Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> the ONLY reason you can say this crap is simply because people competed ... and be pretentious and ungrateful about what society have achieved so far.

Even though you're grossly exaggerating what I've said in the comment, I'm still going to answer with a rhetorical question:

What good is all that shit if the price for that is the suffering and death of our children and eventual end of our species ?

This is what the article is really about. ...

My perspective comes from the summers spent with my grandparents - in the village where life was as it has been for thousands of years. They produced no garbage, they breathed clean air and drank clean water. Did they suffer ? Yes of course, from time to time, that's how it's always been.

Frankly, with all our advanced technology, knowledge, medicine, I think we are a lot more unhappier as a whole - you said it yourself, "my blood boils" - and for what ?

Anyway, I think you're angry at the wrong person, because I think we can have both magic and sustainability - if we just change our philosophy. We can look at the last 100 years or so as a 'growth spurt' for humanity - we had to break eggs to make an omelet; now it's time to get back into shape.

Use the best of magic and our ability to create new one and integrate it into a sustainable system, which treats nature as an organism and not as 'resources' and we might be able to survive it.



I think you're looking at the world's history with rose-colored glasses. World poverty is at the lowest levels today than it has been in recorded history: https://ourworldindata.org/slides/world-poverty/#/declining-...

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a time in history when life was better than it is today. And if you did find one, it would be so long ago than population levels were a fragment of what they are now.

We can't go back. Get that idea out of your head. The question is how can we steer the ship.


> I think you'd be hard pressed to find a time in history when life was better than it is today.

That's nice and dandy but what good is it if we can only sustain that maybe another 50 years if we're lucky?


I guess if we had foresight we could have prevented the industrial revolution which would had (likely) prevented climate change.

Of course, the industrial revolution was a force of economic pressure, not a decision the world came together and decided on in unity.

So to prevent the industrial revolution would have required a suppression of freedom and property rights unlike has ever existed in history. On a world scale.


It really is too late, I think. There's too much momentum, and too little control. It's like that situation just before the Titanic hit the iceberg.


> The question is how can we steer the ship.

You mean how we can fix the leaks.


Fix the leaks or find another ship (planet).


Now who's got the rose-coloured glasses on?

Thinking that organising a worldwide migration to another planet is going to be a practical option is as absurd as thinking that moving back to a pre-industrial society is.


To be honest, I'm not convinced anyone will try until a mass extinction is underway anyway, in which case you're only migrating your quota of humans for the rocket's load before the volcanic ash density hits 11 (or whatever).

"May you live in interesting times."


> My perspective comes from the summers spent with my grandparents

Seriously, get a grip and stop being self-absorbed. Read history before you long for something you've never actually truly experienced!




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: