It's amazing how dense someone can be when the act of understanding the argument would lead to their defeat. Much easier to respond with "nyah, nyah, no *you* are!" isn't it:

Yeah, it was pretty clear what Dragon Bait was suggesting. I agree that whilst it is desirable to encourage voting, it might be in our collective best interests to appreciate the stupid and/or uneducated choosing to stay home in front of the kiddie cartoons that Saturday morning instead of voting.

Apparently this concept (meritocracy, as an idea) really gets up the noses of a particularly limp kind of person who feels that it's wrong to consider stupid people less useful, less interesting and much less worth listening to. Well, good! If you're the sort of ignorant namby-pamby jackass that feels this way I can only hope I offend you to extinction, because that is what your fucked-up attitudes are doing for Humanity collectively. Not the worst possible outcome really, if this is all we're good for.

Thanks for taking the time to pen a great response.

I too don't want to tell people how to live or what to buy; I despise despotism/authoritarian governance as much as the next thinking person and I'm growing increasingly agitated about the climate change issue, because I feel we're setting ourselves up for exactly that. It doesn't take a visionary to see it coming but we'll still collectively do absolutely nothing until it's too late.

Our corrupt leaders will almost certainly use this as an excuse to further restrict the populace. Is marshal law the logical conclusion of this policy? It is a likely outcome if Western nations begin closing their borders, which I suspect may become the only sane course of action in the next decade or so as food becomes increasingly harder to produce.

The theft of the rights that we paid for in blood wouldn't be possible if we weren't collectively as dumb as a boot. We've seen the same corporate behaviours over AGW that we historically saw when Big Tobacco trotted out its "More Doctors prefer Camels" bullshit: lots of medical experts happy to lie to the public in return for payola. Just like that disgusting chapter in our history, Big Oil has severely hampered and delayed the urgent steps we need to take to get our situation back under control. But is it likely we'll really see the Koch brothers and the other bad actors ever prosecuted for their crimes against us all?

No, because humans are apathetic, our leaders are puppets and the vast majority of people seem to celebrate mediocrity and largely want to be treated like children. Our politicians and their corporate masters are only too happy to oblige. I guess that's why they say people get the government they deserve.

I'm having a hard time imagining that an outbreak of Idealism or Pragmatism could difference at this stage in the game. I know I'm no help; Cynicism probably isn't going to come our rescue either. :)

If you're going to arrogantly correct people on their grammar you need your facts right.

So, if "[you] knew what he was saying", then why point out the 'mistake' in the first place?

Because you wanted to be a prick, that's why. Try being an accurate prick next time if you don't want to be called out as the arsehole you are.

Wrong.

Try learning something before you go talking out of your arse, 'correcting' people like an ignorant hick.

Before replying I must in all sincerity first say I really like your handle.

In response to your post:

There are plenty of examples of societies that have lived in closer harmony with the natural world and anecdotally they seemed to have been better off as a culture because of it. The North American bison were certainly better off, at least until we arrived to systematically and un-naturally slaughter them wholesale in excess of our needs at the time.

As for the societies that have lived in this fashion, you are no doubt aware of how the ex-Europeans typically dealt with them. (I'm from New Zealand which is of course a former British colony.)

Our actions were neither natural nor beneficial unless you happen to be the victor penning your own entry into the history books. We've collectively gotten little better since then.

But then we addressed our wants, all of them. Then we addressed our fantasies, and to Hell with anything that stood in our way. Then we indulged our wildest imaginations, dumped enough fertilizer on our ever-shrinking supply of arable land to render it nutritionally and microbially bankrupt.
Some of us went on to purchase entire islands for private use and gold-plated our Bugatti Veyrons whilst farting out exhaust of all kinds as if the atmosphere was for our use and ours alone. We consumed and consumed until a minority of us became so bloated, corrupt and cynical, lacking nothing by way of wealth or power, that the rot became cast in stone: they started thinking they had a natural right to their circumstance and their descendants a right to same plus 10%. We long ago forgot about our needs with all the focus on our wants and we never spared a second to think about anyone (or any species) who might not be getting their needs met because of our greed. Meanwhile we continue to fell non-renewable forests, strip-mine every mountain and hillside we can get our teeth into and double-down on the madness with initiatives like the recently-accelerated foray into hydraulic fracking. Once again, to Hell with the consequences because more, damnnit. The board says so.

I didn't make that argument - I'm pro-technology like most of us here after all. I just don't think taking a giant shit on the Earth was necessary for Humanity to develop solutions to dental caries.

Not sure what I said that smacks of either of those two concepts. I'm about the least romantic person you're likely to meet and I honestly don't think myself above or better than anyone or any 'class' of people.
I like to imagine myself as a pragmatist: I'm for nuclear power and I blame (in part) so-called environmentalists who have blocked these technologies, thereby leading us into the shithole we're just starting to slip down now. Nuke power isn't perfect but it's a solution that would have bought us and the species we share the Earth with some time as we continued to develop our renewables.

My problem with Humanity is largely about its unnecessary excesses and its disgracefully selfish behaviours. We should long ago have recognised our inherent responsibility as stewards of the planet, not its rapists. Even now when it's obvious to most that this is the reality of our situation we argue and dodge our responsibilities.

The number of species we've put to the sword to get to where we are now and the number that are still yet to pay the price for our hubris.

Yup, that would pretty much do it for Earth's ecology. Informative post, thanks St.Creed.

Beautifully said. If people in general held this attitude the War On Some Drugs would collapse like a wave on the shore.

If people held a similar attitude to life in general we wouldn't be dealing with fun problems like Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS, to name a few obvious parties.

It seems we get the society we deserve.

A surprisingly on-topic and pertinent question IMHO. I don't know the answer, but I'd guess that the energy entering the planet's biosphere from even a very brief GRB on the opposite side of the planet would be more than sufficient to make the rest of it uninhabitable fairly quickly.

Anyone with actual knowledge able to set us straight?

I friended you on the strength of that. Yay, look at me, I'm all web 3.0-savvy and stuff, or something.

Seriously though, anyone who still considers Humanity as teh aw3some at this point needs to grow up. I'm specifically aiming this at the limp tards posting angry, sarcastic responses to Lumpy's comments, so listen up:

Humanity is a fucking turd. Individually we may be brilliant, creative, enlightened, but collectively we're just humus. The sooner we recognise that this is the current truth, the sooner we can come to terms with it.. hell, we might even stand a chance of addressing some of our problems. Our current status as pond-scum is not necessarily permanent. We're probably the equivalent of a petulant teenager at this stage in our development and there's a dim glimmer of hope that we might learn from our breathtaking hubris and childish behaviour.

That doesn't matter at this time though: Humanity is a fat, steaming molly grogan and will remain so because we're all quite happy with the status quo as long as it doesn't affect us personally. Naturally, I'm just as guilty as the rest, my only claim to integrity is that I don't get all butt-clenchy and leap into a rage of denial when challenged on this point. We've collectively engineered a shit, shit world out of what was essentially paradise and yet many of us snarl viciously at those who clearly see the cracks in the walls. Meanwhile the vast majority preen and congratulate themselves on their social, technological and financial status, enjoying a position at the top of the food chain that was neither earned nor deserved. Well, forgive me for not giving thanks to the Jebus, Krishna or the Mohammed spectre for what we currently enjoy as I prefer my salvation in a tangible rather than IOU form, thanks.

It doesn't have to be this way at all but this is how our self-imposed puppeteers prefer things. Between them, the NIMBYs, BANANAs and the indescribable stupidity, arrogance and hypocrisy of groups like Greenpeace, Humanity's fate is sealed. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of vertebrates; I just hope we don't take too much of the biosphere down with us when we go.

Little more than velvet-lined chains with which to enslave the mind of Humanity.

Because stupid people, I'm afraid.

The (cynical?) entrepreneurial amongst us long ago learned that the quickest and easiest buck to be obtained is the stupid dollar. Fully 50% of the population is at one's disposal if one has a sufficiently guilt-free complex. The work is probably as rewarding as taking candy from a stupid baby and certainly much easier (if you enjoy that kind of thing, that is).

To me it's always been a bit of a cop-out. I'm sure it is easy once one gets past one's moral event horizon, rather like selling heroin to kids when one is otherwise capable of cutting useful code (for example). Still, there's no doubting the might of the combined dullard purchasing power but it's really their voting power that I find.. uncomfortable.

However they're viewed by the rest of us they sure are capable of throwing their weight around and bringing about change. Stupid change, of course, but that's more about the desired outcomes of whomever is manipulating them at that time.

Thus all corporate decisions are likely to go through the 'how will the stupid respond?' filter and sometimes they get it wrong, resulting in the mob-mentality behaviour you describe.

You sir are an enlightened being and I humbly genuflect to your purity of thought. There are few things on this planet as deeply satisfying as an expertly-cooked steak finished as you describe.

Unpossible. A good cut of beef cooked nicely in the manner you detail may very well garner generous quantities of post-feeding mouth-beef for the fortunate few able to partake of such steakly goodness, but it is a small price to pay for such an experience.