re: #269 Cato the Elder

Brilliant.

I once read a philosopher who proved that the death of an entire species means less to an individual member of that species than the individual’s own personal death.

Which is, succinctly put, the reason why humans will never “band together” to stop an amorphous threat like AGW.

But that is not true. The observed behavior of soldiers in war, and family members in a flood or other disaster, is that as a general rule, someone will give their life to save the life of an identical twin, two brothers/sisters/children, etc. In other words, we calculate degree of consanguinity and count our own life as worth what it’s worth in terms of biological extended fitness.

With soldiers, it’s not a matter of actual consanguinity, but assumed—-that’s why the talk of “band of brothers”.

Now, how much is the life of your nation worth to you? Or your share of your nation? The answer is it’s complicated, but still, a lot. We do, in fact, band together in the face of any evident mortal threat. It doesn’t have to be an immediate threat; people do look ahead.

The danger is not that we will just meekly succumb to a known danger without ever lifting a hand in defense of our posterity, but that we will fail to understand that we are lobsters and that the pot is gradually getting unbearably hot.