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Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
Well, If Al Gore is viewed as a crank by most people, that's a bit sad. But circumstances and people's opinions can change. If the effects of global warming continue to accumilate as predicted, if those effects impact on people's lives, then today's crank may be vindicated tomorrow. It's happened before, though off-hand the only historically uplifting example that comes to mind is Copernicus with all his heliocentric nonsense.
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Yeah it is sad. Also true.
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In the same way that they say that every US bombing raid in the Middle East spawns another hundred terrorists, it may not be long before every hurricane victim is demanding action on rising sea levels, etc.
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And yet the populace's reaction to drones and bombing has been so tepid that it has been allowed to continue for... well I can't even contemplate how long US bombings have been going on. Cause we're too stupid and apathetic to really, truly care.
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I'm sure there are plenty of stupid people in the world, but also there are many intelligent people. Your claim that "they are simply not capable of understanding events beyond the few square miles..." is something I would contest, especially in the age of the internet.
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The internet age has not really increased our mental capacity or understanding of the world at this point (though I like to think that it will given enough time). Humankind is still a provincial race but now we're trying to apply our provincial understanding on a worldwide scale with no real training or expertise to speak of. Do you honestly think that your average human has any business solving the issues in the Middle East, North Korea, or the worldwide economic crisis? And yet we continue to try without any humility.
If our race would at least just admit that we don't know what we're talking about then I could at least develop some respect for our attempts to deal with all this ****. At least then we might try learning from our mistakes and not bulldoze past those insecurities for the sake of saving face.
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You also mention that we "were never designed to deal with any of this ****." The fact is that we are an evolutionary freak. We have a much bigger brain than any other animal, of a sophistication completely unjustified by the circumstances of our origin. I agree that we started out as apes, and we could've got by with a brain the size of a chimp. But we got a much bigger brain than necessary, and we've proved ourselves capable of doing a lot more than just flinging poo. As a species, our position throughout (pre-)history has always been at the cutting edge; no other species has confronted the kind of stuff we have. And no-one can be sure how we will react to the problem of GW, but to say in advance that we will fail reminds me a little of the attitude of some unintrepid people when first confronted with the possibility of the railway; "Human beings aren't designed to travel at that speed." Turned out that those nay-sayers got it wrong, and, nothing personal of course, but I rather hope you've got it wrong too.
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Yes, compared to the rest of the world's species we are incredibly impressive with our mental prowess. Evolutionarily speaking we are an impossible marvel. But we're talking about issues like nuclear war, international capitalism, and race relations between an endless series of immigrants. Those are not issues that will be solved simply because we're smarter than bears. Do you understand world economics? Do you think anyone truly does? I imagine if we did then we would have predicted and prevented the Great Recession, or at least not have been completely blindsided by it. We are dealing with an endless morass of issues that have become so complex and intertwined that there is no conceivable way that the human brain can deal with them without technological assistance.