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  • #16
    As to climate change, I think the human race, and to a large extent our economies, will survive even if the globe warms 2-3 degrees C. The problem is that the impacts will fall heavily on the poor.

    Does a freeze that cost Texas $100 billion and killed 200 people suck? Does Hurricane Harvey having similar impact suck? Yes, absolutely. And those kind of things are going to get worse with further climate change. And yet Texas recovers and chugs along (except for the poor people who got crushed underfoot in the process). I'm not trying to make light of those things. But Hiroshima was completely destroyed 76 years ago and yet today is a thriving city. People are resilient. To quote that weighty philosophical movie, "Life finds a way."

    In no way am I saying that we shouldn't try to do better and stave off disasters. That we shouldn't work together and take care of the vulnerable instead of every man for himself. I'm saying that the predictions of ultimate doom don't really help. The actual, more measured doom is enough!
    "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"

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    • #17
      This place has changed. I am post 17 and nobody has pointed out that "Societal Collapse" is an absolutely phenomenal name for both a band AND an album?

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      • #18
        Originally posted by umjewman View Post
        This place has changed. I am post 17 and nobody has pointed out that "Societal Collapse" is an absolutely phenomenal name for both a band AND an album?
        Album has already been done by Reality's Despair.
        I'm just here for the baseball.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by umjewman View Post
          This place has changed. I am post 17 and nobody has pointed out that "Societal Collapse" is an absolutely phenomenal name for both a band AND an album?
          I had to read this 3 times before realizing that you weren't telling us that you're older than 17. It's been a long week.
          It certainly feels that way. But I'm distrustful of that feeling and am curious about evidence.

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          • #20
            Today, we are all post 17.
            More American children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active duty military.

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            • #21
              Originally posted by chancellor View Post
              Album has already been done by Reality's Despair.
              Wow, that is actually true. I looked it up and everything. Now that I am older than 17, I am able to master such skills.

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              • #22
                Originally posted by umjewman View Post
                Wow, that is actually true. I looked it up and everything. Now that I am older than 17, I am able to master such skills.
                not umjewboy any more!
                "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"

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                • #23
                  Originally posted by chancellor View Post
                  Which, of course, is the key point. Attempting to destroy capitalism without that answer simply leads to anarchy.

                  Fact of the matter is capitalism backed by a strong rule of law has led to the best overall outcomes for all people. Japan went from a war-wrecked, almost feudal country, to a highly prosperous society in less than 80 years. South Korea did the same in less than 70 years. Singapore and Taiwan, the same. Are they perfect? No, of course not. Are they in far better condition than their neighbors? That is certain.
                  I have to agree...it needs to be more regulated and controlled and guided toward moral ends, but we are not ready to abandon it yet. Until something is proven to be better, the best we can do is guide the system that has proven to be most successful to better ends. History has showed us that all economic systems create haves and have nots. At least capitalism creates better outcomes for most people. North vs South Korea, West vs Easy Germany....the outcomes are clear. But unbridled as it has been leads to absurd concentrations of wealth, abuses, corruption, favoring profits of people and the environment, a society where economies of scale lead to the Kardashians being billionaires for being good at photoshop and social media while teachers barely scrape by and billions live in poverty worldwide, etc. It isn't a good system, but tearing it all down isn't the answer yet. We are not ready for that. And who knows if we ever will be? We could end up in Babylon 5 rather than Star Trek, if we make it that far.

                  I think the more practical solution to improve our response to climate change is to harness our greed to good ends. That is why I think that Musk's path is the best one. Despite his many flaws, from accusing critics of being pedos to caring more about the success of his company than the lives of those who work for him (but that is a common trait among titans of industry), I think he ends up going down as one of the most important people in our lifetime in terms of his strategy to turn the tide on climate change. He made electric cars "cool." He got a bunch of Wallstreet bros, and many others, to wait in line to buy an electric car as a status symbol. It doesn't matter if a lot of eggs got broken in the process and that he is a hypocrite who pumped bitcoin or any of the rest. He showed how to market green amazingly well, and that is likely the best path forward for continued change in a capitalistic society.

                  I am hopeful it is a path others follow as greed drives further innovation to stem the tide of the rapid, rapid climate change we are experiencing, because as KS mentioned, the billions that will be most affected by it all are the poor. The haves will have, no matter where the sea levels are and how hot it gets. If Bezos has his way, he will have for a lot longer than most, as he is pumping a lot into longevity research. And there again, greed may drive innovation good for our species.
                  Last edited by Sour Masher; 09-17-2021, 08:55 PM.

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                  • #24
                    I thought this was interesting on the prospects for eventually curtailing climate change effects:

                    "Jesus said to them, 'Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.'"

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Kevin Seitzer View Post
                      I thought this was interesting on the prospects for eventually curtailing climate change effects:

                      https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/cl...sm-of-the-will
                      Disappointed.
                      i was sure an article detailing how to combat the effects of climate change, written by someone named noah, would include building arks.

                      You're lucky this is coming as a comment and not negative reputation.
                      I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert...

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                      • #26
                        yesterday i noticed a bee crawling on the top of a jar of instant coffee outside. it didn't make sense to me. it kept looking for something that wasn't there. i thought maybe it wanted some coffee so i opened the lid, but that didn't work. then i poured a tiny amount of orange juice on the lid. the way i figured it, it was a long distance bee and it was out of energy. and it worked. it started to drink it. then a fly came by and started harassing the bee. the fly would walk behind it and poke it away from the orange juice and then go up and drink it too. this is the moment i learned that a fly is smarter than a bee. or maybe the bee didn't care. i knew there was something going on.



                        the scariest thing i ever read was as a species we have only been around a few million years. you could up it to 15 million is you want to say we are apes. insanely rapid pace on a geological scale is eloquent. but so many of animals had lasted so much longer. nature tried decadence, and that worked for a while. and now she is trying us. but it's daunting to think how many others have failed. where do we fit in? are we just some fly by night species on a geological scale like them?

                        or you could even say, where are are the aliens? is that a Fermi question? it's the old question, if they aren't there and were did something happen. and if so what happened. we have no model to go on. we can't just say oh this civilization got hit by a comet, or that one nuked itself, or that one had a virus, or this one consumed itself from perpetual growth but never expanded into space, or the planet's gravity was too strong to beat it's escape velocity.

                        you can look at hurricanes and wildfires, war or bombs, but where you will find the answer is in the little things. oxygen depleting from the ocean, or the only bird you notice anymore are invasive ones like house sparrows or starlings, or you stop seeing squirrels and chipmunks. the only fish you see are jellyfish and squids. it's like Rachel Carson said, it's a silent spring. it doesn't happen with a bang. nature is a stat accumulator. that's why people like EO Wilson were looking in the right places for answers. in the places that are oblivious to the average person.

                        all you have to do is kill all the bees and society will collapse. or kill all the plankton. or something small that we all rely on but don't realize it. yet, there are a lot of things we can do for climate change. we can just suck the C02 right out of the air.

                        the problem isn't science. it's human will. as a species, we'll get by. we can adapt to anything. i am trying to narrow down the argument to two things. but i can't seem to be able to do it. either way there is going to be some growing pains. and a lot of thirsty bees that need some orange juice.

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                        • #27
                          there's only two reasons why everything dies. God is either building something better, or wants to feel what it's like through the experiences of the distributed conscious things that is itself. what's the one thing a god can't do. it's why reality exists. no-one ever dies, we get rearranged. transcendence.

                          think about the enormous amount of time it took for you to exist. to reach the pinnacle of the top apex predator in possibly the universe. mathematically, if we took all your atoms and rearranged, how many years would it take for you to come back? and why would it be different if it happened naturally or artificially? because either way it still wouldn't be you.

                          well, we know when the universe started, so it would take at least 14 billion years.

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                          • #28
                            i watch a lot of survival movies, joking like that's going to help me survive. but it does actually. you have to mentally prepare. one movie i liked was Robin Wright's movie Land. and i am pretty fucking choosey too. i got all excited to watch Robert Redford's Jerimiah Jackson one day, and it was a fucking war with Native Americans. same thing with Leonardo DiCaprio Revenant, disappointing.

                            you can't compare today with the past. the system is collapsing. there was no system like this to collapse before.

                            btw, if you guys want to watch sports steam, try http://yrsprts.stream/ your welcome for that link

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                            • #29
                              occupying won't do shit. on a side note, if the workers had supported the students in China in 1989. it might have made a difference, but that is communism. it doesn't work in a democracy. it worked for civil rights and stuff. we had a clear enemy then. injustice. today we have no real clear enemy. because the enemy now is ourselves.

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                              • #30
                                you want a prediction of the future, you just had it. our pandemic response wasn't bad because of anything we did, it was bad because of everything we did much before it happened. everyone was living each week to the next. no-one had any savings. everything was leveraged. that is the economic side. our hospitals were understaffed as much as possible. each hospital bed was way more efficient in than in the past, but everything was privatized, it was out of the governments hands.

                                we couldn't afford to do anything of the things we did based on our past behavior and system. but we did it anyways. right when the pandemic hit, that was the time to give up. and let nature sort if out. we couldn't afford to do it either way. it's a denial of the system we set up. with no savings and no health. 100's of millions and billions of people walking around malnourished or poorly nutritional. old, broken, relying on science and miracle cures to bail us out of our gluttony.

                                there's your answer. we will do anything and everything in the name of survival that is not sustainable. i think nuclear power is a great answer but we can't even do that. and there is a reason for that. natural disasters, human mistakes, and weaponizing the fuel.

                                we are never going to admit based on our system and previous choices that we can't do something about the next problem. and that is a problem.

                                i feel a Corey Hart Never Surrender song playing on the radio

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