The climate change is one of them. — Raymond
But without science, no one would know we have global warming — Athena
Plagues and famines, earthquakes and hurricanes, etc. have always been part of human history. Bad things happened long before technology and human beings were sacrificed to the gods to keep us save from their wrath. — Athena
We could not know about global warming until we had the problem and the technology to measure everything and understand the problem. We need to process this information and decide how we are to manage it. That is moving forward not backward. However, learning from the past could be vital to moving forward. A big problem with that is human populations are too large to maintain without modern technology. I think we are backed into a corner that it is going to be very hard to get out of — Athena
True. And just like science is used nowadays to spare us from our own wrath on nature, while nature is increasingly the victim of scientific beating, people back then had their own means of coping. Rain dances, rituals, or whatever. Offerings included. But at least, nature was left alone, to a higher extent than these days. — Raymond
Around 3,000 years ago, farmers settled on the fertile Loess Plateau in western China, a region about the size of France. By the 7th century, the rich soils were feeding about one quarter of the Chinese population. But intense pressure on the land eroded the soil. By the 20th century, desertification had condemned the remaining population to poverty. βIt was a desperate place,β says Juergen Voegele, an agricultural economist and engineer at the World Bank who first visited the region in the mid-1980s. But that would soon change. https://rethink.earth/turning-desert-to-fertile-farmland-on-the-loess-plateau/ — RICHARD BLAUSTEIN
I was not a happy kid at school and I saw quite keenly what it did. It mobilizes each and every citizen for war and this condition of total mobilization does not leave you. It continues in higher education, in the jobs you undertake, in the time tables you are being regimented into, in the meticulous moment of testing, examination, from university days to child rearing advice... We have a society of mass mobility but also mass mobilization in which you are called to whichever front you are needed, a mercenary plying his trade, going to wherever you are ordered. That is our condition. You would like to read Ernst Junger I think. Ernst Junger is an old German conservative who saw in the first world war the forge in which a new age was being crafted, the era of the 'worker', but the worker regimented like the soldier... It is a wonderful text eerie in its precociousness of society's self understanding... — Tobias
That is not exactly true — Athena
When all the trees were cut down, the people could not build boats and meet their dietary needs by fishing. That led to eating everything on the island, which finally lead to cannibalism. The next most serious problem is just exhausting the soil. — Athena
Civilizations collapsed because of exhausting the region's ability to support life. — Athena
Where humans are consuming groundwater, they are nearing a disaster as they are consuming that water faster than it is replaced, and soon those regions will become deserts. Another problem is the limit of minerals essential to making fertilizer. The planet can not support the mass of humanity. — Athena
Who says that nature is not capable in providing for all, if left alone? — Raymond
I don't think that things need to be perfect for happiness to be sufficiently valuable. It's not the case that everything is terrible either, and I remain reasonably optimistic that we can further reduce our problems. Nevertheless, the positive aspects will always matter and they will continue to be seen as a genuine blessing/gift by many sentient beings, in spite of the damage. — DA671
I am afraid that I would have to disagree with the conclusion that the possibility of harm (which I do favour preventing and reducing as much as possible) — DA671
I do not feel that I can justify the idea that the life of that child from the slum who finds immense joy in just living with his family does not deserve to exist (assuming that preventing the harms is good). — DA671
The crux of the difference is the ability to recognise that solving a problem cannot come at the cost of nullifying all good. — DA671
It's much more paternalistic to suggest that one's own perspective justifies the cessation of all positive experiences — DA671
it can also be bad to prevent the negatives. — DA671
And no, intentionally creating a life that could experience immense goods does not use them as mere means to an end, since the person themselves have no interest that is being disregarded from their creation. — DA671
If it did, it would probably include using them as mere means to the end of eliminating suffering, — DA671
I do think that creating the person with the right intentions and caring for them properly does treat them as ends in themselves. — DA671
However, one is not "creating the conditions of harm" for an existing person who is already happy. I have already said that it's wrong to do so for existing beings unless it leads to a greater happiness for them. — DA671
But nonexistent beings don't have perceive the void has a desideratum that would somehow be cruelly distanced by their mere creation. — DA671
The cardinal consideration remains the value/disvalue they might experience, and I am sorry, but your (or mine!) personal viewpoint simply does not justify not creating the conditions for all happiness just because you (or I) fail to find sufficient significance in life. — DA671
I do hope that more people could see things in a different light. Preventing harms at the cost of all happiness is a "cure" much worse the problem it allegedly "solves". — DA671
Since there is no such thing as eternal bliss prior to creation that's negatively affected by the genesis of ineffable happiness, one should not hold views that lead to unfathomable losses that outweigh any gain. — DA671
The right argument. Preventing harm for a person doesn't have any value either if the creation of goods doesn't matter. And there are also those who have turned around their lives in spite of suffering a lot, so I will not be accepting an incomplete image that suits your agenda. — DA671
Whatever noble intentions you might have, the ineluctable truth is that you are unnecessarily preventing joys due to your perspective. Cold-hearted and apathetic this is (since if creating harms is "using" someone, then it's also absurd to not create possible joy that one cannot ask for themselves before existing). One cannot be truly empathetic whilst also ignoring the power and reality of happiness. — DA671
Yeah, the unreasonable "asymmetry" often comes into play, though it doesn't win. ;) As I said before, I do jot think that it makes sense to say that the lack of harm is good without also acknowledging that the absence of the positives is bad. It's tragic, but understandable, that you have chosen to ignore the obvious. — DA671
Fallacy of fallacies. And I didn't straw man you, since I wasn't talking about people being "used", but an inherent good (that one cannot ask for) not being bestowed due to one's overwhelming pessimistic inclinations. A benefit that an innocent being cannot ask for is being created when one exists, and it isn't if they aren't born. Thus, the so-called asymmetry remains unreasonable. Again, in one case no joy occurs (irrespective of any intentions to prevent harm), in the other case, there is no benefit either (nobody to gain from the lack of damage). It is all about whether one can understand the simple truth that it can never be moral to prevent all happiness for the sake of preventing harms. — DA671
It is all about whether one can understand the simple truth that it can never be moral to prevent all happiness for the sake of preventing harms. — DA671
Yes, I can also see that you believe in an unethical view that justifies preventing all good in order to prevent some harms that one is single-minded focused on whilst ignoring other pertinent factors. — DA671
:lol: In the old days, I left home early in the morning and did my own thing all day and then went home when people began turning their lights on. I don't think it is safe to give our children that much freedom today. We didn't lock the doors to our house or car and we lived in a Los Angeles suburb. :lol: If you can find the movie "Blast From the Past" it makes an interesting statement about social change where I grew up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhMQOb0tEmI More has changed than our understanding of science. We no longer have the culture that we and that is why I write! — Athena
This does not mean I am stuck in the past because I believe if we do not self-destruct, we are transitioning into a New Age, that is so different from the past, people in the New Age will not be able to relate to our primitive past. Exploiting each other and nature as we have done up to this point will be unthinkable. Dressing people in uni-forms and having them march into the enemy's weapons will be unthinkable, but dropping bombs on the enemy may still occur? I like what Alisdair Mcintyre says in the speech because he mentions what a culture and time in history has to do with our concept of morals. It is also a political matter. We now have reactionary politics based more on our feelings than our intellect. When making decisions we look inward to see how we "feel" about this or that, not evaluate how it fits with our principles. What are principles? We have a culture that is so unsure of everything we are powerless to do anything but follow orders to get what we want. This is not a good stopping place for the future. — Athena
The Worker: Dominion and Form. He also wrote about his experiences in war but that is not of interest to you. I do think though he will describe and affirm exactly what you will dislike. However, that is why he needs to be read, or at least why I think you should read him. He thinks Prussian knowledge of duty is great and that we will become technological 'workers', but it will be up to us to give technology soul. It is a book way ahead of its time I think.Okay, I have to read that! He published a few books and I am not sure which one is the most important to my effort. I am too tired to figure it out now. — Athena
Just reading my way through this thread from the start and I just 'in general terms' wanted to declare myself as a fan of your overall positions on this topic. :strong: :grin: :up:
7 minutes ago — universeness
I don't have to be concerned about fundamentally problematic views, but it's always better for others to realise that as well instead of indulging in projection. ;) — DA671
Nothing will be gained from this, but I suppose I'll move on. And I looked up the arguments myself, not from a friend. — DA671
If damage is an inherent harm that needs to be prevented, happiness is also a good that does not deserve to be prevented. — DA671
Straw man argument again, since I have already argued for a consistent case that is about creating the benefit for those who would exist. — DA671
However, the reality is that there aren't any souls in some blissful antechamber who are desperate to avoid existence. — DA671
It cannot be preferable for nonexistent beings, by the same token, to not exist, since that's also a category error. — DA671
No benefit here means that nobody is fulfilled from any absent harm. — DA671
The flip side is a state of affairs where a person does experience goods. The lack of absent benefits doesn't matter for those who never had them in the first place, but if the positives don't matter, then the lack of damage also has no relevance for those who aren't feeling satisfaction due to its absence. — DA671
Because consistency matters, even if it's difficult to accept. It's not rational to focus on removing undesirable experiences at the cost of preventing the preferable ones. — DA671
The universe also doesn't care about any absent harm. — DA671
I am sorry if my replies came off as "arrogant", yet it seems to me, and I could be wrong here, that its a trait that pervades any view that totally disregards one aspect of reality. I am interested in many things, but I am afraid that I have been impelled to disagree with the internet prophets of unreasonable pessimism ;) — DA671
Self-evident things don't solicit excessive explanations. There's no need to "get in a tizzy" over trivial matters. — DA671
The only simple and consistent point was: if it's bad to create the damage/negatives, it's also good to create benefits. This isn't a particularly complex point. — DA671
That is the argument. If one needs to be "deprived" for the lack of happiness to be bad, I don't think it's sensible to deny that there should be a satisfied state of affairs that would prevail from absenct harms, which is clearly not the case. Once again, you simply don't want to look beyond your single-minded viewpoint. — DA671
If you truly are a theist, which branch do you truly associate with — universeness
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