George Carlin - Saving the Planet • Hacker News Board

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#11

Post by roc » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 6:47 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #6

Sounds like he's ranting on a linguistic or rhetorical peeve rather than combatting actual environmentalism. When someone says we should "save the earth", they quite obviously don't think that, for example, pollution is going to make the planet explode, or something like that. Environmentalism is not about saving the planet itself - Earth will keep on spinning for several trillion years regardless of what we do. Envi…

I disagree.

Carlin's philosophy, particularly toward the end, was that humanity as a whole is doomed. The thesis is "The planet isn't going anywhere; we are" Note that he didn't say "will" or "may"; he said are.

To him, trying to save even ourselves was only slightly less arrogant and ill-founded than trying to save any other endangered specie and just as doomed an effort.

His certainly wasn't a hopeful philosophy, but he was consistent within it.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#12

Post by anamax » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 7:03 PM UTC

solson wrote: post #10

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #4

Once upon a time, obsession with bodily purity was a right-wing complex. In recent years, that obsession has been taken over by the left.

Almost all fascist/totalitarian movements have a strong element of health/environmental purity in their dogma. One thing people miss about past totalitarian movements is that they truly believed they were making the world a better place.

> One thing people miss about past totalitarian movements is that they truly believed they were making the world a better place.

Of course they do - "making the world a better place" is one of the most powerful motivators.

Yet, many folks think that money is the motivator to worry about. People who are bought can be re-bought and wander off if not paid. True believers keep at it.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#13

Post by PostOnce » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 7:08 PM UTC

I think a large part of conservation/endangered species protection is not that we just want to prevent everything from going extinct, but to prevent ourselves from being the unnecessary cause of that extinction. If whale oil had never been fuel, whales would be doing better right now. If weasels/rats/etc. hadn't been introduced in many places, a lot of native species would be having less trouble (particularly in New Zealand).

Also, saving endangered species, from a utility perspective, makes sense. People like animals. Therefore we want to keep them around. The cute ones like whales and kiwis anyway. I bet this page doesn't get a lot of visits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangered_spiders ...and now I'm ranting.

Re: George Carlin - Saving the Planet

#14

Post by pkulak » Tue, Apr 27, 2010, 8:08 PM UTC

I care about the "environment" because I care about maintaining my quality of life. I like "bike paths" because I think it's retarded to send billions of dollars to dangerous theocrats who want me dead, in exchange for air pollution. I care about endangered species because it would be nice to eat a blue crab, or maybe some tuna, in a decade. Environmentalists are just like everyone else; we look out for our interests. That's not arrogance.