Only if those chances are noticed an ingested into the crew's SA... and then acted upon appropriately. It's all kinds of problems stacking up one upon the other. At the base is usually a profound lack of SA... for whatever reasons go into THAT problem. I mean, most people have at least a self-preservation instinct. Most people do stupid things all the time. Not because "they've got thar rights", but simply because they are unaware that they are acting in opposition to their own self-interests.
Challenger Truckee
- Thread starter Boris Badenov
- Start date
Only if those chances are noticed an ingested into the crew's SA... and then acted upon appropriately. It's all kinds of problems stacking up one upon the other. At the base is usually a profound lack of SA... for whatever reasons go into THAT problem. I mean, most people have at least a self-preservation instinct. Most people do stupid things all the time. Not because "they've got thar rights", but simply because they are unaware that they are acting in opposition to their own self-interests.
knot4u
Repeat Offender
Lots of words that say an almost infinite amount of nothing of any possible utility. Do you write Kamalas speeches?
No to your question.
Still, I do remain very doubtful about the survival of humanity.
Humans have become too stupid to live.
And the worst part is... They don't even know it.
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
Implying we were ever smarter than we are now? That’s ridiculous.
Not at all. We have unlimited, very seldom reified potential. Some of us are very clever. Diminishingly few of us are very wise. We just that we keep "solving" problems by creating three new problems. We fetishise "tools" we can sell for profit, while largely forgetting (intentionally or ignorantly) the job we are here to do.
That's never fine, but it is dandy when population is low, resources are seemingly unlimited, and our tools and products are not highly destructive and dangerous. That is NOT survivable when conditions are different.
I've always laughed at "Save the Earth" t-shirts/bumper stickers. The proper t-shirt should be "Save the Humans"; The earth will be just fine and gives not one whit about humans.
"Sustainability" is another laughable term of sales these days (btw, do you notice how marketing/propaganda and stupidity are stealing our language?) We should not be worrying about "disruptive" technological solutions to create "sustainability"; We should be buckling down and creating solutions to allow at least some of us (and our accumulated knowledge) to SURVIVE the coming calamity(ies).
knot4u
Repeat Offender
Humans are the worst thing that's happened to Earth in a very long time. Living completely off grid somewhere gets more and more attractive as I age. The planet we live on doesn't belong to us, it was here before us and it will be here long after we're extinct. Trying to control anything regarding the climate other than destroying the part that we like is a fools errand. This planet, we call it earth but even that seems presumptive, has been floating around a fireball of unimaginable potential energy for millions of years. To assume it belongs to us is arrogant. In the grand scheme of scheme of things each of us is barely a spark on a diseased planet when viewed from afar.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Life is the only thing which matters. Hold that call from The Fifth Element's Producers over copyright infringement, but rationally considered, this weird insistence that there's something else to which to hold allegiance is bizarre and maladaptive.
Rocks, ice, matter, all inorganic substances...they're not "beautiful" or "good" without sentience. They're literally (used correctly) meaningless. Life produces meaning. Human life produces the most meaning, AFAICT. Consequently, human life is the most beautiful and good thing. So to hell with the Earth, if indeed we are somehow in some kind of tension with it (as though it were sentient, which, spoiler, it isn't).
Now, if we're talking about how to *treat* the Earth (or the environment more generally) in order to *sustain* Life, then we're a lot more liable to find common ground.
knot4u
Repeat Offender
That assumes that humans consider the earth as an ally and it will rally in complete harmony, the earth don't give a F about us. It doesn't belong to us anymore than it belonged to the dinosaurs. The sun wants to kill you at every opportunity and somehow we worship it, you can't even look at it without being blinded. The third planet from the sun stares at the sun all day, everyday and says go F itself. Trying to control this rowdy piece of rock is so far beyond our capabilities that watching people spend their lives trying to tell people how to live is comical.
Boris Badenov
Fortis Leader
Oh ye of little faith. That said, others share your sentiments (I'm not one of them, but they're not fools, either).
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epBbuk7x1sI
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
I appreciate this.
I find the current levels of misanthropy and DOOOOOOM (tm) concerning.
What a doomsday point of view you have. The sun is what makes life on this planet possible. It fuels photosynthesis so that plants can grow and create oxygen in the atmosphere. The sun (and our distance from it) provides the right temperature for life to form. Our circadian rhythm evolved to function with the rise and setting of the sun. Sure, the sun can be harmful. But to tout it as something that only wants to destroy us, blind us, is a bit misleading. Show me a modem human being that worships the sun lol.
You're right that the earth isn't ours. We are probably the only species on earth that doesn't live in harmony with nature, that takes and destroys to suit our needs. But the reality is that, minus a mass extinction event, humans aren't going anywhere. Thinking the earth isn't ours could cause us to feel like it's not our responsibility to care for the earth. If we could begin think of ourselves as stewards of the earth, we may take more responsibility and ownership for our impact on this planet. Thinking of the earth as ours, in that context, might not be a bad thing.
What calamities? I believe that we have the engenuity, science and technology to overcome almost any calamity that may come. Population overgrowth is certainly a major problem, especially in the third world.
While a lot of the sustainability marketing is BS, there's plenty of small ways in which we each can make an impact.
Let's take clean energy, for example. New nuclear fission reactor designs that cannot melt down are coming online in this decade. Much more efficient with less fuel. These commercial designs will be built around the world. The uranium pellets that are coated in a special material do not require cooling after removed from the plant.
Even with regards to fossil fuels, new plant designs capture and reuse almost all carbon produced by the plant.
In the next two decades, commercial nuclear fusion should be a reality. 100% clean energy without the use of radioactive material.
By the end of this decade, Toyota expects to have an electric, solid state battery that can go over 600 miles and recharge in 15 minutes. Solid state batteries don't carry the fire risk of lithium ion batteries. Once this solid state battery is reliable over long distances, electric cars will be feasible to the masses. The distance limitations and charging times are what kept most people from considering an electric car.
All of that is just on the energy front. In terms of reducing future emissions, and having sustainable clean energy, I think we are closer than ever to being there.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
The sun is already half life. We’ll be looooong dead, but it would be interesting to see Earth as the sun starts to die. Yikes!
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
Much more the issue will be the popular will to do so, rather than the tech.
Also, if you think the electric car is some sort of magical environmental salvation, you don't know what the actual problems of transportation are as regards the automobile.
Which ones??
All the calamities that originate in small mistakes or ignorances that snowball.
Small mistakes that -unnoticed, unaddressed, and unmitigated - go on to become bigger mistakes. Then those bigger mistakes - un-admitted, unexamined and uncorrected - go on to become calamities. For better or worse, the USA is still the greatest - at least in terms of sheer power, if no longer moral/philosophical leadership - nation on earth. Still... we've been riding on our mythical laurels for quite some time now. We have become lazy. We have become dull. We have become self-satisfied and self-deluded. We have grown uninformed. We have allowed ourselves to become misinformed. All of this makes us extrememly dangerous.
We have grown fatuously enthralled with "disruption" as a solution while blithely ignoring even the question of what the problem was we were out to solve. LOL. We have become deluded with savior fantasies around our technological prowess - a prowesss that is growing ever more weak and applied ever more self-servingly. Even if our technology could save us -which in some cases is true- it won't until utilizing technology for good becomes more profitable than using it to sell more ads for more ridiculous consumer-products (damned near all of which will come wrapped in multiple layers of plastic).
We have suffered over a half a century of proudly checking out. Proudly getting rich, not paying taxes and forgetting that we all live in community. We have become a nation that glorifies idiots who fly a private jet from, say, a luxury house on a beach in Michigan, to drink an umbrella drink in a ticki bar near a beach (not on a beach mind you - that's too sandy, too windy, and too filled with sand fleas) in Florida... or Tahiti, because drinking the same drink far away is somehow a more fulfilling experience, or at least a more invidiously distinguishing one.
We have suffered half a century of the exaltation of self and privatization over -and to the exclusion of- a sense of community. A half a century of the degradation of the free press. Almost 3/4 a century of ever growing hatred of public education consequent with the diminution and disparagement thereof.
There are much cheaper ways to defeat freedom and democracy than using guns and bombs and tanks. The easiest way is to dumb down voters so, thereafter, you can cow them into defeating themselves. How do you do that? Label the free press as "the enemy of the people." Eliminate public education. Create a public with no common sense of themsevles as a people and no real knowledge of their own history. Create an average public that actively and aggressively pursues distraction, ignorance and insanity.
Little things lead to big things. This underlays the Swiss cheese approach to understanding airline calamities. This approach also applies to understanding most other man-made calamities.
If you don't know what calamites are currently -right now- essentially unavoidable givens, blame that on the same culture/tax-free-magical-thinking-shrine/education that leads folks to engenius spellings of "ingenuity." That's one of those small mistakes or ignorances.
True, but to save the Humans, Time also matters. (Even when it comes to the 5th Element, I'm an assiconoclast....Must have a little Antisthenes blood in my line.) There's also a reasonable non-zero probability that the rate of atmospheric change caused by human brilliance could lead to a loss of the atmosphere entirely. Like Mars. But, perchance, there is some form of life on Mars that enough time and pressure will bring to some unforeseeable fruition. That's all it takes, really. Pressure and time.
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I guess we have a different definition of "calamity." I am using the word as defined in the dictionary:
1
: a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering
calamities ofnature
2
: a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss
Definition of CALAMITY
a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering; a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
As for the rest of the things you mentioned, various societal ills or woes, there's some truth to some of what you say. But you sound as dogmatic as the far-right crowd I think you are referencing in some of your comments. Not everything you claim in your purposely vague post is incontrovertible. There are other points of view and some would disagree with you. You don't seem open to considering others' opinions, and because you are so vague in your description of calamities, it's impossible to address any of them with a meaningful response. All that to say, there is no point in responding to your supposed calamities. You also seem bitter about life. Your glass is half-full. I hope you are able to find some fulfillment in your life.
knot4u
Repeat Offender
Is this your first interaction with @form810 ?I guess we have a different definition of "calamity." I am using the word as defined in the dictionary:
1
: a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering
calamities ofnature
2
: a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss
Definition of CALAMITY
a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering; a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss… See the full definition
As for the rest of the things you mentioned, various societal ills or woes, there's some truth to some of what you say. But you sound as dogmatic as the far-right crowd I think you are referencing in some of your comments. Not everything you claim in your purposely vague post is incontrovertible. There are other points of view and some would disagree with you. You don't seem open to considering others' opinions, and because you are so vague in your description of calamities, it's impossible to address any of them with a meaningful response. All that to say, there is no point in responding to your supposed calamities. You also seem bitter about life. Your glass is half-full. I hope you are able to find some fulfillment in your life.
He chooses his words carefully. I'll engage occasionally but I like banging my head against the wall everyone once in a while because it feels so good when the pain stops.
How do you perceive my understanding of the word "calamity" to differ with yours or those of your "abridged" MW online...I guess we have a different definition of "calamity." I am using the word as defined in the dictionary:
1
: a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering
calamities ofnature
2
: a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss
Definition of CALAMITY
a disastrous event marked by great loss and lasting distress and suffering; a state of deep distress or misery caused by major misfortune or loss… See the full definition
As for the rest of the things you mentioned, various societal ills or woes, there's some truth to some of what you say. But you sound as dogmatic as the far-right crowd I think you are referencing in some of your comments. Not everything you claim in your purposely vague post is incontrovertible. There are other points of view and some would disagree with you. You don't seem open to considering others' opinions, and because you are so vague in your description of calamities, it's impossible to address any of them with a meaningful response. All that to say, there is no point in responding to your supposed calamities. You also seem bitter about life. Your glass is half-full. I hope you are able to find some fulfillment in your life.
Also (irrelevant in this particular case and/or question) there is THIS to consider when considering a "dictionary"...
The American Heritage Dictionary was launched in 1969, with the goal of restoring lexicographical standards that many felt had been recklessly abandoned when Merriam-Webster published Webster’s Third Unabridged, in 1961. Webster3 did away with usage labels like “colloquial,” “incorrect,” and “humorous.” It lopped 250,000 entries out of its predecessor to make room for 100,000 new words (“unabridged,” eh?). And it was “descriptive,” promising only to inform people about how words are used. If folks said “irregardless,” then “irregardless” was a word worthy of inclusion.
Dictionaries are a lot like biblical translations. They're NOT all the same or of the same quality. Most depend on who is the current Emperor of Rome or King of England, or soon-to-be King of America.
Or just... who has the best consumer marketing department and doesn't really care about words except to use them to gain higher sales.
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Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
With that attitude, everything you do, your ancestors did, and your children will do is absolutely without meaning. Your might as well be a shepherd living in a cave.