…what would you be prepared to give up in order to stop it from happening? What if we kept essential life sustaining technology (medical) but apart from that went back to a life style which is almost completely sustainable? Would you be willing to give up your car, your TV, your phone, your computer, electricity (the way it is currently generated), supermarkets providing your genetically modified, chemically enhanced food? It would mean we would all have to learn to do things for ourselves, make things ourselves, provide for ourselves, all sustainably. It would mean we would need to dispense with our current obsessive consumerism, our flawed monetary system which is based on debt and growth which is impossible to sustain. After much thought (in fact I’ve been thinking this for years) I say yes, let’s do it. Are you in? If not, why not? Discuss.
Living sustainably doesn’t mean giving up GM foods it means giving up our firstborn.
GM is a tool that can be used for good or evil. Overpopulation is the biggest issue.
tl;dr, Humble Minion.
I quoted from it earlier, but necessary viewing if you haven’t seen it before. And if you have.
It gets relevant about 2:30 in.
Bit of hubris there maybe, VD?
Humanity is not capable of, even if it wanted to, wiping out life on earth. The earth is a ■■■■■■ big place and life teems all over it from deep ocean thermal vents to nematodes deep in the soil and squillions of bacteria EVERYWHERE. And those things are hard to eradicate - consider the vast effort of an advanced industrialised and technological society required to exterminate smallpox - and that was a relatively easy case cos it could really only survive in human bodies. We can’t even eradicate rats in cities, which are the most heavily human-optimised environments on earth.
Can we wipe out a few varieties of megafauna - hell yes. In fact, the northern white rhino went extinct just the other week, yay us.
Can we wipe out life on earth? No. Humanity is very small, and very brief, and we’ve only lived on the planet for ab eyeblink, geologically speaking. Life will outlive us. Even if we’re stupid enough to allow the worst global warming predictions to come true and we drive ourselves and 50-odd percent of other species extinct, in a mere 5 million years or so evolution will have done its thing and produced an incredible fascinating array of critters in all shapes and sizes to replace us. It’s happened before - the Permian extinction and the K-T extinction didn’t wipe out life on earth, we have precious little chance even if we wanted to.
Unless we do something cosmically stupid like accidentally generate an artificial black hole to consume the earth or trigger the sun going nova or something, the worst we can do is annihilate ourselves and generate another major extinction event to add to the world’s long, long, long list of them. Big deal.
Pretty much no human neglect or everyday activity is going to exterminate life on earth. Life is TOUGH. We’ll destroy our own food chain, trigger mass starvation and war, and starve/slaughter ourselves to death before we even get close to making a serious dent in the capacity of the earth to sustain life.
Don’t worry about life on earth, worry about human civilisation, if you think (as I do) that any of it is worth preserving.
I believe collective clarity is our only chance. If you don't think that's possible, PP, then start counting down the days my friend...the good news is, as far as I'm concerned, I believe it can happen.
I don’t think it’s remotely possible.
Not until we’re at the stage where we upload our consciousness to the cloud, and then introduce said clarity as part of the latest software update. And by then, we’re farked anyway.
I think we’ll be fine, mostly.
The short answer: no, and certainly not in the way you describe it (minimalism and isolation).Because we are at that stage, and it’s largely business as usual.
However, ultimately it largely comes down to the generation of energy; get that right, and a lot of the other problems get fixed too. Recycling, for example, ultimately succeeds on an economic basis, not an environmental one.
I re described the situation and said we all knew and agreed on exactly what we needed to do, thus making it a hypothetical. So forget about minimalism and isolation. No tweaking is going to fix things. I see recycling as tweaking. What I’m proposing is massive psychological change, a paradigm shift, not just a change here and there. I’m talking about a zodiacal sort of change, you know, “this is the dawning of the age of Aquarius” sort of thing 
I believe collective clarity is our only chance. If you don’t think that’s possible, PP, then start counting down the days my friend…the good news is, as far as I’m concerned, I believe it can happen.
The short answer: no, and certainly not in the way you describe it (minimalism and isolation).
Because we are at that stage, and it’s largely business as usual.
However, ultimately it largely comes down to the generation of energy; get that right, and a lot of the other problems get fixed too. Recycling, for example, ultimately succeeds on an economic basis, not an environmental one.
Yes we’d have the will to do it. That’s not the issue.
It’s the collective clarity that I think is impossible.
Unless, you know, you get psilocybin into the water supply. Then you’re a chance.
I’d give up Vinnie D.
Do we get to keep footy? If not, what's the point of survival?If this scenario happens Vinnie, it won’t be by choice. No society voluntarily goes backwards by that far, no matter how noble the cause is.
You see, right there could be a clue to our dilemma. You are actually saying it would be going backwards for the human species to live in such a way that does not destroy the planet! I think the direction we are going now is backwards if we are destroying our home. See what I mean?
I realise that sometimes I am so “big picture” that I can’t get my point across. The clip I posted makes it pretty clear that our species is causing the extinction of most of the animal species that are becoming extinct. If that is the case, something’s terribly wrong. As the species with consciousness and intellect we should have progressed in such a way that enhanced nature not destroyed it. It frustrates the hell out of me knowing that the human species is so ■■■■■■ dumb as to live in such a way that threatens the existence of the whole damn thing. So I guess, realistically speaking, I’m proposing a hypothetical question. What I’m saying is, if collectively we were to awaken to the error of our ways, and it was to become crystal clear to us what we need to do to help our planet and all the species on it, survive and prosper, and collectively we all knew exactly what we needed to do in order to achieve this, but this would come at a pretty big price to us all individually in terms of what we would need to give up, would we have the will to do it? (That’s a long sentence, sorry, but didn’t know how to shorten it).
....what would you be prepared to give up in order to stop it from happening? What if we kept essential life sustaining technology (medical) but apart from that went back to a life style which is almost completely sustainable? Would you be willing to give up your car, your TV, your phone, your computer, electricity (the way it is currently generated), supermarkets providing your genetically modified, chemically enhanced food? It would mean we would all have to learn to do things for ourselves, make things ourselves, provide for ourselves, all sustainably. It would mean we would need to dispense with our current obsessive consumerism, our flawed monetary system which is based on debt and growth which is impossible to sustain. After much thought (in fact I've been thinking this for years) I say yes, let's do it. Are you in? If not, why not? Discuss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpxmTZ02FXg
You’re basically suggesting a third world country with first rate medical technology? We could be Cuba version 2.
The problem I see with this is that you will still have people with desirable commodities to others (ie - building, farming etc) which people will use to exploit others for their own benefit.
Example - Builder A is terrible at farming. Farmer A and Farmer B are terrible at building. Both need identical garages stables built for their cars horses. Farmer A can provide Builder A some very well grown and delicious food in exchange for his services. But so can Farmer B, only Farmer B will provide more of it. Suddenly we have competition in the marketplace, and therefore, consumerism. Farmer A now must consider a different builder, or provide more of his food to ensure he gets what he wants.
It’s why communism doesn’t work. Because people always want to be better than the next guy.
The cost of buying a coffee here is overwhelmingly the local cost. There isn’t dollars worth of coffee in your cup.
It’s a good marketing ploy to spend a few more cents on those beans in each cup, though.
Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are ■■■■■■.
Do we get to keep footy? If not, what’s the point of survival?
If this scenario happens Vinnie, it won’t be by choice. No society voluntarily goes backwards by that far, no matter how noble the cause is.
In a capitalist world it is hard for everyone to become self sufficient due to everything is done for the dollar. and 5% of people own 95% or resources
Society are making smarter choices, Just look at the paleo diet fad, a lot of people are going back to more basic life choices. natural foods, young men not shaving, having ned kelly beards, cycling revolution. people not even buying cars these days.
I dont have a farm/property so cant go full self sufficient, but theres a lot of town folk including a lot of younger people setting up vegetable gardens etc.
we have more plums, green gages and lemons than you could want thanks to the pensioners who lived here before me.
Also we have a harvest market down here in tassie which is very popular due to the fresh food. however half the people are there lining up for a coffee.
If third world labour got fair wages, would people pay $10 or $20 for a cup of coffee…or go without. same with chocolate people complain about cadbury reducing size but it still is quite cheap.
We receive many cheap luxuries due to big multinationals ripping off people in third world countries for almost slave labour.
Then theres the issue of companies shifting profits to tax havens and avoiding paying income taxes in countries where they are generating revenues. E.g Apple profits from Australia get taxed offshore in singapore or ireland.
Everyone is out there to screw someone over. make more dollars for company x so they can get a big fat pay cheque. Until the attitude at the top changes, and we get more socially responsible companies it is hard to see change.
I could live without things if they were taken away, but i wouldnt give them up unless i dont see the need for them.
Bit of hubris there maybe, VD?Humanity is not capable of, even if it wanted to, wiping out life on earth. The earth is a ■■■■■■ big place and life teems all over it from deep ocean thermal vents to nematodes deep in the soil and squillions of bacteria EVERYWHERE. And those things are hard to eradicate - consider the vast effort of an advanced industrialised and technological society required to exterminate smallpox - and that was a relatively easy case cos it could really only survive in human bodies. We can’t even eradicate rats in cities, which are the most heavily human-optimised environments on earth.
Can we wipe out a few varieties of megafauna - hell yes. In fact, the northern white rhino went extinct just the other week, yay us.
Can we wipe out life on earth? No. Humanity is very small, and very brief, and we’ve only lived on the planet for ab eyeblink, geologically speaking. Life will outlive us. Even if we’re stupid enough to allow the worst global warming predictions to come true and we drive ourselves and 50-odd percent of other species extinct, in a mere 5 million years or so evolution will have done its thing and produced an incredible fascinating array of critters in all shapes and sizes to replace us. It’s happened before - the Permian extinction and the K-T extinction didn’t wipe out life on earth, we have precious little chance even if we wanted to.
Unless we do something cosmically stupid like accidentally generate an artificial black hole to consume the earth or trigger the sun going nova or something, the worst we can do is annihilate ourselves and generate another major extinction event to add to the world’s long, long, long list of them. Big deal.
Pretty much no human neglect or everyday activity is going to exterminate life on earth. Life is TOUGH. We’ll destroy our own food chain, trigger mass starvation and war, and starve/slaughter ourselves to death before we even get close to making a serious dent in the capacity of the earth to sustain life.
Don’t worry about life on earth, worry about human civilisation, if you think (as I do) that any of it is worth preserving.
Um yeah, it was pretty obvious I was concerned with the human species. I guess the higher meaning of what I was getting at went through to the keeper. I wasn’t referring to every single microbe and moving thing on the entire planet, I meant life, as in life as we know it, in that it it is currently in danger of being radically altered. I didn’t go into detail like a primary school teacher, sorry.
I think we'll be fine, mostly.
Is that the ET theory? As in head up Uranus?