Comment by mkotowski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mkotowski | Hacker News Reader

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> "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

> YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

> "So we can believe the big ones?"

> YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

(Death about belief and humanity, from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett)

> Until human society stops serving abstractions […]

Without abstraction, there is no human society to speak of. No government to organize large scale actions, no incentive to share ideas, no way to exchange goods from places where there is overabundance to the places in need of those resources. Wanting to maintain a livable environment, too is nothing but an abstract thought.

I would dare to claim that human society exists first and foremost thanks to our brains being able to abstract away some processes. Of course, it creates blind spots and shortcoming in the process, but they are in the end an acceptable cost.

> As a believer in the concept of memetics, it is clear that standing in defense of the real is a battle that is being lost, but the consequences will not be escaped forever.

Is it? Seems to me that more and more people are starting to be more proactive in attempts at preserving the nature. Too late? Maybe. Time will show.

>Without abstraction, there is no human society to speak of

I'm appalled that such a quote could be used to support such an argument. Grandparent, and Pratchett's Death, agree that humans and human society are supposed to support humans. Grandparent maintains, quite correctly, that our current society is, in fact, tooled to support abstract concepts like "valuation" and "wealth creation" instead of things like clean nutritive food and safe affordable shelter and supportable realistic hope -- and the biosphere itself that serves as backdrop, stage, and audience all in one.

Whether unintentionally or otherwise, the parent is missing the point. The grandparent doesn't argue against abstraction itself, but the reification of corporations as people, the conflation of the stock market as barometer of the economy, and enablers of all this in ostensibly benevolent governments.

If one chose the read the rest of the fucking book, one would see that it's all about fighting against those who would use human frailties -- like greed, and desperation, and the smallness of our own perspective -- to trick humans into destroying that which makes life worth living. Of course, it's all couched in the supernatural trappings of the Discworld, but as Prachett points out in several Discworld book intros, the Disc is a "world and mirror of worlds". On Earth, the antagonistic Auditors have names and addresses...

> humans and human society are supposed to support humans

And it is the same thing I am talking about. Abstraction is humans’ way to streamline the process of maintaining the society. Money was created as an abstraction of a reward for one’s labor. Then atop of it more abstractions were built. Existence of stocks and markets is orthogonal to how to maintain a livable environment. In other case communism would do a better job at not starving people to death.

> Grandparent maintains, quite correctly, that our current society is, in fact, tooled to support abstract concepts like "valuation" and "wealth creation" instead of things like clean nutritive food and safe affordable shelter and supportable realistic hope

Give me an example of a society/culture, that cared more about the environment than the ones currently existing. Former societies/cultures were much smaller in scope and headcount to care about such things. Deforestation was a thing during the time of ancient Romans[0], the idea that a species can go extinct (at lest in European-centric culture) started to take roots during 19th century[1]. According to the Wikipedia, Thomas Jefferson was against a notion that species can go extinct (my point is: it wasn’t simply some fringe group’s dogma). Compare this with The South Sea Bubble[2], which was in 18th century.

In short, my argument is: the abstract ideas like “valuation” and “wealth creation” were there well before any coherent idea about taking care of the environment as a finite and common resource was widely accepted.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction#History_of_scientif... [2]: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/South...

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