"andrel" <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:49F### [at] hotmailcom...
> On 1-5-2009 16:29, somebody wrote:
> > "Chambers" <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote in message
> > news:49fa99cb$1@news.povray.org...
> >> On 4/30/2009 4:24 PM, somebody wrote:
> >>> "nemesis"<nam### [at] gmailcom>  wrote in message
> >>>> This argument of "well, that's a problem for our sons and grandsons"
> >>>> really bothers me.  We may well have no descendants to handle that
kind
> >>>> of responsability.
> >
> >>> I find it irrational for people to care about realities they are not,
> > and
> >>> cannot be, part of.
> >
> >> I find it irrational not to plan for sustainability.
> >
> > Sustain what exactly? If you don't exist, there's nothing to sustain,
> > nothing to break.
> >
> There are a couple of theological and philosophical schools about what
> the fact that we as a species 'rule' the earth means. One is that we are
> given the power to do what we want and another stresses the concept of
> 'stewardship'. I know a fair number of small 'left wing' churches that
> strongly support the latter but it is also important for big parts of


> rather typical for the sort of born again Christians that were in the
> previous US administration. Or at least those within that church that
> supported this view were given more money and other support to spread
> these concepts by those that had earned lots of money by not thinking of
> their grandchildren. It might be that part of this difference may be
> attributed to a different value of the Buxton index* on the two sides of
> the Atlantic, but whatever the cause, I am an atheist who is firmly
> rooted in the stewardship school and you're attitude frankly gives me
> the creeps.
>
> * The Buxton Index is a prospective measure of individual or
> institutional persistence, defined as the time horizon over which an
> entity makes its plans. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buxton_Index )

I'm an atheist too, and this is how it works: I care about what happens
during my lifetime, nothing else. Someone 20 years my senior cares about
what happens during *his* lifetime, which falls 20 years short of my period
of interest. Someone 20 years my junior has a vested interest in an
additional 20 years after my expiry. In the end, if everybody is selfish, as
they should be, it forms a continuum and it all works out - well, as
smoothly as anything works out in nature, which may not be saying much.
While recognizing that different people have different expactations, it
would be foolish of me to trade mine for someone else's. Just as I don't
expect a 15 year old to care for the types of things I care, you cannot
expect me to care for the things that a 15 year old should.

Buxton index for individuals is simple. $1M to a person at age 20 is the
same worth as $10M to a person at age 60 and $inf to a person in
deathbed/grave. It's the aforementioned overlap across generations is what
makes institutions or corporations behave unlike individuals. But, to state
what should be painfully obvious but apparenty is not, I am not an
institution. Those who accuse me of inconsistency miss the obvious that my
personal expectations and even values can, and should be, different from
what I expect from institutions, corporates or governments. I don't need to
do as what I lobby for the government to do, for instance.

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