Are you having/will you have a net positive effect on humanity?

[Deranged Nasat]

I mean, I'm practically begging to be used here, but it seems humanity doesn't want to. Exploit me, dammit!

Ah, but nearly all our cushy, service, entertainment and luxury-oriented jobs are dependent upon large swaths of fast-moving capital, and that's dependent upon the hearty exploitation of natural resources...

Indeed. Which is why teacake had the right idea of trying a grassroots humanitarian approach for maximum self-comfort and minimal uneasy guilt.

 

[Kestra]

Okay I'll add something. I'm not very concerned with what kind of effect I'll have after I die, because that will be negligible or nonexistent.

And yet a few hundred million first-worlders thinking so make very large impacts indeed...

You must have missed this earlier:

I'm a net negative on the environment and I have no plans to change that. Taketaketake! I'm fairly nice to other humans, however.

 

[Gaith]

No, I saw it, I was just repeating myself for emphasis.

 

[Kestra]

Seriously? You decided to repeat yourself instead of respond to anything else I said? Nice.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Hey, he's on a mission to reboot his thread.

 

[Gaith]

Seriously? You decided to repeat yourself instead of respond to anything else I said? Nice.

Well, you didn't give me much too work with (nor did you engage much with my posts) apart from that you try to be nice to people. Okay... and?

 

[Kestra]

And I'm so annoyed by the winking face at the end of all your recent posts that I'll leave your thread alone now!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Seriously? You decided to repeat yourself instead of respond to anything else I said? Nice.

Well, you didn't give me much too work with (nor did you engage much with my posts) apart from that you try to be nice to people. Okay... and?

Just imagine if the ENTIRE WORLD tried to be nice to people. At a cost to their own furthering of ego.

Everything would change.

 

[Gaith]

Well, one could say the same for the discovery of cheap perpetual motion machines that could power all our cities without emitting any pollution whatsoever... aaand?

The resources we first-worlders use create scarcity in other areas of the globe. Scarcity fosters lawlessness, which in turn fuels tribal/sectarian divisions, which in turn creates war, famines and despair.

One can polite to and smile at the checkout guy at the grocery store yet still increase the sum total of human unhappiness.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Well, one could say the same for the discovery of cheap perpetual motion machines that could power all our cities without emitting any pollution whatsoever... aaand?

The resources we first-worlders use create scarcity in other areas of the globe. Scarcity fosters lawlessness, which in turn fuels tribal/sectarian divisions, which in turn creates war, famines and despair.

One can polite to and smile at the checkout guy at the grocery store yet still increase the sum total of human unhappiness.

And 8 years in the Navy will help this how?

What is with all your "aaand?" comments? People are just mumbling about what they do and you want to prod them to justify it? Or do more? Or.. what? It's not very clear.

 

[Gaith]

And 8 years in the Navy will help this how?

Zeus willing, by discouraging, and thus reducing, warfare and violence amongst my fellow humans.

It may well not be much, but at this point it feels like the best I can do.

What is with all your "aaand?" comments? People are just mumbling about what they do and you want to prod them to justify it?

Well, yeah, that was sort of my point in starting the thread, to challenge each other take a step back from our private lives and consider the Big Picture for a while. If I'd wanted cute quips and a lack of sober thinking, I'd have gone to TNZ. And I've been meaning to let up a bit and let others post, but I keep getting these direct questions!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

If I'd wanted cute quips and a lack of sober thinking, I'd have gone to TNZ.

I don't get your negative view on people's posts in this thread at all. Everyone who has posted has contributed to the discussion, nothing has been derailed, no mockery has occurred.

Not only has it not been clear what you want from people in the thread it's kind of weird that you take ownership of the direction of the thread like this in the first place.

 

[Captain_Nick]

Well it is his thread. Of course he will invest a bit of ownership in it.

Personally, I get shitted off when atheists start posting in my threads.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I don't recall you ever posting a religious thread, but perhaps I'm in the wrong forum for it.

 

[Gaith]

@ teacake, I don't have an overall negative view of the thread; on the contrary, there's been some great stuff. And I apologize if I've been pushy; I was really trying not to be. Provocative to certain brief remarks and little-justified (imho) remarks, maybe, but that's another matter. So I'm just going to take several steps back here, and see where things go; my only request, if requests are cool (and I did my best to articulate this in the OP also), is that people do contribute some detail/context/justification to their answers...

 

[Captain_Nick]

I don't recall you ever posting a religious thread, but perhaps I'm in the wrong forum for it.

Any thread at all. Atheists like to pontificate. There is to be no pontificetery in my topics.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I don't recall you ever posting a religious thread, but perhaps I'm in the wrong forum for it.

Any thread at all. Atheists like to pontificate. There is to be no pontificetery in my topics.

So you'd like 50% of the forum to just not reply to you?

 

[Captain_Nick]

I'd prefer them to go away altogether, but I'll settle for uncomfortable silence.

edit - stop hijacking this thread nick

 

[6079SmithW]

I give blood and recycle what I can. I try to be nice to people and help out when I can. Career wise my situation is somewhat similar to DerangedNasat's in that I am unambitious and don't have a clearly defined career path. I am considering medical technology but that's because it suits my work style and not necessarilly because I have an overwhelming desire to help people.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I'd prefer them to go away altogether, but I'll settle for uncomfortable silence.

edit - stop hijacking this thread nick

Nah, you can just mold your peeve into the topic at hand.

Would there be a net positive effect on the net if all the atheists disappeared? I don't think so myself, I find there is just so much great fodder in pontificating that I would miss them very much. They also, occasionally, make the devout think a bit outside the box, but that's only if they are super humble which is rare.