I said I wanted to take a break from playing Perfect World International, but was curious enough to return, at least for a while. That curiosity faded away very quickly and now all my plans regarding that game consist of deleting my characters and uninstalling it. The only thing keeping me from doing just that right now is that I like to clean up the registry after uninstalling a program, as uninstallers never handle that part properly, but I’m feeling a bit too lazy for it at the moment.
To stick to the topic of MMOGs, at some point in the past I realized that the only reason I keep my Materia Magica character is that I want to give everything away before deleting and I can’t even be bothered to arrange that. Not to mention that the thought of needing to say goodbye to a few people who have been in that clan (SpiritWalk) for a very long time might make me reconsider once again, despite hardly having anything to do with them anymore. Happened twice already.
I haven’t been playing for two years, just logging in now and then so those in the clan I’m in will see I’m still alive, and also to pay my shop fees and collect the profits. For quite some time I managed to still restock my shop and stick around for about one hour each time I logged in, which was usually twice per week, killing various things to practice my skills. Lately I can’t even bring myself to do that anymore, so I just poke my head in briefly to pay the shop fees once per week. That makes me lose money, since there isn’t much left in my shop and therefore there can be no sales to cover the fees I have to pay to keep it open, making me have less to give away in the end.
I don’t want to just delete. I have a house, quite a lot of money and plenty of useful items on that character, so giving them away seems like the right thing to do before deleting, making sure they won’t simply get lost… But that will require some organization and I just can’t get myself to deal with such a game for long enough to take care of that anymore.
Otherwise, right now I’m playing Arx Fatalis. Or at least I would be if it wouldn’t keep crashing so often! It’s a pretty nice game which I’ve been meaning to play for a long time, and the magic system is particularly interesting, but the frequent crashes make the experience very frustrating and I don’t seem to be making much progress. I guess that’s to be expected from what is essentially a “player project”, even after all the patches.
Before this, I played and finished Diablo II (including the Lord of Destruction expansion). I thought I might as well try it at some point since so many are still praising it so many years after release and quickly regretted my decision. Kept playing it because it became a challenge, I just wanted to beat it, not give up. However, from my point of view it was a pretty poor game turned awful by the fact that you couldn’t save, or at least not really. I guess the fact that I played it after Divine Divinity didn’t help it either, as that game takes a lot of elements from Diablo II and actually uses them properly, creating a great RPG around those mechanics.
Last but not least, I’m still wondering what will happen with my video card. The initial plan was to get this cheap one when I got everything else, in April, and then replace it in autumn with the second best card from the next generation released by NVIDIA. Then dad once again, as expected, went back on his word about a month later and I had to say I’ll delay the purchase for the start of 2009.
Thinking about it right now, the delay didn’t really affect me. That “second best from the next generation” would be the GeForce GTX 260, but there are a few things that bother me when it comes to it, the most important being the power drain. The next option would now be the GeForce 9800 GTX+, but that isn’t significantly more appealing to me either. Which leaves me thinking that the “best buy” would still be the card I had my eyes on when I got all the other parts, ASUS GeForce 8800 GTS 512 TOP. Back then, when I decided to give up on it, it was partly because of my dad’s complaints about money but mainly because I thought something truly better would come along soon enough. That doesn’t seem to be the case, and it’d be extremely hard to find this one in stock anywhere now.
Considering the fact that I’d really like to play some newer games, which this card couldn’t handle properly, I find myself in an uncomfortable situation. Of course, even if something nice would appear on the market soon, which seems unlikely, it would still be quite surprising if dad would actually keep his word when it comes to money for once. And yes, I completely ignore ATI/AMD.
I wrote that putting a price tag on nature according to the monetary value of the services it provides to humans can be useful in persuading authorities and companies to care for it if all fair methods fail, at least until cheaper methods of providing the same services become available. It’s obviously wrong to look at nature in terms of the services it provides, but it is a means to an end.
However, if we don’t want this to blow up in our faces later, we need to make sure that those government officials and corporate managers will be people who care for nature for its intrinsic value before technology will be able to replace the services it provides. To that end, we need to make sure that the “average person” starts putting nature before the economy and their personal financial interests now! Or we could at least start by ensuring that those who don’t do that won’t have access to higher positions…
You just can’t take this speech about the monetary value of nature to the average person on the street. Those people must support environmentalists and pressure governments and corporations into doing the right thing, which won’t happen if they see nature just as a provider of services. They must be persuaded to help if possible, set aside if they’ll neither help nor hinder, or destroyed by any means necessary if they try to stop plans meant to protect the environment. Once again, such a noble end really does justify the means.
There are nearly seven billion humans today, but we only have one Earth. We can’t sacrifice Earth for humans, but we can and must sacrifice some humans for Earth. We can tell those in power what they want to hear in order to get things done now, before they can be replaced, but other approaches must be used on the rest. Thinking of nature in terms of the monetary value of the services it provides is simply too wrong to do unless absolutely necessary.
It’s probably obvious that this post is born more out of anger than anything else. What infuriated me and made me want to write it was the end of the article about Borneo from the November edition of National Geographic Magazine.
No, the way to protect forests and biodiversity is not to make sure that people can get the things they want for themselves and a good future for their children, preferably without more plantations and strip mines… The first thing needed in order to protect the environment is a drastic reduction of the number of humans, which means that people must first not have those children that they want a future for. That would take care of an important part of the problem. As for the other part, it should be the other way around. Yes, it would be preferable to be able to also give people what they need, but only when (and if) it will be possible to do so without harming the environment!
Humans think they’re more than they are and we need to look at things from another perspective. Humans are not the center of the Universe! They’re not even the most important thing on Earth, the Earth itself is! You don’t need to look for ways to convince them that doing the right thing is in their own best interest. If a person doesn’t understand that the right thing is the right thing regardless of any personal interests they might have and the cause doesn’t require that specific person’s aid at that specific moment, they must be kicked aside and left there as long as they don’t get in the way. If they decide to get in the way, they must be removed by any means necessary.
There was a phrase on the site of the Romanian Green Party which said that they don’t support “environmental terrorism”, but want to achieve the best possible level of environmental protection without sacrificing the well-being of the people who depend on it. I’m sick and tired of that! I want the best possible conditions for people without sacrificing the environment and see “environmental terrorism” as a way to deal with those who would want to sacrifice the environment for their own well-being, if they won’t listen to reason. Using questionable (or worse) methods against those who put themselves before the Earth is certainly better than telling them that it’s all right to do so!
Actually, this doesn’t apply just to the environment. It applies to every problem caused by humans. First ask them to help. If they won’t, ask them to at least step aside and not hinder you. If they won’t, make them!
Most humans aren’t nice to the planet, aren’t nice to the other species we share it with, aren’t nice to each other and many aren’t even nice to themselves. Why should the few who are fighting for a good, scientifically proven, cause be nice to those who aren’t nice to them or the world? Why should they tickle their egos, make them think they’re more important than they are? Why should the personal interests of those who care for nothing else prevail? Why should greed and selfishness be rewarded?
But to get back to the issue of the environment, the rewards should go towards those who do not worsen the overpopulation problem by having children, who agree to move out of areas where their very presence is harmful to the environment, who would be willing to use seasonal fruits and vegetables for food instead of demanding a constant choice of everything, who reduce their waste, who do not buy things they don’t need, who do not drive polluting vehicles unless it’s an emergency and would do a number of other things to show that they truly care. If the available resources would be focused towards them instead of being wasted on those who put themselves before the world, regardless of which end of the wealth spectrum they’re on, things might have a chance to start moving in the right direction at a reasonable pace before it’s too late… If it’s not too late already…
Since their pockets are one of the many things humans think with when their brains can’t handle the complexity of the process, which is often, a lot of things can be accomplished by using money to generate a response. Humans are just animals, after all. Offer something they greatly desire and they will come to you, and there are few things most people who live in this society desire more than money.
For that reason, such an approach might be advisable, at least in the sense of the ends justifying the means. If those in charge could be convinced that preserving nature could eventually save them more money than they’d need to spend for this purpose, things could happen. In turn, they could use financial incentives to determine corporations to care for the environment, and if those incentives would translate into lower prices for “green” products then consumers would be more inclined to buy them and therefore support environmental responsibility. Not to mention that these incentives could also be applied to people directly, rewarding environmentally friendly behavior and penalizing waste and pollution.
The monetary value of nature is obvious even if you only take health into account. Everyone is hopefully aware that pollution harms humans as much as it harms the environment. Poorer nutrition, which is a result of depleting the natural resources and having to resort to artificial substitutes, is also very harmful. This situation also creates stress and all sorts of mental problems. Plus that modern medicine is more invasive and far more costly than the natural alternatives, which are being depleted along with everything else.
The most obvious result of health problems is a higher reliance on medical services. These services are already expensive and constantly becoming even more so. Because of this, less and less people can afford the care they require. At best, this means that the state must spend increasing amounts of money to offer some sort of medical attention to those who can’t afford it themselves. At worst, it means that people will be left without the medical attention they require.
With the costs of providing medical attention out of the way, let’s focus for a moment on the costs of not doing so. Some illnesses may spread, resulting in even higher costs and/or losses. Sick people are far less productive than healthy people, if they’re productive at all. Caring for them might also reduce the availablity of their friends and relatives, generating an even greater loss of productivity.
But nature provides other, more specific, products and services. Take oxygen for example. Nature provides it for us and we currently can’t generate it for ourselves otherwise. Fresh water is another example. So is trapping carbon dioxide in order to keep the temperature from rising to intolerable levels. We couldn’t survive if nature wouldn’t provide these things for us. If you insist on expressing them in terms of their monetary value, from an anthropocentric viewpoint they are worth however much the survival of the human race is worth.
If that’s not enough, there are also all the animals and plants that many, especially the poor, rely upon. Fishing, hunting, gathering, logging… All of these require healthy ecosystems in order to be possible. Yes, farms could replace nature for a part of these, but not fully and not forever. Farms can’t provide for all, plus that the quality of farmed products tends to drop with time because of the practices used. Sufficient safe havens must exist in order to keep healthy populations of animals and plants away from human expoitation, as that’s the only way to ensure the continued availability of those resources, if that’s how you choose to see them. Exploiting them to extinction, or just to a point from which they wouldn’t be able to fully recover until the next season, will leave a lot of people without the means required for their survival.
Next, let’s take leisure activities into account. Many require nature, or at least the services provided by nature, such as “fresh air”. Most of these don’t require a separate discussion since their lack tends to result in health problems, which have been discussed above, but tourism is different.
Many travel destinations are chosen thanks to the landscape or other natural factors, which means that the number of tourists would be greatly reduced if nature would suffer. (The fact that tourists themselves cause nature to suffer is another matter.) This would cause a lot of economic problems, as some economies rely very heavily on tourism and most others would also suffer if this source of income would vanish. A massive loss of jobs in the hospitality sector alone would be a major blow, considering the fact that right now people need their jobs far more than the other way around and that such jobs are a very popular starting point in many careers. But it wouldn’t stop there, the problems caused by the loss of tourists moving on to also affect other sectors, increasing the losses.
These are just a few very obvious reasons for which preserving nature is desirable even from an anthropocentric and greedy perspective. With such examples, the very structure which is currently destroying the environment could be used against itself. When you try to persuade selfish, violent idiots, which make up the tremendous majority of humans, to do the right thing, you need to take the focus away from nature and move it to them. You need to make them understand that it’ll be the right thing for them, that it’ll serve their own interests, because they just don’t give a fuck about anything else.
Of course, seeing nature in terms of the services it can provide is wrong and potentially dangerous. Such an approach will backfire the moment the means to provide similar services would become available. If people will be taught even by environmentalists to see nature as a provider of services, then they’ll end up caring for it even less and be even harder to convince to continue preserving it once it’ll be no longer absolutely necessary. And in some situations this approach is too wrong to be acceptable even as only a means to an end. But that’s a topic for another time…
For now, this approach could be a workable alternative if handled with great care. It would be better if talks along these lines would be confined to the higher levels. Use this approach when you need to convince governments or corporations and the fair methods have already failed, but don’t bring it all the way down to the average person on the street. Those need to be convinced or, if need be, forced to care for nature for its intrinsic value. Otherwise the magnitude of the disaster will become even greater and environmentalists will have themselves to blame for it.
This post has been sitting in my drafts for a very long time and it’s not about being an open book, but actually about books. The title comes from a question I saw on OkCupid once, which asked where would you choose to place a glass of water if you had to let go of it and the only choices were an open book, a grand piano and a DVD player. I actually felt a little offended by the idea that some, or perhaps many, would choose to place it on the open book. What can I say, I don’t care too much about pianos and see nothing wrong with placing it on the DVD player…
It keeps being said that people read far less now than they did in the past. That’s certainly true, but I’m not sure it means that people have really changed. Since most people make the vast majority of their choices before a certain age and then stick to them for the rest of their lives, the available choices and society’s pressure play a large part in this. The more other options were available to you at the time you made it, the more relevant a choice is. I wonder how many of those who are past a certain age and complain that people don’t read anymore would have still chosen to read themselves if the society they lived in when they were young would have been as it is today.
The reduction of the number of people who choose a certain option is a direct result of increasing the number of options. Books offer both entertainment and information, and presently there are certainly many more means of obtaining either than there were in the past. That’s a good thing, it offers each person a better chance of engaging in the activity they like the most instead of the one they dislike the least. Choosing other means of obtaining information makes perfect sense too, since it is faster to do so and the information obtained through more modern means can also be more recent than the one found in a book, both factors being very important. On the other hand, completely eliminating reading from your leisure activities is a matter of personal choice and it can say something about the person’s character; whether that something is good or bad depends on the kind of people you want around you.
Another cause is the fact that society pressures people towards instant gratification. Reading takes time and that is something many have preciously little of. Society promotes the idea that “time is money” and the desire for more money. It also promotes ambition and the drive for achievement. People are pressured against “wasting” their time on leisure activities instead of using it to take a few more steps in the rat race. This, of course, only makes it all that more relevant when a person still chooses to read for pleasure these days, making a clear statement about their personality.
Saying again, I don’t think people have changed. Many just go with the flow, without thinking or caring, while many others give in after only a brief struggle. The fact that the “flow” changed doesn’t make those who went with it in the past any better than those who do so now. Those who make the choice to go against it now, however… They’re the ones who matter.
But, besides information and entertainment, books offer something else. They offer a starting point for your dreams, your fantasies, that little (or not so little) world inside your head. When you read a book you create the world, the characters and the action inside your mind. Though you are taken through it all, it’s not provided to you as a series of images which you can just sit there and absorb, as is the case of movies. You need to take the words and sentences and put them together over a period of time. And once you have it in your mind, you can expand upon it, use it as a “blueprint” or just as training for your imagination, before working on your own fantasies.
Taking only that into consideration, one could assume that perhaps the imagination of the average human has improved so much that it no longer needs such training. But one look around is enough to prove that assumption wrong. Human imagination did not improve and the fact that it’s being used even less makes it even less likely to do so in the future. That results in less individualism and less detachment from everyday struggles. In turn, that causes more stress, which results in a lot of other problems, less caring for others and the world as a whole and certainly less chance for improvement.
Of course, many people simply aren’t inclined towards being imaginative. They wouldn’t accomplish much if they took that path, so trying to make them to improve that part of themselves is pretty useless at best. It can actually be detrimental to try to make them read, as it happens in school, because they will struggle and get very little, if anything, out of the experience, making them avoid it and any other imaginative endeavors even more in the future. They are who they are and shouldn’t be forced to change unless they try to make others who are different become like them. However, they should be offered other effective means to relieve stress and, especially, incentives to care for others and the world as a whole.
On the other hand, people who are inclined to be imaginative should be encouraged. It could actually be beneficial to have them swim against the tide in the beginning, just so you’ll know they have made a choice and are not just going with the flow, but after a while it should get easier. They should be encouraged and helped, because they’re the ones who can make this world better, and that’s something that’s sorely needed. And since liking to read fiction, especially the kind that isn’t too anchored in “reality”, is a trait these people generally have in common, it might be useful in easily telling them apart from the rest. A decision certainly could not be based solely on this, but it could be a factor.
This was supposed to be about books and ended up being focused way more on several other things, but thinking about reading for pleasure is what started me on this train of thought.
Just make sure not to put hot, wet or dirty things on open books, all right?
Several months ago, an article from ENN made me want to write a post about the water footprint, which is something that even many of those from the Western world who do care about their environmental impact tend to pay little attention to. Another, more recent, article offers more details and does a better job of presenting the scale of the problem.
We use freshwater as if we had an unlimited supply of it, which we obviously don’t, and pollute even what we do have. Not only that, but global warming is also gradually reducing the amount we can gather by traditional means, especially in areas which were relatively arid to begin with. This might not be immediately obvious in the colder areas, where rapidly melting glaciers actually increase the supply of water (and likely cause more frequent floods), but that’s just a temporary situation and as soon as those glaciers will be gone those areas will face extreme shortages.
But humans know they live on a blue planet, which means that water does exist and they only need to make it suitable for drinking. To that end, desalinization plants have been developed and are being used to turn saltwater into freshwater. The process poses health and environmental risks, but why would people worry about that when they need the water, right? Yet another example of human shortsightedness, always looking for ways to produce more instead of using less.
As with most environmental problems, a necessary but not sufficient condition which needs to be met in order to reduce the water footprint of the human race is to drastically reduce the population. But until a noticeable number of people will stop thinking with their gonads we need to look for other methods which could at least buy the world, and us, some time and then hope it’ll be enough for that “awakening” to take place.
One such method would be the implementation of water recycling systems. I believe that small-scale ones would be a better idea, each covering only a small group of buildings or even a single building. If they would be efficient enough, the water could even be reused for drinking, therefore drastically reducing the amount of water taken from the environment once an adequate amount is flowing through each such system. If not, it could at least be used for watering plants and washing, and after washing it could go to the toilet.
But speaking of the efficiency of such systems, it would greatly benefit from the reduction of the number and quantity of harmful substances we use and eventually throw down the drain. Of course, the fact that such systems would benefit from less toxins is only a nice side effect, the main beneficiary being the planet as a whole. The water rendered unusable due to the substances dumped in it also counts for our water footprint!
As for the toilets, those are an issue in themselves. Using freshwater to move waste products through the sewers is very wasteful! I’m sure we are capable of coming up with better methods if we’d only try hard enough. After all, some are already making progress. Yes, it will require drastic changes and will be hard to implement, but that’s what you get for using flawed designs for so long.
If you want something easier to do, I would also point out that a significant amount of water is used for entertainment purposes, such as amusement parks or swimming pools. Those are things we could do without, or at least try to replace freshwater with saltwater where possible. It won’t be a popular idea, but few good ones are.
As for informative endeavors, I’ll skip over the awareness campaigns and ask for detailed studies aimed at determining the exact water footprint of each product and encouraging the use of those which have a relatively low one compared to others of the same type. Besides information, considering the fact that their pockets (or bank accounts) are yet another thing humans think with, the encouragement could and perhaps should also take the form of financial incentives. Taxing products with a high water footprint and using the money to subsidize similar ones with a lower one would go a long way.
I’m aware that the above suggestions deal mainly with what governments and corporations could do. That’s because I am still convinced that anybody who cares to know what are the little things they can do in order to help when it comes to environmental issues already does, and those who don’t care now still won’t care even if you try to tell them one more time.
What most who are interested in reducing the environmental damage they cause do has more to do with what options they feel are within their reach than with their own convictions and desires. I for one find myself in the unpleasant position of wishing to do more about this issue but not having access to effective and reasonable means of doing so.
The existing infrastructure has great impact… But that applies to everything and is a topic for another time.
I’m aware that these changes would cause problems for many people in the immediate future, but I can’t say that I care. Humans need to take responsibility for their own actions and face the consequences.
I’m looking at this from an environmental perspective and know that such changes are required in order for this planet to still support life as we know it. Incidentally, we are also a known life form which resides on Earth and would therefore greatly benefit from the results of these actions in the long run.
This world would be so much better for all the creatures who call it their home if humans would occasionally exhibit at least a part of that intelligence they claim to possess. And if they could also add some genuine concern for things other than their own immediate well-being into the mix, I’m quite sure that a lot of problems would get solved.
