Hacker News Reader

Comment by oldcynic | Hacker News Reader

That's OK so long as we can plant more palm oil. </s>

I really wonder at what point we decide we've destroyed enough of the natural world. It looks like we're not going to stop at all. Which is rather depressing.

View on HN

Since about 2003 or so world forest cover has been growing - not decreasing. So the answer is we've already decided.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/glo...

We're still losing vast amounts of ancient tropical rainforest whilst we've started to increase temperate and mostly boreal forest (coniferous).

It's not a fair trade and of no help to the species under threat.

Nothing better than palm oil and legume-fed beef, pork, chicken and fish.

Nutella is also palm oil based.

As long as unchecked capitalism thrives, human nature will ensure the world is destroyed. This is 100% certain.

I wouldn't necessarily say this is 'human nature.'

There were plenty of civilizations whose nature was very intertwined with nature.

Perhaps more appropriate phrasing is western nature; and it was western nature that killed them all off.

Those civilizations did not grow large enough to have such impact. It was not because they were better stewards of nature out of enlightenment.

Human nature is human nature, it can happen anywhere and with anyone. If there is one thing that is uniquely associated with Western dominance though it is capitalism which unleashes the greedy part of human nature, and by competition it tends to outgrow all other ways of life (as we see now), even without the intensely aggressive way in which it proselytizes itself through violence.

The phrase human nature invokes thoughts of an unstoppable, universal force; a truism of homo sapiens. And perhaps if I was brought up within the appropriate environments, and with unparalleled amounts of power potential, I too would, in a matter most unstoppable, embody the nature we are talking about.

But a vast majority of humans are never in such a position. And a vast majority of humans suffer under the oppression of such people. Adaptability under oppression might be human nature - it is, in fact, a widely experienced piece of the larger 'human condition.'

I just do not think that the coercive nature of the few, which becomes enshrined within Western institutions, bring about absolutism to human nature.

Are these natures embodied in Western society? Yes. Are these natures the status quo of the West? Yes. Are these natures within all of us? Maybe.

Are these natures 'Human Nature?' Certainly no. How can they be when they are entirely inhumane?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com