Hacker News Reader

Comment by fastball | Hacker News Reader

Without humanity there would be nobody to witness the fish. The earth doesn't care which species live or die or go extinct. No matter how bad humanity is, the world is a more beautiful place with us in it, because "beauty" as a concept would not exist if we were not here. Mass extinction events happen without human contribution. Is it bad when we make it happen? Yes. But humans are also the only thing around that can help stop extinction events from happening in a universe which doesn't give a shit about any of us.

View on HN

> "beauty" as a concept would not exist if we were not here.

This is incorrect - see e.g. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150511-why-are-animals-so-b... or https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/magazine/beauty-evolution...

One of the unattractive human attributes is our self-centered arrogance. And unfortunately, combine with our other traits this results in some pretty bad behaviors that have a terrible impact on other species. The question of whether the planet would be better off without humans is not so obviously answered in the negative.

But arrogance lifted to these levels would probably not exist if we weren't here.

You just proved his/her point, there is no beauty without humans.

You'd have to explain that. I specifically provided a couple of sources as counterexamples. It seems to me you're underscoring the point about arrogance, though.

I'm talking about the concept of beauty. Yes animals and various natural things are "beautiful", but what does that mean without humans to define/identify/catalogue/etc that beauty. Animals don't appreciate beauty for beauty, they see something that we call beautiful and say to themselves "wow those colors are bright I want to have sex with that" – that's it.

The universe doesn't care about us. The universe doesn't care about the things you think are "beautiful". Tomorrow a planet-busting asteroid could collide with the earth and destroy every last bit of life on it (except maybe Tardigrades). The only thing that could possibly ameliorate that is humanity continuing to expand and grow, being a space-faring species, etc. That way some life (and therefore beauty) could be saved when we take those things with us into the stars.

Unless and until we find other intelligent species that are better stewards than us, we're all the universe has got, no matter how shit we are at the job.

Yeah, the planet will exist without humans but i think preserving the planet’s beauty for future generations is a worthy goal, no?

Or do you prefer the idea of future environmental dystopia?

I definitely want to preserve the beauty for our offspring, but that isn't really in keeping with the statement "I sometimes hate humanity as a species."

If you hate humanity then beauty is pointless, because humans are the only ones who appreciate beauty for beauty, rather than "beauty" just being an evolutionary signal to fuck.

Honestly I don't think many here subscribe to that extreme viewpoint you posted - it seems like a straw-man argument.

Given that I was responding directly to a comment that explicitly said "sometimes I hate humanity as a species", I obviously disagree with the straw-man characterization.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com