[madnak]

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The argument is invalid. just because progress is cumulative it doesn't follow that one step back for us means people in the future will be one step back.

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This is true only if the one step back somehow results in multiple subsequent steps forward. That is, if the net effect is positive.

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And look at our own history - the black death, who knows. But the end of the ice age led to the development of civilization - its effects define each of our lives. The Roman Empire set the cultural underpinnings that we live with to this day. The establishment of religions, the wars through the world, the literature and philosophy, these are the ingredients that make the present what it is. I think it's reasonable to suggest that what we do today will similarly affect the future.


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I agree.

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I'd appreciate some clarification: This seems to contradict the position I thought you were defending (that actions taken in the present have minimal impact on the far future).

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Set us back decades in what respect. we're not going to lose technology so you must mean the technology we would have advanced if climate change hadn't happened. That goes back to your invalid cumulative argument. My contention is the stimulous to new technologies will rapidly outweigh a few years lost advances - I can't prove that would be the case so we may just have to disagree.


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Your statement that the stimulus to new technologies would outweigh years of lost advances is a big one, and you still haven't explained where this stimulus would come from, or why a disaster would be necessary to create it.

Maybe we will just have to disagree.