alt Hacker News> It is called PROGRESS.
There is no such thing as PROGRESS for progress' sake.
And FYI, agriculture is a wonderful invention.
Yet for about 5000 years after its introduction the average human had worse nutrition than the average hunter gatherer, which led to such things as height decreases for those 5000 years.
Industrial agriculture is another wonderful invention. Yet 150 years later we're not sure it's sustainable and it's likely many of its aspects aren't, which will raise some sticky issues soon ("which billion people do we decide to let starve since we can't make enough food for everyone after most of our soil eroded?"). Repeat this for industrial textile production, mining, etc.
I won't even go into climate change.
And again, scale matters. Most individuals can only control what they do, and what they do generally doesn't impact much. But companies can impact a whole lot.
> "ripping off", "uprooting", "leeching (read: creating)" wealth
Let's not be 100% cynical here. A lot of what humanity has achieved has been genuine wealth creation and distribution/re-distribution. I would say more wealth has been created than leeched off.
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And before you think I'm some starry eyed teen, I'll play the game. At the end of the day, me and mine have to outrun you in the face of PROGRESS.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Yet our world can feed billions of people. More people are alive today than more people ever lived in this floating rock. Most people are living better than kings from 200 years ago.
We invent. We make progress. We make course correction. We end up in a better place.
Climate change? Lmao. We were told by 2000 20% of our country will be under water... It's 2026. Not under water yet.
What amount of pesky human intervention (positive or negative) will affect earth waking up from it's cold climate? Not luddites and their cow farts are global warming.
The real fight with "climate change" will be done with planetary scale technology derived from massive amounts of technical progress and energy production.
Your argument is as good as I should throw trash in the road or plastic in the sea. I'm just one individual. It doesn't matter. I'm not making the whole society do it!!
I fully agree with you. It is survival of the fittest in the face of progress. Competition is essential. That's how society grows. Humans prosper. May the odds be in your favor too.