Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> On a bit of a tangent, I do agree that it's highly unlikely that 
> humanity as a whole is in any danger of actual extinction in the near 
> future.

  Yeah, humans are rather good at surviving too. Where other uber-survivor
species are tough, humans have really good brains, and those are rather
useful for surviving, so even a really enormous (human-caused) ecocatastrophe
is most probably not going to kill every single person on Earth. In the
worst case scenario it might be that modern civilization as we know it
might crumble and humanity will return to the middle ages (in an environment
much less hospitable than back then), but it most probably won't kill them
all out. If because of nothing else, it will be because at some point the
modern civilization will be so destroyed that it will be incapable of
continuing the destruction of the ecosystem, which will allow the ecosystem
to slowly start recuperating (during the next few thousands of years or so).

  If the human species some day goes extinct, it will most probably be
something not caused by humans themselves (such as for example a world-wide
lethal pandemia or similar).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> If because of nothing else, it will be because at some point the
> modern civilization will be so destroyed that it will be incapable of
> continuing the destruction of the ecosystem, which will allow the ecosystem
> to slowly start recuperating (during the next few thousands of years or so).

Exactly.  That and the fact that the resource requirements for a 
smallish population of humans scraping by is vastly less than that for a 
massive global civilization, so even a pretty wrecked environment could 
probably support a small civilization of sorts for an indefinite amount 
of time (although, as you point out, the environment would certainly 
recover in reality).

It's an interesting (and potentially disheartening) thought experiment 
to try to think of what the probable steady-state modes for our 
civilization might be, assuming that we avoid collapse and assuming 
nothing else completely changes the rules (aliens, the singularity, FTL 
travel, etc).  I do think that the rather consistently low birth rates 
in first world countries give some cause for hope here though.

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote in message
news:49fa1463$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody escreveu:
> > "Kevin Wampler" <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote in message
> > news:49f9fa2b$1@news.povray.org...
> >> Warp wrote:
> >
> >>>   It's sad, really. Maybe the only consolation is that we will
> > eventually
> >>> kill ourselves
> >> I don't know how consoled I feel by this possibility.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure you both will be dead long before humanity expires one
way
> > or the other, so I fail to see why one could either be consoled or
> > non-consoled.
>
> Well, I'm pretty sure the last man on Earth far off in the future will
> say the same careless thing as you now, but is about to die from a
> terrible tragedy anyway. :P
>
> 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. Assume parallel universes, for a moment. Should I care
that in one of those universes, "my" counterpart dies a horrific and painful
death? Well, a human being living on this universe but 500 years from now
(in either direction) is just as, if not more, detached from my reality. I
don't care one way or another.

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somebody wrote:
> death? Well, a human being living on this universe but 500 years from now
> (in either direction) is just as, if not more, detached from my reality. I
> don't care one way or another.

	Emphasis on *your* reality.

	And I'll keep that in mind the next time you complain about the LHC.
You're not a part of their reality, so I'll remind them not to listen to
your complaints.

-- 
Why do so many foods come packaged in plastic? It's so uncanny.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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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. Assume parallel universes, for a moment. Should I care
> that in one of those universes, "my" counterpart dies a horrific and painful
> death? Well, a human being living on this universe but 500 years from now
> (in either direction) is just as, if not more, detached from my reality. I
> don't care one way or another.

Which is why we can trash this world so badly within a human lifetime: 
there are no consequences.

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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> I find it irrational for people to care about realities they are not, and
> cannot be, part of.

You don't have kids, do you?  Of course I don't either, but that's beyond the
point.  I mean, really?  Stewardship?  Altruism?  Responsibility?  Are these
foreign concepts?

 - Ricky

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"triple_r" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message
news:web.49fa639c4f7b835863a1b7c30@news.povray.org...
> "somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> > I find it irrational for people to care about realities they are not,
and
> > cannot be, part of.

> You don't have kids, do you?  Of course I don't either, but that's beyond
the
> point.  I mean, really?  Stewardship?  Altruism?  Responsibility?  Are
these
> foreign concepts?

Even if I were altruistic and responsible to a fault, I don't see how I'd
know whether the extinction of coelacanth (or homo sapiens, for that matter)
would be a good thing or bad in the long run. It doesn't make sense to view
far future through our extremely limited and egocentric self-righteous
goggles. Do you mourn the extinction of dinosaurs? Do you mourn the red
dwarf sun enfulging earth? On evolutionary, geological or astronomical
timescales, our values based on scales of a lifetime at most are
meaningless.

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"Mueen Nawaz" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message
news:49fa3813$1@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:

> > death? Well, a human being living on this universe but 500 years from
now
> > (in either direction) is just as, if not more, detached from my reality.
I
> > don't care one way or another.

> Emphasis on *your* reality.
>
> And I'll keep that in mind the next time you complain about the LHC.
> You're not a part of their reality, so I'll remind them not to listen to
> your complaints.

What makes you think they listen to me (or you, for that matter)? I may not
be a part of LHC's reality, but LHC is a part of mine. Besides, consistency
is not a virtue.

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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> wrote:
> Even if I were altruistic and responsible to a fault, I don't see how I'd
> know whether the extinction of coelacanth (or homo sapiens, for that matter)
> would be a good thing or bad in the long run.

Well, no.  Not the coelacanth.  No one likes the coelacanth.

> It doesn't make sense to view
> far future through our extremely limited and egocentric self-righteous
> goggles.

No, it doesn't.  But on the other hand, neither does it make sense to resign
ourselves to fatalism and assume that since we can't know what's best for the
future, we can wash our hands of all responsibility.  In fact, I see taking
some of this responsibility as the antithesis of egocentrism and
self-righteousness.  Of course we can't comprehend the future, but why can't we
do our best to understand it and put future generations in a position to decide.
 The coelacanth may not be so important, but you're right--how can we know?
Preserving it is reversible; destroying it is not.  Unless the future looks
like Jurassic Park.

> Do you mourn the extinction of dinosaurs?

No.

> Do you mourn the red dwarf sun enfulging earth?

No.

> On evolutionary, geological or astronomical
> timescales, our values based on scales of a lifetime at most are
> meaningless.

I still mourn the intermediate scales.  I mourn the fact that our selfish and
careless excesses may one day make the comfortable life we've enjoyed
impossible.  Sure.  Technology will prevail, we'll overcome the challenges, and
in the end all humans will die.  In the mean time though, our careless attitude
may, for example, be enough to displace resources and cause people to starve.
If these values are really meaningless, then we could just save people the
headache of suffering and kill them off.  I come to the opposite conclusion,
though, and find that since we're inevitably doomed, we have to do what we can
to maximize both our own fulfillment in life and that of the people around
us--both in time and space.  And in my eyes, the destruction of species and the
environment seems to be contrary to that goal.

 - Ricky

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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.

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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