The Egyptian correspondence leads to an off-topic point on my part. First, I’ll reiterate the correspondent’s innocent remark:
I was channeling Jared Diamond when I wrote that — a non-optimistic version of Jared, that is. Right — 100 years ago we were divinely (innocently?) naive and innocent. And the earth could recover from the damage we had done. Today, at 7 billion plus strong, it’s a far worse story — but we like to pretend it’s not there or not so bad. You should read Diamond’s “Collapse”. It’s long and wordy, but very informative.
… but the entire “recover from the damage” remark is interesting in its implication that there’s an ideal “natural” state which we humans have damaged. I don’t believe there’s ever an ideal natural state in isolation from humanity, nor do I generally feel we humans are somehow outside of Nature. Until we re-insert the human viewpoint into the conversation (and I believe that it’s very important that the viewpoint be explicitly stated), there are simply states, which can be characterized in any number of ways – species diversity, population densities, mineral presence, etc. Once we restate with the human viewpoint (or interest), then it’s possible to credibly say, “Well, it’s ruined for human occupation because of xyz …”
Perhaps it’s all a fine point, but to me there’s this confusion of the first statement implying that the Universe was made for humanity’s use – because we attach value statements to state perturbations of Nature – while, to me, the proper detached viewpoint requires not attaching a value statement to an observation until the proper interest – humanity’s – has been established. The implicit – and unstated – assumptions can really twist a deductive series until the final conclusion doesn’t really bear any connection to the original set of observations, particularly if prescriptives are suggested.
