TallDave wrote:
Industrialised man does a lot of things the Bushmen don't - many of them both unnecessary and unsustainable. A truly civilised society would maintain an ecological balance and still be able to visit the planets.
Luddite/Rousseau-ian nonsense. North America has more trees today than in 1900. Post-industrial society has a better relationship with the environment than hunter-gatherers did.
I am in agreement with this, and that humanity is fundamentally unsustainable. Though, it depends on what you mean.
How many species have died out since 'earth began'? Humans are one of many billions of species that are unsustainable. No-one has ever accused the dinosaurs of being environmentally unstable, but the world's eco-systems still crumbled and the seas became so de-oxygenated that life might've conceivably died out. Was it their fault? Doesn't matter!! It's gonna happen anyway!
The whole idea about consuming less is bizarre - for what end purpose? So there can be more humans, over the longest period of time (with no recognition of the quality and glory of their lives)? Unless one holds an essential philosophy of existence, then one is doomed forever to never come up with a coherent argument for acting in a certain way.
So let's say someone makes their life more efficient and consumes a half of the stuff he does today, for 'the sake of his children'. So that means there can now be twice as many generations to follow - and then they die out!??
Isn't it more important *what* is done while you're here than how long you can sustain your species on the planet? You're gonna die out anyways! The trenchant greenies won't ever get their [what I perceive as] feeble brains around that one. There was never a case to go to the moon, and if you were ever to worry about why you would want to do that, seeing as it may've reduced your time on this planet from 1 million generations to 900,000 generations for the sake of that act, then I say it's a damned good thing you did something as glorious as go to the moon during your little sojourn on this lump of rock.
The much much deeper point about this economic crisis is that those who felt they were kings of the world just plodded along with the status quo expecting a 'good thing' to last forever. It's the same for man's very existence, itself. You're gonna die out, guys!! What are you gonna do while you're here? I say, you need to do glorious, fantastic and inconceivable things, beyond imagination. And you are doing just that. People used to do this with 'glorious war' but then you progressed in science and technology and now you do things and go places, and at such speeds, that it would be just pure fantasy to anyone just a hundred years ago, let alone a thousand, or 10,000.
Without 'excessive' consumption and 'excessive' engineering, if you twiddle around with recycling rubbish cardboard cartons and reckon that
that is progress, then how the ferkin'mubsmerlarky are you gonna get off this hunk o' rock and secure some future pro-creation across the galaxy. Because that IS the only way the human species can ever get past X million more generations.
This is NOT an argument about being inefficient, I seek efficiency. But I do not seek to drive around in an inefficient electric one-seater bubble-car rather than a full-sized fuel-efficient diesel one because I NEED a full sized car for my life, and I'm not going to change my life just to extend mankind's potential existence by a few thousand miserable generations as humans start dying out.
We cannot descend into arguing against fantastical creations like ITER. Money-wise, it's chicken s*it compared with building the next aircraft carrier or next super-banking tower block that adds no value-adding benefit at all to mankind, only that it preserves the status quo. It is status quo that fails mankind, through its lack of vision and commitment to what appears fantastical. Reject status quo; in the long run it will kill mankind in the most assured, and most complete, way possible.
Seek out all opportunities for change, argue for change and cause change. Don't be-cry anyone or anything which is new and different, money is no object, it will mean nothing in the future, but your glory will. Be sure that your whole purpose of existence is to reach out into the Universe and to mark it with your creativeness and intellect for the rest of its time in an indelible and immutable form, so future civilisations will be able to come to look upon the glory that you sought. This is about the purpose of life itself, make no mistake. Support
"the mission" of controlled fusion power, in whatever form that effort may take, do not begrudge any project aimed at that purpose.
Don't let the politico-economists force you to live like battery-chickens in the same-old most efficient houses, driving to the same-old 'good-for-the-economy' jobs in you 'most efficient cars ever' (which would therefore theoretically mean we all drive the same one, as one single design will ultimately prove to be the best, and same with the house) eating standardised food that has the least impact (as that'd all be the same aswell, seeing as wheat/barley is the most efficient, I guess you'll all be eating gruel all the time).
It's already happening. It's your duty as thinking humans to resist and to demand change. You now have the means to do that without blood-shed, through information and technology (possibly for the first time ever!). DON'T COCK IT UP, GUYS!!! WORK IT. MAKE IT HAPPEN! You're on a trajectory back into the middle ages at the moment - maybe that trajectory won't even stop there but take you back to 'hunter-gatherers'.
If you want the last generation on earth to be hunter-gatherers (however bloody 'eco-frinedly', intelligent and marvellous they are at hunting-gathering!!), then just go wander off into the jungle now and start practicing. If you want the last generation on earth to leave safely via spaceship-taxi, then support ITER, support Polywell, support all the damned technologies, and don't delay.