> all humanity has ever done is to try to reign in that complexity

To what end?

“Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, with a single powerful blow, shattered for all time a complex article of fundamental articles of our cultural faith; that the world was capable of repairing any damage we might do to it; that the world was designed to do this, that the world was on our side; that God himself had fashioned the world specifically to support our efforts to conquer and rule it.” ― Daniel Quinn, The Story of B

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Paradigm2020 9 hours ago | parent [-]

There is no end.

The world is the way it is because of the desires that the powerful have chosen to pursue because they felt those were worthy of pursuit.

Everything is about entropy. There are those who obey it and those who fight it and yet all will fall because of it.

There is no written way the world should be / is best.

Life is change.

Just choose for yourself what is a good life but accept that there will always be trade offs

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James72689 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's true. This brings to mind an idea by Dr. Tom Murphy about sustainability. Human civilization lived sustainably, or in the same state with little change, in the natural world for tens of thousands of years, with much lower entropy than now.

By definition, any behavior that cannot go on forever, or deep into the future is unsustainable. Of course all life on Earth will end and humanity far before it. Maybe our current level sustainability is causing entropy to accelerate.

I'm not saying either way is better, of course better or worse isn't really even a thing. I just wanted to share my thoughts that may inform what I choose for myself to discuss it with others.

	▲	Paradigm2020 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Human civilization is often used to describe the last ~ 12k years of us becoming farmers making cities etc. But way before that, approximately around the time we had both mastered fire and good enough communication skills neanderthals and other homo became the very top of the food chain and started massively altering this planet. I think scientists in the relevant field call the current extinction period the 4th? One caused by humans. Sustainable is a "loaded word/concept" of the imprecise language we call English... For who? How long? For self / others? Externalities? If Mark Zuckerberg creates a robot army and closed loop food producing system and clone installation that keeps him / his descendents alive till the heat death of the universe on an island in Hawai while 99.999999999999999999% of humans and animals die (some other billionaires on new Zealand etc etc) one could argue it's sustainable for said people but not very sustainable for "humanity" There is no better way. Better way requires a big man / woman / it in the sky / your shoulder who supposedly knows. You, me and most people on this forum are just the lucky ones (at least top 40% and most likely average top 3% financially ) who can imagine more than we can achieve in life and hence get philosophical from time to time... Anyway I see you read / quote a lot of books so yeah recommend you the Derek Sivers book "how to live", he's much better than almost everyone at destillation and has the bonus of not having to sell. Anyway as a tip: You can use sources / references but proof of authority / reference to authority (doctor this,..) Doesn't really add unless it's about a highly practical field. Can just add a source link at the bottom if you wanna reference his words but ideally the idea can stand by itself.