George Carlin - Saving the Planet • Hacker News Board

George Carlin is a clear thinker and very funny, definitely one of my favorite comedians. I like heady comedy. He simplifies things though, and this is a good example. Humanity is causing geological-scale effects on the planet and we need to address that.

It's not as if the planet were being damaged already and we just came along and tried to stop it, we're the ones causing the damage. He's correct to say that '90%' of species that have existed have already gone extinct(actually, I believe it's much, much higher than that, I think 99.9%). However, if Bill Bryson is to be believed, the rate of extinction has risen dramatically due to humanity, I believe Bryson said that it is 5 times greater than what it would be sans-humanity. There are times in the earth's past where there has been a much higher rate of extinction for a short time, the most recent event like this took out the dinosaurs. I believe the first one occurred when the atmosphere was 'poisoned' with oxygen from the first plant-like bacteria. As thinking entities, it's our responsibility to not allow our effects on the planet to have such a catastrophic outcome.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#6

Post by nollidge » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 5:43 PM UTC

Sounds like he's ranting on a linguistic or rhetorical peeve rather than combatting actual environmentalism. When someone says we should "save the earth", they quite obviously don't think that, for example, pollution is going to make the planet explode, or something like that. Environmentalism is not about saving the planet itself - Earth will keep on spinning for several trillion years regardless of what we do.

Environmentalism is about saving ourselves. It's about preserving the environmental status quo insofar as we are able, in order to preserve its habitability for ourselves.

I like Carlin, but in this case he's being disingenuous for the sake of an easy joke.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#7

Post by rrhyne » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 5:56 PM UTC

I've never said 'this doesn't belong on HN' because we all decide what belongs on HN, but on this one I'm scratching my head.

Nothing against GC of course. Watched this just the other day.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#8

Post by jamesbressi » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 6:02 PM UTC

rrhyne wrote: post #7

I've never said 'this doesn't belong on HN' because we all decide what belongs on HN, but on this one I'm scratching my head. Nothing against GC of course. Watched this just the other day.

I hear (or read?) you, but it is this complete break from the usual that shows up and makes my day. I just don't want too much of it on the front page ;)

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#9

Post by jbooth » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 6:07 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #6

Sounds like he's ranting on a linguistic or rhetorical peeve rather than combatting actual environmentalism. When someone says we should "save the earth", they quite obviously don't think that, for example, pollution is going to make the planet explode, or something like that. Environmentalism is not about saving the planet itself - Earth will keep on spinning for several trillion years regardless of what we do. Envi…

Yes, but those who are against environmentalism for ideological/tribal reasons are generally in favor of any support wherever they can find it, even if George Carlin is on the record ripping their political party every time he's had the chance.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#10

Post by solson » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 6:26 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #4

Once upon a time, obsession with bodily purity was a right-wing complex. In recent years, that obsession has been taken over by the left.

Almost all fascist/totalitarian movements have a strong element of health/environmental purity in their dogma. One thing people miss about past totalitarian movements is that they truly believed they were making the world a better place.