Is humanity headed for self destruction?

I will quote Professor Spidergoat on that.

 

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it seems to work more like:
success ( new knowledge) ==>negative application ==> evolve back to positive in application.

There are many examples of positive ideas remaining initially positive in application but time will tell.. for example:
The discovery of Penicillin was applied immediately saving millions however the wisdom lacking means that bacteria evolve to become antibiotic immune. So whilst the discovery of antibiotic treatments has a relatively short term benefit (100 years of successful treatment for example) it's long term future may actually mean the destruction of humanity as we know it due to super bugs evolving. ( hence the lack of wisdom issue)

The bottom line is that man has a lot of difficulty having the power of a "God" ~ re: God Complex: Exile from the Garden of Eden metaphor. We as a race crave influence over and ability to control our situation. Typically this craving for the illusion of power (knowledge) is not matched with the capacity to manage it once it is achieved.

No doubt hard experience is a great teacher eh?

But I wonder sometimes if the tough lessons are able to be survived or not...and whether mankind can evolve in to a place where the real power ( trust - wisdom - empathy ) is most dominant rather than fear and knowledge.

Managing our fear of the unknown is at the heart of it IMO This fear drives the craving for "knowing" so we can placate our fear.

 

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If it were not for the fast actions of Tepco (?) in dealing with this we would all be sucking on Iodine tablets daily. * if the necessary quantities of Iodine were available which they are not.
Like I wrote the earth quakes location and magnitude could have been right under the plant and there is nothing to prevent the magnitude from being many orders larger.
(wonders what a mag 11 quake would be like and how many power plants in Japan would be destroyed as a consequence)
Using incredibly toxic materials for energy production to support an unsustainable population lacks wisdom.
We as a race have been lucky so far... but time will tell...
The only reason this planet has over 7 billion people living on it is because of artificial means (knowledge in application) being available to support them.
Every one of those artificial man made "things" has a potential down side some of which have been exposed some of which haven't. ( example: Anthro climate change)
Thus most, if not all, of our problems as a race are self created...and acknowledging this maybe the first step towards a more wise position.

 

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Oh yes. Life itself will most definitely find a way. But on top of that, I think human life will too.

You're asking if humanity is on a path of self-destruction, and then positing the scenario of it's own self-destruction. I don't buy the whole self-destruction thesis. By sudden I mean anything that would off us in a say a decade. Sudden climate change. Viruses. Gamma ray burst? (yes..it's real!.http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090403-gamma-ray-extinction.html) But given the 3.5 billion history of life so far here, I'd say our chances are pretty good. Barring ofcourse events we haven't even imagined yet.

 

?? They shut down the HPI system on reactor 1 and caused the (early) meltdown of that reactor. They refused to heed the calls of their engineers to harden their support structures against tsunamis. As a result, three reactors melted down. How are they heroes in this? They were, at best, marginally competent.

Right. So what worse thing could have happened, beyond three reactors melting down and a fourth losing fuel containment? I suppose all six could have melted down, but that would have resulted in a 50% worse accident, not something that would have contaminate the US (or even a large part of Japan.)

People imagine that the reactors could have blown up like nuclear bombs, with the fallout somehow launched directly to the US. Not really realistic. BWR's can't go prompt critical, which is required for a nuclear detonation. Besides, there WERE two nuclear bombs detonated over Japan - and several a lot closer to us - and somehow we survived without "sucking on Iodine tablets daily."

 

Maybe we need to define the term "melt down" properly.
Also understanding what a SCRAM event is and what it is designed to prevent might be helpful in building a better picture.

And also consider that we do not even today know what has and is happening at this site and maybe wont for at least 30-40 years ( estimates) . Chernobyl is still hot and will be for years to come and so will Fukushima.

From what I have read:
At the time the tsunami hit the buildings all reactors were off line. 3 were in SCRAM others were in storage mode.
I also believe that during the evacuation process immediately after the tsunami hit at least one person decided to stay behind to facilitate cooling system management to prevent further disaster.
Even now they do not know exactly what has happened to all reactors. Some estimates suggest major (70% melt down) in reactor 1 an relatively minor melt down in 2 others and so on.

I know you can't handle the ability to speculate adequately so I wont push the point I was making, however as far as this thread is concerned the sheer lacking in wisdom in using such "toxic to life" materials to support an unsustainable and growing energy demand is terribly lacking. IMO

We are presuming we know what we don't know about nuclear materials and their effects on living tissue. ( over hundreds of years perhaps. ) For all we know we may have already signed our collective racial death sentence to be carried out 100 years from now... ( if we survive that long ) by using these materials. There is absolutely no way of knowing what the ultimate long term cost/effect of this use of nuclear energy will be.

So wisdom would suggest simply not to use it and maybe learn to manage the global energy greed/growth factor better. IMO

Do you have anything to say about mankind's self destructive tendencies?
I think the current anthro climate change assessments speak volumes about our lacking the wisdom to use what we know properly.

 

We have a pretty good idea, since we have actually dropped atomic bombs on people (a much, much worse exposure to nuclear materials than anything we've seen at Fukushima.) And we've been exposing people to high levels of radiation for well over a hundred years. And we know that even nuclear reactor waste stays pretty stable over billions of years - and that people can live near old reactors and never know.

Or use alternatives like solar.

One of the reasons I support nuclear power is not that it is safe (it isn't) but that it is much less deadly than its primary alternative - coal. Less pollution, fewer deaths, less nuclear waste. And we will need baseline power plants for decades to come. Given that, nuclear is a better option overall than coal.

We have a lot of self destructive tendencies (these manifest themselves primarily in war) but nuclear power is not an example of that. Indeed, given all the effort that we have put into making nuclear power safer over the years, it is an indication that we are willing to work hard to NOT destroy ourselves.

 

yet who would a thought that building the first petrol driven motor car, and developing other Carbon based industries was going to lead to where it has? ( re: global climate change)
the same logic applies for nuclear materials...
it is not what we know,
it is not what we know that we don't know,
it is not knowing what we don't know that is the important bit.

Another example:
You know most modern passenger vehicles are equipped with a huge amount of "plastic interiors" all of which get very hot in the sun. In fact we are surrounded by plastics. It doesn't take much imagination to see that at some time in the future we may have to realize that those plastic interiors of cars etc come with a hidden cost to our health. One that we would not normally wish to pay.

 

In which case we paralyse ourselves with fear of possible consequences, but consequences that we can't know when we make the decision. And thus we never make any decisions whatsoever.

So we adapt.
When unforseen consequences arise we adapt as best we can. Only when we become unable to adapt quickly enough to the changing environment do we risk extinction/destruction - otherwise we adapt, we survive, we go on, like all good viruses do.

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Agreed. So what is the best solution?

-Learn nothing, lest we learn something dangerous
-Learn as much as we can, so we can learn how to mitigate the problems we inevitably cause

That may be true. What is the best solution?

-End the use of cars
-Replace the plastic with asbestos
-Research the effects of VOC's on people and change the formulation if necessary

 

No not at all... that is just ego paranoia kicking in.

but why play with fire if you don't really need to in the first place.
eg.
We have always known that nuclear materials are terribly toxic but we still decided to make use of them for short term benefit potentially sacrificing the long term.
Climate change is also a really good example of how industrialization done with out wisdom can lead to planet wide destruction.

Better to manage the "grow or perish" problem mankind seems to be dealing with and reduce our use of toxic materials to support an unsustainable population.

And fully accept that we are always blinded by our own egos.
We simply "do not know what we may yet come to know"

My personal motto/rule/tome/ethos:
"The day I realized that I AM always blind was the first day I could see"

 

Sort of reminds me of the Rotary Organizations 4 rule policy.

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings:
Of the things we think, say or do

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

src
And I would add possibly a fifth test.
5. Will all the above stand the test of time

In some forums there has been discussion that concludes with the prediction that for humanity to survive the next 50 years or so there needs to be

• a dramatic reduction in population numbers. (up to 70%)**
• a dramatic change in the way we respect our power to influence our environment and others.
• a dramatic change in fore sight to include long term projections well beyond a couple of generations ( beyond the grave)
• a greater requirement to clean up the mess we create with our endeavors ( ie. nuclear waste, rubbish, heavy metal contamination etc...)

If you can't clean up don't mess up
or if you can't fix it, don't break it ( espec. re: genetics)

Basically learn to play with fire in a way that prevents getting burnt by unforeseen contingencies

** the population reduction can be realized by humans managing their procreation better. So that in less than 2 generations we may get close to that reduction.

 

But we do need it.

Yes. Will you withhold treatment from a cancer patient because the radioisotopes they use in treatment are toxic? Will you shut down the power to a family in the dead of winter to achieve the goal of shutting down nuclear power plants? Or will you open more coal power plants, thus adding even more nuclear materials to the air you breathe and the water you drink?

Are the above actions FAIR to all concerned? Will those actions build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS? Will those actions be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

There are no easy answers.

That is always true. So we do the best we can with what we have.

 

How so? It is the logical conclusion of your thinking that we should be concerned about the "unknown unknowns" (to use Rumsfeld's phrase) of any undertaking.
Well, the thing about "unknown unknowns" is, unsurprisingly, that we don't know what they are. Thus to require their resolution or even simply their consideration upfront is effectively to paralyse any development.

You mean why didn't we just stick with the agrarian culture of our Neolithic ancestors? When resources were plentiful, population meagre, and chances of our species surviving a natural catastrophe were limited.

Risks v reward. You make it seem as though no one is considering the dangers of nuclear materials, that their adoption is done with ignorance of their dangers. Yes, there may be dangers we don't yet know about... But you simply can not prepare for things you don't yet know about, other than learning to become generically adaptable. And humans are rather good at adapting.

You speak from the platform of hindsight, which is no moral ground whatsoever upon which to base an argument of "well, I knew we shouldn't have started this!"

Sure, we could, as you have stated has been suggested on other forums, reduce the population by 70% or so... But what of the "unknown unknowns" of such an action? Perhaps that will result in humanity never having the manpower to break free from the shackles of our own planet, and thus we end up waiting to be destroyed by cataclysmic natural events. So we exchange one type of destruction with another.
I'm not saying it will happen, or that it won't. Such is an unknown unknown.

As is the impact of the method of population reduction... You honestly think that in 2 generations you could bring the population down to 70% without some mass cull? When people are living longer and longer?
To achieve a population of c.2 to 2.5 billion in that time scale (2 generation, 60 years) you would basically need to stop all births during that time, other than the level required to sustain a population of 2 billion, which actually means it takes far longer to reach the level.
So problem 1: telling the current population that most of them won't be allowed to procreate. At all. Ever.
Problem 2: simple economics... That as the population declines through lower birth rate, you have an incredible burden on the youth to support the vast proportion of the population that are older... Which will be a significant burden until such time as the population stabilises at the desired level. Even now, in countries that have an increasingly aged population, there is a struggle to support... Hence retirement age goes up, taxes on those working go up etc. in the proposed scenarios of rapid population reduction there would need to be a paradigm shift in world economics.
And how many "unknown unknowns" are there within just these 2 problems... surely enough to warrant your argument (of not doing things until they are considered) dismissing them.

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Anyhoo, there is a whole can of ethical issues in all this that would best be served in another forum.

So, as another has stated, we plan for what we do know and try to be flexible and adapt when something we couldn't predict arises.

 

You seem to be missing the context of my post which was to suggest the wisdom suggested by Dr Suzuki re: genetics modification.

Until you have a "solution" do not start a "problem"
If you can't stop it then don't start it..
If you can't restore the DNA of something then don't modify it.
If you can't stop an accidental nuclear reaction then don't create an environment that may allow one to start.

A straightforward wisdom so often not applied that leads towards sustainability.

 

So if you think hybridizing crops might result in monocultures, don't hybridize crops.
If the wheel can be used for war, then don't develop it.
If fire can burn down a forest, then don't use it.
If rats can live in sewers and spread plague, then don't build sewers. Use the street.

That's the sort of world you want to live in?

So don't eat any modern crops?

Question here - do you eat modern crops?

Well, no. It leads to no civilization, and a life of poverty and misery for the people of the world.

 

there is not enough money in the insurers bank account to cover the cost of what happens when GM crops go wrong...and there is certainly no way they can restore naturally evolved genetic integrity.

No it leads to sustainable civilization, just a pity they didn't exercise the wisdom earlier before it was too late (re anthro climate change)

The problem is Billvon, you have great difficulty accepting that mankind has f*cked up big time... and now you wish to absolve responsibility by saying it was all we could do, and walk away from it all.

Problem is ... there is no where to walk to

 

billvon,
If you could start afresh on another pristine planet just like Earth (was) how would you do things differently? ( or would you just go on repeating the same mistakes)

 

To allow us to eat and avoid starvation.

You crash into something. Does that mean you think we should never have developed the wheel?

Right. Does that mean you think we should never have used fire?

Hmm, that wasn't what I asked. I asked if you ate modern crops. Do you?

No. It leads to NO civilization. Without fire, wheels, tools, roads, farming, hybrids, irrigation etc we would have no civilization. Civilization means complex societies with cities, and without things like farming there is no complex society with cities.

Not sure where you get that. We've fucked up over and over. A good solution to that is to not fuck up as much. A bad solution to that would be "so let's never do anything again lest we fuck up again."

 

only because of over population, greed for new experiences and other wise being unhappy with what you have.

No , it means it would be wise to learn how to control your invention before you apply it.
There is no point in building an automobile with out brakes because although you may arrive at your destination you will probably kill yourself getting there.

Learning to manage your own ingenuity is always hard...

actually I try to eat naturally evolved food where I can. Wild wheat , wild rice, for example, are exquisite foods but hard to get.

learning to manage your ingenuity would allow civilization to not only be sustainable but prosperous as well... certainly not like we have to day

Some lessons life throws our way can be learned from and survived some can't....