Perhaps as a species, we don't deserve to survive: an example

[Lerkfish]

talking with a freeper coworker, he brings up this gem:

HIM: I've come to a realization on global warming. Its a conspiracy.

ME: Oh? (inwardly rolls eyes)

HIM: Yeah, there really is no global warming. Multinational corporations are falsifying data to make it seem that way.

ME: Um...so the disappearing glaciers....

HIM: faked.

ME: er...ok. But what about Exxon spending 200 million to have people come out and say global warming is false? If the multinationals are in a conspiracy, it would seem they are conspiring to declare global warming false, not true.

HIM: no, no, you don't get it. They are doing that, too.

ME: (confused). The corporations are simultaneously using propaganda to make us both believe and disbelieve in global warming at the same time?

HIM: Right, its obvious...

ME: Working from both ends? With us in the middle?

HIM: EXACTLY.


ME: Why would they do that? what's the purpose?

HIM: To make us buy electric cars! They fool us into thinking the oil will run out, or that the oil hurts the environment, and THEN they make us buy electric cars!

ME: The whole conspiracy is to sell us electric cars? Faking disappearing glaciers, deteriorating ice shelfs, coordinating the entire world scientific community to both falsify global warming AND denounce global warming?

HIM: yeah, we're screwed either way, they're going to make it so we have to buy electric cars....

ME: And you call ME a conspiracy nut?

HIM: This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is FACT!


its then that I realize...man, at least 32% of the people in the US are this stupid. mayber our species doesn't deserve to survive. Maybe the cockroaches are going to do a better job of being top of the food chain.

I edited to clarify: this is tongue in cheek about the survival of the species, for those who didn't catch it. The conversation is real, but I'm not smearing the rest of the species nor calling for our extinction. I thought it would be obvious I was being rhetorical about that.
maybe the cockroaches got it.

[acmavm]

1. You have this all wrong. That clown doesn't deserve to exist.

Don't smear us all with that blatant stupidity.

[Lerkfish]

19. um, does the term "tongue in cheek" help?

I'm not calling for the end of our species, nor am I smearing anyone here.
I'm being sarcastic or rhetorical about that part of it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Only one way to change this freeper's mind:

Have Al Gore endorse electric cars.

snort.

[LeftyMom]

3. Please ask him where all these electric car dealerships are

and why nobody's got a picture of the packs of corporate flunkies up on Kilimanjaro with hair dryers and very long cords. Not because I think you'll get the man to see sense, but because I think the increasingly crazy explanations could be fun.

[greyl]

4. That dingleberry is an example of our culture, not our species.

Know what I mean?

[mondo joe]

5. Simple: If, as a species, we survive, we deserve to. If, as a species, we do not

survive, then we don't deserve to.

[The2ndWheel]

6. What does stupidity have to do with it?

The smartest people in the world created nuclear weapons. What does that mean for us?

[unpossibles]

9. well, they were ordered to do so by less smart people...

:)

[The2ndWheel]

20. That's comforting on so many levels

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TransitJohn]

10. Here's a reaction:

:popcorn:

[hatrack]

13. Kind of like dinosaurs "adapted" to the meteor?

OK . . . . . have a nice day!

[MedleyMisty]

17. Evolution isn't that fast

Global warming isn't a gentle slope that life can adapt to over thousands or millions of years. Maybe some species with shorter lifespans could adapt to it relatively quickly. Not humans, though.

Humans are causing it. It's not natural, and it's happening very quickly in geological terms. Face it, we broke the planet. Unfortunately all the other species have to pay for it along with us.

[unpossibles]

21. but we do not adapt as a species - that is a huge misunderstanding

we adapt our environment to fit us, would be more accurate. That is our strength.

Humans are really best suited to live along the equator - we have not adapted to live in cold climate beyond adding a little fat and/or hair and subtracting a little height - but we have created tools to adapt our environment to fit us, through building houses, wearing clothes, etc.

And frankly, the more common stance for the Christian Right is to not take care of the planet; for them Heaven is more important than Earth, and the rapture is coming anyway....

[dysfunctional press]

8. "who killed the electric car?" might be a good film for him to viddy.

reccomend it.

although- it could end up making his head explode.

"The film explores some of the reasons that the auto and oil industries worked to kill off the electric car. Wally Rippel is shown explaining that the oil companies were afraid of losing out on trillions in potential profit from their transportation fuel monopoly over the coming decades, while the auto companies were afraid of losses over the next six months of EV production..."

[sarge43]

11. As 99% of all the species that ever existed no longer exist,

the odds aren't in our favor or even cockroach's for that matter.

And no, that jerk doesn't represent most of us. He's merely paddling up denial.

[WinkyDink]

12. I see no reason for the Earth to put up with Homo sapiens not-so-sapiens anymore.

I mean, maybe the next time around the dominant species won't have a sick death-wish.

[mondo joe]

15. I don't think the earth considers us the dominant species. NT

[WinkyDink]

18. Heh, excellent point!

[unpossibles]

14. I love how everything for them comes down to two or three things

MONEY, PARANOIA/FEAR, and IGNORANCE.

the three are fairly intertwined, so it's hard to separate their paranoia that someone will steal their money for instance, but.... So really all three boil down to fear I guess.

They are always so afraid of everything! Why is that? They fear that someone will make them do what they don't want to do, or take their money (taxes, welfare), their guns, their women (or "worse", their heterosexuality...). Fear drives their insecurity, their puffed-chest zealotry, their racism/xenophobia/homophobia, and seemingly everything they do. They FEAR Clinton or Obama because they FEAR a woman or a black man in the executive office. They FEAR government when in reality the government is not the problem, the laziness to actually BE the government is the problem.



I agree with everyone else that this doesn't necessarily mean we deserve to be wiped out though. I look at the 20-30% thing this way - every bell curve has two sides.

[GeorgeGist]

16. As always evolution will be the ...

final decider; but IMO your misguided co-worker will not survive.