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homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I’ve literally had this argument on lemmy about two weeks ago. It always goes like this:

Me: [some comment to the effect of “the planet is dying”]

Them: the planet will be fine. Yes all life will perish, but the earth itself will continue.

Me: . . .

Them: What. It’s just the fact. Don’t worry about the planet.

Sometimes they quote Carlin without realizing it and without context so to them it’s not a joke about how fucked up we are, it’s a simple truth without any additional layers. It’s a little boggling.

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Neato@ttrpg.network ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s pedantry for the sake of being right. They care more about winning than the actual argument.

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- dohpaz42@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is why I detest the concept and celebration of “technically correct”. No, it’s not the “best kind of correct”, it’s being an asshole.
  
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  - MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I mean, in the example you’re responding to, many of the people aren’t doing the “technically correct” answer of, “microbial life will continue”.
    
    They’re just morons who heard, “life finds a way” and assume humans will be fine.
    
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  - MajorHavoc@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    No, it’s not the “best kind of correct”, it’s being an asshole.
    
    That’s the joke, though.
    
    The character being quoted, from Futurama, is usually insufferable and often miserable.
    
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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I dunno, maybe. I mean, technically they were right but even when I agreed, and explained how while that’s correct it’s also beside the point, they didn’t like that either.
  
  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
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  - luciferofastora@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s like talking about powers and saying “The square of 4 is 16” and they’ll bleat “Actually, a square is a shape” and you’re trying to find a way to tell them that their contribution is absolutely worthless and irrelevant to the topic.
    
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- lolcatnip@reddthat.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s not even pedantic. It’s that same logic you could use to say killing a person does no harm to them because their body still exists afterward.
  
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Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Yes all life will perish, but the earth itself will continue.

Why would all life perish? From what I’ve heard and read about nuclear disaster exclusion zones, humans disappearing tends to make space for other forms of life that had previously been displaced by cities full of humans and such. To my understanding long time life probably won’t care about anything for the next few million years.

Short term many or most humans might die or suffer. I don’t think it’s easy to predict how fragile humankind is, civilization may crumble. I doubt all of humankind will be gone in a thousand years, though I wouldn’t bet against a semi “post apocalyptic” future.

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- Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Basically it’s due to the heat, acidification of the ocean, and the massive drop in oxygen production as the ocean acidifies.
  
  Most of the oxygen we breathe is produced by microorganisms in the ocean and as the ocean gets more acidic (from absorbing CO2 from the air) and hotter (from greenhouse effects) it makes it harder for those little fellas to survive. And when they die their impact on our breathable air goes away. And if course the stuff that’s eats those organisms no longer have food and due off.
  
  That’s not even mentioning just the heating from greenhouse effects making unlivable temperature conditions (humidity + heat = unable to cool down and overheat) more likely to occur.
  
  All life wouldn’t perish per se but the current complex animals we have (and us humans) would be greatly impacted to say the least.
  
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  - Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do I understand this right that the really big argument here is actually ocean acidification? I can’t really believe that this wouldn’t open up niches for other life forms in oceans. I’m certain that complex animals will be greatly impacted - they already are - but temperature shifts will lead to animals migrating and complex life will keep flourishing one way or another.
    
    I feel as though the assumption that humans had the ability to kill all complex life like some people suggest is exaggerating the significance of humans. To my understanding humans have about the same impact as many other of the more impactful species do and while many have lead to big changes on the planet, to my knowledge none have managed to come close to “ending all life”. That’s reserved for grander desasters, either from inside Earth or extraterrestrial.
    
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    Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I didn’t say it’d kill all complex life, I said complex life would be greatly impacted.
    
    For example ocean acidification is tempered by reacting with build ups of calcium which is the building blocks of many things in the ocean. Shelled critters and corals immediately come to mind as examples of directly impacted complex life.
    
    As the corals die and can no longer form due to acidification that whole ecosystem collapses.
    
    The stuff that eats the phytoplankton (sensitive to ocean acidification and heat) no longer can eat it due to it dying along with the other little micro organisms, also suffers from ecological collapse.
    
    A big issue that impacts complex life is how quickly it can adapt to the changes in their ecosystem and if they can find new places to go or new things to eat.
    
    For example E. Coli: it has quick generations so it can adapt really quickly. This experiment has been going since the late 80s and the E. Coli has gone through over 70,000 generations and they’ve seen a lot of changes. If you went back that many human generations it would take you back before modern homo sapiens.
    
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    Burstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I feel as though the assumption that humans had the ability to kill all complex life like some people suggest is exaggerating the significance of humans
    
    It absolutely is. There are microbes that thrive at the bottom of the ocean in the boiling acidic conditions of hydrothermal vents. There is absolutely no way anything humans can do at this point would kill ALL life on the planet. There will absolutely be some specialist microbe somewhere that looks at whatever we did to the planet and says ‘yup, now is my time to shine!’.
    
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    idiomaddict@feddit.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s a chance that the aluminum residue from hundreds of annual rocket launches will destroy the ozone layer, without which the earth will lose its atmosphere relatively quickly.
    
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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because the threat is not a nuclear winter. It’s the disruption of all environmental systems that regulate the planet that is the threat in question. Which, in turn, disrupts the food chain, which starves whatever requires that food, which is for all intents and purposes, all life.
  
  I don’t understand how this is such a conversation with so many people here.
  
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  - Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Well disruptions of a system eventually lead to new, different forms of stability where things will settle down. I can’t imagine life is as fragile as you make it.
    
    That sounds like a misconception humans made up. After all, humankind always liked feeling important, feeling special and putting itself in the center: pretending they life at the center of a disc, pretending the whole universe revolves around the planet, pretending only human bodies were inhabited by an eternal soul, pretending an all-powerful being cared about them, pretending they’re the peak of evolution, pretending machines could never outperform them.
    
    Humans always try to find new things that make them unique and set them apart from other forms of life. Yet they keep getting disproven.
    
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    homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Ach.
    
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    lolcatnip@reddthat.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And what are you, a Klingon?
    
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- jabathekek@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  Why would all life perish?
  
  All life wouldn’t perish, the only things that will be left will be certain bacteria, phagocytes and viruses that can tolerate and indeed will likely proliferate in extreme environments. Everything larger then that will die of starvation due to a cascade of failing systems, likely starting with the death of the marine biosphere when the temperature rises to unsustainable levels and/or the pH lowers too much for the same effect. Though of course no one really knows what will actually happen because there are too many unknown variables.
  
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  - LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There is absolutely, unequivocally, no evidence that this will happen and no serious scientific prediction that this will happen from climate change has ever been made.
    
    The science illiteracy here is getting almost as bad as the right wingers.
    
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    jabathekek@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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    eris@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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brrt@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Ok, let the downvotes come but I’m one of those people. And the point I’m trying to make is that the planet and life itself will survive and probably even be better off without humans.

Just look at what happened after the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. Humans are causing the next extinction event and afterwards life will just start fresh again.

So no, saving the planet is not the goal. Saving humanity and most of all other current life is. And if that’s what you want to accomplish then that’s what you should talk about, specifically.

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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  . . . the planet and life itself will survive . . .
  
  How are you defining “life itself”?
  
  . . . and probably even be better off without humans.
  
  I’d say that goes without saying.
  
  Humans are causing the next extinction event and afterwards life will just start fresh again.
  
  Start “fresh”? Like with single-celled organisms? Maybe a billion years later we’ll be back eating sandwiches? Okay, so what process created sustainable environments again? Humans left some sort-of-permanent damage. Nuclear waste, PFAS, etc. Sure a good ol’ pole shift and a few asteroid impacts and we’re back in business.
  
  So no, saving the planet is not the goal. Saving humanity and most of all other current life is. And if that’s what you want to accomplish then that’s what you should talk about, specifically.
  
  God this is fucking exhausting. The prevention of unmitigated and prolonged suffering by all sentient life is the goal, YES. Kudos to the possibly viable future space rock and the wisdom to acknowledge our utter inability to protect one single planet from ourselves is laughably inadequate and - CLEARLY - irrelevant.
  
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  - nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    IMO, it is a distinction that is worthwhile. The universe is not anthropocentric. It doesn’t give two shits about humanity (it’s not, to our knowledge even sentient). Humanity is completely insignificant to nearly anything but humans. To me, it puts into perspective that noone and nothing in this indifferent universe is coming to save us from ourselves. It’s up to us.
    
    Life will continue without us, just like it did before us. If the entirety of the world’s nuclear arsenals are used, there’s a good chance that microbes like Deinococus radiodurans will survive to evolve into new forms of complex life. The human species is far more fragile than the planet.
    
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    homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    IMO, it is a distinction that is worthwhile.
    
    What distinction, pointing out that the existing astronomical and mineralogical structures will withstand even our worst impulses? Or changing “Saving the planet” to “slowing our inevitable dissolution due to corrupt thinking and possibly saving some ducks, too”?
    
    The distinction is already very well known - as we can see, people drive for hundreds of miles so they can hop out and tell us the actual physical structure of Earth will remain, most likely. It’s the insistence on focusing on that distinction which slows our ability to talk about the core causes for this climate disaster. And it sounds a lot like the previous 100 years of:
    
    there’s plenty of nature
    
    we can’t live like savages, we must pollute to make money
    
    what if we add lead to it and spray it all over everything and everyone? No knocks! Profit!
    
    What the heck is an ozone layer
    
    oh you’re a tree hugger huh
    
    there’s no proof its caused by humans
    
    there are always periods of heating and cooling
    
    this is a Chinese hoax
    
    well you drink water so you’re part of the problem
    
    i’ll never give up eating meat, what are you, gay?
    
    It’s too expensive to not destroy the environment
    
    oil prices are the key to liberty and freedom
    
    the future of clean energy is a nightmare because we’ll have to enslave humanity to extract rare minerals from protected wildlife areas to build large batteries
    
    it’s fine, the earth will survive. Sure we’ll die and everything we commonly consider animal life will be killed but - ya gotta go sometime
    
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    Jimbo@yiffit.net ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    If the entirety of the world’s nuclear arsenals are used, there’s a good chance that microbes like Deinococus radiodurans will survive into new forms of complex life.
    
    Y’all acting like this happening isn’t a literal catastrophe. You guys are all insane.
    
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    someacnt_@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, this is also what I usually mean when I say “Earth will be fine”.
    
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- lolcatnip@reddthat.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Willfully misinterpreting what people say is a dick move. You’re apparently proud of being a dick.
  
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cRazi_man@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Climate change isn’t going to be an existential threat for a very long time. Realistically we’re making life incredibly difficult and expensive for ourselves. Population numbers will drop markedly over time. But people don’t see that this is still something to take urgent action on.

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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Depends on if you work outside for a living or live near a coastline or a forested area. It won’t be like a Star Trek: The Original Series where everyone’s in a big room and a red glow starts pulsating and we all groan and crumple to the floor. No, it won’t be like that.
  
  It’ll be like heat exhaustion exacerbated a hitherto unknown heart condition that deaded you. Or a Cat 6 hurricane rolled a tree over you. Or failing crops mean you couldn’t fight off COVID-26 or whatever.
  
  No, we’re not going to all die at once, as such. Depending on your timeframe for “at once”.
  
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  - Serinus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’ll be like Katrina. Probably in Florida at first. Probably in the next ten years. Probably more than once.
    
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lurch@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
not even all life. i’m sure some microbe or spore will survive long enough past human extenction and life will flourish once again. there are some very robust little lifeforms out there, living in boiling volcanic water or surviving frozen in permafrost. i’m sure some can manage in high CO2 levels and hot climate.

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- Skasi@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Life existed long before there were any significant levels of oxygen in the air. I doubt humans can undo much of the ~20% oxygen level that exists today. And I think that’s reason enough that life even bigger than microbes won’t die out.
  
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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  sigh
  
  Yes.
  
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Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s also true. It’s a great way to bring home the reality to people who still think climate science is about preserving some wetlands while we continue as normal.

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jol@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Even life will never perish. We’re certainly going to cause an apocalyptic level extinction event, taking many species with us, but life will always find a way.

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- jabathekek@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Likely as slimy mats on the floor of what’s left of the ocean. Also whatever’s left in hot-springs and caves.
  
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  - Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m sure the archaea in the salt flats will adapt too
    
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  - jol@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Life is way hardier than you think… Unless we completely blast the world with nukes, we will not get that far.
    
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    Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There is one single planet we know of that hosts complex organisms. Dont go claiming extraordinary things like that, when all evidence points to the opposite. Life is extremely fragile, and only comes about in very specific conditions. New data models show we may be the only creatures capable of communicating vast distances in the entire galaxy. We should be treating this with the severity it actually has, potential universal blackout. What is the universe if there is nothing there to experience it?
    
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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ughhhhhhhh.
  
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sukhmel@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t know, whenever I hear such arguing it makes me feel like it emphasises the issues we as humanity have gotten into, not belittles.

I mean, hearing “everything is doomed” is kind of epic and has it’s charm. Hearing “only the humanity is doomed” makes me feel shitty and want to do something about that.

tangentially related, CW: suicide
Probably the same way one of the suicide prevention methods is de-romanticization of death, a lot of people expect death to be pretty, and it’s not

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- homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  ‘Everything is doomed’ is epic and has charm, but ‘humanity is doomed’ moves you to action.
  
  Okay. I mean. Whatever gets the action i guess.
  
  Epic and has charm?? I don’t . . . Its . .
  
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  - sukhmel@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Remember how everyone was expecting the end of the world in 2012, kind of like that.
    
    I personally don’t find it romantic anymore
    
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    Bertuccio@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    *everyone
    
    *Exceptions may apply
    
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