This makes humans, without a doubt, morally and ethically deficient. The proof is undeniable. The proof is written in our history of domination and destruction. Can we evolve?
We are also the only species that kills not out of need for food or natural instinct and physiology developed over thousands or millions of years but out of greed, envy, hate, desire to dominate, religious belief and other atrocious, human constructs.
To make matters worse, we are the only species who can kill massive numbers of our own at a single time and now, do so even from hundreds or thousands of miles away. - Oh we've progressed as a species - [not].
All true; well said; Roger Hawcroft. This is why I view modern humans as the most dangerous of all animals, of all species. We kill and destroy out of habit. It is like a dangerous and unhealthy addiction.
We "modern" humans are massively overpopulated and overconsuming. We number 3,000 times more than were our self-sustaining, ecologically balanced migratory Hunter-Gatherer ancestors just a few thousand years ago or still surviving in small (150 or less) clan groups in their scattered refugia worldwide. They will repopulate after we have destroyed "modern" men, women, and children. Have a blessed day.
There is the possibility that humans will, at some point, engage in a nuclear war (or use some other modern weapons of mass destruction). If it sounds improbable, some things that seemed unlikely 25 years ago have come to pass. We can never discount the ability of homo sapiens to make bad decisions.
In my early adult years, I worked as an engineer for the defense industry. As someone in the U.S. defense industry told me some 32 years ago: "Why build weapons if we can't test them in a war." He was matter-of-fact about it.
Soon after that, I left the defense industry & engineering.
I know, Perry! It's hard to get our heads around this.
Perhaps it comes from the crazy theory that humans can build a new home somewhere else in the galaxy (Mars?) Crazy because it disregards the fact that 'wherever we go we carry our own sky with us'...
I do believe that humans can evolve and are doing so... Unfortunately, for some reason it's always the least evolved ones who manage to get into positions of power...
It also reminds me of my mother telling us (as children) that if there was a fight between us the 'more intelligent one should give in'... At some point this maternal advice got me thinking ... 'that's why the idiots are running the world...'
Precisely. Our mothers might have meant well to keep the peace, but it does not work out well when power seekers rule so many aspects of our lives and make such poor decisions in so many ways. This is what we are seeing today in plain sight.
Powerfully written, Perry. Succinct and serious. We need to recalibrate, and as you say, reconnect with each other and with our planet. Cooperation is key.
Well said Perry. Well said. It’s hard to watch. It feels helpless. Thanks for shouting it out. I am amazed how many on here have to say it louder than you and correct you so that they can somehow hear themselves. Thanks for being you.
I think the motivation for greed in humanity comes from realization that some fail to face: mortality. The rampant greed for more and more takes on a life of its own. Busyness and becomes business and activity is really procrastination from facing our own mortality in an honest way. One of my favourite quotes from Blaise Pascal seems to point to humanity's problems so well:
"Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre."
("All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”)
This is part of it, Greeley, in that this increase in humans encourages more agricultural development and thus habitat loss, thus harming non-human animals by deprivation.
Yet, as much as this is true, as far as we can know, the harm done by wars to Home Earth is immeasurable and not discussed enough. If we were somehow as humans able to evolve beyond violence and wars, so much creativity would be used for positive outcomes rather than the negative ones evident today.
Massive human overpopulation is the sole cause of wars and civil unrest. We are 3,000 times more numerous than were our ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, whose members never numbered more than 150 (Dunbar number) and disagreements were settled with fists, sticks, and stones.
I don't think massive overpopulation is the/a problem. Scarcity is engineered for profit, and hang the consequences. Small-scale agriculture, decentralisation, and local economies could carry 11 billion people on this planet. Anyway, the de-population curve will become visible in about 30 years due to corporate mass poisoning of our food, water, soil and air - and loss of fertility (already quite severe).
And the science/documentation behind your otherwise pure speculation, as fitting as it is for so much of the everybody's-an-expert internet? Climate science (C3S) predicts a 3 degC world in just 7 yrs., and about half of the 8.5B at that time will be starving. Even with small scale ag and barter in decentralized populations, our planet will only be able to support, maybe, 500M. A huge die-off is looming right before our eyes and massive human overpopulation/0verconsumption IS the problem.
A huge die-off may well be coming, but it's due to mismanagement, and selling consumerism as the norm, not pure numbers per se. Or you could say, human wisdom has not kept pace with issues presented by a rising population. Like with the power of technology which far outstrips human maturity to manage it wisely.
The human narrative of dominating the Earth, placing other species under submission and populating it with more humans, found in the Bible, for example, has greatly informed our thinking, and thus our actions. We require another way of thinking and imagining. All changes start with an idea.
We are the only species that destroy our home, but we are not the only species that wage wars. Capuchin monkeys do the same. We are like these monkeys, but with a higher level of technical ability and we bring war to a new level that goes beyond territory. And therein lies the problem: technical ability and intelligence as we have defined it. It is our intelligence that begets the evils that we see in this world today.
But, I also think your suggestion that we need to move to cooperation and collaboration is also insufficient. If all we did was collaborate and cooperate, it would likely still need to the destruction of the ecosystem because it would mean that we would keep sustaining the current human population and keep developing technology.
Let's say we said that we must always cooperate now. What will happen to the person who wants to keep developing their AI models or keep their business or the person that wants six children? They will say they need cooperation too, and there will have to be compromises drawn. But we can't keep current civilization going with compromises. Even if everyone on earth tried to cooperate now without any violence whatsoever, how would anyone still contribute to lessening climate change? Nearly everyone's way of life is steeped in technological development, which is inevitably destructive.
There is no scenario where the current population on earth can cooperate and be nice and be sustainable. Technological society is by its very nature unsustainable and the population we have is unsustainable. Therefore, the problem goes beyond cooperation.
Moreover, the current system has created immense evils like AI, Mark Zuckerberg, other billionaires, large tech corporations. Such evils must be taken down first, as they cannot exist within a sustainable system. Cooperation with such entities is impossible, certainly.
I agree that we are an aberration of nature. And, I ALSO agree that to reach a stable society, we need to eventually cooperate on a grand scale with the intent of preserving the earth. BUT, reaching that state can't be done within the current system. The current system must experience a tremendous upheaval that will likely involve the ripping of the power away from the billionaires, probably by force, because there is no other way that such evil will relinquish power.
Ending wars and violence would have a tremendous benefit; it would as a start release creativity that is now being used for war manufacturing. I know of what I speak. In my early years as an engineer, I was part of that death industry. I wisely left after 10 years.
I understand the viewpoint, but I don't understand appealing to a hypothetical which in isolation, has no chance of happening without other changes as well to the entire structure of civlization. Such "if only" arguments don't take into account reality. It's logically the same sort of argument as saying "if only humans would just give up material greed and live minimally, then everything would be okay".
Furthermore, my only point was that ending wars and violence by itself must be accompanied by something else. Because just ending wars and violence is likely already to happen once a sufficient level of technology is reached, and we will be just as unsustainable as ever unless technology itself is controlled and regressed.
Therefore, ending wars and violence amongst humans in no way guarantees a good outcome in the long term for the biosphere, although I agree that it must be an eventual outcome of a new society if it is to be stable.
We are also the only species that kills not out of need for food or natural instinct and physiology developed over thousands or millions of years but out of greed, envy, hate, desire to dominate, religious belief and other atrocious, human constructs.
To make matters worse, we are the only species who can kill massive numbers of our own at a single time and now, do so even from hundreds or thousands of miles away. - Oh we've progressed as a species - [not].
All true; well said; Roger Hawcroft. This is why I view modern humans as the most dangerous of all animals, of all species. We kill and destroy out of habit. It is like a dangerous and unhealthy addiction.
We "modern" humans are massively overpopulated and overconsuming. We number 3,000 times more than were our self-sustaining, ecologically balanced migratory Hunter-Gatherer ancestors just a few thousand years ago or still surviving in small (150 or less) clan groups in their scattered refugia worldwide. They will repopulate after we have destroyed "modern" men, women, and children. Have a blessed day.
There is the possibility that humans will, at some point, engage in a nuclear war (or use some other modern weapons of mass destruction). If it sounds improbable, some things that seemed unlikely 25 years ago have come to pass. We can never discount the ability of homo sapiens to make bad decisions.
In my early adult years, I worked as an engineer for the defense industry. As someone in the U.S. defense industry told me some 32 years ago: "Why build weapons if we can't test them in a war." He was matter-of-fact about it.
Soon after that, I left the defense industry & engineering.
Thank you, @Claire for the restack.of my latest post. This is much appreciated.
This is such an important clarion call to evolve, Perry. The focus on caring for animals speaks volumes here.
Thank you, Heidi. How we view our fellow animal companions says a lot about our ethical and moral views. Thank you, also, for the restack.
Amen.🙏
I know, Perry! It's hard to get our heads around this.
Perhaps it comes from the crazy theory that humans can build a new home somewhere else in the galaxy (Mars?) Crazy because it disregards the fact that 'wherever we go we carry our own sky with us'...
I do believe that humans can evolve and are doing so... Unfortunately, for some reason it's always the least evolved ones who manage to get into positions of power...
It also reminds me of my mother telling us (as children) that if there was a fight between us the 'more intelligent one should give in'... At some point this maternal advice got me thinking ... 'that's why the idiots are running the world...'
Precisely. Our mothers might have meant well to keep the peace, but it does not work out well when power seekers rule so many aspects of our lives and make such poor decisions in so many ways. This is what we are seeing today in plain sight.
bless our mothers, they'll be turning in their graves... 🕯 🦇 🍂
Powerfully written, Perry. Succinct and serious. We need to recalibrate, and as you say, reconnect with each other and with our planet. Cooperation is key.
Thanks Trudi. We truly do.
Well said Perry. Well said. It’s hard to watch. It feels helpless. Thanks for shouting it out. I am amazed how many on here have to say it louder than you and correct you so that they can somehow hear themselves. Thanks for being you.
Thanks, Jamie. I will keep shouting it loud, till my last breath.
I think the motivation for greed in humanity comes from realization that some fail to face: mortality. The rampant greed for more and more takes on a life of its own. Busyness and becomes business and activity is really procrastination from facing our own mortality in an honest way. One of my favourite quotes from Blaise Pascal seems to point to humanity's problems so well:
"Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre."
("All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”)
True, Neil; if we can be in harmony with ourselves, there is a greater possibility of being in harmony with the natural world.
Massive human overpopulation driving environmental degradation and alienation from the natural order of life itself is our problem.
This is part of it, Greeley, in that this increase in humans encourages more agricultural development and thus habitat loss, thus harming non-human animals by deprivation.
Yet, as much as this is true, as far as we can know, the harm done by wars to Home Earth is immeasurable and not discussed enough. If we were somehow as humans able to evolve beyond violence and wars, so much creativity would be used for positive outcomes rather than the negative ones evident today.
Massive human overpopulation is the sole cause of wars and civil unrest. We are 3,000 times more numerous than were our ancestral Hunter-Gatherer clans/bands, whose members never numbered more than 150 (Dunbar number) and disagreements were settled with fists, sticks, and stones.
I don't think massive overpopulation is the/a problem. Scarcity is engineered for profit, and hang the consequences. Small-scale agriculture, decentralisation, and local economies could carry 11 billion people on this planet. Anyway, the de-population curve will become visible in about 30 years due to corporate mass poisoning of our food, water, soil and air - and loss of fertility (already quite severe).
> Small-scale agriculture, decentralisation, and local economies could carry 11 billion people on this planet
Which would still imply LOTS of environmental degradation for space for those people. Unacceptable in my opinion.
And the science/documentation behind your otherwise pure speculation, as fitting as it is for so much of the everybody's-an-expert internet? Climate science (C3S) predicts a 3 degC world in just 7 yrs., and about half of the 8.5B at that time will be starving. Even with small scale ag and barter in decentralized populations, our planet will only be able to support, maybe, 500M. A huge die-off is looming right before our eyes and massive human overpopulation/0verconsumption IS the problem.
A huge die-off may well be coming, but it's due to mismanagement, and selling consumerism as the norm, not pure numbers per se. Or you could say, human wisdom has not kept pace with issues presented by a rising population. Like with the power of technology which far outstrips human maturity to manage it wisely.
The human narrative of dominating the Earth, placing other species under submission and populating it with more humans, found in the Bible, for example, has greatly informed our thinking, and thus our actions. We require another way of thinking and imagining. All changes start with an idea.
We are the only species that destroy our home, but we are not the only species that wage wars. Capuchin monkeys do the same. We are like these monkeys, but with a higher level of technical ability and we bring war to a new level that goes beyond territory. And therein lies the problem: technical ability and intelligence as we have defined it. It is our intelligence that begets the evils that we see in this world today.
But, I also think your suggestion that we need to move to cooperation and collaboration is also insufficient. If all we did was collaborate and cooperate, it would likely still need to the destruction of the ecosystem because it would mean that we would keep sustaining the current human population and keep developing technology.
Let's say we said that we must always cooperate now. What will happen to the person who wants to keep developing their AI models or keep their business or the person that wants six children? They will say they need cooperation too, and there will have to be compromises drawn. But we can't keep current civilization going with compromises. Even if everyone on earth tried to cooperate now without any violence whatsoever, how would anyone still contribute to lessening climate change? Nearly everyone's way of life is steeped in technological development, which is inevitably destructive.
There is no scenario where the current population on earth can cooperate and be nice and be sustainable. Technological society is by its very nature unsustainable and the population we have is unsustainable. Therefore, the problem goes beyond cooperation.
Moreover, the current system has created immense evils like AI, Mark Zuckerberg, other billionaires, large tech corporations. Such evils must be taken down first, as they cannot exist within a sustainable system. Cooperation with such entities is impossible, certainly.
I agree that we are an aberration of nature. And, I ALSO agree that to reach a stable society, we need to eventually cooperate on a grand scale with the intent of preserving the earth. BUT, reaching that state can't be done within the current system. The current system must experience a tremendous upheaval that will likely involve the ripping of the power away from the billionaires, probably by force, because there is no other way that such evil will relinquish power.
Ending wars and violence would have a tremendous benefit; it would as a start release creativity that is now being used for war manufacturing. I know of what I speak. In my early years as an engineer, I was part of that death industry. I wisely left after 10 years.
I understand the viewpoint, but I don't understand appealing to a hypothetical which in isolation, has no chance of happening without other changes as well to the entire structure of civlization. Such "if only" arguments don't take into account reality. It's logically the same sort of argument as saying "if only humans would just give up material greed and live minimally, then everything would be okay".
Furthermore, my only point was that ending wars and violence by itself must be accompanied by something else. Because just ending wars and violence is likely already to happen once a sufficient level of technology is reached, and we will be just as unsustainable as ever unless technology itself is controlled and regressed.
Therefore, ending wars and violence amongst humans in no way guarantees a good outcome in the long term for the biosphere, although I agree that it must be an eventual outcome of a new society if it is to be stable.
I think you will eventually come around to seeing things my way, Jason. Take care.🦜🕊🐦