rationalskepticism.org

Blackadder wrote:

jamest wrote:Let's cut to the chase. Almost everyone's love of nature here, just as democracy, wears thin in consideration of one's nation and/or wallet.

Your politicians are doing 'just enough' to stop you from feeling too guilty and reactive about global warming. That's their attitude toward things like these animals too. That's why they're so slow to do anything: they only respond to popular pressure in order to sustain the status quo. That's the way it's always been.

Unfortunately, The Western populace is too sedate to affect anything these days unless it thinnens their wallets especially or offends their nationalism/religion.

So, the government acts to the extent that a species at the point of extinction doubles its size to a couple of thousand and the people blindingly believe that their government (thus) has their interests as paramount at all times.

Wakey wakey. The democratic relationship between government and people resides wholly in the government's decision to effect policies which will please the masses sufficient to prolongue their own power and particular ideoligies. To the point that governments will change their opinions in order to sustain power and their own particular ideology. Even when the vast majority of the populace are effectively as dumb as Gorillas.

Effecting large scale changes in the behaviour of the human population is rarely done quickly or cleanly and almost never instantaneously. Sometimes the agents of change may be unexpected, or of questionable intent but if their actions bring change for the better, then it should be welcomed.

There will always be the sneering cynics who will deride any attempts to make the world a better place unless the process fully accords with their highly developed sense of purity. Fuck them. If we start saving a small population of gorillas from what looked like inevitable extinction, that is a good thing. For those of us who live in the "real" world that is. Yeah, yeah, I know...