Why is it imperative for the human race to survive?

Definitely leaning towards Molgrips position here. It cheered me to read that post 🙂

If though we’re just going to resort to pithy one liners (pretty much my capability limits):

It’s what we make of it.

Don’t care about humans dying out, I do care about the planet and everything else that lives upon it that our selfish actions are affecting.

This, exactly.

I always believed that there’s intelligent* life elsewhere in the universe until Prof Cox explained why It’s highly unlikely. So It appears we are ‘It’. If you think about the size of the known universe & the fact that we are the only planet with what we’ve got, I reckon that’s a good enough reason to save it.
* I use the term loosely seeing as we’re screwing up the planet we live on.

I was about to (inarticulately) express pretty much what Esselgruntfuttock has posted above. Is there really another Botticelli Birth of Venus (or whatever) somewhere out there the universe?

We are all aware of climate change and impact, yet have a very ‘someone else’s problem’ approach to it.

Well, back in the heady days of the 2019 during the cultural shift peaking bottoming-out (?) with the Orange Mantomime US President, nearly 4 in 10 US citizens were still saying that human activity was at least partly responsible.

However, ‘partly responsible’ is not a resounding commitment to tackling the problem, whichever way one dices it. I firmly believe that denial/disbelief was on the rise at a critical juncture.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/07/08/a-third-of-americans-deny-human-caused-climate-change-exists

It may be swinging the other way, slowly but too little too late by all accounts.

The poll released Friday found that 31 percent of Americans feel climate change is not a serious problem, compared to 36 percent who felt similarly in 2015.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/581273-americans-climate-change-views-largely-unchanged-over-last-few

I think the evidence suggests that the population will peak in 2064 and then decline rather quickly anyway.

I think this is probably going to happen too. In the West, we have gained leisure opportunities and the desire to deviate from traditional social conditioning, which results in many of us having fulfilling lives in our own right and not feeling the need to procreate. Consequently our birth rate is falling. There’s no reason to assume that this won’t happen in the rest of the world eventually, when they acquire the same opportunities. But that’s going to put a hell of a load on natural resources unless we figure out a way to do it better.

As for me personally, I do want to see humanity persist. Not because it has intrinsic value, but because I just like it. Yes, there are loads of arseholes in the human world, with base selfish instincts, but there’s loads of amazing stuff as well.

We’re very likely to be unique in the universe but so is every other life form on the Earth so maybe not a water tight case.

I also have an inkling that we’re an evolutionary dead end, just we have not ran our course yet.

The human race isn’t going to survive. And the human race isn’t the only civilisation that will live or has lived either imo.

So there’s no imperative beyond the personal desires of your own species to multiply and go forth. That’ll end either in a billion years when the sun makes the place too hostile to live on or before when some other event happens. Guess we might be comes a space fairing civilisation but i doubt we’ll get beyond the solar system really.

My betting is there’ll be a few different civilisations beyond us on this planet. We aren’t the only sentient beings on the planet, and we aren’t the only self aware beings either. So more will come behind us a billion years is a long time. Even just look at the last 500million, there’s been 5 mass extinctions events. more will come and life will continue to develop.

Then you are looking beyond the planet and solar system. Have a look up at the sky, see all they stars. Every one of them has a planetary system around it. And even at thqt every one you can see is only a max of 4000 lightyears away. The galaxy is 100,000 light years across, with 100 thousand million stars(ie plantery systems).

There’s also a blob you can faintly see with the naked eye, that’s 250million light years away, it’s called Andromeda and is even bigger than our galaxy. There’s at least 125 billion galaxies in the observable universe, who knows what’s beyond that.

So, aye, we aren’t alone. 😆

There’s no real imperative beyond our own desires to exist.

didnthurt
Full Member
We’re very likely to be unique in the universe

Baffles me how anyone can come to this conclusion.

Baffles me how anyone can come to this conclusion.

Prof Brian Cox explained why, as I already said.
I believe him. I was previously a big believer in ‘aliens/UFO’s’ now I’m not so sure.

However. As someone said (Isaac Asimov or someone) ‘space is not only queerer than you think, It’s queerer than you CAN think’

Anyway, we’re Fubared.

Why do people care about the planet without humans? The planet under the custodiananship of ‘mother nature’ has done nothing but trying to kill us and nature at every opportunity. Why put the ‘ethics’ of the planet above the ‘ethics’ of humans? the planet has proved oner its 4.5 billion year history to be more destructive and capable of mass extinction events than humans can ever be despite our best efforts. Mother Nature is an ‘evil’ force if ever there was a non-religious definition if evil. Moreso than humans in their 200k year history at best can ever demonstrate. The future of planet earth is far better off in the Hands of humans than Mother Nature…whatever Mother Nature is.

esselgruntfuttock
Free Member
Baffles me how anyone can come to this conclusion.

Prof Brian Cox explained why, as I already said.
I believe him. I was previously a big believer in ‘aliens/UFO’s’ now I’m not so sure.

However. As someone said (Isaac Asimov or someone) ‘space is not only queerer than you think, It’s queerer than you CAN think’

Anyway, we’re Fubared.

Cox is great and I love him, but he’s not the definitive source, and is full of ifs buts and maybe’s when he discuss’s the subject.

If you think about the size of the known universe & the fact that we are the only planet with what we’ve got,

We don’t know that. So it’s not a fact, purely opinion.

I personally doubt we’ll ever communicate with another civilisation, the distances and timeslines are too great, and I’m not sure if we’ll even have the intelligence to even recognise it when we see it, but the universe is vast and will continue on for a long long time, we are just at the beginning of it. The potentially habitable timeline of the universe is a magnitude more than the 500 million to a billion year max that we’ll potentially exist.

Seems a bit ego centric to think that we are the pinnacle of existence in a universe that will last trillions upon trillion of years beyond us. Solar systems, Galaxies and everything within them are basically chemistry factories, even if life happens only once per galaxy, that’s still 125billion potential civilisations in the known universe alone, and we’ll never see a hint of them.

Mother Nature is an ‘evil’ force if ever there was a non-religious definition if evil.

That’s some grade A crack you’re smoking there, sunshine.

Thanks thestabiliser. Care to add anything to the debate? any evidence to the contrary?

No, you win.

Well there are no winners in this debate. Life is cruel and a struggle, that has been the history of life on earth no matter how you cut it.

The future of planet earth is far better off in the Hands of humans than Mother Nature…

Wow, so blatantly sexist and misogynist.

https://qz.com/562833/the-term-mother-nature-reinforces-the-idea-that-both-women-and-nature-should-be-subjugated/amp/

The term “Mother Nature” reinforces the idea that both women and nature should be subjugated

space is not only queerer than you think, It’s queerer than you CAN think’

I’ll let someone else deal with that one.

Let’s give ‘evil’ mother nature a kicking and show her who’s boss.

Also as i mentioned, I don’t even think we are the last word on intelligence on this planet never mind the galaxy. Look at the multitudes of different species around us, they haven’t stopped evolving.

In planetary terms evolution still has a long long way to run. We were only just starting to develop from apes 2 million years ago. What will things look in in another 2million years? What way will other animals will evolve? What’ll be around in 65 million years?

I mean the change from the dinosaurs to us was pretty dramatic(even the change from the beginning of the dinosaurs 250million years ago to their end was quite dramatic too), I reckon there’ll be a few more dramatic changes. Getting all planet of the apes here, but ye get what I mean i’m sure. 😆

I reckon we crack on as long as we can, that’s the point and our driving force really, but we are most definitely a finite species and unlikely to be the final say on this planet never mind the galaxy or the universe.

OK to be completely compliant with current parlance insert the term ‘mother nature’ with whatever term that suits your personal acceptance – I don’t give a shit. It doesn’t change the point I was making.

Language and words after all are but mere tools to infer whatever meaning we are tying to communicate. Its the meaning behind the words that matter and not the words themselves. But I’m blessed with a sufficient enough vocabulary to get my point across by whatever choice of ‘acceptable’ language of the current fashion.

I haven’t actually given this that much thought.
But what I do know is that we’ve been here for a tiny fraction of time and we’ll die out in a tiny fraction of time.
I doubt we’ll have a massive effect in the end picture

We should leave some spaceships full of cryogenically frozen humans floating around for the aliens to find, eventually. So they can probe the bodies and bring them back to life for a theme park attraction, or something.

insert the term ‘mother nature’ with whatever term that suits your personal acceptance

Well “Father Nature” would be more appropriate to reflect its repressive character.

But I think “Person Nature” would probably be more sensible.

Although I’m not entirely happy with the “son” in person.

Look at the multitudes of different species around us, they haven’t stopped evolving.

TRUE….BUT…..the difference is that evolution requires species to evolve to suit their environment – they evolved to benefit form their environmental conditions – survival of the fittest and all that.

The big difference with us is that we have the brain power and technological capability to change our environment to suit us therefore stopping in its tracks survival of the fittest and the process of evolution. We modify our environment to suit us rather than our environment modifying us to suit it. Therefore evolution by natural selection has been stopped in its tracks. We rule. The question is have we got the courage and conviction to rule?

Well “Father Nature” would be more appropriate to reflect its repressive character.

I’d be happy with just the term ‘Nature’ as asesexual as it is. its not something I’ve ever attributed a sex to…its just something that IS. Repressive or not, it just happens wether we like it or not.

wobbliscott
Full Member
We rule. The question is have we got the courage and conviction to rule?

We rule till we or something destroys us. Then something else comes along.

I’m not sure people living in less developed (and well developed!) countries who are very much at the mercy of nature’s extremes would agree with the idea that we have the capability to modify our environment to suit us.

We can’t prevent catastrophic floods, fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, heatwaves etc from killing thousands the world over. I don’t think we’re in charge. It may feel like that from the relative safety of the UK where we are largely immune to very extremes of nature.

Well yes…but we can only control what we can control so the best we can hope for is that we make sensible decisions ad not that we’ve mastered ‘mother nature’. This is where we need a cool head and considered and intelligent choices as opposed to emotionally driven responses that has dominated in the last 1000 years of human decisions. We have the opportunity to let considered and demonstrated science guide us unlike our ancestors. lets take emotion out of the most important decisions that face us right now. Its intelligent and considered thought that has to prevail. BE MORE VULCAN!

’m not sure people living in less developed countries who are very much at the mercy of nature’s extremes would agree with the idea that we have the capability to modify our environment to suit us.

Talk to the Dutch. Just a question of money….and that is something we can control.

Repressive or not, it just happens wether we like it or not.

Oh that old chestnut……. it’s “natural”

wobbliscott
Full Member
Well yes…but we can only control what we can control so the best we can hope for is that we make sensible decisions ad not that we’ve mastered ‘mother nature’.

We is an interesting term here tbh, cause the term we is transient.

Put it this way, what connection do you feel to our human ancestors from 2 million year ago, ie our Ape ancestors? I feel no affinity or connection to them particularly.

In 2 million years from now they are likely to look back at us similarly i guess. Cause they’ll likely to be quite different from what we are today.

in that sense, even evolution is against the concept of we, as in the here and now.

Even in a shorter time scale, 10 to 15 generations from now, your specific genetic influence all but disappears.

So ultimately the driving force is solely about making sure the next or next few generations survive. Beyond that really it takes on a life of its own.

TRUE….BUT…..the difference is that evolution requires species to evolve to suit their environment

How are your gills today? Bit dry?

Of all the interesting responses I’ve found wobbliscott’s to be the most challenging (and interesting).

On one hand they believe in ‘evil’, yet doesn’t that also require a belief in ‘good’? So how could nature according to @wobbliscott ever be ‘good’? What would ‘good’ nature look like?

It is claimed (and I believe it) that what sets humans apart from other life on earth is our capacity for imagining, for recording, our ability towards co-operating with strangers at a distance, and maybe most of all for our believing fictions of our own making.

whereas all other animals live in an objective world of rivers, trees and lions, we humans live in dual world. Yes, there are rivers, trees and lions in our world. But on top of that objective reality, we have constructed a second layer of make-believe reality, comprising fictional entities such as the European Union, God, the dollar and human rights.

And as time passes, these fictional entities have become ever more powerful, so that today they are the most powerful forces in the world. The very survival of trees, rivers and animals now depends on the wishes and decisions of fictional entities such as the United States and the World Bank — entities that exist only in our own imagination.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind

Now wobbliscott has me attempting to imagine what kind of ‘nature’ would be ‘good’? Because I currently see nature as mostly indifferent; ie a combination of indifferent events in an indifferent galaxy in an indifferent universe. The piper is entropy and we all have to pay the piper because A = A therefore A.

So if one defines ‘evil’ as ‘indifference’, then how would one define ‘good’? Compassion? Eternal life? A ‘caring’ universe? Wouldn’t that be some kind of God?

*’Nature’ is undefined. Are we part of nature or not?

So how could nature according to @wobbliscott ever be ‘good’?

Well you could define ‘good’ as according to nature, as has been attempted in the past. But that has rather ugly implications, doesn’t it? So perhaps that can inform how we think about the difference between nature and humans?

The term “Mother Nature” reinforces the idea that both women and nature should be subjugated

I think you posted this tongue in cheek but it’s tosh. The reason it’s called ‘mother’ nature is that it’s recognising that women are the creators and nurturers of life, which has been understood for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.

*’Nature’ is undefined. Are we part of nature or not?

Depends on context. In some, nature is defined as that which is not human.

I always believed the term Mother Nature was used as it represents life giving and fertility such as a female, seems everything nowadays upsets someone. Personally, I will still use the term Mother Nature.

As intelligent as we may be to make stuff such as computers, cars etc.. we are generally far too stupid and selfish..
It doesn’t really take that much for a society to implode. Look what happens when we have an apparent fuel / toilet roll shortage.

When climate change really starts to bite us in the not too distant future it’s all going to go a bit distopian..

It’s funny watching a bunch of atheists arguing about the meaning of human existence 🙂

Always worth looking at this as an example of mother nature at her worst .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event . Decent overview but underplays just how unpleasant most of the earth’s land surface after ambient temperature elevated to 35-40C

Climata change that we see won’t kill all life on earth, and no more than an ice age would, but it will make life very unpleasant for billions of people, including those countries we call 1st world

wobbliscott
Full Member

The big difference with us is that we have the brain power and technological capability to change our environment to suit us therefore stopping in its tracks survival of the fittest and the process of evolution.

Specifically on this, we don’t have that power at all, as I eluded, over time evolution will still continue and it’ll change us, the human race isn’t a constant. It’s a bit short sighted and I think egomaniacal to believe we are somehow beyond nature I think.

We are nature, imo. And we’ll soon know that when a meteor, volcano or some other natural event decides to put us in our place. We can quite easily get knocked off our position of power tomorrow.

Being the king of the jungle doesn’t mean you stay there forever, no matter how powerful you perceive yourself to be. A mistake many have made I’d suggest.

It’s funny watching a bunch of atheists arguing about the meaning of human existence 🙂

*must not feed*