As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Humanity Industry Humanism Humanitarianism and the Incurrence of a Cruelty Debt
BranniganSepp
Swiss Burrito EnthusiastPSN: ExMaloBonumRegistered User regular
Swiss Burrito EnthusiastPSN: ExMaloBonumRegistered User regular
Historical and Projected Global Population Growth from 5000 B.C.E up to 2025
Humans, as a species, enjoy explosive population growth since the dawn of industry. Thanks to humanism, we put our species before all others. Between industry and humanism, we were and are able to overcome our natural limitations and grow at a striking rate to this day, and prosper at that.
As a rule of tumb, life is cruel. Through humanism and industry, humanity has kind of suspended much of that cruelty for its own kind, and deferred it onto other species. We prosper, while they die, or serve us in bondage. Humanitarianism pro-actively combats the cruelty of life, and tries to prevent hardship from striking down the most unfortunate of us. On the surface, it's the predominant moral belief.
I put to you this question. Between Industry and Humanism and Humanitarianism - did and does Humanity incur a Cruelty of Life debt, and eventually, will future generations have to settle that debt to restore balance to our species?
BranniganSepp on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
No need to shout. I'll do it for you. Just hold still for a second. *snip*
There. Done. It didn't even hurt. Much.
...Midichlorians.
but they're listening to every word I say
Hop in my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale, and it's been converted to run entirely on brow-sweat.
What happens when our growth as a species bumps at our industrially and scientifically and socially expanded limitations again? When we can no longer suspend the cruelty of life for our own kind anymore, simply because there's not enough to go around? Terms like "Water Scarcity" come to mind.
Will you make sweet potable water where there is none anymore, or not enough to sustain the unfortunate souls living there? For billions and billions of people? At the cost of your own wealth and health and well-being? Probably even at the cost of your own future? Sustaining the unsustainable is like putting a gun to your own head and pulling the trigger. All for your Humanity?
There's already countless millions in need of potable water, and I don't lift a finger. Water availability is one of many bricks in the house of cards we're living in, that's crumbling under the mounting pressure of our evergrowing numbers. The question is not if our current paradigms will collapse, but rather how we will replace them when they do.
The majority of the "crises" that exist in the world today have more to do with lack of human foresight and perceived economic incentive than the supposed "inability" of the planet to sustain human life.
No.
T I M E P A R A D O X
Steam ID - VeldrinD | SS Post | Wishlist
Come on out, lurkers
You'll be fine
Trust me
Just because it's theoretically possible, even today, doesn't mean that nobody is dying from a lack of potable water, even today. It's millions, if not billions of people who suffer and even die from a lack of potable water right the fuck now. Just because there is a theoretical solution doesn't mean that it's an actual solution. And that's by no means what I'm asking.
Just to remind you, this is what I am asking...
If we do or do not survive is not the question. I'm asking if Humanism and Humanitarianism are sustainable concepts for us as a species or not, and what it means for us if these beliefs fail. As a species we only embrace these ideas on a surface level to begin with, since as you say, nobody needs to suffer and die from a lack of potable water, yet countless people still do. It's not like the peoples of Earth rally to solve this problem indiscriminately and absolutely, on a global scale, no matter the effort.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Chewbacca will do literally anything to avoid spending time with his awful family
Further supporting this and Speed Racer, his awful family clearly sets the forbidden interspecies love precedent
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
It's most likely a post-hoc rationalization made after human beings made the transition from pack predators to sentient beings.
there are certainly societies which place more value on living as a part of nature than something above it
The vast majority of those societies live in natural environments that represent millennia of shaping by human action. North America in 1491, for example, was an ecosystem sculpted by human beings through extensive forest clearing (swidden agriculture), elimination of other dangerous predators, and long-scale domestication using both row crops and seeding favorable grasses and trees.
The entire North American continent was just as much a human-created garden as the English Isles. The terrascaping was even more intense in South America.
Our balance with nature admittedly sucks. But we as a species have always maintained that balance by cultivating the world to our needs.
will we have our nocs at the crossroads
or will it end up with us against us, after the bombs drop, all of us wishing with our terrible smelling last breaths that we HAD those warm fur coats
and we're all going around hissing and kicking at each other and trying to trap rabbits so we can crack their little heads, just like all the Lennies used to do that we used to PROTECT THEM FROM?
i mean, who's gonna survive that shit?
even so, that kind of shaping of nature was more harmonious than modern behavior where we just dump shit in the ocean and fuck it
I suppose humanism can contribute somewhat in that some religious thought advocates harmony with god's creation, but there's as much that say humans are god's most special creation and he gave the earth for us to use
There's a good deal of debate about whether it was more harmonious or just less technologically advanced. Swidden agriculture, for example, is actually some nasty shit even in areas where the forests need the occasional fire to thrive. Native Americans frequently had to pick up and move because they had despoiled a region.
I don't think the answer to our current predicament is in the past. We're seriously due for a new Axial Age.
I've long since become one with the dank nugs. Kinda like Obelix and the Gaul's magic potion. However, I do not actively partake in the nug at this time, though just like Obelix, I do crave its magic still. Why do you ask?
Are you serious?
It's because the OP is a chain of concepts seemingly arbitrarily strung together followed by an assertion that there will be some return to balance.
It's extremely unclear. No one is even sure what you are really talking about.
That's why the thread is a pile of jokes instead of a real discussion.
What is this thread about? Environmental exploitation destroying the environment? Animal exploitation? Some idea of the folly of charity? The hubris of man? Karma? Gaia? Whether the dichotomy of a balance even applies? Timecube?
Who the fuck knows?
but they're listening to every word I say
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Lizards can't live in cheese