Film, Media & TV0 min ago
'Progress..?'
6 Answers
Given that human activity is doing an excellent job of destroying our planet's ecosystem, would it ever be possible for some other (hypothetical) intelligent species to reach our level of technological sophistication without causing such environmental damage?
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Presumably you mean in an environment similar to that on Earth? One can imagine a historical path that would have avoided a little of today's environmental damage, especially if some cleaner technologies had been discovered and developed before some dirtier ones - eg if electrical power had been developed before steam, and if the potential for renewable sources had been perceived earlier. But for any radical difference, I think you would have to imagine a apecies whose evolution had made it more cooperative and less competitive, so that it would not have been endlessly striving for tribal/national dominance, and searching for cheaper raw materials and production methods. But perhaps it would have taken such a species much longer to reach our current technological level.
I think its a bit difficult to say. Firstly we are in the situation we are in, firstly to sustain us and then secondly to better ourselves once we have been sustained. If you look at all the technical advances over the last few hundred years (before that except in relative terms for the small amount of deforestation I think what we had done to the environment was easily reversible) you can see that its taken a lot of people and effort to develop the ideas, those people need to be sustained, its only in the last 120 or so years we have made real steps forward in technology, prior to that 100 years or so of steam power without significat leaps forward out side of that. In those last 100 years the average age of death has risen sharply and maintaing that population has put the strain on the environment. However its that population increase which drives the need for technology and consequencly the production of it. So I think the answer would be no given that small numbers of people would be unlikely to need to develop technology or have that level of overall intelligence.
Sure we could have. On the earth today it's no longer the most technologically sophisticated societies which are destroying the ecosystem. The USA's air has been getting cleaner for years; there are more wild animals in the US now than 100 years ago; and the amount of forested wilderness is growing, not shrinking. And population in the most developed nations is no longer growing very fast - it's shrinking outright for many nations. So all you need to suppose is that an intelligent species similar to humanity manages to get through the current dangerous stage that we're in without being wiped out. If we'd managed to figure out the secret to fusion power, for instance, our nuclear waste & oil problems would probably be totally forgotten in a couple of decades.
As Geofbob said at the start it depends on the beginning environment of the species. However he says it as though the elements on the planet they live on are the same as Earths. Electricity on a far off world may be solid and easily mined. A new compound made of elements not found on Earth may be more efficient. There may be an even higher organism on the planet affecting the environmental one. The planet may have evolved in such a strange way due to its environment they may be not other animals on it to be affected. All these points must be taken into concideration before creating a possible answer.
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