Comment by heresie-dabord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heresie-dabord | Hacker News Reader

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This is at best an incomplete, complacent position to take.

Homo plasticus has polluted the atmosphere and oceans, exploited topsoil and groundwater to the point of long-term destruction, and made polymers part of the global food supply. [1,2,4]

> Used to be if you survived to reproduce, you were doing pretty good.

Used to be.

And if you were lucky, you lived in a stable democracy instead of any one of the variants of violent dictatorship.

Fertility levels are in steep decline. Today's children will grow to adulthood in a world abused to the point of global disaster. [3]

Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced.

= = =

[1]_ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-a-first-micropl... , https://www.theseacleaners.org/news/microplastics-in-human-b...

[2]_ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2023/06/16/humans-...

[3]_ https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230327-how-pollution-is...

[4]_ https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462

> Things have changed for the worse in ways that our species has never before faced.

This question of "facing things" is what bothers me. Sure, science and technology is difficult and has awful side effects. Progress is a complex vector, and it isn't easy to have 'purpose' (telos) see where we should be going.

But what I see here every day is very intelligent, witty, well read people ... using their intelligence against themselves. The extraordinary intellectual acrobatics of denial and apologetics just makes me weep. And so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument.

>so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument.

Fear of the unknown is an impetus for herd mentality.

Hopefully your comment ceases to be gray…

Just been thinking about your remark about "gray". Like am I really so dull? Wow! I just realised that people who use some regular browsers see down-voted comments as kinda faded out. That's really sinister but also quite funny and in character with the dystopian creed.

How about adding random characters and line noise to unpopular comments, or replacing odd words to make them seem more deranged and subtract credibility? That wo ld g1ve the "hacker-like" #eel 00f marg1nal comments ^e$inG aT th33 3nd of s0me %$(k3d Up dd^H^H^Hddddistant dddddial-up modem w$)th iiiine noize insert hippopotamus hatstands sleep furiously

Can you hear me?

> And so many who just down-vote challenging questions but lack the patience and courage to form an argument

this is a lame attempt to flatter our intelligence but then criticize for not engaging on what are essentially marketing platforms where the stakes are usually zero, and there is no way to demonstrably prove that we're not shills, morons, or GPT bots.

You owe yourself more self-respect. You're probably in the 0.1% of people who could make a difference.

thank you for the kind words, but i am definitely a shill, moron, and/or AI bot.

sorry, denial/apologetics of what? could you expand on this a bit? thanks!

> Fertility levels are in steep decline.

and IVF works. (yes, it's a bit more risky than the Nike method - just do it, yes, it's expensive, but having kids is a lot more expensive usually.)

the linked BBC article seems to contradict its title ("For the majority of men with fertility problems, the cause remains unexplained")

also, mixing up ability and willingness to have kids is just fucking revolting. of course a lot of people are don't have kids, because bad journalism takes away people's joy. well, also this little thing called ladder pulling, and the usual coordination problems (NIMBYs, etc)

Why is the average height in the US getting taller every year? Shouldn't it be shrinking if each generation is allegedly less healthy?

This assumes height is universal proxy for health. Marfan Syndrome will make you taller, but it doesn't mean you're more healthy.

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