• BillyClark@piefed.social
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    21 hours ago

    The premise is only true if people, or even animals, never get hit by trolleys unless they are tied to the tracks. But we know this not to be the case.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      21 hours ago

      You’d have to make infinite trips. Someone is going to do it eventually. Now, change the environment so they CAN’T grow grain. Or do something to prevent a perfect setup for the abundance of oil creation. Make it so people can’t do what they’re going to do when they find things.

        • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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          21 hours ago

          Just gives them a bit longer, they were eventually on the way out, or evolving. But it will make things rougher for the mammals who found a sudden niche to fill.

          • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            Hmm, yes. As the holy texts say: “In the beginning the universe was created. This has made many people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad idea.”

            Existence was a mistake.

    • BillyClark@piefed.social
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      21 hours ago

      Without civilization, there would be nobody to judge civilization, either.

      I recently heard a science popularizer like Neil deGrasse Tyson or maybe Brian Cox talking about tangents to the Fermi Paradox. Essentially, even if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, it’s possible that we’re the only scientifically advanced intelligent civilization in the Milky Way galaxy. As long as we don’t know otherwise, it’s not a terrible assumption.

      But anyways, if we do happen to be the only intelligent civilization in the Milky Way, it’s quite a responsibility. It’s a shame that we seem to be racing towards our own doom. We should be doing whatever we can to save our civilization. Of course, it may be that most civilizations that reach this point destroy themselves.

        • BillyClark@piefed.social
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          20 hours ago

          I guess if you tend to look at things scientifically, you are more likely to see it as a responsibility. Humans are something that came about in the universe, and we are trying to learn about the universe. Another way of saying that is that we are the universe trying to learn about itself.

          Of course, otherwise, even if you didn’t ask to exist, it’s quite presumptuous of you to make that decision for everybody else. If you’re going to judge civilization for bringing about your situation, it seems hypocritical for you to think it’s okay to make a different decision unilaterally.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      I have bad news for you. Lots and lots of people decided to plant grain independently, most times for the booze.

        • bryndos@fedia.io
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          18 hours ago

          Make it compulsory for all grain farmers to get so plastered all the time that they’re physically incapable of raising the population density.

          • crank0271@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            For all we know there have been many such peoples. They probably weren’t the best record keepers, either.

            • bryndos@fedia.io
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              18 hours ago

              Clearly not enough of them to stop the population density increasing though - so the limit wasn’t sufficiently well enforced. I suspect several of them just got a wee bit tipsy but were sill able to get it on.