Because they've been outed: https://birdsarentreal.com
This was funny at the start, but I guarantee people with mental illnesses will start hopping on this bandwagon and you'll see people unironically protesting it.
Sounds like a useful filter then.
Bird populations declining fast across North America
11–20 of 322 posts
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#12In population dynamics, you often see periods of decline and gain. How do we know that this is a genuine long-term decline as opposed to a temporary downswing? I’ve always wondered.
After all, not every population can grow forever. So which pieces of news should we be alarmed about, vs which are expected?
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#13Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
That seems a bit of a dichotomous view on a complex web of interconnected "realities" and "abstractions", and I'm not sure if "real" is a great term for an opposite of an abstraction, which is also real in a lot of ways.
Otherwise you are getting _very_ close to the N/S dichotomy in Jungian psychology and the Myers-Briggs type model :D and the growth idea there is transcendence of the dichotomy, bringing strengths of both ends forward, rather than regressing to the one-sided way.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#14They're not
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#15At first I thought it was the new conspiracy of the federal government replacing birds with drones:
https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environm...
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#16Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
But isn't the problem that these abstractions exist precisely to help coordinate real things? The economy (and by extension, to a limited degree, the stock market) directly influences a lot of real things and basic needs.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#17Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
> the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it
To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months. Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year, effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication, and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the systems of abstractions you decry.
We're messing up a lot. And we can do much better. But let's not lose the forest for the trees. When we focus on something, we get it done, massively better so than at any prior point in human history.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#18I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot of these issues go away.
Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people.
8 billion people is just too much, even if we all recycle and take the bus.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#19Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
But isn't the problem that these abstractions exist precisely to help coordinate real things? The economy (and by extension, to a limited degree, the stock market) directly influences a lot of real things and basic needs.
Yes abstractions here are a distraction. People will consume whether they hunt, barter, trade or use fist money.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#20This quote is eerily similar to net result of one of the Four Pests Campaigns during the Great Leap Forward, where sparrows were targeted for extinction: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
“Researchers also found that common birds from just 12 families, such as blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent—or over 2.5 billion birds—of total population decline. Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor.”
The result was a calamitous famine, and it seems big Ag is on a similar path, but in a wildly different context.