain 5y ago
I don’t think it would be any more or less pointless than it is now. If heat death is inevitable, nothing really “matters”. That said, the planet’s ecological health was indisputably better before the industrial revolution. Things sucked for humans in a lot of ways, but almost every other species was in a much better place.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  Surely not the place for this topic, but anyway. > If heat death is inevitable, nothing really “matters”. I never understand how, for people who say this, whether things go on forever the same (or slow down in trillions of years, or something else,) affects whether things matter here and now. How would anything be any different if things were going to go on forever the same? What kind of ideal universe would you like for it to seem like "things really matter"? It seems similar to (what seem to me mistaken) ideas of life being meaningless if it's not eternal, or if there's no god, or if the universe is so huge etc.. I don't see how anything of those things would change the here and now, or the significance of things.
  - tmountain 5y ago
    For clarity, I’m speaking to something mattering in the grand philosophical scheme of things—-not to whether anyone’s life has meaning, is worth living, etc. When confronted with a question of what matters to the earth (something that is 4.5 billion years old), you start looking at things on a cosmic scale. For whatever it’s worth, I enjoy my life, and I don’t really care if it “matters”. It’s a lot more fun to just follow the thread than worry how my short time here fits into time scales orders of magnitude longer than my lifespan.
thelittleone 5y ago
Earth without humans would be pointless? I disagree. Seems astonishingly arrogant to assume all else is nothing without humans. What about before the evolution of humans? One could argue that every step leading up to the first human was required for humans to appear in the first place. What about love? Do you think a chimp mother loves it's chimp child? Do you think that is pointless too?
- animal_spirits 5y ago
  I think the point they are trying to make is that chimps will also fight and murder and steal in order to survive. It's natural for certain life to take over other life. However in the end us humans have the ability to study these situations over long periods of time, and we know how harmful biodiversity loss can be to our own species as well as to others. These are values we cant assume isn't as deeply held within the animal/plant/fungi kingdoms
- usrusr 5y ago
  > Earth without humans would be pointless? Yeah, please forgive my sarcasm first, then imagine we'd somehow send a probe to an exoplanet and discover it to be full of life. But it only has equivalents of giraffes, carp, magpies, ants and so on, but not a single being that could be considered human-like that might be able to, say, invent the automobile or something like that. Sure we'd want our money back for that pointless probe?

by ars 5y ago

tmountain 5y ago

I don’t think it would be any more or less pointless than it is now. If heat death is inevitable, nothing really “matters”. That said, the planet’s ecological health was indisputably better before the industrial revolution. Things sucked for humans in a lot of ways, but almost every other species was in a much better place.

yesenadam 5y ago
Surely not the place for this topic, but anyway. > If heat death is inevitable, nothing really “matters”. I never understand how, for people who say this, whether things go on forever the same (or slow down in trillions of years, or something else,) affects whether things matter here and now. How would anything be any different if things were going to go on forever the same? What kind of ideal universe would you like for it to seem like "things really matter"? It seems similar to (what seem to me mistaken) ideas of life being meaningless if it's not eternal, or if there's no god, or if the universe is so huge etc.. I don't see how anything of those things would change the here and now, or the significance of things.
- tmountain 5y ago
  For clarity, I’m speaking to something mattering in the grand philosophical scheme of things—-not to whether anyone’s life has meaning, is worth living, etc. When confronted with a question of what matters to the earth (something that is 4.5 billion years old), you start looking at things on a cosmic scale. For whatever it’s worth, I enjoy my life, and I don’t really care if it “matters”. It’s a lot more fun to just follow the thread than worry how my short time here fits into time scales orders of magnitude longer than my lifespan.

thelittleone 5y ago

Earth without humans would be pointless? I disagree. Seems astonishingly arrogant to assume all else is nothing without humans. What about before the evolution of humans? One could argue that every step leading up to the first human was required for humans to appear in the first place. What about love? Do you think a chimp mother loves it's chimp child? Do you think that is pointless too?

animal_spirits 5y ago
I think the point they are trying to make is that chimps will also fight and murder and steal in order to survive. It's natural for certain life to take over other life. However in the end us humans have the ability to study these situations over long periods of time, and we know how harmful biodiversity loss can be to our own species as well as to others. These are values we cant assume isn't as deeply held within the animal/plant/fungi kingdoms
usrusr 5y ago
> Earth without humans would be pointless? Yeah, please forgive my sarcasm first, then imagine we'd somehow send a probe to an exoplanet and discover it to be full of life. But it only has equivalents of giraffes, carp, magpies, ants and so on, but not a single being that could be considered human-like that might be able to, say, invent the automobile or something like that. Sure we'd want our money back for that pointless probe?