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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

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Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#151

Post by leobg »

Chris2048 wrote: post #145
leobg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

> It costs about 5 to 10 times as much. Is that true, the mass produced bread is more expensive?

Difficult to calculate, with inflation and everything. But I do remember from the 1980s that a roll of bread was ~2 Euro cents (5 Pfennig), nominally. And now it’s ~20.

With industrial baking, modern fertilizers, farming automation, global container shipping, and all of that, one would reasonably expect it to have gotten significantly cheaper.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#152

Post by pwillia7 »

leobg wrote: post #79
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

Maybe this is just because we culturally overvalue the individual. Maybe technology helps us survive and have 'more' on a macro level but causes problems on a micro level, and maybe we are more geared 'naturally' than we believe to sacrifice our micro for a good human macro. I think about ants that sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony, surely without the same reasoning we would do something similar for[1].

[1]: https://www.science.org/content/article/exploding-ants-sacri...

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#153

Post by nunez »

wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

> I think that our bodies are highly intelligent and humans intrude a lot in it's natural functioning by inventing too much techniques and methods. Like I want to stay awake, drink coffee. Drink coffee, get insomnia. Insomnia leads to unhappiness. Take insomnia meds, get withdrawals. Generating more problems along the way while forgetting what the solutions were even for in the first place. If we just listened to our bodies signs, it pretty much tells us why you you are lethargic and need coffee in the first place.

This has come into hyper clarity for me ever since transitioning to minimalist shoes/sandals ten years ago and foregoing all caffeinated beverages this past December.

It's actually quite insane to think about how accessible coffee is and how much of our modern economy relies on people consuming it.

Consulting, big law, investment banks and lots of blue collar jobs (for example) rely on workers pulling 12+ hour days to do what mostly amounts to eye-watering amounts of paperwork. Given that sleep naturally becomes an afterthought when working under these conditions and showing any signs of weakness is frowned upon, coffee, sodas and energy drinks are all but required to function.

Similar deal with shoes. Feet are incredibly complex systems that are designed to withstand lots of abuse. Unfortunately, big shoe companies built their fortunes off of selling shoes that are great for sports but terrible for everyday use. Instead of pushing more minimal shoes that counteract weakening feet while being simpler to make, they push orthotics and shoes with more advanced technology and thicker sole stack.

It's depressing to think about, so I try not to!

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#154

Post by prewett »

Almondsetat wrote: post #108
WJW wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest generation alive. Only if you think that wealth is what makes people happy, but we just need to take a look at all the unhappy wealthy people all around us to see that that is not the case. Poverty can make people unhappy of course, especially the stress that comes from uncertainty. But prosperity alone is not sufficient for happiness. Generations of so…

Where did you get the "amount of technology" = "wealth" from parent's comment? With the current amount of technology we could put a roof over people's head, provide clean water and safe foods and medicines. This has nothing to do with owning a Lamborghini or eating a Michelin star restaurant, which would indeed count as superfluous wealth that doesn't actually improve happiness.

Technology makes possible things cheaper and impossible things possible, which is a form of wealth. At any rate, both money and technology can make us materially comfortable. But the reason “money can’t buy happiness” is that a large part of happiness comes from connections with people, to society, and perhaps even to nature. Another large part comes from one’s meaning or purpose. Neither of those can be bought or technologied.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#155

Post by karmakurtisaani »

leobg wrote: post #79
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

I think there are 2 aspects to the anecdote about your grandma.

Firstly, no one spoke about depression, because it as a condition was not recognized. It doesn't mean people didn't feel depressed.

Secondly, this time supporting your argument, perhaps when people go through terrible things in their childhood, they grow resilient towards adversity. If you know things can get a lot worse, you don't really worry about minor things.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#156

Post by prewett »

robertlagrant wrote: post #138
histriosum wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that money DOES buy time. When I have money, I can convert it to time to do things I enjoy. When I don't have money, I need to spend my time to get money in order to survive. I find the statement that "money can't buy time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would believe, and not at all accurate in practice.

> I find the statement that "money can't buy time" something that only a fairly wealthy person would believe, and not at all accurate in practice. Most people with money are old, because that's how you get money in general: provide value over a long period of time. But they would probably all trade that money for being 22 again, and having a lifetime ahead.

Someone asked a substitute teacher if she would make that trade, and she said she wouldn’t, not unless she could retain what she knew now. So, buy a renewed youth? Sure. But do 22 again as a 22 year old? Nope. Now that I’m “over the hill”, I see what she meant. Being 44 is similar to the difference between 11 and 22; not as drastic, but the stuff I understand about life I would not even be able to communicate to 22 year old me. Definitely would not want to relive my 20s. “Life starts at 40” is not just cope, there’s some truth in there, too.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#157

Post by lumb63 »

nunez wrote: post #153
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

> I think that our bodies are highly intelligent and humans intrude a lot in it's natural functioning by inventing too much techniques and methods. Like I want to stay awake, drink coffee. Drink coffee, get insomnia. Insomnia leads to unhappiness. Take insomnia meds, get withdrawals. Generating more problems along the way while forgetting what the solutions were even for in the first place. If we just listened to our…

+1 for minimalist footwear. I keep telling anyone who will listen, “isn’t it crazy that we don’t have foot shaped shoes?” And then we wonder why we have bunions, knee pain, and tight hips when we sit sedentary at a desk all day in our not-foot-shaped shoes.

I highly recommend reading The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul. It was written in the ‘60s about how technology influences the direction of humanity and all the unintended consequences that come from that, and how we turn to more technology to solve those problems. It was a very prescient book.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#158

Post by j0hnyl »

leobg wrote: post #79
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

"With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive."

I actually think we are.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#159

Post by xhevahir »

kasey_junk wrote: post #134
leobg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

At least as measured by suicide rates in the US your grandmothers likely generation new quite well what depression was even if the word didn’t matter. Between the 1920s and the end of WW2 the suicide rate per 100000 was lowest at 15 but reached almost 22. The pandemic rate which caused (rightly) lots of angst and introspection was 14.3. We should investigate what is causing increased levels of depression currently bu…

> At least as measured by suicide rates in the US your grandmothers likely generation new quite well what depression was even if the word didn’t matter.

They knew what suffering was, and arguably did more of it. But very few of them thought of it as a primarily medical problem, one requiring intervention by professionals, medicine, and so on. People who think of their problems in this newer way handle them differently, and not always better.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#160

Post by ses1984 »

pwillia7 wrote: post #152
leobg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had a very similar thought this morning. With the amount of technology today, we should be the happiest, wealthiest generation alive. My grandmother, born in the 1920s, still experienced hunger as a child, fled from the Russians through the ruins of bombed out cities, and, up until not too long ago, had to make a fire in order to have warm water for the bathtub. But I’ve never heard the word “depression” from her eve…

Maybe this is just because we culturally overvalue the individual. Maybe technology helps us survive and have 'more' on a macro level but causes problems on a micro level, and maybe we are more geared 'naturally' than we believe to sacrifice our micro for a good human macro. I think about ants that sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony, surely without the same reasoning we would do something similar for[1].…

Evolutionary biology and game theory can offer insight here. Ants are genetically identical which drives this behavior.
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