“humans will survive for hundreds millions of years. But I’ll be long gone in like 40 and I’ll have gotten everything I every wanted. So change nothing, and fuck you.”
Homo Sapiens may survive for 10 million years, but I don’t think that is where the smart money is.
2015:
Like other Republicans, Paul would repeal Obamacare, partially privatize Social Security, move Medicare to a " premium support" system for future retirees, and block-grant Medicaid and food stamps. But he’s also proposed budget cuts of 20 percent or more to NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and the EPA — and cuts of 60 percent or more to the National Science Foundation, State Department, and Interior Department, among many others. Plus he’s proposed eliminating the Departments of Energy and Education entirely. “It’s the most detailed expression of what a libertarian approach to budgeting would look like to date,” Matthews writes.
Off to a great start!
I’ll ask that guy, if I ever want to make a country as shit as possible for everyone but the rich.
The rich don’t stay rich without peasants to work for them and buy their shit. If everyone else dies or leaves, the rich are in trouble too.
That’s why they’re so keen on AI
Leaving likely won’t be much of a problem since you won’t have enough money to leave either. Dying on the other hand…
Most people have two feet they can use to move around
“But John Galt says we can make a rich person utopia if we want to!”
Just in case the sarcasm wasn’t clear: objectivism dumb.
Yeah, start terraforming other planets please… but don’t use money to do it, I want the money. I’ll give it to my friends instead, but please go terraform other planets for me.
Other than Mars, I’m curious as to what other planets (plural, his words) he thinks could be terraformed. Venus is too damn hot, mercury is too close to the sun, and the rest are gas giants.
Is he proposing to colonise planets beyond our solar system?
Or they just want to make Space(X) Stations. Make them all free market economies, so they can just vent you to the 'verse when you miss your rent payment.
People are thinking about planets but there are potential habitable satellites or moons in the solar system. One of Jupiter’s moon, Callisto, has surface water and potentially habitable by terraforming.
Yes, but he said planetS and moons
No, see, he gives $1 billion to his friends so that they can put $1m toward terraforming other planets
“Libertarian”: zero mention of the DoD budget.
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DoE is responsible for maintaining american nukes, military is not having it
I love that you don’t even have to specify which department of “E” that is, you need both for that purpose
He wants to terraform planets with no spatial budget? What does he propose, sending a flask of germs with a trébuchet?
He seems more like the catapult type to me
So… he’ll push for a massive NASA budget increase, right?
No, free market will solve it! SpaceX! (/s)
I maintain that we have a battle of world views going on here. In some ways it’s about the myths we believe in. Most environmentalists believe in what I call the Hobbit Paradigm: we live in a beautiful garden, and if we grounded ourselves in relationships with our communities (including nature) we would have a good and sustainable life. Many technocentrists believe in what I call the Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
I do not believe in the Star Trek Paradigm. It’s hubris. I also don’t think it’s a very pragmatic paradigm. We live in a world we evolved to live in. Not worrying about this world because we think terraforming other planets and setting up space bases might be a possibility is not comprehending the Good or risk very well, IMHO.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is. In this case Space Colonisation is just a beard to disguise a callous and usurious relationship to the beings is this world.
That makes the conflict one of story, of myth, which means no one will have their minds changed by facts. They’re belief systems. We need to expose those fundamentally short -sighted or selfish beliefs. We need to tell better stories, and expose the ridiculousness of the other stories.
The issue is once you educate yourself in science and engineering, you realize that teraforming planets isn’t something you just do. And you can’t realistically rely on a technology that doesn’t exist. The real problem here is one of education. The facts and the seriousness of climate change do not support his dumbass argument, and we’ll all be dead by the time everyone comes to an agreement and realizes, oh shit nobody is going to save us from climate change but us.
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Yeah, I won’t knock people trying to leave the earth. I work in space stuff, and I would love nothing more than to see us realize multiplanetary habitation. but I definitely think we need to be good stewards of our planet. We don’t exactly have a plan b. And realistically, we may never have a plan b. Science is hard.
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I was agreeing with you, in case that wasn’t clear. Lol
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I gotta imagine making the Sahara Desert habitable is a lot easier than making Mars habitable. The Sahara at least has breathable atmosphere, a 24 hour day, solar intensity that our plants are well adapted to using, and is relatively close to resupply from population centers on Earth.
And Sahara was a jungle pretty recently.
We can’t keep astronauts aboard the ISS indefinitely, even with constant restocks from Earth, and we’re supposed to go even further out of our orbit to the moon or Mars and they’re going to be fully independent?
And even so, that might be the easiest part of the whole terraforming thing. It only gets worse from there.
The closest thing to a self sustaining thing is that Neom city they’re trying to build. It’s basically an arcology. And it’s already failing.
You can easily be an environmentalist and still believe in the Star Trek paradigm. While we, that is mankind, might have the ingenuity to find technological solutions to most of our problems, we do not have the political or economic systems necessary to actually put these solutions into reality.
Or just that we should start small with the immediate existential threat on the planet that people already are on
also, the ability to do stuff is the ability to make problems. if our societies do not advance at pace with our technology, we will die. see: outside
Yeah, we’re really in need of a Romulan invasion.
I’ve heard this phrased as Wizard vs Prophet
https://grist.org/politics/wizards-and-prophets-face-off-to-save-the-planet/
There’s also a fourth attitude. We live on a planet uniquely suited to the kind of life it gave rise to, such as ourselves. The climate of it before we began pumping tons and tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere was generally tolerable. Sometimes we had great periods like the medieval warm period and sometimes we had natural devastation like the little ice age. We’re in the process of going from bad to worse and if we don’t let up with our emissions soon we’re gonna have to get a lot better at every form of engineering really fucking fast
we’re gonna have to get a lot better at every form of engineering really fucking fast
Unfortunately that’s what we humans are really fucking good at. Nothing quite like a deadline, a sprinkling of procrastination, and a daunting technological existential hurdle to inspire a half-baked, good enough for now solution.
I figured that both sides are eventually going so far to their side they meet halfway. The good ol’ horseshoe theory.
In this case tech would go so far with genetic engineering while resource depletion forces them to go bio-punk and arrives at basically high tech treehouses.
I suppose a third paradigm is cold-blooded, individualist Realpolitik; It’s a dog eat dog world, fuck you, I’m just trying to get mine as hard as everyone else is.
This secret third one is the one that basically everyone has, yeah, it’s pretty depressing.
I dunno, at this point I’m more given to a kind of blade runner, or maybe mad max paradigm, of like. Even if the star trek future is the shit, right, even if they come up with and use terraforming technologies, which we could probably do at least for offsetting carbon emissions if the theoretical short term proposals are anything to go by, we don’t have any real way of understanding what the real knock-on effects of those short term solutions would be. We would probably be just as likely to increase ocean acidification by a couple points in our quest to sequester carbon by dumping a shit ton of iron oxide in the ocean, and then end up killing a bunch of sea life which is connected to everything else. It just becomes a kind of whack a mole style game where you trade one consequence for another at the expense of the environment, and if that ends up happening, I expect pretty quick humanity will attempt to totally shutter off any consequence which might pose a threat to humanity or capitalism, and put them off onto the broader environment instead, and the people who are reliant on those environments to survive. I.E. you get put into a horrible blade runner future, where the survival of humanity isn’t in question, but humanity’s humanity has gone extinct.
Star Trek Paradigm: humans are limitlessly ingenious, technological solutions will save us, and Nature is viewed with an anthropocentric utilitarian ethic.
That’s not Star Trek at all! The United Earth Government already abolished currency and converted to a socialist mode of production before the replicator was invented. More technology doesn’t necessarily help. When 21st century Earth got more technology, they used it to do the Eugenics Wars and WWIII. Replicators haven’t helped the Cardassians, the Ferengi, the Romulans, or the Klingons with solving poverty, pollution, scarcity, or slavery. The reason Earth has solved those problems and its technological peers have not is that Earth is more socially advanced. Humans do not use money. They work to better themselves and their species. Picard’s family makes wine on a vineyard. Sisko’s dad runs a creole restaurant. Earth is the picture of human harmony with both society and with nature. Most humans have never even eaten a dead animal anymore.
Plus, Starfleet exists to explore the infinite diversity of nature and of society out in space. Starfleet is full of biologists who love exploring strange new worlds. The sovereignty of indigenous life is respected, so much so that it is called the Prime Directive.
Politicians are extremely shortsighted. Many cant even see past their own noses
That’s not true, that’s simply what they want you to believe.
They know what they’re doing, they know it’s not in our interest, they play dumb and the uniparty marches on.
They can track down your money by smell, though
True
Hundreds of millions
Even without climate change I doubt that humans would survive more than 1-2k years from now.
The only way humans’ progeny will exist for millions of years is if we manage to make it through the great filter and spread out to other planets, assuming we can find planets suitable for open-environment habitation.
We’re quite good at making more of ourselves than is sustainable, so the only way of keeping ourselves going that long is to spread out.
Of course by then I’m sure several new species of humans will have emerged.
Overpopulation doesn’t usually lead to extinction. Mass die-offs sure, but not extinction.
Human birth rates are already trending towards decline and have reached it in most wealthy nations. Overpopulation is not a concern. What is a much more serious threat is humans living far beyond their means, destroying the environment from inside their unsustainable suburbs. But poor populations live much more sustainably than places like America.
With our advanced weapon technology, and knowing it will only increase, I don’t know if we make it 200-300 more years. Weapons capable of wiping our civilization is probably our great filter.
I just want to point out that there is almost zero scientific evidence to suggest that climate change will cause the extinction of humanity, and substantial evidence to the contrary.
It may make the world a much worse place to live, but the doomers are almost as unscientific as the deniers.
Queue angry buzzing noises.
I mean to be clear I’m fully on board with rapid decarbonization. But when you get the facts wrong in this way, you give fuel for idiots like Ron Paul, and fill people with a paralyzing pessimism that makes change less, and not more likely. There is also research to support this point—climate optimists are more likely to take action rather than doom scrolling on Twitter or whatever.
It’s not ‘for nothing’. So-called “net zero” policies are incredibly costly to implement (not to mention completely unattainable). These policies (that aren’t voted on and pushed by global special interest groups) inflict great harm on the economy and food availability.
Attacking farmers is never the right answer. Imagine attacking your own food supply. How pathetic.
Attacking farmers is never the right answer. Imagine attacking your own food supply. How pathetic.
My country produces enough food for our own population eight-fold. So fuck the 7/8 farmers that are fucking our environment over for a dollar.
Indeed, trickle down environmental improvements will come guided by the invisible hand of the market.
And you’re completely right, food supply should be protected. Maybe programmes to plant wild vegetation such as well suited local produce everywhere instead of bare concrete and wasteland could help, not only food supply but also the environment.
But then that would effect farming profitability, so that of course is too idealistic and not viable… I wish I was as clever as you.
Spending money on public infrastructure is good for the economy. It creates jobs. I’m starting to think you’re just using the economy as a euphemism for billionaire portfolios.
Even if humans don’t go extinct, surely untold masses will die from food shortages and disasters.
Definitely a possible outcome, unfortunately. Though one that can still be strongly mitigated by immediate and serious action.
Which won’t happen.
It can if we do it ourselves. Leaders have failed us for decades. It’s up to ordinary people to bring radical change.
You’re not wrong at all, humans won’t go extinct. The alarming thing is all the other things which will go extinct or be reduced in number, and the change in water/soil/weather sources obviously. Biodiversity and not having your neighbourhood turned into a desert are pretty important things to like, not have life suck. Plus you know, having access to clean water… humans will keep growing in number (mainly in Africa, probably the opposite in the developed world and countries like China and India though), but in 50 years we’ll all be living like wartorn Syrian children*
*I am not a climate scientist, nor do I have much actual knowledge on climate science, so I do not know which precise flavor of impoverished middle eastern we will become
I don’t disagree at all but this seems to be a common misconception. See the OP from the Twitter thread and the angry bees I’ve enraged.
I think it speaks to how little nuance people are willing to tolerate before they throw a person in the “on my side” or “not on my side” category. And it speaks to how little people actually know about the science behind the activism they’re apparently a part of.
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Are you a parody account or just a total moron?
Lol what? Happy to discuss if you want to say something of substance rather than insults.
We already took people like you seriously. We had the debates, we looked at the evidence, we waited to see. We did it for a hundred years. And what did we get? More oil, more death, more crop failure, more disasters. Enough is enough!
Apparently you haven’t looked at the evidence or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Science is settled, there is no debate to be had here. I am not aware of any research that points to human extinction as a possibility, let alone anything likely. But you’re the one who pushed back and I can’t prove a negative. So if you don’t wish to provide evidence or discuss then keep your ignorance to yourself.
And I’m not sure what you mean by “people like me”. People willing to share the state of climate science in spite of backlash from the uneducated and emotionally unstable? I wish such people were taken more seriously, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The climate change itself isn’t the danger to our species, it’s the nuclear-armed states that will feel increasing pressure for areas with water or other resources they need, who miscalculate relative advantage in stressful scenarios.
*cue
What about what he said implies he thinks human-caused climate change isn’t possible on Earth? He just thinks it won’t kill us.
People are more than isolated tweets. He’s a man who’s made hundreds of public statements on climate change in the past, only one of which is contained in this tweet.
Then why does he think we need to create habitats on the moon or other planets? Just stay here if we can last for hundreds of millions of years. The Lord will provide, right?
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To be fair… if we did manage to develop terraform-level atmospheric processing, we could set the CO2 level on Earth to whatever we want. Maybe that’s what he was trying to say?
That’s not true. That’s like saying “If we had refrigerators, we could keep food good forever”. As you know, food in the fridge can still go bad, because no technology is perfect. I think that terraforming technology will be an extension of techniques we can use on earth today, like controlling emissions. And that saving earth from apocalypse is the best possible practice we could have for fixing other planets. There is no magic “fix everything” button. Even with the right technology, you still have to do the work. Today, we have the right technology to save Earth, and what determines the continued survival of the human species is whether it is capable of doing the work.
If you start with the assumptions that Earth is regulated by YHWH by divine intervention and that all other planets are gifted to humanity by the same to do with as we will, this absurd belief follows naturally.
The reality is that Republicans cannot determine any difference between surviving and thriving.
“Surviving” is one thing. Why can’t we also continue to enjoy life like you guys got to do? You wouldn’t have been able to last a day in the world you left for us. Which is why as it got closer and closer to affecting you too, you just pushed harder and harder to keep it away from you, doing more and more damage for the rest of us to feel instead.
There are more scenarios in which humanity will run itself in to the ground, we could survive for another while but I’m definitely not certain.
Does this guy even understand what Energy is mostly about? What does he want to happen to all of this country’s nuclear infrastructure?
