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Ha! I find it enduringly funny that you mention arrogance here, since your comment is a perfect example of how human arrogance often gets in the way of correct

Ha! I find it enduringly funny that you mention arrogance here, since your comment is a perfect example of how human arrogance often gets in the way of correct analysis. If you think that it's optimal problem-solving for humans to just ignore any and all evidence that they would be healthier if they interacted differently with their environment at scale, that's just arrogance. It's absolutely nothing more, although I predict you'll keep assigning primacy to your gut feelings because engaging in thorough analysis would involve admitting you were wrong, which would make you feel bad.

alexey-salmin 3y ago
I obviously don't mind doing thorough analysis. But this analysis can be done correctly only if you define the end goal, what you are trying to optimize. If the goal is the prosperity of humanity then I'm all for it. However, if that's the case two things must be noted beforehand: 1) This is an anthropocentric approach. The parent comment seemed to imply that anthropocentrism is bad for some reason, so it might be an issue on your end too. 2) Prosperity of humanity as a goal is at odds with biodiversity. I don't regret the extermination of smallpox for one thing. I also appreciate for example that we largely replaced natural ecosystems with agricultural monocultures that yield more tons of food per square kilometer. This is great, we won't be able to sustain 8 billions of humans otherwise. If you agree with these points then this means that we agree on principle. The rest are implementation details that can be figured out. E.g. your question of whether "would be healthier if they interacted differently with their environment at scale" -- probably yes, there are many things that can be improved.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  If you look closely this is a troll account.
- upvote_test_act 3y ago
  > Prosperity of humanity as a goal is at odds with biodiversity. I roundly refute this frankly riduculous assertion. It shows a grave lack of understanding of the actual mechanisms that maintain the natural world in a state fit for human habitation.
  - alexey-salmin 3y ago
    Humans have been crushing biodiversity for more than two thousands years now and yet the homo sapiens is thriving by all objective measures like population count, habitat width and dispensable energy per capita. You may argue that at some point we have to stop and I agree. However this doesn't contradict the fact that up until now reducing biodiversity (e.g. by replacing forests with monoculture field crops) worked out extremely well.
  - upvote_test_act 3y ago
    For more details, see: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=biodiversity+and+human+wellbeing https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=biodiversity+and+human+...

alexey-salmin 3y ago

I obviously don't mind doing thorough analysis. But this analysis can be done correctly only if you define the end goal, what you are trying to optimize. If the goal is the prosperity of humanity then I'm all for it. However, if that's the case two things must be noted beforehand: 1) This is an anthropocentric approach. The parent comment seemed to imply that anthropocentrism is bad for some reason, so it might be an issue on your end too. 2) Prosperity of humanity as a goal is at odds with biodiversity. I don't regret the extermination of smallpox for one thing. I also appreciate for example that we largely replaced natural ecosystems with agricultural monocultures that yield more tons of food per square kilometer. This is great, we won't be able to sustain 8 billions of humans otherwise. If you agree with these points then this means that we agree on principle. The rest are implementation details that can be figured out. E.g. your question of whether "would be healthier if they interacted differently with their environment at scale" -- probably yes, there are many things that can be improved.

tsunamifury 3y ago
If you look closely this is a troll account.
upvote_test_act 3y ago
> Prosperity of humanity as a goal is at odds with biodiversity. I roundly refute this frankly riduculous assertion. It shows a grave lack of understanding of the actual mechanisms that maintain the natural world in a state fit for human habitation.
- alexey-salmin 3y ago
  Humans have been crushing biodiversity for more than two thousands years now and yet the homo sapiens is thriving by all objective measures like population count, habitat width and dispensable energy per capita. You may argue that at some point we have to stop and I agree. However this doesn't contradict the fact that up until now reducing biodiversity (e.g. by replacing forests with monoculture field crops) worked out extremely well.
- upvote_test_act 3y ago
  For more details, see: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=biodiversity+and+human+wellbeing https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=biodiversity+and+human+...