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Holocene Extinction

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Re: Holocene Extinction

#81

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #71
jungletime wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are here, so obviously you feel "good" enough and worthy to exist. With population control its always the "others" need to be eliminated. No one wants to start with themselves. Its an extremely selfish position really. Its also not very logically viable, since those that feel the world is over populated and kill themselves, will just be selected out of the gene pool. Leaving only those that want to live, procreat…

there is no need to kill oneself. but making a start by not choosing the ego-project of procreation would already make a huge difference. if people really want to have children there are enough orphans out there and which would make the world better by raising them instead.

> making a start by not choosing the ego-project of procreation would already make a huge difference.

In general, it is procreation that makes humans think about the long term. The truth is, no matter what you do, you will be dead in a hundred years. Wanting to leave the world a better place for your children and grand-children is a much more powerful motivator than abstract philosophical principle.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#82

Post by agakshat »

alex_young wrote: post #64

A huge chunk of our net impact on global warming and deforestation is a direct result of our food system, namely animal agriculture. There is disagreement about just how inefficient turning an acre of corn into slabs of cow, but it should be clear that it is some fraction of the efficiency of just eating that corn as food itself.

Strongly agree with this. Utilisation of water to irrigate animal feed, deforestation of land to support growing that feed, methane expulsions from cows themselves.. it’s crazy to think about the environmental impact of beef, when eating chicken or fish would be far better for the environment (not to mention healthier).

Re: Holocene Extinction

#83

Post by new2628 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #70
new2628 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is far less evident than usually assumed. The life of the last hunter gatherer tribes is probably the best approximation we have on how our ancestors may have lived. And while death is a more common (and swifter, less problematic) occurrence for these people, they were hardly unhappy compared to us -- sure, they didn't have iphones.

Many times I find these studies that show that hunter gathering was not all that bad are written from male perspectives. It is great to be a guy hunting with your buddies if the women are the ones doing the hard work of gathering. Also, you don’t experience the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth. Many times these hunter gatherer societies have much higher maternal and infant mortality than ours, and higher rates of…

I'm very skeptical of projecting back 21th century feminism to tens of thousands of years ago. If you look at bears/wolves/elephants or any other mammals in the wild, you don't see females taken advantage of or in secondary roles. I see no reason to believe early humans were worse, unless I am looking very hard to find a victim where there isn't any.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#84

Post by backtracking »

almost_usual wrote: post #24

The Biomass of mammals on Earth is sobering. Livestock, mostly cattle and pigs (60%) Humans (36%) Wild animals (4%)

It shows the ability of humans to preserve and propagate animal species when there is an incentive to do so. No need to worry about cows going extinct.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#85

Post by mikelevins »

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #71
jungletime wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are here, so obviously you feel "good" enough and worthy to exist. With population control its always the "others" need to be eliminated. No one wants to start with themselves. Its an extremely selfish position really. Its also not very logically viable, since those that feel the world is over populated and kill themselves, will just be selected out of the gene pool. Leaving only those that want to live, procreat…

there is no need to kill oneself. but making a start by not choosing the ego-project of procreation would already make a huge difference. if people really want to have children there are enough orphans out there and which would make the world better by raising them instead.

That's true. On the other hand, if the desire to have one's own biological progeny is heritable, then the previous poster's point still stands. Given a mixed population of people who want to reproduce their own genomes and those who don't, over time the balance will shift to favor those who do.

Parents who don't care whether the children are theirs biologically will have a greater tendency to raise children regardless of biological relationship. That means they are more likely to expend their finite resources on other people's children. That increases the likelihood that other lineages will prosper and expand, and decreases the likelihood that their own will.

Therefore we should expect that, with the passage of generations, the desire to have one's own biological progeny will spread and come to dominate the population.

That is, if such inclinations are heritable--or if a heritable desire to have one's own children appears in the population at some point.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#86

Post by rapind »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #75
Endlessly wrote: post #69

Struggling to find a word for it, but it’s obvious that humans lack the will collectively to avoid certain types of systemic multigenerational issues. Climate change is the most obvious, but there’s long list of issues like this that if suddenly every human on Earth magically expected to live 1000 to 10,000 years would become more pressing issues. As a semi-futurist, this is the core issue, it’s not that humans don’t…

Even if humans did care, that doesn't mean they could organize a meaningful response. COVID-19 is affecting people right now. It, and other viruses like the flu, are just a giant rhythm game: if everyone could be isolated for 2 weeks, it would be over in 2 weeks, and we'd never have to deal with it ever again. We just have a fundamental coordination problem. A lot of foresight and resources are required, and only a C…

I've thought about how a hive would manage, but I suspect there are other weaknesses a hive would have that would come to light pretty quickly (you know besides lack of free will, and extinction from depression or lack of motivation). We probably need something new, but seem unable to experiment quickly with new ideas.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#87

Post by Ididntdothis »

raiflip wrote: post #78
alex_young wrote: post #64

A huge chunk of our net impact on global warming and deforestation is a direct result of our food system, namely animal agriculture. There is disagreement about just how inefficient turning an acre of corn into slabs of cow, but it should be clear that it is some fraction of the efficiency of just eating that corn as food itself.

What about in the case where animals can extract more nutrients from plant food than we can? Cows in particular have specially built stomachs that can extract nutrients from plants than we can. I don't think this would be enough to make eating meat more efficient, but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants.

It’s true that some animals can digest plants that we can’t digest. But there is plenty of evidence that humans can live perfectly well on a plant based diet if they eat the right plants . It’s not necessary to eat meat for getting nutrients.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#88

Post by tejohnso »

raiflip wrote: post #78
alex_young wrote: post #64

A huge chunk of our net impact on global warming and deforestation is a direct result of our food system, namely animal agriculture. There is disagreement about just how inefficient turning an acre of corn into slabs of cow, but it should be clear that it is some fraction of the efficiency of just eating that corn as food itself.

What about in the case where animals can extract more nutrients from plant food than we can? Cows in particular have specially built stomachs that can extract nutrients from plants than we can. I don't think this would be enough to make eating meat more efficient, but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants.

> but it may be necessary to eat some meat to get nutrients you wouldn't otherwise get from plants.

It is not necessary to eat meat.

Re: Holocene Extinction

#89

Post by [deleted] »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #49

Many times there is a heavy dose of misanthropy in these environmental discussions. Phrases like "humanity is a virus", etc. I would like to share a different perspective.There is a saying, "It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." Even if humanity overburdens the planet and goes extinct in the next 100 years, I prefer what we have now, than if we had remained hunter-gatherers or pre-ind…

[deleted]

Re: Holocene Extinction

#90

Post by Ididntdothis »

MattGaiser wrote: post #15
mc32 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but who’s willing to get off at the next station, not the passengers who’ve been on it from the start and not the passengers who just got on and are getting a taste.

Technology really is the only way out.

My big hope is that technology will evolve to a point where we don’t need physical bodies anymore and pretty much live in cyberspace.
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