this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 253 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 153 points 5 months ago

"The planet is fine. The people are fucked."

George Carlin

[–] [email protected] 101 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Aside from the thousands of species we killed in the process

[–] [email protected] 69 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

It's a recurrent theme in the history of the world you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of millions of species killed, never to be seen again.

No species ever lasts that long.

[–] prettybunnys 55 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There have been many extinction events, and we won’t be the first “nature based extinction event” the planet has seen either.

Just one of the dumber ones.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Others have been fairly random. GRBs sterilizing half the planet, asteroid impacts, simple microbiological species fighting for resources whilst unknowingly making their environments unlivable, etc., etc.

In this case, the writing has been on the wall for decades, completely preventable, but here we are barrelling into it head first none-the-less. Dumber indeed.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (8 children)

No species ever lasts that long.

Sharks enter the thread.

Awkward silence ensues

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

We are committing a mass extinction on Earth's life, there will be a geological record one day of where life suddenly fell off.

And what's really wild to think about is that while tragic to us and our perspective of the beauty of the world... in the larger picture, it will still be utterly insignificant to Earth's history. The next million years will see massive portions of life die off, climates will change, new species will emerge and grow into new ecosystems, and there will be an entirely new set of fauna and flora, and humans will be a distant memory, a rust-colored line on the strata.

And that coming million years? Also a blink of an eye in Earth's history. A fraction of a fraction of our planet's history of life's abundance and drama. All the life we see around us represents a sliver of a fraction of a fraction of Earth's biological history. It's so, SO much bigger than any of us can imagine and it should have the effect of humbling us.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

dont forget about our deep space probes, pioneer, and voyager.

Those will still exist without us. A drifting reminder of our pitiful existences, hurtling through the vast emptiness of space, hoping to find something capable of discovering it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

250 millions years ago, there was a mass extinction that killed 95% of life on earth.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (10 children)

We're actually going through the 6th mass extinction right now, so actually we are kinda killing most everything on the planet, not just us.

We should want to preserve that. Unfortunately a handful of old rich dudes don't care.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nature will survive, this specific bird species perhaps not.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This specific bird is way to forgiving. It's more like saying if on average 1 species dies every million years on average, we have killed thousands of species in a thousand years. Then throw in the idea that we also could say the percentage of population of those species we killed would be over half of them, we can say to ourselves, yeah this is really being accelerated. Mass extinction has already begun. People who say humans will survive it are optimistic because our adaptability. It's more like if you want your descendants to be able to go outside and be able to breathe without life support systems, you should so something about it.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

you missed the point completely. life has always survived mass extinction events and will survive this one too. life will eventually flourish once again and humanity will have been a blip in earths history

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

Right, the Gaia presented in this comic is a mother nature who does not give a shit about the lives of billions of animals. She only cares if life as a whole survives, she doesn't care how many species go extinct and become lost forever. Only humans care about that.

Humans are the universe's way of giving a shit about itself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Up and to the right. Line must go up.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Humans are basically just another massive asteroid hitting earth. And just as mindless.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Climate protection was never about saving species or eco systems.

It is about not fucking the whole planet wide eco system so that we can't live anymore on this planet.

However even that we dropped for profits.

I mean basically anything relating to energy would have costed the double amount (at least).

Now we have also to reduce the co2 that was produced 200 years and the one that is triple the amount of the next 10 years.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Great filter theory: can intelligence evolve fast enough to outpace stupidity?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

In my completely unprofessional opinion...no.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (10 children)

regulate billion dollar corporations and then over 99% of all pollution will stop.

I'm not getting rid of my car, make billionaires and millionaires get rid of their private jets and make them stop dumping garbage into waterways

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Sure, but those regulations have to be stuff like "no selling petroleum to people for their cars". Are you ready for a carless world? I am. If you're not ready, you might find yourself opposing the necessary regulation when the time does come to regulate.

[–] Fillicia 44 points 5 months ago (39 children)

I don't know why these discussion are often met with "if you're not ready to lose your car you're the problem" narrative.

I might not be ready to lose my car but I sure as hell am ready to lose coal based electricity, the military complex, single use plastic, billionaire who prefer to let a train derail than spend money on regulations, and a shit ton other things that wouldn't even affect my day to day life other than make it safer.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I get the sentiment, that we're not killing nature, just ourselves, but "nature" is not one thing. Killing nature amounts to humans causing incredible suffering to untold trillions of individual animals each with a lilfe, a consciousness.

I saw my Kitty suffocate due to embolism and had to put her down and it's no less of an awful event because it was a cat and not a human, it screwed me up and it was years ago. I imagine that level of needless suffering happening every day X 1 billion due to human greed and apathy.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (3 children)

"Nature" also has lots of suffering in it even without our help. I agree we shouldn't cause undue harm, but the suggestion that animals won't suffer without us is naïve at best.

My condolences for your kitty, but nature would not have granted her the more peaceful end you gave her.

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[–] ZombiFrancis 35 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nature just wanted plastic.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] jballs 7 points 5 months ago

I feel like more than a few people were clapping at first because they were thinking "yeah fuck recycling and taking care of the environment, we're gonna be just fine!" Only to be hit with the punchline, "the planet and humanity is not 'we'. 'We' humans are fucked."

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago

This is the only correct perspective, and there are relatively few people specifically at fault for the lying that's been done to the public on important issues.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Mother Gaia is a cruel and brutal bitch. Just read up on Darwin. No nazis killed as many beings as natural selection

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (14 children)

Unfortunately for nature we're like cockroaches. You can kill the majority of humans with a big enough asteroid, but actually wiping us out while persevering vertebrate life is a tall order. Hell it was a tall order before we even got out of the neolithic.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

"We're a virus with shoes." -- Bill Hicks

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Humanity survives adversity well" is not not something I would think of as "unfortunate."

[–] BigFatNips 9 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Unfortunately for nature but depending on your perspective it's unfortunate for humans as well

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

story of my life, i hope.

I think it'll be funny to have a well known legacy, but without people having any idea of who the fuck i am.

God speed humanity, you fucking suck.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Mother Gaia is Savage 😳

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Earth will shrug us off and carry on. It would be interesting to see what's next. I suspect a marine mammal, jellyfish, or crab people.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Fun fact : this was the (slightly hidden) premise for Splatoon.

Those happy, colourful descendants of squids and other marine animals are playing paintball over the ruins of our civilization, long after human extinction.

They worship an old fax machine they found, too, for some reason.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

They worship an old fax machine they found, too, for some reason.

That tracks. Fax technology probably will outlive us all.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago

I've been saying this for years.

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