Poll Men: would you carry a pregnancy? Women: would you want your man to?

[Thorsten]

Such as people living for 80+ years, and even landing on the moon.

Pretty much - the unintended consequence of the first one is an unsustainable population growth which will rather sooner than later lead to to a population the planet can't feed.

The second one was a pretty small event, but if you scale it up to a million flights, you'll have no ozone layer any more, and skin cancer for everyone on the surface.

I guess it should be apparent to anyone with open eyes that technology generally has unintended consequences, climate change as a result of fossil fuel technology being the most obvious one these days.

 

[jedidia]

I guess it should be apparent to anyone with open eyes that technology generally has unintended consequences

Oh, absolutely. I'm just saying that "violating the natural order" is pretty much all humanity's been doing since it evolved a brain, and that it's therefore not a great argument in and of itself.

 

[Urwumpe]

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Not that much. Even just plowing the soil is messing into natures order. We are creating huge monocultures of plants, that without our "symbiotic" help would be overrun by the more robust domestic group of species call weeds...

---------- Post added at 11:03 ---------- Previous post was at 11:02 ----------

I guess it should be apparent to anyone with open eyes that technology generally has unintended consequences, climate change as a result of fossil fuel technology being the most obvious one these days.

Don't forget - we are just doing this on a human species scale of things. Other animals are also perfectly capable of sawing the branch that they are sitting on. :lol:

 

[Face]

As I see it, humans are nature, so whatever they do, is nature at work.

The whole "humans violate nature" standpoint seems to have some deep religious roots IMHO, coming from the thought that humans are something special in the universe, and therefore also have special rights and/or duties.

I guess in the end "nature" won't give a dime if humanity thrives or withers, neither because we kill our own environment, nor because we begin to eliminate gender (or better yet: sex) differences. It will be in our own interest to consider the consequences of our actions, but "violating nature"? Nah.

 

[Xyon]

As I see it, humans are nature, so whatever they do, is nature at work.

The whole "humans violate nature" standpoint seems to have some deep religious roots IMHO, coming from the thought that humans are something special in the universe, and therefore also have special rights and/or duties.

I guess in the end "nature" won't give a dime if humanity thrives or withers, neither because we kill our own environment, nor because we begin to eliminate gender (or better yet: sex) differences. It will be in our own interest to consider the consequences of our actions, but "violating nature"? Nah.

I prefer this assessment of us over many others; it seems all too easy to categorise us outside, or above, nature in some way. It runs parallel in my mind to the phrase "stuck in traffic" - no, you're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic. "Nature" takes on a bit of a different meaning when we use it to refer, essentially, to the parts of nature outside of our control, which is usually what people seem to mean.

In reality, what separates us from the animals? Not a lot, since we are animals, we're just doing what comes naturally.

For the record, despite my previous answer to this poll, I don't want any more kids (which I now can't anyway, so that's fine). I took this query to be much more hypothetical than it seems to me others did - if in some way it had been possible while I was having children, would I have carried one of my children? Absolutely. Having a wife who's carried four of my children, and is carrying another one, I'd find it very appealing to carry this last one in her place - especially considering the physical toll having had four previous pregnancies places on the body.

 

[Thorsten]

It will be in our own interest to consider the consequences of our actions, but "violating nature"? Nah.

Let's re-phrase it and take the religious connotation out.

Evolution has been at work optimizing certain things for their environment for a lot of time (dependent on whether you want to count from life or homo sapiens, billions of years to hundreds of thousands of years).

Now, as has been pointed out, there have been mass extinctions of species in the past, even driven by certain species themselves - that's evolution at work, discarding a solution, to be replaced by another one.

Unlike most animals, we're capable of understanding this mechanism - we are capable of realizing we're cutting out own branch, and we're capable of realizing when we wreck conditions for others.

Does it follow from there that we should behave differently - or is 'we're ultimately just animals, so there's no special 'duty' here' an equally valid option?

Likewise, do we believe to be able to do 'better' than evolution at managing ecosystems (and ultimately our own habitable space) using technology, or does the long development time of the evolutionary solution give it advantages we can't properly appreciate?

So far, our record at managing ecosystems long-term is rather bleak, there's plenty of African desert that used to be fertile and usable lands before the 'primitive' natives (which utilized essentially the solution provided by evolution) were pushed to use technological farming. For which nature, well, didn't care much.

In other words, eon-long evolution provides some default solutions to problems on this planet. Technology enables us to discard them and replace them by different solution. Is it generally preferable for our own long-term survival to stay close to evolution or are we better off doing going far from it?

I guess that's pretty much the same question with the religion taken out.

 

[Face]

Unlike most animals, we're capable of understanding this mechanism - we are capable of realizing we're cutting out own branch, and we're capable of realizing when we wreck conditions for others.

Are we - as in: the whole humanity - really capable of realizing that? Your own arguments would indicate that we are not.

Likewise, do we believe to be able to do 'better' than evolution at managing ecosystems (and ultimately our own habitable space) using technology, or does the long development time of the evolutionary solution give it advantages we can't properly appreciate?

So far, our record at managing ecosystems long-term is rather bleak, there's plenty of African desert that used to be fertile and usable lands before the 'primitive' natives (which utilized essentially the solution provided by evolution) were pushed to use technological farming. For which nature, well, didn't care much.

In other words, eon-long evolution provides some default solutions to problems on this planet. Technology enables us to discard them and replace them by different solution. Is it generally preferable for our own long-term survival to stay close to evolution or are we better off doing going far from it?

What's technology other than a result of evolution? Eon-long evolution is what brought forward humans and their technology. If this "concept" proves to be a failure, and humans kill themselves with technology, would it be something other than evolution that discarded us?

Again here is the notion at work that we - together with our artifacts and knowledge - are something special that enables us to rule the world. I think we are not. We are still subject to evolution, right in the middle (or perhaps already at the end?) of the "evaluation phase".

 

[Urwumpe]

So far, our record at managing ecosystems long-term is rather bleak, there's plenty of African desert that used to be fertile and usable lands before the 'primitive' natives (which utilized essentially the solution provided by evolution) were pushed to use technological farming. For which nature, well, didn't care much.

You mean: Which had been reclaimed by nature.

If a soil is fertile and usable land, it had been created that way by humans over along period of time. Don't fall prone to some pseudo-religious ecologism, where in the past, humans lived in Garden Eden and their breakfast simply dropped from the trees. Humans forged their own habitat. Not always successfully, but as you can see by 7 billion humans on this planet, most of the time it did work out fine for us.

Just to remind you: Without agricultural technology alone, you would not sit on a computer now.

First of all, because you would be processing your harvest right now to make sure you have something to eat until spring comes late to Finland. Breakfast will not come from the supermarket, you will just find a farmers shop to buy some special ingredients there.

Why is explained in the next step:

All those people building your computer would be doing the same. Your farms would require much surface area and labor, especially if you have no fertilizer (but should we run out of cheap oil, this period might return to us), its very hard to specialize on a non-farming job then. They would just specialize within the huge field of farming.

And same happened to all those people who researched technology to finally arrive at a computer. None of them ever needed to bother about farming, they had people doing this for them.


My grandparents had been among the first generation of commoners here to stop being farmers, its impressive to see how their live changed - or much more extreme, the lives of their parents. Being able to stop being farmer required somebody else to do your job better. Without agricultural technology, my job would not exist. It would require some of the biggest inventions of the middle ages to permit a growing caste of citizens to specialize on jobs not related to farming. Even in the roman Empire, most of the common people had to work harder on farms for feeding a tiny minority - and they had already a huge set of technology for farming.

---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:16 ----------

Again here is the notion at work that we - together with our artifacts and knowledge - are something special that enables us to rule the world. I think we are not. We are still subject to evolution, right in the middle (or perhaps already at the end?) of the "evaluation phase".

Which fits to the understanding that other animals change their habitat to their advantage too. Especially beavers are the obvious example there, but even ants cultivate their land.

 

[C3PO]

For all we know "Nature" wanted plastic, hence the evolution of human technology. Once sufficient amounts of polymers have been created, the need for humans is over. :lol:
/jk

 

[Face]

For all we know "Nature" wanted plastic, hence the evolution of human technology. Once sufficient amounts of polymers have been created, the need for humans is over. :lol:
/jk

I fear this joke is not too far from reality. :tiphat:

 

[jedidia]

Does it follow from there that we should behave differently

I do believe so, but I'm not sure we can. From what I see from history, any possible and practical technology is an eventual inevitability as long as humans are around. And if it wasn't like that, we might not have gotten to where we are now.
Are there technologies that scare the daylights out of me and I rather would not have us mess with? Yes, absolutely. But it's not because of "natural order", but because I think they would give us more power than we could handle.
And it's exactly because of that reason that I have no illusions that those technologies will be pursued the most.

 

[Urwumpe]

And it's exactly because of that reason that I have no illusions that those technologies will be pursued the most.

Yes. But luckily at the same time, others look for the opposite direction and create.

While it is easier to destroy than to build, its also more rewarding... but creation also means changing nature. :tiphat:

 

[RisingFury]

A scenario where it might be beneficial is if the husband is the primary homemaker and the wife the breadwinner.

If she has say a six figure executive salary she may not want to leave her executive position for a couple of months. Since the husband is the homemaker anyway it would be easier for him to carry the pregnancy.

Bob Clark

Or maybe we can just make a society where women are not penalized for having kids. :facepalm:

 

[Urwumpe]

Or maybe we can just make a society where women are not penalized for having kids. :facepalm:

Reminds me about the very paternal discussions against women playing football. In Germany, this did not end before 1989...

With arguments like "playing football keeps women from fulfilling their motherly duties"... the official argument why womens football was officially banned in western Germany from 1954 to 1970 was "...this martial art is essentially alien to the female nature." The weirdest kind of argument was some "expert" claiming that playing football might make women to drop their uterus.

The women disagreed there pretty strongly - especially in the Ruhrpott area, with women teams simply creating their own league if the official association bans them. There had been 70 matches of the unofficial womens national football team of western Germany until 1970...

And as it seems, even most men must have been more respecting than the self-declared elite of functionaries and pundits... while women had still been ridiculed by politics and TV pundits in the 1970s, a goal of a woman won the "goal of the month" award of the German TV (there had been only two public channels until the late 1980s) in 1975.

AND:

Nobody really cares about fatherly duties, even today.

Women should watch their body and health, the society acts like they are stakeholders there. They should be there for household, husband and children 24/7. And abortion is a matter no woman should be allowed to decide herself - and contraception should be banned as well. With similar arguments. Women should be plain birthing machines.

No man complains about men drinking themselves to death, ruining their health with bad nutrition, escaping the annoying loud children in the favorite pub until late at night - and especially not about men letting their wives and children sit at home and themselves running away to a younger woman.

Really - this kind of behavior is really making me sick.

 

[jedidia]

Yes. But luckily at the same time, others look for the opposite direction and create.

I wasn't actually refering to technologies that can easily be exploited for destruction. I think it's going to be a long time until we get something more destructive than an h-bomb.

I'm more concerned about progress in genetic manipulation. Though the possibilities are exciting, I can't see us avoiding a Gattaca-scenario if it makes significant progress. Already now there is pressure from health-insurance for checks early in the pregnancy to determine genetical defects like trisomy 21. In Switzerland you can feel a clear push towards reintroducing preexisting conditions by health insurance, and the main excuse they are missing is that it is "preventable" (read: abortable). A serious push to change the law is still at least a decade off I think, but it will come. And once they eliminated the severe defects, they're going to try to eliminate other "heatlh-risks". Eugenics don't need an ideology to become reality, they only need greed.
Well, that went OT.

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm more concerned about progress in genetic manipulation. Though the possibilities are exciting, I can't see us avoiding a Gattaca-scenario if it makes significant progress. Already now there is pressure from health-insurance for checks early in the pregnancy to determine genetical defects like trisomy 21. In Switzerland you can feel a clear push towards reintroducing preexisting conditions by health insurance, and the main excuse they are missing is that it is "preventable" (read: abortable). A serious push to change the law is still at least a decade off I think, but it will come. And once they eliminated the severe defects, they're going to try to eliminate other "heatlh-risks". Eugenics don't need an ideology to become reality, they only need greed.

Well, I doubt you will see such a scenario soon in the catholic world (abortion for economic reasons?), but yes, you are right.

Especially, you should already enslave yourself to your health insurance today and give your medical data to them. Luckily without the evil twist that the first sign you will get about an upcoming heart attack is the instant message from your health insurance that your premiums just got up by 200%. But that is now really OT.

 

[Xyon]

But that is now really OT.

Yes, let's return to the original topic of the thread, shall we?

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, let's return to the original topic of the thread, shall we?

No, wait. I am not ready yet to become a mother. :lol:

 

[Thorsten]

If a soil is fertile and usable land, it had been created that way by humans over along period of time. Don't fall prone to some pseudo-religious ecologism,

Actually not (at least not unless you use a very narrow definition of 'fertile' and 'usable'') - tropical rainforest is very usable for a hunter-gatherer society and fertile for its native ecosystem, but not for farming.

There's nothing particular religious about observing that burning down rain forest to do a few years of farming and leaving deserts in one's wake is ecological destruction, or that similar destruction has happened all across Africa - just as there's nothing particular ideological about stating that climate change is quite real and a problem.

Just to remind you: Without agricultural technology alone, you would not sit on a computer now.

I'm sure the fact that I had my computer will be a huge comfort for future generations having to live with ecological wreckage.

What's technology other than a result of evolution?

This is just fatalism. What insight or action follows from such a sentence? If everything is evolution, what's the point of even sitting down to think or change anything - it's inevitable anyway. So we might as well all enjoy our lifestyle while the planet lasts.

The point I'm trying to make is that evolution works by trying things out in actual reality.We on the other hand are capable (at least in principle) of something different - we can visualize the consequences of things before they appear in actual reality.

(Never mind how good we are in doing that in practice...)

So yes - evolution has created nuclear bombs, and if we finally use them, it'll be evolution discarding the idea of homo sapiens.

However, we are capable of understanding this - and of just not going there. It's one of the main ideas of the enlightenment period, that we are capable of insights and understanding and that an ability to make decisions follows from that.

Just because someone holds up a hoop for you, you don't have to jump through it, and just because evolution gives you the means to wreck the planet, you don't have to use them.

 

[Urwumpe]

Actually not (at least not unless you use a very narrow definition of 'fertile' and 'usable'') - tropical rainforest is very usable for a hunter-gatherer society and fertile for its native ecosystem, but not for farming.

With about 70% of the population working for providing food for those who can't (young children, elder, ill, injured), and only about 5% of those working being able to pursue activities not related to survival the whole year.

Now, remember that for building your computer and maintaining this forum, you need an industry of about 350,000 people at least, from sand, ore and rare metals to the final product. Including some sort of electricity, of course by solar power in the tropics.

This means, your "tribe" would need to have 10 million souls just for you being able as their high master shaman to post your wisdom here to us.

Now the approximate need for surface area for hunter-gather societies is mathematically established and verified against historic data:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...-human-populations-are-hardwired-for-density/

A pure gatherer culture would have a exponent of 0.64, so your rain forest can't get much better than this. So, your tribe would need at least a rain forest of the size of 30200 km² just to get that far (and a few years of time). Not including mining. Those would likely form tribes of their own, using caravans and barter trade...

Not that much as it seems, but that is just for a single person sitting on a PC, which will be about ten years old when it gets its replacement.

And so much also to ecological wreckage. Its not about telling others what to do and how much better it would be to be hunter-gatherers again. Its your chance to turn off your PC, go outside, become hunter-gatherer and reduce your ecological wreckage instead of letting others do that sacrifice of culture to you. Remember: You tell people with much less comfortable life than you have, that they should reduce this ecological wreckage for future generations. Are you willed to go the first step?

I, would prefer to be incremental there. We damage. We learn. We fix. We cause new damage. We learn. Rinse and Repeat.