kavarskiJan 18

Time Travel Tourism

https://sh.itjust.works/post/53620860

Show threadDoc_CrankensteinJan 18

The last panel has a point though.

We have literally lost our connection to nature to the point we are actively destroying our ability to survive on this planet as a species for ephemeral, arbitrary gain for a few elite individuals and the majority of people see no problems with it.

The biggest mistake man ever made was to believe ourselves to be above nature, that it is something to which we were divinely given ownership over, to be used and discarded as we saw fit, instead of something we are intrinsically part of.

Show threadturdasJan 18

Humans are above nature in many very real and very tangible ways, and have been since the invention of fire or clothing or farming or any number of other things. It is not a mistake to believe that.

The mistake is in believing that the foundation doesn’t matter because you’re above it.

Show threadwhaleross
We are above nature like an anteater that can destroy an entire ant nest is above nature.
Jan 18 at 11:40amWeb
Show threadturdasJan 18

We’re above nature in a far more profound way than the ant-eater, because for the most part humans don’t rely on nature replenishing itself – we have agriculture. None of the problems facing us really have to do with replenishment so much as they do with unchecked consumption. For example with climate change the problem isn’t that we’re burning fossil fuels faster than they replenish, but rather the fact that we’re burning them at all.

People making this point probably usually think of climate change destroying humanity, but the truth is that even completely unchecked climate change will not make humans go extinct. It may destroy our global society, lead to the death of a large chunk of our population and set us back hundreds of years, but it almost certainly won’t kill us all. That, I think, goes to show just how far above nature we are, for better and for worse.

Show threadwhalerossJan 18

These are just aspects that you use to lift humanity above the nature it is part of.

Humans are the dominant and most evolved species with the highest intelligence, absolutely. But we are all still the human animal, as daily reminded by the unrestrained consumption you mention and hoarding of resources and tribalistic conflicts and wars that still ties us to the very nature we exploit as if it is something beneath us.

This is opposed to the utopia we could all live in together but will not happen because humans are humans are the human animal that is controlled by the human animal needs and urges, regardless how clever the human animals are in medicine and engineering and agriculture.

I mean there are insects that do agriculture in their limited capacity and others that live in symbiotic relationships with species that none of them no longer would survive without the other. For a superior species to ours, our agriculture and technology is most likely simple and limited but on par for our capabilities.

As for making it though some apocalypse - so will fish and flies rats and microbes. Are they too above nature? Damn we evolved from the shrew-like proto-mammals that survived the dinosaur apocalypse. I guess being above nature is in the entire mammal ancestry then.

I’d argue that once humans are no longer controlled by primal urges and not dependent on carbon based nutrition for the microbial flora that consists our entire being, then we can start talking about being above nature. But are we then even human any more?

Show threadturdasJan 18

This is an overly pessimistic (though sadly all too common) view that disregards all the good parts of humanity in favour of dooming and glooming over all the bad parts. On the whole humans are doing pretty damn well, and we’re constantly improving.

As for making it though some apocalypse - so will fish and flies rats and microbes. Are they too above nature? Damn we evolved from the shrew-like proto-mammals that survived the dinosaur apocalypse. I guess being above nature is in the entire mammal ancestry then.

The difference is that such creatures will survive by pure chance, while humans will survive by the thing that elevates us above nature: technology. In a purely natural environment large animals like humans would be the first to go extinct in a major extinction event.

I’d argue that once humans are no longer controlled by primal urges and not dependent on carbon based nutrition for the microbial flora that consists our entire being, then we can start talking about being above nature. But are we then even human any more?

Humans are not controlled by their primal urges, so we’re already halfway clear. As for nutrition, almost none of what the typical human eats comes from nature. Instead it comes from crops grown and engineered by humans.

Nature isn’t about being carbon-based, it’s about whether the ship is adrift on the whims of natural selection or steered deliberately by an intelligent actor, and the entire story of the human species has been about increasing our control of the ship.

Show threadwhalerossJan 18

Why would it be pessimistic to accept that humans are part of nature and that the human animal, just like any other species, acts according to its own nature? You are insisting on it like we were in the renaissance epoch of philosophy and science, or earlier though then because of religion.

You conveniently skipped half of the points but ok.

So if a meteor struck earth tomorrow or a super volcano decided to erupt and kill billions immediately and other billions in the following years due to immediate climate change, starvation, sickness and everything else that follows. The pockets of surviving humans would be because of technology? No, dude. They would survive the first hit because of pure chance. Then they would survive by whatever means available. No oil means no gas means no power means no machines or transportation or technology meaning no medical- or agricultural equipment or grow lights when survivors are getting sick and the skies are covered by ash… Then technology that can not be used is scrap that can at best be used as a material resource.

Ironically for this discussion, the ones with the best chances to survive such a scenario are the folks that still have close to nature sets of skills and knowledge of where and how to make shelters, to fish and hunt and forage and to preserve without refrigeration or refined chemicals or even salt which would be a critical resource very fast. People that stick to their indigenous roots or still live in tribes in far away places. People that are considered primitive today because they accept and embrace their vicinity with nature.

Indeed humans have passed certain thresholds of natural selection but not others. Are the masses getting moist over scrawny unsociable geeks regardless their intelligence or the healthy and breedable and preferably adored by others? It’s all biological programming that humans struggle to overcome.

What I think is plausible is one of those old natural self regulation that have played out over and over in the history of the planet When one exploitative species grows over beyond available resources they starve to death until a new equilibrium is reached. Another mechanism is a disease that spreads rapidly when the population is too dense culling it out. We had a good run with the latter quite recently and we are getting closer to a big starvation, although it may arrive not because we don’t have the technology to grow food but because we decide there is not enough profit in it. Certainly the latest virus outbreak and the missing resource are man made but the mechanisms are just the same.

Show threadturdasJan 18

You have a fairly unrealistic view of what an apocalyptic scenario would look like. Existing technology would not go bad overnight. A lot of stuff works without electricity (a relatively recent invention in the tech tree, all things considered), and electricity isn’t that difficult to get going “from scratch” to begin with. Not to even mention that a world-ending meteor is something humans can, from our lofty heights far above nature, detect and even divert before it hits Earth.

Actual hunter-gatherers would be among the first to die out in an apocalypse like that, because they’re wholly dependent on the ecosystem, and would lose their only source of food when prey animals go extinct. The survivors would be developed humans in whatever area happens to both not be hit particularly hard (so in the case of global ash/dust clouds, probably somewhere near the equator where farming will still be possible) and that manages to stay relatively cohesive societally.

So on an individual level survival would be down to mostly luck, but on a species-wide level it would not be.

What I think is plausible is one of those old natural self regulation that have played out over and over in the history of the planet When one exploitative species grows over beyond available resources they starve to death until a new equilibrium is reached.

This is another one of those strangely common romanticized views of nature, but it’s also incongruent with reality. By definition nothing about what humans are doing to the planet (i.e. climate change, anthropocenic extinctions, what have you) is natural, and as such the consequences aren’t a natural mechanism either. Humans just practically won’t be able to wipe ourselves out in the same way that e.g. island animal populations may go extinct if balance is thrown off.

We can shoot ourselves in the foot real bad, but making ourselves extinct probably just straight up isn’t something we’re capable of. Sure, there would absolutely be a certain kind of poetic irony in humans, in our hubris, making the planet inhospitable to modern civilization (and it’s possible, too), but this common metaphor of Mother Earth’s immune system working to restore a natural balance is, if you forgive my being crass, complete hippie nonsense.

Show threadsaimenJan 18

The problem in this discussion is that “nature” isn’t defined clearly. Or rather there are two:

the narrow one, meaning nature is everything which happens without the influence of humans

the wide one, meaning nature is practically everything

This wouldn’t be a problem if we wouldn’t constantly switch between them while talking about it. The everyday meaning is the narrow one, but if we think more about it in a discussion like this we realize we ARE a part of nature. So in a way saying plastic isn’t natural because it is produced by humans can be seen as the same as saying wood or silk isn’t natural.

Show threadwhalerossJan 18

Again picking and choosing what to respond and now the apocalyptic event you yourself brought up is unrealistic? What kind of 2 cent bait and switch is this? What exactly is this realistic apocalyptic event you speak of from which humans rise by the help of technology?

I’ll give you that you have a point with populations dependent of nature entirely being picked off fast, but then again populations that are dependent on scavenging tin cans are not very well off either unless somebody knows what to do next. Which, as opposed to survivalist fantasy, very few actually do, unless it involves shooting other people. Generating electricity is relatively easy, sure, but how and how much? Plumbing is also easy in theory, except there is a shitload (heh) of complications when done at scale. Medicine? Have you any idea how dependent modern medicine is on infrastructure that will simply not exist if an actual apocalyptic event takes place? Farming everybody has a vague idea of how it works but how many know how to actually do it? Tech tree? What is this, an argument about a computer game? It was once unlocked and now the species know how to do it?

Why do you keep arguing like I have said that humans will make themselves go extinct? I’ve never said any such thing.

I also haven’t said anything about “mother earth’s immune system”, that’s more words that you are putting in my mouth. If you look up natural history you’ll find plenty of examples of ecological systems self regulating. Not because of a higher intelligence or any intelligence at all but by sheer consequence. Self regulating systems are one of the least speculative things in this thread about hypothetical apocalypse and survival that is an entire sidetrack from the original discussion about what makes humans supposedly separate from nature.

I mean I could also start making paper dolls and cut them down. “Oh, so you don’t believe in self regulating systems? Why do you argue that traffic jams are orchestrated by lizard people huh? Is that your super natural humans, is it?”

It’s entirely pointless though.