It's possible, but I doubt the ancient Greeks had the same kind of backing data that we have to support the big bang hypothesis. It's a curious similarity, and it had occurred to me.
The ancient Stoics believed the universe was born out of fire, and will return to fire. The reason we don't believe this is because they apparently made this up instead of making observations like we do and applying a scientific method. I'm sure that a future civilization with our data, along with their data, will come closer to an accurate theory so long as (a) our data are accurate, (b) they accept our data as accurate, and (c) their data are also accurate. We would of course be better off with data from before now, but unless ancient Atlantis had radio telescopes and teams of physicists studying cosmology, we're pretty much stuck with what we've got. You're right--we can never be omniscient anyway.
The "people first" attitude is one I'd accept if it weren't so short-sighted; most of what people advocate (and here I'm including the things you listed as "good reasons") as beneficial to people, really aren't in the long run.
Those issues are rather less important--it's partly a scientific and economic question what really serves human well-being. I happen to believe human beings are better off with a sustainable, bright green post-industrial society combined with preservation of ecosystems, especially the more unique or beautiful ones, that don't need to be altered for human needs. One might argue that reverting to a pre-industrial society would serve human well-being because industrial societies either fail to serve human well-being, or because no industrial society is ecologically sustainable. I just don't see how you can be absolutist about not destroying any "natural" (i.e. non-human) ecosystem or species while actually accepting the principle of human well-being. "There is no human benefit in doing things which harm or threaten other species."? Really? Even the species of bacteria that causes tuberculosis?
Do you honestly think it's "beneficial to people" to abandon industry? Agriculture? Medicine? If so, that's our point of disagreement--an important point of disagreement, but one that I'm not interested in pursuing. On the other hand, if you're interested in ways to build a technological society that's ecologically sustainable and beneficial to humans even in the long run, we have no disagreement at all.
I think it's very much within human interests to preserve much of nature, but also to change certain things to our benefit. But our central choice of guiding values is pretty fundamental, and if you choose something other than the wellbeing of human beings, I'm not quite sure how to fundamentally argue against that. "Minimizing human impact on the environment" as an end in itself is something I can dismiss as absurd, but if someone else puts forth a different value system I would be interested to compare.
Keep at it. Most typing mistakes, if you ignore them and move on, are automatically corrected, so if you just type out whatever word you wanted iPhone does a decent job of guessing.
But here's an interesting question--if documents were discovered from some ancient civilization that had a completely different cosmology, describing that cosmology, would you take those documents at face value? Suppose they contained measurements and recorded observations, as well as a prediction that future observations would differ in a certain way. I'm not sure the far future would believe us, so we would have some convincing to do.
The upside is, the people of the future can believe in a static universe, and insofar as their universe is compatible with that hypothesis, they're no worse off for not knowing the truth. If it turns out that the universe's origin does make a difference to them, there will no doubt be some observations that don't correspond with their static universe hypothesis, forcing them to adopt a hypothesis similar to ours. So by preserving our data and our theory we are indeed providing a possible solution to a future scientific problem.
About the only "worsening" that can happen would be when my thyroid gland is completely destroyed and my only source of thoroxine is the supplements I'm taking. And I'm pretty sure that's already happened by now. In any case, I'm not at all arguing for the status quo--insurance shouldn't cover routine care (so insurers would only drop me, or charge me a higher premium, if I was a higher risk for emergencies), and anyone incapable of buying insurance and an HSA on the open market should be provided them by the government.
The concern is inefficient energy production, then, not overpopulation. Have we got enough uranium, sunlight, wind, and so forth to power everyone? If we add on hydroelectric and tidal plants? Can we develop faster ways of recycling and reclaiming water? These questions are fairly rhetorical--yes, obviously we can't have all 6.7 billion people burning petroleum and coal, but those aren't the only ways.
You already have two hands on the thing already, and before I had the dual-touch touchpad, I usually chorded with the left hand. I guess there are circumstances where an actual second button would be better, but I've never been left wanting for one since I got my MacBook, and I only rarely wanted for one when I had to ctrl-click on my PowerBook (on ill-behaved third-party apps).
No, by my logic, anything that doesn't serve the purpose of human well-being is a waste of space. My continued existence certainly serves my well-being, and there are people who would miss me if I wasn't around. You should try reading this entire discussion to get more context.
Then you probably didn't get to the part where I said "good reason" was a pretty vague criterion that you should have spelled out more if you honestly see things differently.
That's an interesting direction to take that argument, which goes back to the root of this issue. Separating humans from the rest of nature is exactly what certain environmentalists do when they argue that humans should try to minimize their impact on "nature". If we're choosing not to separate humans from the rest of nature, than environmentalists don't have a leg to stand on when they tell us not to screw around with nature--if we're a part of nature, surely our behavior in changing the environment is part of nature too, and wouldn't it be arbitrary to favor one part of nature over another? On the other hand, we're the only species that has arguments about this sort of thing, and since we're the only ones capable of applying planning and moral judgment to these issues, that alone separates us.
Do you really need to repeat the same post over and over again? If we got away from two very dangerous ideas--the "insurance should pay for routine care" idea, and the "your employer provides your health insurance" idea, we would be much better off. Combining a health savings account with actual insurance that only pays for expensive contingencies (you know, the original idea of insurance in the first place) would make things more cost-effective as it would simplify the billing process. When you combine this with a government program that provides an HSA and insurance to people who cannot afford it themselves, you have universal health coverage without nationalizing the entire system.
Certain traits are selected for, which we find beautiful. That is not to say that "beauty" itself is the selected trait--in some cases, such as mimicry and camoflauge, it's just a trait that, almost by coincidence, happened to be beautiful to human eyes. I would also say that, while our experience of beauty is neurologically similar to that of animals, our experience of beauty is (as far as we can determine) rather distinct from an animal's experience of beauty. This is true even in cases where the trait was selected to elicit this neurological experience in animals. I still think it is interesting to note that we find owls and monarch butterflies to be beautiful, when their appearance wasn't selected for this purpose at all--owls evolved camoflauge and monarch butterflies evolved their distinctive appearance to dissuade predators from eating them. And, in any case, the fact that they are beautiful to us is what we usually mean when we say that they are beautiful--the fact that they elicit similar neurological reactions in other animals is unsurprising, but beside the point.
Ignoring the fact that some of this is asinine and rhetorical
It's not at all asinine and rhetorical. What makes the Galapagos so special, as opposed to the virgin plains that's converted to farmland, or the untouched oil reserves that are converted to plastic for the case of your computer?
Oh, the Galapagos are unique? Beautiful? Historically significant? Scientifically interesting? My point exactly--those are all ways in which the Galapagos are useful to human well-being, and reasons they are more useful to human well-being the way they are than (for instance) converted to farmland. On the other hand, whatever land was used to grow your food--are you glad it was there, instead of the Galapagos? Or are you just as upset that the vast wheat and corn fields have displaced whatever ecosystems were there before to grow your food, as you would be about destroying the Galapagos?
We can be fairly sure that if one scientist per 10 years sets foot on the Galapagos for a 12 hour survey, the ecosystem will survive. We can also be fairly sure that if we drop atom bombs on the Galapagos to test the bombs, the ecosystem will not survive. It's up to science to answer the question of what the acceptable medium between those two is that balances our continued ability to enjoy the unique beauty and scientific wonder of the Galapagos with the preservation of that beauty--but killing people for coming within one mile of the Galapagos is definitely an overreaction. It's that absurdity I was replying to. And, simply put, the only reason we want the Galapagos to remain the way it is (instead of, for instance, becoming an airbase) is that we like it better the way it is.
You said the Galapagos should be preserved "because there's no good reason to destroy them". Believe it or not, I consider this essentially equivalent to "because we like it better the way it is"--if the Galapagos would be more useful to us in some other form, that would provide a very good reason to transform it! I would certainly believe that the well-being of my fellow humans is "good reason" to mine uranium for power plants, to plant farmland, and to build housing. We've thought of lots of ways to use land, but none of them provide "good reason" to change the Galapagos precisely because the Galapagos is better for us the way it is. (If you meant something different, spell it out for me--"good reason" is a very vague way to put it.)
On the other hand, it's possible to make batshit overreactions, like "no human being is allowed to set foot on the Galapagos ever again". Come on. The Galapagos are a source of beauty and knowledge, and by disallowing human observation of them entirely, you've robbed something of value from the human race, just like destroying the Galapagos would rob something of value from the human race.
And, again, everything I've said here is predicated on, and consistent with, my use of human well-being as a standard of value. Such a standard of value is easily consistent with a type of environmentalism, simply because environmental preservation is in many cases beneficial to human well-being. The Galapagos is one of those cases. Another example--global warming is very much damaging to human well-being. It's possible to have the exact opposite standard of value, and a lot of naive environmentalist arguments seem to be predicated on it--something like the preservation of nature as if untouched by human hands. While I support that in some cases as a means to an end, as an end in itself that would require the extinction of the human race, which I find absurd.
What I'm saying is nothing near "language is reality". I'm just saying beauty is closer to language than it is reality, because it can't exist independent of perception--in other words, "language is language".
"No troubles whatsoever" is impossible. What we are looking to do is minimize our troubles. And there are many reforms we can make to the regulatory system surrounding healthcare to minimize our troubles without ditching the entire system, requiring every doctor to be employed by the government, and throwing doctors in jail for trying to work outside the government monopoly. Socialized medicine is a solution, and it's arguably a better solution than what the US has now, but it's not the best solution.
Not so, because beauty is a human perception. Nature doesn't select for beauty, per se--although the human propensity to preserve cute, furry species is a selective pressure in itself. Other than that recent development, nature selects for appearances that cause a certain behavioral reaction within life. But we are the ones who find these things beautiful. And many of these beautiful things (like monarch butterflies, for instance), were selected to have that appearance to scare the shit out of predators.
When did I ever say the Galapagos should be destroyed? Now you're the one making assumptions. All I said was that it was stupid to, point-blank, prevent ANYONE (even scientists) from setting foot there. I've been rather clear in pointing out that the Galapagos should be preserved because it's more valuable to us as the unique and beautiful ecosystem that it is.
What did you have to eat today? I hope it wasn't anything grown on a farm--vast amounts of land are radically transformed for our use, and according to you, the earth doesn't exist for that. Where do you live? The earth doesn't exist for your house or apartment building to be put there, it's not for our use! And the computer you're using--did it come from outer space, or did someone dig up and process parts of the earth's crust to make it for you?
If it isn't a question of utility, then why say ecosystems are "vital to our very existence and future as a species"? That's a very utilitarian answer.
No, that's not the premise I started with. The premise I started with is that the standard of right and wrong is based upon the well-being of people in general. Allowing no scientific study or other close observation of the Galapagos would thus be wrong, because the human race would be denied the scientific knowledge we can gain from the Galapagos, as well as their beauty. Similarly, allowing me to continue existing serves my well-being, along with the well-being of other people who rather like having me around, while killing me would serve the well-being of no one. Also, if you try to kill me, I just might have to defend myself. That wouldn't be very good for your well-being. And even if you survived and successfully murdered me, you would likely be traumatized by the experience, and possibly held to justice by the legal system. Any more stupid questions?
The interesting thing is, if you look at population growth rates from around the world, wealthier and more advanced countries have lower (and by lower I mean zero or negative) rates. Does this mean that if we develop the entire world to a first-world standard of living, world population will stop growing or go down? Yes, and since we should develop the entire world to that state anyway, it's only more reason to try it and find out. With luck, the world population will diminish in the far future, we may never reach 10 billion, and we might end up in a steady state of oscillation--when resources are so plentiful that we can have tons of kids on the cheap, we will, and then our children won't afford to have as many children. Or, we could find that some currently-impoverished culture is an exception to the "prosperity = low birth rate" theory, and they will take over the world.
Do you have tiny hands or something, though? The control key is right there. And if you can't reach that fair, surely you can be arsed to leave two fingers on the touchpad while your thumb clicks the button?
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It's possible, but I doubt the ancient Greeks had the same kind of backing data that we have to support the big bang hypothesis. It's a curious similarity, and it had occurred to me.
Nothing, except you're the one who jumped into a conversation without knowing the context of what was said.
The ancient Stoics believed the universe was born out of fire, and will return to fire. The reason we don't believe this is because they apparently made this up instead of making observations like we do and applying a scientific method. I'm sure that a future civilization with our data, along with their data, will come closer to an accurate theory so long as (a) our data are accurate, (b) they accept our data as accurate, and (c) their data are also accurate. We would of course be better off with data from before now, but unless ancient Atlantis had radio telescopes and teams of physicists studying cosmology, we're pretty much stuck with what we've got. You're right--we can never be omniscient anyway.
Those issues are rather less important--it's partly a scientific and economic question what really serves human well-being. I happen to believe human beings are better off with a sustainable, bright green post-industrial society combined with preservation of ecosystems, especially the more unique or beautiful ones, that don't need to be altered for human needs. One might argue that reverting to a pre-industrial society would serve human well-being because industrial societies either fail to serve human well-being, or because no industrial society is ecologically sustainable. I just don't see how you can be absolutist about not destroying any "natural" (i.e. non-human) ecosystem or species while actually accepting the principle of human well-being. "There is no human benefit in doing things which harm or threaten other species."? Really? Even the species of bacteria that causes tuberculosis?
Do you honestly think it's "beneficial to people" to abandon industry? Agriculture? Medicine? If so, that's our point of disagreement--an important point of disagreement, but one that I'm not interested in pursuing. On the other hand, if you're interested in ways to build a technological society that's ecologically sustainable and beneficial to humans even in the long run, we have no disagreement at all.
I think it's very much within human interests to preserve much of nature, but also to change certain things to our benefit. But our central choice of guiding values is pretty fundamental, and if you choose something other than the wellbeing of human beings, I'm not quite sure how to fundamentally argue against that. "Minimizing human impact on the environment" as an end in itself is something I can dismiss as absurd, but if someone else puts forth a different value system I would be interested to compare.
It's not a straw man--this entire thread started when I replied to this guy.
Keep at it. Most typing mistakes, if you ignore them and move on, are automatically corrected, so if you just type out whatever word you wanted iPhone does a decent job of guessing.
But here's an interesting question--if documents were discovered from some ancient civilization that had a completely different cosmology, describing that cosmology, would you take those documents at face value? Suppose they contained measurements and recorded observations, as well as a prediction that future observations would differ in a certain way. I'm not sure the far future would believe us, so we would have some convincing to do.
The upside is, the people of the future can believe in a static universe, and insofar as their universe is compatible with that hypothesis, they're no worse off for not knowing the truth. If it turns out that the universe's origin does make a difference to them, there will no doubt be some observations that don't correspond with their static universe hypothesis, forcing them to adopt a hypothesis similar to ours. So by preserving our data and our theory we are indeed providing a possible solution to a future scientific problem.
About the only "worsening" that can happen would be when my thyroid gland is completely destroyed and my only source of thoroxine is the supplements I'm taking. And I'm pretty sure that's already happened by now. In any case, I'm not at all arguing for the status quo--insurance shouldn't cover routine care (so insurers would only drop me, or charge me a higher premium, if I was a higher risk for emergencies), and anyone incapable of buying insurance and an HSA on the open market should be provided them by the government.
The concern is inefficient energy production, then, not overpopulation. Have we got enough uranium, sunlight, wind, and so forth to power everyone? If we add on hydroelectric and tidal plants? Can we develop faster ways of recycling and reclaiming water? These questions are fairly rhetorical--yes, obviously we can't have all 6.7 billion people burning petroleum and coal, but those aren't the only ways.
You already have two hands on the thing already, and before I had the dual-touch touchpad, I usually chorded with the left hand. I guess there are circumstances where an actual second button would be better, but I've never been left wanting for one since I got my MacBook, and I only rarely wanted for one when I had to ctrl-click on my PowerBook (on ill-behaved third-party apps).
No, by my logic, anything that doesn't serve the purpose of human well-being is a waste of space. My continued existence certainly serves my well-being, and there are people who would miss me if I wasn't around. You should try reading this entire discussion to get more context.
Then you probably didn't get to the part where I said "good reason" was a pretty vague criterion that you should have spelled out more if you honestly see things differently.
That's an interesting direction to take that argument, which goes back to the root of this issue. Separating humans from the rest of nature is exactly what certain environmentalists do when they argue that humans should try to minimize their impact on "nature". If we're choosing not to separate humans from the rest of nature, than environmentalists don't have a leg to stand on when they tell us not to screw around with nature--if we're a part of nature, surely our behavior in changing the environment is part of nature too, and wouldn't it be arbitrary to favor one part of nature over another? On the other hand, we're the only species that has arguments about this sort of thing, and since we're the only ones capable of applying planning and moral judgment to these issues, that alone separates us.
Do you really need to repeat the same post over and over again? If we got away from two very dangerous ideas--the "insurance should pay for routine care" idea, and the "your employer provides your health insurance" idea, we would be much better off. Combining a health savings account with actual insurance that only pays for expensive contingencies (you know, the original idea of insurance in the first place) would make things more cost-effective as it would simplify the billing process. When you combine this with a government program that provides an HSA and insurance to people who cannot afford it themselves, you have universal health coverage without nationalizing the entire system.
Certain traits are selected for, which we find beautiful. That is not to say that "beauty" itself is the selected trait--in some cases, such as mimicry and camoflauge, it's just a trait that, almost by coincidence, happened to be beautiful to human eyes. I would also say that, while our experience of beauty is neurologically similar to that of animals, our experience of beauty is (as far as we can determine) rather distinct from an animal's experience of beauty. This is true even in cases where the trait was selected to elicit this neurological experience in animals. I still think it is interesting to note that we find owls and monarch butterflies to be beautiful, when their appearance wasn't selected for this purpose at all--owls evolved camoflauge and monarch butterflies evolved their distinctive appearance to dissuade predators from eating them. And, in any case, the fact that they are beautiful to us is what we usually mean when we say that they are beautiful--the fact that they elicit similar neurological reactions in other animals is unsurprising, but beside the point.
It's not at all asinine and rhetorical. What makes the Galapagos so special, as opposed to the virgin plains that's converted to farmland, or the untouched oil reserves that are converted to plastic for the case of your computer?
Oh, the Galapagos are unique? Beautiful? Historically significant? Scientifically interesting? My point exactly--those are all ways in which the Galapagos are useful to human well-being, and reasons they are more useful to human well-being the way they are than (for instance) converted to farmland. On the other hand, whatever land was used to grow your food--are you glad it was there, instead of the Galapagos? Or are you just as upset that the vast wheat and corn fields have displaced whatever ecosystems were there before to grow your food, as you would be about destroying the Galapagos?
We can be fairly sure that if one scientist per 10 years sets foot on the Galapagos for a 12 hour survey, the ecosystem will survive. We can also be fairly sure that if we drop atom bombs on the Galapagos to test the bombs, the ecosystem will not survive. It's up to science to answer the question of what the acceptable medium between those two is that balances our continued ability to enjoy the unique beauty and scientific wonder of the Galapagos with the preservation of that beauty--but killing people for coming within one mile of the Galapagos is definitely an overreaction. It's that absurdity I was replying to. And, simply put, the only reason we want the Galapagos to remain the way it is (instead of, for instance, becoming an airbase) is that we like it better the way it is.
You said the Galapagos should be preserved "because there's no good reason to destroy them". Believe it or not, I consider this essentially equivalent to "because we like it better the way it is"--if the Galapagos would be more useful to us in some other form, that would provide a very good reason to transform it! I would certainly believe that the well-being of my fellow humans is "good reason" to mine uranium for power plants, to plant farmland, and to build housing. We've thought of lots of ways to use land, but none of them provide "good reason" to change the Galapagos precisely because the Galapagos is better for us the way it is. (If you meant something different, spell it out for me--"good reason" is a very vague way to put it.)
On the other hand, it's possible to make batshit overreactions, like "no human being is allowed to set foot on the Galapagos ever again". Come on. The Galapagos are a source of beauty and knowledge, and by disallowing human observation of them entirely, you've robbed something of value from the human race, just like destroying the Galapagos would rob something of value from the human race.
And, again, everything I've said here is predicated on, and consistent with, my use of human well-being as a standard of value. Such a standard of value is easily consistent with a type of environmentalism, simply because environmental preservation is in many cases beneficial to human well-being. The Galapagos is one of those cases. Another example--global warming is very much damaging to human well-being. It's possible to have the exact opposite standard of value, and a lot of naive environmentalist arguments seem to be predicated on it--something like the preservation of nature as if untouched by human hands. While I support that in some cases as a means to an end, as an end in itself that would require the extinction of the human race, which I find absurd.
What I'm saying is nothing near "language is reality". I'm just saying beauty is closer to language than it is reality, because it can't exist independent of perception--in other words, "language is language".
"No troubles whatsoever" is impossible. What we are looking to do is minimize our troubles. And there are many reforms we can make to the regulatory system surrounding healthcare to minimize our troubles without ditching the entire system, requiring every doctor to be employed by the government, and throwing doctors in jail for trying to work outside the government monopoly. Socialized medicine is a solution, and it's arguably a better solution than what the US has now, but it's not the best solution.
Not so, because beauty is a human perception. Nature doesn't select for beauty, per se--although the human propensity to preserve cute, furry species is a selective pressure in itself. Other than that recent development, nature selects for appearances that cause a certain behavioral reaction within life. But we are the ones who find these things beautiful. And many of these beautiful things (like monarch butterflies, for instance), were selected to have that appearance to scare the shit out of predators.
When did I ever say the Galapagos should be destroyed? Now you're the one making assumptions. All I said was that it was stupid to, point-blank, prevent ANYONE (even scientists) from setting foot there. I've been rather clear in pointing out that the Galapagos should be preserved because it's more valuable to us as the unique and beautiful ecosystem that it is.
What did you have to eat today? I hope it wasn't anything grown on a farm--vast amounts of land are radically transformed for our use, and according to you, the earth doesn't exist for that. Where do you live? The earth doesn't exist for your house or apartment building to be put there, it's not for our use! And the computer you're using--did it come from outer space, or did someone dig up and process parts of the earth's crust to make it for you?
If it isn't a question of utility, then why say ecosystems are "vital to our very existence and future as a species"? That's a very utilitarian answer.
No, that's not the premise I started with. The premise I started with is that the standard of right and wrong is based upon the well-being of people in general. Allowing no scientific study or other close observation of the Galapagos would thus be wrong, because the human race would be denied the scientific knowledge we can gain from the Galapagos, as well as their beauty. Similarly, allowing me to continue existing serves my well-being, along with the well-being of other people who rather like having me around, while killing me would serve the well-being of no one. Also, if you try to kill me, I just might have to defend myself. That wouldn't be very good for your well-being. And even if you survived and successfully murdered me, you would likely be traumatized by the experience, and possibly held to justice by the legal system. Any more stupid questions?
The interesting thing is, if you look at population growth rates from around the world, wealthier and more advanced countries have lower (and by lower I mean zero or negative) rates. Does this mean that if we develop the entire world to a first-world standard of living, world population will stop growing or go down? Yes, and since we should develop the entire world to that state anyway, it's only more reason to try it and find out. With luck, the world population will diminish in the far future, we may never reach 10 billion, and we might end up in a steady state of oscillation--when resources are so plentiful that we can have tons of kids on the cheap, we will, and then our children won't afford to have as many children. Or, we could find that some currently-impoverished culture is an exception to the "prosperity = low birth rate" theory, and they will take over the world.
Do you have tiny hands or something, though? The control key is right there. And if you can't reach that fair, surely you can be arsed to leave two fingers on the touchpad while your thumb clicks the button?