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We are doing to our brains and our children the same thing we are doing to pigs in cages, squezeeing every last cent until the planet burns down.
by barrenko 3mo ago
We are doing to our brains and our children the same thing we are doing to pigs in cages, squezeeing every last cent until the planet burns down.
- bcjdjsndon 3mo ago> until the planet burns down. Common misconception. We won't kill the planet even if we tried to. Wed make it too hard to sustain billions of humans, sure. But they are very different things
- malfist 3mo agoYou say that, but run away greenhouse gases can sterilize the entire planet, like Venus.
- inigyou 3mo agoFortunately that particular extreme scenario doesn't seem likely. Radiance scales with the fourth power of temperature, and we're not filling the atmosphere with Venus levels of sulfuric acid. Our CO2 output will be self-limiting when it kills us and we stop outputting it.
- NoGravitas 3mo agoSure, it will "only" look like another one of the Big Five extinction events.
- nonethewiser 3mo agoThis is a good distinction because its a common idea but its based on a conflation: human civilizationhealth and planet health. Planet health is hard to even think about apart from humans but the planet in no way “needs” us.
- Timon3 3mo agoIt's a silly distinction. Unless we're wiped out by a virus or something similar, whatever ends us is likely to also take down a huge part of the biosphere as well - as is already happening. "Burning something down" doesn't mean literally killing all life. But the unnecessary deaths of likely billions of animals in the long run should weigh enough to stop this nitpicking.
- therobots927 3mo agoSame could be said about any of the many mass extinction events in earth history. Not that I’m in favor of setting the planet on fire, but if you zoom out far enough it’s clear earth would bounce back from even a nuclear war coupled with climate change and microplastics.
- Timon3 3mo agoAnd that makes it somehow okay? You just don't care about billions of deaths? Like, do you think I'd argue that any of the previous mass extinctions were good?
- barrenko 3mo agoWe won't kill it, but we can try to burn it. Conflagration comes to mind.
- alnwlsn 3mo agoLike a burned out brick building, a burned down planet is still there, but still also burned down. Of course it doesn't 'disappear'
- bratbag 3mo agoNot even close chief. Earth has been a rich, life sustaining planet in far hotter conditions then anything we are projected to take it to. We can kill billions of ourselves, but short of ww3 earth will crack on just fine. Social media emotional hot-takes dont match the numbers. We are still screwed though.
- peterleiser 3mo agoThere's always the Death Star angle.
- inigyou 3mo agoThe planet will still be here even if it burns down. After London burned down, there was still London. It was just burned down.
- NoGravitas 3mo agoSure, and the planet survived the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Cold comfort to 70% of the terrestrial vertebrate species at the time.
- deinonychus 3mo ago>We won't kill the planet even if we tried to. Common misconception. The planet isn't alive. We can't kill it. It's a rock.