The Adorable Optimism of the IPCC | Hacker News Reader

The Adorable Optimism of the IPCC

rifters.com

38 pointsjxub4 comments

Looks like it was taken down from the front page. Any reason for that?

Edit: looks like it was just because the score, not any shadowbanning. The article can be really abrasive for many and being in denial about the topic of climate change and potential upcoming societal collapse is the easier way.

I still hope that it's not the case with the submission.

Join us over at r/collapse, interesting discussion is happening about this topics there.

I really think scientists should speak up more about the situation. They'll be accused of "alarmism" by right wing media in any case. But they should be much more political and emphatic on necessity of swift action. Because what we've been doing so far isn't working. Emissions aren't being cut. We're still going almost full speed to a very bleak natural future.

In fact I think it's a duty of anyone with a basic scientific education to try and inform about the basic scary consequences (highlighted in this article) and propagate this information to their vicinity. Most people I talk to have no idea of the breadth of consequences. And then the second step is using democracy and voting specifically on candidates that are fighting to address the issue -- not only on national level but whatever level you can get (county,city,state).

Finally if massive change isn't detected in a few years (I'm skeptical) the higher organizations (UN, UNSC, etc.) need to start aggressively punishing emissions on a global level. Something like a mandatory carbon tax on every country seems like a good start.

I wrote this four years ago and I think it still rings true:

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1xjpfg/health_of_ocea...

We're in a double-bind in that the only thing that we can use as a stick to beat defectors over the head with is the same stick that defectors are beaten over the head for having in the first place.

The sad state that I think many longterm observers have arrived at by this point is that the red line in the sand beyond which global biocide could have been prevented came and went, silently unnoticed under the ever-increasing weight of modern existence. That moment could've passed sixty years ago; it could've passed sixty minutes ago. I see no way that we'll ever know for certain and I don't know if it really matters in the end anyway. Life has the bug/feature that makes near-as-to-be-limitless energy toxic to the longevity of our ecology. This is simply a more complex reindeer-on-St.-Matthews-Island situation.[1]

It's probably time to don sackcloth and ashes and pray in something other than humanism: be it God, the innate benevolence of universal laws, the development of sentient machines, the transmigration of consciousness, or some other improbably-probable deus ex machina that allows continuity of sentient existence from this planet to somewhere more enduring.

Because if the last hundred years have suggested anything, it's that any attempt by Human Authority to voluntarily and mercifully achieve Justice will be, and has been, sabotaged by the ruination of Moloch.[2]

---

[1] http://dieoff.org/page80.htm

[2] http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

I don't think we can renounce humanism. I don't think we should, at least. If you've ever seen something beautiful, if you've ever lived with someone really beautiful, in their values, their actions, their character, intelligence, personality, appearance, if you've ever heard truly moving music, I think you'd be betraying yourself by being anything less than a fierce humanist -- all this beauty doesn't belong to the immortal, perennial, indifferent universe, isn't a fruit of the economic system, isn't a product of machines, of the eternal structure of the cosmos, or anything else, even life itself. It lies singularly in the human mind, the beholding eye, and in the presence of other humans to share it.

This demands faith in a certain human ideal -- high above the corruptible idiocy in display in politics -- the basis which produced those indefectible experiences, feelings and ideas most people had a chance of experiencing, or at least had a small glimpse. No matter what happens, one can't lose faith or abandon this defense of the basic human ideal (if only your own humanity) in favor of anything else, or nothing else. It's not about optimism (although optimism can be an important tool in this persistence), it's about maintaining all that is good in the universe (again at least in your own life and loved ones, if it comes to that).

We may go (indeed we will go eventually), but let us go living, and fighting, for what's worth living and fighting for; hollow ones (worshippers of gods or capitals, nihilists and ignoramus) be damned.

Be safe, friend. And Don't you dare go hollow :)

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