h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hurricane Katrina? Hurrican Hugo? Abervan? Chernobyl? The Great San Fransisco Earthquake? Flixborough? Piper Alpha? Exxon Valdez? Torrey Canyon? Two World Wars?

Maybe it is just that the rich West just happen to have developed their culture in stable areas and learnt to avoid the danger areas. People who build skimpy houses on Deltas (Pakistan) and then destroy all forests (and it is their greed as much as the West's for ) then how can anyone expect to keep rebuilding their lives. The story 'The man who built his house upon the sand' springs to mind. If I built a house on the bed of the River Thames at low tide would anyone care? And if I then asked for assistance to rebuild my life and my house in the same place? would anyone come along with heaps of to help me out, only for it to happen again, and again, and again, ad nauseum...

Luck? No. Those peoples who decided to live in the wrong place died out or adapted. All the West has done is remove those adaptations and given them a Western lifestyle and building materials which are completely incompatable with their living environment. Leave them alone, and they will survive. At present one of the oldest tribes in the world, the San People, are being moved 'for their own protection'. Wasn't that what was done to the Amer-Indians and their reservations. Did it work? Did they thrive? Do they thank us for it? Mankind? What has it ever done for the apart from being a malignant cancer and doing its best to wipe itself out and take away as much of everything else as it can before expiring.

Just study the Red Book of endangered species (Flora and Fauna alike) to see how well we are doing.

Ditching the car would be a good simple step...

Not convinced?

Come back in 10 years and then tell me we should stay... Now where are those telephone engineers and hairdressers when you need them?

Oh come on Mazin there is no comparison in the numbers killed from disasters in the rich West as those in the developping world, and since when was the Soviet Union (Chernobyl) part of the rich west. And most of the poorer African Americans were affected by Hurricane Katrina cos they didn't have cars to escape with.

I'm not saying Westerners DON"T die, it's just that they tend to be proportionately far fewer. You said you agreed with GB about the bird flu and I was making the point about which human beings would be worst affected.

Surely that's the whole point. We may not live "in pact with nature" but instead we don't have half our population wiped out each year by floodings and famine. Perhaps some species of animals are dying out, but if it means you no longer have to see your children die before the age of 5 I think it might be worth it.

< Perhaps some species of animals are dying out, but if it means you no longer have to see your children die before the age of 5 I think it might be worth it.>

But Xanatic, that's precisely the point. Animals are dying out (as are plant species) as a direct consequence of man's actions. The planet becomes less and less diverse as the years pass. The number of species that are wiped out in each Hectare of rainforest uprooted for beef or soya number in the thousands. Many new and exotic drugs come from these resourses (some of them prevent 5 year old children from dying).

This site gives an estimate of the current world human population.
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

Have a go at this as well - http://www.myfootprint.org/

We have to do something soon if we want to survive.

turvy

No, we don't. Intelligence itself does not ethically deserve to survive, reguardless of its species. But since only intelligent beings can consider ethics, we have a bit of a problem. There's no one who can see that we're a problem and not have a personal stake in not destroying all intelligence. Hail entropy!

We don't need to be destroyed. We need to level off food production and stop our population from exploding every year.

We don't need to be destroyed, but we don't deserve to exist.

Who do you mean when you say "we"? All of mankind?

I meant intelligent entities in general.

But my last too posts were posted in a rather bad mood that led to a dumb attempt at dark humor and I apologize for them--they shouldn't have been made and have no place in a rational discussion because I can't rationally support them.

No problem, I think everyone has moments like that

I certainly did when I posted this

And yes, I realised shortly after posting the 'ethically' was the wrong term. Not sure what the right one was.

The points in the first post were specifically for discussion,as you have done, and not stated as my own opinion.

On the second one, that leadership requires conflict; all the most successful leaders have had some sort high profile conflict they have presided over. Whether they have acted, or reacted in that conflict is perhaps an interesting point.
But has there ever been a society with no conflict? And if there was, would it need a leader? It would presumably need organisers, but leaders?
Is it even possible to have a human society without conflict?

It isn't possible to have a society without conflict, human or otherwise. The problem is that there needs to be an appropriate and effective way to deal with the conflict. It's seems very obvious that we don't have a way to deal with conflict that works well for our culture. You can see this in our 'the rules were made to be broken' mentality.

"It isn't possible to have a society without conflict"

So far. That does not mean a utopia is not theoretically possible, nor that there have never been harmonious societies.

The human race is relatively young, and still evolving..

"It isn't possible to have a society without conflict"

I agree. There will always be a struggle for resources, while humanity exists. Dealing with it is a different matter, of course.

On the original topic, we've only realised the damage we're doing (and have done) relatively recently. Maybe it's too soon to judge ourselves yet.

I agree. It is much too soon to judge ourselves.

At this moment, and in this place, we are struggling for resources. Although our world is filled with turmoil and suffering, it is possible that this situation may change, due to technological advances that could change our society in ways that are currently beyond our imagination.

Of course we are in danger of extinguishing ourselves before we can hope to achieve a utopia, but even so it is a mistake to deny the possibility.

The future is limitless, and it is unknown. Let's not attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I am frequently amazed that we have not yet managed to destroy ourselves. I think that counts for something...

You can't condemn every human because of few poor examples.There are billoins of decent humans who try to be ethical in their dealings with each other and the world...

I personally am going to do my best to help the species survive by recycling and saving as much energy as possible.It may not be much but it's a start...