231–240 of 329 posts
Would be good to have plastic waste broken down, but be careful not to take down our whole civilization with it. Almost everything today is made out of plastic...
Imagine this sprayed over a modern army. "The guns.. they are melting."
On the other hand, modern hard body armor is often a ceramic/polyethylene composite.
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I try not to kill flies, no. The only exception is for multiple flies that won't go away. Ditto for ants. It's a bit strange that violence toward insects is fine, but violence towards dogs is not. Ever killed a dog because it annoyed you? That said, doing it for science at least has a justification.
Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.
It seems pretty normal and not strange at all that I develop stronger feelings for animals I personally bond with.
One day, landfills are vibrant ecosystems that completely break down whatever is placed inside them. As a compost pile today is to plant waste, a landfill one day could be to plastic, glass, metal, styrofoam, etc. We just need to save the planet long enough that evolution can run its course and some lifeforms start taking advantage of all the energy locked inside our "waste".
> We just need to save the planet long enough that evolution can run its course and some lifeforms start taking advantage of all the energy locked inside our "waste". You realize evolution works in timeframes that are like really really long? On an evolutional timescale 2000 years is pretty much nothing, to us humans it's pretty much our whole modern history of massively polluting this planet. The pace with which we…
Oh, yeah, I know how this ends. A year from now, when we're chest-deep in caterpillars, you're going to offer to sell us some caterpillar-eating birds...
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> it's fine to not care for insects Well no it's not exactly 'fine'. Maybe we will figure out some day that insects are a little bit conscious and it may turn out we have collectively been literally worse than Hitler for not caring. In the meantime I choose not to care, not as a fully logical decision, but for my own sanity and well-being. I'm a dumb ape who tries (and even maybe succeeds) to be logical sometimes, my…
> What's the logic behind that distinction? If a child stumbles into a pond and drown, or is mauled by a wild coyote, will you let them die on the basis of non-interference? Great point, you got me there. All life forms being equal, then yes if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote. Obviously, I wouldn't take it that far, so perhaps there's more criteria to…
To insect charity yeah. Or spending a lot of time doing insect advocacy or something.
Instead I donate for anti-malaria bed nets for kids and argue about animal ethics on the internet.
> if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote
Right. Obviously no one but psychopaths act like that. I think what you call 'non-interference' ties in with the difference between the moral weight of action vs inaction. Most people's moral intuition draw a distinction between the two, and think action matters more. The interesting thing is that you can construct scenarios where that intuition changes.
Don't know if that comic was aimed at me I can sympathize with black hat guy though I know he's supposed to be the annoying dick in the comic.
I think it's interesting to take propositions to their logical extremes, but you have to hedge the results with common sense because when you take things to their extremes a small error in reasoning could lead you far astray.
"A chance discovery occurred when one of the scientific team, Federica Bertocchini, an amateur beekeeper, was removing the parasitic pests from the honeycombs in her hives. The worms were temporarily kept in a typical plastic shopping bag that became riddled with holes." What a great accident.
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I think the biggest issue people have with landfills is that it's basically banking on the things being dumped there not having an adverse effect on the environment, ground water, etc over a long period of time. Even if no one really knew/knows/ensures what is entirely safe to dump.
Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would think burying waste underground is an okay solution. It made sense when most household waste was fabrics, wood, old food etc but nobody stopped quick enough to evaluate the impacts when our waste got more and more toxic and non-biodegradable. I've recently move to the Netherlands from the UK and was amazed to discover they don't recycle household metal items (e.g. soft drinks cans,…
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Do you eat animal products? I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. At least there are principled reasons to care less about insects (much less complex nervous system), I can find no principled reason to care more for dogs than pigs.
> I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. Pets are a recent phenomenon (last 100 or so years, and urban). [edit: recent, not common phenomenon] In rural places animals like cats and dogs where actually useful: guarding, helping with the sheep, killing mice and snakes, and such. The bonding came from having them around (and having them be useful), not because there was some bizar…