From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2009-04-11T10:12:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Goodbye Ruby - Hello Earth

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On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 02:22:09AM +0900, Eleanor McHugh wrote:
> >Christophe Mckeon wrote:
> >>It's life or death now, but the problem is that humans, even the =20
> >>smartest humans do not react to threats unless they are directly in =20
> >>front of them in plain view. We have our own evolutionary =20
> >>psychology to blame for this.
> >>We need all the brains of the earth on this one.
>=20
> Simple fact: it's always life and death. It has been since the first =20
> primordial cell ran smack bang into the second law of thermodynamics =20
> and was no more. Evolutionary theory is supposed to have given us a =20
> sense of perspective on this. Yes we all die, our cultures die, our =20
> species die and one day even our planet dies. But along the way the =20
> very struggle for survival offers new opportunities for our offspring =20
> to exploit changed conditions.
>=20
> What has always worried me about the green movement is that instead of =
=20
> embracing environmental change for what it is, an intrinsic dynamic of =
=20
> the biosphere, they instead frame it as an enemy to be defeated. Such =20
> a war by its very nature cannot be won and each battle is a waste of =20
> resources that could better be channelled into learning to live with =20
> the changed conditions: the strategy nature itself adopts.

More to the point, we could learn to guide climate change in a positive
direction, rather than just trying to avoid having any effect on the
changes at all until the day they kill us and scour the Earth's biosphere
clean.


>=20
> There is also an implicit assumption that humanity stands separate =20
> from nature when in actual fact all the traits we hate about our =20
> species are the consequence of the environmental conditions which =20
> faced our ancestors. If those prove to no longer be useful then I'm =20
> confident the same processes which encouraged them will curb them ;p
>=20
> But I guess if there's one thing three decades of coding has taught =20
> me, it's that most people are petrified of change and will in leap =20
> through the most incredible hoops to avoid it...

Bring on the singularity, I say.  Either it'll kill us (thus the radical
environmentalists get their way) or it'll elevate us to the point where
we will better understand ourselves and our circumstances so that we can
build a brighter future.  Hell, we might cure old age.  I'm all about the
nanocyte networks repairing telomeres and so on, giving us much more time
to work on the problem of fixing any dangerous environmental conditions
and/or emigrating into the cosmos.  I'd rather like to live to see that.

I won't if we all become dirt farmers concerned with "saving" the planet
from ourselves, though.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
print substr('Just another Perl hacker', 0, -2);

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