On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 12:28:16PM -0800, Heather Madrone wrote: [...] > The problem with chains of logic is that the running code (in this > case, reality) can take another branch anywhere along the line and > end up in a completely different place.
It would not have been so bad, however: - humans have tendency to be over optimistic (including me and my way of describing things) - I think the way the Universe works, there is greater chance that branching will take us in worse direction rather than better one > Wars definitely damage, but rarely completely wreck, ecosystems. > Even the most devastating nuclear war would have a hard time > eradicating all humans on Earth, let alone every extremophile > ecosystem on the planet. Yes and no. The damage sometimes takes place on a battlefield and sometimes around facilities supplying the battlefield: https://orionmagazine.org/article/the-forbidden-forest/ https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/destruction_of_the_ecosystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_war Those things are of the past and they were, sometimes continue to be serious. And the world population was, say, well below two billion, and our means were only so-so. I am mostly certain it would go much more serious in not very far away future, with ecology feeble from overexploitation and climate changes, and many more people to feed and equip before they reduce each other en masse in a mincer. And, we have now even more powerful means for everything (except we cannot be powerfully less harmful to environment). As of "no more ecosystems" - sure, I realize there are some life down below my feet, perhaps hundreds kilometers down below. But for the purpose of keeping me alive, this life can as well be in a distant planetary system. Or worse, it may contribute to releasing some toxic (to me) materials, if some yet unknown environmental seal gets broken. [...] > The whole planet is infected with the same disease. Either the > infectious agent (that would be us) will learn to live in harmony > with its environment or it will die when it kills its host. I do not see it quite the same way and I oppose the idea that I am bacteria. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
