Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse • Hacker News Board

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#291

Post by throwanem » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #282

throwanem wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosquitoes, I'll grant you, even though they're a significant prey source for dragonflies. But wasps? You should be thanking them for the fact you still have trees, with the way they keep bagworms and tent caterpillars down. Flowers, too, for quite a lot of which they're the major or even the only pollinators.

I don't know. I had a hornet nest in my garden last year. They make a bit of a mess and you shouldn't go to near to their nest, but they are awesome insects and far better than wasps. They also eat them so you won't find that many flying around. They are just the larger, more peaceful versions that somehow aren't interested in humans the slightest. Sadly, they move every year and this time around the wasps are back.

I mean, hornets are wasps, genus Vespa. Other social wasps tend to be largely peaceful as well; most of the polistids ("paper wasps") in particular are almost totally unconcerned with humans, although I understand some of the tropical and neotropical species can be fierce. Yellowjackets, genus Vespula and ironically more closely related to hornets than are other social wasps, mostly get the bad name, but that's mainly just because their underground nests are less obvious and thus easier to trespass on. But there's generally enough daytime traffic at nest sites to make them observable, if you're paying attention at least.

I'm careful to approach only lone foragers and not nests, and I have yet to be stung while taking pictures of any wasp, something I typically do from as close to my macro lens's six-inch minimum working distance as I can manage - usually within 12 inches (30cm). Hornet, yellowjacket, paper wasp, or solitary, they all seem about equally willing to leave me unbothered, so long as I don't bother them first. Happily, having a camera lens and flashes going off nearby doesn't seem to count as bothering!

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#292

Post by hdjdbtbgwjsn » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 8:52 PM UTC

aww_dang wrote: post #284

hdjdbtbgwjsn wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm politically very in favour of personal liberty. Climate change being a real and causing problems is a fact at this point (we are mainly working out how big the problems will be). I wish that some liberterian politicians would start to accept that so we can get some freedom respecting solutions!

Humanity created agricultural systems. Likewise beavers modify their environment and create ecological systems. The Internet only moralizes about the former. I'm inclined to agree that climates change. Whether the weather is wrong, correct or otherwise undesirable due to immoral actions of men seems like a separate issue. As you mentioned, we don't fully understand the systems involved. Consequently, I prefer to err…

I don't see climate change as a moral issue. To me it's a practical issue. Best case climate change will seriously mess up our way of life. Worst case is very bad.

I'm not sure that we can grow and store enough trees to bring CO2 levels down to non dangerous levels in time. If we could it would certainly be worth doing. Can you point me to any calculations?

Even if this specific solution isn't viable, it is an example of what we need to do to solve this problem. Fundamentally we need to scrub a huge amount of carbon out of the atmosphere as soon as possible. Everything else is just moving the deckchairs.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#293

Post by aww_dang » Sat, Sep 12, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

hdjdbtbgwjsn wrote: post #292

aww_dang wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humanity created agricultural systems. Likewise beavers modify their environment and create ecological systems. The Internet only moralizes about the former. I'm inclined to agree that climates change. Whether the weather is wrong, correct or otherwise undesirable due to immoral actions of men seems like a separate issue. As you mentioned, we don't fully understand the systems involved. Consequently, I prefer to err…

I don't see climate change as a moral issue. To me it's a practical issue. Best case climate change will seriously mess up our way of life. Worst case is very bad. I'm not sure that we can grow and store enough trees to bring CO2 levels down to non dangerous levels in time. If we could it would certainly be worth doing. Can you point me to any calculations? Even if this specific solution isn't viable, it is an exampl…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712705

There's several of these if you look. I believe one outlines how much land exactly needs to be used.

I see it as a philosophical issue. For me the warmist perspective is incoherent.

A bug's lifetime is measured in weeks. He cannot see beyond the next tuft of grass. His world is few meters in diameter and inches in height. If the aforementioned beaver floods the meadow, is it "unnatural" for the bug? Does this qualify as "sticking a spanner into a natural system"? Clearly the bug would be justified in doomsaying from his perspective.

Luckily, we are not bugs. We have the ability to adapt and gain larger perspectives than just looking at the next hedge. What we don't have is an omnipotent ability to understand the complex details of nature. Thus, we are ill qualified to make statements like, "putting a spanner in the works". Who are we to say that man's activity is worse or somehow different than nature's?

There's so much doomsaying. As you admit, we don't understand the complex systems of the Earth. A warmer period might be better for us all. We don't know. If you ascribe to the apocalyptic vision it is hard to claim that controlling other's consumption habits is not a moral issue. Either they follow the advice of their betters or are complicit in manifesting the climate apocalypse.

If we start with the moral premise that men are free, then restrictions upon that become a moral issue.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but "cui bono" provides a more coherent explanation of the warmist agenda. It also explains why solutions like tree planting are not more popular. Carbon credits issued by a supranational entity raises alarm bells for me.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#294

Post by GaryNumanVevo » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

NoRagrets wrote: post #260

lilactown wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not beyond carrying capacity. We have enough food and other resources to clothe, house and feed everyone in the world and forever if we could organize ourselves. Capitalism has failed us in doing so. We need a new way of organizing. The Malthusian idea of "there are too many people" leads us to only one logical conclusion: eugenics, genocide. Don't fall into that trap. The basis is provably not true.

Do you have the numbers to prove that we have resources to ‘live forever’? Capitalism is the only reason we have survived as a species. It is because of capitalism that we are able to procreate relentlessly and without a thought to our future resource management. Population control through incentivizing responsible procreation is not ‘genocide’ and ‘eugenics’. Negative incentives is not the same as coercion/genocide/…

If we're talking about survival as a species, capitalism has been around for only an incredibly brief flash. Compared to millions of years of nomadic living.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#295

Post by jelliclesfarm » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #288

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not so everywhere in the world. I think it’s fair that the ones with the uterus get to decide what they want to do with their body. Maybe if we start making pod babies that can gestate outside the female human body, it would be a free for all decision to make. I hope someone works on it.

Not married? What you do with your body is kind of the whole deal there, never mind just having kids. Yet the decision about kids is very, very one-sided.

i dont know what you meant by 'not married?'

fwiw, i think 'marriage' should be abolished entirely. it is the single most effective and likely the oldest surveillance tool upon the human species since ancient times. i have such a dim view of marriage or rather the need for it...in terms of why it was concocted.

marriage as a man made social construct is the end result of so many undesirables. our world would be a better safer equitable place without it. women, for example..would be free from the tyranny of ownership.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#296

Post by armandhammer » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

joycian wrote: post #281

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I need to address the ‘ecofascist bullshit’ gem. Fascism promoted eugenics. Population control through responsible procreation is not eugenics. It is an incentive to make sure ones children and future generation has the best possible chance to thrive and flourish along with everyone else of our species without just a few gene pools monopolizing all the resources. The 1/2 surviving child/per person is deri…

I don't know if it's useful to see it as a zero sum game. The sun is beaming practically unlimited energy out towards us (and a whole lot more that doesn't reach Earth but is still available eventually). Even if it is zero sum: if we all stopped eating meat, we could pretty easily sustain ourselves. Putting it on population size instead of how that population behaves is not useful and frankly fatalist.

There's more than just food energy, though. Lots of things that we rely on for modern civilization and survival are finite -- the most obvious being petroleum / gas and various minerals + metals. Additionally, retrieving these resources is extremely environmentally destructive in ways which take centuries or millennia to recover from (we've already extracted the locations where getting at this stuff was easy and less destructive). It's a lose/lose situation.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#297

Post by armandhammer » Mon, Sep 14, 2020, 12:07 AM UTC

squibbles wrote: post #216

The wolves eat the deer. The deer population collapses to the point that the food supply for the wolves cannot support the wolves. The wolves starve and the wolf population collapses. Without pressure from the wolves, the deer make a comeback and flourish. The population cycles occur in both large and small ecosystems. The process is slow and steady. Often it seems like the embers of life have gone out. However, some…

Except no other animal harnesses the power of oil to make machines that can wipe out hundreds of thousands of square km of ecosystems (on land and sea) in a single day.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#298

Post by justinclift » Tue, Sep 15, 2020, 6:50 AM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #100

ludocode wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the book first and was deeply disappointed in the movie. They could have done so much more. Instead they spent like half an hour on dumb fight scenes which are only a couple pages in the book. I can't enjoy it just because of how much they cut out. For those that haven't read the book, here's an example: When Deckard Cain meets Rachael for the first time, she has an owl, and she claims it's real. He says "I th…

I do agree that the removal of the extinction of animals theme, the removal of Deckard's wife, and to some extent the removal of mercerism detracts from the movie (or at least with the second two significantly alters bits), however not sure if the removal of the "it's difficult to kill someone when you've had sex with their double"-theme is really detrimental. the whole fake police precinct full of androids thing was…

His full letter, as the original website that was hosting it is no longer online:

http://web.archive.org/web/20120610184707im_/http://www.phil...