Have the rich and powerful lost their altruistic instincts?

I blame this thread on the example being set by the Hollywood Rich Set. They are extremely Vocal about How Others Should be Generous while they are very selfish and non charitable in their own lives.

Hollywood is full of Hypocrites and Horrible People.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Read every single article.

You're upset about the 6th extinction event being a fact and are using those articles, which make very weak arguments and do not at all dispute the fact that humans are responsible for the current 6th extinction event, but just talk to humans not being as severe as estimated.

You understand that, right?

Feels that you've moved the goalposts.

The first article says it was overblown by 160%. So? And which rate? Rates vary from 1,000 to 10,000 (some research suggested just 100 times but newer research shows those old numbers were grossly underestimated) greater than background extinction rates. Does it really matter, at this point, to debate how terrible the Holocene Extinction Event is? Maybe 10,000 times is overblown. What if it's closer to the conservative 1,000 times? That's still extremely far faster than any other MEE in the previous 5 MEEs.

One articles cites a specific researcher. So? Perhaps his estimates are too high but there's far more paleoclimatological research out there besides that one researcher's estimate.

The position you're taking is that you don't like the fact that we are in an extreme MEE. All the evidence clearly indicates we are in one. And nothing you've brought up contradicts that. But you still don't want to believe in the current MEE.

Really, your position is you don't believe in the already long proven anthropogenic extinction. And the "evidence" you're using for this is a few commentators and researchers who believe it is not "Super absurdly extreme terrible anthropogenic extinction, it's only super absurdly extreme anthropogenic extinction! There's a big difference!" Yeah, okay. 👆

1. What is the number of species that the scientist cite as living on the planet, and does it match the number of species we've actually documented. If not, how/why is there variance in that number.

2. How many individual animals from all species that currently exist do scientist say there are? Did they actually count all those individuals or is the number achieved by using a relatively small sample number taken from relatively small areas and assuming that those numbers will accurately scale up to measure extremely large numbers of animals in extremely large areas?

3. How many animals do the scientists say existed 5,000 thousand years ago? Is there actually hard evidence to support their number like data/writing that's been passed down from people from that period or remains from those animals, or are they somehow basing their number upon their estimates of animals that currently exist?

4. How many animals do they say existed before humans had the ability to document things via writing/drawing? Is their number based upon things like the fossil record, or are they too projections based upon estimates of modern day animals?

5. In any of the previous questions where it turned out things were based upon an estimation, are the scientist in agreement about the numbers? Keep in mind that if different people are coming up with different numbers based upon shared data... they're not actually in agreement with the other persons calculation. For instance, if one person says things are dying out 100x faster and one person says that they're actually dying out 10,000x faster, those guys haven't actually reached a consensus in regard to how fast things are dying out. The only real thing they're really in agreement about is that animals are dying out faster now than they were before.

You can not layer estimates upon estimates and claim that the end result is FACTUAL. Here's the thing about scientists, they feel the need to explore the unknown and answer the questions that plague us. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, that type of mindset is what took us out of the dark ages. But scientist are still human and are therefor still subject to the same types of logical fallacies that plague us regular people and their intense desire to figure things out has often driven them to make declarations of truth based upon limited evidence that turned out to be false. The thing driving this is the notion that there HAS to be a way to figure all these things out. But in reality, No... there doesn't have to be an objectively good way to figure out how fast animals there were a million years ago and there damn sure doesn't have to be an objectively good way to figure out at what rate extinction rate occurred. Some things are just beyond our ability to figure out definitively at present, and there is very little in the way of empirical data to support these scientist's conclusions. I can easily believe someone who says that humans are having a huge negative impact upon the numbers of animals, because that actually is a fact and there is plenty of evidence to support the notion. But trying to assign actual numbers to it and then acting as if the numbers are gospel is a ridiculous thing to do. And it's even more ridiculous to do it in regards to animals that existed before we existed on the planet.

This article that was published at Yale that talks about the wild variances in estimates of global extinction rates that supports the idea that extinction rates are high, but specifically notes "But nobody knows whether such estimates are anywhere close to reality. They are based on computer modeling, and documented losses are tiny by comparison."...

https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_extinction_rates_why_do_estimates_vary_so_wildly

Originally posted by Greatest I am
Have the rich and powerful lost their altruistic instincts?

Humans are the most altruistic and good of all the animal species, yet at present, our rich and powerful allow the poorest of us to starve to death by hoarding their wealth. This is unheard of in the animal world.

https://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2

Generally speaking, in ancient days the rich and powerful insured that the poor were taken care of to the best of their ability. In the past, the rank and file demanded that the rich and powerful live up to that good altruistic trait by revolting against them. The French Revolution is a good example of this. Have the rank and file lost their altruistic and good characters by allowing the rich and powerful to let people starve to death while doing nothing?

Are the notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity dead in the world?

Is mankind at the point of losing the altruistic instincts that has made us the greatest animal that the world has ever produced?

Regards
DL

As much as I'd love a revolution, the fact is revolt never makes things better in the long run. Look at it in terms of Game of Thrones: The Lannister clan had a very good man leading them. All the bad men laughed at him, and took advantage of the Lannisters.

Then Tywin stepped up, and slaughtered all the very bad men, and a lot of innocents.

The ideal isn't a good rich man. It's a great sociopath who can get what he wants, and keep all the would be tyrants at bay. He does that, and the public won't need to worry, because no one destroys what's theirs.

Bottom line, when great men fight, it's the regular people who suffer.

Originally posted by darthgoober
I'm really puzzled at the arguments you seem to be making in regards to this particular subject.

You shouldn't be. I've made my points very clear. Part of our disconnect is I just do not care what you think about this subject nor am I willing to be persuaded by anything you (specifically, you) have to say on this subject.

With that, I'm done talking to you (specifically, to you) on this. As I do not feel my time is being spent in any type of satisfactory way engaging you (specifically, you) on this subject.

If you feel insulted by this, take a step back and recognize that this is more about my arrogance than it has to do with your incompetence (specifically, any views you perceive from me about your incompetence).

Unlike others, I am unwilling to engage walls of text of mostly what I consider to be rubbish. I'm not the type of person you can engage with your unscientific rubbish.

Originally posted by dadudemon
You shouldn't be. I've made my points very clear. Part of our disconnect is I just do not care what you think about this subject nor am I willing to be persuaded by anything you (specifically, you) have to say on this subject.

With that, I'm done talking to you (specifically, to you) on this. As I do not feel my time is being spent in any type of satisfactory way engaging you (specifically, you) on this subject.

If you feel insulted by this, take a step back and recognize that this is more about my arrogance than it has to do with your incompetence (specifically, any views you perceive from me about your incompetence).

Unlike others, I am unwilling to engage walls of text of mostly what I consider to be rubbish. I'm not the type of person you can engage with your unscientific rubbish.

Originally posted by darthgoober
Well I guess if you're finished then there's nothing to be said about it... Namaste.

Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Originally posted by dadudemon
You shouldn't be. I've made my points very clear. Part of our disconnect is I just do not care what you think about this subject nor am I willing to be persuaded by anything you (specifically, you) have to say on this subject.

With that, I'm done talking to you (specifically, to you) on this. As I do not feel my time is being spent in any type of satisfactory way engaging you (specifically, you) on this subject.

If you feel insulted by this, take a step back and recognize that this is more about my arrogance than it has to do with your incompetence (specifically, any views you perceive from me about your incompetence).

Unlike others, I am unwilling to engage walls of text of mostly what I consider to be rubbish. I'm not the type of person you can engage with your unscientific rubbish.

Originally posted by Robtard
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction