> That's your deduction
It's not.
> I really feel humans think they change way more than they do.
In 2025 this is either extremely uninformed or super dumb. Start reading, maybe.
It's not.
> I really feel humans think they change way more than they do.
In 2025 this is either extremely uninformed or super dumb. Start reading, maybe.
I do understand that this is a sensitive subject to some, so I apologize for any distress I seem to have caused.
There are things where the scientific consensus is so big that even if you "disagree" with it (whatever that means), you have to assume that you are wrong until you prove you aren't.
Maybe gravity doesn't exist, maybe we live in the Matrix. But for all intents and purposes, gravity does exist. If you disagree, you're wrong unless you come with evidence that shakes the scientific consensus. I mean evidence, not a mere belief that maybe gravity doesn't exist because you've read it somewhere.
If you don't believe that we humans are the cause of the biodiversity loss and climate change, today, you're wrong. And if you can't recognise that... well join a Flat Earther convention and have fun there, I don't have time for this here.
I read his comment as an admission that nature is currently too wonderful and complicated for us to understand or control, not an assertion that global warming isn’t real or whatever you think he said.
Humans created global warming and mass extinctions and it seems like the best way to stop it is to get more smart and dedicated humans, which aren’t rare but are uncommon. You better start hoping we pop out more people
If humans created global warming, a very likely scenario is that more humans just means more warming. I'd argue that's a saner default assumption.
Mass extinctions are not a human creation. They're natural events, like the plague.
You’re ignoring the energy intensity of GDP and lifestyle intensity per capita, each of which varying within historic ranges flips your outcome across zero. Add to that the largest emitters facing declining populations before immigration and I’m not sure what your point is.
It's not an assumption, it's the only option. Unless you think extreme and nonsensical ideas like population restrictions or voluntary extinction are viable (as in, people will go along with it and it will actually work), people have to come up with a way to stop climate change. The fucking elephants aren't going to do it.
My point with the "mass extinction aren't a human event" comment is that the Earth does not privilege us in the slightest. Exponential growth is not natural. Extinction events are natural.
Entirely agree! I don't want to give the impression I'm assuming we're doomed. I'm not. I'd put true of a true existential threat to humanity at near zero. However, I'd put the probability of a major impact to our current standard of living to be somewhat higher, where my kids and grandkids are forced to live very different lives than my own. Maybe WWIII, maybe just mass migrations, maybe we see a few nukes go off. These are all very possible futures. Far from certain, but also far from impossible.
In the face of this, I'm not discouraged. I think we should do what we can to protect ourselves against such threats, and I think we've been doing a pretty good job! But I also think we should not be entirely surprised when faced with drastic shifts in birthrates and geopolitics. We're no longer in an era where infinite growth seems sustainable, and people and nations are starting to realize this.
If only we were actually trying.
Not at all, but that's the thing: it's very difficult to have a discussion with people who reason like you. Because you can believe something does not make it right. Saying "my sources are different" is just a way to justify your beliefs. "Well, I believe in some people, you believe in others, that makes us equal". That's how people like Trump get elected. He keeps saying everything and its contrary, and people just believe in him. Where all the facts suggest that he is a dangerous (yet charismatic) moron.
The scientific way to approach it is this: "There is a large consensus about X. I don't know much about X, so I could believe Y and Z. I want to get informed, so I need to read and understand X (not Y and Z, not yet). Once I do understand X, I can start to question it by reading about Y and Z". You'll find that usually, after you have some reasonable understanding of this large consensus, Y and Z usually are at least less consistent, usually vague, generally believed by people who don't have much knowledge about X.
I am not saying that you need to have 3 postdocs in X to give an opinion. But you have to make the difference between scientific consensus and beliefs. And if you want to change the scientific consensus, you have to be pretty damn well informed, you can't just repeat Y and Z because you read it on some social network.
Now I get your next answer: I'm just a nobody on the Internet, why would you believe me instead of Trump? But again, I don't need you to trust me. I need you to do your due diligence and read about the scientific consensus before you feel entitled to say "my opinion is worth just as much as yours". And now you say: "and why do you think you're right?". I studied environmental chemistry, and I can tell you that the consensus is goddamn consistent, whereas the climate denier claims are systematically uninformed.
> I really feel humans think they change way more than they do.
Which was a response to me saying that humans make the conditions worse for all species.
It is literally denial of our responsibility in the climate change and current mass extinction. The author of that comment also said: "Let me be clear: the climate IS changing, I just doubt that it's mostly caused, or potentially solved by, human behavior", which is explicit denial. You came to defend that point by saying "Ah, the classic “Anyone smart thinks exactly like I do, so you must be dumb"".
So my answer is explaining to you how I don't think this is the classic "anyone smart thinks exactly like I do so you must be dumb".
Maybe you are not clear with the position you were defending?
Oh, I didn’t see that comment, he made it lower down. I disagree with that. But I wasn’t defending that, I was replying to his original comment, which was completely reasonable