It’s very interesting that the nukes dropped will be mentioned, but the real death toll of the century was plain simple greed and selfishness. Those two working together have and will kill countless more in the upcoming century
Comment on Not a good sign
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
The betrayal of generations from the 20th century will be remembered for thousands of years.
That is not hyperbole.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 months ago
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Yes, how disturbing is it that the dropping of the nuclear bombs on Japan will be most useful to historians not as a hyperbolic tragedy that stood alone but as a way to explain the much broader mass slaughter of humans that the 20th century perpetrated and locked in for thousands of years?
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 months ago
TBF the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immediately preceded by far larger slaughters of humanity using more conventional methods, a fact which somewhat minimizes their significance. I’m referring mainly to the Holocaust and the Japanese genocide in China, but even the US firebombing of Tokyo in early 1945 exceeded the death tolls of the atomic bombings.
Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 2 months ago
But how will we get more money to the shareholders if we stop pushing humanity towards extinction!?
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
see there’s your problem. shareholders. thinking of them as plural.
fartographer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Not if MechaHitler’s daddy has anything to say about it.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think of them as The Buffet, which is singular.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Are those generations really worse than those before it? Yes the environmental destruction is unparalleled but so were also the tools that enable that. In the Stone Age people could not have even come close to doing what we are doing eight now to the environment even if they wanted too.
The term the tragedy of the commons originally referred to English cattle herders letting their cows overgraze public land because if they don’t overgraze it some other herders would do it instead. Stories like this are everywhere in history. The Vikings cut down every single tree in Iceland and the Faroe islands when they arrived with no care for the environmental whatsoever.
Whaling, the clubbing of seals, the extinction of the dodo. There are countless examples. And if we are talking pure human to human cruelty, no war in the 20th century comes close to what the mongols did.
The people of the 20th century were not more cruel or selfish than previous ones. They were simply the first ones given the tools and ability to pollute the whole earth.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I am uninterested in comparing the moral qualities of generations. Humans are humans.
I am interested in the scale of the violence done by these generations against the earth as it will never be able to be surpassed without fully annihilating the human race.
800 years from now no one is going to care how sorry everyone was now about the damage they have done, what matters is the impact.
Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I did not know the history of the term tragedy of the commons. Thanks for educating me on that, I will now reconsider using that specific term in the future. However overgrazing is a real issue historically and still today. Overgrazing in the modern Sahel is a great contributor to the advancing of the savanna for example.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Oh definitely, my issue with the concept of the Tragedy Of The Commons is not that shared wealth is not vulnerable but rather that the idea that humans innately cannot function in an environment while preserving and growing a shared commons without some kind of system of authoritarian control and violence actively preserving that shared commons is a deeply political, problematic and scientifically incorrect way of understanding people.
zout@fedia.io 2 months ago
supersquirrel: "The betrayal of generations from the 20th century against the future quality of life of humanity will be remembered for thousands of years." Also supersquirrel: "I am uninterested in comparing the moral qualities of generations. Humans are humans."
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
so like, people can have both bad ideas and good. i don’t know enough about hardin, but the basic concept is a useful model to get people understanding a basic concept. is it a political narrative? i mean it’s macroeconomics. the entire damn field is politics under a veneer. their best model is barely better than flipping a coin.
don’t get me started on micro though, that field is just gambling analysis.
i don’t have a chip on my shoulder or nothin’
canthangmightstain@lemmy.today 2 months ago
We really need to stop throwing away useful terms and concepts because their progenitors don’t turn out to be role models. Knowledge doesn’t always come from perfect sources. “Tragedy of the Commons” has no basis in race as a concept as I understand it, I don’t see why the guy who coined the term being a racist POS means I should take a moral stance on it.
… but, you know, fuck that guy.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The real significance of the term “tragedy of the commons” was that it was part of a campaign of PR bullshit used to justify Enclosure, where wealthy elites seized common land as their private property, land that had in fact been used and managed effectively as a public resource for centuries prior.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Are those generations really worse than those before it?
The people of the 20th century were not more cruel or selfish than previous ones. They were simply the first ones given the tools and ability to pollute the whole earth.
Yes, that’s what makes them worse.
Flocklesscrow@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Boomers lived through the easiest, most rewarding period of American history and immediately and repeatedly ensured that no cohort following them would ever have the same again.
As a group, they are the weakest, most selfish, and least adaptable generation in modern history.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.today 2 months ago
we’re really just starting to feel the ramifications of the industrial age, we will not be the villains because at least we did try to do something. the robber barons are the true villains in this. they created annd exasperated the problem while creating the race to riches that continues with the oil industry ignoring the problems they create
the early years of just pumping coal exhaust from factories, acid rain from uncontrolled diesel fuel burning and the nuclear waste buildup will compound to create a truly ugly mess.
The Handford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is 586 square miles that is fucked for thousands of years. even if we find a clean way to power the world. It will keep polluting the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean for much of this time and the Federal Government keeps cutting funding for the cleanup.
in my opinion, the whole world needs to help South Americans restore the Amazon and we in North America need to develop a solution to the Pine Beetle, or start planting invasive trees to take over when they destroy all the pine forests. It should be every humans roll to plant a tree once a year. If we cared more about plant life, we’d make a huge impact now
We also need to find leaders who will embrace wind and solar as our future and tax the fuck out of carbon based energy
we can find ways to slow and possibly even reverse this process but unfortunately the current powers that be don’t give a fuck
when the oceans start consuming the big coastal cities, only then will it become a priority
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
when the oceans start consuming the big coastal cities, only then will it become a priority
Miami begs to differ lol, not that I can blame Miami, they are fucked anyways since everything is built on limestone which is very soluble to water… but I wish they would do their whole “stick their head in the sand” thing in a way that was less destructive to the rest of us.
countrypunk@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
While your sentiment is in the right place, trees are not a one size fits all solution. There’s a variety of ecosystems on this planet, and not all are densely packed forest. Instead of everybody just planting a tree, it’s important to think about what kind of tree and if a tree would be beneficial at all. Sometimes planting a native grass would be a lot more beneficial in a specific context.
One other thing is that the places where pine beetles are the most destructive are monocrop pine forests. If you have diversity in your forests, it makes them more resillent to this kind of thing.
It should be every human’s role to learn about how their local ecosystem works and how to exist within it in a reciprocal way.
Lojcs@piefed.social 2 months ago
I don’t think it’s that justified to cast 20th century generations as villains as a whole. Most people definitely didn’t possess a murderous intent to erase human race. And I certainly can’t blame people for overdoing it with environmental harm when the increase in their own quality of life was tied to those technologies causing the harm. It feels like blaming a starving person who just got access to abundant food for giving themselves refeeding syndrome
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
will be remembered for thousands of years.
By whichever species takes over after we’ve rendered ourselves extinct via greed, stupidity, and stubbornness in a century or two.
it can never be surpassed
for if it doesbecause humanity will go extinct.Fixed it for you.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
remembered for thousands of years.
Remembered by whom? Big assumption there.
ceenote@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We’ll now begin our unit on “the time the people who wanted to end the world got control of the world”
arrow74@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Just call it the century of greed
ceenote@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Greed can at least account for the future. The most powerful government in the world is lead by people who actually think wrecking the world for everyone else will help them reach paradise.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
we could call it the century of buttholes and you’re going for greed? REAALLLY
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teslekova@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Butt holes have a positive function, I do not agree with being that kind to our centuries.
arrow74@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
I’ll compromise
The century of greedy butthole