The doom and gloom thread

ILLYRIAN

ILLYRIAN

Druish Pervonian Wizard
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Black Thorn
So the Mayan calendar stopped in 2012, why do you think that was?

All types of weather is happening.
Pollution by humans is at an all time high
Politicians are congratulating themselves because they (eventually) agreed to cut pollution by a little bit.
 
The biggest pollution happened when humans started agriculture in thousands of years ago. Most major animal/plant extinctions happened during that period.

We also filled the world with unnatural abomination creatures such as domestic dogs, domestic cats, tamed horses, house-fed roaches and rats.

Or maybe it's even earlier. Not long after we mastered fire and stone tools, mammoth and sabers were wiped out from earth.

Human's modern crime to the environment is tame and small compared to our ancestors. It's more apparent to us only because we live in it.

Also, in the modern era, industrial pollution is less destructive, in my opinion, than human-raised cats. Cats kill wild birds and small wild mammals at an appalling efficiency. These small evil things should have occupied a small position in natural order with a population of maybe hundreds of thousands, but we humans made hundreds of millions of them.

There are a lot of priorities. Just because the industrial pollution is covered more than others in media, doesn't mean it should be at the top. For example, environmentalism activists like to drive highly polluting boats that burn fossil fuels to prevent other people from killing dolphins. Are they polluters? Can we make objective judgment about their priority?
 
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Vellavu,
the biggest pollution happened when agriculture started thousands of years ago. How?
These other people who kill dolphins where are they when they kill the dolphins?
Can we make objective judgement about their priority? If we are talking about the world ending and they are talking about polluting the water, then yes we can be objective.
 
ILLYRIAN said:
the biggest pollution happened when agriculture started thousands of years ago. How?
Click to expand...
Turning a non-farm (forest, grassland,marsh,brush) into a farm is one of the worst pollutions of all types. What wildlife needs is land where they could rest and feed. Air/water pollution or temperature rising did far less damage than grabbing their home to grow crops.

Industrialization brought us fertilizers, which greatly reduced land per person we need. High buildings also contributed. Per-person-wise, we are taking far less land than before. And this is an improvement.

Of course the human population grew like crazy, but this is another issue.

ILLYRIAN said:
These other people who kill dolphins where are they when they kill the dolphins?
Can we make objective judgement about their priority? If we are talking about the world ending and they are talking about polluting the water, then yes we can be objective.
Click to expand...
East Asian countries (mainly Japanese) hunt dolphins and whales in the high sea. And their hunting was protested and harassed by environmentalism activists.
Taiji dolphin drive hunt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Whaling in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On one hand, these activists can say they are doing a good thing to protect dolphins. On the other hand, how many small fishes are killed by the wastes from their boats? How much air pollution did their boats produce? Even in this small case we have a lot of different points of view.

On the grander scale, what are the main pollutions our industry is producing? How much are in developing countries? How many children will starve if the developing countries have to close a lot of factories and reduce their use of energy? It's overall very complicated and we can't just use a "world ending" to argue down everything.

Other world-ending scenarios:

If I'm afraid that the world will end in an artificial intelligence take-over, should we discuss how to ban certain types of computer science research as the top priority, instead of global warming?
If I'm afraid that the world will end in a huge epidemic disease, should we discuss how to focus on drug research as the top priority, instead of global warming?
If I'm afraid that the world will end in a religious war, should we discuss how to try prevent the religious population from growing, instead of global warming?

There can be another 100 such apocalypse scenarios, and there are activists backing each one with solid evidence and sound science. Why should pollution/global warming occupy the top?
 
Maybe because it's something we can deal with now, and If we don't then the damage thats being done will be permanent.
 
Blaze,
as the initial question was about the Mayan calendar not going past 2012, why do you think that was? I'll go with your or 5 years ago.
 
No. The world was going to shit when humans mastered agriculture, but it became better after we learned how to burn fossil gas.

About the doom:
The Mayan said it's 2012.
Jehovah's Witnesses said it's 1914, 1925 and 1975.😀
Joss Whedon said it's not until 200 years later (Fray).😀
Or he said it's 2019 (Dollhouse).😀

I'll go with Jehovah's Witnesses and Joss Whedon. Because both a religion and a fantasy storyteller are more credible than Mayans.
 
Skanky Vamp
Skanky Vamp
Actually the Mayan calendar 2012 end of the world thing is a big myth. Its not the end of time, its when their calendar 'reboots' and starts a new age. They use the same calendar perpetually.
Well that doomsday clock is still at 3 minutes to midnight, so we've still got a little time yet!
 
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