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We now theorize that on Easter Island, the societies that presided there destroyed their island's environment to such an extent that they themselves were essent
by dscrd 14y ago
We now theorize that on Easter Island, the societies that presided there destroyed their island's environment to such an extent that they themselves were essentially destroyed.
To prevent that from happening, it would have made no impact if a few individuals would have stopped the harmful actions. They would have had to change the whole culture of consumption, production, even religion. See where I'm going with this?
- mseebach 14y ago> See where I'm going with this? Yes, you're constructing a "the end justifies the means" argument.
- zurn 14y agoLobbying for some change that's necessary to avoid a global scale catastrophe implies "the end justifies the means", thus should be rejected?
- mseebach 14y agoNo. But that's not what the GP does.
- smsm42 14y agoDepends on the nature of "something" and the value of "necessary". If somebody argued that to avoid global overpopulation and Malthusian catastrophe, we are to kill every 10th child born - you would probably reject this, even though the argument would be "it is necessary to avoid a global scale catastrophe". So far all Malthusian predictions of global scale exhaustion reliably turned false and in most cases, laughably so, in hindsight. This teaches us that such claims should be taken with extreme skepticism and drastic measures proposed under these claims are most probably not justified. This, of course, does not contradict the usability of technology (or non-technology means) for greater efficiency of energy use, conservation, etc. There's nothing wrong with recycling, reuse and energy saving. It just doesn't need to be turned to extremes under the slogans of future catastrophe that would never happen.
- jacques_chester 14y ago> See where I'm going with this? Down a slippery slope. Nobody actually knows what happened on Easter Island. There are as many theories as there are people trying to peddle their concept of how the world will / won't end.
- batgaijin 14y agoDo you live in a magical world where the two people vying for executive power in the most powerful country weren't scared of admitting to our failing ability to generate electricity efficiently OR in a green manner?
- calpaterson 14y ago> We now theorize that on Easter Island, the societies that presided there destroyed their island's environment to such an extent that they themselves were essentially destroyed. Actually, it's a matter of dispute among anthropologists and archaeologists. A notable book came out on the topic last year that contradicts the "ecological collapse" view: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/sep/07/3 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/201...
- jdietrich 14y agoMost historians now believe that the population collapse on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) was due to diseases brought in by European sailors and slave raiding by the Peruvians, rather than any ecological collapse.