Do something about the current global economy that perpetuates pollution, exhausting resources and destroying the environment, by being dependent on maintaining social, financial and economic inequality and oppression.
Everything else.
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Wake up from the nice dream you were having about mankind as such being able to come together and handle our shit in an effective manner, instead of everyone looking out for their own economic and political interests and trying to find ways to preserve their profits, power and privileges. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The teeth and toenails have always been and still are and always will be a problem for the ignorant and/or stupid. Infrastructure has nothing to do with it. There’s no Bureau of Tooth and Toenail Health.
As always, the real problem humans is the nature of humanity. Scott Adams said the real driving forces in human history are stupidity, laziness, greed, and horniness. Everything we do is driven by, and for the purpose of, satisfying one or the other of those impulses. I’m afraid he’s right. Doing something effective about global warming would require HUGE numbers of people to give up or act against one or more of those impulses. We’ll see the Second Coming before we see the majority of the human race decide to act better.
My thoughts: To have any effect at all, it would have to be an extremely powerful GRB. If it was incredibly powerful, at worst it would mean the end of half the Earth’s population. Gamma rays travel in straight lines. So when the rays hit Earth, half the planet is in shadow, so to speak. And once the rays have passed, that’s it. Since gamma rays travel at the speed of light, Earth would be impacted by the rays for only a small fraction of a second. After the GRB hits, the part that was in shadow will still be habitable and will remain safe.
That’s what it looks like if you subscribe to the idea that great men are responsible for everything. Because “great men” have been, mostly, stupid, lazy, greedy and horny. But our development and survival have been group projects that have succeeded despite assholes starting wars and taking credit for other people’s work, not because of those assholes.
The primary driver of human advancement has been creativity, the primary driver of our survival has been compassion.
Oh gawd. The collapse of society will mean the collapse of modern medicine and hospitalization. “Teeth and toenails” was just shorthand for people dying from stuff we take for granted; in remote parts of the world people do still die from common infections.
As manly a man as anyone might think they are, in a post-apocalyptic world they ain’t gonna be removing their own appendix or setting their own broken bones.
This citation doesn’t really give the quotation the intellectual depth you perhaps think it does.
