I completely agree with you then, ideally finite fossil fuels that are still left, should be rationed wisely to transition to a post-fossil fuel economy.
— ChatteringMonkey

But we cannot expect countries like India to stop using coal (nor will they). This is the big problem. — I like sushi

Yes if you would look at it historically and from a fairness point of view we would need to almost stop all use of fossil fuels right now to give them some room to grow... this is not going to happen, and so it will be messy.

Of course. But we know such projects can and have bore fruits. Going to the Moon and creating weaponry for WW2. — I like sushi

In a fossil fueled growth economy they did, there's no guarantee this will continue to be the case.

I don't see much distinction between humanity and nature. We've impacted the globe and will continue to do so. That is not 'unnatural' even though some wish to frame this as 'against nature'. We are able to make mistakes and see possible future mistakes (and correct them) whereas other species cannot do this. — I like sushi

We've impacted the globe disproportionately is the problem. This is hard the look past, humans and domesticated livestock account for 96% of all mammalian biomass nowadays. It creates problems we have to solve ourselves now, problems that 'nature' used to solve by itself.

Prime example is mono-culture agriculture. To get higher yields of a certain crop, mono-culture seemed like a great idea because you can mechanize and automate the whole thing if it is mono and repeatable. But in the process you removed plants :

- that attract predator-species that prey on pests, and you now have to apply pesticides yourself
- that fix and recycle nutrients into the soil, and you now have apply fertilizer yourself
- that retain water, and you now have to irrigate yourself
- that make the whole system resilient, and you lose and have to rebuilt everything if natural disaster strikes

Year after year the land gets worse because ecosystems and soil-life is effectively destroyed because automation (efficiency) demands it, and you progressively need more invested into them to make them suitable for agriculture. All of this is maybe not that big of a problem if you have cheap energy fueled machinery you can keep throwing at the problems as they keep coming.... but as the problems get worse and energy gets more expensive it's doubtful this would be sustainable.

At some point you have to wonder, is this whole way we do things still worth it?

Note: EU and UK is behind on GM foods still. They are only just starting to ease up on the paranoia. Again, better late than never :) — I like sushi

I also despair when people belittle what Elon Musk has done and is doing. Pushing scientific knowledge and putting ideas to the test will lead to advances that could help everyone. In terms of research into how to colonize Mars it is obvious that anything we learn do that will help us to manage the situation on Earth (he can do it whereas governments cannot justify such things due to lack of public backing). — I like sushi

How much of it is just dick-measuring and how much of it has any real chance of helping us along is the question here I guess. Sure we probably could do it eventually, colonize Mars, but at what cost right? What's the rationale behind blowing a ton of resources when we could use those same resources with more tangible effects here on earth? Probably prestige is an important factor without which the project wouldn't be done, If I had to guess... then again it's impossible to actually calculate the intangible long-term effects to society at large from projects like these.

Perhaps more fundamentally than some kind of cost-benefit analysis, your deeper ideological convictions will probably determine where you fall on this kind of issue.

Like I said, I used to be more techno-optimist. A historical perspective on energy has really changed this for me because a lot of these ideas of perpetual economic growth, innovation and progress rely heavily on the availability of cheap energy. If you think this is just a short-lived fase in history and not the norm, then how much do these ideas that seem to rely on it still hold up on their own really?

And then there's the more traditional critique of this being the mind-set that got us into trouble in the first place, i.e. humanity standing above and beyond nature and the world, constantly trying to control it. And I think there's something to that critique, in the sense that we do seem to need constant patches upon patches to solve new problems arising from previous solution to older problems etc ad infinitum.

My point was more or less that if we only used what we really needed (in terms of strict regulations on industry) then we'd use less and growing countries would then adopt these techniques as they'd effectively save them resources. Such things will buy more time if nothing else. In terms of agriculture it would help a huge amount.

More efficiency would probably not translate into a lack of economic growth. I don't see how it would tbh? — I like sushi

Ok I didn't really get that this was your point. I completely agree with you then, ideally finite fossil fuels that are still left, should be rationed wisely to transition to a post-fossil fuel economy.

More efficient use of fossil fuels itself obviously wouldn't translate into a lack of economic growth, that's right, but more generally the inevitable and gradual depletion of fossil fuels eventually would, it seems to me. A lot of the spectacular economic growth of past centuries was possible only because of abundant and cheap energy.

I'll comment on you latter point in a next post...

There's upper physical limits to how much more energy-efficient you can get in the production and distribution of energy. Sure there is still room for improvement there, but not enough I think for renewables to replace fossil fuels entirely. Nuclear power maybe could have gotten us there, but as you said this project should've started decades ago because it takes time.

I used to be more of a techno-optimist, thinking we'll find a way etc... But what I and a lot of people with me didn't and don't really appreciate is how exceptional fossil fuels really were and how much they changed the game. It was literally reserves of stored and compacted solar energy that had been accumulating over millennia, gushing out of the ground... 1 gallon of oil is the energy-equivalent of 5 years of human labor, for a fraction of the price. We were wasteful because we could.

You often hear it's only a matter of political will to convert fully to renewables etc... but has anyone actually seen a plan something other than these high-level abstract calculations that just gloss of particularities of different sectors and industries like say metallurgy, manufacturing etc... How are we generating enough heat with renewables to make steel to name just one thing?

I dunno, I think we won't get there in terms of energy production, if not because of strictly theoretical limitations, then because of practical issues with converting to other energy-sources. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but this seems by far the most likely scenario to me, that we will have to reduce our energy-consumption, which ultimately means a lack of economic growth too because those always have gone together.

The real hope lies in the scientific models being inaccurate in our favour. It certainly isn't worth gambling with the future and blindly hoping our understanding of how the climate functions is limited enough for us to have made an overestimate when we could just as easily have underestimated the problem. — I like sushi

The models are probably pretty accurate in what they do. Problem is that what they do doesn't necessarily tell us a lot about how the real world will evolve. They are basically saying we are just climate scientists, we will bracket/make abstraction of everything other than the physics of climate change... and leave messy and complex things like societal and economic feedbacks to someone else. No way we would have stable societies and growing economies all the way up to some of these projected temperatures.

Climate projections generally seem to assume the economy, and the rising energy needs that invariably come with that, will just keep on growing... into the 2100 even.

A saving grace - from the perspective of climate change anyway - maybe is that we will probably hit a wall long before that because extracting fossil fuels will become a whole lot more difficult progressively. Carbon emissions will come down, if not because we take the necessary measures, then because of the scarcity of fossil fuels... or because of climate change fueled societal breakdowns.

Either way, society will need to change fundamentally, to adjust to lower energy and resource usage. Renewable energy will never wholly compensate for the loss of the dense and abundant energy fossil fuels provided us... that was a once in an earthlife-time opportunity.

As no (more or less mainstream) political party is even attempting to sell the idea that we will have to do with less, chances are this whole power-down is going to be a messy affair.

I wish nobody harm, but I do welcome this broader societal change even if it's not going to be pretty. Dirt cheap energy did fuel some pretty obscene things, I'm definitely not going to miss those. And if it's inevitable either way, then we can better get it over with.... nothing is more deadening to the spirit than these constant attempts to stitch together and reanimate a diseased and decaying corpse.

It's not like ChatteringMonkey and I had multiple previous threads and he just decided this was enough after many discussions on this. — schopenhauer1

We did discuss this before schopenhauer:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/550418

My main question to ChatteringMonkey would then be why wouldn't he be convinced by the premises? — schopenhauer1

The answer to this question directly follows from what I said in that thread.

"life as a whole on this planet is predominantly suffering." is not a subjective valuation, but an entirely objective. — RAW

It's not a valuation at all, but a fact... what you think this fact should entail is subjective.

So just don't debate anything? Why is this area so unique in that you can't debate if you disagree? Weird. Do you do this for everything else too? Politics, etc.? — schopenhauer1

Because it boils down to a basic premise that isn't particularly moved by reason or arguments... either you accept it or you don't. And yes a lot of political and ethical discussions are also like that, they disagree on basic premises, that's why they almost never get resolved... people just end up talking past each other.

My ethical premise is based more on deontological grounds. — schopenhauer1

It's nothing like deontology. Harm is not specific enough a concept for that.

Anyway there little use in continuing this discussion, I don't agree with your premise and I don't agree with your methodology, so not much to build on there...

No, because

1. Utilitarian calculus type ethics are crap. It can't be done practically and nobody thinks like that. It's like saying before every stroke one should consciously calculate velocity, spin and the angle of the tennis-ball and then calculate the necessary force and angle of the stroke before one hits a tennis-ball to play good tennis.
2. Even if it would be feasible, people don't agree anyway that harm should be the only value that should be taken into consideration in ethical calculations.

Here's a wild idea, start will real people and what they actually value to reason effectively about ethics.

Considering the unimaginable amount of physical and mental suffering that occurs every day on this planet, day by day, for millions of years and counting, as well perhaps on countless other planets, which would make the Universe essentially a giant torture chamber, the philosophical view of Efilism seems rather logical. Very extreme yes, but logical, worth giving a thought to say the least.

What are your thoughts on it? Curious to see the opposed arguments, ideally THE counter-argument that would shake my current supportive view of it. — RAW

It does sound absolutely crazy and extreme but if you manage to dive deeper into it open minded, putting immediate reactions like disgust etc. aside and under control, and look at it solely through logical lenses, for me at least, you can't help but admit it makes sense, for some more for some less maybe. — RAW

It doesn't make sense and isn't logical though. The conceit is that you think you can put emotions and deep-routed drives aside and look at it dispassionately through a purely logical lens. You can't because there would be nothing left for logic to work on. Logic by itself is empty and has to start with some prior valuations to get to some logical conclusion about values. Reason is slave to the passions.

The thing that pisses people off concerning Efilism and Anti-natalism, and righly so, is that you try to re-package your subjective negative valuation of life into some kind of objective and logically inescapably conclusion about the value of life. You turned a personal opinion, not only into the logically only possible objective valuation, but also into a moral duty and a political project that people should follow... thereby dragging other people down with you in the process.

You'll get a lot more understanding and respect from people if you'd just own up to your opinion, instead of covering it up with these post-hoc philosophical rationalizations in an attempt to feel better at the expense of others. And I dare say, you'll give yourself a better chance to get out of that pernicious mind-set if you'd stop spinning an entire web of justification around it.

He suggests a historical progression in that first came sincerity and then authenticity, however if people during the time of sincerity were not being authentic then were they being sincere, is it possible to be sincere but not authentic? — TheVeryIdea

In the way he uses those terms, yes, because they are defined as being something different.

I think I understand profilicity but I would really appreciate someone expanding on the Sincerity and Authenticity concepts, in general are these distinct things? — TheVeryIdea

They are different ways of looking at identity i suppose, or maybe more accurately, different ways of building identity.

Sincerity seems to be a more group-orientated way of looking at identity, you define yourself in relation to the role you take up in the group and try to fill in that role as 'sincerly' as possible... adapting your inner subjectivity to that role you take up in the group.

Authenticity then goes the other way, taking your subjectivity, feelings emotions, desires etc... as primary. Identity is build by presenting an image to the world that accurately represents that inner subjectivity.

Inner subjectivity being primary, aligns with individualistic ideologies, while the other more with group-centered ideologies.

Are we not all being both sincere and authentic a lot of time? — TheVeryIdea

No, not in the way he uses the terms I suppose, i.e. as ways of building identity. Maybe things can't be sliced up so neatly, both historically, and on the level of how a person builds up his identity. Things generally are a bit more messy in the real world I'd guess, in the sense that different ways of building identity are probably being used next to eachother all the time... But do they seem to be different ways of building identity that aren't entirely compatible with eachother.

I agree keeping nuclear power is probably necessary now because we can't transition to carbonfree energy fast enough as it is.

I'm certainly not prima facie or ideologically against nuclear power,... under stable conditions it does have somewhat of an overblown bad rep because of the few accidents, it's actually reasonably safe it seems.

I think it should be considered as a replacement for fossil fuels, certainly because carbon is the biggest problem right now. Nuclear waste would become a problem long term eventually, but short term that could be managed.

What does give me pause is that nuclear power only has been used in the relatively stable post WWII-period. That kind of stability is historically far from a given. And I think given climate change and other technological and societal challenges that are coming, things could get rough for a while. The numbers for death rate per watts don't capture that eventuality.

The question is do we really want to rely on something that potentially has disastrous consequences if things do go south? Maybe it's still better then the alternative, but it's something to consider I think.

There are about 60 nuclear power plants within 1000km from where I live, so you know, if any of them would meltdown, it probably would be quite bad.

If it was only so. Still, nuclear power is a totally reasonable alternative. What's so bad in France using a lot less fossil fuel based energy production than other countries of it's size. All thanks to an investment in nuclear power. — ssu

While it's true that the risks with nuclear power are not that great if we can assume a stable society and when they are treated with care. But they do need some continuous care and aftercare even after shutdown. Problem is that if society would break down, terrorism or war would become a thing again, this isn't longer all that evident... and the consequences are immense if something does go wrong, unlike with other power sources.

Those people are immoral yes...

More worrying is the trend of climate change itself and the lack of action to stop it:
- At 1.3 C rise in temperature we are allready experiencing serious adverse effects all over the world.
- The Paris accord has some loose references to 1.5, but really it aims for 2 C maximum rise.
- 2 C maximum rise can only be attained if countries decarbonise rather quickly
- what countries have committed to amounts to nowhere near what is needed to stay under that 2 C
- and even then it's worse because typically countries don't deliver on these commitments and numbers are generally made to look better than they are through some bureaucratic hocuspocus

So if nothing really drastically changes, we are heading over 2 C easily.

The thing that most people don't fully appreciate I think, and I didn't too until recently, is that such a "small" rise in global average temperature is already really bad for a lot of things.

If someone is dead set on committing suicide, sure, an opiate is preferable to a revolver, but, I guess that the offered solution doesn't adequately consider as to what produced the situation wherein a person was brought to that level of psychological duress or what other options they have. For a psychologist to recommend that someone commit suicide also seems to bear an inherent set of predicaments in its own right. I'm not sure that I really trust mental health professionals not to just sort of do away with some people.

What I'm suggesting about the theatrics is that most suicides probably occur during a momentary lapse of reason. Going through with whatever formal process there is probably alleviates that to some extent, but I think that there's a real danger of letting a momentary spell of depression become a person's final hours. — thewonder

I think it never should come as a recommendation from psychologists either, but always only after independent request from the person himself and after a non-involved expert or board of experts evaluate the request. This is how it is organised in my country anyway, and I think that could be fine. Sure there's always a danger of abuse of the law, in practice however it has played out the other way up till now it seems, as they have been very reluctant in agreeing to euthanasia because of unbearable mental pain. There's even been several cases brought to court where the person who had his or her request refused tried to overrule the decision, in each of those cases the person had a history of incurable mental illnesses, like severe autism, combined with decades of depression and other disorders...

The two of you can carry on about this if you like, but I don't really feel like getting into my personal kvetch against psychologically motivated assisted suicide. — thewonder

Fair enough... and I see your concern definitely.

Perhaps it really is just me who thinks about death, but I do feel like the angst that it inspires is something that people have to cope with. — thewonder

I do think about the finitude of life, the impermanence of it all... but not about death itself or what happens after I guess is what i'm saying. I do agree that this is something that people should try to recon with.

I think that voluntary euthanasia is fine in cases where someone is suffering from physical pain, but neither trust nor think a psychologist can assess as to whether a person really wants to go through with a psychologically motivated suicide. To be quite honest, I kind of suspect for the whole thing to function like a litmus test for a person's attitude towards the insane. Perhaps this is just paranoia, but I just kind of suspect for advocates of psychologically motivated suicide to be closet Eugenicists who consider for those who have been declared to be "insane" to be a societal burden. People talk about suicide like it's some sort of heroic act, but it's really just kind of desperate and tragic. There ought be a certain degree of respect for a person's final autonomous decision, but, unless you're in the French Resistance and have to swallow a capsule of cyanide, it's really just born out of fits of mania and acute despair. — thewonder

Our law does also allow for euthanasia when someone is suffering from unbearable (and incurable?) mental or psychic pain if I remember correctly, after amendment of the original law. This boils down to whether you think such a thing exist I guess. I tend to think it does, but at the same time it's also very difficult to 'objectively' asses by a third party (which is always needed for euthanasia) and difficult to know whether it is incurable... so there's a lot of practical problems with it at least.

I agree suicide is usually desperate and tragic, but part of that I'd think is because it's something that's not allowed and shunned socially. I'm not saying it should be encouraged to be absolutely clear, just that the social isolation wherein it has to happen is part of the desperation I guess. Often the family members of someone who choose euthanasia talk of a serene and dignified end.

There's no negation of the negation of death. I'm rather confused by what you're saying. I think that death, quite radically, is unapproachable. It's an unknowable unknown. We can actually not fathom what it is like not to exist, as all that we know is from our experience of the world, namely as existents. You could philosophize about death, but, I do actually think that it delimits a threshold to even the potential understanding. The Tibetan Buddhists who read from Bardo Thodol probably have a greater understanding of death than I do, but I don't think that even they can know what death is like. — thewonder

Ok I can see how I wasn't exactly clear there, I wasn't exactly sure either at the time, but was working it out as I was writing, hence the edit...

I guess what I'm wondering is whether the unknowable unknown of death, the absence of existence, has any bearing on much of anything at all. We know what life is like, the experience of it, and maybe that is enough to make some value-judgement one way or another.

Maybe this is an analogy that works and can clarify this a bit. An agnostic person holds that he doesn't know whether God exists, and if he would exist, he doesn't know what kind of God it would be. I'm strictly speaking agnostic, that is my belief.... that's an unknowable unknown, but it doesn't factor in in anything I do. Functionally and practically speaking I'm an atheist, because I act on what I do know, not on what I don't know and can't know. I'm not even sure how one could act on something that is unknown?

I think I would treat death the same way. I take it to be the end of something I do know, life/my experience, and nothing beyond that. So in the event that what I do know (life/my experience) would be negative (like in the case of euthanasia), ending it (the negation) could be seen as a positive if that makes sense.

This adds considerable nuance to the discussion that I should hope that I won't dismiss by putting to question as to whether the ultimate negation in death can be considered a part of the natural process of decay. I think that the quiet comfort of that death is a natural part of life encompasses a decaying body already. The absolute finality of death delimits a threshold to human understanding. We can and should cultivate a life philosophy wherein people age well. We also have to consider and understand the effects of decay, particularly late in life. It'd be indicative of a certain degree of cruelty otherwise. All of that, I think, plays part and parcel into coming to terms with the human condition, and, so, is something that philosophers can cultivate the wisdom with which to cope. Death, however, I think, because of that it expresses such a radical negation, is totally unapproachable. In the introduction to Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov writes of a "young chronophobiac" who developed a sense of anxiety at seeing film images of his empty carriage. He, later, asserts, "I rebel against this state of affairs. I feel the urge to take my rebellion outside and picket nature." Confronted by an absolute abyss, what I'm positing is that it is not only natural, but, also, as adequately as anyone can cope with death, a total lack of existence, to undertake such a rebellion.

I am still relatively young, however, and, so, perhaps haven't considered well enough another biological fact, that of decay. — thewonder

Euthanasia is legal in my country, under very specific circumstance. I generally think that's a good thing. What such a law amounts to is a recognition that at least there are possible circumstances of living that are not worth it. In other words there is a higher value than merely being alive, if you consider such a law a good thing that is. I take that higher value to be quality of life, subjective experience or something to that effect. Of course when quality of life has become bad enough that euthanasia should be allowed is a point of a lot of discussion, and probably not one that I'd want to delve into right now...

But yes I agree, it's probably not entirely fair to say that death is merely a form of decay, It is a radical negation as subjective experience abruptly ends, and therefor qualitatively different than decay. But maybe it's not that unapproachable if what it negates has seized to be a positive and has become an overall negative thing... negating a negative is positive right?

EDIT: By "not that unapproachable", what I meant to say is, does it matter that we can't know what lack of experience, of existence, is if we know that life is unbearable in some circumstances? The absence of existence, that unknown, doesn't seem like a factor in that equation, other than that it's an end to something that is either good or bad...

My intuition, and perhaps this is purely my idiosyncratic view, is that the 'taboo' that the death-positivity movement is seeking to address, is not entirely on the mark. I don't think we fear death as much we fear or dislike decay. It seems to me that our 'default' valuations all tend to coalesce around youth, vitality, health, strength etc... the flip-side of this is that we seem to have a general aversion for decay. And unfortunately decay is also a fact of biological life. While trying to retain our biological form encoded in our DNA, our cells and bodies nevertheless progressively decay as flawed copies are made as we age. Death then is merely the most absolute form of decay of a living organism, and therefor at the extreme negative end of this scale of default valuations.

The point of this little detour is that, if the goal of this movement is to re-evaluate our valuation of death, it probably should try to re-evaluate our value of decay more generally because death is a subset of that... i.e. it should be called the decay-positive movement or something.

I would agree with you that such a re-evaluation is problematic without all kinds of exercises in delusion and life-negation because it's so antithetical to what life is. But what to do then if decay is a fact of life, inescapable and we also can't re-evaluate it without betraying the essence of life? Double-down on life-affirmation Nietzsche would say and die at the right time.

Yes, there is something positive about the NIMBY.

Now the socialist system did have a lot of committees and so on, yet what was lacking was the huge thing that turns people to behave differently: when they are landowners. Might sound funny, but there's a big truth to this. Let's say a person is working in a student body as a student. He or she has then some incentive as a student on what the body does. Now put him or her to be a landowner and the issue about the use of his or her land. Likely he or she won't take it so lightly. Socialism needed for people to be as devoted to the "common thing", the country, as an individual landowner can be to his or her land. That is a big thing to ask from people and that's why some refer to what the Soviet Union did to it's environment as Ecocide. — ssu

Property works yes, but it's not the only thing that can get people to care about something, and it need not be on the level of the individual either. You'd be surprised what sportsfans would do for 'their team', yet there's no property-relation of any kind... there just needs to be some identification. That's maybe easier said than done, sure, but it's possible to have this kind of relation without property.

I'd certainly agree Sovjet-communism didn't get there, there was a sense of everybody knowing that everybody knew that it was a bit of a farce. And I think this applies to some extend to governments of western societies too at this moment. Kings and statesmen of old maybe still had some sense of the country being 'their country', a sense of ownership and the responsibility that comes with that... Now most politicians seem predominately careerists and are mostly only concerned with that.

The basic problem is that people are OK with restrictions, limitations or fees when they aren't personally affected. Yet they can and will go with draconian measures if everybody goes with them. The pandemic response has been a good example of this. My best friend died last year (not of Covid) and in his funeral there was only the priest, his mother and father and one uncle. He had more friends than me and more relatives. Now to argue that the government here could decide that more than five people cannot meet would have sounded quite incredible few years ago. But here there were no complaints about it, perhaps in all two or three small demonstrations have happened in the whole country.

Yet for draconian measures, you need a big catastrophy. — ssu

It depends on the particular culture I suppose. Fins probably are more reasonable then most. In the US for instance there was more resistance to relatively non-intrusive measures like wearing a face-mask.

I think it matters at least to the Democrats. Let's not forget Al Gore and his favorite subject. — ssu

It became his favorite subject after his career as a politician was basically done, is my reading of it.

Yet notice that a lot in the environmental standards and environmental protection happens in the US in the state level with California having a big role. If California sets some standards, manufacturers apply to them. You could argue that on the federal level there for example hasn't been a true energy policy or industrial policy, yet the US can do a lot even without the White House getting involved. Don't think that one person, the US President, actually can do much. A lot happens without him too. — ssu

Sure states can do a lot, but California probably isn't all that representative for the states of the US, as they have an atypical demographic and culture. But okay maybe we can get there if general culture everywhere shifts along the same lines... it's kind of crossing our fingers though and hoping that we will get there in time.

In all, we need cooperation, yet as this is a case of "learning-while-doing", it can be also good that countries adapt various policies as then we can see what have been the best ones. There is no silver bullet: our climate is such a complex maze that we will be learning new things and lessons as we go. Many things that we now look to be good ideas might later be showed to have been disasters. — ssu

I will say sometimes you just got to push something through. The writing of renewables is on the wall, some sectors and political factions are just holding onto something that had its time. It's like the coal-mines in the seventies or eighties that were struggling to survive in my country. We pumped in tons of money in an effort to preserve the industry and the jobs it provided, only to have to shut them down anyway a decade later. If they had the vision to transition earlier by investing in other industries, it would have been better for everybody involved.

There maybe is no one silver-bullet, but there are some no-brainers like transitioning the energy-sector to renewables as fast as possible. I would bet money on countries transitioning early being better off in the long-run.

Environmental protection isn't at all anywhere in large Asian countries as China (and India) where it is in the West. Just to give an example, think about the large river systems — ssu

One shouldn't forget that China is relatively late to the industrialization-party. Of course they are worse at dealing with it if you only take a snapshot of where we are today, they have had far less experience with it than we have.

Anyway I would even agree with the statement that communism isn't any better, or maybe even worse, at dealing with environmental problems. People get antsy very fast if they are confronted with environmental problems in their backyard, there I would agree that democratic societies are more responsive in solving those issues. But climate change isn't just any environmental problem. What sets it apart is precisely that we don't experience any direct adverse effects from it, and that it requires some foresight, some vision to deal with it.

Because I've been immersing myself in this issue a lot lately, I've been harassing people with it, maybe a bit to much... . Usually their response is essentially that they won't do anything about it if it costs them anything. They are waiting for the government to take action, to take some policy-measure to support renewables or some other government incentive that addresses the issue... but the government generally won't do anything if it isn't something that would be supported by a large part of the population, which is only democratic I suppose. But then you end up with a catch 22 where no one will take initiative to solve the issue if it "costs" something.

So here is the nub of the matter, things like overall change of the climate aren't valued in our system because it only has indirect, long term effects on us. Of course that's not to say communism is necessarily any better in dealing with it, it's not. They value mostly in the same way we do, as they too are bound by the same world-economy logic for the most part. What is different is that China at least have the capability of a longer term vision because they aren't bound to a 4 or 5 year democratic election cycle... and in a system that allows for longer term vision there is at least the possibility that climate change is something that can be valued. The CCP knows climate change will come back to haunt them because they think they will still be in power when the effects become apparent... A Trump or a Biden on the other hand don't really care because it probably won't matter one iota to them.

Why more confidence? — ssu

This may sound a bit unfounded because the numbers aren't there yet... but they are on the rise, they seem to have the confidence and will to get things done as a society right now.

The west on the other hand? Well we all know the story, a lot of political and societal uncertainty... can we still muster the political will to get projects on such scale done?

And it also has the ability to decrease it's emissions, which it actually has. And likely can take the example from some states that have been more successful than others. The frightening aspect is WHEN China get more and more wealthier. There's a lot of more potential demand both in China and India than there is in the US, hence those countries are crucial here. — ssu

Again, the most important issue is to deal where the growth is. Not where positive reductions are taking place, even if continuing that trend is important. — ssu

Well yes absolute emissions matter for climate change, and so everybody will have to reduce its emissions.

India and China are crucial just because they have the largest populations by far. That's why growth there is such a big issue.

Reduction in emissions have been meager in the US and in Europe. This has been the result of some 'low-hanging-fruit' policies that didn't have to hurt. The question is will they continue to find democratic support for more drastic measures?

China may be more resolute and effective in implementing the energy-transition because of it's governance-structure, it doesn't need democratic support. And India, yeah, don't know about them.

Then there is the question of China. Again a non-democratic country where environmental issues aren't as important as in the West thanks to it's socialism (or fascism) — ssu

Comparing absolute emissions and relative rise in emissions isn't really telling us much, China has 3 times the population of the US and was a developing country. The US, the beacon of capitalism, still has double the emissions per capita of China.

What China does is really the crucial issue. — ssu

Yes, and while it certainly looks bad in absolute numbers (which does matter for the physics of climate change), I have more confidence in their ability to turn it around faster than Western countries. Apparently they tend to underpromise and overshoot on declared reduction-targets, unlike the west.

Here of course I agree with you. But think, what really does a human being (as animal) need to survive? On pure subsistence, we need a little water, some food, a little exercise etc. And yet most of the articles of consumption are not for pure bodily subsistence. Our mind needs diversion, conversation, love, pleasurable sensation, diverse diet, meaningful work etc. None of this is simple subsistence, in fact if any of us were to eat porridge oats every meal (like one of our cabinet ministers here in the UK suggested that those on welfare should do to save money), we would go crazy, feel completely undignified, spiritually destroyed and so on. — Jingo7

Sure there's of course other variables then mere survival to the evolution-equation, like procreation which has given life all kinds of exuberant stuff like the tails of peacocks... but I think all of this can ultimately still be tied back to the biological.

On your second point, of course I cannot answer that immortal question, 'why/when did human consciousness emerge?' But I can answer the implications you draw from it. Human thought is no longer 'tethered' to biological considerations. That is, those processes that were once regulated by the biological order, have come to be fully regulated by that wholly distinct and higher order of being, the social order. You can also call this the 'symbolic' order or in Marxian terms, the moment when human society must be actively (consciously) reproduced by man himself, as opposed to the 'just being' of animals. That means that the human mind is forever separated from nature. We can only know that we were once 'natural' because we became (for whatever reason) separated from this nature. We can only see this point of departure after it has already gone forever. We can only 'see' at all, because we took this point of departure from nature. Now that we have the social order, biology doesn't enter into it. Our brains are exacctly the same as the brains of the ancient Greeks, and yet conceptually we are leaps and bounds ahead of them. If human thought was even remotely regulated biologically, this would be an impossibility. How can biology act upon 'you' if you can already, in thought, abstract yourself as a self? That is, if you can abstract an element from the chaos of nature in thought, you are already unbound by that chaos, that undifferentiated 'thing-in-itself that is nature (which doesn't really exist). — Jingo7

I'm not sure I follow here... I think we are only ahead of the Greeks in scientific knowledge and technology. Because we can record that knowledge in writing and pass it on to next generations there's a progression to it, sure, but I'm not sure it follows that we have departed from nature or our biology. We use cellphones and the internet for instance to do what we essentially always did, communicate with each other, just faster and on a larger scale. This in particular I don't get:

How can biology act upon 'you' if you can already, in thought, abstract yourself as a self? That is, if you can abstract an element from the chaos of nature in thought, you are already unbound by that chaos, that undifferentiated 'thing-in-itself that is nature (which doesn't really exist). — Jingo7

You know, I really find technology boring to be honest, and I am not familiar with futurist writings. Do you have any good reccomendations? My thrust is always first and foremost philosophical, but I try to take things to the end, and I see uploading as a nescessary possibility in any future society who's drive will consist in the conflict between the world of man (society) and non-human nature. — Jingo7

It's not that I have read that many futurist per se, I mostly picked that up in the media I tend to follow... but Yuval Harari has a couple of books that you might call futurist, and he's generally a clear thinker. And then there's Nick Boström who deals with possible future scenario's, mostly from the point of view of existential risk, and those who work with him at the same institute.

As for the link with what we have been saying and climate change, I hope it is evident that it is relevant. The way we ideologically conceive of climate change is most often by attributing to nature this 'humbling' power, as something that punishes the hubris of man. I hope I demonstrate here that I find this view revolting. I will write more on it later. — Jingo7

Yes I do kind of agree with this, especially if this comes from some kind of dogmatic religious inspired point of view. But at the same there is a kernel of truth to this accusation of hubris I think. I've said something earlier along those lines. The way our cognition works is by abstracting away from the world, by cutting things up into little bits via language... which is essentially simplifying things so we can get our head around it. If we are dealing with complex systems like the biosphere this kind of simplified thinking can cause all kinds of trouble, especially if we have to much faith in our ideas... And there's some 'intelligence' to nature too, because it has been a process of trial and error that has been running for billions of years, evolving and adapting too 'itself'. Compared to that our trials and errors are still relatively shallow, so you know, maybe there is reason to not be too confident that we can do it better.

As far as concerens 'whats the point of thinking if you don't have a body?' I know what you mean but isn't it the case that in all ways that matter, you really do think without a body. Think about thinking, when you are thinking, are you really concerened/aware that you have a body? Is not the act of thinking itself it's own proof that we are not our bodies? When you are deep in thought, you are working on some ideas or whatever, it doesn't matter to you, you lose awareness even that you have a body. — Jingo7

Also why would this be an issue? Surely inter-subjectivity (in whatever form) would survive this 'upload'? I cannot imagine that we would all become totally insular self-referential computers, not at all. Surely human society would continue, simply that human beings become physically what they were spiritually all along, pure subjectivity. This is not about 'computation for computation's sake', I am not suggesting that we degrade the idea by associating this with meagre computing power (whatever that means). This would be society, but in a higher form. — Jingo7

I think human motivations (bodily) are behind the intellectual problems we work out. The process of thinking itself maybe isn't influence by it, but the initial motivation for it seems to be.

My reasoning here is that the physical, biological forms came first, and then we evolved thinking brains because it increased survival chances of some biological forms. So to me that is the reason d'etre of thinking... i'm not sure what to do with the idea of just taking that away, what would be the point of any of it?

Doesn't sound appealing? Well it doesn't sound appealing to me either! I am not suggesting this as an action taken tomorrow, but as one of the possible points a socially self-conscious (let me cut the BS here, I mean a communist) society would approach, long into the future, as contingent impediments to humanities' conquering of the galaxy and mortality are overcome. This is deep future, don't worry I will not now force you to climb into a USB stick or whatever. — Jingo7

Sure, I just wanted to voice some concerns with the idea of uploading digitally, which many futurist seem to take for granted.

As for the heat death of the universe, I don't see this as likely. More likely to me is that the universe is infinite. But even if entropy is real, I have faith (ok I know I sound insane) that man can conquer this entropy as well. — Jingo7

Yeah betting against entropy is insane ;-). But you know, all of this is far from settled, just the best guess we have based on current understanding.

The human body, that fragile meat sack which gets cancer and so on, let's get rid of it. Why not upload our subjectivities into an artificial technological infrastructure? I claim this would be the result of a self-conscious societies' drive toward immortality, the end of ageing, disease etc. — Jingo7

Of course we do not know if this is even a possibility, maybe subjectivity and meaning is inseparably linked with that fragile meat-sack. I mean, what's the point of thinking, a subjectivity, if you don't have some needy mortal body to keep alive... just computation for more computation sake until the heat dead of the universe? That doesn't sound very appealing to me.

Pierre Hadot criticizes modern philosophy for becoming an abstract, theoretical enterprise, an ivory tower pursuit, unlike a living public forum like it was in ancient — Ross Campbell

Bit of a strange remark, considering on could say it's precisely Socrates and Plato that set philosophy on this path towards to much abstraction, i.e. Ideal Forms.

I tend to think material circumstances are not the most important thing for us, as long as we can get by.

In a lot of ways there's a feeling of general decline, societal unraveling and defeatism/apathy today... as if we are nearing the end of an age. Obviously it depends on how bad climate catastrophe will be and if societies manage to turn it around... but maybe the 'cultural climate' could be a lot better in say 20 years then it is now.

We have to develop a better educational system and teach how bad the violence is. I feel we are living in an Era where people literally do not care about harm others. For this reason, it is time to focus on Ethics and provide more empathy along our relationships — javi2541997

I feel like education can only get you so far... how effective would that be if after the relatively short period of education, you have to participate in a system that essentially incentivises you to get ahead at any cost? Kids are not that dumb, a lot of them intuitively sniff out ethical teachings that don't match up with the world.

I guess what I'm saying is that if the rest doesn't change with it, ethics education will allways be an uphill battle, at best. Then again, you have to start somewhere so...

https://grist.org/cities/tampa-wanted-renewable-energy-resolution-florida-lawmakers-made-sure-it-couldnt-gas-ban-preemption/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=beacon

Always great to see the Republican Party trying their best to not only destroy the planet, but preventing even minor efforts to save it. That’s commitment— they take death pacts seriously. — Xtrix

Can't have the state restricting free competition for energy now can we? 19 states apparently have passed such legislation... insane.

I do wonder as a non-american, what is their thinking? Is it just only short-sighted protection of their interests, without much consideration for anything else? Do they realize what is at stake, or have they actually managed to convince themselves that the whole climate change thing is a hoax propagated by their political adversaries? I mean, how do you justify something like that to yourself?

Aah man, I'm just not interested in dick-measuring games... If you have nothing substantive to say, I'm done with this conversation

I have read more about paleontology, pre-history, evolution etc... than you think.

You came in here mis-interpreting what I said as some 'human nature'-type justification for defeatism concerning climate change and immediately went in the offence. That was never my intention, which should be clear from my other posts in this thread.

What I said in defense of my posts also wasn't meant as some scientifically accurate or nuanced description, just some broad strokes that I think would suffice in support of my claims.

I'm not even sure what you disagree with, as it's almost a truism what I said.

Our moral intuitions aren't developed to take into account far off risks or other people in the abstract. We pursue impartiality and abstraction by expressing everything in terms of money, which becomes a self perpetuating beast mostly out of our control (the Market) so that we don't have to feel anything about a decision, further divorcing it from morality.

What you're left with is a society that rumbles along with barely a chance to steer it in another direction simply because of its size and complexity and people incapable of making moral decisions most of the time and it's not even their fault. — Benkei

Expanding on this point, I think it's not only our moral intuitions that fails us at this point, but also our cognition in general. The way we abstract the world, via language, cutting it in small bits, is ill-suited to deal with complex problems that would be better served with a more holistic approach. Measuring everything against something like money is an example of this, but any criterium or set of criteria small enough so that an average human being can deal with is, probably leaves out a lot of complexity.

Yes it's not only wrong, it's hopelessly wrong, you just had to get that adjective in there didn't you... just in case it's wasn't abundantly clear how ignorant i am.

Why don't you take a less adversarial approach to debates on this forum? Surely you don't expect us to all be scientific scholars on every subject and post on a science journal level or shut up? If you think it's wrong, just say why and leave out this demeaning BS please.

If I may interject, I think we are a victim of the slow development of human nature that cannot keep up with the rapid changes resulting from technological inventions and our ability to easily transfer knowledge and cooperate. Our moral intuitions aren't developed to take into account far off risks or other people in the abstract. We pursue impartiality and abstraction by expressing everything in terms of money, which becomes a self perpetuating beast mostly out of our control (the Market) so that we don't have to feel anything about a decision, further divorcing it from morality.

What you're left with is a society that rumbles along with barely a chance to steer it in another direction simply because of its size and complexity and people incapable of making moral decisions most of the time and it's not even their fault. — Benkei

While I agree with all of this, we do find ourselves in a situation we are not especially equipped to deal with, we wouldn't find ourselves in this situation if we weren't with this many people to begin with. It all starts there, we have made major advances in medicine, food production, have no real predatory species left in nature that concern us etc etc... all of which made it possible for our population to grow as it has. However one wants to slice it, this is a major part of the problem.

Aah right, you are generally distrustful of people making an argument about human nature, promoting a defeatist attitude, put me in that box and thought I deserved a good beat-down.

There's some always something arbitrary about where we draw the boundaries around a species or not, and it's not as if we know exactly what subtle evolutionary changes in behavior or the brain may have happened between say 600.000 and 60.000 years ago... we have some semi-informed guesses.

But this is all a bit besides the point, as soon as the ice-age came to pass and conditions were such that we could have enough population and density, cultural evolution took off all across the world in multiply isolated locations, and the rest is history.

We want to survive and reproduce like any form of life, and because of the particular abilities we have we are very successful at it... which is part of the reason why we are where we are now. If you want to call this complete nonsense, fine.

I wanna say part of the problem is inherent in human beings... it's evolutions fault that we will destroy us.
— ChatteringMonkey

And yet we lived for 192,000 years with virtually no measurable impact on the climate or global ecosystem, and in the last few thousand are in a position to make the earth uninhabitable.

If your computer worked without fault for 192 years and then in the last year started to go wrong are you seriously telling me your first port of call for blame would be that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the computer was made and not "oh no, I must have picked up a virus, or dropped it, or something"? — Isaac

192.000 years is a very precise number.... when human culture evolution really started is a bit in contention I'd say. Either way the point at which we started spreading across the globe, a lot of megafauna did become extinct, and we did reshape whole ecosystems as we progressed into agriculture, domesticated species etc etc...

And obviously this is not a linear process, it had to get some traction first. The rate of cultural Innovation is a function of population size and density... and innovations in turn have a positive reinforcing effect on those. In the video Boethius linked to, Dr Suzuki compares economic growth with bacteria in a test tube that grow exponentially every minute. If at minute 60 the tube would be saturated with bacteria, at minute 59 it would only be half that, and at minute 58 only a quarter etc etc... At minute 50 or so you would hardly notice them, yet the fact that they are an entity that doubles every minute is the cause of the tube being saturated. This just to say that the larger part of our history being relatively non-impactfull doesn't necessarily tell the whole story.