Can humanity leave nature behind
私たちは仏心の中にあります。生まれる前から、死んだ後も、生きている間もです。仏教を信じているかどうかは問題ではありません。私たちはもうそこに存在しているのです。私たちは自然なものと人工的なものをもう分けることはできません。全てがもう私たちの世界に存在しています。Lauren Holtは、ケンブリッジ大学の研究者です。人類が生物の複雑性に与える影響や、テクノロジーが生態系に与える影響について研究しています。さぁ今日は彼女の記事を楽しみましょう。(English) We are in the Buddhist mind. It is before we are born after we die, and while we are alive. It does not matter whether we believe in Buddhism or not. We are already there. We can no longer separate the natural from the artificial. Everything already exists in our world. Lauren Holt is a researcher at the University of Cambridge. She studies the impact of humans on biological complexity and the impact of technology on ecosystems. Let's enjoy her article today.
Can humanity leave nature behind?
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1)
In the face of environmental collapse, humanity may need to turn to artificial replacements for nature.
How might we avoid the most dystopian of these futures?
Researcher Lauren Holt makes a case for a broader form of "offsetting" to help balance technology with natural systems.
2)
In Blade Runner 2049, a police car flies over a landscape transformed by synthetic farming.
A worker in a hazmat suit dredges a handful of squirming beetle larvae from a murky green pool in indoor farms covering plastic-covered.
We learn these farming techniques saved humanity from famine caused by an ecological collapse.
There might be nothing wild left, but they can create perfectly engineered replicant animals to replace the real things.
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3)
Earth was in trouble, and the planet's natural systems were fated to collapse and die off.
Humanity is already on the path to decoupling from natural systems.
4)
Sometimes, it manifests as ever more profound "fixes" to preserve our pursuit of the good life.
For example, food production is as follows:
- Attempting to grow crops under artificial light underground
- Culturing microalgae
- Mycoprotein and mealworm in bioreactors
- Introducing modified genes to increase the resilience of agricultural species to environmental change.
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5)
Also, the 'metaverse' promises a departure from any physical world.
No longer is it necessary to visit polluted forests and lakes.
You can accelerate into an almost perfect digital world from the comfort of your home.
In Silicon Valley, technologists and billionaires are talking about the need to abandon a degraded planet, and they are developing a spaceship to Mars.
6)
Even if we do not physically separate ourselves from nature to this extent, some consider an engineered and modified future acceptable.
Indeed, technology may be the only solution to escape future disasters.
7)
Rather than seeking to preserve natural systems, we might instead genetically integrate ourselves with the biosphere so that humans and nature are transformed.
I saw it as an attempt to preserve species threatened by extinction by acting as biological arks into the future or as a form of beautiful annihilation into a future weird ecology.
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8)
However, a Blade Runner world that contains only humans and matters technologically arranged under their control would be a machine wilderness rather than an organic one.
9)
Offsetting complexity
Could there be alternatives to the most extreme forms of decoupling?
I would propose one idea.
10)
Allow me to introduce a metaphor for exploring this space.
On the one hand, there is a 'self-organized' matter.
On the other, there is 'manipulated' matter.
At the latter end, we have the most elaborately designed human structures (e.g., AI, supercomputers).
At the other end are perhaps the wildest and most diverse ecosystems.
The middle point might represent something alive but highly modified and controlled, such as a crop monoculture or an ornamental garden.
11)
In modern times, the complexity of self-organized nature is declining, and human-created complexity is increasing.
Trillions of organisms are used as food and decomposed to fuel human bodies and inventions.
Skyscrapers are built, economies are created, the land is razed, and simpler ones replace complex ecosystems.
As a result of these activities, 68% of biodiversity has been lost since 1970.
The amount of human-made products such as concrete, plastic, and bricks now exceeds the amount of biological material on the planet.
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12)
What if the creator of each new 'artificial' object is obliged to create the opposite?
For example, a form of biodiversity investment or rewilding is instigated when something is added to the engineered side.
13)
Offsetting is not a new idea.
You can pay for a company to plant CO2-guzzling trees.
Fines and taxes may be imposed for pollution and criminal environmental damage.
However, offsets are seldom considered for processes other than carbon production.
14)
Another well-established category of offset is reserving land for national parks, green belts to contain cities, or nature reserves to preserve valuable ecosystems by governments.
On the other hand, the UK government recently introduced Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) legislation, whereby all new developments must deliver a 10% improvement in local biodiversity.
15)
A mining operation in Madagascar had successfully offset the forest loss caused by its new mine by slowing deforestation elsewhere in the country.
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16)
One research organization is trying to develop an international biodiversity credit standard that tracks biodiversity improvements and could be traded similarly to carbon credits.
17)
We know that offsetting is not a panacea and can cause moral problems.
For example, environmentalist Monbiot said that offsetting was similar to the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences in the 16th century.
I would argue that any is better than none.
18)
A long-lived truth
There are deeper reasons for accepting human complexity rooted in timeless human ideas.
It recalls the balance between the conscious and unconscious of the psyche, with extreme human engineering on the one hand and the perfect organic wild on the other.
The idea of a balance of opposites continues to appear incessantly in myths, religions, and philosophies worldwide.
Ancient Taoism says that all things come from shadow and light, black and white.
It includes animals of all kinds, humans, all life, matter, and technology in all its forms.
In ancient Greece, Dionysius and Apollo are conceptualized as each the god of pleasure and propriety.
As Nietzsche pointed out, the fusion of the Dionysian and Apollo styles creates dramatic meaning in the world.
The ancient philosophy of alchemy also has this principle of opposition.
The purification and union of opposites is the ultimate goal.
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19)
In these examples, to say there are opposites does not mean one is wrong and one is good. On the contrary, it is more than up cannot exist without down, matter without anti-matter, and life could not exist without death.
20)
We become 'alchemists' of the earth system, creating a 'high modern world.'
On the other hand, creating a natural world and regenerating the abandoned world may be a promising future.
21)
Sociobiologist Wilson proposed rewilding half the world.
What could be more interesting, whole, and complete than fully realizing both forms of existence?
<H>
22)
It might still be possible to have a balance between the entire material existence of humanity (AI, skyscrapers, automobiles, concrete, computing, the economy, art, intensive farming) and nature (ant hills, the Amazon, English forests, dunes, Tampa swamps, deserts, deep sea trenches, and coral reefs) if the latter is increased in quality and quantity.
23)
Indeed, parts of the planet may need a Blade Runner 2049.
We need the ability to replenish the complexity of nature to ensure that the planet does not degrade and become unbalanced.
The best reward for a healthy planet is space exploration, not it being an escape from a dying world.
If we are to cut the umbilical cord between humanity and the biosphere, we must ensure that Mother Earth is kept in the best possible health, to the benefit of both.
My postscript.
Are we already moving into a dystopian world?
We are using ZOOM or virtual travel instead of actual world travel.
We are eating something crab-flavored instead of real crab.
Hamburgers are made of soya instead of meat these days.
When we buy from Amazon, we see the same adverts for a while.
CCTV cameras abound in towns, and drive recorders are installed in cars.
Television news is restricted, with only the horrors of war on repeat.
Is anything getting better?
Technology has evolved, doing shopping and working convenient and easy.
Poverty and discrimination have not disappeared, but they are a little better.
We can feel the world is one, but negatively, such as war and COVID-19.
Natural and scientific things should exist as two sides of humanity.
It can no longer be one or the other.
We should feel more natural in the countryside and more innovative in the cities.
The sea and the sky will surely be beautiful one day.
Humans will be able to regulate the weather and the seasons.
They might enjoy nature on weekends and eat processed food on weekdays.
AI robots will live with people and may become singers, politicians, or professors.
Children will be born between replicants and humans and eventually integrate and evolve.
Pure humans will become a minority.
What kind of world will we see then?
We must still have hope, worry about the future, and live between war and peace.
That is not such an imperfect world.
Yes, our future will not be as bad as we think.
Then why don't we enjoy the moment of this day as much as we can?
We have a responsibility to make ourselves and the world around us happy.
Can humanity leave nature behind?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220608-should-we-detach-ourselves-from-nature