
Context is everything - geuis
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/10/context-is-everything.html
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rogerbinns
One thing I find interesting is that humans tend to take more care of their
environment as prosperity increases. It isn't subsistence farmers campaigning
for nature reserves. Even compare poor versus rich housing areas - you
immediately know which one has more "green".

Prosperity is strongly correlated with (and some argue caused by) trade and
specialisation. Compare this with anti globalisation and "local" movements. It
is certain that the latter leads to subsistence if taken to its logical
conclusion. So perhaps the best thing to do for the environment is to
encourage even more globalisation, only let "local" win when it does by the
same measures, and have more trade and hence specialisation. As a bonus, more
prosperous humans tend to have fewer children.

Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist has a lot more detail about prosperity, trade
and specialisation. Here is a Ted talk to get you going
[http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.htm...](http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html)

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Gravityloss
It's not a new idea, I think George Carlin said something similar.

It boils down to more philosophical questions quickly. What is the meaning of
life? Does saving species have some intrinsic worth or is it only a means to
an end?

~~~
icebraining
Carlin, "The Planet is Fine. The People are Fucked":
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovbF0D2wySI>

    
    
      (...) the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE! (..)

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jchavannes
Obviously Earth will only be habitable for a finite amount of time and our
solar system / galaxy (not quite sure about universe yet) for a finite amount
of time as well. Therefore, I think our ultimate goal is to learn to survive
outside of these systems. Or at least spread to multiple systems to prevent
extinction. There are even more immediate threats such as global warming or
nuclear winter scenarios.

Putting our environment first is shortsighted. We should be investing as many
resources as possible, as fast as possible, to invent things such as Mr.
Fusion, or missions to Mars (yay Elon Musk!) to prevent something like an
Olduvai future, as mentioned in the article.

~~~
givan
"I think our ultimate goal is to learn to survive outside of these systems"

Surviving is not the goal is only a requirement.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes?qt0324253> Agent Smith: I'd like
to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I
tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually
mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move
to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is
consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There
is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know
what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
You're a plague and we are the cure.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
I don't think so; we only developed one thing that gave us an absolute
advantage over the other animals... a brain; and it rendered equilibrium
impossible because we just keep following our instincts despite having an
unfair advantage... just like any other mammal would if they could.

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someperson
What does MYa mean?

I thought it meant million years ago,but he writes "400MYa ago" and "200Mya
[...] _from now_ "

~~~
nbclark
Megayears ago. It is a million years.. .
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/megayear>

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revelation
If you start your essay with a vision of the future spanning millions of years
ahead, your call to action at the end is only going to evoke the emotion of "I
don't care about introducing some variation in this one big random process".

Context indeed.

