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notkevinjohn t1_itrsj7x wrote

Reply to comment by Cultureshock007 in The philosophy of Martin Heidegger who argued that the Technological mindset has destroyed our relationship to the world so that Nature is seen as so many resources to exploit. He presents an alternative: a poetic relationship to the world by thelivingphilosophy

> the idea that we either live on in a separate disconnected realm or cease to be entirely doesn't capture that sense of responsibility one might have to previous generations

The part your missing is that whether or not the idea is TRUE is infinitely more important than how it can be contextualized with respect to some kind of responsibility to past or future generations, and it IS true. We are currently using all kinds of technology to support a population that's many orders of magnitude higher than would be possible if we all lived in hunter-gatherer tribes, or subsistence farming communities.

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Cultureshock007 t1_its0370 wrote

The technological adaptations for population inflation have precedent in a lot of our history. The application of the potato as a food crop boosted the population of a lot of European countries due to the amount of calories one could grow on relatively poor soil and in Ireland and Britain that population later collapsed when viruses wiped out the crop and aid in the form of utilizing stores of imported foods were witheld. Spirituality is fairly key in shaping how we perceive our place in the world and while Heidegger has his "hold on a minute the world is finite" moment it is good to acknowledge that that philosophy is a lot older than he is through the lens of certain religion.

The river's value in a prior example is not limited to human's rather narrow concept of use. It is also an ecosystem that benefits other species, is a channel for delivering water and nutrients to plants and evaporation for weather patterns and if abused can become a vector for poisons. One could look at ghe preservativion of natural resources as not in the terms of commodity but of intergenerational wealth. If a system of artificial population support collapses much like the humble potato, it takes a swath of humanity with it.

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