111–120 of 243 posts
Absolutely destroyed me, and I tear up everytime I just think about this episode.
I am probably just a horrible person, but I just don’t care about the extinction of such specific species. Often a member of one species is practically impossible to tell from a member of a different species save for where the individual was found. I care a lot more if “crows” are endangered than if “efitz’ southeastern marble crested crow” is endangered. [ed: spelling] Also, I suspect that such narrowly defined spec…
I'm not in any way saying that we should not be concerned about species going extinct. I remember Dr. Malcolm's line about extinction from Jurassic Park.
I am probably just a horrible person, but I just don’t care about the extinction of such specific species. Often a member of one species is practically impossible to tell from a member of a different species save for where the individual was found. I care a lot more if “crows” are endangered than if “efitz’ southeastern marble crested crow” is endangered. [ed: spelling] Also, I suspect that such narrowly defined spec…
I think what's coming into focus for a lot of people nowadays (i.e. the last 50ish years w.r.t eco conservation) is the idea that we are actually making the world worse (for humans) - that actually making the world better for ourselves necessarily includes limiting or reversing our out-competition of other life. While it may not be noticeable to humans that a single species has been driven out (even just out of a region and not necessarily to full extinction) over the course of 10 or 50 or 500 years due to human activity, that does still represent a change to the established biodiversity, which (many people believe) is likely to be net-negative for humans.
Reasons for these beliefs likely vary according to people's experience and interaction with the physical world. Personally, I find great joy experiencing wildness and nature, and I worry that my daughter will not have that. Others might be concerned that the loss of species incurs the loss of some aspects of nature from which we might be able to learn - that there was an opportunity to better ourselves that is now gone forever.
I am probably just a horrible person, but I just don’t care about the extinction of such specific species. Often a member of one species is practically impossible to tell from a member of a different species save for where the individual was found. I care a lot more if “crows” are endangered than if “efitz’ southeastern marble crested crow” is endangered. [ed: spelling] Also, I suspect that such narrowly defined spec…
I am probably just a horrible person, but I just don’t care about the extinction of such specific species. Often a member of one species is practically impossible to tell from a member of a different species save for where the individual was found. I care a lot more if “crows” are endangered than if “efitz’ southeastern marble crested crow” is endangered. [ed: spelling] Also, I suspect that such narrowly defined spec…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t know why you keep bringing up socialism. My point is that corporate lobbying and donations should be restricted, not that free market businesses shouldn’t exist. There is a broad, non-linear spectrum between socialism and unrestricted corporate influence on government.
> unrestricted corporate influence on government Your notion that absent corporate lobbying, government control would work out in the best interests of everybody is utterly without foundation. Your complaint about the profit motive being the root of evil also implies that without profit, things would be better. Without profit has been repeatedly tried. It never produces better results. My father grew up a socialist.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please try responding to what people are actually saying rather than inventing endless strawman arguments. There are important functional distinctions between a government run enterprise, a government regulated enterprise and a completely unregulated enterprise. There are different types of inefficiencies in heirarchical systems and market systems. Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unnecessary zero-sum games.…
> While the army seems like a purely heirarchical system, it is really a hybrid system since interfaces heavily with the market systems which we call the military-industrial complex. That has nothing to do with how things are run on a military base. Besides, if you've got any evidence that the military worked better in a non-market system, like the USSR, please present. > Markets tend to duplicate effort often in unn…
It can, especially if poorly managed. However, there is a reason why most companies are heirarchical systems.
If markets were truely the "one true way to do things" you would see markets all the way down. That simply is not the case. In fact, instead we see that "vertical integration" can be extremely successful and can multiple companies linked purely by markets.
Similarly, you don't see very many successful truely free markets. It turns out that you need the rule of law and a regulating authority to minimize unproductive competition that would otherwise swamp the benefits of the productive competitive.
We don't want companies competing for sales by blowing up each other's stores. We want companies to compete for sales by making better products.
Deciding when and how to mix markets with heirarchical and other systems is extremely complicated and hard. But it is simple minded to pretend that pure markets are always the best solution when reality so clearly shows the benefits of hybrid systems.
Someday we’re going to hit the cascade point, where we’ve simultaneously and severely damaged or disrupted so many ecosystems that they won’t be able to recover and it all just collapses.
Great thing is, we probably won't know what that point is until we've past it.
Ocean acidification, the methane clathrate gun, some of the most serious climate issues that we've identified aren't even within the window of public discussion. The Green New Deal isn't even close to being passed.
I can't even imagine America pulling together to pass a boring infrastructure bill right now. I honestly can't fathom how previous presidents got anything done at all, let alone the massive public works projects that shaped America in the middle of the 20th century.