Is it supposed to be comforting knowing that a mostly lifeless husk of a planet will exist after we kill off basically every known species? There’s such a thing as too much optimism you know. It’s OK to let the unnecessary death of everything you’ve ever seen be the point of the conversation.
I disagree with your prognosis. The earth has been hit by massive meteors, or huge volcanoes erupted - plenty of species survived. Your ancestors, in fact. There’s radiotrophic fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor. The earth will be fine, as will many of the lower species.
Again, “the Earth will be fine” is not a comforting statement when it is immediately followed by “but anyone and everything you know will die”. I don’t know why someone always insists on making that distinction. It’s not meaningful to anyone reading it.
The idea that humanity could kill everything on earth forever is laughable. Sure, we can fuck up the earth, but a million years from now it will be full of life. A million years is nothing for a planet.
You’re still not getting the point. In what way is that a comforting thought to you? In more simple terms, why does it make a damn bit of difference to you what happens in a million years?
In this potential future you, your family, all your friends, and everyone you’ve ever met are dead for no better reason than unchecked human greed and when confronting that possibility all you want to talk about is hypothetical flora and fauna. You’re disassociating from the actual problem to the point that I don’t think you’re truly processing what it means for you.
I believe humanity is a disease on this planet. We have never done anything good for it. Our existence will be a minor blip in its history and completely unnoticed in the universe.
I wouldn’t say most. I think most people understand humanity, like all life, is a temporary species. I’m not really sure what issue you have with that fact.
Humanity is bad. Maybe not you specifically. Not me. But as a species, a group, we have been destroying the only home we will ever have since we picked up tools ~50,000 years ago. Think of all the extinct species that are our fault.
This point you think I’m trying to get at is simple, you think earth will be some kind of lifeless husk. And that’s not remotely possible. New life will emerge that can adapt to the damage we have done and thrive while we slowly fade away. This won’t be in our lifetime, but… a few hundred? A thousand? Totally extinct.
So yes, that’s comforting. All our hate, our greed, our destruction… gone. And the planet returns to normal after having a virus (humanity) for approximately 0.00125% of the ~4 billion years since it had life.
Nothing has ever done anything good if you view things like that, what good has an ant or a flower done?
The universe doesn’t mind us modifying this rock to our needs, it doesn’t even really mind our pollution either really it’s only us that have that romantic desire for certain types of beauty - the universe churns up and burns down anything it feels like on its ballet, the moments of novelty and beauty are magnificent and destructive.
We are a part of nature, just as volcano and tree take over and change the landscape so do ant and human. It is all beautiful and all filled with wonder.
It took great upheavals and vast destruction to ready the world for us, endless apocalypse such as the replacing of the atmosphere with oxygen or invasive species colonising every last inch of soil and sea. It would be a tragedy if we were extinct, one we must fight to avoid just as trees fought to survive and ants. That is what this world is and what all worlds are.
That’s only relative to our current understanding of the universe. We think we are complex because we don’t know anything more complex. I’d say we aren’t that far away from most creatures on earth.
True but we’re by far the most complex and unique thing around here, every flower is beautiful and every being is a new type of fascination to the universe.
Is it supposed to be comforting knowing that a mostly lifeless husk of a planet will exist after we kill off basically every known species? There’s such a thing as too much optimism you know. It’s OK to let the unnecessary death of everything you’ve ever seen be the point of the conversation.
I disagree with your prognosis. The earth has been hit by massive meteors, or huge volcanoes erupted - plenty of species survived. Your ancestors, in fact. There’s radiotrophic fungus growing in the Chernobyl reactor. The earth will be fine, as will many of the lower species.
We’re fucked if we don’t change our ways, though.
Again, “the Earth will be fine” is not a comforting statement when it is immediately followed by “but anyone and everything you know will die”. I don’t know why someone always insists on making that distinction. It’s not meaningful to anyone reading it.
It’s not meant to be comforting, it’s supposed to be tongue in cheek.
The idea that humanity could kill everything on earth forever is laughable. Sure, we can fuck up the earth, but a million years from now it will be full of life. A million years is nothing for a planet.
You’re still not getting the point. In what way is that a comforting thought to you? In more simple terms, why does it make a damn bit of difference to you what happens in a million years?
In this potential future you, your family, all your friends, and everyone you’ve ever met are dead for no better reason than unchecked human greed and when confronting that possibility all you want to talk about is hypothetical flora and fauna. You’re disassociating from the actual problem to the point that I don’t think you’re truly processing what it means for you.
I believe humanity is a disease on this planet. We have never done anything good for it. Our existence will be a minor blip in its history and completely unnoticed in the universe.
Ok, well maybe you should lead with that next time so people will know you’re coming at it from a wildly different angle than most.
I wouldn’t say most. I think most people understand humanity, like all life, is a temporary species. I’m not really sure what issue you have with that fact.
Humanity is bad. Maybe not you specifically. Not me. But as a species, a group, we have been destroying the only home we will ever have since we picked up tools ~50,000 years ago. Think of all the extinct species that are our fault.
This point you think I’m trying to get at is simple, you think earth will be some kind of lifeless husk. And that’s not remotely possible. New life will emerge that can adapt to the damage we have done and thrive while we slowly fade away. This won’t be in our lifetime, but… a few hundred? A thousand? Totally extinct.
So yes, that’s comforting. All our hate, our greed, our destruction… gone. And the planet returns to normal after having a virus (humanity) for approximately 0.00125% of the ~4 billion years since it had life.
Nothing has ever done anything good if you view things like that, what good has an ant or a flower done?
The universe doesn’t mind us modifying this rock to our needs, it doesn’t even really mind our pollution either really it’s only us that have that romantic desire for certain types of beauty - the universe churns up and burns down anything it feels like on its ballet, the moments of novelty and beauty are magnificent and destructive.
We are a part of nature, just as volcano and tree take over and change the landscape so do ant and human. It is all beautiful and all filled with wonder.
It took great upheavals and vast destruction to ready the world for us, endless apocalypse such as the replacing of the atmosphere with oxygen or invasive species colonising every last inch of soil and sea. It would be a tragedy if we were extinct, one we must fight to avoid just as trees fought to survive and ants. That is what this world is and what all worlds are.
Our extinction is no more tragic than the extinction of a volcano.
Maybe, we are a lot rarer though and much more complex. The universe has to work much harder to create a thing such as us
That’s only relative to our current understanding of the universe. We think we are complex because we don’t know anything more complex. I’d say we aren’t that far away from most creatures on earth.
True but we’re by far the most complex and unique thing around here, every flower is beautiful and every being is a new type of fascination to the universe.