Korean Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Coming soon: Ice-free arctic summers?

Speak Korean Now!

Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!

Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

Coming soon: Ice-free arctic summers?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next

Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:47 pm Post subject:

Julius wrote:

Fox wrote:

A fallen and evil creation made by an omnipotent, omniscient being reveals its creator as evil.

It wasn't created that way. Its flaws are the result of humans choosing to exercise their own free will and disobey the creator. I don't know how to keep on explaining this to you.

If an all knowing, all powerful being creates X, anything X does or becomes reflects on its creator, because it's creator knew X would do it. If I create a robot with free will, but I know the robot will go on a killing spree because I know everything, I'm not blameless when the robot goes on a killing spree. In fact, I share in the robot's guilt. In any other situation, you'd agree with me. It's only when God becomes the creator in question that you are reticent to allow him his share of the blame.

You say it wasn't created that way, but there can be no unexpected results when the creator is omniscient. It very clearly was created in such a way that it would inevitably end up as it is now.

Julius wrote:

Quote:

This doesn't make life sacred, it makes life property.

sacred property, on loan to us. If someone borrows your bike and returns it to you trashed, will you be happy?

1) You've failed to defend your use of the term sacred. You said the sanctity of life derived from the fact that it is not ours, but Gods. But likewise, if I lend you the bike, the bike is not yours but mine. That doesn't make it sacred, it just makes it my bike rather than yours.

2) Yet again, you've created an incredibly flawed analogy. In borrowing my bike, another individual makes a conscious choice to accept responsibility for it. I didn't ask to be born, it was forced upon me. As such, ascribing me some sort of responsibility because your alleged God "lent" me life is silly. If I break into someone's house and leave my bike there, I'd be a fool to expect them to bear responsibility for the "loan" I forced upon them.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:50 pm Post subject:

mises wrote:

Fox wrote:

mises wrote:

This is all hysterics. You're all going to feel like suckers when all these apocalyptic predictions don't come true.

No I won't. I've all ready said that I want the changes human-driven climate change suggests we should make even if human-driven climate change isn't really happening. Human-driven climate change is just another motivating factor.

Nah. The greens don't want "cap and trade". They want modernity to pull back for the proles. The proles block the view. They'll continue on as if nothing happened. The reforms you want won't happen. They'll just make life more inconvenient and expensive.

Probably, but people getting bad results after doing things other than the way I suggest doesn't make me feel like a sucker either.

mises wrote:

The Kennedy's recently prevented a wind farm near their "compound" cause it would ruin the view. That was Ted's work. Gore flies private and spends more than a grand a month to heat his pool. He'll make billions off of cap and trade, by the way. Goldman's too. They don't believe in it. It is just a means of control.

I agree they don't believe it, and I agree they're just taking political advantage of it. That doesn't change the fact that I do want a number of genuine reforms. It just means I can't -- and don't -- trust the politicians the common peasant elects to office to provide them.

Rusty Shackleford

Joined: 08 May 2008

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 8:50 pm Post subject:

Wow. I really don't know where to begin with this. You are obviously quite fervent in your cause.

Fox wrote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

It's only really pollution if it spills over to someone elses land.

I disagree completely. By this logic, if one person owned the entire world, pollution would be impossible. That's obviously false, so your definition is obviously false.

That's why I added the bit about "externalities." Please, please, please stop taking everything so literally. You spend more time debating definitions of words than you do actually debating the point the person raised.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

I reserve the right to "pollute" my own land.

And I don't want you to have that right; I value the land being maintained at a certain standard more than I value your right to "own" it. With people like yourself saying such things, is it particularly surprising that many people don't trust the common person sufficiently to believe Libertarianism could possibly work?

Why are you so high and mighty about this? It's this type of attitude that makes people hate socialists. Most people just want to get on with their life, free from intrusions by busy bodies such as yourself.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

On the contrary, it would mean pollution would be properly "priced". At the moment it is free. When something is more expensive, it becomes rarer, pretty much by definition.

That's only true if the real demand is equal to or less than the current limitations imposed by the government, though. If the real demand exceeds the current limits imposed by the government, then even if it cost money, we'd see more. I suggest that, in fact, the real demand for pollution exceeds the limits currently imposed by the government.

This is assuming that the govt knows what level of pollution is optimum..

No, it's not. I'm not talking about what level is or isn't optimum, only about whether or not ontheway's system would reduce pollution to zero (like he claims), reduce it somewhat, keep it at the same level, or increase it.

You say:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

We have been conditioned to believe that all pollution is bad. That simply isn't so.

Then you say:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

If you could pollute a river by 10% whilst feeding all the people in the neighboring region, would you do it? Of course you would. We make those trade offs every day.

The fact that you use the term trade off demonstrates that all pollution is, in fact, bad. You correctly point out at that times it can be a sufficiently small bad that it is worth doing, but that doesn't make it not bad, it just means it's a bad outweighed by the comparative good. And I agree, often some pollution is acceptable in return for sufficient benefit. I simply don't trust the common person with that decision. People are notoriously short sighted.

Once again you focus on a small section of my argument and in doing so, completely miss my point. You say that people are notoriously short sighted, are you not a person, also? Or do you have perfect clarity of insight into all matters? Something many socialists claim to have.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

You are perhaps correct that pollution might rise, in some areas, but at least it would be to an optimum level, whereby the most benefit could be had.

An optimum level whereby the most benefit could be had right now. That's what most people are concerned with: right now. I'm concerned with more than right now, though. I don't care if you have the deed to a plot of land, there are things I want you to be unable to do on it, and excessively polluting it is one such thing. I know you don't care about that, because your value system is about profit and efficiency. And that's exactly why I'd never trust a Libertarian system to work

.

I don't know what to say to this. I want to say f%^k off, but I'm trying to be polite and keep the debate civil.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

ontheway wrote:

This means that factories, mines, and developers will have to produce in a way that does NOT harm the environment.

No, it doesn't. It just means they'll be compensating private owners for the pollution they enact, or buying land to concentrate their pollution into.

Exactly. I actually agree with you here. I don't see it as a bad thing, though. If you own it, you should be able to do what you want with it.

When it comes to things like land and non-renewable resources -- things that are important on a scale extending beyond your lifetime, and which you yourself did not create -- no, I don't feel you should be able to do with it anything you want.

You are imposing your values on other people. I don't share them.

I know you don't share them, which is why I -- and people like me -- have to impose them upon you and other people like you. There are plenty of things people have done throughout history which conflict with my values, and I'd certainly authorize reasonable force them to stop if I could. Slavery, female circumcision, cutting off hands/mutilating for crimes, the death penalty, etc. I don't care if people's values differ from mine on these matters; I'm more than happy to stop them where possible.

Quote:

So disagree all you want. All I can do is do my best to help prevent your dreams from becoming a reality, because your dreams are a Hell I don't want to live in.

My "dreams" allow us to live the current lifestyle we do. It wasn't govt regulation that gave us medicine, computers, cars, etc, etc,etc. It was people working for their own reward. AKA the free market.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

In any case, if you owned a river and decided to pollute it, you would piss off a lot of people who were probably willing to pay to use it.

Yes, I've heard these straw-grasping attempts at defense before. "Oh no, it wouldn't happen, because blah blah blah." Communists had similar ideas, and we all know how that turned out. Ideologues have an incredibly poor track record from a historic point of view.

Wow, you really got me there. "Oh no, it wouldn't happen, because blah blah blah." I'm going to use that one. I should win a lot of debates. Rolling Eyes

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Buy a computer, sure, do with it what you want; it was made by humans, it won't outlast you, and what you do with it is your concern. Buy land and do anything with it you want, not so much. Humans didn't make it, and it will last a lot longer than you will. There's an element of responsibility involved; an element totally impossible for economics to capture. An element Libertarianism has no answer for.

The environment is much more resilient than you give it credit for.

The environment is quite resilient. By contrast, human ingenuity is relentless. Humans are constantly coming up with new innovations, products, etc. This is a good thing, but it also means our capacity for environmental damage increases every day. The environment, by contrast, grows no more resilient over time.

Don't you think it is possible that we will come up with innovations to protect the environment?

Quote:

There is a strong possibility that even right now, we're working our way towards a less liveable planet due to the excesses of materialists such as yourself, who care about present day profit more than future sustainability. I'm not comfortable gambling on that matter based on ontheway's totally unproven ideologies. Sorry.

This isn't true. Where standard of living has risen, the condition of the environment has also risen. One of the factors in rising living standards is lack of regulatory control. Why would you label me a "materialist"? You have no evidence of that. I just want all people to live to their fall potential. They can't do that if they're constantly hamstrung by people who hope to intervene in their every bowel movement.

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

I don't pretend for a minute that companies would stop dumping/polluting, whatever. They choose to dump because it is economically beneficial to do so.

Exactly. It's economically beneficial. That doesn't mean it's good for humanity, all it means is that it's good for their bottom line.

I care about more than their bottom line. I care about more than the economy. I understand my values are different than your values, and that means one of our value sets needs to triumph, because they cannot be reconciled. I'd obviously prefer it was mine, and fortunately, it probably will be.

[/quote]

What exactly is your goal? Do you consider govt intrusion into peoples lives a good thing in and of itself? Or do you actually want to make the world a better place?

If you think corrupt politicians and bureaucrats know the path to prosperity, I'm afraid I can't help you.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 9:16 pm Post subject:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Fox wrote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

It's only really pollution if it spills over to someone elses land.

I disagree completely. By this logic, if one person owned the entire world, pollution would be impossible. That's obviously false, so your definition is obviously false.

That's because you keep dragging the conversation into semantic grounds. I will take everything you say literally, so speak literally. I know Libertarians love technicalities and semantics, but I'm not going to play that game with you. Try to redefine failure, pollution, etc, and I'll just tell you you're wrong and steam-roll past your objections.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

I reserve the right to "pollute" my own land.

Why are you so high and mighty about this?

Because I don't value your individual rights more than I value the common good. That's really all there is to it; so long as your individual rights don't conflict with the common good, I'll support them completely. As soon as you start saying things like "I reserve the right to pollute my own land," I'm going to object, and further, I'll do my best to get the coercive force of government on my side to stop you.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

It's this type of attitude that makes people hate socialists. Most people just want to get on with their life, free from intrusions by busy bodies such as yourself.

Most people don't say things like, "I reserve the right to pollute my own land," so let's stop pretending like you're speaking for most people here. Most people would probably not support your right to do anything you pleased on your own land, Rusty.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

On the contrary, it would mean pollution would be properly "priced". At the moment it is free. When something is more expensive, it becomes rarer, pretty much by definition.

This is assuming that the govt knows what level of pollution is optimum..

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

We have been conditioned to believe that all pollution is bad. That simply isn't so.

Then you say:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

If you could pollute a river by 10% whilst feeding all the people in the neighboring region, would you do it? Of course you would. We make those trade offs every day.

I don't have perfect insight or clarity; like anyone else, I'm imperfect. When I say "people" though, we both know I meant most people -- the kind of people who want to "Just get on with their lives," that you described above. Remember? It's precisely their "I want to just get on with my life," attitude that makes them short sighted. It's precisely their, "I want to just get on with my life," attitude that makes me uncomfortable trusting them with the right to do anything they please with land they own.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

You are perhaps correct that pollution might rise, in some areas, but at least it would be to an optimum level, whereby the most benefit could be had.

.

I don't know what to say to this. I want to say f%^k off, but I'm trying to be polite and keep the debate civil. [/quote]

Don't be passive aggressive, you dropped the civility the moment you wrote what you "wanted" to say. I request you do avoid making such statements, not because they offend me, but because they're likely to get the thread deleted by the moderators. If you want to swear at me, please do it in a private message instead of risking moderation.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

So disagree all you want. All I can do is do my best to help prevent your dreams from becoming a reality, because your dreams are a Hell I don't want to live in.

We live in a governmentally regulated world. We live in a politicially moderate world. We live in a world far, far closer to my vision than ontheway's.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

The environment is much more resilient than you give it credit for.

Don't you think it is possible that we will come up with innovations to protect the environment?

I think it's definitely possible we'll come up with innovations to protect the environment, so long as there is profit in it. The best way to ensure there is profit in it is for the government to create financial incentives. Regulations that inhibit environmentally damaging activities are one such incentive. Tax breaks that essentially subsidize charitable contributions to environmental causes are another such incentive. Direct funding via tax dollars is another such incentive.

Take all those things away and no, I don't think we'll be seeing those innovations anytime soon.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

This isn't true. Where standard of living has risen, the condition of the environment has also risen.

Where standard of living has risen we've also seen more and more thorough governmental regulation. If you're going to start drawing correlations between standard of living and other activities, I'm happy to play that game.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Why would you label me a "materialist"? You have no evidence of that.

My evidence is your own words. The things you claim to care about and the things you use to justify your positions are all based on material production and present day gain.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

I just want all people to live to their fall potential.

And you measure full potential in terms of GDP. If that GDP comes at the cost of something else, you don't seem to mind. Perhaps I'm being unfair when I say that, but based on everything you've said, I don't think so.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

They can't do that if they're constantly hamstrung by people who hope to intervene in their every bowel movement.

Agreed. But there's a huge difference between intervening in every bowel movement, and intervening on matters like not allowing you to pollute as you please on a plot of land you purchased.

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

Quote:

Rusty Shackleford wrote:

I don't pretend for a minute that companies would stop dumping/polluting, whatever. They choose to dump because it is economically beneficial to do so.

What exactly is your goal? Do you consider govt intrusion into peoples lives a good thing in and of itself? Or do you actually want to make the world a better place? [/quote]

My goal is a technologically advanced, peaceful, sustainable society in which individual rights and the common good are both respected, in which all citizens -- regardless of circumstance -- have access to the basics they require to survive without plunging into debt to obtain them. I feel the best way to obtain this is through a moderately governed society in which the means of production are privately owned but operate under governmental regulations to ensure human welfare and sustainability are respected.

Julius

Joined: 27 Jul 2006

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:29 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

If an all knowing, all powerful being creates X, anything X does or becomes reflects on its creator, because it's creator knew X would do it.

Lets say you have a son and instruct him as much as possible on how to be a good person, avoid crime and be responsible. You warn him there are consequences for him if he messes up.
Using his own free will however, he rejects your advice and knowingly becomes an axe murderer. Is this then your fault? Will the state convict you of his crimes? No.
Yet God the father took the sentence, the penalty for our crimes upon himself. What more do you want?
The only alternative to what you are arguing is that God programmed robots incapable of doing anything wrong, let alone knowing what wrong was in the first place. That is not free will.

Quote:

In fact, I share in the robot's guilt. In any other situation, you'd agree with me. It's only when God becomes the creator in question that you are reticent to allow him his share of the blame.

i don't think so. I already gave you the example that the state will not convict you for any crimes committed by your children..and rightly so.

Quote:

It very clearly was created in such a way that it would inevitably end up as it is now.

Not so. God knew what would occur, but that does not make him responsible. Free will is a factor entirely independent of God.

Quote:

You've failed to defend your use of the term sacred. You said the sanctity of life derived from the fact that it is not ours, but Gods. But likewise, if I lend you the bike, the bike is not yours but mine. That doesn't make it sacred, it just makes it my bike rather than yours.

"Sacred" is a word that relates to divinity, to God. Not to people or their bicycles. If something is of God, it is necesarilly "sacred".

Quote:

I didn't ask to be born

well. .. God must have seen fit to create you for a reason.His expressly given reason does not include eternal torture but rather "for the glory of God". The same reason he created mountains, flowers or pretty corals.
Romans 11:36.. �For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.�

ontheway

Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 7:57 am Post subject:

Fox wrote:

ontheway wrote:

This can be done pollution free if we abolish the socialist laws that prevent people from protecting their air and water. We must privatize all land, water, air, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. The private owners will be able to stop polluters immediately.

Or we'll just see private owners selling pollution rights. That, in combination with a total lack of limiting regulation, will result in an increase in pollution.

ontheway wrote:

This means that factories, mines, and developers will have to produce in a way that does NOT harm the environment.

No, it doesn't. It just means they'll be compensating private owners for the pollution they enact, or buying land to concentrate their pollution into.

This idea that privatizing land will stop pollution is ridiculous. Giving people unlimited rights to pollute on their own land -- or to sell those rights -- in combination with a total lack of regulatory limitations will result in an increase in pollution, not a decrease.

You have completely missed the point.

If you own a piece of land, this means you Fox, and I own a piece of land and we own the air rights as we would in a free market and not in the socialist USA, then we alone could stop air pollution. And if you decided to sell pollution rights to your air, then I alone could and would stop air pollution.

In a free market, my rights to my property are absolute. This guarantees that air pollution would stop unless every one of the hundreds of millions of private landowners, every one, 100% decided to allow it.

Why?

Because I would say NO.

And since my property right to my airspace over my property would be absolute. And no one would be allowed to send any airpollution up into the air unless he or she could keep it contained and out of my air. Since that is impossible, air pollution would not be allowed. Not by the govrnment. Air pollution would not be allowed by the private land owners.

And there would not be a single land owner against air pollution. Most, the absolute majority would be against air pollution. They would band together to form mutual assistance organizations of various forms to monitor their air and take action against any trespassers and polluters.

The fact that some land owners might be willing to allow pollution for a fee would be irrelevant since they would be unable to contain the pollution. All pollution would stop.

And, really, it is not that difficult to produce without polluting. But we have to have a system that makes it essential to be green to be profitable. If you aren't allow to pollute, then you can't produce unless you can do it cleanly, and if you want to produce, you will learn how. Producers will then learn to produce cleanly, and profit by doing so.

The same analysis applies to water resources: rivers, lakes, oceans and seas. These are merely pieces of land that contain a surface covering of water and air over that. You cannot pollute the water upstream without that pollution flowing downstream into water owned somewhere eventually by someone else. And that person will say NO. So, water pollution will also have to stop.

Finally, in a free market there are no externalities, since transactions are allowed to clear the market in all areas.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:32 pm Post subject:

ontheway wrote:

You have completely missed the point.

No, I haven't. I just see your "Libertarianism = 0% pollution rate" theory is totally wrong. Everyone here sees it. People who aren't Libertarians have called you on it repeatedly. People who are Libertarians just keep awkwardly silent on the matter.

ontheway wrote:

If you own a piece of land, this means you Fox, and I own a piece of land and we own the air rights ...

Just to further point out how ludicrious your definition of "air ownership" and it's entailments are, here are some other things that would be illegal under your system:

1) Cars.
2) Fires.
3) Cows.
4) Human beings.

All these things emit, and in a sense pollute the air. In your system, all it takes is for one landowner to say, "No more cars. No more cows. I won't have these things polluting my air!" and they become illegal. Utterly ridiculous, totally unworkable, and something that will never happen.

I often compare Libertarianism to Communism as something that sounds like a good idea on paper but wouldn't work in reality. Ontheway, with you latest description of how "pollution rights" would work in your society, you've moved beyond, "Good idea on paper," and into "Totally unworkable societal model that no sane person would want to live under." At least perfectly functioning Communism sounds appealing. Even your idealized description of your society sounds like a horrific nightmare. Not being able to drive a car because some small time Amish landholder doesn't want his air affected? Not being able to raise a cow because some PETA landowner uses the fact that cows emit as a technicality to ban their raising on a societal level?

Thanks, but no thanks.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:38 pm Post subject:

Julius wrote:

Fox wrote:

If an all knowing, all powerful being creates X, anything X does or becomes reflects on its creator, because it's creator knew X would do it.

Yet again you prove the axiom, "When Julius makes an analogy, it will be invalid and inapplicable to the situation at hand." It's a totally incomparable situation, because I'm not an omniscient being. I did my best to raise him to be responsible; I didn't know he'd be an axe murderer. Your alleged God knew we'd become what we were, and knew it with perfect certainty. That's what being omniscient means.

If I knew with perfect certainty that the son I had would become an axe murderer, and still did everything knowing he'd become an axe murderer, yes, I'd share culpability in his crimes.

Julius wrote:

The only alternative to what you are arguing is that God programmed robots incapable of doing anything wrong, let alone knowing what wrong was in the first place. That is not free will.

No, it's not the only alternative. God could have just as easily created humans with free will, but lacking any inclination to sin. Many of the things described as sin by your religion are things humans have a natural inclination to do. That needn't be so. If your God had created humans lacking those inclinations, we wouldn't be robots, we'd just be beings with free will but no desire to sin.

Julius wrote:

Quote:

It very clearly was created in such a way that it would inevitably end up as it is now.

Not so. God knew what would occur, but that does not make him responsible. Free will is a factor entirely independent of God.

God knows if he does X, Y will happen with all certainty. God does X. Y happens. Saying it's not God's fault Y happened is ridiculous, no matter what X and Y are. In this case, X was "God created the universe," and Y was "The universe became what it presently is."

This is so simple that anyone not blinded by cult indoctrination can perceive it with casual ease.

Julius wrote:

Quote:

I didn't ask to be born

Okay, so you assert that God didn't create me for my sake or my benefit, but for his own glory. That gives me even less incentive to do him any favors, because he's not even thinking about me, but rather about himself and his glory.

Julius

Joined: 27 Jul 2006

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 3:48 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

If I knew with perfect certainty that the son I had would become an axe murderer, and still did everything knowing he'd become an axe murderer, yes, I'd share culpability in his crimes.

Foreknowledge is not the same as culbability. I know for a fact that next year millions of people around the world will commit crimes. Am I to blame, then, when they do?

Quote:

You owe everything you have and are to the fact God created it. maybe its time to show some gratitude?

OneWayTraffic

Joined: 14 Mar 2005

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:20 pm Post subject:

mises wrote:

This is all hysterics. You're all going to feel like suckers when all these apocalyptic predictions don't come true.

Ever been to Easter Island?

Incidentally I saw a video the other day of Nasa doing overflights of the poles. The artic and antartic ice is melting faster than predicted. Many places of the artic have 'first year' ice, rather than ice built up over many years as before.

I haven't seen too many people predicting the end of our species. But a sea level rise of a few meters would cost a great deal of money.

Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 4:32 pm Post subject:

I think the Polar Bears will deal with global warming better than we will.

Julius

Joined: 27 Jul 2006

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 5:38 pm Post subject:

Steelrails wrote:

I think the Polar Bears will deal with global warming better than we will.

howdo you figure that exactly?
polar bears and a vast array of other arctic wildlife are staring extinction in the face, humans are nott.

We're actually talking the collapse of a whole ecosystem. For example plankton and krill depend on the sea ice at one stage in their life-cycle. No plankton= no fish, seabirds, seals or whales. And no fishing industry for people either.

Steelrails

Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 5:59 pm Post subject:

Give Animals some credit. They can deal with adversity surprisingly well.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 9:53 pm Post subject:

Julius wrote:

Fox wrote:

If I knew with perfect certainty that the son I had would become an axe murderer, and still did everything knowing he'd become an axe murderer, yes, I'd share culpability in his crimes.

Foreknowledge is not the same as culbability. I know for a fact that next year millions of people around the world will commit crimes. Am I to blame, then, when they do?

If you know for a fact that specific crimes will happen, and they only happen because your actions allowed them to, then yes, you are at least partially to blame.

Julius wrote:

Quote:

You owe everything you have and are to the fact God created it. maybe its time to show some gratitude?

I almost assuredly don't own anything to your almost certainly non-existent deity, but on the off chance he exists as you describe him, I find him repugnant and evil and hold no gratitude in my heart at all for him. I'd rather not exist than be consigned to eternal torture, which is what you claim your God is going to give me.

This is the thing you don't understand. I don't merely think your God doesn't exist, I find him -- as you've described him -- to be an actively evil, monstrous thing, and I wouldn't worship him even if he did exist.

Julius

Joined: 27 Jul 2006

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2009 11:02 pm Post subject:

Steelrails wrote:

Give Animals some credit. They can deal with adversity surprisingly well.

You're optimistic aren't you?
A tiny proportion of species like e.g rats and cockroaches have adapted well to human encroahment.
The rest is vanishing. I'm afraid the vast majority of lifeforms cannot adapt to concrete, poisoned rivers, cleared forests and drained swamps.

Scientists warn of increased risk of extinction
Brussels, 25 Nov 2004

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has revealed the extent of the extinction threat facing thousands of animals and plants in its latest Red List. The environmental network, which can call on the expertise of around 10,000 scientists worldwide, claims that 15,589 species are now in danger of extinction.

Scientists have known for many years that around an eighth of birds and a quarter of all mammals are under threat, but the latest list highlights the perilous situation of amphibians. Around 50 per cent of turtles and tortoises are on the verge of extinction, while 21 per cent of amphibians in total are critically endangered or endangered. The figure for mammals and birds is ten per cent and five per cent respectively.

The IUCN claims that the threat to global biodiversity is escalating, and that much of this is down to human activity. Over-exploitation and habitat loss put pressure on several species, while competition from introduced animals and plants is a threat to others. Climate change is also causing problems for several species.

Some 844 extinctions have been recorded since AD 1500, and scientists believe that the current extinction rate may be between 100 and 1,000 times higher than the natural rate. Of 129 recorded bird extinctions, 103 have occurred since 1800.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=192752&sectioncode=26

Display posts from previous:

	Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Current Events Forum	All times are GMT - 8 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Next
Page 5 of 6

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe