Just as with Male Genital Mutilation, a lot of people outright deny the consequences of their actions. They put their fingers in their ears and bury their head, ignoring the blatant damage that...
Just as with Male Genital Mutilation, a lot of people outright deny the consequences of their actions. They put their fingers in their ears and bury their head, ignoring the blatant damage that was caused. Global warming is real. Its effects are real.
Significant action should have been taken long, long ago. But in this day and age when greed is rewarded, the rich will bribe their way into exception. The major sources of pollution should have ended yesterday. Instead, governments are pushing for inconsequential things like the carbon tax, which let's face it is just a way for them to bring in more money, at a disproportionate expense of the poor and working class.
We are suffering because of the incompetence of our corrupted leaders. Why do people not protest about this and real issues like income inequality? Why do they only protest dumb things like the COVID vaccine, are they brainwashed and/or genuinely unintelligent?
Because they're too busy surviving day to day. "I can't think about climate change / governmental reform / etc... when I've got rent to pay, or I'll be homeless." is a prevailing series of...
Why do people not protest about this and real issues like income inequality? Why do they only protest dumb things like the COVID vaccine, are they brainwashed and/or genuinely unintelligent?
Because they're too busy surviving day to day.
"I can't think about climate change / governmental reform / etc... when I've got rent to pay, or I'll be homeless." is a prevailing series of thoughts when I talk to someone. People WANT to be better, research does show that the vast majority of people do want to see change on the upcoming carnage of the climate.
But so few know how, even fewer realise the effect it'll have on our lives.
I also wonder if there is a lot more negative connotations to protesting climate change because of just stop oil and extinction rebellion. Comments sections are always really bad but usually when...
I also wonder if there is a lot more negative connotations to protesting climate change because of just stop oil and extinction rebellion.
Comments sections are always really bad but usually when I see one of their videos the comments section is mostly against them.
Every generation faces their problems and the ones after ours will have problems they will have to face. It is better, infinitely so, to exist and face consequences and challenges than to not...
Every generation faces their problems and the ones after ours will have problems they will have to face.
It is better, infinitely so, to exist and face consequences and challenges than to not exist at all.
Have one or two kids, buy solar panels and do what you can for reducing your carbon footprint.
Humanity hasn't even begun to tap into our potential for things like geo engineering because we are scared of potential consequences. The moment the consequences are going higher than our fear of geoengineering we will start making changes to the planet our own abilities to buy us more time as we continue to move towards greener and greener futures.
And we are moving towards that future at a steady pace. Not enough to avoid facing consequences of global warming, but things are moving and things are getting done.
Those years don't have to be worthless, but personally? I don't know that they're worth more at this point. If I could make the conscious choice to be born in the here and now, I don't think I...
Those years don't have to be worthless, but personally? I don't know that they're worth more at this point. If I could make the conscious choice to be born in the here and now, I don't think I would. A wet bulb event would be horrific and it's looking increasingly more likely.
There is no such thing as worth more or worth less. There is simply what is. The most important thing here is to try to avoid the wet bulb incident. With emissions as they are the only way we do...
There is no such thing as worth more or worth less. There is simply what is.
The most important thing here is to try to avoid the wet bulb incident. With emissions as they are the only way we do that is by being smarter and more capable. How do you do what?
Have kids.
Raise them well and educate them as best you can.
Set the free on the world.
Nothing you can do short of making a multi million dollar company will provide a force multiplier to humanity like your kids can.
Do you live somewhere that a wet bulb incident can happen? Get the fuck out or get ready for it to happen and get your neighbors to prepare as well.
You have agency. You can fix things. If you believe that you just don't want to have kids because it will maximize human ability and livelihood? Fine. I can agree with that.
Same for personal reasons. Some people just don't want kids man, that's fine.
But if you have this idea that life is suffering and you won't have kids just because they'll deal with global warming? No, I think you're mistaken.
Especially if you talk about "consent to exist" which to me seems totally backwards because consent doesn't exist in either direction for something that doesn't exist. You're ascribing motive to the void.
I commend the overall sense of hope and positivity, it's really important to keep that mindset when we're faced with a crisis but I think some of this is just unrealistic. A lot of the people...
I commend the overall sense of hope and positivity, it's really important to keep that mindset when we're faced with a crisis but I think some of this is just unrealistic. A lot of the people living in areas where a wet bulb event is most likely to occur in the near future have no way whatsoever of leaving or preparing to mitigate it in any meaningful way. They simply do not have the resource.
The environmental impact and the trajectory we're headed on are serious factors for a lot of people thinking about families now, with good reason. The single biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is not have children. I put my money where my mouth is and got sterilised. There are plenty of people that already exist who are smart and capable or becoming smart and capable that can lend themselves to the effort to solve this crisis.
I don't think the solution is the biological equivalent of kicking the can down the road and hoping a subsequent generation just figures it out. We don't have that kind of time anymore. Luckily not everyone shares my opinion so children will keep being born regardless, but it's up to us to make things better now; we owe it to ourselves and to everyone that might come after us.
If this sort of thing is really your greatest concern. Then take steps to go over there and help to prepare them. But if you don't live there, why is it such a pressing matter that you're basing...
A lot of the people living in areas where a wet bulb event is most likely to occur in the near future have no way whatsoever of leaving or preparing to mitigate it in any meaningful way
If this sort of thing is really your greatest concern. Then take steps to go over there and help to prepare them.
But if you don't live there, why is it such a pressing matter that you're basing your life decisions on it?
The environmental impact and the trajectory we're headed on
We aren't headed. We are on it. Our lives are unsustainable and we either radically scale back our well being, or we progress, invent, and push towards a solution.
Humans scale efficiently. 100 people use resources better than 10, and 1000 better than 100. If we want to outrun this problem we need as many people as possible living in cities, highly educated, and motivated to continuing to increase human ability.
To stall out now. To stop having kids, to have a generation burdened with caring for the elderly due to the fact they are outnumbered by them, would damn us to global warming more surely than one where we keep having kids.
I also don't have the means or resource to uproot my entire life to go and help those communities directly. I'm not an engineer or a scientist of any kind, so even if I could just move to India or...
If this sort of thing is really your greatest concern. Then take steps to go over there and help to prepare them.
I also don't have the means or resource to uproot my entire life to go and help those communities directly. I'm not an engineer or a scientist of any kind, so even if I could just move to India or Pakistan I'd be about as useful over there as I am over here. I have family that depends on me here. I feel like I'm already realistically doing what I can to minimise my own environmental impact, but if there was something else feasible then I'd at least listen.
But if you don't live there, why is it such a pressing matter that you're basing your life decisions on it?
Empathy. Too much has already been lost through people not treating this as a pressing matter, or not caring because it doesn't impact them directly.
Our lives are unsustainable and we either radically scale back our well being, or we progress, invent, and push towards a solution.
We need to do both! And we can do both. But we already have over 8 billion people across the planet now and we're just about at the peak of our scalability - if 8 billion people can't come together to solve this then how will churning out another 1000 of them improve things? You talk about outrunning the problem but the cliff's edge is in sight now, we're can't run away for much longer. I agree that having a highly educated population is a vital step in dealing with this but that very much is my area and I think a huge amount of reform is needed there.
See earlier point on economies of scale and demographics. Counts aren't what matters. Location and education and free time matters. First, scale The more people we have, the more specialized and...
if 8 billion people can't come together to solve this then how will churning out another 1000 of them improve things?
See earlier point on economies of scale and demographics. Counts aren't what matters. Location and education and free time matters.
First, scale
The more people we have, the more specialized and productive we become. A city of a million is radically better than a city of half a million, because one person can serve more people with their skills than they could before.
And a city of two million is even better yet.
So wherever you are, if you had twice as many people you would be doing more work for less resources. More unique ideas. More room to try new things. More eyeballs on every problem.
We are constrained by emissions, which is a constant thing. To go long and low is too inherently use more resources per solution and make it less likely we succeed.
Then you have demographics. Humans aren't a constant thing. We are highly dynamic and we have stages in life. We are born, and require care. We grow up and contribute to the whole. Then we get old and require care again.
To stop having kids doesn't only infringe on our economy of scale. It also leads to excess burden on the young. Not only is the time they spend less efficient, a greater fraction is now spent talking care of you (and everyone else who didn't have kids) so they are even less likely to push the needle forward.
Then you have the third factor. Education and location. Most of the people in the world today exist in terrible places, were never educated, and will never move the needle on progress.
Meanwhile, most of the first world, where this progress should be made, is entering this demographic and social death spiral where population is decreasing and the old outnumber the young.
This is dismal. And I don't think people understand how big of a problem this is. We need to at least replace or close to replace our population to continue to run as a society. I'm talking close to two kids per person. To not to so not only risks abandoning the economy of scale that powers our advancement, it also risks annihilating our chances of general progress as a whole as economies stutter and crumble under their own weight, and a generation of potential sciences ends up devoting a significant fraction of their lives to elder care.
We have cities with those sorts of populations and more. Now what? Technological developments/ aids which are geared towards care for the elderly and fostering their independence would be an...
The more people we have, the more specialized and productive we become. A city of a million is radically better than a city of half a million, because one person can serve more people with their skills than they could before.
And a city of two million is even better yet.
We have cities with those sorts of populations and more. Now what?
Then you have demographics. Humans aren't a constant thing. We are highly dynamic and we have stages in life. We are born, and require care. We grow up and contribute to the whole. Then we get old and require care again.
Technological developments/ aids which are geared towards care for the elderly and fostering their independence would be an enormous help here, but being realistic I think this is also just going to be a grim reality that we are faced with.
Particularly as the level of education in women increases, the number of children they have tends to decrease. We will end up reaching a threshold where education also contributes to a decline in population and there will not be enough young people to care for the elderly. There may be a future where a number of elderly people can't access the care they need and have a very difficult, unhappy end-of-life. That is something that I am willing to deal with personally but I understand that not everybody will feel the same way.
Then you have the third factor. Education and location. Most of the people in the world today exist in terrible places, were never educated, and will never move the needle on progress.
I think this is the crux of where our viewpoints diverge. Maybe it was coming from a devil's advocate sort of angle, but earlier you asked whether we should just tell people who are condemned to die in an environmental hellscape whether all the years they'd spent here were worthless.
Isn't that kind of the same thing here? Is it right to take the approach that these people will never meaningfully move us forward because of the circumstances of their birth, so we might as well just forget about them and move on to trying to make shiny new babies somewhere else? I would much rather focus on what we already have and see these places made better and their people more educated.
One or two million isn't a magic number, and scale happens over nations as well as cities. 10 million is better than 2 million. 20 better than 10, and so on and so forth. So what, we have now gone...
One or two million isn't a magic number, and scale happens over nations as well as cities. 10 million is better than 2 million. 20 better than 10, and so on and so forth.
That is something that I am willing to deal with personally but I understand that not everybody will feel the same way.
So what, we have now gone from saying not having kids to make sure they don't suffer to saying "many old people will suffer and die but that's ok with me?"
Isn't that kind of the same thing here?
Not even remotely. Their lives are still worthwhile. They deserve to live. No matter their situation I'm happy they do exist.
But they aren't solving global warming. Nor is the way they live for your to decide on or even really care about. Let them do as they will and let you focus on doing what you can to further humanity.
just forget about them and move on to trying to make shiny new babies somewhere else
They are humans with agency of their own. They live in places where the conditions make it hard to impossible to unlock the economics of scale we enjoy. If you can somehow change their lives and make them productive. Do it. If you can't. Don't worry about it.
Nope, that's why I specifically said that is something that I am willing to accept personally, as in just for me. As someone who is also in favour of the world becoming more educated, surely you...
So what, we have now gone from saying not having kids to make sure they don't suffer to saying "many old people will suffer and die but that's ok with me?"
Nope, that's why I specifically said that is something that I am willing to accept personally, as in just for me. As someone who is also in favour of the world becoming more educated, surely you also acknowledge that a decline in population is where we're headed. We already have access to data that shows the relationship between women's education and fertility/ birth rates.
If you want a higher base level of education, this scenario is basically a given which is why I also said that technological advancements/ aids for the elderly would be important - it would significantly alleviate this issue and it feels like something that's achievable for us. I think we'd also need serious interventions at a younger age too though; the levels of car dependency seen in suburbs and some cities must seriously be atrophying overall mobility but that's just speculation on my part.
Not even remotely. Their lives are still worthwhile. They deserve to live. No matter their situation I'm happy they do exist.
I'm sure that will mean a lot to them when we do start seeing wet bulb events?
I struggle to see the issue in caring about the overall wellbeing of the planet but I have a very "when you succeed, I succeed" mindset. I also think as we become increasingly more connected (i.e. through globalisation/ technology) barriers of locale become less. "If you can... Do it. If you can't. Don't worry about it" is a good approach on a smaller scale for sure, but this is a big problem that affects all of us. I guess I am doing what I can.
I don't think this is an area where we'll see much more convergence on opinion but I've appreciated hearing your perspective.
Education is not a given to reduce birth rates. Sex and family and having kids is sociological. Educated people don't have kids right now because that's what they're generally encouraged to do....
Education is not a given to reduce birth rates. Sex and family and having kids is sociological. Educated people don't have kids right now because that's what they're generally encouraged to do.
That can change, and it's going to have to change quite quickly if we are to recover from this death spiral. Else we will be replaced by the cultures that don't.
Technological advancements are functions of scale just like everything else is. We are seeing the effects of this unbalanced society already in many countries, and technology doesn't help.
I'm sure that will mean a lot to them when we do start seeing wet bulb events?
Yeah. They've already experienced colonization. They know that it's like, and they don't want a bunch of westerners importing their people for their own benefit. I'm sure they'll opt to keep their land, culture, and agency for as long as they can and try to fix the problem as best as is possible.
"If you can... Do it. If you can't. Don't worry about it" is a good approach on a smaller scale for sure, but this is a big problem that affects all of us.
If you can't do it, you literally can't do it. This isn't a moral choice, it's literally impossible for you to help them unless you know how to help them.
Lots of people try every day. You can try too. You might find an answer. But until then you're SOL.
100 people dying of heat is bad, but not a wet bulb die off. A wet bulb die off is temps hitting a level that humans can't survive in period. You either hide in an AC shelter or your die.
100 people dying of heat is bad, but not a wet bulb die off. A wet bulb die off is temps hitting a level that humans can't survive in period. You either hide in an AC shelter or your die.
What metrics are you using in your calculation that a life of struggle is better than not existing? I mean that sincerely. I see lots of people that are pro-birth or anti-suicide that have the...
What metrics are you using in your calculation that a life of struggle is better than not existing? I mean that sincerely. I see lots of people that are pro-birth or anti-suicide that have the idea that existence-at-all-costs is some sort of lofty goal to be attained. Personally, I’d rather NOT struggle in my existence. I don’t mind being challenged and having to think and work, but if my existence is a struggle for basic survival with little or no comfort I’ll just respectfully bow out. And in that same mindset I refuse to force another entity into existence. Have kids if you want, but I don’t see where adding additional lives is anything other than negative at worst or neutral at best. To quote Prof Hubert Farnsworth: “There is no scientific consensus that life is beneficial to the universe.”
I'm a nihilist, despite my hopeful tone here. There is no calculation for better or worse, what is just is. But your average person wants to exist and would never turn down their birth over never...
I'm a nihilist, despite my hopeful tone here. There is no calculation for better or worse, what is just is.
But your average person wants to exist and would never turn down their birth over never existing.
Life is built to handle adversity. Humanity originated walking long distances in savannahs to kill big animals. Anything more than that we are able to survive and be happy in.
The people saying this stuff are of incredible luxury. It's like the people who say they don't want to get old because they don't want to suffer age.
Ask an old person if they want to live. 90 percent will enthusiastically agree and will even be happy with their life despite the age related illness they face.
You don't need meaning or agreement from the universe to live and enjoy life or be justified in your existence.
That would be a herculean task unfortunately, and would require we solve the entire energy crisis a thousand times over. It would take the creation of double human energy use so far to lock the...
That would be a herculean task unfortunately, and would require we solve the entire energy crisis a thousand times over. It would take the creation of double human energy use so far to lock the carbon away.
We probably wouldn't even if we could. The hotter earth will probably prove beneficial to humanity long term if we don't royally fuck it up and keep heating it or hit any tipping points. More water. More plant life for food. Generally more mild climates around the world with less temperature difference between the poles and equator.
We will do whatever we need to do. We can do geoengineering. We are capable of it. We aren't doing it yet and we are focusing on reducing emissions for the exact reason you mention. But the future...
We will do whatever we need to do.
We can do geoengineering. We are capable of it. We aren't doing it yet and we are focusing on reducing emissions for the exact reason you mention.
But the future is variable and will throw a lot of shit at us. My point is that we have a ton of options and abilities we have yet to explore, and even if global warming goes nuts we won't be out of options.
We will be fine. We just have to keep working towards our goals.
Fine. People will live. There will be crisis but society will keep on chugging along. Goals - to have green energy and not be choking ourselves out on CO2
Fine. People will live. There will be crisis but society will keep on chugging along.
Goals - to have green energy and not be choking ourselves out on CO2
Meanwhile, some right wing govts literally pay citizens specifically to have kids, while banning abortion, and nagging about immigrants i.e. war refugees. Tankies call this good and socialism; I...
Meanwhile, some right wing govts literally pay citizens specifically to have kids, while banning abortion, and nagging about immigrants i.e. war refugees. Tankies call this good and socialism; I just can't wait until abortions for non-citizens are encouraged to complete the eugenics setup.
Individuals may learn things, but as a civilization we learn nothing.
I've posted this on here before, doesn't hurt to again. His chapter (narrated by his brother here) on this goes a bit more in depth.
I've posted this on here before, doesn't hurt to again.
“People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose'. 'Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they're going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. I love people as I meet them one by one. Every person you look at you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking, but as soon as they begin to group, they begin to clot when there are five of them or ten or even groups as small as two, they begin to change, they sacrifice the beauty of the individual for the sake of the group” George Carlin
Just had a conversation with my brother where he said verbatim, "I get climate change is a big deal, but didn't we already solve most of the issues?" I don't think it can be understated how little...
Just had a conversation with my brother where he said verbatim, "I get climate change is a big deal, but didn't we already solve most of the issues?" I don't think it can be understated how little the lay person understands the actual consequences climate change is going to have, and whenever I try to infrom him I get labeled as hyperbolic and too susceptible to fear mongering. Because they aren't literally burning to death today, people don't care.
I used to say that maybe something drastic would help wake everyone up to the danger that we're in, but the rub is that dratic things are happening now and people will bend over backwards to explain away as anything but ckimate change. Half of Canada is on fire, temperature records are being broken monthly, and it still isn't enough.
I need that temperature conversion bot! I looked it up (~96f) and my area was similar with high humidity. Plus lack of rain this season has made for a rough summer on the garden.
I need that temperature conversion bot! I looked it up (~96f) and my area was similar with high humidity. Plus lack of rain this season has made for a rough summer on the garden.
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/wiki/philosophy/site_implementation I'm guessing based on the privacy portion in this wiki they're not encouraged, allowed. Not certain if I understand it...
I'm guessing based on the privacy portion in this wiki they're not encouraged, allowed. Not certain if I understand it completely though bot vs 3rd party.
Seeing as I've got about 30-40 years left, I think I'm pretty fucked. Luckily this week has been pretty cool - about 20-22°C with heavy clouds. Sadly, it hasn't rained at all.
Seeing as I've got about 30-40 years left, I think I'm pretty fucked.
Luckily this week has been pretty cool - about 20-22°C with heavy clouds. Sadly, it hasn't rained at all.
The lack of rain has made me really anxious. Our water company sent a letter last month asking us to limit our usage and pretty much did everything they could to avoid saying the word "drought". :/
The lack of rain has made me really anxious. Our water company sent a letter last month asking us to limit our usage and pretty much did everything they could to avoid saying the word "drought". :/
And now I just read that July 5 has beat it yet again. Three consecutive "hottest day ever" records being broken... Is it a thing in other places, or just around here, that when it's someone's...
And now I just read that July 5 has beat it yet again. Three consecutive "hottest day ever" records being broken...
Is it a thing in other places, or just around here, that when it's someone's birthday and the weather is nice, that person has been on good behavior that year? Well I apologize because July 3 has been my birthday, I have simply been way too good :(
Just as with Male Genital Mutilation, a lot of people outright deny the consequences of their actions. They put their fingers in their ears and bury their head, ignoring the blatant damage that was caused. Global warming is real. Its effects are real.
Significant action should have been taken long, long ago. But in this day and age when greed is rewarded, the rich will bribe their way into exception. The major sources of pollution should have ended yesterday. Instead, governments are pushing for inconsequential things like the carbon tax, which let's face it is just a way for them to bring in more money, at a disproportionate expense of the poor and working class.
We are suffering because of the incompetence of our corrupted leaders. Why do people not protest about this and real issues like income inequality? Why do they only protest dumb things like the COVID vaccine, are they brainwashed and/or genuinely unintelligent?
Because they're too busy surviving day to day.
"I can't think about climate change / governmental reform / etc... when I've got rent to pay, or I'll be homeless." is a prevailing series of thoughts when I talk to someone. People WANT to be better, research does show that the vast majority of people do want to see change on the upcoming carnage of the climate.
But so few know how, even fewer realise the effect it'll have on our lives.
Degrowth is the only way forwards.
I also wonder if there is a lot more negative connotations to protesting climate change because of just stop oil and extinction rebellion.
Comments sections are always really bad but usually when I see one of their videos the comments section is mostly against them.
News commentary is the absolute worst. It brings out the vicious behaviour in people that is just unwarranted.
You sound like you could use a little dose of How to cope with climate anxiety. But also, I totally agree with you.
You couldn't pay me to have kids right now.
The poor bastards are doomed.
Every generation faces their problems and the ones after ours will have problems they will have to face.
It is better, infinitely so, to exist and face consequences and challenges than to not exist at all.
Have one or two kids, buy solar panels and do what you can for reducing your carbon footprint.
Humanity hasn't even begun to tap into our potential for things like geo engineering because we are scared of potential consequences. The moment the consequences are going higher than our fear of geoengineering we will start making changes to the planet our own abilities to buy us more time as we continue to move towards greener and greener futures.
And we are moving towards that future at a steady pace. Not enough to avoid facing consequences of global warming, but things are moving and things are getting done.
Do not lose hope or despair.
Tell that to the people that will cook to death in wet bulb events.
Assuming it even happens, you tell them the years they lived up to that point were worthless and you'd rather have never seen them born.
Those years don't have to be worthless, but personally? I don't know that they're worth more at this point. If I could make the conscious choice to be born in the here and now, I don't think I would. A wet bulb event would be horrific and it's looking increasingly more likely.
There is no such thing as worth more or worth less. There is simply what is.
The most important thing here is to try to avoid the wet bulb incident. With emissions as they are the only way we do that is by being smarter and more capable. How do you do what?
Have kids.
Raise them well and educate them as best you can.
Set the free on the world.
Nothing you can do short of making a multi million dollar company will provide a force multiplier to humanity like your kids can.
Do you live somewhere that a wet bulb incident can happen? Get the fuck out or get ready for it to happen and get your neighbors to prepare as well.
You have agency. You can fix things. If you believe that you just don't want to have kids because it will maximize human ability and livelihood? Fine. I can agree with that.
Same for personal reasons. Some people just don't want kids man, that's fine.
But if you have this idea that life is suffering and you won't have kids just because they'll deal with global warming? No, I think you're mistaken.
Especially if you talk about "consent to exist" which to me seems totally backwards because consent doesn't exist in either direction for something that doesn't exist. You're ascribing motive to the void.
I commend the overall sense of hope and positivity, it's really important to keep that mindset when we're faced with a crisis but I think some of this is just unrealistic. A lot of the people living in areas where a wet bulb event is most likely to occur in the near future have no way whatsoever of leaving or preparing to mitigate it in any meaningful way. They simply do not have the resource.
The environmental impact and the trajectory we're headed on are serious factors for a lot of people thinking about families now, with good reason. The single biggest thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint is not have children. I put my money where my mouth is and got sterilised. There are plenty of people that already exist who are smart and capable or becoming smart and capable that can lend themselves to the effort to solve this crisis.
I don't think the solution is the biological equivalent of kicking the can down the road and hoping a subsequent generation just figures it out. We don't have that kind of time anymore. Luckily not everyone shares my opinion so children will keep being born regardless, but it's up to us to make things better now; we owe it to ourselves and to everyone that might come after us.
If this sort of thing is really your greatest concern. Then take steps to go over there and help to prepare them.
But if you don't live there, why is it such a pressing matter that you're basing your life decisions on it?
We aren't headed. We are on it. Our lives are unsustainable and we either radically scale back our well being, or we progress, invent, and push towards a solution.
Humans scale efficiently. 100 people use resources better than 10, and 1000 better than 100. If we want to outrun this problem we need as many people as possible living in cities, highly educated, and motivated to continuing to increase human ability.
To stall out now. To stop having kids, to have a generation burdened with caring for the elderly due to the fact they are outnumbered by them, would damn us to global warming more surely than one where we keep having kids.
It's too late to hit the brakes.
I also don't have the means or resource to uproot my entire life to go and help those communities directly. I'm not an engineer or a scientist of any kind, so even if I could just move to India or Pakistan I'd be about as useful over there as I am over here. I have family that depends on me here. I feel like I'm already realistically doing what I can to minimise my own environmental impact, but if there was something else feasible then I'd at least listen.
Empathy. Too much has already been lost through people not treating this as a pressing matter, or not caring because it doesn't impact them directly.
We need to do both! And we can do both. But we already have over 8 billion people across the planet now and we're just about at the peak of our scalability - if 8 billion people can't come together to solve this then how will churning out another 1000 of them improve things? You talk about outrunning the problem but the cliff's edge is in sight now, we're can't run away for much longer. I agree that having a highly educated population is a vital step in dealing with this but that very much is my area and I think a huge amount of reform is needed there.
See earlier point on economies of scale and demographics. Counts aren't what matters. Location and education and free time matters.
First, scale
The more people we have, the more specialized and productive we become. A city of a million is radically better than a city of half a million, because one person can serve more people with their skills than they could before.
And a city of two million is even better yet.
So wherever you are, if you had twice as many people you would be doing more work for less resources. More unique ideas. More room to try new things. More eyeballs on every problem.
We are constrained by emissions, which is a constant thing. To go long and low is too inherently use more resources per solution and make it less likely we succeed.
Then you have demographics. Humans aren't a constant thing. We are highly dynamic and we have stages in life. We are born, and require care. We grow up and contribute to the whole. Then we get old and require care again.
To stop having kids doesn't only infringe on our economy of scale. It also leads to excess burden on the young. Not only is the time they spend less efficient, a greater fraction is now spent talking care of you (and everyone else who didn't have kids) so they are even less likely to push the needle forward.
Then you have the third factor. Education and location. Most of the people in the world today exist in terrible places, were never educated, and will never move the needle on progress.
Meanwhile, most of the first world, where this progress should be made, is entering this demographic and social death spiral where population is decreasing and the old outnumber the young.
This is dismal. And I don't think people understand how big of a problem this is. We need to at least replace or close to replace our population to continue to run as a society. I'm talking close to two kids per person. To not to so not only risks abandoning the economy of scale that powers our advancement, it also risks annihilating our chances of general progress as a whole as economies stutter and crumble under their own weight, and a generation of potential sciences ends up devoting a significant fraction of their lives to elder care.
We have cities with those sorts of populations and more. Now what?
Technological developments/ aids which are geared towards care for the elderly and fostering their independence would be an enormous help here, but being realistic I think this is also just going to be a grim reality that we are faced with.
Particularly as the level of education in women increases, the number of children they have tends to decrease. We will end up reaching a threshold where education also contributes to a decline in population and there will not be enough young people to care for the elderly. There may be a future where a number of elderly people can't access the care they need and have a very difficult, unhappy end-of-life. That is something that I am willing to deal with personally but I understand that not everybody will feel the same way.
I think this is the crux of where our viewpoints diverge. Maybe it was coming from a devil's advocate sort of angle, but earlier you asked whether we should just tell people who are condemned to die in an environmental hellscape whether all the years they'd spent here were worthless.
Isn't that kind of the same thing here? Is it right to take the approach that these people will never meaningfully move us forward because of the circumstances of their birth, so we might as well just forget about them and move on to trying to make shiny new babies somewhere else? I would much rather focus on what we already have and see these places made better and their people more educated.
One or two million isn't a magic number, and scale happens over nations as well as cities. 10 million is better than 2 million. 20 better than 10, and so on and so forth.
So what, we have now gone from saying not having kids to make sure they don't suffer to saying "many old people will suffer and die but that's ok with me?"
Not even remotely. Their lives are still worthwhile. They deserve to live. No matter their situation I'm happy they do exist.
But they aren't solving global warming. Nor is the way they live for your to decide on or even really care about. Let them do as they will and let you focus on doing what you can to further humanity.
They are humans with agency of their own. They live in places where the conditions make it hard to impossible to unlock the economics of scale we enjoy. If you can somehow change their lives and make them productive. Do it. If you can't. Don't worry about it.
Nope, that's why I specifically said that is something that I am willing to accept personally, as in just for me. As someone who is also in favour of the world becoming more educated, surely you also acknowledge that a decline in population is where we're headed. We already have access to data that shows the relationship between women's education and fertility/ birth rates.
If you want a higher base level of education, this scenario is basically a given which is why I also said that technological advancements/ aids for the elderly would be important - it would significantly alleviate this issue and it feels like something that's achievable for us. I think we'd also need serious interventions at a younger age too though; the levels of car dependency seen in suburbs and some cities must seriously be atrophying overall mobility but that's just speculation on my part.
I'm sure that will mean a lot to them when we do start seeing wet bulb events?
I struggle to see the issue in caring about the overall wellbeing of the planet but I have a very "when you succeed, I succeed" mindset. I also think as we become increasingly more connected (i.e. through globalisation/ technology) barriers of locale become less. "If you can... Do it. If you can't. Don't worry about it" is a good approach on a smaller scale for sure, but this is a big problem that affects all of us. I guess I am doing what I can.
I don't think this is an area where we'll see much more convergence on opinion but I've appreciated hearing your perspective.
Education is not a given to reduce birth rates. Sex and family and having kids is sociological. Educated people don't have kids right now because that's what they're generally encouraged to do.
That can change, and it's going to have to change quite quickly if we are to recover from this death spiral. Else we will be replaced by the cultures that don't.
Technological advancements are functions of scale just like everything else is. We are seeing the effects of this unbalanced society already in many countries, and technology doesn't help.
Yeah. They've already experienced colonization. They know that it's like, and they don't want a bunch of westerners importing their people for their own benefit. I'm sure they'll opt to keep their land, culture, and agency for as long as they can and try to fix the problem as best as is possible.
If you can't do it, you literally can't do it. This isn't a moral choice, it's literally impossible for you to help them unless you know how to help them.
Lots of people try every day. You can try too. You might find an answer. But until then you're SOL.
100 people died from the heat in India last month...
100 people dying of heat is bad, but not a wet bulb die off. A wet bulb die off is temps hitting a level that humans can't survive in period. You either hide in an AC shelter or your die.
What metrics are you using in your calculation that a life of struggle is better than not existing? I mean that sincerely. I see lots of people that are pro-birth or anti-suicide that have the idea that existence-at-all-costs is some sort of lofty goal to be attained. Personally, I’d rather NOT struggle in my existence. I don’t mind being challenged and having to think and work, but if my existence is a struggle for basic survival with little or no comfort I’ll just respectfully bow out. And in that same mindset I refuse to force another entity into existence. Have kids if you want, but I don’t see where adding additional lives is anything other than negative at worst or neutral at best. To quote Prof Hubert Farnsworth: “There is no scientific consensus that life is beneficial to the universe.”
I'm a nihilist, despite my hopeful tone here. There is no calculation for better or worse, what is just is.
But your average person wants to exist and would never turn down their birth over never existing.
Life is built to handle adversity. Humanity originated walking long distances in savannahs to kill big animals. Anything more than that we are able to survive and be happy in.
The people saying this stuff are of incredible luxury. It's like the people who say they don't want to get old because they don't want to suffer age.
Ask an old person if they want to live. 90 percent will enthusiastically agree and will even be happy with their life despite the age related illness they face.
You don't need meaning or agreement from the universe to live and enjoy life or be justified in your existence.
I think we can responsibly pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. But maybe not efficiently.
That would be a herculean task unfortunately, and would require we solve the entire energy crisis a thousand times over. It would take the creation of double human energy use so far to lock the carbon away.
We probably wouldn't even if we could. The hotter earth will probably prove beneficial to humanity long term if we don't royally fuck it up and keep heating it or hit any tipping points. More water. More plant life for food. Generally more mild climates around the world with less temperature difference between the poles and equator.
We will do whatever we need to do.
We can do geoengineering. We are capable of it. We aren't doing it yet and we are focusing on reducing emissions for the exact reason you mention.
But the future is variable and will throw a lot of shit at us. My point is that we have a ton of options and abilities we have yet to explore, and even if global warming goes nuts we won't be out of options.
We will be fine. We just have to keep working towards our goals.
How do you define "fine"?
What are our goals?
Fine. People will live. There will be crisis but society will keep on chugging along.
Goals - to have green energy and not be choking ourselves out on CO2
Meanwhile, some right wing govts literally pay citizens specifically to have kids, while banning abortion, and nagging about immigrants i.e. war refugees. Tankies call this good and socialism; I just can't wait until abortions for non-citizens are encouraged to complete the eugenics setup.
Individuals may learn things, but as a civilization we learn nothing.
Individuals are smart. People are morons
I've posted this on here before, doesn't hurt to again.
His chapter (narrated by his brother here) on this goes a bit more in depth.
Just had a conversation with my brother where he said verbatim, "I get climate change is a big deal, but didn't we already solve most of the issues?" I don't think it can be understated how little the lay person understands the actual consequences climate change is going to have, and whenever I try to infrom him I get labeled as hyperbolic and too susceptible to fear mongering. Because they aren't literally burning to death today, people don't care.
I used to say that maybe something drastic would help wake everyone up to the danger that we're in, but the rub is that dratic things are happening now and people will bend over backwards to explain away as anything but ckimate change. Half of Canada is on fire, temperature records are being broken monthly, and it still isn't enough.
Totally feel it. Today reached a high of 36 degrees Celsius in my area.
I need that temperature conversion bot! I looked it up (~96f) and my area was similar with high humidity. Plus lack of rain this season has made for a rough summer on the garden.
The high humidity makes it hotter, wew! Same here. It's like a sauna but not relaxing :))
huh, off topic but does tildes have any bots? are they allowed?
I’ve never seen one. I don’t think they’d be appreciated.
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/wiki/philosophy/site_implementation
I'm guessing based on the privacy portion in this wiki they're not encouraged, allowed. Not certain if I understand it completely though bot vs 3rd party.
Seeing as I've got about 30-40 years left, I think I'm pretty fucked.
Luckily this week has been pretty cool - about 20-22°C with heavy clouds. Sadly, it hasn't rained at all.
The lack of rain has made me really anxious. Our water company sent a letter last month asking us to limit our usage and pretty much did everything they could to avoid saying the word "drought". :/
And now I just read that July 5 has beat it yet again. Three consecutive "hottest day ever" records being broken...
Is it a thing in other places, or just around here, that when it's someone's birthday and the weather is nice, that person has been on good behavior that year? Well I apologize because July 3 has been my birthday, I have simply been way too good :(
Whenever I see a headline like this I can't help but to think of this clip from The Newsroom.
Oh dear. I just discovered tildes and now we are all going to die.