Pretty much everything we do as humans destroys the planet. Some things more than others, but most of us unwillingly and mostly unknowingly take part in it. If we are to save ourselves (not the planet, Earth will go on without us), we need to significantly reduce our numbers AND consume much, much less energy.
I will agree with your conclusion that we need to reduce- or at least better manage- the number of humans for the benefit of the planet (and really for the benefit of humans too…) but I can only partially agree with the statement everything we do destroys the planet. It’s sort of true(?) but not the truth exactly. Firstly, true or to what degree- destruction exists as part of a larger cycle of change. If there were no humans on earth, climate would shift, forests would burn etc. and that isn’t inherently bad. Forest fires and floods and other destruction can be beneficial to preserving the ecosystem. Even where it doesn’t preserve it, it can create new ecosystems. The earth and the life on at large is very different than millions of years ago- because in large part the earth went through “destructive” change that caused extinctions and habitat changes that allowed new types of life to exist or flourish. Ultimately the planet is a rock that is “destroying” itself and will someday…
… if still around, cool completely and lose its atmosphere and most liquid water and air, be bombarded by space debris and cosmic radiation, and support no life at all, or at least no life as we know it likely. It will also someday likely be swallowed by an exploding star and long before that become both an icy crypt and a hellish inferno. Of course those things are long off- but generally when we say “destroying the planet” what we really mean is: “making the ecosystem and conditions on earth incapable of supporting human life,” or “…of supporting human civilization in the way we currently enjoy it or hope to advance it.”
It is likely that some sort of life will survive and adapt- even in the heart of Chernobyl fungi grow, and in the chambers where NASA sterilizes space vehicles microorganisms have adapted that can survive the harsh conditions designed to snuff out all life.
But I get your meaning in that modernized society at almost every level is part of a system which works inherently counterproductive to sustainable human growth or perhaps even existence as we conceive it. We could probably get away with these systems and practices if the global population was capped to 25% or less the current size, but the consumption and waste generated on average per person lifestyle in current modern society isn’t sustainable at present population levels- let alone exponentially as we increase both the global population and the standard of living of each person under our current systems and technology.
Being human means to cause harm. Even monks secluded from society and material desire with a mission to do no harm must eat, they will kill microorganisms and likely bugs too if even indirectly. We can mitigate our harm but never likely stop it. Those who live with other people will naturally harm others, emotional hurt and the nature of a competitive existence for survival. Even in death our bodies become sustenance for plants and bugs and microbes- but they can poison water or help spread pestilence. So I mean- to have ever existed is to do harm or be party to harm. We can ignore that, be paralyzed by it, try to offset it by motivating harm or doing as much or as great of goods as we might while able- but it can’t be escaped by any reality we know.
I think, like the monks who kill microorganisms, it’s more about the earnest desire to not cause harm. Perhaps the best example is love- we can swear to never hurt the other person and mean it- but we will.
The idea is to be mindful, to pay attention and out genuine care into upholding the ideal. Ultimately we are human and we cannot be perfect in execution even if intent is perfect, but if we set a standard so high and truly attempt to meet it we will likely do far better than we would if we started out telling ourselves it is ok to do less.
The whole “give 100%” or “just try your best” has become such a cliche and is used so casually- but if we REALLY commit to the idea of not harming others as a goal, if we think and work our absolute hardest to follow that principle, we will fail at points, inevitably, but we will have tried at times we otherwise would have given up because we allowed ourselves the escape to say: “you can’t win this, so don’t fight..” I’m not saying that is what I think is right- there is an old saying to not win every battle, just the ones that count. We can wear ourselves out by making every battle a desperate “all or nothing.”
You know, to the oil rig worker, keeping is job might make him happy. Since I assume by your two declarations that you're probably not a promoter of fossil fuels, (neither am I btw...) what do you propose for those that you can't make happy. The whole point of my initial comment is that you cannot induce change just by being against everything wrong. You have to come up with workable, realistic alternatives. Something the environmentalists and anti-capitalists have failed to do for decades. We simply need more than "I'm pro-happiness".
We can’t make everyone happy- it just doesn’t work because at some point there will always be 2 people with mutually exclusive wants. We already have a sort of framework in society for dealing with this question, we use it al the time. It doesn’t matter if murdering someone would make you happy or if stealing their car would make you happy- we don’t allow it. Hit man isn’t a legitimate job in general. Whaling most places is not a legitimate job. It’s your money and your case of motor oil and your house- but you can’t expect to openly dump that oil into your ground without any repercussions and you can’t burn your own house down because you felt like it. We aren’t necessarily talking about an alien concept- more like expanding the socially accepted and legal definitions to existing motivations against people causing harms.
So I totally get what you’re saying and agree in large part that it’s generally easier to point out what is wrong with something than how to make it right or a way to make it right in the opinion of more people than just you or those who think like you. That said- we must also recognize that not every citizen is an expert who has put billions of dollars and lifetimes into gathering data and doing experiments and having specialized high level knowledge and experience to be in the position to set it right. We hire a graphic designer or a consultant or whatever professional because well- I didn’t go to design school. I can’t tell you in such insider expert parlance why I don’t like the website but I can tell you it isn’t right and what I feel, and then it’s the experts job to translate that and figure it out.
Even ignoring that point of view we can say certainty that without writing a thesis in the comments laying out a comprehensive and all encompassing plan for the “betterment” of man kind is perhaps not to everyone’s liking. Who knows who will even bother to read this little bent of comments I’ve placed?
I could say from my perspective, not speaking for Karlboll- that we need sweeping changes to how we structure our societies and economies and even to how we think and perceive things. We need to realize that unit and maybe even not then we reach a state of post scarcity technology and can essentially make energy and goods for “free,” no matter how advanced we get there just isn’t enough in the world for everyone to live in such unsustainable ways.
We’ve built systems, in part driven by our unchecked instincts, which push people to want more and more and more. People travel the globe without a thought or care all the while polluting and using resources to fuel an abstract concept of self discovery or a need for novelty. We enshrine wasteful and non constructive things as pillars of culture and society. So much waste and frivolity in the name of self service. So many misplaced priorities from the perspective of sustainability and growth in constructive ways. We rely on fossil fuels in large because we allowed individuals and corporations acting in their self interest to create a world where there was no other option.
Changing infrastructure through things like zoning and building code to prevent suburban sprawl and create communities where people can feasibly live and work without need to travel beyond rare exception is a start. Regulations that impose actual, for lack of a better word, ethical and sustainable business practices. Taxing people based on income and perhaps a set of systems designed to reverse the current status- to take a system where having money makes acquiring money much easier and making it so that the more you acquire the more difficult it becomes. This would still allow people to pursue wealth and enterprise freely but would not reward mediocrity or simply allow money to make you money- if someone made 10 or 100 times the money of the average peer this person would truly have to be incredible and making functional leaps in the real world implementation of things and not merely a marketing genius or a creative accountant.
Tying certain benefits or career paths to various types or service is another- where one possessing something like a “free” education be compelled to use it in a way to benefit the public and community that provided it instead of a sort of “trickle down” theory in which we assume that general education or general ability or general wealth somehow automatically benefits society or the community. We could instill in people value for what we have and move to a culture which doesn’t prize the newest or a disposable philosophy. We can create goods to last and be serviceable, maybe not everything but most things. Items at cost more but if a blanket is 3x the cost but lasts generations that’s not so bad. We can change our attitudes on work. Not have an economy where to survive people take jobs building shit no one needs and convincing people they need it to justify paying someone. Some of this is more far from than other things but it all starts somewhere.
How could be a combination of things r many things. Laws, ordinances, maybe consumers or even (unlikely) companies step up and lead the way by example. We have seen some movement that way. Revolution is always on the table but I’m old and while often the fastest way, revolution is a young persons sport. It’s impatient and tends to leave too many problems to come back tomorrow or down the road because people don’t generally like change and fast change causes deep wounds. We still have people whining about the civil war or repping the confederacy all this time later. The amount of baggage such things leaves behind is usually too great, not to mention the humanitarian costs.
At some point though, people get with the program or they get the pointy end of the program. That’s how the world works and always has. Over 10,000 of recorded human history and the best thing we have for serial killers is still to kill them or lock them up away from society. We haven’t managed to puzzle our way…
.. around war either, despite records about as far back as they go tending to paint it as a terrible and stupid thing outside of propaganda. But at some point life is just “tough shit.”
I’m all about trying to make everyone happy, but we just cant so at some point that’s it. You’re gonna hear “take what’s on the table or tough shit.” We don’t feel a cultural need to negotiate pedophilia or drunk driving for example. There aren’t a lot of people crying out asking “what about the pedophiles happiness?” We could run down a dark ally of exploration into the question of “well- what if this guy and his 6 year old bride are both happy? Who’s right is it to take that away?” Or “well- it’s sort of a tradition in their house/culture/etc.” fucking great man. But… tough shit. Go somewhere else where that flies then but it don’t fly here.
At the end of the day what we are talking about is a relatively simple thing- it’s the place where one persons happiness or desires harm another person or a large group of people or an eons worth of people. Most places you can’t just buy an 1800 year old temple and knock it down to build a car wash, you can’t play your music as loud as you want and if your house is across the street from a school I don’t care if you paid $3million for it- if you get your paper nude while those kids are near that school- that’s not going to fly most places either.
In a perfect world “common sense” and “common decency” and “common manners” would dictate to people “best judgment” and we’d follow it and barely ever have a problem. That isn’t our world. And my heart goes out to the oil drillers and 16th generation coal miners but- shit changes. The guys who used to light street lamps and entire industries disappear because they aren’t needed or they are a problem. We don’t hire people to round up…
.. “urchins” anymore either and when we freed the slaves it turned a lot of lives upside down too. And to those people who perhaps I might muster some bit of sympathy for, if we remove any philosophical and moral context and simply see a human suffering- I say past, present, and future: “tough shit.”
The world keeps spinning. As in nature as in life, adapt, overcome, survive. Or don’t. Let the past and what was yesterday be the anchor that drags you to the depths. Your call. Most of my family and so many friends are dead, many I couldn’t have pictured life without. Many people know that loss. It happens. You climb in the casket with them or you figure out what tomorrow looks like one moment at a time. That’s just life. It never stays the same.
Yeah, basically these are simple ideas in a complex world and I don't claim to have all the answers. That said, I do think not killing people and not destroying the world we live on is a reasonably starting point.
Kinda
Political beliefs this vague are not worth much
It is likely that some sort of life will survive and adapt- even in the heart of Chernobyl fungi grow, and in the chambers where NASA sterilizes space vehicles microorganisms have adapted that can survive the harsh conditions designed to snuff out all life.
I think, like the monks who kill microorganisms, it’s more about the earnest desire to not cause harm. Perhaps the best example is love- we can swear to never hurt the other person and mean it- but we will.
The whole “give 100%” or “just try your best” has become such a cliche and is used so casually- but if we REALLY commit to the idea of not harming others as a goal, if we think and work our absolute hardest to follow that principle, we will fail at points, inevitably, but we will have tried at times we otherwise would have given up because we allowed ourselves the escape to say: “you can’t win this, so don’t fight..” I’m not saying that is what I think is right- there is an old saying to not win every battle, just the ones that count. We can wear ourselves out by making every battle a desperate “all or nothing.”
I could say from my perspective, not speaking for Karlboll- that we need sweeping changes to how we structure our societies and economies and even to how we think and perceive things. We need to realize that unit and maybe even not then we reach a state of post scarcity technology and can essentially make energy and goods for “free,” no matter how advanced we get there just isn’t enough in the world for everyone to live in such unsustainable ways.
At some point though, people get with the program or they get the pointy end of the program. That’s how the world works and always has. Over 10,000 of recorded human history and the best thing we have for serial killers is still to kill them or lock them up away from society. We haven’t managed to puzzle our way…
I’m all about trying to make everyone happy, but we just cant so at some point that’s it. You’re gonna hear “take what’s on the table or tough shit.” We don’t feel a cultural need to negotiate pedophilia or drunk driving for example. There aren’t a lot of people crying out asking “what about the pedophiles happiness?” We could run down a dark ally of exploration into the question of “well- what if this guy and his 6 year old bride are both happy? Who’s right is it to take that away?” Or “well- it’s sort of a tradition in their house/culture/etc.” fucking great man. But… tough shit. Go somewhere else where that flies then but it don’t fly here.
In a perfect world “common sense” and “common decency” and “common manners” would dictate to people “best judgment” and we’d follow it and barely ever have a problem. That isn’t our world. And my heart goes out to the oil drillers and 16th generation coal miners but- shit changes. The guys who used to light street lamps and entire industries disappear because they aren’t needed or they are a problem. We don’t hire people to round up…
The world keeps spinning. As in nature as in life, adapt, overcome, survive. Or don’t. Let the past and what was yesterday be the anchor that drags you to the depths. Your call. Most of my family and so many friends are dead, many I couldn’t have pictured life without. Many people know that loss. It happens. You climb in the casket with them or you figure out what tomorrow looks like one moment at a time. That’s just life. It never stays the same.