From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: The Human Niche
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 23:50:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep9.083951.10806@kth.se> tpalm@nada.kth.se (Thomas Palm) writes:
>
>In article <1992Sep9.041733.12779@nuchat.sccsi.com>, kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>|> 
>|> Even if your argument *is* that humans will suffer nastier consequences
>|> by exploiting nature than by working with nature, it will still be an
>|> essentially religious argument *unless* you can provide convincing
>|> evidence that working with nature *does* yield a greater benefit to
>|> cost ratio than exploiting nature does.  And here I think you are at
>|> a severe disadvantage, for (as I say above) humans have HUNDREDS OF
>|> THOUSANDS OF YEARS of experience that says that exploiting nature works
>|> much better (we discovered this when we started using tools).
>
>Note that during most of that time we have had a rather small impact on the
>environment. Thus we have been able to take what we want without worrying
>about the consequences as nature has been able to replace most resources.

This is why I later said that :

    It turns out that this is actually a false dichotomy.  One needn't be
    entirely "for nature" or "against nature".  One may pick and choose
    when to be one or the other.  As far as I'm concerned, the "right" choice
    is whatever happens to be advantageous at the time, provided that the
    distant consequences of that choice aren't too severe.

Note carefully that I *did* mention considering the distant consequences
of the choices we make.

>Today, with a much larger population and technical level, we are in a position
>to easily destroy our environment and thus ourselves. 

On the other hand, with the same technology, we are also in a position to
easily augment our environment and thus ourselves.  It's a matter of
application.

>We therefore has to
>learn to care about consequences for nature whether we consider it to have a
>value in itself or not.

This is basically the "we need to consider the environment because what we
do to the environment will affect us" argument, which I am entirely in
agreement with.

>Considering that we today have rather limited knowledge about what parts of the
>ecosystem that can be destroyed without risk to humans it is also hard to
>protect the environment as the people wanting to destroy it usually can show
>immediate economic profits. If one later finds out that the vanished ecosystem 
>was essential, it will usually be hard or impossible to replace.

While this is true, it may be just as true that doing *nothing* will yield
equally bad results.

The biggest problem, though, is that it's real hard to learn about the
environment without actually affecting it in some way.

Furthermore, there are scenarios in which the *natural* course is
detrimental to humans (and other organisms), e.g. a naturally-occurring
ice age.  In such a situation, is it not better to attempt to actively
prevent such a thing from happening than to simply "let nature take its
course"?

Someone, like Alan (it seems), who doesn't have his fellow human beings
foremost in mind, shouldn't expect much sympathy or cooperation from his
fellow human beings.

>In order to create a balance between short term profit and long time risks a
>ecological "religion" placing an inherent value on nature may actually be of
>great survival value. 

Of course, the reverse may also be true.  That is, such a "religion" may
well be detrimental, particularly when it places greater value on the
environment than it does on the humans who occupy it.

>A rational cost-benefit analysis including the cost of
>unknown risks would of course be better, but our society seems to be incapable
>of that at this point.

One needn't do a full cost-benefit analysis in order to approach the problem
of what actions to take with a level head.  I think it is far better to
approach a problem with a rational perspective than with a religious
perspective, because the former is open to changes in knowledge whereas the
latter is generally not.

>To avoid some flames (and probably get some other) I must add that I believe 
>that the ethical argument of supporting nature for its own sake is valid. 

Valid on what grounds?

Not that I can really disagree.  Ethics is a subjective thing, and is
difficult to argue rationally.

>As our wealth have increased the trend has been to include larger groups in
>those with an inherent value, i.e. racism and sexism isn't very popular these
>days while slavery is completely out. This is merely a continuation of that
>trend.

I don't see these things as a shift in values so much as a shift in
methods of judgement.  That is, I see the trend you mention here as a
trend towards judgement of others via rational and measurable means
(e.g., judgement of a worker in terms of their capability to do the
job rather than in terms of their race, religion, or sex).  Instead of
measuring others with stereotypes, the trend seems to be towards measuring
others with actual data.  Doing things as the trend suggests is almost
surely an economic, if not social, win.

Thus, I don't see the idea of treating the environment as an entity with
rights or any such thing to be a valid parallel, inasmuch as a primary
element is missing from it, namely that of the responsibilities that go
along with the rights.  Further (as I mentioned before), the bulk of
our experience is that it is a huge win to exploit nature rather than to
simply leave it be.

I agree that the economics of our relationship with the rest of the
universe is something that must be examined.  But I would argue that,
in some sense, we always do this.  The biggest problem is that we tend
to locally optimize.  This is a tendency which is very difficult to
get rid of, because we're evolved to locally optimize (remember:
evolution works in such a way that the only thing that really matters
is how often the individual is able to produce offspring that will do
the same, and as such the ability to locally optimize one's own situation
is very strongly selected for).  Our ability to work in groups exists
only because doing so tends to be better, overall, for the individuals
involved than working alone.

>"Goood planets are hard to find."    Thomas Palm


-- 
				Kevin Brown

			    kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
			    kevin@taronga.taronga.com