Ecological Balance

I was having a discussion about this and that at Talk Polywell and one of my correspondents said:

…many of them both unnecessary and unsustainable. A truly civilized society would maintain an ecological balance and still be able to visit the planets.

And I said:

Humanity is unsustainable. We will go on for as long as we can.
In 1900 it was estimated that New York would be buried in horse crap by 1920 if things kept going the way they were going. Obviously they did not.
Ecological balance is pure fantasy. Because things (on all scales) are always fluctuating. Not to mention new organisms. (bird flu, swine flu)
Ecological balance before or after a large volcanic eruption? Ecological balance before or after a very large meteor strike? Ecological balance before or after the onset of an ice age?
So just exactly which ecological balance is the best? And how do you keep it?

These ecological balance folks have delusions of grandeur.
Cross Posted at Power and Control


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8 responses to “Ecological Balance”

  1. Rhodium Heart Avatar
    Rhodium Heart

    The “ecological balance” believers are the same folks who, in any other context, would argue that there is no “objective truth” and that all presumed truths are artificial cultural impositions. Yet, scientifically-illiterate that they are, and historically-illiterate too for that matter, they presume that there is some optimal ecological balance we should aspire to, whether than be 1955, or 1899, or 1491, whenever.
    Climate changes. Species evolve. Species go extinct because their better-adapted cousins prosper while they unadaptable fail when climate changes from Medieval Warming to Little Ice Age.
    Have the elite eltite ever been bossier or less knowledgeable about their world?

  2. dr kill Avatar
    dr kill

    They are arrogant fucking morons is what they are. There is no balance, only change.

  3. Bleepless Avatar
    Bleepless

    The horse crap idea is a fine example of the conclusion that any present trend will continue, probably on a straight-line basis. This is a disease of intellectuals. If a trend can be blamed on someone truly loathesome, e.g., Republicans, so much the better for the crucial countermeasures.

  4. TallDave Avatar

    Luddite/Rousseau-ian nonsense. North America has more trees today than in 1900. Post-industrial society has a better relationship with the environment than hunter-gatherers did.
    I don’t think they realize everywhere prehistoric hunter-gatherers went, mass extinctions followed.

  5. K Avatar
    K

    “New York would be buried in horse crap…”
    And sometime around 1900 Bell Telephone projected that as the number of telephones grew everyone on Earth would have to be a phone company employee in order to simply maintain the system
    Instead engineers invented automatic switches, and amplifiers, and eventually direct dialing.
    Oddly enough I didn’t find the telephone story in Google. But no matter.
    Correct, there is no natural state of balance for the Earth. But even the most fanatical activists know that, they are after something else.
    And that something else is the age old dream that a small nucleus of ultra smart people should direct the activities of all other people. For the good of everyone, of course.
    And amazingly enough activists, a better term is intellectual, are almost universally convinced they will be among those doing the directing, not among those taking orders.

  6. Gregory Avatar

    Er, you do realise that everyone on earth *is* a phone company employee, don’t you? Or at least, every phone user is an operator, because instead of having a human operator connect your call, the phone companies have very cleverly shifted the responsibility to you.
    Mind you, this is a good thing, and the same is true of of travel. Previously, you went to a travel agent, and he’d figure out everything for you. Now, you’re your own travel agent – heck, you even print out your own tickets and check yourself on board the plane.
    Too bad if customer service fell by the roadside in the process.

  7. M. Simon Avatar

    Gregory,
    You can still pay extra for the service. Not many do.

  8. comatus Avatar
    comatus

    I love that horse thing (my family didn’t, since the wind kind of went out of hay farming in Conn. around WWI). Petroleum saved the whales, cars saved the horse. And yet b’Goil is humanity’s worst enemy. Huh.
    There are more horses in the US today than there were in 1900, with nary a road apple to trip on. It’s looking more and more like New York is the problem. Everyting they do there ends up toxic. Why would that be?