Philosophy Discussion Forums

Greta wrote: ↑March 25th, 2020, 4:41 pm I think Covid is the straw to break the camel's back. Population. Climate change. Ecosystem decimation. Bankruptcy-style debt levels.

Game Over.

Ah, come on! It is a big shock, like 9-11 was here. People's faith in the system is shaken, and there is a long period of adjustment that will be required, and there will be some changes to the normal way we used to do things. But, after a couple years, we will have some new 'best practices' to protect us to some degree, and we will move forward with a slightly altered version of the old system. Too many people either have an interest in the old system continuing, or falsely believe it is in their best interests. It's not the best system possible, but perhaps the best possible for now with the flawed people we have.

Actioninmind23 wrote:Well It is clear that people will be more altruistic and will have more solidarity with other people...

Pattern-chaser wrote:I'm sorry, I have to disagree. Our main reaction has been selfish....

I think it's been a mixed bag. Bit of a cliche, but I think it brings out the best and the worst in people. At 8pm a couple of nights ago I took part in the national "stand in the street and applaud the NHS workers" thing. Pretty much all of the street on which I live came out and clapped and cheered. Then we stood and chatted. I spoke to people I've never spoken to before, even though I live a few doors down from them. At that point, it seemed to me to be the best. And when they asked for 250,000 volunteers to help deliver food to the vulnerable and stuff, and got 400,000, that was encouraging too.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑March 28th, 2020, 3:05 pm

Greta wrote:However, in the long term (thousands of years) I am upbeat. This is a time of transition, where the Earth is changing. Drastic change is hard at the best of times (think renovations or organisation restructures) so we are in for a wild ride that has hardly even begun. Most have already forgotten about climate change, but that and population are key to what's happening.

So almost all large animals and plants are doomed in the next century. They will be replaced by humans and their machines in fortified and compact high rise city states / arcologies surrounded by slums and arid lands. This degree of biosphere transformation has happened before; the Great Oxygenation Event. It opened the door to a new age, one of complex plants and animals. Now the consumptive reign of animals is in its twilight and we move to the "reproductive stage" that will produce ever more entities (probably with none or little biological components) capable of taking bits of Earth to other worlds to grow and expand, starting with the blueprints they will bring to build bases from which to operate.

It is interesting to consider all this. But if there is this non-biological reproductive age, I wonder if there will be any non-biological equivalent of David Attenborough (or other famous naturalists) talking in a hushed, reverential voice about the (non-biological equivalent of) flora and fauna on the old planet?

One can only hope!

Steve3007 wrote: ↑March 28th, 2020, 3:05 pm Even if it's a natural progression, it's still difficult not to be immensely sad that the incredible diversity of life - unique, as far as we know, in the Universe - will soon be largely gone. But I guess, one way or another, it has to go eventually.

As an animal lover, I have been living with an underlying sense of grief for years. But, even without climate change, the biosphere is in its old age. If the oceans will boil away due to the Sun's expansion in a billion years, presumably surface life will be long gone by then. Given the projected difference that just 10C can make, surface uninhabitability for complex life would seem only a matter of thousands of years away.

Whatever the time frame, biology if going away. Meanwhile, the standard and autonomy of bots sent to other worlds will increase. These bots will no doubt mine any world they land on and, presumably, in time they will manufacture worker bots to perform different tasks.

They will be like seeds - full of information needed to take material from the environment to build copies of themselves. But will they see any point in seeding other worlds with DNA from Earth? Maybe to generate oxygen or methane?

Will they have that autonomy, or will humans have hard-wired a program to ensure that they clone more humans? But what would be the point? A human raised in such a way would only be human in name and morphology.

chewybrian wrote: ↑March 28th, 2020, 3:34 pm

Greta wrote: ↑March 25th, 2020, 4:41 pm I think Covid is the straw to break the camel's back. Population. Climate change. Ecosystem decimation. Bankruptcy-style debt levels.

Game Over.

Ah, come on! It is a big shock, like 9-11 was here. People's faith in the system is shaken, and there is a long period of adjustment that will be required, and there will be some changes to the normal way we used to do things. But, after a couple years, we will have some new 'best practices' to protect us to some degree, and we will move forward with a slightly altered version of the old system. Too many people either have an interest in the old system continuing, or falsely believe it is in their best interests. It's not the best system possible, but perhaps the best possible for now with the flawed people we have.

More than that. The entire economic system was already poised to fall. This is going to make the Great depression look like a sneeze because 1) it's truly global 2) the largest debt bubble in human history 3) massive overpopulation 4) climate change 5) resource and ecosystem depletion 6) pollution. I have no doubt forgotten some other issues :)

People cannot control this. The ones with an interest are decoupling from the hoi polloi, starting with tax avoidance. The big players will hold and control the vast majority of the Earth's wealth and create their own financial and trading systems in much the same way as humans decourpled from other apes.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑March 28th, 2020, 3:39 pm

Actioninmind23 wrote:Well It is clear that people will be more altruistic and will have more solidarity with other people...

Pattern-chaser wrote:I'm sorry, I have to disagree. Our main reaction has been selfish....

I think it's been a mixed bag. Bit of a cliche, but I think it brings out the best and the worst in people. At 8pm a couple of nights ago I took part in the national "stand in the street and applaud the NHS workers" thing. Pretty much all of the street on which I live came out and clapped and cheered. Then we stood and chatted. I spoke to people I've never spoken to before, even though I live a few doors down from them. At that point, it seemed to me to be the best. And when they asked for 250,000 volunteers to help deliver food to the vulnerable and stuff, and got 400,000, that was encouraging too.

There are many people aware of the problem and are involved in helping, when in extreme situations you see the dedication of people and help in that way, it is incredible. Not only the practical dedication to doing things but also what you say about the emotional help to be able to vent your fears and problems with other people, it is very good what is happening to see that people are good and help others in extreme situations.

I keep being reminded of the old biblical expression about "beating swords into plowshares".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_ploughshares

Last September the ExCeL centre in London hosted DSEI (Defense and Security Equipment International), a large arms fair showcasing weaponry from small arms to tanks and helicopters made by companies from all over the world. Now, about 6 months later, they've just finished turning it into what is reportedly the largest field hospital in the world, with the first Covid-19 patients arriving there today.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of arms fairs and field hospitals, it's a striking transition.

Arms and medicine have always had the most intimate of relationships. The former leads to the latter.

Greta wrote:Arms and medicine have always had the most intimate of relationships. The former leads to the latter.

Good point. Necessity is the mother of invention.

World War 2 also led to the creation of the United Nations, and that seems to have improved things in the aftermath. Likewise, after this pandemic event (and I hope to survive my own Covid 19 to see this) we may come to realize that this pandemic is a result of the police failing to keep us safe, mainly from ourselves (our meat-eating habits)

Some angry vegan groups may regroup and decide to take the policing duties into their own hands given that we can surely expect no change and nothing good on the part of the police who will claim to be only following orders set by people above them or, in other words, their 'we are only robots' defence. Police failed to protect us from the obvious threat posed by meat markets (the source of this virus).

So, the people above the cops can't help because they basically are just traditional defenders of the status quo and it is this status quo that has led to this pandemic situation. So it is basically time for some kind of a revolution now.

Past revolutions have been fairly bloody, such as the French Revolution and I certainly do not expect vegan groups to become comparably bloody, although I would rather want to hide right now if I were like an Animal Agriculture Executive with a history of pushing governments for more punishing laws against animal rights activists

During the French Revolution, people would go around and shout "Down with the King! Down with the monarchy!" and they would watch how others around them reacted. If they really agreed and cheered the message with enough enthusiast, they would escape the guillotine.

Personally, I don't expect vegan groups to want to use a guillotine however, as vegans shout on the streets, "Down with factory farming!" They will want and demand to be cheered up to an extent that most people will find as harassement, especially those involved in that industry. So, there will be a revolution, and things will change as far as what people can or cannot eat and under which circumstances.

I am hereby starting this revolution now, unless anyone else has already started it elsewhere by saying here, let's all go vegan now! And expecting every one here to respond very cheerfully to this shout out.

At this point, I am pondering using my privileges as a moderator to sabotage the posts of anyone on this Forum who disagree, until people here start complaining about me to the owner of this site and the owner sides with the revolution (I heard he's an anarchist so I may not be bumped as a result).

Actually, I believe this Forum needs to ban all those who would support animal agriculture for as long as it hasn't been banned from our world.

I mean, I believe in liberalism but I think rules of orders need to take precedence and the first rule is to address issues that causes people in the assembly to be uncomfortable or distressed within the group and due to my Covid 19, I should be in a position to force this Forum to take action on this issue.

Yes, things will f--g change as a result of this outbreak or at least, I hope so.

Empiricist-Bruno wrote: ↑April 7th, 2020, 1:14 pm At this point, I am pondering using my privileges as a moderator to sabotage the posts of anyone on this Forum who disagree, until people here start complaining about me to the owner of this site and the owner sides with the revolution (I heard he's an anarchist so I may not be bumped as a result).

Actually, I believe this Forum needs to ban all those who would support animal agriculture for as long as it hasn't been banned from our world.

I mean, I believe in liberalism but I think rules of orders need to take precedence and the first rule is to address issues that causes people in the assembly to be uncomfortable or distressed within the group and due to my Covid 19, I should be in a position to force this Forum to take action on this issue.

Bruno, please no. Moderation is about interpreting Scott's rules, not making up our own.

If people say things with which you disagree, the job of a philosophy buff is to use reason and logic to demonstrate issues with their views. When we force our views on people by leveraging our power, we become authoritarian politicians, not philosophers.

One of the grim ways in which covid 19 has changed our society in a relatively minor, short-term way, is that the daily published figures on how many covid 19 related deaths have been recorded today are clearly "market sensitive" information. Just as with numerous other pieces of market sensitive information that are published during trading hours, market indices noticeably rise and fall depending on whether today's numbers are deemed to be better or worse than expected. In that sense, they're treated the same as, say, the weekly petroleum status report, by the EIA. A buying or selling indicator.

Well, you can see the Himalayas from Northern India (for the first time in 30 years)

RJG seems to be MIA since the everything started going into lockdown. Anyone know what's going on with him? Does he use a computer at some public location? Is he employed in some medical-related field? Does he work for a toilet paper manufacturer?

LuckyR wrote: ↑April 10th, 2020, 3:48 am Well, you can see the Himalayas from Northern India (for the first time in 30 years)

Yeah, remarkably clear here in NYC/the metro-NYC area too. That's one very nice change.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑April 15th, 2020, 8:51 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑April 10th, 2020, 3:48 am Well, you can see the Himalayas from Northern India (for the first time in 30 years)

Yeah, remarkably clear here in NYC/the metro-NYC area too. That's one very nice change.

But how dirty must the air be to not be able to see the largest mountain range in the world from 200 kms?