Why are humans so self-destructive?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel
You're forgetting that without progress, we wouldn't be able to sit and discuss enviromentalism.

And you're forgeting that we wouldn't need to be discussing environmentalism in such a scenario.

[st_swithin]

Who cares about the air we breath, the environment we pollute and destroy, the species of animals we drive to extinction, the oceans we poison with toxic runoff and sewage, or the atmosphere we slowly degrade with excess cow farts and hairspray propellants when there's a new season of Friends?!?

Where do we direct our attention and our resources? To the most visible concentration of resources - in California's case, we elected the Governator because he's got name recognition and lots of money and fame. If only CALPIRG or Greenpeace had a spokesperson like that.

No one wants to deal with reality because it's too damn depressing. That's why we have TV and movies and video games - we haven't been driven to distraction, we all took our own gas-guzzling SUV's and drove ourselves there.

Let the earth be destroyed - maybe when we're all on the brink of extinction in the aftermatch of a biological epidemic with a 98% mortality rate, we'll start caring about the planet we live on instead of whether or not Ben Affleck shaved his goatee.

[NeOmega]

I was pondering this question yesterday, as I was watching Indiana Jones from my workplace, (across the way at the mall, at a video store), I noticed, violence sells as well as, if not better than, sex. And satisfaction from violence almost seemes to only result from death of the "bad guy".

Lemmings was my end conclusion.

Right now the world is full of rage. America is full of rage. I am full of rage. Everyone is angry. There must be some kind of innate trigger to all this. The world has exploded twice into some serious pouplation control even in modern times.

Male cats will kill the kittens of another male. Male hippos have been noted doing the same.

In the end I hope coll heads prevail, but I am less than optimistic about this outcome.

[Lord Merciless]

It's all about what people value. 100 years it was ample good tasting food and good-looking clothings. 50 years ago was the time of automobile and electrical appliances. 35 years ago it was freedom from everything. 10 years ago it was home ownership for everyone. Now it's about healthcare (diet, weightloss, fitness). If more and more people value their environment, there will be more and more businesses to do something about it.

So instead of trying to destroy the current system and replace it with something potentially worse, why not try to use the strength of the capitalism and make it work for you?

Environmentalists should be primarily spend their time and effort in changing people's perception, as opposed to committing terrorism, daydreaming about the "new" system, or whining about how the reality sucks.

[st_swithin]

America is the land of pissed-off lemmings.

Wouldn't it be funny if we found out 28 Days Later was, in fact, a documentary rather than a fiction?

I'd laugh.

[PeteH]

If you think stone age tribalism is good for the environment then you might as well starve yourself to death.

If by that you mean to imply that starvation was common among stoneage tribes, you should really do a bit of research. In general hunter-gatherer tribes worked far less per calorie of food than any civilized group.

Well, our existance is an uneasy marriage of mammalian pack animal instincts and social insect-style hives. Luckily we are smart enough to be able to sustain this marriage with an unbelievable array of inventions; both material and social.

Actually it is a social mammal existance, just like other primates. It is part of the reason I can no longer take most libertarian concepts seriously, because they assume an existance which goes against several million years of biology. And as far as being able to sustain an existance, that depends greatly on which existance you mean. If you mean the one we had with the world for 99% of our history, then yes, we are quite capable. If you mean the last 8000 years or so of civilized life, then it is by its very nature unsustatinable.

...we strive to create an endless, exponential, growth in an enviornment of limited resources. That's about as self-destructive as you can get. We're constantly increasing the needs we have from our environment while at the same time destroying it at an ever increasing rate.

[st_swithin]

Mammal, mammal
their names are called
they raise a paw
the cat, the bat
giraffe and shrew
the kit and caribou...

[Cruddy]

"Why are humans so self-destructive?"

Oh come now. Suicide is not that common.

Why are so we destructive towards others? Because we're bastards.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by PeteH

If by that you mean to imply that starvation was common among stoneage tribes, you should really do a bit of research. In general hunter-gatherer tribes worked far less per calorie of food than any civilized group.

Really? Where did you get that piece of **** data? Considering that 30 is old age for those societies, I highly doubt people were fed very well.

Of course, if their numbers were few and resources plenty, nobody had to starve. Anytime population hit a certain level, you could imagine what would happen. (starvations, murders, wars, cannibalism, shudder..) But that was how natural population control worked.

[Sandman]

Actually it is a social mammal existance, just like other primates.

Well, the way of life of most humans is quite different from other primates. We're the only primate, and indeed, the only mammal that lives in cities of millions of inhabitants.

Considering that 30 is old age for those societies, I highly doubt people were fed very well.

Massive infant mortality drags the average age down a lot.

[Az]

Originally posted by Osweld


And you're forgeting that we wouldn't need to be discussing environmentalism in such a scenario.

sure we would. Humans changed enviroments by their mere existance, e.g. slash'n' burn, other deforestation, overhunting of the natural species.

Humans changed climates from times immemorial.

[Shirt]

Why are we self-destructive?

"And on the eighth day, God realised that humans were gonna have an ego the size of something scary, so created alcohol so they could piss people off but not remember who to apologise to the following day."

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel

sure we would. Humans changed enviroments by their mere existance, e.g. slash'n' burn, other deforestation, overhunting of the natural species.

Humans changed climates from times immemorial.

But you where talking about a scenario where we didn't do that.

Or atleast I thought you where. It's hard to tell when you keep using ambiguous terms like "change". Do you mean knocking down a tree to make a hut out of sticks and mud, or do you mean clearcuting a forest to make novelty jesus figurines? I don't know.

[Az]

Even in very primitive life, a forest cannot sustain the lumber needs of a sedentary population. Therefore, over the years, there WILL be deforestation, no matter what. It will be a tad slower, but still, on the scale of the history of life it will be miliseconds.

slash and burn isn't progress, too, unless you're considering the taming of fire, and any form of agriculture, progress.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel
Even in very primitive life, a forest cannot sustain the lumber needs of a sedentary population. Therefore, over the years, there WILL be deforestation, no matter what. It will be a tad slower, but still, on the scale of the history of life it will be miliseconds.

I suppose you're going to accuse beavers of clear cut logging, next? There's nothing wrong with taking what you need to live form the environment, that's what all animals do, and it's usually a vital part of the ecosystem. What's wrong is when you take what you don't need, so that you can bring in higher net profits and production numbers then you did the year before and impress the shareholders. Especially since you have to do it EVERY YEAR. That's what exponential growth is, and if natural climate change happens in milliseconds, then the sort of exponential climate change we're creating happens in picoseconds. You log 20 hectares of forest one year, and you have to log 40 the next to keep your profits rising and meet the demands of the increasingly decadent consumer market. And then you have to log 80 the next year, and 160 the next after that. And before you know it, you're on the verge of cutting down all the forest that's left and no one knows what to do - maybe someone comes up with the idea to plant new trees after they cut them down, but what good does that do when the demands continue to multiply? It just buys another picosecond and prolongs the inevitable.

[Elok]

Please allow me to introduce myself,
I'm a man of wealth and taste...

[PeteH]

Really? Where did you get that piece of **** data? Considering that 30 is old age for those societies, I highly doubt people were fed very well.

Of course, if their numbers were few and resources plenty, nobody had to starve. Anytime population hit a certain level, you could imagine what would happen. (starvations, murders, wars, cannibalism, shudder..) But that was how natural population control worked.

Well once again I would suggest doing some actual research, rather than relying on assumptions. This is a topic I have researched for some time, if you would like a sort of summary view, you could read:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology.../partner3.html

a pertinant paragraph:

The change to farming is assumed to create a better quality of life, especially as we look back on it from our standpoint in the year 2000. However, various evidence suggests that humans were far better off as foragers than after they took up agriculture. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet of thousands of types of plants, seeds, fruits, and nuts, while agriculturists relied on just one or two starchy crops, choosing "cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition." Today wheat, corn, and rice provide most of the calories for humans, yet each one is deficient in certain essential proteins and amino acids. Agriculturists also ran a much greater risk of starvation by depending on a few key crops, as opposed to foragers whose consumption does not rely on any one plant but is diverse and flexible. Agriculture, able to support higher population densities, caused people to live in closer quarters. This invited the spread of parasites and infectious diseases that foragers avoided by living in smaller numbers in larger areas. Studies of various skeletal evidence indicate an increase in infectious diseases, malnutrition, and anemia in early agricultural societies as compared to hunter-gatherers

While I do not necessarily agree with all of the premises the author has in this article, the facts in the above paragraph have been confimed many many times.


As for the concerns over "once population hit a certain number", here is where scale matters. The kind of growth during the stone age and previous was very gradual, while theer may have been occassional localized spikes in population, overall it was not catostrophic. When the resources of a tribe have to be split among a few additional mouths, no one person feels a great impact. If you think about your own family, if it had a fixed amount of resources each day consisting of basically what is in your fridge right now, if you added a set of twins, would you all suddenly be starving? I would expect not. Once you start dealing with exponential growth however, after a few days the 8, 16, 32.. ) of you would probably be looking at each other wondering how they tasted with the last bottle of ketchup.

Calling data **** doesn't make it so because it challenges your assumptions. If you think it is **** prove it

[Sandman]

It's also possible that Stone Age tribes practised birth control; using breast feeding, abstinence and withdrawal to limit population growth, and thus the risk of famine. Some tribes continue to use such methods.

[st_swithin]

Some tribes still avoid the innate evil of greed. That's the problem with us now - I want to live longer, accumulate more money, have more offspring, etc. at the expense of everyone else in the world whom I can metaphorically step on in my ascent to greatness. After all, their anonymity allows me to have a guilt-free conscience. Yay corporate mentality!!

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by PeteH



Well once again I would suggest doing some actual research, rather than relying on assumptions. This is a topic I have researched for some time, if you would like a sort of summary view, you could read:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology.../partner3.html

You hold something written by an undergrad from a no-name school as the unrefutable truth?!

Either you are totally out of your mind, or you are the author.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by st_swithin
That's the problem with us now - I want to live longer, accumulate more money, have more offspring, etc. at the expense of everyone else in the world whom I can metaphorically step on in my ascent to greatness.

Huh??? Don't you know that all industrialized countries, countries with corporate culture, have the lowest birth rate?

Don't you realize it's really the stone-age tribes that are forced to give births like rabbits? (High infant mortality => high birth rates)

The biggest population growth arises when advanced healthcare and stone-age/middle-age mindset get together.

[Hot Mustard]

I can't believe someone hasn't said this already...

[Mr. Smith voice]

Humans...are a virus.

[/Mr. Smith voice]

That bit from the first Matrix movie was so true! We have left behind any natural instinct to maintain a level of harmony with our environment, or even each other.

[Az]

Originally posted by Osweld


I suppose you're going to accuse beavers of clear cut logging, next? There's nothing wrong with taking what you need to live form the environment, that's what all animals do, and it's usually a vital part of the ecosystem.

not so with humans. Human populations did take what they needed from the enviroment, but the human populations were almost never in balance with the enviroment. Lumber served many needs, and after reaching some critical mass of population ( that was rather low, btw) the forests crumbled.

What's wrong is when you take what you don't need, so that you can bring in higher net profits and production numbers then you did the year before and impress the shareholders.

In the times I am talking about, noone is speaking of shareholders. deforestation will occur whenever humans are living. There are numerous evidences for that.

Especially since you have to do it EVERY YEAR. That's what exponential growth is, and if natural climate change happens in milliseconds, then the sort of exponential climate change we're creating happens in picoseconds. You log 20 hectares of forest one year, and you have to log 40 the next to keep your profits rising and meet the demands of the increasingly decadent consumer market. And then you have to log 80 the next year, and 160 the next after that. And before you know it, you're on the verge of cutting down all the forest that's left and no one knows what to do - maybe someone comes up with the idea to plant new trees after they cut them down, but what good does that do when the demands continue to multiply? It just buys another picosecond and prolongs the inevitable.

Wow, that's great, dad, but that AIN'T what we're talking about. I am talking about slow but steady growth of human population, that leads to increased demand. hell, even a stable, and relatively small human population will probably lead to the collapse of the forest.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by st_swithin
America is the land of pissed-off lemmings.

Wouldn't it be funny if we found out 28 Days Later was, in fact, a documentary rather than a fiction?

I'd laugh.

"Attention Campers, the Lemming fun run along the cliffs by the beach is starting in five minutes. Last one on the beach is a rotten egg!"

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Osweld


I suppose you're going to accuse beavers of clear cut logging, next? There's nothing wrong with taking what you need to live form the environment, that's what all animals do, and it's usually a vital part of the ecosystem. What's wrong is when you take what you don't need, so that you can bring in higher net profits and production numbers then you did the year before and impress the shareholders. Especially since you have to do it EVERY YEAR. That's what exponential growth is, and if natural climate change happens in milliseconds, then the sort of exponential climate change we're creating happens in picoseconds. You log 20 hectares of forest one year, and you have to log 40 the next to keep your profits rising and meet the demands of the increasingly decadent consumer market. And then you have to log 80 the next year, and 160 the next after that. And before you know it, you're on the verge of cutting down all the forest that's left and no one knows what to do - maybe someone comes up with the idea to plant new trees after they cut them down, but what good does that do when the demands continue to multiply? It just buys another picosecond and prolongs the inevitable.

Taking what you need can and does "degrade" (I prefer the term change) the environment. Plants and animals change the environment including beavers. When they do this other animals and some plants suffer, while they and perhaps other animals and some plants may benefit. See elephants and deforestation or beavers for obvious examples of this. You seem to hold a biblical opinion about humans, ie that we are not animals and hold the earth as guardians rather than being part of the whole, rising from and living for the greater force of life on this planet, even if it doesn't always look like that.

Profits are life itself. Just as food surpluses allow population growth, profits allow people to plan knowing that some or all of their needs are secure in the foreseeable future.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


You hold something written by an undergrad from a no-name school as the unrefutable truth?!

Either you are totally out of your mind, or you are the author.

I think the second sentence could use an and/or structure.

[PeteH]

You hold something written by an undergrad from a no-name school as the unrefutable truth?!

While at this point I am suspecting you are just being intentionally dense, I will once again clarify, for the benefit of anyone who actually has taken the time to read things so far.

I used that link as something brief which could summarize some of the points I was making, not as the source of my arguement. It was one of the first few things found in a quick google search which was relevent. I would be happy to post an extensive reading list but somehow I doubt that is really what you are interested in. Especially since if it is so laughable that I would refer to that paper as an example, then you should easily be able to refute it right? Feel free to, anytime....

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel
In the times I am talking about, noone is speaking of shareholders. deforestation will occur whenever humans are living. There are numerous evidences for that.

As I said, it's hard to tell what you're talking about when you use ambiguous terms like 'change' and 'times immorial' which could mean absolutely anything. Are you talking about the days of gilgamesh, or the roman empire, where vast logging campaigns where undertaken to fuel conquest and expansion? That's about the start of it all, really. When the agrandizers took it apon themselves to conquer other people and force them to log their lands so that they can fuel further conquests. (among other things, of course. Just carrying on the logging example)

Taking what you need can and does "degrade" (I prefer the term change) the environment. Plants and animals change the environment including beavers. When they do this other animals and some plants suffer, while they and perhaps other animals and some plants may benefit. See elephants and deforestation or beavers for obvious examples of this. You seem to hold a biblical opinion about humans, ie that we are not animals and hold the earth as guardians rather than being part of the whole, rising from and living for the greater force of life on this planet, even if it doesn't always look like that.

Profits are life itself.

Taking what you need does not degrade the environment, it is a part of it. A beaver knocks down a tree to build a damn, and in turn clears space for fresh growth in place of the tree, and manages the water currents in the river with it's damn, which much of the local environment depends on. They don't do this at such a rate that the trees can't grow back as fast as they knock them down, and they don't go carting them off to the other side of the planet, or incinerate the remains, which takes all the nutrients and minerals out of the ecosystem.


And I most certainly do not hold the "biblical opinion" We deffinately are animals, in every sense of the word. But there is still a difference between Humans and animals, and that's blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain. Beavers don't cut down trees just to see how many they can cut down, or to build the hoover damn, they do it build a modest place to live which (not coincedentally) has become an essential part of the ecosystem. This is what I'm talking about here. the change that occures in nature through animals like beavers happens at the same pace of evolution. The exponential change that we create happens at the pace of the stock market, or a marching drum.

This has happened on earth before, and it always results in a mass extinction. When life first appeared on this planet, there was not enough biodiversity to sustain a working ecosystem, and most of the life that appeared ending up going through a population explosion untill it consumed all the resources in it's environment and died off. It wasn't untill life became more diverse that it could start becoming self-sufficient, with animals breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, while plants use the carbon dioxide to create oxygen. Does this - life - sound like profit? Sounds like a give and take relationship to me. Or is "Profits are life itself" just some sort buisness slogan?

profits allow people to plan knowing that some or all of their needs are secure in the foreseeable future.

And don't even get me started about the CEOs, who pull in higher net profits then most countries do, needing to "secure their future".

[Az]

As I said, it's hard to tell what you're talking about when you use ambiguous terms like 'change' and 'times immorial' which could mean absolutely anything. Are you talking about the days of gilgamesh, or the roman empire, where vast logging campaigns where undertaken to fuel conquest and expansion? That's about the start of it all, really. When the agrandizers took it apon themselves to conquer other people and force them to log their lands so that they can fuel further conquests. (among other things, of course. Just carrying on the logging example)

I'll give you an example from our land.

from the ancient eras ~1500 BC, at all times that there was a substantial human population, even without central government, or strong imperial rule, the hills of Judea and Samaria were bare. when the population dwindled strongly, the hills were once again covered with forests after a couple of hundred of years. so, even with the land being effectively no man's land, with humans only logging for heating, or simple tools, the forests dissappeared, completely, from those hills.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel

I'll give you an example from our land.

from the ancient eras ~1500 BC...

ie. the days of gilgamesh. We where already started at that point. you need to go back a few thousand years more.

(And you do know that the Epic of Gilgamesh [written around 2000 BC if my google search is right ] is about him defeating the forest god so that he can use the trees to build cities and finance expansion/conquest, and then being punished by the other gods with earthquakes and droughts, right? )

Of course, I don't mean to say that any sort of progress is evil, it is just the belief that progress is infalliable and must march on forever that is wrong. As I have said before, it is more a matter of priorities then the actual structure of society. We just need to find a happy medium and act responsibly instead of surging on without thinking of the consiquences. We might have to go 'backwards' to find that medium, or we might be able to stay where we are. Or maybe we can continue on with restraint. I don't know.

But when I used the world progress earlier I meant it as a more general term, anyways. (And, alright, I also used it becuase I knew it'd irk people like you, who have an infalliable belief in science. )