Geoengineering is an Awesome Life Purpose

[Wilhelm44]

8 hours ago, aurum said:

I did give you an answer. Think about it.

 Why can electronic music be just as magical as natural music?

Or a painting of a face be just as magical as a face?

All art is imitation.

When you look at a mechanical forrest, you are looking at mother nature. It is its own creation, with potential for beauty and magic the same way an "actual" forest does.

Im still not sold, no art has ever quite captured the full experience of sitting in a natural forrest. There's a reason why God is called the ultimate artist. But I would be curious and willing to give your mechanical forrest a go when it's ready, then we can compare notes.

Edited June 5 by Wilhelm44

[aurum]

34 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

There's a reason why God is called the ultimate artist.

Who do you think would be the artist of the mechanical forrest?

There's only one.

[Wilhelm44]

2 minutes ago, aurum said:

Who do you think would be the artist of the mechanical forrest?

There's only one.

Did a human being create nature ?

[Wilhelm44]

@aurum Thats like saying a good movie is just as good as a great movie, because ultimately they were both made by God.

[Norbert Somogyi]

Astounding documentary, for free! Thank you for sharing, I'll be watching the others too!

I agree that spiritual passivity may no longer be enough to provide a brighter future for us all, we need to act! 

However the sociostructural and physical resources most of these mega-scale technological projects require to reach the efficacy needed to be able to buy enough time for us to find a sustainable solution moving us away from societal collapse, would require unseen levels of global cooperation. Maybe China can do it? 

At least he awareness is spreading, and there are very positive trends like the Great Green Wall project. I recently had a 'we are ultimately doomed, no matter what we do' phase, however the pain that comes with the increased awareness due to my research, is accompanied with the increased desire to act and do what I can where I can. This video played a role in this, thank you!

[aurum]

9 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Did a human being create nature ?

The actual answer you're looking for is: God created / IS nature, humans, mechanical forests and anything else you can think of.

9 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

Thats like saying a good movie is just as good as a great movie, because ultimately they were both made by God.

From God's POV, that actually is true. Everything is equally Good.

But at a more human level, you will find things more magical than others. A forest could be magical, or it could be ugly.

There are some ugly things in what you're calling "nature". It's not all pristine mountaintops and flowing rivers.

So the actual answer is that a mechanical forest could be ugly and soulless, or it could be beautiful. But the potential exists.

[Wilhelm44]

5 minutes ago, aurum said:

The actual answer you're looking for is: God created / IS nature, humans, mechanical forests and anything else you can think of.

From God's POV, that actually is true. Everything is equally Good.

But at a more human level, you will find things more magical than others. A forest could be magical, or it could be ugly.

There are some ugly things in what you're calling "nature". It's not all pristine mountaintops and flowing rivers.

So the actual answer is that a mechanical forest could be ugly and soulless, or it could be beautiful. But the potential exists.

I guess you have a point. Will the government give the go ahead for some of these geoengineering projects ?

[aurum]

2 hours ago, Norbert Somogyi said:

However the sociostructural and physical resources most of these mega-scale technological projects require to reach the efficacy needed to be able to buy enough time for us to find a sustainable solution moving us away from societal collapse, would require unseen levels of global cooperation. Maybe China can do it? 

Maybe.

The point of this video is not that any of these specific projects are viable. It's mostly just to inspire and open people's minds to other possibilities.

Glad you liked it!

 

[aurum]

13 minutes ago, Wilhelm44 said:

I guess you have a point. Will the government give the go ahead for some of these geoengineering projects ?

Hard to say. Answering that would require serious research. I’m not an expert in that area. 

I hold geoengineering as a long-term project. Long-term, assuming humanity doesn’t annihilate ourselves, I think we will work out the most essential challenges. But it will take time.

If you’re a leader and visionary, this kind of ambiguity is where you thrive.

[LastThursday]

Geoengineering is like playing 5D Chess. I agree that we're raping the planet and putting our own future at risk, so something should be done about that. What makes me uneasy about geoengineering is the level of intervention.

Earth as a system had reached a state of dynamic equilibrium before humans came along - that's obvious from how eco systems are so miraculously well balanced and interwoven: watch any wildlife documentary. Our activities have progressively pushed the systems way out of equilibrium, which is done mostly out of ignorance. 

I don't think we have the capacity to continuously monitor the outcomes of geoengineering in a fine grained enough way to understand what the consequences will be for the Earth. Some of the interventions will cause irreversible changes to the Earth, possibly negative. And we'll have to geoengineer patches for our previous geoengineering mistakes. Once we start at that large a scale we won't be able to stop, because we don't understand the Earth deeply enough to know what we're really doing. It will be like a rookie barber cutting too much hair off one side, and correcting the mistake by cutting too much hair off the other side.

 

[aurum]

31 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

Earth as a system had reached a state of dynamic equilibrium before humans came along - that's obvious from how eco systems are so miraculously well balanced and interwoven: watch any wildlife documentary. Our activities have progressively pushed the systems way out of equilibrium, which is done mostly out of ignorance. 

This is an overly romantic take of Earth history.

There was no dynamic, harmonic equilibrium. Earth has always been chaotic, with mass extinctions and huge climate shifts.

Additionally, you are framing humans as outside this process.

31 minutes ago, LastThursday said:

I don't think we have the capacity to continuously monitor the outcomes of geoengineering in a fine grained enough way to understand what the consequences will be for the Earth. Some of the interventions will cause irreversible changes to the Earth, possibly negative. And we'll have to geoengineer patches for our previous geoengineering mistakes. Once we start at that large a scale we won't be able to stop, because we don't understand the Earth deeply enough to know what we're really doing. It will be like a rookie barber cutting too much hair off one side, and correcting the mistake by cutting too much hair off the other side.

You're talking about learning.

You don't need perfect knowledge, you need the ability to continue growing your understanding.

If we took the attitude you are proposing, humanity might as well never practiced medicine, or agriculture. We were profoundly ignornant in these areas, and now we are much less so. But only because we practiced and we learned.

Yes, geoengineering will require more geoengineering. The same way you having a heart requires you to maintain having a heart. This is the tradeoff of advanced civilizational complexity. All systems require dependency. Ideally, these dependencies are resilient and intelligent, but they will still exist.

Consider: Earth is using humans to engineer a new organ.

And ultimately, humanity ALREADY is geoengineering. That's what roads, housing, farms, cities and just about anything else is. Our existence is a geoengineering project. I suggest we lean into it.

[aurum]

Love the objections everyone is bringing up.

These are EXACTLY the ideas I wanted to challenge.

[LastThursday]

13 hours ago, aurum said:

There was no dynamic, harmonic equilibrium. Earth has always been chaotic, with mass extinctions and huge climate shifts.

I agree the equilibrium isn't harmonic but more so chaotic, from a systemic view everything is constantly on the "edge of chaos", so in many instances it only takes a small nudge for the systems to flip into a different equilibrium, think snowball Earth and climate change. But because it's an "open" system everything affects everything else, and many of Earth's systems have settled into a static or cyclic state over eons. Earth is one huge open system where all its constituent parts are in equilibrium with each other, even if its chaotic at times.

13 hours ago, aurum said:

Consider: Earth is using humans to engineer a new organ.

I'd say its extremely difficult to work out if Earth has intention, and if it does what that intention is. There have always been outlier organisms that disrupt the systems of Earth more than others. Take cyanobacteria pumping into and poisoning the atmosphere with Oxygen. That was probably catastrophic for a lot of life on the Earth at the time. But it happened slowly enough for Earth's systems to keep up the overall balance.

Humans are another outlier, and similar to cyanobacteria we're pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But we're also disrupting nearly everything on Earth or if you prefer geoengineering the Earth.

14 hours ago, aurum said:

And ultimately, humanity ALREADY is geoengineering. That's what roads, housing, farms, cities and just about anything else is. Our existence is a geoengineering project. I suggest we lean into it.

Indeed. However, they are small scale (in effect) to what the video you posted describes. 

I don't know, if we have to geoengineer for our own future survival then at least do it with foreknowledge (modelling) and systemic thinking. These projects should be agreed on by everyone in the world, and not left to the hands of a few private companies or individuals.

[aurum]

On 6/6/2025 at 6:17 AM, LastThursday said:

I'd say its extremely difficult to work out if Earth has intention, and if it does what that intention is. There have always been outlier organisms that disrupt the systems of Earth more than others. Take cyanobacteria pumping into and poisoning the atmosphere with Oxygen. That was probably catastrophic for a lot of life on the Earth at the time. But it happened slowly enough for Earth's systems to keep up the overall balance.

Humans are another outlier, and similar to cyanobacteria we're pumping huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But we're also disrupting nearly everything on Earth or if you prefer geoengineering the Earth.

You don't have to take "intention" too literally if you object to the anthropomorphization.

My point is there isn't a static thing called Earth. Earth is evolving, and we are part of that evolutionary process.

Yes, I agree that human behavior could be toxic for life as a whole. But geoengineering does not have to be that.

You cut off possibilities if you assume human geoengineering just amounts to "disruption".

On 6/6/2025 at 6:17 AM, LastThursday said:

Indeed. However, they are small scale (in effect) to what the video you posted describes. 

I don't know, if we have to geoengineer for our own future survival then at least do it with foreknowledge (modelling) and systemic thinking. These projects should be agreed on by everyone in the world, and not left to the hands of a few private companies or individuals.

I have no objections to modeling, systems thinking and democratization of projects.

The point is beyond immediate human survival. It's about a VISION for humanity, which environmentalists don't have.

What is the environmentalist vision for humanity? Living like hippies, making our own soap and doing zero-waste? I don't find that to be a compelling vision.

I propose an alternative: humanity as a master of geoengineering. 

[Miguel1]

Beautiful.

[Miguel1]

On 6/4/2025 at 11:27 PM, Wilhelm44 said:

But you didnt really answer the question, how will a mechanical immitation of a forrest be just as magical as an actual forrest ?

It's called evolution.

[Wilhelm44]

10 hours ago, Miguel1 said:

It's called evolution.

If you mean from a big picture point of view, ie a neccessity to save us from self destruction in late stage capitalism, then yes. But i still dont see it as evolution in the sense of a mechanical forrest somehow being just as good or better than the original blueprint. Lets not underestimate the otherwordly genius of nature.

Edited June 8 by Wilhelm44

[Wilhelm44]

These geoengineering projects are there to help save nature, not to replace nature.

[Miguel1]

2 hours ago, Wilhelm44 said:

If you mean from a big picture point of view, ie a neccessity to save us from self destruction in late stage capitalism, then yes. But i still dont see it as evolution in the sense of a mechanical forrest somehow being just as good or better than the original blueprint. Lets not underestimate the otherwordly genius of nature.

If AI, robots, mechanical structures serves the purpose of natural nature and humankind better than they do, then it is just natural to be replaced.

Just like we replaced any living mechanisms that were dominated Earth before us.

[Wilhelm44]

17 minutes ago, Miguel1 said:

If AI, robots, mechanical structures serves the purpose of natural nature and humankind better than they do, then it is just natural to be replaced.

Just like we replaced any living mechanisms that were dominated Earth before us.

When you go to a restaurant and you have a choice between a plate of organic food, and a plate of food that comes from geoengineered crops, you would probably choose the organic food. Why is that ?