Sure, we'd just need to erase only 3 buses worth of folks and then we'd need to erase another 3 buses, in, let's say 10-20ish years. And after that, 3 more buses of people in who knows how long it takes until we need to remove 90 or so people from the equation.
I'm open to any idea aside from an easily corruptible and horrendous selection of execution to "save the planet". I want to save myself and the human race, but not by going back to a barbaric culture of human sacrifice on the altar.
A fool is one who thinks they can save anyone from themselves. We can compel or council but ultimately any individual must make a decision on their own, and if they are set on a path of destruction- they’ll find it. This scales up to a societal level where decisions tend to be made on the desires and fears of those in power or with voting power. It’s less a question of saving people from destroying themselves and more a question of preventing a group of people from depriving the rights of you or future humans to enjoyment or survival. Of course we have to ask questions like wether if a group looking for sustainability is a minority if they have the right to impose that desire on a majority who is fine with the status quo, or what if any responsibility we have to the unborn future or wether we have the right to make decisions in the now that will have negative impacts for generations simply for our own self service.
As to going back to a barbaric culture of human sacrifice- forgive my saying so but it is foolish to think we ever left. In our society as built 1% of the word holds all the wealth. Not billionaires- people like you and I. Most of humanity has never been on an airplane but in many countries it is a normal or regular thing. It’s easy to look around in the “developed world” and at our closest peers and judge the world by that standard but the truth is much different. The truth is that this world is full of human sacrifice and we pay for our extravagance in human death and suffering. The essentially slaves that mine the materials for the ubiquitous rechargeable batteries and the people living in toxic garbage dumps smelting ewaste over open fires for pennies a day trapped in a cycle of our lust to add always newer and better technology to every aspect of life.
The workers and farmers who struggle so that we can have out of season and “exotic” foods flown in and the factory workers in places like China driven to the brink of suicide feeding our lust for shiny new toys. Google the ewaste villages in Asia or the ship breaking yards in the Middle East and Africa- where without training or safety or environmental protections cruise ships and other large vessels are beached and locals climb through the wreckage to salvage what they can while the vessels literally often collapse around them or on them. There are no shortage of those being sacrificed for the well being of the elite- which most of us don’t consider ourselves but globally are- and even in developed countries “gig workers” and migrants and slave labor and sex slaves are all part of the often unseen tapestry that hangs behind the veneer of our somewhat grand view of cheap goods and service on demand.
So we do not have to return to human sacrifice because we never left. We increased the scale and globalized it. We moved it to where people won’t see it and probably won’t want to think about it and won’t feel it in their everyday lives and will be too busy with their fun toys and first world problems to want to see it.
We iterated it and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of it. We no longer slit the throat to maybe appease the rain gods and get a bountiful spring; we now yolk and squeeze them for a 94% chance of a profitable second quarter and on time delivery of products while meeting CS metrics.
This brings us back to my initial point: majority outweighing the few. This is a 99.999% majority in favor of saving the human race though. Our goal is to grow and prolong. With time we advance. When the desires of few outweigh all of our species, and every other living thing on Earth, then maybe this new Batman villain really does need to be on that bus. I understand wanting to be civilized, but also know that in my own lifetime that can’t happen. Mankind isn’t capable of even banding together to fix its own problems yet.
I think you’re largely correct in that I don’t think most people WANT to destroy the planet or wipe out the future of ours or other species. I might even go as far to say that 99.99..% are in favor of saving the human race- then what we would have is a disconnect in action and intent. To wit: a youth who wants to keep their vitality and beauty, perhaps with vague designs at a family one day far off, every night out drinking, smoking, partying, staying up late, doing drugs. Their actions patently contradict their goals; but in their youth and the moment they are focused on their enjoyment. Perhaps they eat well in the day, drink water and go to the gym and think this is going to offset their vices. It’s probably better than not being anything, but ultimately if they continue their lifestyle indefinitely it is most likely the outcome will be a loss of that they seek to preserve, perhaps slightly more gradual or not as severe, but a failure to the goal. It isn’t that they don’t know…
.. it’s more that they don’t care to think about it and make those changes or are in a logical fallacy that they’ll avoid the repercussions of their actions by some virtue of fate or self. So then we must ask- if we take for granted that most people want to save humanity and/or the planet as it exists more or less, but their actions don’t match their supposed desires- what if anything is to be done about that? It’s a sticky wicket. When a friend finds their will power lacking, they might say: “I don’t care what I say I want, force me to do the thing that supports my goal.” It falls on use to decide to be the “bad guy” who denies their impulse to support their long term goals, and a friend that is sincere in that goal will ultimate thank us even if they are upset in a moment. But it is an entirely different matter if a friend has told us they have a goal or we infer they have a goal and we take it upon ourselves to deny their autonomy to guide their hand.
So we can’t make people do anything. We have two general options if they are available- the carrot and the stick. We can reward compliance or punish divergence. Our third major option if applicable and available is to use overwhelming force of restraint. This cannot make a person do something but it can remove their ability to do something we don’t desire them to. It is the most extreme option and the most overtly forceful. The third option tends to cause the most push back or conflict, the second option tends to cause the second most, and he first- the carrot- if used skillfully causes the least, but relies on being able to offer a carrot great enough to overshadow the gains of not doing what is desired.
The carrot and stick in our situation is generally best applied as a social metaphor. Those who act to “save” are socially rewarded and those who don’t face social punishment. This only works on those concerned with such things and when a person is driven so far out of social grace or is inherently anti social- these pressures will tend to create counter cultural movements that act against the goal out of spite or rebellion.
The social dynamics become complex. As humans we tend to normalize our “bad deeds.” When we are speeding we are “being safe” and “have a good reason.” When we see another speeding they are “reckless” and “are putting lives at risk over some frivolous reason.” Likewise we tend to give our “friends” a similar pass over behavior we would judge harshly in a stranger.
“Rick is a good guy and he would never do something like that, but you don’t understand the stress and circumstances…” we tend to forgive others for things we know we do or may do, because we know if we are too harsh we will be judged harshly. How many people have driven drunk or when they’ve had too much to drink? I honestly never have. Hard rule- a single drink and I will not drive. I plan ahead when I plan to drink or I don’t. But almost everyone I know has driven drunk. People tell stories and often laugh and perhaps finish with: “I don’t know how I made it but thank goodness it all turned out…”
This is how we are. Most of us. So when it comes to things like using too much water or investing in irresponsible and destructive business- what do we say? Are most people going to turn down a chance to buy million dollar stocks for pennies on the dollar because the company hawks future ewaste or has massive server farms or is otherwise destructive? People hate Facebook or etc. but…
.. will most turn down $1.5 million in stock if it was free? The money spends green. So how is Jill going to shame John for his crypto habits and all the dirt there when Jill bought her house using money from a start up making consumer gadgets in sweat shops in Asia that will be shipped back there for children to smelt with their bare hands over open pits in a few years? An old secret of business is no one trusts you if you’re too clean. People like accomplices. If. Person feels bad about their unhealthy habits they tend to want to be around others with unhealthy habits who will either enable them or at the least can’t shame them. A remorseful couch potato who takes no initiative isn’t likely to want to hang around an Olympian who is going to make them “look bad” and feel bad about their choices. If that person REALLY wants to change they might try being around people who will be a positive influence- but the people who REALLY want to change are usually the people who work to change.
So when we watch what people do and hear what they say- we can see what their resolve is. Many people will say they want to be millionaires or they want to be good parents, but if they say that while doing little or nothing to change… do they really want to change or do they want to live in a world where they can keep doing what they are doing and get the result they want somehow magically?
It sounds harsh and it’s more complex than this so I don’t want to offend anyone. Mental health and all sorts of things are hurdles. But at the end of the day we have priorities. What we do shows our priorities. We can want many things but not make those a priority. We can care about many people but if we don’t make time for them they aren’t a priority to whatever else we are doing. We can want to save the world but it can be less a priority to us than living the life we want to live.
There lies a major problem. Who determines the priorities of an individual or has the right or ability to define what those should be? Forever is an abstract concept to us short lived humans but today, this moment, they are very real. We tend to want to pack as much enjoyment and convenience into our short lives as we can. Ignoring reincarnation or any such “beyond” this one life is all we truly know we have and get to live as the us we know right now. To most people nothing is as precious as their own life on the whole. Most of us don’t live exclusively for other peoples benefit. It’s hard enough to find a parent who exclusively puts a child before themselves in every case and way- not an indictment- parents are human. It’s just the case that it’s even harder to ask a person to put a theoretical 17th great grandchild before themselves or their child’s wants.
I don’t think it calls for hopelessness though. We live short lives and history is long. Change is slow- true change is very slow. Evolution is measured in billions of years not decades or generations. Much stays the same but things do change. We step forward and we get set back. History is full of cycles of hope and despair. Ultimately I think we can look at history though and say we have made progress. Not speaking technologically- but speaking in terms that we are slowly normalizing “nobility” in man. We have a savage nature because we come from a savage place. Our instincts forged where life and death were minutes away at every turn often betray us in a curated world made to shield us from the savage utopia that is made in the law of nature where strength and perseverance are what carves our destiny from luck. We still at some level live like we are battling for our lives against the elements and starvation even in countries where you basically have to try and starve to do so.
These instincts evolved to get us here. We are here now and they won’t just go away. Of course in places or times where our technology and society would fail or not exist they can still help us survive. In a cataclysm those instincts could save the human race, but if we can maintain a prosperity and civilization where there can be enough for everyone as there largely is now, we might evolve past those instincts at some point. We do have the ability to deny instinct and impulse or to redirect it. So I think there is hope. I think we are resilient and adaptable. The future may look very different than today. Someday we might “destroy the world” and perhaps humanity will be 5000 people on the last livable island recycling urine and tended by robots. They’ll probably be ok.
Just like today, people live and laugh and love in war zones and where there is no clean water. Things change. Our parents would say they’d hate to be children growing up in our world but honestly most of us would hate to be children growing up in their world. At least as we are. We are products of our time and what’s familiar. The idea of eating bug paste and sharing an 8x12 living cube might seem terrible to us but to a kid born in that future, if that’s how everyone lives- that’s just normal. We tend to not know how bad we have things until someone shows or tells us what we are missing. Otherwise human beings have a remarkable ability to push through. The Middle Ages, the pioneer frontier- brutal living. People did it and people were happy. Some weren’t. Not so different from now. It all works out in the end. Or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t we are dead and it isn’t anyones problem. Probably better if we can avoid everyone being dead though lol.
That’s sort of the thing I’d agree on. It is more
Like some odd billion gray hound buses of people because… capitalism isn’t evil- it’s a mirror. The consumer is the final line that says what is profitable and what isn’t, what it acceptable and what isn’t. We know where our food comes from. We know the broad strokes of the real cost our cars (even the electric ones) take on human lives and the environment. We know which companies are abusing labor domestically or Overseas and making money feeding humanitarian nightmares for profit. Then we tell about how much they profit from suffering- but we seem to forget that not only did we give them that profit freely, we profited too. We gave money to these people so that we could get a benefit even when we knew where that money was going and where that benefit came from. The mirror of capitalism shows us who we are. It is true to say that as consumers we often have no choice or little viable choice-
Because of conglomerates and consolidation of wealth, because to compete and remain in business in many segments all but requires a miracle or to follow similar practices, we tend to have few places to turn and those places tend to be more or less as dirty as the others.
We have some say in law but not directly and not so much in these areas where businesses and individuals are allowed to do such unethical things in the name of ever growing products. To be less cynical it could be said that as a species we are largely banking on a hood that if we continue to develop technology and standards of living even though that requires some dirt be done, someday we will advance beyond the need for the dirt. It’s optimistic to say the least and much evidence suggests if we continue to try to push our rapid pace that it won’t be sustainable and will ultimately end in the opposite effect intended. So many of us are enjoying the ride though that we can sell ourselves on the justification.
We iterated it and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of it. We no longer slit the throat to maybe appease the rain gods and get a bountiful spring; we now yolk and squeeze them for a 94% chance of a profitable second quarter and on time delivery of products while meeting CS metrics.
The social dynamics become complex. As humans we tend to normalize our “bad deeds.” When we are speeding we are “being safe” and “have a good reason.” When we see another speeding they are “reckless” and “are putting lives at risk over some frivolous reason.” Likewise we tend to give our “friends” a similar pass over behavior we would judge harshly in a stranger.
This is how we are. Most of us. So when it comes to things like using too much water or investing in irresponsible and destructive business- what do we say? Are most people going to turn down a chance to buy million dollar stocks for pennies on the dollar because the company hawks future ewaste or has massive server farms or is otherwise destructive? People hate Facebook or etc. but…
It sounds harsh and it’s more complex than this so I don’t want to offend anyone. Mental health and all sorts of things are hurdles. But at the end of the day we have priorities. What we do shows our priorities. We can want many things but not make those a priority. We can care about many people but if we don’t make time for them they aren’t a priority to whatever else we are doing. We can want to save the world but it can be less a priority to us than living the life we want to live.
Like some odd billion gray hound buses of people because… capitalism isn’t evil- it’s a mirror. The consumer is the final line that says what is profitable and what isn’t, what it acceptable and what isn’t. We know where our food comes from. We know the broad strokes of the real cost our cars (even the electric ones) take on human lives and the environment. We know which companies are abusing labor domestically or Overseas and making money feeding humanitarian nightmares for profit. Then we tell about how much they profit from suffering- but we seem to forget that not only did we give them that profit freely, we profited too. We gave money to these people so that we could get a benefit even when we knew where that money was going and where that benefit came from. The mirror of capitalism shows us who we are. It is true to say that as consumers we often have no choice or little viable choice-
We have some say in law but not directly and not so much in these areas where businesses and individuals are allowed to do such unethical things in the name of ever growing products. To be less cynical it could be said that as a species we are largely banking on a hood that if we continue to develop technology and standards of living even though that requires some dirt be done, someday we will advance beyond the need for the dirt. It’s optimistic to say the least and much evidence suggests if we continue to try to push our rapid pace that it won’t be sustainable and will ultimately end in the opposite effect intended. So many of us are enjoying the ride though that we can sell ourselves on the justification.