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The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no imp

The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted.

RetpolineDrama 4y ago
>You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted. IMO this particular aspect of modern environmentalism is a religious root on a secular tree. Many religions imply that man isn't natural, that there's the nature world and that we are above it/not part of it. That core belief carries over into secular society/people even though they no longer believe the system of thought that lead to that conclusion. I assert that man is in fact natural not supernatural, and that the changes man makes to the world as as natural of a process a trees overgrowing a grassland to make a forest or an ocean eroding away an island.
- ravenstine 4y ago
  Interesting. Yeah, the separation of many from nature (or perhaps that "nature" is even a comprehensible idea) seems demireligious in the sense that nature was given to man to have dominion over; man can become holy but not animals, depending on one's inherited belief system. There's other fallacious ideas around nature that may have nothing to do with religion that I think are just common breakdowns in logic. People commonly apply the idea of "balance" to areas where it doesn't apply, or at least doesn't apply in the way that they think it does. Earth is a complicated system of systems, but is it meant to be in balance? If that were so, Earth's climate would not oscillate (excluding changes in solar output) over geological eras. Was Earth out of balance during the ice age? "Balance" may in part be a proxy for our desire to want systems with which we are accustomed to not change. I've witnessed countless individuals, concerned with preserving nature, who would consider a plant or animal to be "non-native" or "invasive" while failing to recognize that the plants they believe to be "native" were introduced by animals in recent ecological history. They overlook the possibility (really a high likelihood) that the environment that explorers set foot on was significantly different from how it was even a century prior. It'd difficult for concepts of nativeness and invasiveness to be comprehensible if they did. Not that these aren't useful concepts in some domain, but many people interested in ecology or environmentalism believe them to be absolutely accurate or meaningful.
carapace 4y ago
> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. No. At best that's a position held only by a tiny and extreme minority. Consider "Permaculture", a school of applied ecology that's become popular all over the world since it was started by a government-employed ecologist and co. in the late 1970's. The explicit goal of this design school is to create and maintain agriculturally productive ecosystems that improve soil fertility and volume over time (the "permanent" part of "Permanent Agriculture".) With applied ecology we could probably increase the carrying capacity of the Earth to the point of having, say, 20B people while also increasing biodiversity and climate and long-term stability and all that good stuff.
- quantified 4y ago
  The Mayans figured out how to grow corn and beans such that farmland was fertile indefinitely. The Pilgrims came into managed forests of edible nut trees that were good hunting grounds. Feels like we have a serious NIH complex.
kerkeslager 4y ago
> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted. This is mostly a straw man argument. It's always a mistake to represent diverse groups like "environmentalists" as holding a homogeneous belief. There are certainly some environmentalists who believe what you just said, but as an environmentalist, I don't believe that, and I think the environmentalists who do believe that are the minority of environmentalists. On the contrary, for me, environmentalism isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving humans. The planet doesn't need saving: if we turn the planet into a barren wasteland it will uncaringly continue hurtling through space without us, but we'll be dead. The environment is a necessary component to human survival and thriving. I don't believe that means we should have no impact on the environment--that's not possible--but that we need to be careful about when we change our impact on the environment, because we risk breaking the fragile ecosystems that have supported our existence.
- quantified 4y ago
  Thinking only about the humans is pretty selfish and sad. If Asian hornets go extinct, or gonorrhea bacilli, I won't shed many tears. Whales, elephants, apes laugh and love also, let them live.
  - kerkeslager 4y ago
    I wouldn't say I'm thinking only about the humans. It's a matter of prioritization, not exclusion.
ebiester 4y ago
You are mixing up advertising slogans and beliefs, and it's why "save the earth" has largely been abandoned as a slogan in favor of "the earth is fine -- it's humans that are in danger." Even that is a bit difficult. We're really talking about reducing the carrying capacity of the earth in most scenarios for both humans and other animals. Environmentalism is saying that many humans will die on the default path, and this is a path that can be diverted with sufficient action. The longer we wait, the worse the action is going to need to be and the more people that may die. But nuances are difficult to communicate when the other side is working in wholesale disinformation.
cnelsenmilt 4y ago
There's, uh, a large middle ground between "no humans, zero impact" and "so much impact that we're altering global weather patterns".
quantified 4y ago
A return to the technical limitations and lifestyles of somewhere between 3000 BCE and 1400 CE would do. Maybe live like the Amish do. Fewer people would be supported, true, but we'd still dominate all other lifeforms.
- theragra 4y ago
  IT would be hard to convince people to stop procreating en masse
  - quantified 4y ago
    That's why giving up is so attractive. We will procreate our way beyond all sustainability. Our economies have been arranged to require continual population growth, only disease and war correct it. When populations stabilize or drop, the call goes out to get people from Africa and the Middle East where birthrates are high. So continual world war seems the only way to become sustainable.
    - theragra 4y ago
      But do we? Population growth slows down at certain level of quality of life, no secret there. If you want for this to happen worldwide, make sure riches are distributed better than now. Still unlikely utopia, but easier than laws against having children

RetpolineDrama 4y ago

>You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted. IMO this particular aspect of modern environmentalism is a religious root on a secular tree. Many religions imply that man isn't natural, that there's the nature world and that we are above it/not part of it. That core belief carries over into secular society/people even though they no longer believe the system of thought that lead to that conclusion. I assert that man is in fact natural not supernatural, and that the changes man makes to the world as as natural of a process a trees overgrowing a grassland to make a forest or an ocean eroding away an island.

ravenstine 4y ago
Interesting. Yeah, the separation of many from nature (or perhaps that "nature" is even a comprehensible idea) seems demireligious in the sense that nature was given to man to have dominion over; man can become holy but not animals, depending on one's inherited belief system. There's other fallacious ideas around nature that may have nothing to do with religion that I think are just common breakdowns in logic. People commonly apply the idea of "balance" to areas where it doesn't apply, or at least doesn't apply in the way that they think it does. Earth is a complicated system of systems, but is it meant to be in balance? If that were so, Earth's climate would not oscillate (excluding changes in solar output) over geological eras. Was Earth out of balance during the ice age? "Balance" may in part be a proxy for our desire to want systems with which we are accustomed to not change. I've witnessed countless individuals, concerned with preserving nature, who would consider a plant or animal to be "non-native" or "invasive" while failing to recognize that the plants they believe to be "native" were introduced by animals in recent ecological history. They overlook the possibility (really a high likelihood) that the environment that explorers set foot on was significantly different from how it was even a century prior. It'd difficult for concepts of nativeness and invasiveness to be comprehensible if they did. Not that these aren't useful concepts in some domain, but many people interested in ecology or environmentalism believe them to be absolutely accurate or meaningful.

carapace 4y ago

> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. No. At best that's a position held only by a tiny and extreme minority. Consider "Permaculture", a school of applied ecology that's become popular all over the world since it was started by a government-employed ecologist and co. in the late 1970's. The explicit goal of this design school is to create and maintain agriculturally productive ecosystems that improve soil fertility and volume over time (the "permanent" part of "Permanent Agriculture".) With applied ecology we could probably increase the carrying capacity of the Earth to the point of having, say, 20B people while also increasing biodiversity and climate and long-term stability and all that good stuff.

quantified 4y ago
The Mayans figured out how to grow corn and beans such that farmland was fertile indefinitely. The Pilgrims came into managed forests of edible nut trees that were good hunting grounds. Feels like we have a serious NIH complex.

kerkeslager 4y ago

> The very premise of modern environmentalism necessitates human extinction by logical extension. You can't act or believe as if humans can or should have no impact on the environment without entertaining humanity's gradual demise as part of the process of "saving the earth" when all other known options are exhausted. This is mostly a straw man argument. It's always a mistake to represent diverse groups like "environmentalists" as holding a homogeneous belief. There are certainly some environmentalists who believe what you just said, but as an environmentalist, I don't believe that, and I think the environmentalists who do believe that are the minority of environmentalists. On the contrary, for me, environmentalism isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving humans. The planet doesn't need saving: if we turn the planet into a barren wasteland it will uncaringly continue hurtling through space without us, but we'll be dead. The environment is a necessary component to human survival and thriving. I don't believe that means we should have no impact on the environment--that's not possible--but that we need to be careful about when we change our impact on the environment, because we risk breaking the fragile ecosystems that have supported our existence.

quantified 4y ago
Thinking only about the humans is pretty selfish and sad. If Asian hornets go extinct, or gonorrhea bacilli, I won't shed many tears. Whales, elephants, apes laugh and love also, let them live.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  I wouldn't say I'm thinking only about the humans. It's a matter of prioritization, not exclusion.

ebiester 4y ago

You are mixing up advertising slogans and beliefs, and it's why "save the earth" has largely been abandoned as a slogan in favor of "the earth is fine -- it's humans that are in danger." Even that is a bit difficult. We're really talking about reducing the carrying capacity of the earth in most scenarios for both humans and other animals. Environmentalism is saying that many humans will die on the default path, and this is a path that can be diverted with sufficient action. The longer we wait, the worse the action is going to need to be and the more people that may die. But nuances are difficult to communicate when the other side is working in wholesale disinformation.

cnelsenmilt 4y ago

There's, uh, a large middle ground between "no humans, zero impact" and "so much impact that we're altering global weather patterns".

quantified 4y ago

A return to the technical limitations and lifestyles of somewhere between 3000 BCE and 1400 CE would do. Maybe live like the Amish do. Fewer people would be supported, true, but we'd still dominate all other lifeforms.

theragra 4y ago
IT would be hard to convince people to stop procreating en masse
- quantified 4y ago
  That's why giving up is so attractive. We will procreate our way beyond all sustainability. Our economies have been arranged to require continual population growth, only disease and war correct it. When populations stabilize or drop, the call goes out to get people from Africa and the Middle East where birthrates are high. So continual world war seems the only way to become sustainable.
  - theragra 4y ago
    But do we? Population growth slows down at certain level of quality of life, no secret there. If you want for this to happen worldwide, make sure riches are distributed better than now. Still unlikely utopia, but easier than laws against having children