For me, one of the most poignant things of recent years was seeing all the news stories during the COVID lockdown of how quickly nature started to bounce back without any humans around, and then just watching it instantly vanish again and it seems like hardly anyone even remembers it now. We certainly learned nothing from it, and IMO it does make it a bit difficult to avoid the uncomfortable conclusion that nature is probably a lot better off without us in it.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
249 points (97.7% liked)
Science
13166 readers
83 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
"What we're losing are our only known companions in the entire universe" Paul Ehrlich
Damn, that lines gonna sit hard with me for a long time.
And it includes microorganisms we're not even aware of.
Eco systems are going to collapse and we depend on those eco systems.
On the flip side, it makes some people extremely wealthy. See, there's an upside to everything!
For a very short time until the impoverishment of the planet hits them too.
Makes me believe that there is no elite but just stupid rich people. Even if you don't care about the suffering, how can anybody in power let that evolutionary knowledge of the universe go to waste?
That doesn't make me comfortable about the future usage of AI.
The people in real power tend to be convinced that they've got where they are due to their own self-sufficient brilliance. We're in general bad at recognizing our interdependence, but the kinds of narcissists and sociopaths who become billionaires are even worse at it than the rest of us. They don't notice how they depend on other people, let alone other kinds of organisms and ecosystems. In their fantasies of self-sufficiency they'll ride this out and be fine. The truth will come to them soon after it has hit the rest of us hard.
That's all too abstract and too emphatic. They have the power and the money and so far any problem they've had, they've been able to solve by using either their power or their money. Clearly, they believe that will be the case in the future as well. And so they cling to their sources of wealth and power because they think those will keep them safe.
That indeed doesn't bode well for our future, whether it's about the climate, AI, nuclear power or anything else.
We are a walking, talking extinction event.
Indigenous peoples lived since time immemorial in balance with nature. Don’t pretend that it’s everyone that is causing this. We told you this would happen, but nobody would listen and just wrote us off as primitive and ignorant.
We were all indigenous til the industrial revolution. Don't get racist.
Oh for god's sake there's nothing "racist" in the comment you responded to, and their point is absolutely correct: we've been told for generations that this would happen and indigenous people just get ignored and marginalised.
Oh my. I am sad to hear.
But what are the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City up to this season ?
Subnatural selection