a bit OT: Please give me your take on this Geo. Carlin rant..

[Duppers]

http://gospelofreason.com/2007/05/24/george-carlin-the-planet-is-fine/


Is he being totally tongue in cheek? Or am I being dense?


Carlin is so popular but I knew it would be safe to post this here.


Thanks.

[Duppers]

1. He rather pissed me off.

I'd like your opinion.

[rurallib]

7. I don't know why this would piss you off.

I tell the kids we work with that we are probably not destroying the earth. The earth will survive.
Humanity and many other creatures may not survive, but the earth will most likely survive.
And over millenia the earth will cleanse itself of the crap we did.
And evolution will still be going on so maybe in a few billion years humanity may rise again. Probably not much smarter.

[Duppers]

10. well, we all know that and

that's suppose to make me feel good?

My grandchildren & yours will be dying.

[Duppers]

11. this fried me....

"Tired of that shit. I’m tired of fucking Earth Day, I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me."


Ok, too late. Oh well. Who cares. Wheee. Let's make fun of those tree huggin' liberals.

Anyone here have a child? I have a child.

[rurallib]

13. I misread you.

What you say here I agree with.
I really fear that in30 years or so, there will be many fronts where water, food and living space will be in contention.
Thanks to being bankrupted by the Repubs,the US will be in little shape to help mankind.

As for Carlin, I understand where he is coming from - disconnected individual acts aren't nearly enough to change direction. This was made eminently evident by that report yesterday.
But the liberals et al. have been weakened politically and what is needed is bold steps by large players immediately.

[stuntcat]

16. I never forget.

I've heard that from him before and never forgotten what he said. I can't laugh at him the same anymore.

[plumbob]

2. I think he's being as straight as he can be about it.

"We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance."

Compared to the earth, people are hardly noticeable, and now that we have fouled up the parameters within which we live, we will pay the price of extinction. At least it's self-imposed. The others we have killed on purpose, and those as an unthought consequence, they didn't even get that chance or that choice.

When I teach World Geography to 15 year olds, I explain it like this:
First Americans felt that the earth could not belong to any individual, because it will be here long after any individual is gone, much like fleas on a dog. The fleas are born and live on the dog, from the dog's blood and body heat, and they may even THINK and SAY they own the dog, but the truth is, that dog will be there long after those individual fleas are dead. Absurd to think they owned the dog.

Then come the Europeans, asking who owns this land? Nobody owns the land, reply the natives. Great! The explorers stick their flag in the ground and claim this land and all its inhabitants in the name of her or his most holy majesty, protector of the faith and realm, blah, blah, blah, kill the natives, build fences and continue the same old wars with each other that they had in Europe, missing the whole philosophical point about WHY the land cannot be owned. So the concrete-thinking, violent, well-armed fleas kill the more reflective, less-armed fleas, and declare ownership of the dog.

Carlin's after the same point.

[Scuba]

3. +1 As I always told my staff when things were darkest....

...remember, in a few billion years, none of what we did here will matter.

[amyrose2712]

5. +1 I like your dog analogy, only when we go...

we will be taking much of the other life on the planet with us. That being said, one of my favorite Carlin lines is in that rant.

"The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance."

[marsis]

6. Two

thumbs up! Good one.

[RC]

4. We humans are way too cocky and arrogant for our own good.

We will be long gone, one way or another, and the earth will still be here growing other life as it was designed to do.
We are all but totally clueless here. Carlin is correct.

[baldguy]

8. .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw

[TreasonousBastard]

9. He's only partly right. Sure, the planet will be here in another billion years...

quite different and probably without much of a trace of us. Maybe the Noah story is some ancient memory of other times the planet cleansed itself, leaving no trace of earlier civilizations.

But, what if the environmentalists are actually on to something besides their convenience. While we are here, is it our place to ruin the planet by design and change it for the worse? Isn't a clean place to live worth something right now? Most of the problems we are causing are because of greed or laziness and wouldn't it be nice if we became enlightened enough to reduce our greed and increase our work in things not immediately profitable?

[Duppers]

12. Thank you!

That's what I meant.

I'm here for activism and change, not to be a passive observer. I want the end of life as we know to come later not sooner. And Carlin was pissing on those who feel as we do.

-d

[GliderGuider]

14. He's not saying "Don't clean up your shit."

He's just railing against self-importance, hubris and screwed-up priorities.

I share his view on that, which is why I promote the idea of individuals and small groups working to improve their immediate physical and social surroundings. If enough of us do that the planet will improve on its own.

I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron…whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.

Amen, George, amen.

[stuntcat]

15. I heard that from him before.

I watched a stand-up on youtube of him saying those same things. I've never forgotten it and now I think of it every time everyone's talking about how they worship him. In a way he's right of course, we can't destroy the planet (DUH, that argument from anti-environmentalists was already lame 20 years ago) We can just start a mass-extinction, and kill big parts of the ocean, and level mountains, and raze huge forests, and make the planet unlivable for lots of species including our own.

The planet will bounce back someday, or course it will, that argument is meaningless. It will always be a shame on Humanity that we caused a world-wide natural disaster. And there's nothing natural about it really. His words just make it easy for people who hear them to not take any responsibility. He's just a 70+ year old comedian, he can die feeling like he knew everything since he won't be around for the worst of it.

[lfairban]

17. At least he is not Dennis Miller!

nt

[XemaSab]

18. Unbridled cynicism is never off topic in this forum

n/t