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Remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe

Remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe the superstitious nonsense from one angle, you are much more likely to believe in the Rapture claptrap as well.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe the superstitious nonsense from one angle, you are much more likely to believe in the Rapture claptrap as well. It's not like that's the only way to get to anti-environmentalism (e.g. "Why should we preserve lands for future generations, when I'll be dead by then?"). IMHO, indifference (of which I gave only one example) is a far bigger problem than any belief in the possibility of a deus ex machina solution (e.g. "Don't worry, we'll technology our way out of it. We always have before.").
- quantified 4y ago
  Oh, of course. The problem wasn't that he thought HE would be dead by then, but that everyone would either be in hell or heaven and the Earth would be irrelevant, that he wouldn't need to worry about his own great-grandchildren or anyone else's. I just wrote one quick example of the effects that belief in creationism roughly correlate with. The idea that mankind can't damage the Earth because it's God's creation is another one. It could be that the evolution of life has been orchestrated over billions of years by some sentient thing. But a 10,000-year old simulation of a detailed reality that appears to stretch back 13 or so billion years, vs the actual reality itself, boy does the simulation seem so much less believable.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > I just wrote one quick example of the effects that belief in creationism roughly correlate with. Do you think that "burn down all the trees because Jesus is coming," is a common attitude among creationists? If you do, it seems like an unwarranted leap without more data. IMHO, there's nothing about believing that the world was created 10,000 years ago that implies the end of the world is very imminent, and the kind attitudes you describe only make sense that context. In any case, my intuition says that various kinds of quotidian short-term thinking and unwillingness to make personal sacrifices would be much bigger cause for rejecting environmentalism than any kind of hard ideological reasoning (like religion). And in this case, the imminent doomsday argument for anti-environmentalism really feels like a backwards justification for policy preferences chosen for other reasons.
    - quantified 4y ago
      One highly-placed creationist can do more damage than all the atheists in the world. You probably don't remember the concerns over an evangelical president realizing he could be the instrument of prophesy in pushing the big red button. But no, it's an example of one thing that I believe is more common among creationists than non-creationists, because creationists overlap with nutbags who are evangelical more than non-creationists do. How do you otherwise arrive at the belief in the 10,000 year span?

tablespoon 4y ago

> Remember James Watt as Secretary of the Interior: why should we preserve the lands for future generations when there won't be future generations? If you believe the superstitious nonsense from one angle, you are much more likely to believe in the Rapture claptrap as well. It's not like that's the only way to get to anti-environmentalism (e.g. "Why should we preserve lands for future generations, when I'll be dead by then?"). IMHO, indifference (of which I gave only one example) is a far bigger problem than any belief in the possibility of a deus ex machina solution (e.g. "Don't worry, we'll technology our way out of it. We always have before.").

quantified 4y ago
Oh, of course. The problem wasn't that he thought HE would be dead by then, but that everyone would either be in hell or heaven and the Earth would be irrelevant, that he wouldn't need to worry about his own great-grandchildren or anyone else's. I just wrote one quick example of the effects that belief in creationism roughly correlate with. The idea that mankind can't damage the Earth because it's God's creation is another one. It could be that the evolution of life has been orchestrated over billions of years by some sentient thing. But a 10,000-year old simulation of a detailed reality that appears to stretch back 13 or so billion years, vs the actual reality itself, boy does the simulation seem so much less believable.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I just wrote one quick example of the effects that belief in creationism roughly correlate with. Do you think that "burn down all the trees because Jesus is coming," is a common attitude among creationists? If you do, it seems like an unwarranted leap without more data. IMHO, there's nothing about believing that the world was created 10,000 years ago that implies the end of the world is very imminent, and the kind attitudes you describe only make sense that context. In any case, my intuition says that various kinds of quotidian short-term thinking and unwillingness to make personal sacrifices would be much bigger cause for rejecting environmentalism than any kind of hard ideological reasoning (like religion). And in this case, the imminent doomsday argument for anti-environmentalism really feels like a backwards justification for policy preferences chosen for other reasons.
  - quantified 4y ago
    One highly-placed creationist can do more damage than all the atheists in the world. You probably don't remember the concerns over an evangelical president realizing he could be the instrument of prophesy in pushing the big red button. But no, it's an example of one thing that I believe is more common among creationists than non-creationists, because creationists overlap with nutbags who are evangelical more than non-creationists do. How do you otherwise arrive at the belief in the 10,000 year span?