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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 sh
by 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 agoPrecivilisational 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 agoOnly hundreds. Two centuries ago, the total human population was about 5% of today's population.
- RGamma 2mo agoYou'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 agoWe have more forests today in Europe than we did 400 years ago.
- vouaobrasil 2mo agoHence the desire to tear it down.
- RGamma 2mo agoThe longings for simpler days are definitely still with us. They explain a lot of social dysfunction. E.g. see Terence McKenna.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo agoConclusion: Stop planting trees. Be sure to get your daily doomscrolling in, though.