Re:National Intelligence Estimate on Climate Change [pdf]
by mistermann on Thursday October 28, 2021 @12:33PM
(#29027968)
> The problem with any such "climate disaster" is that humans are incapable of conceptualizing the impact of such slow change.
It certainly seems that way (that "that humans are incapable of conceptualizing...", or even better, replace "conceptualizing" with "<X>"), but is it really so? It is surely presently "true" (if one ignores potentiality), but is it absolutely true (across time and all potential paths)?
As a thought experiment, if you rewind 30 or so years, would this statement be an absolute Truth: "Humans are incapable of writing an operating system that <does all the things that Linux does in 2021>"?
Also consider: if Richard Stallman, Andrew Tanenbaum, and Linus Torvalds had done something other than what they actually did[1], where would we (and the internet, etc) be today?
If you then consider humanity's ~paralysis on climate change (or any of our many problems) in this context, doesn't the situation we find ourselves in (on all fronts) seem more than a little absurd? I mean, if we never actually try[2] to achieve something, should we be surprised when we do not achieve it?
"Linus Torvalds has stated on separate occasions that if the GNU kernel or 386BSD had been available at the time (1991), he probably would not have created Linux."
[2] Is it not reasonably true that not only do we not try, but we don't even think about trying, or think about desiring (a plausible pre-requisite for trying) to try to think about trying , etc etc etc, recurse to infinity.
It certainly seems that way (that "that humans are incapable of conceptualizing...", or even better, replace "conceptualizing" with "<X>"), but is it really so? It is surely presently "true" (if one ignores potentiality), but is it absolutely true (across time and all potential paths)?
As a thought experiment, if you rewind 30 or so years, would this statement be an absolute Truth: "Humans are incapable of writing an operating system that <does all the things that Linux does in 2021>"?
Also consider: if Richard Stallman, Andrew Tanenbaum, and Linus Torvalds had done something other than what they actually did[1], where would we (and the internet, etc) be today?
If you then consider humanity's ~paralysis on climate change (or any of our many problems) in this context, doesn't the situation we find ourselves in (on all fronts) seem more than a little absurd? I mean, if we never actually try[2] to achieve something, should we be surprised when we do not achieve it?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
"Linus Torvalds has stated on separate occasions that if the GNU kernel or 386BSD had been available at the time (1991), he probably would not have created Linux."
[2] Is it not reasonably true that not only do we not try, but we don't even think about trying, or think about desiring (a plausible pre-requisite for trying) to try to think about trying , etc etc etc, recurse to infinity.
Possibly related: https://youtu.be/LIIz82ZUCQY