14 ms·

I can't help but think, more and more often; how destructive and short sighted human technology has become. I find it fascinating to watch how ingenious we are

I can't help but think, more and more often; how destructive and short sighted human technology has become. I find it fascinating to watch how ingenious we are, but equally or more terrifying. The ocean is our single life sustaining force.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Darkphibre 4y ago
I found the book Rama Revealed by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee to be an unbelievable and depressing outlook on the short sidedness of man's assault on limited resources. And then I was driving through Phoenix Arizona, looking out at the concrete landscape and concrete riverways, and realized just how right he was.
- vwoolf 4y ago
  A large part of the reason Phoenix (the greater metro area) is as large as it is is because most of California restricts new housing construction so severely. I'd not live here if it weren't so much more affordable than California. The parking-lot sprawl is appalling, and should be reversed, but California policies (like those in New York, Boston, etc.) have a lot to do with the growth of the Phoenix-to-Florida area.
  - aporetics 4y ago
    Interesting, but that’s just a proximal cause. The question is what will it take for us all, collectively, to refrain from using whatever is it hand for whatever we happen to desire. Out of respect for what? Most of the time this kind of self restraint does not really seem conceivable. Instead, in debates like this, we’ll defer to emissions and sequestration data, without ever confronting what what it is that led us to blithely create and deploy machines like this and shrug off the damage.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      > what will it take for us all, collectively, to refrain from using whatever is it hand for whatever we happen to desire Evolving to a new species entirely. What you described is one of the most fundamental attributes of homo sapiens.
      - aporetics 4y ago
        zoon logon echon
  - sitkack 4y ago
    You blame others for the bed you make and sleep in? What should we do to convince the Faunecians to stay in Cali?
zokier 4y ago
> I can't help but think, more and more often; how destructive and short sighted human technology has become I'd say the attitudes 50 or 100 years were dramatically more short sighted than today; destructiveness is bit debatable but lets not kid ourselves that the past was some gentle setting. Also take into account the fact that human population has quadrupled in the past 100ish years, and industrialized population growth has been even more dramatic; I don't know if you can say technology has become much more destructive when there are just so much more people partaking in that destruction.
- grapescheesee 4y ago
  Yes, that is interesting, and it is exacerbating the visible negatives. It is true, in general the expectations of first world quality of life; insofar as the current daily drivers. I do believe regardless of the scale, technology has become more destructive. The root cause has become far more nuanced, yet at the center is the idea. Human curiosity to see and prove, which itself isn't bad. The capital to prove the idea, and advance; is when the damage starts. I am not able to refute this cycle, it is just how the cutting edge of industry works. So it might appear you are correct.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Darkphibre 4y ago

I found the book Rama Revealed by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee to be an unbelievable and depressing outlook on the short sidedness of man's assault on limited resources. And then I was driving through Phoenix Arizona, looking out at the concrete landscape and concrete riverways, and realized just how right he was.

vwoolf 4y ago
A large part of the reason Phoenix (the greater metro area) is as large as it is is because most of California restricts new housing construction so severely. I'd not live here if it weren't so much more affordable than California. The parking-lot sprawl is appalling, and should be reversed, but California policies (like those in New York, Boston, etc.) have a lot to do with the growth of the Phoenix-to-Florida area.
- aporetics 4y ago
  Interesting, but that’s just a proximal cause. The question is what will it take for us all, collectively, to refrain from using whatever is it hand for whatever we happen to desire. Out of respect for what? Most of the time this kind of self restraint does not really seem conceivable. Instead, in debates like this, we’ll defer to emissions and sequestration data, without ever confronting what what it is that led us to blithely create and deploy machines like this and shrug off the damage.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > what will it take for us all, collectively, to refrain from using whatever is it hand for whatever we happen to desire Evolving to a new species entirely. What you described is one of the most fundamental attributes of homo sapiens.
    - aporetics 4y ago
      zoon logon echon
- sitkack 4y ago
  You blame others for the bed you make and sleep in? What should we do to convince the Faunecians to stay in Cali?

zokier 4y ago

> I can't help but think, more and more often; how destructive and short sighted human technology has become I'd say the attitudes 50 or 100 years were dramatically more short sighted than today; destructiveness is bit debatable but lets not kid ourselves that the past was some gentle setting. Also take into account the fact that human population has quadrupled in the past 100ish years, and industrialized population growth has been even more dramatic; I don't know if you can say technology has become much more destructive when there are just so much more people partaking in that destruction.

grapescheesee 4y ago
Yes, that is interesting, and it is exacerbating the visible negatives. It is true, in general the expectations of first world quality of life; insofar as the current daily drivers. I do believe regardless of the scale, technology has become more destructive. The root cause has become far more nuanced, yet at the center is the idea. Human curiosity to see and prove, which itself isn't bad. The capital to prove the idea, and advance; is when the damage starts. I am not able to refute this cycle, it is just how the cutting edge of industry works. So it might appear you are correct.