desire for infinite growth in a finite system - results are obvious. the finite system will crash and burn. we are fucked, nature will recover when we make it not suitable for humans
Strictly speaking, its unknown if we live in a finite system or an infinite one - but it’s certain that the local topology isn’t infinitely dense.
(We speculate one can technically go infinitely far in any direction of space or indefinitely backward and forward through time; but there’s not any infinite amounts of stuff here which is the problem.)
Well yeah, the earth is a fixed size. I think that is their point. Of course the universe could be infinite, but the amount of livable resources we have access to is currently finite.
My apologies, I’ll concede I knew what you meant, but my poor brain tripped on the word ‘system’. Your comment was apt on a human-scale system of our planet - we are fucked. But it’s way fun and often useful to remember that’s not the only lens available.
We are still a product of nature in many ways and all our society could be viewed as nature featuring yet another bloom and collapse - and our blip as a species isn’t even special - check out the great oxidation (extinction) event whereby anaerobic organisms created so much waste oxygen that they killed of almost all life on the planet (organisms that live on oxygen and the air cycle we know today were ‘born’ from this event).
None of that changes the fact that I did deliberately misconstrue your statement; please excuse any offense I may have caused. I meant no harm.
I’m just needlessly waxing poetic, as is my wont. They said ‘system’ which is an ambiguous term.
I also considered noting that my local baskin-robbins gets delivered more ice cream than I’d ever want to eat.
But since I’m called out I’ll add that any person can only imagine so much, and as such a finite group of peoples’ collective imagination can only be arbitrarily large, not infinite.
But don’t mind me, I’m just a dog on the internet.
But this is how nature works every day. Humans are just better at pushing the limits and influencing their circumstances to adapt.
Edit: i wrote this in the meaning that althought nature does eventually ballance things out, this is not the case with humans (yet). We adjust and shape out surroundings, in order to thrive. Eventually though i believe that nature will survive and recover. We will eventually go extinct and i dont believe that much of the universe will miss us
Nature naturally (pun intended) balances itself. If there’s no rabbits, the wolves die out. Allows for the rabbit population to recover. We play Gods with this. We overfarm, overforradge, deforest massive woods, that have existed in peace for eons. We simply don’t let nature recover, because we think we are masters of the universe.
I’m not a hippy - by no means. I consume, I raise children and (although electric) I drive a car. Still, I buy tyres, that are a huge pollutant, I consume electricity to charge it, which is not always renewable, etc etc. It goes on. But this means nothing. I am alone amongst my peers - in my extended circle of friends & colleagues (approx. 400 people), I can only think of 2-3 people that are like me - conscious about what they consume / throw away / reuse / recycle.
Then Jeff Bezos organises his wedding in Venice, and his guests all arrive with their personal plane, while I would not buy and drink coffee if it’s not made (at the very least) with the paper coffee pods…
Do I feel stupid? Sometimes. Am I ridiculed sometimes? Daily. But I stand by my principles.
Except for the fact that nature has successfully balanced itself out for, well, as long as life has existed on this planet. Including recovery and finding a new balance after extremely drastic shifts in the environment.
Humans managed to remain a part of this for most our existence, too. So the current trends have absolutely nothing to do with our ability to manipulate our environment.
We’ve allowed an “elite” class of parasitic sociopaths to dictate the direction of modern society, and their influence has spread a corruption to every corner of the modern world. This insatiable greed will be our downfall, and there’s nothing natural about it.
This insatiable greed will be our downfall, and there’s nothing natural about it.
I would argue that it is natural, that avarice and greed are natural things. My theory is that the overactive amygdala in our brains is ill-suited for modern societies that exist due to large-scale cooperation and some flavor of magnanimity. Though it’s obviously an evolutionary adaptation for our ancestors, the irony is that it will be a large cause of our extinction.
desire for infinite growth in a finite system - results are obvious. the finite system will crash and burn. we are fucked, nature will recover when we make it not suitable for humans
Strictly speaking, its unknown if we live in a finite system or an infinite one - but it’s certain that the local topology isn’t infinitely dense.
(We speculate one can technically go infinitely far in any direction of space or indefinitely backward and forward through time; but there’s not any infinite amounts of stuff here which is the problem.)
Well yeah, the earth is a fixed size. I think that is their point. Of course the universe could be infinite, but the amount of livable resources we have access to is currently finite.
That’s exactly my point, yep.
My apologies, I’ll concede I knew what you meant, but my poor brain tripped on the word ‘system’. Your comment was apt on a human-scale system of our planet - we are fucked. But it’s way fun and often useful to remember that’s not the only lens available.
We are still a product of nature in many ways and all our society could be viewed as nature featuring yet another bloom and collapse - and our blip as a species isn’t even special - check out the great oxidation (extinction) event whereby anaerobic organisms created so much waste oxygen that they killed of almost all life on the planet (organisms that live on oxygen and the air cycle we know today were ‘born’ from this event).
None of that changes the fact that I did deliberately misconstrue your statement; please excuse any offense I may have caused. I meant no harm.
No worries. I’ll read up on that too, thanks for the additional reading material :)
I’m just needlessly waxing poetic, as is my wont. They said ‘system’ which is an ambiguous term.
I also considered noting that my local baskin-robbins gets delivered more ice cream than I’d ever want to eat.
But since I’m called out I’ll add that any person can only imagine so much, and as such a finite group of peoples’ collective imagination can only be arbitrarily large, not infinite.
But don’t mind me, I’m just a dog on the internet.
But this is how nature works every day. Humans are just better at pushing the limits and influencing their circumstances to adapt.
Edit: i wrote this in the meaning that althought nature does eventually ballance things out, this is not the case with humans (yet). We adjust and shape out surroundings, in order to thrive. Eventually though i believe that nature will survive and recover. We will eventually go extinct and i dont believe that much of the universe will miss us
Nature naturally (pun intended) balances itself. If there’s no rabbits, the wolves die out. Allows for the rabbit population to recover. We play Gods with this. We overfarm, overforradge, deforest massive woods, that have existed in peace for eons. We simply don’t let nature recover, because we think we are masters of the universe.
I’m not a hippy - by no means. I consume, I raise children and (although electric) I drive a car. Still, I buy tyres, that are a huge pollutant, I consume electricity to charge it, which is not always renewable, etc etc. It goes on. But this means nothing. I am alone amongst my peers - in my extended circle of friends & colleagues (approx. 400 people), I can only think of 2-3 people that are like me - conscious about what they consume / throw away / reuse / recycle.
Then Jeff Bezos organises his wedding in Venice, and his guests all arrive with their personal plane, while I would not buy and drink coffee if it’s not made (at the very least) with the paper coffee pods…
Do I feel stupid? Sometimes. Am I ridiculed sometimes? Daily. But I stand by my principles.
Oh, sure, makes total sense. Sure, sure…
Except for the fact that nature has successfully balanced itself out for, well, as long as life has existed on this planet. Including recovery and finding a new balance after extremely drastic shifts in the environment.
Humans managed to remain a part of this for most our existence, too. So the current trends have absolutely nothing to do with our ability to manipulate our environment.
We’ve allowed an “elite” class of parasitic sociopaths to dictate the direction of modern society, and their influence has spread a corruption to every corner of the modern world. This insatiable greed will be our downfall, and there’s nothing natural about it.
I would argue that it is natural, that avarice and greed are natural things. My theory is that the overactive amygdala in our brains is ill-suited for modern societies that exist due to large-scale cooperation and some flavor of magnanimity. Though it’s obviously an evolutionary adaptation for our ancestors, the irony is that it will be a large cause of our extinction.
Humans have been here for as long as humans have been here, which hasn’t been very long in the big picture.
Do you remember your great great great grandma^69420 bacteria?
Nor do I. Sure humans have been around a while, but not all that long in the big picture…