Why should the world not unite? Your arguments

Beforenowtocome wrote:I get it Mr perfect! We can't compare. You are so perfect in your unhypocritical ways.

No...I don’t think that you do get it.

I’m saying that if I wanted to be I could be an angry, defensive jerk and the world will still be okay. If I wish, I can call you names, criticize people, and not use my turn signal. I am allowed, if I so choose, to claim superiority.

I can choose to do these things and not be a hypocrite.

Why?

Because unlike you, I’m not the one claiming that the world is doomed if the so called 50% of the people that are jerks don’t start treating others nicer. I don’t believe in your 50% nonsense. You are the one promoting the idea that we all just need to be nicer to each other, not me.

“The world is doomed if the 50% that are jerks are not nicer,” you say.

Then you proceed to behave like a jerk. You are dooming the planet according to your own theory. You are the problem according to you.

Anyway, again...I’m not claiming superiority or perfection. But, you are more than welcome to continue beating that drum if it makes you feel better.

Candid wrote:Wow. You're really angry about something. Want to tell us what that is?

Beforenowtocome,
You come "charging" into this forum, angry about the concept of forgiveness, which is understandable for someone who has suffered through some grievous incident or incidences or living within a horrible situation and not yet finding escape.

Are you feeling better by lashing out at those who engage with you here?

Beforenowtocome wrote:A good person that does good for people , they don't gloat over their accomplishments . . . They are more respectful than that.

And so, with your own words, can you see that there may be good in this world of which you are quite unaware? That this world may be full of goodness, one just needs to open their own heart to let it in?

Candid wrote:Where I take umbrage is with people who make a big deal about conserving resources while breeding themselves. It's quite hard for me to resist pointing out the faulty maths behind that.

I think this is a point where we differ...to a greater or lesser extent. I’m not sure by how much exactly.

Call me a math skeptic.

It seems to me that in each generation you have any number of people put forth some math and claim the world will end in X amount of time because of cause Y.

They can’t all be right. And thus far none of them have been correct. Yet every generation we repeat the cycle. Every generation people decry, “this time we are correct. We are not ignorant like our ancestors!”

Every single prediction of global doom, of which over the generations there have been thousands, has been wrong. Every single time the math has failed.

I’m not a “math denier” but I am a math skeptic.

And I think math is on my side from a global doom perspective. Sure, some day someone (or a group of someones) will get it right. Some person will win the math lottery as our time on earth comes to an end. Out of the thousands of predictions of doom a person will finally be correct.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:I’m saying that if I wanted to be I could be an angry, defensive jerk and the world will still be okay. If I wish, I can call you names, criticize people, and not use my turn signal. I am allowed, if I so choose, to claim superiority.

Which I must believe you have or do. Because you show your superiority complex often. For what I have gathered through our discussions is that you don't care much about the things you argue about or really anything for that matter. Just argue. That is what I have been trying to say to you. Is that with your mindset stuck, you can never be better. you are just you.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:I can choose to do these things and not be a hypocrite.

Why?

Because unlike you, I’m not the one claiming that the world is doomed if the so called 50% of the people that are jerks don’t start treating others nicer. I don’t believe in your 50% nonsense. You are the one promoting the idea that we all just need to be nicer to each other, not me.

What? All that just to say you don't care. All I am trying to get through you massive brain and thick donkey skull is that you don't care.

All I have ever tried to explain in our conversations is that you claim you are great but I am saying you can be better. You challenge me with your experiences and claim that its what makes a person better. So as long as you see the world prosper and not be doomed you don't consider yourself as a hypocrite.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:The world is doomed if the 50% that are jerks are not nicer,” you say.

Duh!

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:Then you proceed to behave like a jerk. You are dooming the planet according to your own theory. You are the problem according to you.

Golden rule in effect. You attack a person on these posts and I'm the jerk. You accuse me of being a failure to life but you are not a jerk. You say children in Africa have been dying since you were a child and still the same is happening. You don't care? or are you now a hypocrite and do care?

Beforenowtocome wrote: You accuse me of being a failure to life but you are not a jerk.

I did not state that I am never a jerk.

Point to where I accused you of being a failure in life. Go on. Quote where I said you are a failure.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:It seems to me that in each generation you have any number of people put forth some math and claim the world will end in X amount of time because of cause Y.

I definitely wouldn't attempt that, being no mathematician, but even I can see that if two well-intentioned and very-green people become 4, then 11, then 32, and so on, they've done infinitely more environmental damage than two childless people who can't be bothered separating rubbish from recyclable, who eat meat and each run a car. That's the kind of basic math I mean, with no prediction attached.

Some person will win the math lottery as our time on earth comes to an end. Out of the thousands of predictions of doom a person will finally be correct.

I daresay it will become more obvious nearer the time, when Harrison Brown's disturbing vision comes to pass.

The population will increase until the earth is
covered completely and to a considerable depth
with a writhing mass of human beings, much as a
dead cow is covered with a pulsating mass of maggots
Harrison Brown, 1917–1986

All busily making more, of course -- because hey, it ain't over yet!

quietvoice wrote:You come "charging" into this forum, angry about the concept of forgiveness, which is understandable for someone who has suffered through some grievous incident or incidences or living within a horrible situation and not yet finding escape.

Are you feeling better by lashing out at those who engage with you here?

This is the "charging" into the forum as you claim.

First post...As you can clearly see from the responses of others. Unity is a joke. Can't even get through a discussion without hating on each other. This is the world...HATE

And we are here now. I have good things that happen all the time, not just to me but for my friends and family also. Life is good. so don't F with it! There is no reason to try and make this planet we all live on easier or better, just leave as is.

That is why unity will never work. Because there are those that would like things to be better and those that think that everything is just fine. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. So let's just wait for it to break. Good thinking people. That is the life we have all been living. Time to grow up.

quietvoice wrote:A good person that does good for people , they don't gloat over their accomplishments . . . They are more respectful than that.

And so, with your own words, can you see that there may be good in this world of which you are quite unaware? That this world may be full of goodness, one just needs to open their own heart to let it in?[/quote]

Oh I am well aware of the good that happens out there and extremely appreciative for it. Even Richard elaborates on his accomplishments. And Candid also promotes how Richard is liked so much. That is all so positive in just this topic. So I must believe good is out there.

Then why so much opposition if we all want good?

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:

Beforenowtocome wrote: You accuse me of being a failure to life but you are not a jerk.

I did not state that I am never a jerk.

Point to where I accused you of being a failure in life. Go on. Quote where I said you are a failure.

Simply put, I haven't traveled 30+ countries, failure. You boast about your accomplishments, I do not boast, failure. You accuse me hypocrisy, but you never. Failure.

I don't know what you see but I'm guessing Candid loves it!

Beforenowtocome wrote:Why would anyone on this peaceful website have to be put on the defensive to begin with.

It's often a very turbulent site, but on this particular thread you are the only person being defensive. The rest of us are having a reasoned discussion, with no need for name-calling.

If a person says people need to be nicer to one another, but now that same person, strangely gets attacked about how I haven't accomplished this or I'm not good enough of that.

Each post on a thread has a number. Show us where you've been "attacked" in any way. As has already been pointed out to you, you told us we should all be nicer to each other then immediately led with the insults. No one has called you a failure. No one has said you've accomplished nothing. Even if you'd been here for years, we wouldn't presume to know what you have and haven't accomplished.

I can only assume that you believe helpful here is by bullying.

No one has bullied you, Beforenowtocome.

I think if you stick around you'll look back at this thread one day and realise you 'read' things that simply aren't here.

Beforenowtocome wrote: Simply put, I haven't traveled 30+ countries, failure. You boast about your accomplishments, I do not boast, failure. You accuse me hypocrisy, but you never. Failure.

So then...simply put...I have never accused you of being a failure. Simply put, you can’t demonstrate a single instance in this thread where I have stated you are a failure.

You are the one that has decided that you are a failure, just because of things that another person has done or accomplished.

Stop calling yourself a failure. It isn’t healthy.

Beforenowtocome wrote:First post..

I meant your very first post on this website, Doomed history.

What is the purpose of your being here (at this forum)? Are you here to help others, or to get help for yourself, or to troll around looking to stir up peoples' reactions?

Candid wrote:I definitely wouldn't attempt that, being no mathematician, but even I can see that if two well-intentioned and very-green people become 4, then 11, then 32, and so on, they've done infinitely more environmental damage than two childless people who can't be bothered separating rubbish from recyclable, who eat meat and each run a car. That's the kind of basic math I mean, with no prediction attached.

I agree and I enjoy the cow/maggots analogy.

Here is a thought experiment. It is billions of years ago and the earth begins to warm. The warmer temperatures helps an algae begin to rapidly grow, 4, then 11, then 32 and so on. The lake is covered, oxygen depleted, a few hundred species go extinct.

How dare that algae! How dare those maggots! How dare humanity!

Again, I recognize you are more an observer than a moral warrior, but we both have a vision of some ideal for humanity. We both have some angst or dissonance, however minor, that differentiates us from maggots or algae.

If we want to embrace nihilism and believe this moral angst means nothing...okay. But, I don’t see it that way. I’m not a nihilist.

I know that you do not believe we will ever colonize another planet. I think the math suggests otherwise. My best guess is that maybe an epidemic sets us back, but humanity survives.

Homo sapiens have been around for about 200,000 years. We developed language roughly 50,000 years ago.

Like I said I’m a math skeptic. I don’t see humanity going extinct in the next 200 years. And within 200 years there are a lot of positive things that will happen, including starting a colony on another planet.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:Here is a thought experiment. It is billions of years ago and the earth begins to warm. The warmer temperatures helps an algae begin to rapidly grow, 4, then 11, then 32 and so on. The lake is covered, oxygen depleted, a few hundred species go extinct.

It would be one hell of an alga to put any species (apart from other algae) in jeopardy!

I know that you do not believe we will ever colonize another planet.

I think it's theoretically possible, just extremely unlikely. We'd have to find one close enough to be reached, where a) conditions could support human life and b) the existing life there would not immediately kill the handful of intrepid spacemen who made landfall, or had gone extinct.

I don’t see humanity going extinct in the next 200 years. And within 200 years there are a lot of positive things that will happen, including starting a colony on another planet.

Again with the colony on another planet!!! So far we've only observed dead ones surrounded by toxic gases. Evolutionary theory says any planet that can support life will have life. So maybe in the reachable universe there are two or three planets surrounded by something we can breathe. We then need to find one on which the inhabitants have gone extinct, or attempt to blast them off the face of the planet without making it uninhabitable for ourselves, and we'll be outnumbered before we even land. Then we've got to create shelters and get some super-duper-fast crops under way.

Still, it's fun to contemplate.

Candid wrote: It would be one hell of an alga to put any species (apart from other algae) in jeopardy!

Something else to contemplate...

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/discover ... dinosaurs/

Maybe it is a stretch to say algae killed off an entire species, but I don't think it is out of the realm of possibilities. Micro-ecosystems, small ponds might have been home to any number of unique species and as the climate changed, toxic algae bloomed, and evolution took its course.

Over a period of a few billion years, what are the odds toxic algae killed off at least a few species?

Candid wrote:Again with the colony on another planet!!! Still, it's fun to contemplate.

Lol, I take it scifi is not a strong area of interest for you. What do you enjoy writing about? Do you have a preferred era, topic, theme?

I think we will start with mars, but that will never be more than a research colony. I also don't think we will colonize a distant planet using starships. "Warp 5, engage!"

Instead, I like to think about a colony formed via cloning, dna, hibernation travel, or near light travel. Recent theories show space is curved which might also make for some interesting developments.

~ 200,000 years as homo sapiens, ~ 50,000 years of language, ~ 49,999 years of predicting the end of the world.

Maybe my math is off. Maybe 200 years is way too short for us to develop the technology to attach dna to a beam of light. Maybe it will be another 1000 years.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:Something else to contemplate...

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/discover ... dinosaurs/

Well I'll be buggered!

Over a period of a few billion years, what are the odds toxic algae killed off at least a few species?

Animals usually learn not to eat toxic plants, but I guess the dinosaurs didn't. They weren't known for their intellects, I gather. Bad for the algae, too; they surely didn't want to be eaten.

Lol, I take it scifi is not a strong area of interest for you.

Funnily enough I wrote a children's book years ago and only recently realised it was sci-fi. It's had a chequered history with publishers and in trying to woo one of them I slashed it to two-thirds of its length, which wrecked it. I've looked at it again recently and think it may be redeemable, with a major rewrite that so far I've balked at.

What do you enjoy writing about? Do you have a preferred era, topic, theme?

Apart from autobiographical stuff I stay with the present. Topics are anything that fires me up. I had a story accepted today about a child starting school where she can't speak the language. It's likely that in fiction I write a lot about outsiders.

49,999 years of predicting the end of the world.

Maybe it's just that a lot of people have wished that would happen! The end of the world as we know it means the absence of humans, and I'm inclined to think a lot of people would agree with David Benatar if his work were better known.

Maybe my math is off. Maybe 200 years is way too short for us to develop the technology to attach dna to a beam of light. Maybe it will be another 1000 years.

I don't see us figuring out how people can hibernate for months or years, either. If they were vivi ex mortuis they'd someone to turn them, wouldn't they?