Waste of money? No more so than any other form of entertainment that is temporary.
Environmentally, yeah…they’re pretty bad. Air pollution is a big issue. Some birds get killed when they run into things because they can’t see very well after being scared off by the fireworks. Any large human event is environmentally bad, like a sporting event.
We generate literal tons of plastic and other human waste when we gather for mass entertainment.
Okay so we generate literal tons of waste. There are also literally hundreds of millions of us, so “tons of waste” would happen if we gathered to eat brownies distributed on napkins.
We already know sterile environments make people allergic.
I am actually concerned about what kind of behavioral “allergies” will arise from a society with no danger. It is not a natural state and it is not something we should be experimenting with lightly.
Not a natural state? Lots of things humans do aren’t natural. Hell you could say playing with explosives is not a natural state. Danger in the wild makes you survive and balance needs vs risk. There is no need to play with explosives and if you need to see a kid lose a few fingers to know that then you’ll face many problems in life. I mean should we let kids play in traffic to learn about danger?
Once you’ve divorced yourself completely from the dangers of watching family and people around you die from preventable diseases all the time, the horrors of actually having to live through your city destroyed and people you know be devastated by war, the crushing oppression and greed of authoritarian regimes, your education controlled specifically to prevent you from you getting any ideas about real freedoms, that’s what you get when you remove real danger from society.
But I think you probably meant something more mundane like kids will start making graffiti or something.
Having your whole city get destroyed is an unnatural thing that comes with advanced civilization and armies. I’m totally fine with eliminating that kind of “danger” from the world.
But the danger of riding a motorcycle, or lighting firecrackers, climbing a tree, fighting a beaver, whatever, those are dangers on the level that we evolved to deal with.
Just like in the analogy with sterility, I’m fine with making environments free of bio weapons
and meat industry goop full of mega bacteria and the kinds of biological threats that
civilization itself creates. But getting rid of the base load of strange micro critters, that yes do pose some danger of sickness and even death, turns out to be taking it too far because it makes people more likely to have allergies and autoimmune problems.
Explosives are actually predictable. Way more
predictable than people or animals, for instance. A person can protect themselves when handling explosives by being careful.
But these are just my theories about what the mechanism might be. At the higher level, by analogy it’s just there’s a system we have, that has evolved to protect us, but it’s evolved to learn from encounters with the thing it’s designed to protect us from. If you give ir no encounters, it goes haywire.
I don’t know what the mechanism might be exactly, but I worry our ability to navigate danger might itself be a system that can go haywire.
Ok, I follow. I think we’re already there. Plenty of people are doing stupid things that are dangerous, either out of ignorance, lack of forethought, or nowadays for clout on social media. Pretty sure people have been doing dumb things for a long time, but they were more lethal in the past.
Waste of money? No more so than any other form of entertainment that is temporary.
Environmentally, yeah…they’re pretty bad. Air pollution is a big issue. Some birds get killed when they run into things because they can’t see very well after being scared off by the fireworks. Any large human event is environmentally bad, like a sporting event.
We generate literal tons of plastic and other human waste when we gather for mass entertainment.
Okay so we generate literal tons of waste. There are also literally hundreds of millions of us, so “tons of waste” would happen if we gathered to eat brownies distributed on napkins.
Well that makes it all right then, doesn’t it?
Yep, typical what-about-ism
Yeah but at the end of the day we’re handing out explosives for people to play with, even kids. Just feels like it’s not the best form of celebration.
Yes. Injury and fires are compounding factors, no denying that.
We already know sterile environments make people allergic.
I am actually concerned about what kind of behavioral “allergies” will arise from a society with no danger. It is not a natural state and it is not something we should be experimenting with lightly.
Not a natural state? Lots of things humans do aren’t natural. Hell you could say playing with explosives is not a natural state. Danger in the wild makes you survive and balance needs vs risk. There is no need to play with explosives and if you need to see a kid lose a few fingers to know that then you’ll face many problems in life. I mean should we let kids play in traffic to learn about danger?
We already know what happens.
Anti-vax
Pro-war
Pro-authoritarianism
Anti-education
Etc.
Once you’ve divorced yourself completely from the dangers of watching family and people around you die from preventable diseases all the time, the horrors of actually having to live through your city destroyed and people you know be devastated by war, the crushing oppression and greed of authoritarian regimes, your education controlled specifically to prevent you from you getting any ideas about real freedoms, that’s what you get when you remove real danger from society.
But I think you probably meant something more mundane like kids will start making graffiti or something.
Well, I meant more like the dangers of nature.
Having your whole city get destroyed is an unnatural thing that comes with advanced civilization and armies. I’m totally fine with eliminating that kind of “danger” from the world.
But the danger of riding a motorcycle, or lighting firecrackers, climbing a tree, fighting a beaver, whatever, those are dangers on the level that we evolved to deal with.
Just like in the analogy with sterility, I’m fine with making environments free of bio weapons and meat industry goop full of mega bacteria and the kinds of biological threats that civilization itself creates. But getting rid of the base load of strange micro critters, that yes do pose some danger of sickness and even death, turns out to be taking it too far because it makes people more likely to have allergies and autoimmune problems.
Explosives are actually predictable. Way more predictable than people or animals, for instance. A person can protect themselves when handling explosives by being careful.
But these are just my theories about what the mechanism might be. At the higher level, by analogy it’s just there’s a system we have, that has evolved to protect us, but it’s evolved to learn from encounters with the thing it’s designed to protect us from. If you give ir no encounters, it goes haywire.
I don’t know what the mechanism might be exactly, but I worry our ability to navigate danger might itself be a system that can go haywire.
Ok, I follow. I think we’re already there. Plenty of people are doing stupid things that are dangerous, either out of ignorance, lack of forethought, or nowadays for clout on social media. Pretty sure people have been doing dumb things for a long time, but they were more lethal in the past.