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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#71

Post by siempreb »

monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

> Until we wake up to this fact

That is not really the case here. I woke up already long ago, but there is no way I can stop the idiots. Only governments can take action by law, not me.

France and Germany will not allow for Facebooks' Libra coin. It shows how fast they can act if their economy is at stake. But for decades already they allow pesticides for agriculture. They could and should know about allowing for mass extermination of entire insect species. So tell me what I can or should do if they let this sick economy prevail?

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#72

Post by guerrilla »

monktastic1 wrote: post #69
guerrilla wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of metaphysics is people denying that they're doing metaphysics. Materialism and scientific realism in science and various forms of Platonism and structuralism in mathematics are just too prevalent for people to even notice them at this point.

Can't agree strongly enough. Even with meditation, where the whole point is (in a sense) to wake up to one's entire field of experience, people are generally unwilling to dig under their own metaphysical layers. They write this off as "oh, I don't do metaphysics." Yes, you do; you're just unwilling to face it. I updated my post above with a link to a first draft of a site where I go into a little more detail.

I'm not sure from what you wrote that we have the same definition of metaphysics. I'm referring to a specific branch of mainstream academic philosophy. [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#73

Post by jjuhl »

throwaway66920 wrote: post #58
jjuhl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noone in particular. Just let the lack of food do its thing. Or if you want to actively do something, then pick 50% at random.

> Noone in particular. Just let the lack of food do its thing. So the poor then?

Fine. Or the rich if you like - although there are fewer of those so the impact won't be as significant. But whatever. I don't care. The point is we need to reduce the number. Who goes, specifically, is somewhat irrelevant.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#74

Post by pretendscholar »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #67
pretendscholar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution in the sense of natural selection is an incredibly brutal, dumb, and silly subtractive process. I urge my fellow hn commenters not to mistake this for some higher purpose or value. Its an easy mistake to make but the selection pressures that would leave some survivors of the Holocene implies no higher, better intelligence. Often it involves greedy local optimization. Roaches and rats for example are well su…

That's why I prefaced it with "I like to think" to indicate a sense of wistfulness

Ah, one can hope.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#75

Post by neilv »

monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

For this purpose, I think one doesn't need psychedelics, nor religion, nor to consider the situation slipping away from us a miracle.

You just need to go out to nature or a park, on a nice day, and realize you really want things like birds and (if you still have them) butterflies. And food, and air, and clean water, and not being underwater, and not having large swaths of continents be broiled to uninhabitable.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#76

Post by deftnerd »

dougmwne wrote: post #55
tylerpachal wrote: post #7

(serious) Is there any hope? Its just one problem after another (probably because everything is linked). What are the chances that we will get our act together or be able to engineer ourselves out of all of these problems?

I've been working in environmental advocacy for about 8 years. I'm pretty sure we won't go extinct. I am also pretty sure this era of peace and prosperity is coming to a close. I think new technical solutions are coming, but I don't think they're getting here fast enough to guarantee that every country will get enough food. I recommend your children move to higher latitudes and altitudes.

Already ahead of you. Moved my children (all under 10) from Austin, TX to Ithaca, NY (above 42 latitude) based on long-term climate change forecast models and detailed regional models that I ran based on what data I could gather, as well as taking feedback loops into account.

I took regional agricultural production and soil quality, active regional environmentalism, presence of higher education (Cornell), water sources, historical wildfires, and more into account. I'm hopeful that I picked a place that will give my children a less frightening future than the rest of the country, at least for a while longer.

I'm working on buying some land now to start working on some basic agricultural production and building a home designed around "edge case" risks being less edge than normal such as extreme weather, temperature, vermin, and unreliable utilities.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#77

Post by monktastic1 »

guerrilla wrote: post #72
monktastic1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree strongly enough. Even with meditation, where the whole point is (in a sense) to wake up to one's entire field of experience, people are generally unwilling to dig under their own metaphysical layers. They write this off as "oh, I don't do metaphysics." Yes, you do; you're just unwilling to face it. I updated my post above with a link to a first draft of a site where I go into a little more detail.

I'm not sure from what you wrote that we have the same definition of metaphysics. I'm referring to a specific branch of mainstream academic philosophy. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

I think we do. "Metaphysics" refers to both the branch of philosophy as well as any particular system of metaphysical beliefs. We all subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) carry around a metaphysics in the latter sense.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#78

Post by RoutinePlayer »

monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

I'm not sure I fully know your stances on all of this, but Religion is not really a prerequisite for fully appreciating how beautiful yet precarious our biosphere truly is.

Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. But first we need to get a critical mass of our American citizenry to be convinced we have an actual problem. Especially, in fact, a large segment of the electorate that's VERY religious and continually refuses to accept the facts about AGW.

I say Americans here because a disproportionate percentage was/is being caused by us, and because we also play a unique place in world affairs.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#79

Post by deftnerd »

point78 wrote: post #10
tylerpachal wrote: post #7

(serious) Is there any hope? Its just one problem after another (probably because everything is linked). What are the chances that we will get our act together or be able to engineer ourselves out of all of these problems?

Trim the world population

Sadly, our system of infrastructure funding is predicated on increasing populations and growing tax bases. A population decline would result in bankrupt cities and even worse infrastructure problems.

With a future of climate-induced migrations, we will likely face these problems anyway as people leave areas and never come back (or simply die) after "edge case" disasters strike.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#80

Post by commandlinefan »

technothrasher wrote: post #16
bsmitty5000 wrote: post #2

This article doesn't mention the declining insect population at all but I would think it's clear that a quickly declining food source would be a major cause of population decline. I wonder if there's a similar decline in other animals that rely on insects, eg bats. Although, interestingly, the article does mention neonicotinoids as a direct reason for the decline in population. It's hard to imagine humans taking the…

> or we die out and the planet recovers on its own. That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard. Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

> Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves

I wonder, though... we know, for example, that bees pollinate plants, and that we need plants to be pollinated for our survival. But if the bees die out, we can figure out another technical way to pollinate plants - it might be a pain to carry out, and we might be kicking ourselves for not saving the bees before it got to that point, but it can be done. If it comes down to a matter of survival, humans a a species will figure out a way to get what needs to be done, done. You might say that saving the birds and the insects now is the "simpler" route than replacing them, but it's starting to look like you'd be wrong, and we're not going to have any choice but figure out how to keep the human race going without them.

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