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Humanism good or bad?

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General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 16:23:58

Humans are the Overshoot Predator for Planet Earth. It is the humanist instinct to humanize the natural world, and to create the world in our own self-image. We are our own god, and we worship ourselves. The natural world must be eradicated. It's full of insects and snakes and vermin that carry disease that can wipe out humanity. Must exterminate!
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 16:27:51

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')
The tribal aspect of religion is a main feature that will be the hardest thing to overcome in building a consensus to protect the environment
.


I agree and for that reason we need to harness the tribal aspect of religion or spirituality in order to reach a consensus to protect the environment.

The same tribal aspect of existing theologies that act currently as a hindrance can act as a binding force...... when and if consequences and ideology act on the tribal level to either transform existing religions or flat out create new ones. That might seem totally revolutionary but perhaps consequences will reach that far down to touch on the existential.

I remember in a conference I went to Richard Heinberg made this statement which I am somewhat paraphrasing, "when the physical foundations that support a civilization become undermined that is when revolutions can have the potential to be trans formative".

If the consequences of human overshoot are far enough reaching there is a possibility that existing religions will be transformed or replaced. Here is how it can happen. Just like natural selection. If a new tribal affiliation is better adaptive for survival it will out compete other ideologies. If existing religions and humanism remains human centric and continue to disregard our biosphere then the eventual consequences is human overshoot and a die-off. If in the next century or two a competing spiritual ideology emerges that puts the biosphere at the same level of moral and ethical protection as the sanctity of human life then the physical outcome of this ideology could produce cultural adaptation that achieves better sustainability. That is how natural selection can act on competing tribal affiliations or religions.

There will be cynics among you reading this but small incremental steps through a couple centuries could indeed transform or give rise to a new spiritual paradigm that does add sustainability commandments. Consequences as feedbacks to hone these commandments into a new spiritual movement is not impossible.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 16:30:09

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'I')t is the humanist instinct to humanize the natural world, and to create the world in our own self-image.


So that's why I saw that lady french kissing her designer dog the other day?
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 16:49:22

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'I')t is the humanist instinct to humanize the natural world, and to create the world in our own self-image.


So that's why I saw that lady french kissing her designer dog the other day?

Small world! I saw that too! I assume it was the same French woman kissing her designer dog you're referring to. You never know with those French women these days. One day cats. The next day dogs. Tomorrow ferrets.

As to your previous post above, i honestly and sincerely do not disagree with anything you suggest. My only comment would be that the exact same thing could have been, and probably was said a thousand years ago, hoping for and postulating some future change to humanity that could make things better for all of us. If what you suggest were humanly possible, it would have happened by now. Unfortuately, even in the face of deadly consequences for our planet, humanity is still not capable of any consideration larger than our own little worlds, and maintaining the status quo. That was my whole point in labeling humanity as the overshoot predator. The world exists as it does today because that's the way we want it to be, and we will not be content until we've sapped every last bit of nature out of this world. That is our own human nature.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 17:02:16

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'I')f what you suggest were humanly possible, it would have happened by now. Unfortuately, even in the face of deadly consequences for our planet, humanity is still not capable of any consideration larger than our own little worlds, and maintaining the status quo. That was my whole point in labeling humanity as the overshoot predator. The world exists as it does today because that's the way we want it to be, and we will not be content until we've sapped every last bit of nature out of this world. That is our own human nature.


First of all the deadly consequences are currently in our minds and not actually killing our sons and daughters. So we don't yet have the data in on how we will respond when consequences reach the level of disruption that touches the existential. At this point it is only the threat of consequences that is creating anxiety. This is smoke but no fire.

The world exists today because first of all our ingenuity as a tinkering species has been given an extremely long run with our resources with no significant consequences to change the trajectory which has been treating our natural world as an externality to be disregarded. We do not know the degree to which our cultural adaptation is capable of holding our natural world as sacred. We have not yet had the honing affect of limits and consequences on a global scale.

So I do not quite believe that we are as culturally fixated a you say we are in reference to our species having some innate trait of sapping the world of its resources. For 98% of our species history we didn't do this. You might argue that our nature is inherently exploitative but our tools to date didn't bring out our full potential or full flowering of Homo exploitatious which has only happened during the past 200 years thanks in a large part to fossil fuels. I don't know. I am not saying that what you say isn't so. I am saying however that we don't know.

As to our species ability to cultural develop a sense of the sacred toward our biosphere I therefore remain an agnostic :)
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 17:27:57

Ibon, i concede your argument to a degree. You're absolutely correct in pointing out the timeframes we're talking about.

I'll also present this evidence. This shows what's possible when the best of human nature tries to achieve something that affects urban humanity. It's really quite remarkable. Worth the 10 minutes it takes to watch. A warning to the doomers, though. This is not doomer food.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/03/how-stockholm-became-the-ultimate-walkable-city/388433/?utm_source=nl_daily_link3_032415
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 17:36:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'H')umans are the Overshoot Predator for Planet Earth.


This history of our species is a story of using tools to conquer limits in our environments. We got so good at it that we have reached the ecological description of overshoot. We are consuming essential resources faster than our biosphere can replenish them. Change is coming. Let's put this into some perspective. We have to start somewhere so let's start from when civilization started 10,000 years ago. For 9800 years we got better and better at mastering limits until we reached a place some 200 years ago where we broke out of being held within limits and experienced an anomaly which has been very short lived. We succeeded in conquering limits and this broke the check and balances that had always held us in carrying capacity. Look at any population chart and you see the exponential rise from 1 to 7 billion since 1900 and the very slow increase the thousands of years before that.

Overshoot will bring about consequences that will very quickly bring us back to our default position. We will have to once again live under the checks and balances of limits and yes this new carrying capacity will be much much lower than our current population. This will happen because the resource sinks have been so depleted.

Now keep all this in mind and ask yourself. In this 10,000 year history limits where always imposed externally and only 200 years ago we surmounted them with this brief exponential ride. Nowhere did any external obstacle rise in our surroundings that selected for self regulation. Our external environment never called upon us to self regulate.

Timo and others believe that this is so because it is our very nature. I disagree. I say we are so because our environments never selected us to be otherwise. In other words, until now, we have never experienced external consequences that have selected for self regulation.

Human overshoot in the 21st century is providing our species with a very rare opportunity. None of us know if we are capable as a species to take advantage of this opportunity. But we will see. Will external consequences lead our technology and tool use in the direction of self regulation?

That is the pregnant question. The answer determines our extinction or our continued cultural evolution as a species. Period.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 17:56:03

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'H')umans are the Overshoot Predator for Planet Earth.


This history of our species is a story of using tools to conquer limits in our environments. We got so good at it that we have reached the ecological description of overshoot. We are consuming essential resources faster than our biosphere can replenish them. Change is coming. Let's put this into some perspective. We have to start somewhere so let's start from when civilization started 10,000 years ago. For 9800 years we got better and better at mastering limits until we reached a place some 200 years ago where we broke out of being held within limits and experienced an anomaly which has been very short lived. We succeeded in conquering limits and this broke the check and balances that had always held us in carrying capacity. Look at any population chart and you see the exponential rise from 1 to 7 billion since 1900 and the very slow increase the thousands of years before that.

Overshoot will bring about consequences that will very quickly bring us back to our default position. We will have to once again live under the checks and balances of limits and yes this new carrying capacity will be much much lower than our current population. This will happen because the resource sinks have been so depleted.

Now keep all this in mind and ask yourself. In this 10,000 year history limits where always imposed externally and only 200 years ago we surmounted them with this brief exponential ride. Nowhere did any external obstacle rise in our surroundings that selected for self regulation. Our external environment never called upon us to self regulate.

Timo and others believe that this is so because it is our very nature. I disagree. I say we are so because our environments never selected us to be otherwise. In other words, until now, we have never experienced external consequences that have selected for self regulation.

Human overshoot in the 21st century is providing our species with a very rare opportunity. None of us know if we are capable as a species to take advantage of this opportunity. But we will see. Will external consequences lead our technology and tool use in the direction of self regulation?

That is the pregnant question. The answer determines our extinction or our continued cultural evolution as a species. Period.


Very good argument. My only refutation would be that, given that humanity has never faced the external need for self-regulation, we don't know how to do it, and thus won't. Our present state as a species is the result of 10,000 years of cultural and technological evolution, based on the circumstances present at the time our advances occurred. Agreed, we're entering uncharted territory in the 21st Century. We may succeed in another stage of human evolution, but i doubt it. I believe we've already destroyed the planet, and it's starting to enter those stages where most life will die off. That time frame will be a century, or two, but in the end, only a few stragglers will remain to keep on living as human beings. It will be a fresh start for humanity, just like for Noah and his family. BTW, i don't believe in that story, but it makes a good reference point for my argument.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Pops » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 18:05:19

Good Timo.

The thing that we should remember is Christianity ( I don't know anything about the others) didn't just pop up with TV dinners and VHS tapes. "Modern" religion has had a couple thousand years of existential angst (not to mention actual existential threat form extermination, persecution, death and war) against which to hone its message. It survived some pretty brutal stuff and never once entertained the idea that perhaps it had itself to blame.

The true believer knows god is on his side; that is the definition of faith. Obviously the only question then is who is the scapegoat god hates who should be smitten.
(noun, 1.(in the Bible) a goat sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it (Lev. 16).)

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he bubonic plague is estimated to have killed up to half the population of Europe—about 25 million people.

Although they didn’t know what caused the disease, the Europeans had no trouble figuring it out—it had to be the Jews! The Jews must be getting poison from the devil and pouring it down the wells of Christians (or throwing it into the air) to kill them all off.

http://www.simpletoremember.com/article ... ack_death/

No one is going to convince many christians that we should join hands with the jihadi sitting next to us and praise mother nature for running out of oil and saving us from extinction. Or conversely, no bottleneck survivor is going to think anything except they are the chosen.

Jesus loves me ...

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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 19:50:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '
')Very good argument. My only refutation would be that, given that humanity has never faced the external need for self-regulation, we don't know how to do it, and thus won't. Our present state as a species is the result of 10,000 years of cultural and technological evolution, based on the circumstances present at the time our advances occurred. Agreed, we're entering uncharted territory in the 21st Century. We may succeed in another stage of human evolution, but i doubt it. I believe we've already destroyed the planet, and it's starting to enter those stages where most life will die off. That time frame will be a century, or two, but in the end, only a few stragglers will remain to keep on living as human beings. It will be a fresh start for humanity, just like for Noah and his family. BTW, i don't believe in that story, but it makes a good reference point for my argument.


You know Timo, I cannot argue as well with your logic and what you are constructing here is totally compatible with what we know of our species. If I try to persist on making a case otherwise than all I am doing is stubbornly holding on to a personal narrative. My argument above is offering nothing more than a chance, fragile and improbable as it may be. Still, what we do not know is what get's permanently lost and what gets instilled and what stays the same on this downward trajectory in terms of our culture. Our religions may have shown incredible resilience as Pops points out and may as well be so full of self rationalizations and self delusions as to be teflon proof to looking within at its own shortcomings but one thing none of us can argue is that events in the century to come are going to severely test this resilience. Do we remain fixed to our collective graves down to a few stragglers to the bitter end or is there transformational inflection points through consequences on the way that then get incorporated into a new collective tribal alliance.

Scientists and secular atheists can argue, and I am among them, that the greatest threat to religion has been science and secular thought. There are those that have argued that science and technology is as flawed as religion because it has given us nothing more than a new religion, one of belief in progress. Both traditional religions and the secular religion in believing in technology and progress keeps the human squarely in the narcissistic center.

I remain very confident that consequences will knock us off this hubris and that it really is not selective for our collective survival.

Maybe that is partially what worshiping the Overshoot Predator is also about. Worshiping the forces that will correct our collective hubris, that will expose our collective fallacy that we are omnipotent and in control here.

I think cracking that hubris open through consequences will open up a potential spiritual renaissance. Extinction or living like the Mayans in grass huts in the shadows of our former pyramids and having learned nothing is probable as well.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Newfie » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 20:44:14

Actually "decent" behaviour, or morals, don't come from religion. They come from our DNA. That evolved out of pressure for humanity to be tribal based. We survive better in cooperative groups, thus we have evolved behaviour that protect the group structure.

No God needed, that came along later.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby ralfy » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 20:50:04

One of the articles raised in "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" involves freedom of religion.

Likely the reason why religion is mentioned is because the human mind is complex. That is, views are based on combinations of belief and reason.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Tue 24 Mar 2015, 21:36:33

Ibon, reading your last post, I find myself in total agreement with you, and can't now remember what it was we were arguing about. Different points of view, sure, but the main premise of those PsOV, I think, are the same. If I had to pinpoint the largest disagreement we were having, it's that you seem to have more faith in humanity than I have. I'm not a prepper/doomer kind of guy, but I don't much appreciate what us humans have done to this planet, and everything on it. My POV stems from what I've witnessed during my lifetime, and learned from other's previous lifetimes. There has been an awful lot of good done by humanity, but on the whole, the good doesn't measure up to the bad. The earth has been on a downward slope during the past 200 years.

That said, I do readily accept your point about the overall history of human civilization, and that the wreckage humans have caused on this planet is limited to only the past 200 or so years. That point does give me hope. During that past 200 years or so, however, I firmly believe that the fundamental mindset of civilized humans has irrevocably changed, with very few exceptions. Those exceptions are the source and cause for hope. Unfortunately, I also believe that hope is all we have, and I don't mean that for us, personally. I mean for the planet. There are now 7 billion people on this planet, 99.9% of them all wanting more than the earth can provide. I'm just playing the odds, and they are deeply stacked against us. Changing the cultural values of 7 billion people ??? Maybe when than number gets down to 500 million, the chances for planetary survival will start to increase. As is, though, I've got no faith. No faith in any religion, or in humanity. Point blank. The best we can do is to search for those points of hope among us, and protect and enjoy whatever it is that we've got left. You're on the right track with that, and I sincerely thank you for what you're doing.

On the other hand, I could also just be waxing because my beloved espresso machine broke over the weekend, and I haven't yet overcome my withdrawal from caffeinated shots of Catuai. Never mind me. We'll know it when we get there.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby fleance » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 07:36:59

You have a good point on that, protect and enjoy whatever we have got left. On the other hand, we also need to procreate whatever is left in order to enjoy that by future generation.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 10:40:25

It's really kind of mind boggling when you think that religious institutions today are legacies from a couple thousand years ago. We still carry these legacies around in a modern world which in many ways is out of context from the culture that existed when these religions were established. Back then we succumbed to famine and disease and so many of our religious texts where based on those struggles which today we have temporarily eliminated. When the earth was throwing disease and famine at us on a yearly basis going out and multiplying and being fruitful and dominating the landscape was sage advice. Today this same advice is fatal.

These 2000 year legacies may have some relevance still in the lessons around human morals and ethics and how we treat each other. But these legacy religions are complete failures in reference to the number one major spiritual issue of the modern 21st century which is the way we treat our planet.

I mentioned that religions and spirituality and humanism are also subject to natural selection ultimately. Our current modern civilization is carrying around ancient religious legacies which are today toxic specifically in reference to our relationship with our biosphere. It cannot be sustained.

The religion of science and progress is equally deadly as it is based on this concept that humans as a species are exceptional and outside the laws of ecology. Progress is a manifest destiny that makes our species unique in the world. This belief is equally toxic and equally cannot be sustained.

Natural selection will eliminate these unsustainable belief systems which ultimately are the origins of why we are physically destroying our planet.

In summary natural selection will ultimately destroy these belief systems. They will also destroy us as a species as well OR we drop these toxic belief systems and adapt a spiritual relationship with our biosphere in context with todays reality of being in overshoot.

This is a spiritual dilemma.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Timo » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 11:29:30

It is very difficult to be an intelligent species like humanity, and yet live within natural limits.

Interesting question - Humans are certainly not the only intelligent species here on earth, yet we are the only species that cannot/will not live within our own resource capacity. Given the fact that, for example, gorillas do live within their natural resource limits, is there any spiritual component to their livelihoods? Humans do require this spiritual aspect in our lives to enable/justify nearly everything we do. Can the same thing be said for any other species of mammal on earth?

This may be the point where I'm lost in this discussion. I do not concede that recognition of our resource capacity, and our requisite connection to our environment, and the resulting mandate that we live within those limits as spiritual, at all. That is intelligence. We don't need spirituality to live within the limits of our environment. I believe spirituality is unique to the human species. I could also be totally wrong on that assumption, but we appear to be the only species of mammals that deliberately destroys our resources, and the resources necessary for all other life, for completely secondary, self-serving purposes. I don't believe there's a spiritual component to the check that other species employ to avoid doing the same thing. Maybe that's the inherent weakness in humanity, and we invented spirituality in order to justify the things we do. If it's not obvious yet, I'm not very (or even remotely) spiritual. That's my loss, I suppose, but I think that's where I lose faith in humanity. I know faith and spirituality are almost synonymous, but then again, I don't have either.

So what do we do? No clue! Do we dumb down to the point where we don't have the technology to overly exploit our environment? Do we accelerate our intelligence to the point where we learn the secrets of magic, and can then save ourselves from ourselves? Or, do we adopt a spirituality that binds us to our natural world with the understanding that we are not supreme, and are, in fact, completely dependent on our environment for our own survival? Honestly, if I had faith in humanity, I'd gladly choose the 3rd option, but doing that requires something I do not have.

Time to go get some coffee.

Or maybe peyote.

It's a toss-up.

HEADS! I WIN!
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby AgentR11 » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 12:01:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'O')r conversely, no bottleneck survivor is going to think anything except they are the chosen.


They will be the "Selected" if they are a-religious.
The will be the Elect if they are religious.

And they won't be wrong.

Honestly, I give core religious groups far higher odds of being the ones penetrating the bottleneck; religion preserves tribal structures that do not otherwise exist in modern society, and modern society is very poorly equipped to survive that exercise on its own. Not to mention that that sort of experience is sufficient to create a viable religion all by itself.

TO the OP question... Humanism good or bad. Good or bad in such a question must be strictly defined. Define good as "reduction of suffering and enhancement of pleasure and ease"; humanism is quite good. Define good as "detachment from all impermanent, worldly things", and humanism is perhaps one of the most evil, corrosive philosophies in common practice.
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 12:45:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '
')
Time to go get some coffee.

Or maybe peyote.

It's a toss-up.

HEADS! I WIN!


:)
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Re: Humanism good or bad?

Postby Ibon » Wed 25 Mar 2015, 13:05:29

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '
')So what do we do? No clue! Do we dumb down to the point where we don't have the technology to overly exploit our environment? Do we accelerate our intelligence to the point where we learn the secrets of magic, and can then save ourselves from ourselves? Or, do we adopt a spirituality that binds us to our natural world with the understanding that we are not supreme, and are, in fact, completely dependent on our environment for our own survival? Honestly, if I had faith in humanity, I'd gladly choose the 3rd option, but doing that requires something I do not have.


This question is not just academic. Generations are emerging that must have a story and narrative that is both credible and sustainable.

We can't just tell our children that we are flawed species
We also can't lie to them and say we are exceptional in the animal kingdom and immune to nature's laws of ecology
We wont dumb ourselves down to tool use that doesn't harm the biosphere.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')Honestly, I give core religious groups far higher odds of being the ones penetrating the bottleneck; religion preserves tribal structures that do not otherwise exist in modern society, and modern society is very poorly equipped to survive that exercise on its own. Not to mention that that sort of experience is sufficient to create a viable religion all by itself.


I tend to agree. So in this case how do we modify existing religions toward living within carrying capacity. Christianity for example used the concept that we are all born sinners to try to conceptualize the part of human selfishness into a narrative. Of course it used this as an institutional control as well but let's not go there for a minute.

Well, we may very well be a flawed species ecologically in our incapability to live sustainability. This means we are all born sinners in our instinctive drive to exploit.

So there we have it. We just need Christianity to expand just a little this concept of sin and incorporate this into its commandments.

But this is not so easy because the issue here is not the actions of the individual but the net result of our species.

"Thou shall not breed and consume beyond the carrying capacity of your environment" is a commandment that the individual does not know how to interpret. This is a commandment for our species as a whole, not for an individual.

Consumption and breeding within carrying capacity means something very different when you are 500 million vs 7 billion.

You need an ecological Vatican with a council of ecologists that sends out an update every decade defining what the boundaries are around consumption and breeding so that sin is avoided.

Ecological sinning. Could we ever incorporate this into our religions?
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