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Do you believe that or are you just summarizing their position?

Those guys are missing one crucial insight - values are features of mind, not of matter. And since as far as we know, we're the only conscious, self-aware, sentient beings on this planet, it means values are in our minds. That is, perserving ecosystem is better than destroying it because we like it that way. Yes, in a way, it's all about us. If humans were to go extinct, the Earth would be like a Disneyland with no children to enjoy it. Without purpose.

> i like other bees don't care about the eco-system. i care about the nectar from the flowers so i can go on.

No ecosystem -> no flowers -> no nectar -> no honey bee.

You don't have to give a fig about the ecosystem in itself, as an object, to care about the effects of damaging or destroying it on yourself and the rest of us and our descendants.

I agree with you that we are animals, but even other animals care about the welfare of each other and their descendants. Even squirrels will risk their lives to protect their offspring, and bees will sacrifice their lives in defence of the colony. Fortunately for us, we are able to anticipate and take action to prevent longer term threats to our welfare and that of those we care about. We should do so.

> You don't have to give a fig about the ecosystem in itself, as an object, to care about the effects of damaging or destroying it on yourself and the rest of us and our descendants.

But if the destruction is slow, you do have to care about the other bees.

> We are animals, we should live like them and not worry about anything.

Why does living like animals specifically mean not worrying about anything? Why not "we are animals, we should live like them and not cook food, wear clothes, write novels, perform life-saving surgery..."

Not cook food (raw vegans), wear clothes (nudists), write novels (a few people write), perform life saving surgery (a few people perform surgeries).

All these things are things and realities people consume because they can consume them -- they have the ability to buy these things by performing work.

Dogs like watching television, if wolves could buy tvs they would all buy tvs and eat microwave dinners because it's easy to do that and it's possible... because they could do it, they have technology to do it. They, like your dog, would still be the same animals.

Reality is what we can consume because we can build those things using technology and other animals also use technology to build things but they can't do it to the same extent that we can, we however are still animals.

Which basically means nothing at all.

Yes, we're animals, but we're smarter than the rest of our animal brethren, so why should we not use that smarts to live in whatever way we like? Animals that can fly, fly. Animals that can sing, sing. So let animals that can send machines to other planets send machines to other planets.

> no we are none of those things. we believe we are, but we are actually not

I don't see how you can know this. More justification is required. Saying something doesn't make it true. This sounds a lot like nihilism, so if so, why bother?

By that I am guessing he means that we are different from all the other beings on this planet. That we are "conscious, self-aware, sentient beings". I am totally not conscious of what is going on in my environment right now, and even if I were there isn't much I can do about it more than a few feet from my house. It's like my neighbor is doing this or that to destroy the planet, meh. Self-aware? Nope. I am aware I exist but lots of stuff is going on in my head that I am totally unaware of, why I feel the way I do, I don't know. I am further conditioned by the system not to respond to much of the stimulus with threats of death or imprisonment... much like in nature. Do I feel, yes I feel, but there isn't much to do about how I feel other than work more so I can buy more.

My thesis: people in terms of the amount of agency they have are little more than animals. They gather resources so they can continue to live. They have little agency to do anything about anything. They are conditioned to worry about things that they have no control over. They see this as a sign of intelligence, I don't. For me as a human being worrying about shit the system is doing is above my pay grade... much like other animals on this planet.

Evidently from the article, humans are different from other animals in that we are concerned with concepts like "purpose".

A purpose is a story you tell your self in order to continue to do what all the other animals on the planet do, gather resources so you can go on to tomorrow. If you have many many resources, and most don't, that you no longer need any more resources then you think about other things. And then you might try to do something about those other things, though you still have to put up with other people and their need to gather resources. The economic problem is specifically a problem with other people's need to gather resources. To function in the economic system. You can't do anything about that. You can try to change the game a little bit, but the same game must be played and by more and more people.

This is why leadership can't do much about environmental problems. At the end of the day they must protect and create jobs. The environment is a very small peripheral issue and you can pay little attention to and still get away with it.