#again: at all times i try to avoid doomerism or thinking about things

[marsixm]

meep

[cookie-nom-nom]

Humans are animals, so no, there isn't as massive a difference as you think. We can also become overpopulated and ruin the ecosystem, which is what is happening

oh huh never gotten a combative ask before neat. I assume this is about the stuff against Malthusian overpopulation? I don’t think you follow me as far as I can tell, and am not particularly sure why you decided to reach out to me, but hi. Hello. How’s it goin. I’m going to aim to be very chill and polite here. Sorry about the late reply I wrote 80% of this and then blinked and forgot it existed.

For background of where I’m coming from, environmental studies and biology double major with some background in policy, the agricultural sector, and food pantry distribution. And before we get into this I must warn you I will be rambling, in part because it’s all deeply interconnected topics (which is why I love this field but it does make it tricky to avoid side tangents) and also because I suspect perhaps part of the issue you’re taking might be that I didn’t fully explore my nuanced opinions on a tumblr post I reblogged. So. Apologies for walls of text as I rectify that!

I’m highly aware human activity strains the environment and that population size definitely plays a role in that. But I also think there’s a lot of other factors involved, particularly resource consumption per capita, policy regulations and implementations, and technology innovations, that drastically influence the impact of said population. It’s your basic I=PAT formula that, though abstract, lends itself to exploring the relationships between these levers on environmental impact. So I certainly acknowledge the influence of population on the environment; however I don’t think focusing on controlling population is the best way to combat environmental issues.

When I was an official observer for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change a few weeks ago, one of the major points that was stressed is that environmental efforts must be ethical. And, crucially, certain policy that tries to adjust overpopulation has led to some deeply, deeply horrific violations of human rights. Slides very neatly into things like forced sterilizations and eugenics in practice. Take for example, Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons, with such lovely headings as 'The Tragedy of Freedom' or 'Conscience is self-eliminating' (and I could talk at length about him claiming trying to educate people about ethical environmental practices would give them schizophrenia but. I digress) which suggest for poor people, the “freedom to breed is intolerable”. Furthermore, it dovetails real nice into racism with the emphasis on the unbearable breeding in developing (((poc))) countries, or white replacement theory. People have for a very very long time been concerned with (poor)(poc) overpopulation and its environmental impacts. These are precisely the type of people that A Modest Proposal satirizes. That in a quest for some good (people not starving; preventing environmental degradation from overharvesting/agriculture) greater moral evils are committed. Over population? Famine? Easy solution: eat poor children. It is again satire, but I think the point stands. Easy solution: charging people heavily for having more than one child (undesirable (poor) people can’t have children). Easy solution: forced sterilization (such as Hispanic or Black or Indigenous people). Easy solution: Simply view humanity only as a burden upon the world. Wouldn’t it be better without us all? (Ecofascism and doomerism.)

WHICH IM NOT SAYING IS WHAT ALL EFFORTS ON POPULATION RE: SUSTAINABILITY INEVITABLY COMES TO. Obviously. Because there are very concrete, logistical concerns. But I also don’t consider it a bad practice to examine one’s ideological bedfellows. 

As per my recent interview with a doctor of ecology, supporting reproductive rights such as birth control and abortions and allowing people the rights and ability to not have more children than they want to is a very admirable and ethical approach. If I put on my feminist hat for a second, I believe there is quite a lot of good that can be done regarding reproductive rights that would also lead to lower population growth. But as an environmentalist, I don’t see it as having the extent of an effect that people worried about overpopulation would be satisfied. And thus as a pragmatic fellow, I turn to other solutions, because my goal as an environmentalist encompasses the well-being of people, as per UN goals and my personal ethics.

Now if you’ve made it this far, I must admit I can’t quite pin point which recent (at the time 80% of this was written I looked away and this ask dissipated from my mind rip my object permanence) environmentalist post abt human population I responded to that you’re talking abt, because I must admit I rather do argue with Malthus a lot. So I’ll just touch a bit on both!

If it’s the food waste one:

As I mentioned in the tags, I don’t entirely agree with the initial premise of the tweet about theoretical future agricultural output doubling (thus accounting for population growth) since that’s very speculative. Which is a major fallacy in Mathus’ theory, because he didn’t have enough information on future agricultural yield, couldn’t predict the “””green””” revolution, and so vastly underestimated the future crop yield. A major flaw in Malthus' prediction was assuming food yield increase is linear while population is exponential. Neither is true: Annual birth/growth rate for the human population has already dropped (2.1% 1968; 1.08% in 2019) there is lag of course), and agricultural tech and innovation made leaps and bounds of progress that skyrocketed yield. Like. Fertilizers and gmos. I think the tweet definitely over estimated in the other direction- well, no, I think theoretically we could double agricultural yield but not without SEVERE environmental consequences. Particularly as the tweet claimed this doubling would be sustainable and. Frankly. From my perspective from working in the agricultural sector and an NGO striving to create sustainable food systems….it would take a LOT of overhaul of giant systems already in the death grip of a rigidity trap. I don’t know for certain, but I’m under the impression that the tweeter may have thought agriculture is sustainable now. Which. Is incredibly laughable. Said “”green”” revolution has had lots and lots of nasty little consequences.

So I suppose I might’ve addressed that better than simply disagreeing in the tags, but I was rather pressed for time so that is a failure I must admit. Regardless I was more interesting in the conversation said tweet launched, which had progressed to one of my areas of research, that being food systems.

Ultimately there are real tangible solutions to environmental problems, particularly ones with co-benefits socially and economically, which are the kind I tend to focus on because they have more pitch to human centric folks, and thus might gain more influence and feasibility. Also, the types of solutions I gave within that post! Especially given food redistribution as climate action and reduction of environmental degradation and preventing human malnutrition! For examples of moral environmental action. Remember the goal here is practical, ethical change. So I used that post as a spring board to talk about the research I've compiled and the experiments I've done, following the conversational flow, instead of backtracking to a single tweet that happened earlier on.

If it’s the one about rats:

Yes humans are animals! Yep. Weird funky little animals. But yet another thing that is covered in basic environmental science courses is that humans have a slight number of differences from rats. Such as agriculture. Or technology. Or innovations. Or medicine. All very large factors when trying to ascertain our sustainable carrying capacity!

Only.....the concept of a human sustainable carrying capacity is fairly flawed. In the interview I mentioned earlier, we dug into the flaws of the concept of ‘sustainability’ in its own right. If you’re looking for an x amount of people this planet can support and not a single person more, there are three big assumptions baked into the hypothetical:

1.You can measure sustainability. This is a quantifiable number that you can tell. Is it easy to tell when something is unsustainable? Sometimes, because there’s a degradation of the carrying capacity (again funky with humans) and future resources (which humans keep finding new uses for. Say, discovering that iron is useful, or how to harness solar energy). But you need decades of data to figure out if something is sustainable, and like with, say fossil fuels, you figure out a century down the line there was a terrible side effect you never considered and never knew to consider. Telling if something is sustainable is far harder than telling if its unsustainable. So this is a massive assumption that you can even tell what the carrying capacity of humans is in the first place.

2.Humans can’t increase the human carrying capacity. This is one of the core flaws with Malthusian theory. Now I don’t personally subscribe to the belief that technology is the one pure catch all solution to all our environmental woes. But human ingenuity has proven time and again that it’ll raise its own carrying capacity (agricultural revolution, Industrial Revolution, green revolution, etc) which is why, unlike deer and mice and most animals, I have some quibbles with trying to extrapolate out mice population onto human population. Humans are animals. But while we do have overlap, there’s many substantial reasons that ecology and sociology/psychology/politics/etc are not the same subject. I think I’m entirely fair critiquing the extrapolating of a single study on lab controlled mice population out onto all of humanity.

3. The life style practices of this x number of people. Because let’s be real here, people do not all have the same environmental impact. The people in developing countries and small island states and certain Indigenous communities, the ones who are disproportionately facing the brunt of climate change and pollution and environmental injustice- they are often not nearly culpable to the degree of affluent countries and communities overindulging in luxury, rich enough to avoid the environmental consequences. So if you’re considering the X number of people we’re allowing to exist on planet earth, we have to ask what conditions their lifestyle is creating. 10,000 people living like billionaires? 10,000,000,000,000 people living like subsistence farmers? Mice tend to have similar lifestyles. Humans? Not so much.

And lastly...if this ask was a response to three (3) tags I added to a post I reblogged, I will feel rather embarrassed given at least it could've been a quibble with the actual post I added research too. I didn't even add any citations on the rat post.......

I think a large population exacerbates many environmental issues. But I don’t think there’s a select carrying capacity for humans you can slap a number on, and find the methods for addressing ‘overpopulation’ to the extent that (all else being equal) we become environmentally sustainable, would have large human rights disasters. So. Uh. *Yes human is animal, but they have a few traits going on that should be considered. Like technology, or politics. *The size of the human population as the system currently stands with its inefficiencies and disparities and current level of technological innovation causes lots and lots and lots of environmental problems. I find targeting other aspects easier, and more effective, and less morally suspect *The concept of overpopulation is flawed both environmentally and ethically *Environmental racism and classism is a big problem please guys please please I’m begging look into the people promoting these ideas *Not accusing the asker of literally any of this, this is all from my experience with environmental-social theories and their unintended side effects since environmental justice is a big part of my whole thing and I figured all that research is just gathering dust in my head if I never open my mouth.

Anywayyyyy thanks for the ask, have a good one. And do remember if you go heckling enough clowns one might just take off their nose and wig to reveal they have a PhD in clownery!

[assblastergaster]

okay so we know that the hidden cutscene at the end of veilguard is NOT implying that these new secretive enemies have been pulling the strings all along (1). given that whatever this invisible threat is is innumerably old (feared by the evanuris), i think it seems feasible that the true implication is just that they have been watching closely the events that have unfolded as a consequence of something they caused eons ago. a domino effect just like the first 3 games

like we learned more about what the evanuris actually were in this game, but not what their world was like (especially because the veil is kept in place). which leads me to the question: what draws the elven gods to need such immense power and control if they have already defeated those who were their greatest enemy? why does ghilan'nain need to form the blight into the greatest weapon even before they are banished? the titans were already dead by the time it was created. they were the only ones mentioned as their enemies in the game, and the forgotten ones (not to mention the forbidden ones???) were decidedly not their concern. (2)

again, no, I don't think it's what doomers on reddit are thinking (regardless of writer adamant denial! smh): this secretive enemy was not whispering in Loghain's ear, nor meredith's, nor corypheus and the other magisters, to get them to do what they did. they were simply there, watching the events that were directly tied to the fall of the Evanuris and creation of the veil take place. the fifth blight might not have been so bad had Loghain stepped in, the Mage/Chantry war may have been avoided had Meredith not put Kirkwall on the chopping block, and the blights may not have had entire armies to fight with if not for the tevinter magister's intrustion on the golden city. yes, they say "guided" and "whispered," but these are some fuck off bad guys who have only revealed themselves after 4 games, which is the same amount of time it took us to find out that the Dalish Gods, the Chant of Light, and the ancient Tevinter Gods are all fake. they are not telling us the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a 1 minute 7 second post credit scene. and why would they? why not lie and say they've caused the worst events in recent history? why not scare a weakened world into thinking they can't do anything to stop bad things from happening, making their coming harvest that much easier? as far as the world knows, the blights are over forever, so they might become powerful enough for to fight back as they move on—shouldn't The Executors/Mystery Bad Guys try to nip it in the bud? (or, of course, they surreptitiously guided and whispered the evanuris into becoming each other's downfall, leading to the events we see pictured and that's what whispered means)

"the poisoned fruit ripens" is the key phrase. they didn't make all of these people do these things (ripen), but they are seeking to reap the benefit of the fermented fruit. note that none of the events covered take place BEFORE the creation of the veil—even though we know of several events that took place then—meaning they probably don't have complete, ultimate power. they were likely competing with the Evanuris and the Qunari's progenitors, as we know in that codex entry that indicates that one of them was building fortifications for intruders from beyond the sea, and from Taash's tablet.

perhaps the "poisoning" was the creation of the veil, or the creation of physical forms from the fade, or the destruction of the titans, or anything of that huge caliber. i can't say for sure what i think is most likely. but i do believe that the fruit ripening is them waiting for an opportune time to pluck the world and plunge it into their control.

(1) Epler confirmed this. (different link if you dont have bsky account)

(2) i think this is probably intentional—and not the forgotten ones lore being abandoned, given that Anaris was literally an enemy in veilguard—the Dalish had a bunch of lies put into their head and may have twisted the forgotten ones into more of a threat than they were; such that their actual strife with the gods was about something other than their own struggles for power. perhaps they were a faction of former evanuris who believed in focusing on enemies beyond their borders rather than war against the Titans and the Dreadwolf, which is why he is known to be the only who consorted with both factions. OR the opposite—perhaps they welcomed these foreign enemies. they are also often mentioned with the void, which these Executors seem to be associated with, and were not locked away in the veil prison like the Evanuris.

[creature-wizard]

I can’t stop being angry, I’m so angry about everything that happened and I’ve tried to get rid of it but I can’t. It’s like it just festers over and over again and then I say something I didn’t mean to and I ruin everything. It just doesn’t stop. I’m always anxious and sad and angry, it’s like my brain is frozen in time, back in the past but also in the present. I just can’t get away from them and I’m so cruel to everyone and nobody fucking cares. I’m sorry

Hey anon, what you're describing right there sounds an awful lot like PTSD and emotional dysregulation. Those are horrible, even terrifying things to have to deal with, but that doesn't mean it has to be like this (or at least, be this severe) forever.

If there's awful people you're stuck with in real life right now, my post "I'm in a bad place and need to get out, what can I do?" has resources. It may not have all of the resources you'll ever need, but it can get you started.

And it might not be possible to get out of your current situation right now (or for awhile yet), but that doesn't mean you'll be stuck there forever. Nor does it mean there is nothing you can do. Here are some things you can do online:

Research coping strategies for depression, emotional dysregulation, and PTSD. Even if you don't have an official diagnosis, you can still research coping strategies for any condition you suspect you have, and see if they help. You can start by searching on DuckDuckGo, Tumblr, whatever. Like plug "depression coping strategy" or "PTSD coping strategy" or whatever into Tumblr's search bar; you'll find things.

Get in contact with other people who have personal experience managing and coping with these things. Follow their blogs. See what they can offer you.

Look up therapy worksheets (like this one, for example) to fill out.

Change who and what you expose yourself to online; EG, unfollow blogs that reinforce toxic beliefs (EG, "no one will like me if I don't have money") and follow blogs that help you build a healthier view (EG, "I am worthy of love no matter what.") Spend less time engaging with content that reminds you that bad things are happening, and more time engaging with content that reminds you that there is hope and goodness out there.

Associate with people who sympathize with the challenges your mental illness gives you, rather people who validate a deliberate choice to act on your unhealthiest impulses. ("Sometimes my mental illness makes it hard to act in ways I would like" and "I should try to be kind when I can" are two statements that can and should coexist.)

At all costs, avoid people who make you feel like you have to be this way forever, or that there's literally nothing you can do to manage your symptoms ever - basically, the mental health doomers.

Your depression might tell you that you can't change and nothing can ever get better for you, but depression is a big fucking liar. It fucks up your thinking and makes you inclined to believe all kinds of terrible things that aren't true.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of this; none of this stuff should have happened to you. But there are things to try that might help, even if you're not in an optimal situation right now.