• FictionalCrow@yiffit.net
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    19
    ·
    8 months ago

    While funny. This has always been a rather retarded take. Semantics. I for one value a biosphere capable of supporting humans > “the people”

    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.worldOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Nah, I take solace in knowing that if we destroy ourselves or collapse all civilization with our own self-destructive nature, life will go on and Earth will renew. We’re fuck ups to be sure, but even we can’t fuck up enough to completely sterilize the planet.

      Maybe everything in all existence isn’t about us. Honestly I hope not.

      • Daxtron2@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        The runaway greenhouse effect causing a collapse of the biosphere would take out more than just humanity. It’s already killed a huge number of species and it’s not going to slow down as it gets worse.

          • Daxtron2@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            While they’re better suited to hostile environments, they too are affected by global temperature increases. Their metabolic rates increase significantly in higher temperatures, causing them to need more food and more O2, both of which will be significantly reduced in a runaway greenhouse scenario.

            • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.worldOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              That said, the Earth’s biome is more than capable of self-repair. Even we lack the capacity to sterilize every crevice of the Earth, life overall is too hearty for that, there’s innumerable species thriving where our technology barely lets us see that relies on geothermal vents more than solar radiation to keep entropic decay at bay.

              Earth will rebuild when the dust settles, as it has done many times, even from one other time that we know of aside from ourselves when a costly, destructive mistake of evolution caused a mass extinction, the Devonian period, where trees captured too much carbon because the efficient means of their decomposition hadn’t evolved yet, causing the opposite of what we’re doing leading to an ice age.

              We have already summarily executed swaths of entire ecosystems of species to build strip malls, parking lots, and oil refineries. And we’ve effectively ended many species we lock in cages for our amusement, wholly dependant on us breeding them having destroyed their natural habitats. Those species are ghosts, dead already, living trophies.

              Long term, the species we take with us in our seeming dedication to self-annihilation will be a small price for the Earth to either be rid of us or more likelihood diminish us back to warring tribes having to subsist in a far less hospitable era of the world than the one we crawled out of and played pretend that we owned and could bend to our will. Most species that have ever lived came and went long before we arrived. Long periods of abundant life thriving in interconnected, interdependent ecosystems is whats important. Maybe it will one day birth something as remarkable, noble, sapient, and intelligent and we told ourselves we were one day, who knows? As long as theres life, there’s hope.

              Am I supposed to feel bad for the bully in this story?

              • Daxtron2@startrek.website
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                8 months ago

                It’s capable of self repair up to a certain point. A fully fledged runaway greenhouse effect is well past that point. The atmosphere would begin to be actively hostile to carbon/water based life. I mean just look at Venus, it experienced a similar runaway greenhouse effect and while we don’t know if it ever supported life, it certainly never will now.

                • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.worldOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  I give Earth more credit than that. The Asteroid that killed the dinosaurs cut the earth off from photosynthetic solar radiation for 15 years and filled our atmosphere with toxic dust and ash, life suffered greatly, but it was nowhere close to the end for Earth life. There’s literally bacteria that makes it’s habitat in pools of acid. Humans are a weak, fragile species defended only by our ability to discern and invent the tools to do so, but Earth life in general is Amazingly robust, it grows in just about any crevice you show it. I just recently saw a story about worms that have adapted to shrug off the radiation of Chernobyl. Have you seen what a fucking tardigrade can be exposed to without dying?

                  Even our mother will eventually die, most likely from changes in our sun’s life cycle, and the universe will eventually suffer heat death, but our species will take itself out in fairly short order. Just smart enough to be dangerous to itself, and too stupid to know better.

                  • Daxtron2@startrek.website
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    arrow-down
                    2
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    Nothing can survive sulphuric acid rain and 500° air temperatures. The 15 years of darkness don’t even come remotely close to the level of changes a runaway greenhouse effect would bring.

      • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Normally I’d totally agree with you but the more I see how badly we’ve fucked everything (google AMOC and water temps) the more I worry about runaway effects that continue far after we’ve been deleted entirely from the ecosystem (and most of the ecosystem to boot) - there’s only so much CO2 you can pump into a system before warming becomes rapidly self sustaining - see Venus.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          As far as we know, the problem with Venus is that it never developed a cycle of aerobic and anaerobic life forms. Even if we pump the atmosphere full of CO2, some photosyntethising life forms will still remain.

    • PhreakyByNature@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      I don’t think it’s “prioritise humans over the planet” but more “we should be able to look after one another as a base level of being human. If we can’t figure that out how the hell can we focus on bigger things like the planet”. Not saying what we should and shouldn’t do but just throwing shade at our ability.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 months ago

        For example, we’re quickly making the planet too hot for some people to live where their homes are. We should find ways to stop heating up the planet to help them!

      • FictionalCrow@yiffit.net
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        8 months ago

        Honestly at this point I’d accept eco fascism. Arguing about “taking care of each other” while life support is failing and we enter triage levels of failure is inane

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          the problem there is it requires a power base to enforce - and all the power bases seemed determined to drive off the cliff (some are tapping the brakes but the rest are full throttle and rolling coal for lulz) at one speed or another - and a military industrial complex large enough to be strategically effective would be (like the US army) one of the largest polluters in the world.

          I want something to change, I just don’t see ecofascism ( a really bad term btw ) as a possible avenue.

          Victor Von Doom levels of resources/soverign agency might be able to. I think us humans are going to be a sad end note in some other species’ extraterrestrial archeology, after so many of them run into our radio and other emissions.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Carlin’s gist was that the planet will be fine, it’s everything else - so we better get our shit together soon.

      IIRC this was in the 90s. Not a literal take.

    • jaemo@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      Yeah. I mean good luck taking care of anyone including yourself in the dystopian hellscape wrought be late stage capitalism. It’s funny to be sure, but it’s part of an act. Taking care of each other requires an environment that isn’t toxic and bereft of food.

      • lud@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        Since “general learning disability” and “Intellectual disability” is no longer called “retardation” does it matter?

        I doubt anyone that says “retard” (or any variation) are actually referring in any way to ID and more to its original meaning of slow or stupid. I personally see no problem with calling people stupid (if warranted obviously).

        You obviously shouldn’t call people with ID “retards” though. But imo that’s something entirely different.

        • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          The vast majority of people pushing for this word not to be used are people without intellectual disability. I think an argument could be made that these people are being ableist by deciding what is offensive to people with ID for them.

          I have never heard the word used to refer to someone with ID in my life, and I would imagine if someone ever did, they would be immediately rebuked or scolded by others around them.

          Retard and retarded also have a legitimate definition and use in math, that has nothing to do with intellectual disabilities.

          • lud@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Retard and retarded also have a legitimate definition and use in math, that has nothing to do with intellectual disabilities.

            Fun fact: At least some airbus planes audibly tell pilots to retard when landing. It’s saying that the pilots should retard or pullback the throttle.

            What it sounds like: https://youtu.be/vmbzKsqKQoI?t=26s

            An explanation why: https://youtu.be/C2YjX-_g9k8

        • Nudding@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          I wonder if they get as offended when people use other outdated medical terms like idiot and imbecile.

          • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            8 months ago

            I’m hoping Cretin makes a comeback, it’s got a certain feel I just think should be applied more often.

            FAS baby could be used for offensive reasons but I also think it’s a pretty accurate description of tons of folks in the public sphere who very much aren’t helping our society writ large.

            I’m probably going to hell for this post. I’m not a good person.

            • Nudding@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              8 months ago

              Yeah that’s dark lol. Don’t worry about it, I’d say you could count on one hand the number of truly good people who’ve ever existed.

                  • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    8 months ago

                    dude, right? we got lucky there; I was amazed to learn that he was a lifelong christian and preacher, and never let that cloud his message of kindness and humility he presented publicly. very christ-like, unlike so many christians.