pezar wrote:
pbcoll wrote:
Would those whining about the evils of the modern world prefer to die of bubonic plague (now curable), rabies (preventable), smallpox (eradicated thanks to vaccines), leprosy (curable), etc? Preindustrial life was (and still is, in some parts of the world) brutal, hungry, violent and usually short, whether you like these facts or not. Frankly, I don't see how anybody that knows anything about the Middle Ages would think the modern era is less mentally healthy. I'll have science over burning people alive to appease angry gods any day (but I do admit human sacrifice must be a heck of a lot more emotional than science).
Of course, the people that claim to hate the industrial world so much could simply move to the more remote parts of Africa or Afghanistan instead of whining about it on the internet (not the most preindustrial of mediums). They are analogous to those that sing the praises of a world communist revolution while sipping champagne.
Anybody who thinks that preindustrial societies were eco-friendly ought to look up 'roza y quema,' the history of Easter Island, etc. Environmental damage was usually modest because famine, war and plagues kept the population tiny compared to what it is now.
The only problem with curing "disease" is that the diseases were an important population control mechanism. Without regular plagues to clean out the population, the number of humans has raced far ahead of what the planet can support. It's getting to the point where we can no longer genetically manipulate agriculture to solve the problem.
Here in California, forest fires were a regular feature of the cycle of the forest for millenia. They cleared out the underbrush and allowed the sturdy trees to thrive, which in turn supported an ecosystem. But when whites came along, they decided fire was "bad" so they suppressed it. All of it. So for a century the underbrush grew and grew, until now when there's a fire, the whole forest goes up in a tremendous wall of flame, and the end result resembles Hiroshima. In places where humans have been unable to replant trees, such as the Martis drainage visible above Floriston, California, off Interstate 80, the formerly rich forest has turned into a desert, with small shrubs growing where centuries old pines once stood.
I think that we will find that plagues served the same purpose among humans, clearing out dead wood. We've suppressed them for so long that when a virulent plague pops up that we can't control, and it will, billions will die, and the secondary diseases caused by rotting bodies may wipe out the rest of humanity. If any humans survive, they would likely return, or try to return, to hunter gatherer or crude agricultural society. The situation is so dire that virus response teams are jumping on any outbreak of anything anywhere lest it get out of hand. The unnatural places are the vast urban shantytowns where most of humanity lives.
So in that case, yeah, I would be willing to die of a plague if it meant a stronger humanity. Nature doesn't care about the individual, but the group. Individuals are disposable; survival of the species is paramount. Unless humanity adopts this way of thinking, we're toast. As for escaping civilization, I do plan on buying remote land where I can live a relatively simple existence. Someday. I don't have the money now. I don't think it's 100% possible to totally escape civilization, something that led the Unabomber to go on his rampage.
Or we could just drastically lower the birthrate by means of contraception, as China does by diktat, and the Italians, Spaniards, Japanese and Koreans do of their own free will. World population growth is slowing down, in fact. If you wish to die of plague, be my guest, but frankly I'm guessing that, like most people, you'd be desperate for a cure if it came to that.
You're dead wrong on 'Nature doesn't care about the individual, but the group' - biologically,
your genes' survival is the only thing that matters, not the rest of your species; from an evolutionary point of view, it's fine to sacrifice for your descendants and close relatives, but the rest of the species has no inherent value.
_________________
I am the steppenwolf that never learned to dance. (Sedaka)
El hombre es una bestia famélica, envidiosa e insaciable. (Francisco Tario)
I'm male by the way (yes, I know my avatar is misleading).
31 Aug 2008, 3:56 pm
