So what did you do to help save the world ? Seriously.

Can you answer that question? Small things make a difference too, I'm not asking for some type of world saving escapade from everyone



I recommend listening to the clip instead of reading the transcript, there's something very relaxing about his voice, and it's only two minutes long.

Ignorance is no longer and excuse. Anthropology in the last hundred years has laid on our doorstep the tools necessary for an archaic reconstruction of society and human values within that society. It's inconceivable that western or industrial capitalism could run on for another 500 to 1000 years, it will deteriorate under the pressure of resource scarcity. And what few democratic values we have obtained what little space for reasoned discourse has been created will be the first to be swept away.

That's why it's very very important that people take back their minds. And that people analyze our dilemma in the context of our entire historical record, from inhabitants of the trees to our potential role as citizens of the galaxy and the universe. We are at the critical turning point, and as I say the tools, the data, the information that holds the potential for our salivation is now known. It is available. It is among us.

But it is slandered, it is ridiculed, it is litigated against. It's up to each one of us to relate to this situation and be able to answer the question; that will surely be put to us at some point in the future, which is: What did you do to help save the world?

Short, succinct, and straight to the point.

It's a simple question, can you answer it?

Thanks

A quick re-contextualization on why answering the title in the thread is of utmost importance: We did not inherit our environments from our ancestors, we borrow it from our descendants.

reply to post by ZeuZZ


I try to make God smile.

On a more cynical note with no intentions, I once seen a
bumpersticker on this gentlemans work truck, that read.

Save the world! Kill yourself!

Also if you are totally bankrupt of ideas Mckenna has actually solved how to save the world. I'm simplyfying here bu in a nutshell

In terms of the societal impact of modern society as a whole in the context of this thread that is a very wise choice, even if there are other motivations behind that sentiment. In this following clip Mckenna outlines how the best current way to save the planet is by empowering women to think it's probably for the betterment of the planet to only bear one child (much to the annoyance of corporate institutions, that can't really make a buck from retreating demographics, in all nations) and that if they choose to do this we should change cultural opinions to give them the status of hero. He does not particularly advocate this view, he is just curious as to why it has not entered common discourse.

It's just tend minutes long, and is hilarious. The sign of someone to be able to have an audience in laughing stitches when talking about something totally serious is a sign they are onto something.

I brought my four children up with good morale values.

randyvs
reply to post by ZeuZZ

 

I try to make God smile.

On a more cynical note with no intentions, I once seen a
bumpersticker on this gentlemans work truck, that read.

Save the world! Kill yourself!

In the immortal words of George Carlin (who essentially predicted the gaia hypothesis about ten years before it was created by saying this)



"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these #ing people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the #ing planet?

I'm getting tired of that #. Tired of that #. I'm tired of #ing Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a # about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are #ed. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your #, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron...whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.

ZeuZZ

But it is slandered, it is ridiculed, it is litigated against. It's up to each one of us to relate to this situation and be able to answer the question; that will surely be put to us at some point in the future, which is: What did you do to help save the world?

Short, succinct, and straight to the point.

It's a simple question, can you answer it?

Thanks

What Ive done in my small part is Ive rejected consumer culture my entire life from the get-go.

What I define as "consumer culture" is the culture of waste, the culture of everything is disposable, the culture of narrow short sightedness. In my everyday life I look for ways to expand the efficiency and usefulness of what I already have, instead of following the trend of waste and the mentality that if its more than 3 months old, its "obsolete", or "old", or theres "something better now".

An example: I never throw out clothing. I have shirts that Ive had for 20 years, and they are in perfect working order; clean, no holes, no tears, etc. When/if a shirt becomes beyond acceptably wearable to anyone not in a survival situation, the shirt is still not thrown out, it becomes a cleaning rag for something (shirt strips make great gun barrel cloths). If the shirt then becomes too disintegrated to be used as a rag, it is shredded and given to the birds and squirrels. And when they are done with it, is turns to dust and eventually becomes part of the soil again.

Thats just one example.

Also, if at all possible, I will not buy anything that is designed to fall apart in the near future. When I buy something, Im expecting to keep that thing until it falls apart from use.

I also try and get others to be less wasteful, but it seems it is hard coded in many now from decades of societal imprinting on them, to be as wasteful as possible and not care about it. I even tell them they could save money, a LOT of money, but being more conservative, but it always comes down to: "Yeah I know... but...." ... but I just dont feel like changing, is what they mean to say.

Ill leave it at that.

tinker9917
I brought my four children up with good morale values.

edit on 13-4-2014 by tinker9917 because: (no reason given)

Sorry mate your gona have to get rid of three of them, everyone should only bear one child. Message me if you need any emotional support.

First of all I shut my mouth. All the shouting and hurrahing producing so much hot air the atmosphere went up a couple of degrees. Then I gave up peas and such. Not so much farting producing methane so no help to global warming. For those of you who don't know this post is pure sarcasm.

ZeuZZ

tinker9917
I brought my four children up with good morale values.

edit on 13-4-2014 by tinker9917 because: (no reason given)

Sorry mate your gona have to get rid of three of them, everyone should only bear one child. Message me if you need any emotional support.

lol... you made me laugh. There's times I wonder "WHAT was i thinking??!!", as my kids are all right at two years apart. And there's time I'd like to get rid of a couple cause they ARE a handfull now that they are all teenagers... lol

The wold is going to be just fine. I am more so worried about the people who reside here. I havedone very little.

How do you save the world when its doesn't want to be saved?
How do you save anything when denial is chic or the in thing?
How do you progress when education and science is rejected based on religious or ideological mindsets?
How can you have peace and love in a profit run world?

I had a vasectomy when I was 20 years of age. I firmly believe overpopulation is the cause of most of this planets strife.

You know how I know we will have a new space race?

Because, no one wants to step up and take responsibility, admit the obvious.

Arguing against things like our joint social responsibility to try and keep this planet clean is arguing the right to burn down a house we don't own.

It may sound trite but its the truth, we borrow the world for a very short time, we are stewards not owners.

I am afraid to have children, not in the state of this place.


We are going to have to look to the stars, no one wants to clean up here or do whats needed.

Cleaned out the neighbor hood park that pretty close to me. It right beside a catholic high school, where the "Future" like to litter, sadly this kind of goes against them since it somewhat shows the cops where they smoke weed by leaving there trash.

One heavily wooded part of the forest had a variety garbage, from a few desks and plastic tarps, to what looked like a 1950 giant light bulb that was buried, to what seemed to be heroin needles. I think I moved at least 200 pounds of trash out of that knick of the woods, thrown into a near by dumpster.

Sadly most of the tree are damaged now to due to a ice storm at the start of winter, so a good portion look barren now. Good news, I don't think they will have any places to hide. I could less about them smoking weed, it just their trash. Did it with gloves, and a couple of shopping bags.

olaru12
I had a vasectomy when I was 20 years of age. I firmly believe overpopulation is the cause of most of this planets strife.

LOL .... oh, really?

Fair enough do what you want. I guess I just like sex too much.

That rather begs the question of whether the world needs saving, especially from do-gooders who are convinced of one doom & gloom scenario after another, helped along by Hollywood and those with a political agenda. The real issue is solving problems we don't really have. It's amazing, really, that the "deny ignorance" ATS crowd buys off on all this without much scrutiny. Whether it is "man made global warming," which, if it exists at all, could be a good thing rather than a bad thing, or "peak oil," which assumes oil is made of dead dinosaurs, one thing we SHOULD have learned is that the predictions promulgated in the past have not withheld the test of time.

If you read the predictions from the past from as little as 25 years ago we were supposed to all be dead by now by any of several means. The "Club of Rome" predictions turned out to be hyperbole. Malthus was wrong. We're not dead of starvation. We're not dead because of a new Ice Age. We haven't run out of oil and have more proven reserves than ever. Species are not "dying off" they are being discovered at a faster rate than ever before. Pollution in the first world has decreased dramatically and even China has finally figured out they have to do something. Despite what you hear about people "living on $1.00 a day!" the standard of living worldwide is rising. Diseases are being eradicated, despite no help from the anti-vaxers. "Doom & Gloom" as predicted by the past has not happened and is unlikely to do so in the present I no small measure due to false computer models of change.

If ATSers would actually research and look into this stuff themselves instead of buying off on any left wing You Tube screed they can find, perhaps we could move in the right direction.
,
But even then, it still begs the question.

What, exactly, needs saving? Look, at an extreme level the Earth has bounced back from several extinction level events, asteroids that weren't caused by evil humans, and managed to bounce back just fine. The idea that Earth is being "destroyed" by humans is just silly. Changed? Sure! There is no question that we do have an impact, but where ought we to be headed?

Some of you think we ought to head back to the past and live "in harmony with nature" in small tribal groups that recycle their plastic, eat vegan at worst (Oh, those poor plants! Vegetable Rights!), bicycle everywhere and commune with dolphins while being free of all government and being able to enjoy complete freedom from anything the least bit "toxic" (used extremely broadly).

It's not gonna happen. The Doomsday prophecies of the past have not panned out. Today is no different. Our computers are just a little faster at coming to erroneous conclusions.

ZeuZZ

olaru12
I had a vasectomy when I was 20 years of age. I firmly believe overpopulation is the cause of most of this planets strife.

LOL .... oh, really?

Fair enough do what you want. I guess I just like sex too much.

It's a shame you have an aversion to research and knowledge. A vasectomy changes nothing in your sex life except your ability to procreate. I think you are thinking of castration.

www.webmd.com...

actually my libido has increased. Do you need a definition of "libido" as well...?

www.thefreedictionary.com...

reply to post by ZeuZZ


RIP George Carlin

reply to post by olaru12

actually my libido has increased.

An acceptable ulterior motive.