[jerf]

If there is a subtle fallacy embedded in the idea that innovation will always save us, there's a blatant fallacy in the idea that we're inevitably doomed because we're absolutely guaranteed to continue on our current course with no changes until we consume all the resources that we are consuming in the current static snapshot of the world. Looking back over the past couple of hundred years of us overcoming challenge after challenge, and drawing the conclusion that it is absolutely certain that can't happen more, is simply an absurd position to take on a rational basis.

If you do not wish to completely flip to the "everything's going to be peachy keen!" side, hey, fine. I'm not even sure anyone's really advocating that. But trying to salvage the panicky pure-ecologist view is in my mind frankly irrational. The one guarantee in life is change, and projecting out the present conditions into the indefinite future as a static precondition is always wrong. Mind you, it may be wrong because the nuclear exchange of 2021 wipes out 98% of humanity and not because the Happy Fun Solar Company solved all world energy problems in 2025, but still, change is inevitable. And what's going forth into the future is not mindless automata who passively experience challenges and fall over dead at a feather's push... what's going forward into the future are several billion human beings, which for all their faults, are still the cleverest things in the Universe we know about.

By the way, trying to mitigate the fact we've overcome challenges by pointing out that there are still challenges in the world is just another way to try to dodge dealing with the fact that we have overcome challenges. I absolutely, positively guarantee you that if we survive another 20 years, that there will be even more challenges. I forsee no day coming where the human race can just sit back and declare total victory over challenges.

[genofon]

>Looking back over the past couple of hundred years of us overcoming challenge after challenge, and drawing the conclusion that it is absolutely certain that can't happen more, is simply an absurd position to take on a rational basis.

Looking a bit further there were society completely destroyed by themself (for example Easter Island http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/News-Events/Latest-News/News-...)

It's good to have both forces, a conservative and a progressive, to maintain equilibrium, it's never a good idea to put all the eggs in one basket

Edit: update link about Easter Island

[orthecreedence]

> there's a blatant fallacy in the idea that we're inevitably doomed because we're absolutely guaranteed to continue on our current course with no changes until we consume all the resources that we are consuming in the current static snapshot of the world

Perhaps, but it's already getting to the point of "too little, too late" as far as convincing people climate change exists, not to mention our current infrastructure is heavily invested in ignoring climate change. So continuing on our current course is bad, yes, but deviating at this point will only delay the inevitable. There are a number of cascading changes set in motion already.

And while I don't think humanity will be extincted by climate change, we'll certainly get our "hair mussed." As in, large amounts of drought/flood displacing millions of people into already crowded areas that don't have the infrastructure to support the influx...meaning plagues, food/water shortages, etc.

And to say, "technology will find a way to fix it!" is the bigger fallacy. We should be ready for a nice big shitstorm 50-100 years from now that no amount of scientists or computers can fix. After all, as much as we like to think of ourselves as little gods, we're really just apes with shiny toys. We've made it this far, but when you think about it, we've been through one ice age, a handful of plagues, and zero mass-extinctions. Not a big list. We're a blip on the geological radar, and we can disappear as fast as we came. We need to remember this.

[ars]

> we're really just apes with shiny toys

No, we are incredibly intelligent people who have invented amazing things.

50-100 years from now climate change will be viewed the way nuclear winter is viewed now.

In the language of the article you are an ecologist because you believe people will accept changes without doing anything about them.

[jal278]

We surely have invented amazing things -- and we are intelligent -- and yet our brains aren't that far removed from our ape ancestors.

These brains of ours really are not well-suited for considering really-long-term abstract uncertain problems that require altruism to solve (e.g. the environment as the tragedy of the commons, or solid agreements between nations to dismantle nuclear arms).

The thing is, it is hard to be objective about our limitations as a species: being that we are a member of our species we are each a bit biased. Overcoming that bias, to see humanity in its current state as basically a selfish tribalistic society, is challenging.

Note that I mean selfish in the larger sense -- that generally we devalue human lives with increasing distance from our own birthplace, country, class, time, etc.

[ars]

See, when you say "shiny toy" you imply someone gave you the toy - you use it, but can't make it and don't know how it works. But we invented all we have, so we can rightfully be proud of it.

(I am aware you didn't invent that saying (I don't know who did), but you used it without thinking about how stupid of a saying it actually is.)

> and yet our brains aren't that far removed from our ape ancestors.

OK, that's just so ridiculous as to verge on absurd. Our brains are so far removed from an ape that you wouldn't know we were related if all you could observe were actions (rather than form and shape).

> are not well-suited for considering really-long-term abstract uncertain problems that require altruism to solve (e.g. the environment as the tragedy of the commons

Any yet somehow we have solved that over and over. And humans are the most altruistic of all the species - witness how we rush to help when there is a disaster, or how much charity we give - or that we invented of concept of charity in the first place!

> or solid agreements between nations to dismantle nuclear arms).

We haven't done that because we don't want to do that, not because we can't. And we don't want to for very good, thought out reasons, not because of some brain lack. You might disagree on the reasons themself, but you can't claim there were no reasons.

> Overcoming that bias, to see humanity in its current state as basically a selfish tribalistic society, is challenging.

And presumably you have done so? And you have one of these flawed brains? You seem to have a contradiction here. Not that I agree with your analysis anyway. You are trying to use tribalistic as a negative but it doesn't have that meaning. And we are not selfish, we are competitive. Selfish would imply hurting others for no gain of your own and while some individuals do that, as a whole we don't.

> that generally we devalue human lives with increasing distance from our own birthplace, country, class, time, etc.

We don't devalue them because they are far, but rather we don't believe we have the ability to do anything about their lives, so we ignore them. The closer someone is to you the more likely you are to help - is that your point? But people don't help more because they are more similar - people help more because they have more ability to do so.

[jal278]

The way I would interpret the phrase 'apes with shiny toys' (although it was not me who used that phrase in this thread) -- is that we are slightly-evolved apes who have become infatuated with our technology. Thoreau said: "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end."

It's just that technology is far from a panacea, and it creates as many problems as it solves. Worse, the problems it creates can be of greater magnitude than its solutions. For example, arguably technology on its whole became a net loss once we invented nuclear weapons -- until that point, we never were a push-button away from extinction.

The tragedy of the commons is far from solved; one example is that the environment is a commons that industrialized nations abuse (and whether it will have a devastating effect on our future is yet to be decided). It is great that we have made moral progress as a species, and that we do have charity; yet how far has our morality progressed when we have food enough to feed the world yet starvation continues?

No, I'm not claiming that I've entirely overcome the bias of my brain, only that I'm aware that human brains were evolved to suit cave-man conditions, not the modern world that we've invented around us; cultural and technological evolution have outpaced natural evolution in our lineage.

Finally, I entirely disagree with your assertion that we devalue lives in other countries because we don't have the ability to affect their lives; of course we can affect the lives of people in other countries -- through charity as you yourself point out, and in the way that our politics affect other countries.

For example, to most Americans, American civilian lives are worth much more than civilians in say Iraq or Afghanistan; not because Americans cannot affect Iraqi or Afghani lives -- we have and continue to do so (e.g. the civilian casualities in Afghanistan dwarf the losses of Americans in 9/11)[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_...

[ars]

I apologize for saying you were the one who said that about the shiny toys.

But wow do we come from different viewpoints. Are you sure we both have the same type of brain? :)

> slightly-evolved apes who have become infatuated with our technology

You still think we are more or less similar to apes? I'm having a hard time responding to this because I just can't understand how you think that way. The difference between humans and apes is not just a matter of degree, it's a matter of kind. Apes have more in common with mice than they do with humans, despite how different they look to mice, and how similar to humans.

We aren't infatuated with technology - the use we have of technology is put to solving the same problems we've always had. How to connect with people, and how to live.

> For example, arguably technology on its whole became a net loss once we invented nuclear weapons -- until that point, we never were a push-button away from extinction.

We still aren't. Or are you under the mistaken impression that nuclear bombs could cause human extinction? All the bombs ever created couldn't do that, even if carefully detonated (they could cause devastation, but not not extinction). We have a greater capacity to cause disasters, but an even greater capacity to solve them, as a whole a net win. And did you loose sight of the fact that we made these bombs - and only used them twice? That speaks volumes about humanity. I bet you would have never predicted that if you were asked a few decades ago if we would use them.

> evolved to suit cave-man conditions, not the modern world that we've invented around us; cultural and technological evolution have outpaced natural evolution in our lineage

The modern world was not thrust upon us by an outside force, we created it because it suits us. We don't need to "evolve" to match it - we created it exactly the way we want.

> For example, to most Americans, American civilian lives are worth much more than civilians in say Iraq or Afghanistan; not because Americans cannot affect Iraqi or Afghani lives -- we have and continue to do so

You have not made your point. Our president can affect Iraqi lives, but any individual person on the street can do nothing about it. We read about sectarian violence between two religious sects (Suni, Shi'ite) that to non-Muslims appear identical and just can't understand why they even fight, much less do anything about it.

[jal278]

I agree that humanity has a strong track record of overcoming challenges, and of course, that's a great thing! And I'm not saying that climate change will be something we'll be unable to overcome. However, it's unwise to bet the planet on an uncertainty: Let's just be a little cautious when we are talking about something with potentially devastating consequences.

I agree that predicting based on a static extension of the present may be limiting -- but prediction in general is a pretty tough game, and we should not put too much faith in any extrapolations into the distant future; meaning that there is much uncertainty in the future, and we should acknowledge that we can't know what will happen; and thus we should try to minimize risk if possible when dealing with singular resources (like our planet as a whole).

My main point is that technological optimism should not be an excuse for failing to ask inconvenient questions (that may demand opposing the current inertia of technology-driven capitalism): Are we negatively impacting the environment in a way that may undermine our grandchildren's quality of life? What happens as technology automates away a large percentage of cognitive jobs and displaces those workers? Is the current trend of increasingly powerful technology and relative moral stagnation likely to lead to our species' extinction?

[mikeash]

Who is saying that we're inevitably doomed because we're guaranteed to continue on our current course?

The doomsayers are almost universally saying, we need to change course to avoid catastrophe. That's the complete opposite of being guaranteed to stay on course.