[ExI] "Handle With Care" - NYT Article

[Lee Corbin]

Damien B. writes

> Henrique Moraes Machado ranted contra luddites:
> 
>>And then there's terraforming. We do it one way or the other since 
>>we made the change from hunters to farmers. And it's totally chaotic 
>>and unplanned and usually with a lot of collateral. Why not do it in 
>>a more rational way?
> 
> Because... (I have a cold so my brain isn't working with any degree 
> of agility, so make allowances...):

No allowances!  All falsehoods will be exposed, denounced and
extirpated, and all arguments subjected to ruthless scrutiny by the
faithful to advance the Darwinian elimination of the weak!

> The way things were before humans intervened was "totally chaotic and 
> unplanned and usually with a lot of collateral," but remembering that 
> "chaotic" implies regularities and patterns not immediately evident. 

I don't believe so. Firstly, "chaotic" ought to retain its standard
meaning, and secondly, even in non-linear dynamics, grievously
misnamed "chaos" (by some miscreant as yet unidentified) there
do not necessarily have to be regularities or patterns. There *may*
be, is the most that can be said.

> The global ecosphere evolved in this state. Humans then simplified 
> chunks of the landscape and the pattern was to some extent broken or 
> put on hold, but tended to reassert itself eventually.

Quite often, yes, but there are many catastrophes in nature quite
without the existence of the so-called "artificial" endeavors of man.

> If a biome has evolved to use large-scale lightning-caused fires to
> renew itself, human interventions that seem "rational" are liable to
> cause far worse conflagrations at longer intervals.

Yes, quite so! There may even be an element of cultural chauvinism,
for a lot of forested North America was regularly burned down by
the natives.

> What seems to me rational (or meta-rational) is to start from a 
> fairly cautious awareness of how little is really understood of the 
> interactions in nature, especially the modified nature we're 
> surrounded by,

Yes, quite so!

> and that position probably more closely resembles the 
> attitude of a 21st century "luddite" who goes to the dentist and uses 
> a cellphone than it does a 20th century technocrat for whom 
> everything could be done in a series of rational, top-down, fiat 
> five-year plans.

Yes, beware of central planning. If there is one lesson the XX century
should have taught, that's it.

> (Not that I imagine you'd favor the latter, of course.) We should
> be careful not so much concerning what we wish  for, as in regard
> to the means by which we try to bring those wishes into reality.
> 
> <end of pious statement>

Piety is good. No apologies needed! :-)

Lee