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Maybe there is no way out, but I prefer modern life with global warming to pre-industrial-times life. And I am sure I am not alone.
by pif 3y ago
Maybe there is no way out, but I prefer modern life with global warming to pre-industrial-times life.
And I am sure I am not alone.
- Fricken 3y agoI've noticed in people a strong bias toward what they're familiar with. How much time have you spent living in a pre industrial society? There are tribal societies that have been stable for tens of thousands of years. Modernity is an inherently unstable system.
- pif 3y agoStability is not the goal. Comfort is the goal. And pre-industrial societies switched to industrial societies as fast as they could!
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> There are tribal societies that have been stable for tens of thousands of years. With which average lifespan and enduring what pain? What was the solution for, say, a tooth going south? Medicine was ugly back then. Between 1% to 1.5% of all the woman giving birth would die while doing so in 1600. Something insane like that. We've literally gone down at least 30x. Also back then women couldn't really decide whether they'd become pregnant or not. At 17 years old or so I got a medical emergency: doctor diagnosed an appendicitis that was missed a few days earlier for I was under strong painkillers. When it was diagnosed a few hours later I was undergoing surgery. In 1600 I could very well have died of peritonitis / infection without the surgery. I see all those years I lived since then as pure win, thanks to modernity. It comes at a cost but I live better than any king has ever lived (except for those who live/lived in modern times).
- Fricken 3y agoYep, we're still 100% mortal, and it's this big thing that looms over everybody. Nothing has changed in that regard. We die just as much as we ever did. I had a terrible fever when I was 3, I probably wouldn't have made it if it wasn't for modern health care. Beyond that, though, I've only needed modern healthcare for ailments caused by modernity: Tooth problems from sugar and not chewing enough, and also I was hit by a car. Talking about cruel healthcare practices, though, can you imagine being on your back with a tube shoved down your throat for weeks while you slowly suffocate to death like some of those peeps in the COVID wards? 3 of my 4 grandparents are dead, and all but one died in slow, drawn out and excruciatingly painful ways.
- hef19898 3y agoAnd how exactly does fighting, or by now rather mitigating, climate change require a pre-industrial society?
- pif 3y agoBecause industrial society is based on abundant, cheap energy; and we don't have yet any alternative to fossil fuels; and the most drastic plans proposed are not even expected to produce a noticeable result for several decades.
- ThalesX 3y agoWe have people wondering how to get to a 1 on the Kardashev Scale and then there's also people that want to hit the 0 goalpost. It's a sight to behold.
- mpweiher 3y ago> we don't have yet any alternative to fossil fuels; We kinda do. We just have an irrational fear of it. The fact that we let irrational fears override real and pressing problems is an indicator that the problems aren't perceived as real and pressing enough. Yet.
- pif 3y ago> We kinda do. You are talking about nuclear, aren't you? I agree with you that nuclear is part of the solution. The pragmatic in me just insists that we cut drastically fossil fuel consumption after enough nuclear reactors are in operation.
- mandmandam 3y agoYou're not alone in that preference. Having company doesn't mean that preference isn't selfish and short-sighted though. Here are some of the planetary costs of the industrial revolution: > The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background extinction rate > 7% of all species on Earth may have been lost already > only around 3% of the planet's terrestrial surface is ecologically and faunally intact > roughly one million species face extinction within decades as the result of human actions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction If you believe Sky Daddy only cares about humans, or that we out-value all other life on the planet because we invented rocketry and antibiotics, then I guess this is all fine. But I don't, and I'm not alone either. Just as we can have capitalism without poverty, we can have industry without apocalypse. It'll upset some extraordinarily wealthy fossil fuel people, but they're the ones who put us in this mess.
- pif 3y ago> we can have industry without apocalypse. Just how? I've not yet heard a proposal for a plan that is expected to work.
- mandmandam 3y agoI suggest you start listening to smarter people then.