re: #374 Slightly Drooling Love Child of Beck

Altruism - how about survival. There is such a thing as enlightened self interest. If you are correct, and I fear you may be, then all you are saying is that we are screwed as a civilization. I personally think we should try to keep it.

First of all, welcome to the forum.

Second, you may have read some of my posts about this in the past. I fear we may well be screwed, because you usually can’t even get a single nation to agree on an agenda for more than one fiscal year into the future. The idea that humanity as a whole can be made to reverse course for the sake of something that may or may not happen 50 years from now strikes me as the height of self-deception.

We will either adapt piecemeal, or not. No grand plan can save us short of worldwide eco-fascism, which I would oppose with every fiber of my being.

I am not sanguine about enlightened self-interest. But I also do not accept that the lack of a sudden magical metanoia on a planetary scale necessarily means the death of civilization. It is not an either/or scenario, no matter how much the fearmongers and apocolyptogasmic doom-preachers shriek and slaver.