MrDarwin

You're quite right: it's entirely subjective. Life will survive, whether humans screw up the earth or not--just as life survived the Permian and K/T extinctions. The question is what kind of life will survive. These events drastically altered the history of life, and there can be little doubt that human influence on the planet will likewise drastically alter the future history of life.

From an entirely selfish (and subjective) perspective, the real question is, will we alter the earth in such a way that it will become inhospitable to our own species? I firmly believe that a large part of the success of our species has depended on our rapid and profligate diversion of the earth's natural resources to our own use at a rate that is not sustainable in the long run. Unfortunately, as a species we have trouble seeing past the span of one or two human generations, whereas geological, climatological, and biological events unfold on the scale of hundreds or thousands of years.

vixstile

Last I checked, there was only ONE KIND of life:Organic Carbon based

MrDarwin

So... do you actually have anything to add to the discussion?

SmashingIdols

I do.

The question is if we were actually were capable of voluntary elimination of 5/6 of the earths population, would the remainder be able to survive it emotionally?

There was a book about this, in which some "new messiah" type got each country to vote on whether there would be a voluntary and completely random reduction to 1/3 its current size.

The idea was the majority voted for it because they liked the idea. It was to be very simple. 6 billion pills would be manufactured, every 2 out of 3 being cyanide (or somesuch concoction). The pills would be mixed together, and then everybody would be forced to dose.

The protagonists (from my point of view in this story) were fighting this from happening saying that the human species would not be able to survive the event - mass depression and suicide.

I don't remember the name of the book (I have read thousands of them, sorry bout that).

Jamie_L

Like George Carlin said (paraphrasing):

Save the planet? Friends, the planet will be just fine. The Earth will shirk us off like a bad case of fleas. Of course, that's just the earth. Pack your s*&t, 'cause we're outa here.

He then goes on to say maybe the earth wants cars and smog and plastic filling it's landfills. Maybe that's our whole reason for existing. You want the meaning of life. Well here it is: plastic!

Jamie

SmashingIdols

For that matter, out there in the Oort cloud the next Instrument of Mass Extinction may have already been perturbed by our 27my pass through the center plane of the galaxy.

We could be a bit overdue for some celestial fireworks that will make the question of our over-breeding a purely hypothetical exercise.

I think we need to focus more on colonizing other planets - otherwise, even uder the most optimal circumstances, it's only a matter of time...

vixstile

I think everybody can agree that effecting the environment in a way that is detrimental to humans is a bad thing. What im concerned with is people that saying that ANY human impact on environment is a bad thing. Many of the more aggressive environmentalist seem to be under the delusion that the non-human ecosystems possess some kind of intrinsic dignity or value that we have an objective obligation to preserve.

Objectively speaking, non-human environments do NOT have any dignity or value. Non human environments are in NO way superior to human environment. Human environments are in NO way superior to non-human environments.

Subjectively speaking, non-human environments DO have dignity and value. Non-human environments ARE inferior to human environments. Human environments ARE superior to non-human environments.

MrDarwin

Thank you for expanding a bit on your ideas. I happen to count myself as one who thinks that natural ecosystems--those untouched (or at least unmanaged) by man--do indeed have intrinsic value, for a variety of reasons, but it goes further than that.

Please define "non-human environments". Please define "superior" and "inferior".

Healthy, relatively intact ecosystems--the ones you label "inferior"--are essential to our survival, because we benefit directly or indirectly from them. For example, virtually all of the oxygen in the air we breathe is produced by plants--and not by cultivated plants. We benefit from the oxygen produced by relatively intact ecosystems, like the open ocean and rain forests. We also benefit from these ecosystems acting as a carbon dioxide "sink" to soak up the greenhouse gases we produce. We also depend on these ecosystems--rivers, lakes, and oceans--to act as our sewer systems. We benefit from marshlands to absorb floodwaters without destroying human settlements. We also benefit from these largely unmanaged ecosystems to produce food for us (e.g., relatively few of the fish we eat come from managed fisheries--many still come from natural, unmanaged sources.)

The greater the human influence on these ecosystems, the less able they will be to give us these benefits. (For example, many of the ocean's natural fish stocks are collapsing, due largely to overfishing but also to environmental degradation.) And, most importantly, the more humans there are, the more pressure we put on these ecosystems to work for us.

Synaesthesia

Those who want to destroy humanity are perfectly free to kill themselves or not procreate. Indeed, good luck to them in their goals, their success will not be mourned.

Regards,
Synaesthesia
"In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. " -Douglas Adams

vixstile

*A human environment is: an environment that humans build, design or alter for the benefit of humans

*A non-human environment is: an environment that is untouched or unaffected by humans

When i subjectively refer to human environments as being "superior"(i probably could have come up with better terminology), i mean more important, more valuable to humans.

Non-human environments only value is in the value humans place on the non-human environments. Of course non-human environments are important for oxygen, water, other crucial resources, as well as aesthetic value. But only because we value these things. Not because some objective law has declared these thing valuable.

So let me restate a proposition from my initial post:Why not(given the right knowledge and technology)alter, redesign and/or exploit non-human environments to best suit the needs of humanity?

I would also like you to go into the "verity of reason" of why you think nature has some kind of intrinsic value. Under my own naturalistic thinking, that would be false