Put 'mosquito's' on the hit list.

Great artwork!

Frank's "kisses" are emblematic of the very essence of Earth Day! The symbiotic interactions of ALL life on Earth is the fundamental reality that is overlooked, ignored or denigrated by our decision makers. The economic viability of the planet is a "no-brainer" but when it precludes long-term sustainability it borders on madness. Frank's kisses are merely a "thumbnail" of what actually matters.

In response to the 'send 250 people back 250 years to change things' thought, I could not help but think that this was addressed in one 'Treehouse of Horror' episode of 'The Simpsons'. One time Homer goes back to the time of the Dinosaurs. As he is attacked, he sneezes on one, and almost immediately it dies, followed by all of the surrounding Dinosaurs. Homer's reaction? "Uh-oh. This is gonna cost me."

So simple yet completely mind-blowing. Climate change caused humans. That should be the last sentence in Peter Brennan's book!

Seeing Frank makes me so happy❤❤❤

Love it! Thank you. I went birding at Dauphin Island. Lots less birds than 40 years ago, but still fun to watch. Lots more land protected for birding on DI than 40 years ago. So many trade offs, everywhere.

If we were put into a state of suspended animation, I fear the “elite” would see to it we never woke up! And by the way Nate, I can’t believe the increase in comments since you started these podcasts. Happy earth day to you and Frank!

Thanks for your channel Nate! I regularly quote you. They way you say it makes sense. the way I say it makes people crazy. Thanks for a much better example.

Frankly I love Frank 🐾💖

I'm in Alberta and could use some safe climate space right about now. The temperature keeps going from freezing to I'm getting a tan in 15 minutes. Cold wind, hot sun, my cat is annoyed and so am I. Overall I prefer it here :). We need to supercharge the growth of empathy in as many people that can experience it. Love is life, life is love, anything that works against life should be swapped out. Keep it simple stupid.

@stephenboyington630

Ай бұрын

My family and I visited Alberta last year and found it beautiful. We, as most tourists, did not venture to see the tar sands, which have caused so much prosperity there.

Nate Hagens and Jeff Bridges both have such soothing voices, for a person experiencing climate anxiety they provide a necessary calming. Thank you ❤

Your 9 points for a Life Ethic are spot on for our species to survive and thrive after the catastrophe if anyone can make it.

Wow, that chart of world population at 6:37 is incredible.

@barrycarter8276

Ай бұрын

Surely Dean you haven’t just seen that graph, I mean where have you been hiding, or perhaps a captive of someone. Check out Dr Jack Alpert and his views on diminishing Oil and its effects on population, or Alice J. Friedemann’s book “When Trucks Stop Running”. And then there’s Kurt Dahl’s book “An American Famine”. Kurt Dahl’s book should be a warning of when everything edible particularly protein is necessary to survive, when nothing is safe, dogs, cats, rodents, garden birds, even best of friends, neighbours, family, as humanity’s animal spirit turns to bestiality, the gun rules in the survival of the fittest, and the fittest are the worst of the Superorganism’s intelligent predators, when “The Great Simplification” is perhaps just a stay of execution before the executioner’ers arrive🤔

Good intro to dog Frank, a living being with the same right to life on our Planet as us. Excellent! Tx

The long term temperature chart and thought experiment are exceedingly interesting.

Awwwwwwwww! Hey doggie!

Great talk Nate! Thank you. In regard to ~"...the Universe doesn't." I must argue that it does indeed insist upon harmony for all. It's a difficult thing to observe without being "out of body" or very aware of what is the Universe inside one's being and of every being at once. Or, there can be a lengthy physics discussion and ultimately conservation of angular momentum & angular frequency.

@GregoryMatous

28 күн бұрын

Agreed, and the universe may weed out those evolutionary traits that act against a so-called "Life Ethic". Organisms that are only destructive, to the point of destroying entire species, will be forced out.

Nate, I just learned about BRICS. An intergovernmental organization of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. This could be a huge accelerant to the renewable energy transition and a new currency. Full speed ahead! Dare I have Hopium?

Humility, born of understanding that the Universe is utterly indifferent to our existence, seems to be a prerequisite to our continued survival as a species. Our ability to adopt hubris as a driving force is the opposite.

Frank is so cute! My cats would be very jealous of him.

I guess I'm going to be the dissenting voice on this one. adding to my original post: solar panels have a rarely acknowledged advantage (Nate might say "super power") compared to all other "green" forms of electrical generation (nuclear, hydro, wind, geothermal, etc) in that they can be a gateway into human dependence/relationship to the sun and living around the day/night cycle. In the case of 3rd world people who previously didn't have electricity, it can make their life easier (which they need b/c the natural system they live in is probably dimished from human activity) while still maintaining their relationship to the sun esp if they have little or no battery. I have noticed that Nate has a bias against solar panels. We have 12 commercial panels 3 east 3 south 6 west in Houston Texas. They provide an equivalent amount to our usage at approx 50% grid reliance meaning about 50% of our power is used during the times of production and 50% outside of production with 50% of our production sold to the grid (and going to our neighbors usage usually when their AC is rouring). If there was more household effort we could get to a lower grid reliance. If we added a 10kw battery we would probably be very close to 0% grid reliance. This includes a lot of our transportation as we use ebikes (along with an older model hybrid car). If we used an EV maybe we would need a few more panels. In Houston our primary use of electricity is for Air Conditioning. The panels produce energy when we need energy. The though experiment and other comments from Nate don't acknowledge how well solar panels perform in certain situations. Not just our household, but also in rural areas, daytime factories, daytime schools, 3rd world etc. Some commerical and school locations in particular could turn AC off at night entirely. We rarely need heat here. We used a single 9,000 BTU heat pump for a 2,000 sq ft house for a few years. It worked ok. We added a second for better control, comfort, and as a backup/redundancy since being without AC is difficult in Houston and I would like time to attempt any repair myself (or delaying the repair outside of peak season) before paying top dollar during a breakdown in the middle of summer when rates are high. We use very little hot water in Houston and most of our household can easily go without entirely. We use a sun oven sometimes but usually use a pressure cooker with induction stove. No clothes dryer. No dishwasher. No Gas to the home. etc. My point is that in this climate, for our home that has no shade on it, solar panels work. I wish Nate would get into the nuance of where solar is great/good/ok, and yes sometimes totally wasteful/stupid/counter-productive etc rather than trying to sum up the overall effects worldwide. (simon michaux analysis is misleading as it combines the worst applications with the best applications rather than separating the regions/homes/industries where it's sensible, and other regions/homes/industrites where it's basically useless). That analysis makes no sense sorry to be harsh Nate you can do better than that. I know solar probably isn't great where you live and that must be frustrating to be stuck using so much fossil energy (or being uncomfortable) but there are places where it works really well. Also, solar panels can probably produce at a high capacity for 30-50 years (often people say 10-20) they don't pose a threat like wind if you leave them on too long as they degrade, shade and placement matters (chimney's, trees, north) For sure as a general statement we are doing solar wrong, for sure it is one of the last changes to make after other home improvements and habits changed, but please be more nuanced on this technology. Encourage solar where it works, encourage burning wood where it works, encourage beavers where it works : ), etc. Do more to educate location based technology. Being critical of solar is of the same thinking of looking for a silver bullet (b/c it expects too much from a location based technology). Solar is amazing where it is amazing and wasteful where it is wasteful. The intermittent argument doesn't apply for a LARGE number of people and businesses on the planet and we should increase solar as fast as possible where it works, while discouraging it (or even outlawing it) when it's being used where it will not work well. So much more to say about this but silly to write such a long comment and I'll probably be addressing the "Life Ethic" list also.

@marxxthespot

Ай бұрын

When I think about what we (humanity) must do solar is full of contradictions. When I think of what I want to do (for sanity & freedom) it’s to live off grid in a tiny home. The people who are doing that ar using solar to preserve as much of their comforts as possible… and doing it! Scale that mindset, lifestyle and values up (which IS happening among millions of young people) we’re talking about dramatic, unpredictable and positive change 🌞🤝🌞🤝🌞

@alliecravulz

Ай бұрын

Nate is a systems thinker. In that sense he emphasises that there is no "magic bullet" like the solar panel for a systemic problem. That's how I understand it

@weliveonearth8012

Ай бұрын

​@@marxxthespot if the only solutions are those without contradiction, then there is literally nothing to do. Any form of agriculture is full of contradictions, including permaculture. Doing anything on the internet for the sake of sustainability is full of contradictions. Going anywhere by any mode other than maybe barefoot is full of contradictions. In light of the recent episode Nate had with Tom Chi I would think Nate would lay off the solar panel critique. There are many many many places where free solar panels would be beneficial for the 5% we might hope to achieve in our life time.

@weliveonearth8012

Ай бұрын

@@alliecravulz his critique actually indicates the opposite, which I addressed in my post. I'll pull it out for you and fill out the idea here: "Being critical of solar is of the same thinking of looking for a silver bullet (b/c it expects too much from a location based technology)" If your expectations for goldilocks technologies don't include solar panels at the top of your list in 2024 then you are actually looking for "magic bullets". Meaning, for the next 30-50 years minimum solar panels belong in the toolbox of goldilock technologies. Maybe they are not on the 3024 list but if you don't have them on the 2024 list then you must be looking for "magic bullets" In light of the recent episode about solar ovens, they are a goldilocks technology but not a magic bullet and probably not worth their weight in materials in many geographies. Their potential usefulness follows a similar geographical and demographical pattern as solar panels. In many cases a free solar panel would be seen as more beneficial to the recipient than a free solar cooker, is the recipient wrong? That soft data is worth more than meta-analysis such as number crunching how many panels it would take to power our worldwide use since that will never happen while individual use cases do move the needle.

@ricos1497

Ай бұрын

@@weliveonearth8012 I think you're misinterpreting Nate's thoughts on solar. He isn't critical of the technology itself, nor does he question its validity in various individual circumstances. What he talks about is system wide use of energy, in which he regularly mentions Jevons' paradox. You're individual living design simply isn't applicable to most people, because you are actively working against the metrics of our existing system. If everyone were to live modestly, like you, then our economic system would simply collapse. It requires growth, and requires system. What Nate is saying is that it simply isn't possible to maintain the existing system, but substitute solar, EVs, wind etc in place of fossil fuels - and he's correct (I believe). It has to be done in a manner where consumption is drastically reduced, and resources are used in an intelligent manner in the correction location/application. I don't think anyone is asking the question: "how many solar panels can we sustainably produce per generation (solar panel generation) with the material resources required in their production, where sustainability means that we have solar power from that resource for, say, 1000 years?". If you ask that question, you are then in a position to allocate those resources to the areas most suited. Nate's intimation, when he talks of free solar panels, is that within our existing system that question will not be asked, and they will simply be allocated along market lines and the resources required to manufacture solar panels will be drained in around the same timescales as we have drained our fossil fuel resource. Until we start treating our resources as multi-millenial generations' fuel, then there will be no magic bullet technology, just as its turned out that fossil fuels aren't.

Someone who says they want to quit smoking or lose weight but doesn't, does not really want to. They may learn everything there is to know intellectually about the topic, collecting techniques and advice, and educating themselves on the risks to their health and benefits of change. But if there is no drive, no strength of will, they will continue to do as before, only now with more self-loathing. Maybe they need a change of conditions first, like new work, new environment or new community. Maybe they just need to get tired of it and decide to stop making excuses. Maybe they realize that their desire to change was all peer pressure and they resolve to die doing as they've always done. What impetus, internal or external, would actually be powerful enough to break the inertia of humanity's habits? Would it be religious/spiritual, intellectual, economic, technological? So far all Earth day type propositions seem to be some version of solar panels.

@opossumboyo

Ай бұрын

This is why I have become so apathetic towards environmental activism as of late. I know what has to be done to address the climate crisis and am happy to speak about it, yet I write comments on youtube videos on my cell phone. I just bought a new computer for my father because the old one, which was only a decade old, was getting too slow for him to do online meetings. These things aren’t compatible with the biophysical limits of the world. Try as hard as I can to “know” what needs to be done to solve the problem, I just can’t bring myself to quit the technology that makes life convenient.

@Corrie-fd9ww

Ай бұрын

I see the deepest root cause of the ecological crisis as being the inner world of most individuals. There’s really only been two worldviews for humans- earth centered or human centered (usually male human centered.) If someone was raised within, immersed within the earth centered paradigm, there’s a strong foundation of relating with all life as family. It’s deeper than any emotion, too, like caring or empathy. It’s a direct experience of the benefits of tending to, and caring for, nature as family. If someone is raised and immersed within the other paradigm (human centered) the foundation for relating with all of nature as family just isn’t there. So caring for, tending to, becomes more chores and tasks to “do” on top of all the other “doing” in a modern lifestyle. And emotions are often shallow and fickle, so making it about caring just doesn’t have longevity for humans who are burnt out, and trained from birth to be selfish and steeped in separation and individualism. Maybe it’s about “embodying” nature as self, relating with earth as creator, and family, beyond emotions or experiences, and unless that’s been ingrained, the true sustainable motivation just isn’t there. I will say though that spiritual seekers, among other people who are hungry for and craving meaningful connection, can be the most open to immersing in the earth centered worldview and “embodying” that. It’s an “ego death” of sorts, and the discomfort, pain, etc is a big part of it. So that type of inner transformation has always been rare.

@timeenoughforart

Ай бұрын

Quitting nicotine was much harder than quitting alcohol. I know a little about the process. "Wanting to" isn't a good word choice. If any thing the lack of social support has more to do than any "Will Power". (Trust me it will still take every ounce of will power to quit, but it just isn't enough) We have had a major shift in the number of nicotine addicts after society changed. It was not that long ago that we got around to put a warning label on cigarettes. Yes, we need to change the conditions. A) Imagine the power of just stopping planned obsolescence. So much we produce today is just premeditated garbage. B) Imagine fashion becoming unfashionable. Really how many shirts does a person need to stay warm. I have some 20 year old work shirts, well made, that I still wear. C) Just change the speed we travel. 95% of my travel is under 45 MPH. If we switched to a light weight form of transport with a top speed of 35 MPH it would have very little effect on our lives. With wide tires we could eliminate pavement. Just a thought. D) How many square feet do we really need in a house? Imagine doing away with power lines and running house hold systems of primitive 48 volt solar. Heating and drying cloths would need to be reexamined, but just how much of a loss is it really. Give me some quality rocket stove technology and I can heat with twigs from the garden. I'm sure my hair brained ideas have "Issues", but what if we put our brightest minds to the problems rather than working on ways pump more oil. Of course it is all just noise unless we can restructure military mindsets. An after thought E) just a shift from human centered consciousness to life centered. A new religion? God knows those in the middle east haven't done much for humanity or the planet.

4. What if we could put most of humanity into a state of suspended animation while a few work to remake the world infrastructure? What would that look like? Centers for sustainable living connected by public transportation. The infrastructure of this new world would be so enabling and enriching that a mindset for personal transportation would be made obsolete.

Been loving this podcast for a few months now. Nate, do you have a recommended book list for someone fairly new to this stuff? Would peg myself as orange/GREEN with bits of yellow in the SD model.

"what if climate change caused Humanity?" that's a very interesting and different perspective.

To pay people better and guide more intuitively is manageable.

What if Advanced Humans existed yet were completely rebellious.

Interesting thought on solar panels.

@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner

Ай бұрын

If the users matched consumption with solar electric production there would be a different outcome? Just another thought experiment.

@daviddunkelheit9952

Ай бұрын

@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner That’s a good idea… what if we reduced energy consumption to more efficient and sustainable production

@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner

Ай бұрын

@@daviddunkelheit9952 Not sure about sustainable but this energy would last longer.

@ricos1497

Ай бұрын

@@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner I'm not sure about sustainability of that either, but it's certainly the calculation that we should be making! I'm hoping that you're going to allow my part of Scotland to replace solar with wind for that thought experiment too, otherwise I'm screwed!

@RickLarsonPermacultureDesigner

Ай бұрын

@@ricos1497 Well then, wind away! Otherwise, maybe a well insulated hut surrounded by gardens surrounded by production bushes surrounded by food crop trees surrounded by coppiced and pollarded trees might help out in the long term... 🙂

Happy Earth Day

Brilliant!

Truth, well told 👍👍 Why include “like virtual worlds”? This would give AI it’s own reasoning and purpose, no? For every move into discovery and caution, the opposing forces of (self annihilation) power and greed became the dominant forces in the Industrial Revolution; I suspect it’s been there since the beginning of cultivation and the control of power.

Something that comes up in my mind often is the evolution of birds, their ancestors did the hard work and after thousands of years they did it the way earth “ likes”, they made it all the way to flight without fossil fuel and without destroying the environment, sure they had to give up teeth, and strong bones, but hey, they can fly, we on the other hand won’t do the hard work it takes to force an evolutionary change, we instead have grown a dependency on a depleting energy source. Sad

Any thoughts on the Potsdam paper in Nature forecasting a locked in 19% decline in global income (11% in the US) by 2049 due to climate change? I suspect it will be far worse.

If only the superbrilliant time travelers could have the power to embue ethics to early civilizations...

We will live in the wreckage. With bad information. Just like we've always done. But this time.....somebody has to make guitar strings.

What is the answer to all these experiments? Less humans! All these experiments assume that humans are smarter than they are.

We are time travelling, we are going forwards to the futur. What we need is to work out how to change the futur, not the past. Putting humans in stasis and having an "elite" group "fix" everything is useless as well. It continues the ideology of consumerism to it's most dystopian ending. What we need is a prehistoric training camp (6 months in the stone age as part of our education) and a pastoralist training camp (a year as a pastoralist) and a bronze age (3 months as a literal slave) for all citizens. This immersion would change our perspectives on life. We could stand on the shoulders of giants without the fear of looking down. Then we need to limit land ownership so as to ruin industrial agriculture, repopulate the countryside with smaller regenerative farms and community and THUS...empty the cities so as to reshape them with a healthy urbanisation code (spider with green wedges) instead of the centrophilic tumeurs that they are. Sorry Nate my friend, this was your worst ever frankly, way too elitist,, reminds of a Philip K Dick novel where they froze all the blacks and hushed up when they found a new planet.

Well, vert good questions! On solar panels, I disagree on the proposal. I think that money is the best human scale in the world. In daily life better than MKSI scientific scales. It's like Churchill stated about democracy. Indeed, there are huge falsifications, but it is our best reference to help us in important choices. It does represent a little biophysical reality: there is always some energy, materials, capital and human labour in it, even if capital and labour are overrated. Hence nothing can be for free.

On March 15, 2024 a severe hailstorm damaged thousands of solar panels at the Fighting Jays Solar Farm, a 3,000-acre site in Fort Bend County, Texas, 40 miles outside of Houston.

To use the review mirror on life is to know where we came from. It is better to measure forward in thought even as a historian. Life needs to be more ecologically sustainable.

Thought experiment. Is a human being whose passion and commitment planting and maintaining a community garden the same person when in uniform and fighting to protect their country and family from invaders? What changes psychologically? Where does one person go and the other arrive?

current free solar panel programs are offered by electricity companies. They calculate the expected accumulation of solar from a property. If the generative amount of solar exceeds the needs of the household, The electricity company makes the home owner an offer. The cap the use of the homer off by looking at past usage rates. Then gives them a nice price per kilowatt for going over the amount of the cap. They know the solar panels are only good for 20yrs, so if there wasnt a profit in using your home as a solar farm, they wouldnt be offering you "free" solar panels

I think I'd trade the pill bugs in my garden for 100 barrels! ;)

"Just the same as I"

Maximize life, minimize evil. (If you haven't noticed, evil IS the reverse spelling of live).

@Tectenitarius

Ай бұрын

Life is evil by its very satanic consumptive nature in the biological sense. So what you want to do is a self-bullshit self-delusion of typical human egocentric civilisational continual bullshit. Evil is biological matter existence as it cannot continue without necessary harm in its "evolution" and is in no way able to be "Good" that is unnecessary harmless innately. Man is evil because matter is evil because nature is evil.

The board crossers though there be many. These people are working on their eyes and their gate. To a studied man we can call this eye-gate informational up take and wits. All the vehicles and houses about have my people in America snuffed out and their flame. We come from the outdoors and the fresh air. Electronics, televisions, and so on have a similar tie of the mind. To heal this condition people need to read and run more often.

Smaller footprints of electricity and water are more sensible than continual mining ⛏️

8:30 'what sort of infrastructure' - I think it would look a lot more like Delft than Detroit.

What if we determined the amount of resources each of 8 billion can consume and then made it a crime punishable by being halved and excluded from any responsible economic tasks if you hoarded and behaved like the winners in this civilization. ?

@ricos1497

Ай бұрын

If you're being halved, then I suspect your not going to have much further involvement in the economic system!

I picture an ancient monkey seeing some rotting fruit on the ground, stay away ,do not eat, but the mental deterrents were not strong (deep?) enough. So it was with Oil no doubt, Ancient caveman sees oil seeping out if the ground, lights it on fire with his torch, oh boy a new way to cook food. 😅 I guess it all hinges on human curiosity maybe.

I’m not sure that the use of fossil fuels as we see it today wasn’t inevitable. It seems to me that it is inevitable because it’s kind of an arms race against other less adaptable technologies. I’m not saying there is no other way to live, simply that the most powerful dominant energy source is kind of doomed to be: . . Powerful and dominant Jevons paradox and all that

1. What if solar panels were free? We can take this hypothetical beyond all limits as we know them and ask, “What if energy itself were free?” Given the history of human tendencies to flourish at the expense of other species, my guess is we would very quickly overwhelm the ecology that supports our existence. I assume the hypothetical here is to make us think about all the externalities inherent in the mining, processing and manufacturing of the panels. Something that we don’t hear often enough are the dynamics of scaling up. I don’t know the numbers so I will make them up. Suppose 7% of the current electric grid demand is satisfied by solar. What does the ecological impact look like as we ramp this up to 50 percent?

@stephenboyington630

Ай бұрын

This podcast has discussed a future where we have to make do with much less energy. What if we ramp up to, say, 25% of present household electricity usage by solar but then stopped needing/using the other 75%?

Here's a thought experiment for anyone out there: What if you found out that exactly 100 years from the day that you die humanity (for whatever reason) will go extinct, would you change how you live?

To #7: Certainly, a well-educated and briefed set of people, with well-chosen insertion vectors and strategies, can advance the state of science and technology considerably. But I fear people will still be people, still given to exploiting resources to exhaustion and refusing to look ahead beyond their own lifetimes. Giving the leaders of 250 years ago a set of recommendations for developmental paths will likely be futile; they will shortly find they can get much more prosperous, much quicker, by eschewing sustainability and embracing short-termism. Likely we would end up right where we are now, only a few decades earlier. Dealing with our environmental and resource situation will require that People Who Matter accept, essentially, their own deaths: or rather, a certain reduction in their wealth and importance, which to them is the same thing.

My bet would be that there would be no awakening for 99% of those put into suspended animation, besides desirable partners at best some worker drones either "zombified" or turned into some half robot cyborg slaves. The same malignant characters who brought us to this point with their exploitative mindset would probably take over again and manipulate or force the rest of the wake population to accept that it would be foolish to reawaken humanity instead of just enjoying the sudden increase of availible resources per capita still left to burn through. I would hope this was not the outcome but so far this seems to be the usual pattern

@barrycarter8276

Ай бұрын

It could be far worse that Alexander, and with no need to drift into science fiction. Check out Dr Jack Alpert and his views on diminishing Oil and its effects on population, or Alice J. Friedemann’s book “When Trucks Stop Running”. And then there’s Kurt Dahl’s book “An American Famine”. Kurt Dahl’s book should be a warning of when everything edible particularly protein is necessary to survive, when nothing is safe, dogs, cats, rodents, garden birds, even best of friends, neighbours, family, as humanity’s animal spirit turns to bestiality, the gun rules in the survival of the fittest, and the fittest are the worst of the Superorganism’s intelligent predators, when “The Great Simplification” is perhaps just a stay of execution before the executioner’ers arrive, and this may not be that far in the future, with many alive now suffering this fate🤔

@alexanderleuchte5132

Ай бұрын

Wouldn't it be more ethical to take the responsibility to just not reawaken them instead of automatically condemn all these people who went into suspended animation with hope to eventually experience death instead of just letting them rest in peace since they are already out of consciousness?

I see India is going to double its Coal production , any thoughts on that?

Rod Morrison: Really great thinker and 4h generation farmer out of Wyoming: kzread.info/dash/bejne/poR2pdGHY6y8iqg.html

For # 6 Everyone would be vegan!❤

The thought of #2 makes me nauseated

Amendment to my original post: I need to add an real life example, or this post might look extremely naive. It's my understanding that the use of Colorado river water in the US has it running dry in Mexico. Supposedly, something like 90% of the water that once reached Mexico is now used before it gets there. Those places in America using the water are greener and more full of life, but there is a cost. You can make more plant and animal life by draining aquifers too. I hope that gives context for this post. Nate, I love your work. It's super educational and motivational. However, I'm going to be very critical of your "Life Ethic" list. I'll try to keep this brief b/c my solar panel comment was too long. I have no disagreement with #1. #2-#6 I believe are False. I think #7 is basically true. I'm not going to address #8. I'll briefly discuss #9. Why do I believe #2-#5 are false? Put simply, because I do not believe Rainforests and Oceans are superior to desert, tundra, arctic, caves, etc. The earth is a system and there are benefits to the mostly quiet and mostly lifeless places. Quiet mostly lifeless places benefits both the system at large and also benefit human consciousness as they teach us unique things that can't be learned from the places that are more full of life. #6 seems like the current ethic of humanity that is causing (or accelerating) our predicament. Maximize existence is why have 8 Billion people, why we avoid natural death, etc. Maximize happiness is why enough is never enough. Minimize suffering is why we are so bad at sacrifice. It would probably be better for the long haul if we reduced our expectations of: lifespan, happiness, love, understanding and increase our tolerance for suffering. For example, I would get more gardening done if I stopped trying to understand everything. I would live a more "natural" life if I wasn't trying to feel happy all the time. etc. I think this topic is really hard, much harder than you are making it out to be. You often say that politicians are afraid to talk about resource constraints publicly. That is true. The ethical part of our predicament is even more difficult and scary to discuss, almost impossible. It may be unnatural for humans to follow the general ethics of "nature" and we might not survive if we tried. "Nature" and sustainable systems seems very violent and unfair and scary to human expectations. #9 "We should maximize good and minimize evil since the universe does not" Like #6 this seems to be the current goal of the human project. Most people will insist they are maximizing good and minimizing evil. Depends on how you define the terms and set the parameters, right? Do you mean your definition of good and evil? I doubt it, you are too humble to mean that. Also, how certain are you that the universe doesn't maximize good? Maybe it does not sure how I would calculate or sort that out from my human POV. I don't see how #9 gets anywhere.

@ricos1497

Ай бұрын

Some good points there. However, these points are from a human perspective, thus they can only ever be a story that we tell ourselves in order to maximise positive (or negative, I guess) behaviours. For number 9, you ask how certain we are that the universe doesn't maximise good. I guess it doesn't matter, as long as we believe it does, via these life ethics. I tend to agree with your other points, especially about it being a very hard topic!

@GregoryMatous

28 күн бұрын

I think you are misunderstanding life ethics. They are not laws, they are possible goals to aspire to. So not true or false in that sense. As for #2, I can prove it thru reductio ad absurdum. Suppose that there are only one form of life: humans. You can see very quickly that humans will not survive for more than a month in this scenario. Try removing some species like plankton, and you will see that it causes severe limits on life including human life. If there is one sub-species of bananna, you will see that it is much more vulnerable than a more diverse scenario. If there is no preference for life at all, then you can see that human life will not exist. Is this ok with you?

@GregoryMatous

28 күн бұрын

@@ricos1497 Agreed. It seems we are running a giant experiment right now to reduce the diversity of life on the planet to those species that can directly serve human needs. So chickens, cows, corn, wheat. The long term impact of that remains to be seen. Just from human health alone, it does not seem to be optimal.

@weliveonearth8012

27 күн бұрын

@@GregoryMatous Did I refer to anything as a Law? I don't think I did. Simply "aspiring" to this list has obvious consequences. You did not prove #2. I agree that no life is better than life. (#2 does not claim that life is better than no life so your "reductio ad absurdum" is a straw man argument) The premise of ethic #2 is that more life is better than less, and that is a green light to optimize ecosystems to have more life. There are contexts were that is wise and other contexts were that is destructive. As an alternative, the ethic of ecological maintenance and re-wilding are good, although if the climate changes too much that ethic might need some complexity added for adjustments.

Here's a thought. Let's rename earth. Call it something cool like the rest of the planets and moons. Earth is just dirt and rocks.

@lornareay

Ай бұрын

It's not the name that's a problem, it's the misunderstanding that earth is just a pile of dirt and rocks. Look closely under a microscope. In one teaspoon of earth, you will find millions of life forms that interconnect and form the basis of all life. It's easy to trash what you don't even see. Unless we educate ourselves, we can rename this planet till we're blue in the face but we will still trash it.

I like dogs, but I don’t like them licking me, sorry, maybe it’s because I have a phobia of catching parasites like hookworm, roundworm, and giardia which can be passed from dog to human through licking. Salmonella, too, can be passed from your dog to you, or vice versa. But back to Nate’s Earth Day and the Superorganism, and so humanity’s position on the carbon pulse. Recently finished book by Kurt Dahl “An American Famine”, if anyone knows of Dr Jack Alpert and his views on diminishing Oil and its effects on population, or Alice J. Friedemann’s book “When Trucks Stop Running” then Kurt Dahl’s book should be a warning of when everything edible particularly protein is necessary to survive, when nothing is safe, dogs, cats, rodents, garden birds, even best of friends, neighbours, family, as humanity’s animal spirit turns to bestiality, the gun rules in the survival of the fittest, and the fittest are the worst of the Superorganism’s intelligent predators, when “The Great Simplification”perhaps just a stay of execution before the executioner’ers arrive🤔

Nate, there seems to be a trend in your, otherwise excellent, work that points to a group of betters that will be able to solve our various crises, whether it be billionaires or experts. It seems to ignore the evidence of humanity to date! It's a deferrence that has failed us massively in the past, and probably will again. Quite simply, there shouldn't be billionaires in a functioning society and whilst it's important to respect a person's knowledge, if that knowledge (or that which the knowledge designs) is out of reach of the majority then it probably shouldn't be used to form a blueprint for a viable civilisation. In respect of sending 100 people back in time, then, it'd make no sense to do so. There were people living harmoniously with nature, without fossil fuels before that point, and there will again in the future. Just as there will always be people who think that they know better and those that will ignore the warnings. Of your three scenarios of freezing the population in time (and ignoring the "betters" point above), the first two are utterly irrelevant without the third, and changing the third will ultimately change the first two.

@thegreatsimplification

Ай бұрын

True. I’m glad the thought experiment brought such clarity

Talking to the side of money and being all inclusive is problematic!

the irony here is this channel is turning into AI art channel, the very things we need to fight. opposite of simplify.

Come on Nate your becoming a woke unlistenable academic you’re podcasts used to be so interesting

@opossumboyo

Ай бұрын

Why do you believe this is the case? I don’t think Nate has changed many of his core points since the beginning of his podcast.

@treefrog3349

Ай бұрын

Please don't ever stop what you are doing Nate! Your inquisitiveness, big heart and brain are what this world so sorely needs.

@alliecravulz

Ай бұрын

Why woke?

@lornareay

Ай бұрын

When we point a finger, there are three fingers pointing back at us