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I often speak to people online who look at society and want to tear it down and start again. I've never understood that attitude. Growth out of decay takes wor

I often speak to people online who look at society and want to tear it down and start again. I've never understood that attitude. Growth out of decay takes work, but it takes considerably less work than accelerated decay and then trying to start again when there is nothing fertile left to build on. I like this article because it demonstrates that there is always fertile land and opportunities where people are not looking.

vouaobrasil 2mo ago
The general direction of society is still immense destruction of the biosphere. That doesn't change because you can make conditions better locally and in the short term, especially when such actions don't go against the general momentum of society. The fact is, there's often conflation with improving individual lives and conditions (the warm fuzzy feeling) with actually doing real good when it comes to our impact on this planet. The former is not necessarily related to the latter, especially since the system has just the right amount of leeway to allow people to feel better and let off steam without really changing the ultimate long-term direction. Even if there are many opportunities as you say, if the general momentum of society has three destructive acts for every one good one and that doesn't change, then society is still as destructive as ever. For instance, for people who care deeply about nature and the non-human aspects of the planet, human society is incredibly destructive and hasn't done much to change that direction, regardless of how many feel-good projects have occurred.
- RGamma 2mo ago
  Precivilisational lifestyles can only carry a small fraction of our current population. To a significant degree we're locked into this, and have been for thousands of years.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Only hundreds. Two centuries ago, the total human population was about 5% of today's population.
    - RGamma 2mo ago
      You'd still get regional overpopulation issues. E.g. the Justinian plague in 541 AD. That's still far away from mobile hunter gatherer tribes with densities of a few dozen people per 1-100 km^2. Homo sapiens is 300,000 years old, Homo erectus 2 million years. Modern civilization might not last on the order of 10,000 years, industrial civilization maybe not even 500 - or perhaps "forever", if we make it to controllable runaway technological improvement?
    - rayiner 2mo ago
      We have more forests today in Europe than we did 400 years ago.
  - vouaobrasil 2mo ago
    Hence the desire to tear it down.
    - RGamma 2mo ago
      The longings for simpler days are definitely still with us. They explain a lot of social dysfunction. E.g. see Terence McKenna.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
  Conclusion: Stop planting trees. Be sure to get your daily doomscrolling in, though.
inigyou 2mo ago
The perception is that society itself is the roadblock to improving society. For example American "democracy". It's easy to imagine things could improve faster if Congress and the executive were simply deleted overnight.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
  Replaced by what exactly? The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world adjusted for cost of living: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incomes-across-distribution-wb https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incomes-across-distributi... The fraction of the US population living on $30 or less per day is comparable to Sweden: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-than-30-per-day https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha... Our education system also looks pretty good in international comparisons: https://xcancel.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1732087511327908128 https://xcancel.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/17320875113279081... News focuses on the negatives, but we're doing reasonably well in absolute terms. Big random changes are likely to cause regression to the international mean, which is generally below the US on most metrics.
matheusmoreira 2mo ago
> I've never understood that attitude. It's because the powers that be do not want to make the society we want. They want to make the society they want, often at our expense. Therefore they must be torn down.
RetroTechie 2mo ago
> Growth out of decay takes work, but it takes considerably less work than accelerated decay and then trying to start again when there is nothing fertile left to build on. Indeed. This is why conservation of habitats (however small, or degraded) makes more sense than trying to restore already-destroyed areas. That said: if I could pick an area to work on for myself, I'd go for a stretch of wasteland. Why? Because the before-after difference would be more stark (read: more satisfying). And heavily degraded lands are in muuuch bigger supply than little-degraded areas. More important would be a general willingness of the locals to not interfere with restauration efforts. > I like this article because it demonstrates that there is always fertile land and opportunities where people are not looking. Stronger: "fertile" isn't strictly needed. Fertile soil can be built - if necessary, starting from 'scratch' (yes it does take time). Basically: grow stuff (anything is better than nothing), mulch (bio-waste is free), keep doing so, and whatever soil you started with, will improve over time. As the soil improves, plants grow better & other life returns.
AtlasBarfed 2mo ago
Mars has lots of open land Of course with libertarians, it's never about the purity of thought, just the convenience to their pocketbook

vouaobrasil 2mo ago

The general direction of society is still immense destruction of the biosphere. That doesn't change because you can make conditions better locally and in the short term, especially when such actions don't go against the general momentum of society. The fact is, there's often conflation with improving individual lives and conditions (the warm fuzzy feeling) with actually doing real good when it comes to our impact on this planet. The former is not necessarily related to the latter, especially since the system has just the right amount of leeway to allow people to feel better and let off steam without really changing the ultimate long-term direction. Even if there are many opportunities as you say, if the general momentum of society has three destructive acts for every one good one and that doesn't change, then society is still as destructive as ever. For instance, for people who care deeply about nature and the non-human aspects of the planet, human society is incredibly destructive and hasn't done much to change that direction, regardless of how many feel-good projects have occurred.

RGamma 2mo ago
Precivilisational lifestyles can only carry a small fraction of our current population. To a significant degree we're locked into this, and have been for thousands of years.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Only hundreds. Two centuries ago, the total human population was about 5% of today's population.
  - RGamma 2mo ago
    You'd still get regional overpopulation issues. E.g. the Justinian plague in 541 AD. That's still far away from mobile hunter gatherer tribes with densities of a few dozen people per 1-100 km^2. Homo sapiens is 300,000 years old, Homo erectus 2 million years. Modern civilization might not last on the order of 10,000 years, industrial civilization maybe not even 500 - or perhaps "forever", if we make it to controllable runaway technological improvement?
  - rayiner 2mo ago
    We have more forests today in Europe than we did 400 years ago.
- vouaobrasil 2mo ago
  Hence the desire to tear it down.
  - RGamma 2mo ago
    The longings for simpler days are definitely still with us. They explain a lot of social dysfunction. E.g. see Terence McKenna.
0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
Conclusion: Stop planting trees. Be sure to get your daily doomscrolling in, though.

inigyou 2mo ago

The perception is that society itself is the roadblock to improving society. For example American "democracy". It's easy to imagine things could improve faster if Congress and the executive were simply deleted overnight.

0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago
Replaced by what exactly? The US has one of the highest median incomes in the world adjusted for cost of living: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incomes-across-distribution-wb https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/incomes-across-distributi... The fraction of the US population living on $30 or less per day is comparable to Sweden: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-than-30-per-day https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/poverty-share-on-less-tha... Our education system also looks pretty good in international comparisons: https://xcancel.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1732087511327908128 https://xcancel.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/17320875113279081... News focuses on the negatives, but we're doing reasonably well in absolute terms. Big random changes are likely to cause regression to the international mean, which is generally below the US on most metrics.

matheusmoreira 2mo ago

> I've never understood that attitude. It's because the powers that be do not want to make the society we want. They want to make the society they want, often at our expense. Therefore they must be torn down.

RetroTechie 2mo ago

> Growth out of decay takes work, but it takes considerably less work than accelerated decay and then trying to start again when there is nothing fertile left to build on. Indeed. This is why conservation of habitats (however small, or degraded) makes more sense than trying to restore already-destroyed areas. That said: if I could pick an area to work on for myself, I'd go for a stretch of wasteland. Why? Because the before-after difference would be more stark (read: more satisfying). And heavily degraded lands are in muuuch bigger supply than little-degraded areas. More important would be a general willingness of the locals to not interfere with restauration efforts. > I like this article because it demonstrates that there is always fertile land and opportunities where people are not looking. Stronger: "fertile" isn't strictly needed. Fertile soil can be built - if necessary, starting from 'scratch' (yes it does take time). Basically: grow stuff (anything is better than nothing), mulch (bio-waste is free), keep doing so, and whatever soil you started with, will improve over time. As the soil improves, plants grow better & other life returns.

AtlasBarfed 2mo ago

Mars has lots of open land Of course with libertarians, it's never about the purity of thought, just the convenience to their pocketbook