Lefty Transhumanist - What do you think?

[Vakanai]

that being said, even if we were to go through all the hoops and challenges of a drug/treatment that somehow extends your life by orders of magnitude with no complications or side effects brought about as a result of artificially manipulating your body's systems of operation(good luck with the FDA), pretty good chance you probably won't be the recipient of it- have mentioned before in other threads that trickle-down economics is a myth and to expect rich ppl to care about you is arrogance at best and delusion at its worst. even if somehow, the human population was able to get ahold of this and make it free and available(like healthcare ) there's also the added problem of overpopulation(considering we already are overpopulated- i heavily doubt life extension would be widely available for most).

Actually no, we're not "already overpopulated." We currently make more than enough food to feed all of humanity when not being plagued by pandemics and wars. We could feed even more people if we switched to smarter and more sustainable practices. It's mostly a distribution problem, mainly in there's not a profit motive in making sure everyone is well fed and healthy. There's no reason why we can't create an agriculture to support a population twice this size while also greatly reducing our climate and environmental impact; we have the technology and the farming techniques and water management knowledge to do so much better than we are. But right now it's just more profitable to waste so much water on inefficient "cash crops" like almonds in California, to use fertilizer and pesticides instead of crop rotation and more sustainable hardy farming techniques, and to let much of what we grow go uneaten and literally left to rot than feed starving people who have little to no money. Saying that it's a population issue when it's just unhealthy capitalism at work seems insensitive and unfair in my opinion. We can support the population we have now, easily. We could support a much larger population if we wanted to. We just lack the will to do so effectively, efficiently, and responsibly.

[MythOfProgress]

Actually no, we're not "already overpopulated." We currently make more than enough food to feed all of humanity when not being plagued by pandemics and wars. We could feed even more people if we switched to smarter and more sustainable practices. It's mostly a distribution problem

if i had a nickle for every single time someone mentioned this was a "distribution problem" i'd be a fucking millionaire by now, the core issue(or predicament rather) is far more complicated and in-depth than most realize- we've had the luxury of being able to use fossil fuels to dramatically increase our carrying capacity(and therefore our population).

however our industrial activities as well as our unchecked population growth has led to the severe decline and degradation of the biosphere we are now witness to, this has meant our original carrying capacity(sitting somewhere around 500 mill to 1 billion humans if i recall correctly) has significantly lowered.

adding on to the fact that the world can only feed itself through the continuous flow of cheap, easy fossil fuels which are needed for just about every stage of industrial agriculture( chemical fertilizer, harvest, tillage, irrigation, processing and distribution). when the flow of oil runs out(or more accurately the fossil fuels we do have become far more expensive for us to extract once you account for EROEI) billions of us will starve to death(having witnessed Sri Lanka's case of switching from chemical to organic fertilizer pretty much proves my point in the fact that farmers are now struggling with harvests) combining this, our biosphere's degradation and the fact that the climate is changing in rapid and unpredictable ways does not bode well for our case.

mainly in there's not a profit motive in making sure everyone is well fed and healthy.

hmm, not gonna doubt capitalist practices do play a significant part in hunger/famine, but unfortunately this has evolved past just capitalism being the problem at hand here. our unchecked growth, and inability to regulate our population(this could be effectively alleviated by propping up women's rights and choices for contraception, as statistics seem to indicate lower birth rates as a result of countries with the support of women's rights- but i heavily doubt anything like this will be instituted on a widespread, global scale. ).

We could support a much larger population if we wanted to. We just lack the will to do so effectively, efficiently, and responsibly.

yeah no, most of what i've said already pretty much applies, the fact that we've gone from just 2 billion in the 1930's and 40's to just 7-8 billion in 2022 is already a worrying aspect here, we've overshot earth's finite limits and ecosystems, and sooner or later we will pay the price for it- latching on to the belief that our way of life will continue to prosper just continues this foolish crusade of trying to preserve high-energy, high-waste lifestyles and more cases of quick techno-fixes that will fail to save us.

[Tadasuke]

What Mythofprogress is writing on this site is dumb, mistaken, misinformed, fatalist, insane and nonsensical. Humanity is thriving like never before. We are finding exponentially more solutions as supercomputers and AI continue to advance exponentially. To every problem there's a solution and malthusian thinking is just wrong (logically and morally). There will be 10 and 20 billion people and they will be much better off than we are now. We won't run out of anything. What we ought to do is find more solutions. Listen to wise people like Julian Simon or Kartik Gada (they don't have to be 100% correct, but they are mostly correct). Follow https://twitter.com/HumanProgress. Read this https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... -disasters. I think that your actions are detrimental and way too negative. AGI is near.

[EDIT] And please look at this website: https://pessimistsarchive.org/list

[MythOfProgress]

What Mythofprogress is writing on this site is dumb, mistaken, misinformed, fatalist, insane and nonsensical

then please demonstrate to me as to why i'm wrong, i would love to hear your opposing thoughts on the matter- if im in the wrong position i'd like to know why(as well as how) and if i should change my "opinion".

Humanity is thriving like never before.

citation needed.

We are finding exponentially more solutions as supercomputers and AI continue to advance exponentially.

again, citation needed.

To every problem there's a solution and malthusian thinking is just wrong (logically and morally)

when it comes to the topic of overpopulation, there's usually one of two responses i commonly witness, the first being the naive take(often from people like Vakanai)- in which folks are under the mistaken notion that our population is sustainable and even desirable even when it exceeds earth's finite limits; believing that this is "just a distribution problem" which can be fixed with a rearrangement of our political/economic systems.

the second being the types of people who agree that this is a problem but almost always unveil themselves to be racists and/or anti-immigrants in disguise, often getting caught up in the narrative that if we eliminate "certain people" the problem will be fixed.

i'm not party to this kind of thinking and often do my best to dispel this narrative. as opposed to using bad-faith arguments to represent me, how about taking a look at the part where i mentioned women's rights and birth control?

that being said, it is not immoral to understand and realize that our society is propped up by oil and that without it, we would die. thomas malthus may have been wrong in that he wasn't able to account for the green revolution that norman borlaug ushered in, but even norman himself agreed in his nobel peace prize speech that he was mostly buying time for the rest of us- stating that..."Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction effectively and humanely. He is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. The result is that the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of increase in food production in some areas.".

There will be 10 and 20 billion people and they will be much better off than we are now.

once again, citation needed.

We won't run out of anything.

you are coping really hard rn, i want your citations.

What we ought to do is find more solutions.

we already have the solutions(or as close to one as it gets), you just don't like it.

Listen to wise people like Julian Simon or Kartik Gada

heard of the former but not the latter, jared diamond has already made a few criticisms regarding his[Julian] work, seems to ignore the very real and finite limitations of the environment in favor of the economic growth we have and pursue at all costs.(much like Steven Pinker and his "rational optimism" in believing that "things are so much more better now" without taking a look at the wider context of the situation we're in nowadays, considering he has a penchant for cherry-picking data and seems like the type to cook his books, im doubtful of his claims) haven't heard of kartik gada, but upon further research seems like he is of the same philosophy(we wait for future technology to make our lives better as opposed to making it better in the here and now.)

Read this https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2022 ... -disasters. I

read it, and it's mostly about adaptation strategies, nothing in the way of actual mitigation when it comes to these problems, but nice cope.

I think that your actions are detrimental and way too negative. AGI is near.

i'm sorry, what exactly about AGI is going to save us? i mean, i seem to keep witnessing an almost religious devotion to this idea that some superhuman AI is going to come about and instantaneously reverse all of the damage we've done to the environment, in spite of the fact that this is a theoretical idea(as in it doesn't exist, similarly to vaporware products) and most AI researchers have trouble as is in getting their neural networks to work reliably. this is not a problem we will solve in the next few decades, you underestimate the time it takes to truly learn about the complexity of the human brain and consciousness, as well as the ability to improve upon it. ngl, this all comes across as a very hard cope in attempt to avoid your death. very bad science if you're making assumptions about things you have no demonstrable data for. aside from that, i'm not taking any actions that are "detrimental", only thing im doing is typing out paragraphs on a forum. its up to you to decide if you care enough to respond but as far as anyone's concerned, most folks will just bury their heads in the sand and pretend we can keep living this way- im just the person with the sign saying the end is nigh- nothing special.

[asd345]

checked it, disagree with the premise as its mostly attributing human qualities to a concept that's a bit more abstract- nature isn't really something that "hates", it's more apathetic when it comes to species and concerned with fulfilling certain processes(like evolution, regardless of where it leads to.) and even then im probably going a little far trying to anthropomorphize something like this.

that being said, im not really a fan of how you categorize certain folks and dismiss them purely based off their positions/stances/identities, i've observed it in some of your earlier posts and didn't really take a note of it at the time, but it could be something you can work on by delving deep into the opposing person's argument and see what it is that makes them think the way they do.

on the other hand, you seem to be emphasizing that humans are separate from nature, despite the fact that we were born and evolved from it as a result- which means everything we do is an extension of nature itself. not denying there could be a few people with traditionalist ideas of how we should never change our societies, but please do not confuse that with the people who understand that despite our human dominance and unparalleled abilities for reasoning/invention/thought- we are still subject to the laws of thermodynamics and physics.

it is not "conservatism" to admit that we aren't omnipotent creatures and that we should live within the limits of our environment, because otherwise we walk away with the misconception that that lives we lead(at least in the developed world) is sustainable and can last for as long we want it to.

Let’s be honest, nobody of the nature-defenders walks the walk. So why do they talk the talk?

so you're telling me you've never heard of american indians/indigenous tribes, environmentalists, vegans/vegetarians? i mean it is possible for someone to actually dedicate their lives to this and face oppression for it(as historical cases have demonstrated), making sweeping generalizations/assumptions about these folks isn't really something i'd suggest.

Thanks again!

I modified the last post and cleared it up again. New post addressing climate change, as you rightly brought it up.

Interesting discussion as well with the others. Have to state though, that I am miles away from the techno-optimism stated there. I am mostly referring to options already available or most probably soon, if funding were even close to enough.

By the way, vegan myself, so absolutely talking about them too;)

What are you proposing as a solution (it it all)?

[MythOfProgress]

Have to state though, that I am miles away from the techno-optimism stated there. I am mostly referring to options already available or most probably soon, if funding were even close to enough.

if you're referring to solar and wind as energy alternatives that we can fall back on to continue civilization as a whole, then i would say you're sorely mistaken, there's that one notion that in some countries, the energy infrastructure hasn't even been started in terms of construction or is still in the artist's interpretation page.

also have to account for the fact that solar/wind are not as energy-dense or reliable like oil, sure we may have improved in terms of making it a little less expensive, unfortunately though the sun isn't always shining(and even when it is, depends on the angle solar panels are getting hit at in order to absorb full energy) and the wind isn't always blowing.

still have to acknowledge that these technologies require constant maintenance, production and mining, these technologies require minerals and metals like cobalt, lithium and nickel which would contribute a lot more to the CO2 in the atmosphere(not that it makes a difference at this point though) not gonna doubt their uses though in a society that's winding down from high-energy, high-waste lifestyles though.

New post addressing climate change, as you rightly brought it up.

you're close, but climate change is merely a symptom of the larger issue at hand, ecological overshoot. the reason im saying this isn't something to be fixed with technology is because its the same thing that's gotten us into this mess in the first place.

for one, we can't engineer a source of energy(like oil, we discovered it)-merely manifest that energy in different forms. a lot of folks here tend to confuse our advancements for human ingenuity-and while no doubt our exceptional abilities for manipulating the world around us has played a part-most ppl do not seem readily able to acknowledge that without oil; none of this would be able to hold up.

it's why you will see so many desperate attempts by ppl, grasping at straws and placing their hopes in theoretical technologies, it's all we've ever known in our lives- and why would it change? to this, i'd just say that there really isn't any magical law on earth(or the universe really) that determines we'll have a temperature that is favorable for humans, animals and plants to operate in. when there are no plants that can survive the temperatures we are currently careening towards, there are no animals left to feed, which could very well include us.

What are you proposing as a solution (it it all)?

like i said, and i'll said it again, this isn't a problem to be solved, this is a predicament we are trapped in, we will have to live through it for the remainder of our lives and eventually die from it. we can try and make gracious attempts at responding to this and maybe buy ourselves a few years at most and stave off the inevitable, but we will have to pay our energy debt when the time comes.

if this was still the 1960-70s; you know back when we really had the big picture opened to us for the first time(and even then we were getting signs and indications that we were affecting our environment for the worst for the past 100+ years) i'd probably be more optimistic and certain in our chances of being able to curb this. however, the combined forces of denial/ignorance on part of the general public and lies by corporate executives(Exxon-Mobil comes to mind) has ensured our demise.

[Tadasuke]

By the way, I think that a very serious threat to the civilization are green, ecological, eco people, primitivists, degrowth, depopulation people and also centralized-planning people. All famines in the 2nd half of the 20th century and in the 21st century were caused by autocratic, socialist governments and not using pesticides, herbicides because of ideological reasons (for example in Sri Lanka now). Some people are anti-GMO, which is causing lower yields and higher prices, without any advantages.