Earlier quoted context omitted.
The New Yorker doesn't read HN.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/th...
This was actually the article that put HN on my radar and brought me here.
Where have all the insects gone?
51–60 of 299 posts
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#52Sometimes I get the sense that people hate that we exist, in the numbers that we do, because of our impact on the earth by merely existing. A self-hatred if you will. And before you respond with "if only we did X, it would be fine," consider that the difficulty of convincing/coercing lots of people to do things is also an inherent part of our existence. Also part of our existence is the incentive to cheat to get ahea…
I'm sure there are some who do. There are a lot of people out there, you can find just about any belief.
But sometimes I get the sense that people say things like this as a way to derail the conversation. They'd rather talk about other people's motives and beliefs than the the actual observation about the environment.
And we know those people are out there. Some of them get paid a lot to do it.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#53Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the front window and grill. Today, this is no longer a problem.
This is a common anecdote, and a situation I remember as that's when I started driving.
Also one used in scientific study with seemingly dire results:
>The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-spla...
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We can't live like native Americans with iPhones. We probably could in the next 100 years through automation, massive reduction in population, and making things to last instead of making things to be replaced. Building a society whose values aren't based around never-ending growth. We won't, but we could.
massive reduction in population is a very ugly thing. There's basically no good way to do that.
I don't know, Japan seems to be doing OK. There are all sorts of problems that are going to eventually arise simply due to the fact that our economies are built on endless growth. But IF they embraced it and were able to advance automation fast enough, most of those would be overcome. Mainly: who will take care of the elderly.
HA part of that could be easily solved if suicide weren't so stigmatized. If everyone could just agree that once you're past the age of 80, once you get to a point of being infirm you just take a magic pill and peace out on your own terms, we'd be far better off as a species.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#55Big chem selling pesticides like there’s no tomorrow.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#56In my back yard when I was a kid there used to be thousands of these horrible beetles in the grass. You would step on them everywhere you walked and they smelled terrible. They are gone now but so are the dragonflies and the butterflies. I don't think whatever we did was worth it.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#57Anecdotally, while driving along Minnesota's segment of I94 in the '90s, one would have to stop and scrape the bugs off the front window and grill. Today, this is no longer a problem.
YES. Drove with my parents to the Catskills in upstate NY almost every weekend in the early 2000s. The windshield was covered in bug splatter. Now - nothing.
Edit: it was a Hyundai Excel
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We can't live like native Americans with iPhones. We probably could in the next 100 years through automation, massive reduction in population, and making things to last instead of making things to be replaced. Building a society whose values aren't based around never-ending growth. We won't, but we could.
massive reduction in population is a very ugly thing. There's basically no good way to do that.
Not necessarily. Demographics indicates that developed nations seem to have near-replacement birth rates. Anything less than 1 and you get exponential decay. So a small nudge will eventually lead to large reductions in population, but the rate of decline need not be severe.
There are of course issues that a lot of the economy is predicated on growth, but again, I'm actually pretty optimistic that markets and humans are pretty resilient and adaptable given enough warning and time.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
>We can't live like native Americans with iPhones. We probably could in the next 100 years through automation, massive reduction in population, and making things to last instead of making things to be replaced. Building a society whose values aren't based around never-ending growth. We won't, but we could.
massive reduction in population is a very ugly thing. There's basically no good way to do that.
True, although it'll eventually happen on its own, and it likely won't be on our terms.
Re: Where have all the insects gone?
#60Outdoor lights disturb insects. At night I turn most of my outdoor lights off.