Mass Extinction

Man o man, this is an old story.

Those of you alive last century probably have the green fatigue, where you ran out of fucks to give about 'the environment' as they call it.

Hell, it's been exhausted for centuries. Anyone with eyes to see has noticed humanity growing and consuming at the expense of natural ecosystems. Half of you probably have never even seen a natural ecosystem, let alone felt any particular attachment. At best, there may be an abstract appreciation that, actually, free food, water, air, optimal climate and radiation shielding for the entire planet is a relatively valuable commodity, but mostly folks couldn't give two shits if all that was replaced by a reasonable priced biosphere engine.

There is a myth which compliments this complacency. It is a myth, even though it uses science, and it goes something like this:

In the beginning, there was nothing, then it exploded. Stars formed and exploded and formed again, with some tasty heavy elements, and life was born on Earth. Bacteria, slime and jellyfish evolved. Vertebrates, amphibians and reptiles evolved. Mammals, tigers and monkeys evolved. And finally, there was Human. We used language and thumbs and fire to gather food and grow fat. We conquered winter, famine, predators, competitors, the Atom, the moon, disease, the stars. You name it, we conquered it, bitches. Our civilisation envelopes the earth and our industry, technology and science continues to grow and grow. Soon we will go into space and have a billion planets to conquer.

And that's the myth. Seems reasonable, right? It gets mythological when it implies that humans are the centre of the ecosystem, and that galactic colonies are our destiny. There's so much ignorance in this that it seems like collective autism, but it's a comforting story.

My alternative to this myth is this: apex predators always exhaust their food supply before their population falls and, in those circumstances, it tends to fall catastrophically.

So, assuming I'm wrong to say this myth is turning us into lemmings, and that we can eat and breath long enough to go interstellar, then it's still a win, right?

Maybe so, it would be an attractive future: a new frontier, lots of empty space and freedom. Humans seem hard wired to struggle in the wilderness, even when there's none left.

Which brings me to my point. Even if our survival did not depend on the million odd species in an irreplaceable balance, I don't much care for the civilised lifestyle. I am an ape. An aquatic ape, actually, with fine hair instead of fur and subcutaneous fat, like pelagic mammals. I love the forest and the sea. I love it. Love love love.

I get more warm fuzzies from an hour in the wilderness than six seasons of my favourite tv show, or a year of pay checks. When I see ants tracking across the kitchen floor, I think how perfect it is that sterilised microbots clean up my crumbs, and how awesome their underground cities must be, to say nothing of the cute and cuddly animals or the scifi monsters.

I don't know how the future will pan out but, given the choice, I'll share the fate of my fellow earthlings and go extinct rather than sacrifice nature so my descendants can find some more and then sacrifice that.

 

Of course.

Except I'll also say 'I told you so' which is the sort of attitude will get me eaten fairly quickly.

In terms of mythology, I find the zombie story to be particularly revealing. That the teeming hordes are not people but mindless cannibals.

Either it's our collective subconscious preparing us, or it's our increasingly repressed savagery starting to boil over in busy cities. Probably both.

But seriously, I just meant it's sad, not that I'm any better. i waste factory farmed food and suckle electricity. But it is sad.

 

Typical greens outlook on life.

 

Global warming exists. I don't think science fiction or zombie movies or video games really give me any greater perspective on the subject.

 

Once I lived with a crazy old cat woman. Who also had two yap dogs, you know the kind of person.

She was extraordinarily good with animals, and generally fond of them.

Anyway, she met David Suzuki once and asked him if he agreed with her that people either connect with nature or they don't. That is, that people either see the intrinsic value of conservation as obvious or they can't. End of discussion.

He said yes.

I suppose it's naive of me to suppose you'd all have a religious orgasm if you went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, or consider it sacrilege that it's collapsing.

Whether or not they give a damn, our descendants will be lesser people, I think, with less evidence of the ingenuity and variety of life.

 

As Dark Elf mentioned earlier, human population growth is already showing signs of levelling off, and then falling of its own accord, independent of the food supply. For this reason, I would argue that either your statement is wrong, or that the "apex predator" model doesn't apply to humans.

I think this is the key. You just prefer the wilderness. That's a personal preference, and it's fine, but then you make the mistake of thinking that it's necessarily better, and try to extrapolate that to the rest of us. To me, the outdoors is cold and wet and dirty and full of things that want to eat me. I'm sure there are nice bits, but generally they're far away and a real hassle to reach.

I have to say though, I kind of envy this. You're lucky to be able to get that just from going outside. I'm aware that I rely on a complex industrial machine to be at ease with life, so don't think for one minute that I consider this to be a superior state of being.

Except when you want to manufacture discord between us. Then you should feel free to paint me in your finest supercilious pampered colours, my old aquatic ape friend. (Though personally I find the endurance running hypothesis more convincing.)

 

I sense a conciliatory tone there...

Peace, man.

Well, I get your point of view. In my mind we are speciating (yes, that's a real word). Basically selection pressures are dividing inside and outside people. Obviously rural communities and tribal people's are on the losing side.

I think the inside people ought to get their act together with arcologies and vat grown meat, but they should also set aside reserves which may include outside people, who can live more or less how people have lived for a million years.

As it stands, the inside people want their cake and to eat it too, living in climate controlled boxes, but with biggest back yard they can afford, then zooming around in cars and planes, while the outside people (and superfluous organisms) are wiped out.

 

I'm all for that. In fact I think it's the natural outcome of our technological progress. Once synthetic meat technology is perfected, and enough of the population reaches a prosperity level where each subsequent generation is less numerous, we're going to have a lot of spare land lying around. We can then release vast swathes of it back to nature, and keep the rest for harmless quadbike and paintball games. Or quadbike battles with mounted paintball cannons! Yeah! Actually, no, I suspect by that point most recreation will be done in virtual worlds. No doubt there will still be a few hold-outs who waste all their spare time communing with nature. Pfft!

You know, the more I read ytzk's posts, the more his avatar seems completely inappropriate.

 

I wrote a book once, although I'm not that proud of it, but it was set 500 years from now.

There is a ruling AI, and 'automatons' which are just drones for manufacturing and warfare. Everyone lives in tiny apartments and the economy is basically independent of people.

Except for politics, and they use Hours as the currency, just to keep people hungry and ambitious. 1 Hour equals one hour of full immersion in cyberspace where you can experience anything.

The biggest threats to this civilisation are viruses, because everyone is sterilised and closely packed, and they use remnant tribes in the wilderness to farm and harvest antibodies.

The second biggest threat is humanity's obsession with space travel because it continues to divert energy away from social development and ecological restoration.

Then it gets a bit silly, with a fungus-virus symbiont making ninja zombies. With tigers!!!

Anyway, in stores never, because it is silly.

 

Re:

:lol:

Although seriously, there are not enough ninja tiger zombie books out there.

 

Yeck. Then you may be the go-between, my friend, the go-between merchant of our mutually exclusive tribes for I will gladly trade jars of lightly oxygenated air for ounces of your fresh ocean fish. I will have little to do --very little!-- with your ocean tides until we reinvent the concept of a timeshare, at which point I am on board once every five years. I will never understand why any person would choose the gritty, sun baked beach over the lush, pristine mountain lake. (Also, air lacking in oxygen will be the narcotic of the future.)

Says you (and whatever informed research you're no doubt citing.) I credit the gays (yet I am hopeful for your 40k apocalypse (goblins in tanks).)

Indeed. Kill the ocean with fire!

Uh, yeah. Thanks to the gays.

My most ambitious hope for the future are the programming-capable cowboys of Neal Stephenson's future in The Diamond Age. I suspect that it is only through diligent programming and harvesting (not farming) will the human species thrive.

 

Well I do love forests, of course, and glacial lakes and fresh streams and mountain air, but for those who know the hypnotic attraction of the sea, there is no substitute.

There is something in my nervous system which changes gears at sea, and it is this feeling, more than anthropology, which makes me think humans are aquatic apes, or at least some of us are.

Also, all the very obese VR users of the future will prefer to float around in saline solution to prevent heart stress.

Hm, that's my new vision of a utopian future, mutant dugong people with cybernetic implants. Under the sea, everyone!

 

Clearly you've never been to a gay nightclub.

 

Really I think the suburbs are the place for me, equidistant between frolics in the wilderness and enjoying the entertainment available in the modern city. Having lived in both the country and a city, I never understand the idea that people seem to think they're mutually exclusive pleasures.

 

The problem with suburbs is that they eventually grow into and merge with the urbs. Then you have to move to a more distant suburb, in what was probably referred to as "the country" when you originally settled in the burbs, in order to escape the soul-crushing gridlock.

 

The gays may be able to prey as well as any breeder, but at least they have the population boom figured out.

 

Re:

I've been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding.




Even the gay ones.

 

Re:

True, but if we do get negative population growth in developed countries as DE forecasts due to having below replacement fertility and not enough immigration to keep the population stable then maybe I'll live in a 28 Days Later-style dream land. If so, I'll populate the deserted houses with lifelike mannequins and live out my home invasion fantasies where I break-in in the middle of the night slathered in greasy unevenly applied body paint and demand for inexplicable items such as a raw cooked ham or fresh tinned pilchards. When they aren't provided, I'll proceed to eat whatever foodstuffs I can find with my grimy hands in a most obscene and unpleasant manner.

Or, you know, I'll just move.