Nero wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 9:01 am
All of human history is littered with human beings dying of the things you claim would make us extinct,
to be fair, i wasn't exactly claiming it would make us extinct, merely listing the ways we can die in to illustrate the point that we are not that durable, but ok.
500 years ago in the year 1500 there were approximately half a billion humans living on the planet, now there are over 8 billion humans living on Earth and that number is not going down, do you understand these very basic figures?
yeah i do, and it's not exactly a good thing that we have over 8 billion people living on the planet, this is where the topic of overpopulation and over-consumption come into play, a lot of people might argue it's not an actual thing and that we can keep going with little to no consquences, and yet we've replaced most of the animal biomass on the planet with ourselves and utilize them for farming(
https://awellfedworld.org/wp-content/up ... 8x1024.png).
artificial fertilizers/pesticides(with the help of fossil fuels) have for a while aided in increasing the carrying capacity of our planet(thus allowing for the 8 billion humans to exist nowadays thanks to people like Norman Borlaug) however when these
deplete and believe me it will
eventually at some point(pretty sure at this very moment brazil and india are having trouble supplying fertlizer with these sanctions), the carrying capacity is going to lower and we will correct ourselves accordingly to account for the lower levels of food production(
forgive me, if im saying this as if we have a choice but we dont), this will obviously come in the form of massive-die offs as famine kicks in.
more people = more consumption = less resources to go around for everyone else. it's not that hard to see what's gonna happen when the various, interdependent food production systems we rely on for survival fail. Here's a pretty good example of this in action(
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/2 ... ri-lankans).
Humans have always been susceptible to the things you are inferring will lead to their doom and despite that humanity is more prevalent than it has ever been, this is not an image of a species in danger of extinction. Humanity didn't suddenly increase it's population 400% in the span of one human lifetime because it is declining. I
But is it sustainable? Can we keep growing indefinitely as if we have no limits? What's gonna happen if we don't keep our population levels in check? those are the questions i want you to wrestle with and try to answer, because as far i've looked, there's nothing that warrants a positive response to them- we may not be an endangered species like the emperor penguins or functionally extinct like the woolly mammoths but the truth is
we made those happen, eventually we will have to pay for the consequences one way or another.
Things that cannot lead to the death of the human race are natural disasters, epidemics, illnesses, even the loss of items from the food chain will not lead to the end of humanity or the end of human civilization.
in isolation, we could probably take on these issues, but they exist in tandem with each other, interacting often invisibly to make challenging problems into almost insurmountable ones. as for the last one, no, we cannot recover if the food chain collapses, sorry but we are not self-sufficient creatures capable of mass-producing our own food independent of these food chains- without them, we die, there is no argument to be had here.
The entire reason I keep stating the obvious to you is that you are overlooking it for the sake of arguing a nothing point.
lol im not overlooking anything, you're just smoking way too much copium and can't wrap your head around the fact that we aren't as special as we make ourselves out to be, that human ingenuity has limits and isn't gonna save us from the shit-storm its created, regardless- cope harder.
You intend for what? Apathetic resignation that somehow the human race is doomed to fail? It may well be, but it won't be within our lifetimes, assuming entropy is inevitable then yes the Heat Death of the Universe will lead to human extinction.
Apathetic? Why do you think im writing all these paragraphs and sifting through endless articles just to see if i'm wrong? if i genuinely didn't give a shit, i wouldn't have even gone through the trouble of replying to this thread in the first place. like i said in my very first statement of this thread, i do want to be
convinced that we're on the right path and that we're all gonna be fine, unfortunately all the "
solutions" folks in here keep giving me seem to rely on A) theoretical/non-existent technologies(i.e mind uploading, cyronics or super-intelligent AI), B) existent technologies but are impractical (i.e carbon capture tech or renewable energy) and C) existent technologies we still don't know what the full externalities (side effects) would be or consist of(i.e genetic modification or geoengineering of the planet).
Everything else though is entirely manageable and easily resolvable. To ensure Humanity's survival all you need is the basic minimum, which modern technologies allow us to meet incredibly easily, you cannot grow everything in a vertical farm without natural sunlight true but you can grow anything you realistically require to sustain human life indefinitely within one.
and then what happens when modern technologies fail? either because of human errors and the inability to account for the various complex systems that go into maintaining vertical farms simultaneously despite automated processes, or the laws of physics which dictates our growth is
not eternal, got more to say about this in the next statement.
And questioning their sustainability is a complete joke of an argument and one that is easily dispelled. Vertical underground farming is the most sustainable form of agriculture that exists it doesn't have fundamental shortcomings that regular farming does:
[*]With rows of in-demand veg stacked on top of each other, less space is used to grow more food.
[*]The crops are grown in an isolated environment, where factors can be manipulated. Fruit and vegetables grown outdoors are impacted by the weather and their environment, but vertical farms can grow all year round, uninterrupted by external threats.
[*]Furthermore, in traditional farms, crops are eaten by insects and animals, forcing some damaged crops to be disposed of. In vertical farms, they are protected from this. Water and nutrients can also be measured out exactly, so nothing is wasted.
[*]Exotic fruit and vegetables can be grown anywhere, instead of being farmed in suitable climates and then transported to their customers.
i mean, you didn't really acknowledge the fact it requires copious amounts of energy use as a result of the artificial lighting( LEDS), heaters, water pumps, or the fact that the food we can grow is mostly limited(both in the types we can grow and the caloric intake)-ironically enough, the same article you posted pretty much agrees on this towards the conclusion paragraph"...
the planet cannot be sustained solely on lettuce and strawberries...". Starting a vertical farm for the average farmer isn't really economically sound considering the high costs of starting up one, the maintenance and production involved, never-mind the low ROI(returns on investment). though this article says mostly similar things to what i've said, it does make a few references to greenhouse farming which you can take a look at if you're curious about it(
https://www.eater.com/2018/7/3/17531192 ... nic-greens).
Now as to my original statements, I am not failing to see the forest for the trees, quite the opposite in fact, I am ignoring every individual tree to show you simply what is and what was. People who lived in hunter gatherer societies 20,000 years ago did not have a quality of life that would be considered in anyway superior to a human being who lived during the industrial revolution in Europe.
20,000 years ago, much of the Earth was covered in ice and while this did make human settlement difficult, it wasn't impossible. back then, we didn't have much capability for destroying the environment and making entire species go extinct(though im pretty sure, our existence has affected mega-fauna to some extent, my memory is failing me on this one though.) 20,000 years later, and we have resorted to extracting from the environment as opposed to developing sustainably(if that was even possible in the first place.),now we are fast on track to the opposite direction, living on a Greenhouse/hothouse Earth, something i doubt the human species-if any forms of multicellular life(besides extremophiles) will survive. yes, in the small picture we have definitely improved and made our lives substantially easier/convenient with technology, with people often in the developed countries opting to live in high-consumption, high waste lifestyles. in the big picture we(not counting american indians, the amish or uncontacted tribes) are just now starting to realize the importance of having a healthy environment/ecosystem(s) and a breathable atmosphere
far too late and we will now reap the consequences(we already are, im just saying this to be theatrical).
The people who lived through the original industrial revolution would not have lived a life of considerable quality but undoubtedly their existence would be preferable over living as a nomadic forager or hunter, being entirely at the mercy of the elements and the immediately available resources in the area being the only thing you could rely on. Thanks to agriculture, cities and civilizations grew. Crops and animals could now be farmed to meet more people's needs and that in turn led to advances all across society allowing people to have permanent domiciles, allowing them the opportunity to teach and develop communicational standards such as writing and language.
honestly trying to get into your mindset in an effort to understand, and the way im looking at it is, so long as its good for humans, then we're on the right path to progress, the environment and ecosystems comes second to our needs, as if we are somehow superior to them. again, still getting caught up with the technological aspects and not acknowledging our environmental, political or societal health. growth for the sake of growth is not beneficial in the long-run of things.
These advantages have never stopped developing. Thus someone living in 2022 will by every measurable standard on average live a superior quality of life than what would have been possible for the mass majority of humans living only one lifespan prior that time.
depends on who you are, where you live and the general socioeconomic status of your area, if you live in a developed country, sure, you could probably afford a few gadgets and materials to make your life a little interesting-even then theres a pretty good chance of being born into poverty despite being in a developed country like the USA, if not- then prepare to suffer in a variety of ways; because being poor is heavily discriminated against in our society.
80 years ago Europe was embroiled in a conflict that would see over 20,000.000 deaths on the continent alone, such a loss of life on such scale had never occurred before in all of recorded human history. In fact so many people died in the space of mere 7 year conflict that it would outweigh the total number of living humans on the planet before modern agriculture took hold a mere 10,000 years ago.
not really refuting against this, besides the fact that the fascism of the era you're talking about is making a great resurgence nowadays.
Despite that however humanity is now in a better place than it has ever been, we have access to advances technology and medicine that would have been impossible to explain to someone born in the era of World War 2.
advances that are mostly temporary and will be regressed, as far as im concerned all the antibiotics we keep using is now resulting in antibiotic resistence becoming more of a grave threat, people are going to start dying of infections and sepsis.
The horrors of that period of human history all that we did all the lives that were lost that was perhaps our lowest point as a species and you wish to infer that somehow the challenges of today are more stark?
i'm sorry you can't wrap your head around the fact that billions of people will die as a result of decaying/rapidly changing environment(s), lack of adequate resources(which wars will be fought over) to go around, diseases becoming more common(as a result of climate change) and fascism making a return just to list a few examples, but
yes that is exactly what i am saying, if you thought WW2 was our low point then get ready to see how lower we can get in the years to come.
That though is not the argument I am making, I will never claim that the world of 2022 is without fault but it is still the greatest era of all our history to live in.
Correction: we've peaked technologically and the only direction we can go towards now is
down.
By every reasonable metric that one's quality of life can be measured every century in the past 1000 years would be preferable to the one that preceded it.
not exactly, now that i'm thinking about it im pretty sure a few civilizations from before have demonstrated the capacity to develop technologies that became lost for a certain time, ive already responded to this in the third page of this thread under a different question, but mostly recycling what i've stated before, ancient china did have the capacity for developing gunpowder and the printing press long before we did in the 1500's, ancient rome was able to keep up cleanliness and whatnot with their advanced engineering of sewage systems and aqueducts, ancient mayans having the advanced agricultural techniques of their time, just for a few examples to note.
Living in 1500 would be slightly preferable than living in 1400, living in the 1600's would be slightly more preferable than living in the 1500's living in latter half of the 1700's would be more preferable to living in the former. Living in the last quarter of the 1800's would be preferable to living in the first three.
growth comes in spurts, not in the consistent logistic(for lack of a better word) way you keep mapping it out in.
Living in the last 20 years of the 20th century would be preferable to living in the other 80. The rate of change is increasing but undeniable, there is no living human being that would if given all the data conclude that their chances of living a decent life would be worse now than they were during the Great Depression of the 1920's or the great wars of the 20th century
i mean we are on the verge of another
economic recession and the
water wars seem to be on the horizon, so....
I am living in a home powered by a renewable source of energy that is heated, cooled, maintained and contains technology that has undoubtedly provided me with a quality life far superior
that reminds me- while im not commenting on you specifically, pretty sure renewable tech does have to be maintained and replaced considering the energy efficiency and battery output do decrease overtime, so theres that.
enjoyed by any living human on the entire planet, regardless of race, creed, wealth or societal status a century before me and I am far from the outlier in this situation.
elaborate further, are you saying that race, social status and wealth can't affect someone on their quest to amass riches or relative financial security?
All of this to say that life in 2022 may not be perfect but it is in every reasonable measure better than what came before it, you have a lower chance of being illiterate and a higher chance of receiving an education, you have a lower chance of dying many preventable illnesses and ailments that killed millions of your ancestors,
great, now the only thing we have to worry about is the biosphere dying or the climate collapse or the micro-plastic crisis or the food shortages or the.... you know what i think i'll stop right now.
When it comes to the extreme poverty statistic , i've already responded to this when speaking to @funkervogt and @Cyber_Rebel in the 2nd and 4th pages of this thread respectively, but to save you the few clicks- the article you posted itself says that "
This is an extremely low poverty line that draws attention to the very poorest people in the world.", if you don't know the significance of this statement it basically means this is not an adequate amount of money to live on and even for the people who are able to earn above $1.90 a day they often still remain poor in most aspects of their lives, struggling with malnutrition, infant mortality and having low life expectancy rates.
As for the health graph, it's a little outdated(also made another point countering this in my response to @Cyber_Rebel) considering the pandemic has drastically changed and affected the morality rates, some of the children in these places(developing/third-world countries im referring to) weren't able to attend school as a result of the pandemic and governments being forced to shut them down- to which children would be forced or strongly encouraged to work earlier, often to support their families amidst the pandemic- usually working hazardous jobs(lithium or cobalt mines are what come to mind).
With the freedom chart, it's a mixed bag- i'm not doubting the advances made, but again this stops 5 years prior to the pandemic and doesn't seem to acknowledge where we are at nowadays(this is probably because this was released back in 2015), furthermore i doubt this is something that can truly be quantified, not because of the impossibility but because of the very two things it mentions which are under attack as we speak(public discourse and journalism), without these it's a little hard to make judgements about whether or not a society is democratic, though im pretty sure most folks know without their existence- they most likely aren't living in a democratic society.
for the population chart, refer to my initial paragraph of this response.
With all that said I'd say it is very likely that someone living one human lifespan from now will on average have a higher quality of life than someone alive now. It is merely following the data.
it's not hard to paint a picture of our present being a good one given you choose cherry-picked, manipulated sources of information and data or worse, using the pretense of rationality and deciding we truly do live in good times, it's not "following the data", you're just settling for a future that doesn't exist because it's more comfortable that way. then again, i can't exactly blame ppl for this considering its in our nature to avoid anything potentially uncomfortable/traumatic so theres that.