Hell, Magats are trying that now

@Canndue If, perchance you are referring to the MAGA (Magats) then their chances are, imo, pretty good since the United States of Absurdity is somewhat over-flowing with corruption and rot these days.

@Triphid maybe, does anyone have a pool set up for this yet?

@Canndue Well, I don't actually know for certain, you live there not me.

@K9Kohle789 Yes BUT WE, if we so consider it, CAN change things for the better rather than thinking ONLY of Ourselves and OUR todays and START thinking instead of the tomorrows yet to come, can we NOT?

@K9Kohle789 Yes, I admit that I am an Optimist, however, I'd much rather be an Optimist than a Pessimist any day thank you because Optimists DO have hope where, pessimists, so often, see only the 'down-side' of everything imo.

@K9Kohle789 Life which adapts to eat, or live within, the litter that won't degrade will undoubtedly happen. Or something else will because nature adapts itself around the conditions and resources. Humans are not the only crafty lifeform so I don't worry. I don't litter, or kill life other than insects (I hate insects so IDC), but I'm not in charge.

@K9Kohle789 As an optimist I realize that things are not always good everywhere and anywhere BUT I see that, with a little change here and there, even the weakest of things can be given a good chance to make a go of it, all it takes is just a little extra effort, etc.

@rainmanjr I too hate some kinds of insects with a passion, spiders, ants, cockroaches to name but a few but I also see many as being beneficial as well.

@Triphid No argument. We might have to start eating them.

@rainmanjr Maybe, I've tried Aussie Witchety Grubs, raw they taste terrible, grilled they're okay, sort of, house flies, I'll leave them for someone else thank you.

I think that begs the question: why does it matter if the species rebounds and lasts into the future?

@JeffMurray considering the vast number of species that went extinct already, most likely doesn’t matter. But the thought of my great grand children never seeing a living rhino or tiger, saddens me....

@Canndue Don't put too much thought into it or let it make you sad. Think about all of the things that your parents and grandparents enjoyed that weren't really things anymore when you grew up and you never missed those. So while you might wish that your children or grandchildren could see a rhino or tiger, they might care about that as much as you care about using a victrola or sending a telegram. (Sorry, I don't really know what animals went extinct when.) Another point I like to make about conservation efforts for species is that it requires a vast amount of resources. If those same resources were instead spent on fighting climate change, who knows how many more species we could prevent from going extinct instead of just the one.

@JeffMurray it saddens me when I think of it, so I don’t. If a species dies out gradually due to loss of habitat or other natural causes, so be it. I only get upset when they are threatened through poaching or other human intervention.

If they must poach, can’t it be ticks and biting flies!

@Canndue You don't classify climate change as human intervention?

@JeffMurray not sure, haven’t studied the science around it or how much we can actually change it. It would need to be a coordinated global effort. Either way, politics will keep it lofty

@Fred_Snerd there is so much misinformation on the topic, politicians and profiteering doesn’t help. It’s clear we should act responsibly. All you need to do is compare NYC today to NYC in the 70’s for that. What’s not clear is how much we can actually change climate trends.

Yes, the billion years is not the point. Put another way, the question intended was whether the statement, "It is good that human beings WERE kind" [for example] is true after there is no conscious being to think it. Maybe this is just an instance of the question of whether value is mind-dependent. Anyway, I like your point that changing something temporal to something eternal wouldn't necessarily enhance its value.

@Wallace Since your question was about how an atheist would respond, I thought it might be helpful to see 2 examples of the question being posed and the responses to it:

@Rossy92 Wish I would have had these videos before I retired from teaching philosophy 20 years ago! The best I had was a pirated copy of the Russell/Coppleston debate (1948) in which--I think most agreed--Russell's weakest performance was his response to Coppleston's forceful presentation of the moral argument for the existence of God. And the question as to whether the ephemeral value(meaning) of the present is sufficient or whether it ultimately dissolves into valueless fact is the one I tried to post, and is (what I find to be) the most important one considered by all three videos. On the one hand, it may seem a cosmic waste that value should not be preserved, while on the other, it is not clear how Christianity--even should it be true--would succeed in doing this. Thanks for the videos! Peace.

@Wallace Glad you found them of value. I've said it before, the internet and youtube especially (if you know how to use them), must surely be among the greatest developments in my lifetime.

Should WE not think ahead and for the future of others as well?

@Triphid I don't think planning for a billion years in the future to be a rational endeavor.

@redbai And may one enquire as to why not?

@Triphid of course we should, but our personal effect on the future diminishes exponentially after death. And yes the effect and time varies by individual.

@Triphid With the caveat that we are specifically talking about planning for a billion year end result:

Because there are too many variables to account for well before you get to a billion years. Aside from defining a static end result in a constantly changing universe the vast majority of which humanity has no control; how will humanity evolve and into what? Can humanity even exist a billion years? What will the condition of the earth be in a billion years and how much must humanity alter the environment to ensure this billion year lifespan for humanity? Are there variables that could be introduced by some interstellar origin that we know nothing about? Is there a method of expanding humanity off this planet if necessary? Can humanity live and thrive on a planet other than earth?

I could go on, but I think the point is made. The amount of variables involved in planning for a billion years is simply not plausible given questions we can think of to ask, let alone questions we can't ask because we don't know we don't know about them.

While I might be able to see such a scenario given a peaceful, cooperative humanity and 3 or 4 generations focused on a specific goal (i.e. saving the planet from global warming or putting a colony on mars), going past more than a few hundred years to any specificity seems a waste of time and energy.

@Canndue I AM referring to Human Kind as WHOLE here, not just as each person/s responsibility btw.

@Canndue, @redbai as a wise old saying goes, "He who fails plans also plans to fail."

@Triphid Yeah? Well, I'd like to have a conversation with that guy to see if he meant a billion years of for personal future as I doubt very much that he was talking about a billion years.

@redbai Well, firstly, imo and that of ever so many others, we just about f..ked up this, OUR ONLY Home in the last 100+ years for starters, so what chance would another planet colonised by the human viruses have?
Secondly, IF a Planet A or B was to be discovered then, 1) How could we transport the WHOLE of Human kind there,? and, 2) what kind of screw up would humans make it once they'd been for a decades or so?
Thirdly, and imo, WHAT we do today radiates through to tomorrow and for time almost immemorial, for example, WE learned to split the atom, then we terrified each other BECAUSE we knew we could wipe almost everything living thing out by using it, bloody brilliant are we NOT?

@Triphid IMHO collectively it matters now , if we are lucky it may last a century, too many variables to hazard a guess. There are some who relish in pondering these things, which is fine for them. I don’t see it as a theist/atheist thing, just whether you think it matters or not

@Triphid I'm assuming that wasn't an argument for planning for a billion years.

@redbai Yes, me also, but UNLESS there is a GREAT leap forwards and Humans can never age or die that will always remain just a Pipe Dream.
But planning ahead is a Natural thing that most animals do without even really thinking about BUT, imo, humans have lost that ability sadly.
We seem to look ONLY as far as the Here and Now, have the 'philosophy' of " Think only of Today and let tomorrow take care of itself."
Well, sadly that did never truly work and still does not imo.

@redbai We CAN plan for the tomorrows to come in OUR life-times and those of our children's, our Grandchildren and OUR Great, Great Children, etc, etc, IF, and that IS a very BIG IF, we so decided to otherwise we WILL leave them NOTHING at all, just a Garbage heap called Planet Earth.

@Triphid if you kept reading his quote it goes “but if you plan out a billion years, your wasting your time.”

@Triphid I agree with you, but you are talking a few generations at best. But planning is an ongoing iterative thing. Each generation will replan and adjust accordingly.

@Canndue Yes, logically that may be so, BUT what we plan/do today WILL have echoes right throughout the decades to come, will it not and, has it done so already?

@Canndue No, not actually 'Wasting my or anyone else's time" as such, for He who fails to plan also plans to fail." Nicht wahr?

@Triphid @Redbai I think the crux of the question is whether it will matter if it's all going to end, whether that be a billion years,100 years, or tomorrow. It's a question of the temporal vs. the eternal.

@Triphid oui, mon ami.

Is it me or are these threads difficult to follow? Comment/replies don’t line up well

@Rossy92 Why should the metric be about what the "end" is when the personal choices made daily are made to affect those who exist today and to those people it does matter, today. I'm fine with that and see no reason why my actions or the actions of humanity should reverberate to the end of eternity or a billion years, for that matter.

@Triphid it’s funny , we are saying the same things, just from different angles.

@redbai YES. The metric should be neither the time frame nor whether it will all come to an eventual end. Just seemed y'all were overly focused on a specific time length when I don't think that was the main point, but rather the theist's erroneous assertion that nothing has meaning unless there is an eternal soul and an eternal supreme being.

@Rossy92 I use the analogy of sorts that like a stone dropped into a pool of water the vibrations ( waves) it causes travel on until they dissipate or reach the sides of the pool and are reflected back.
Hence, what we do today 'ripples' its way through time until it too either dissipates or is reflected back.
E.g. a small earthquake under the ocean can often cause a massive Tsunami to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles across the ocean/sea and come crashing into another land causing death and destruction to all kinds of fauna and flora, i.e. Cause and Effect.
So, for my little part in the wide scheme of things, for EVERY dead and fallen tree that I harvest for firewood each winter, I plant at least 2 seedlings to replace it.

@Triphid That's great. But to play devil's advocate, why bother if it will all ultimately come to the same end (eventual death, extinction), regardless of the path we choose? That is the question at hand.

@Rossy92 Well is not DEATH the ultimate outcome for everything that lives?
This planet may quite well be swallowed up by the Sun in about 5 or so Billion years, or it may just as well be burnt to a crisp BUT what we do TODAY echoes through out time.
There is NO Planet B reachable by Human kind in either OUR life-times, those of our Children or, probably, those of our Grand-children given our somewhat 'primitive' modes of space travel.
What would rather do, a) let your dwelling become completely inhabitable then merely burn it down and TRY to re-build it, OR, act now, clean it up and live in it again?

@Triphid Just giving you a hard time as you seemed to divert from the question which was posed and which it implies. But on second thought, your reply implied the answer to the question even if you are seemingly unaware of the dilemma posed. You care because you simply do, no justification required, which is great. But I do think there may be a dilemma when you pose the question of how to get others to behave with a similar sense of responsibility who may not possess your empathy, education, and prosperity. And that's where the authoritarian nature of religion attempts to strong-arm compliance. Of course that a path fraught all manner of pitfalls which we atheists are more aware of than most.

@Rossy92 And we, well our predecessors that is, have walked a similar path for centuries have we/they not?
Yet, even though a small, we have made some great strides along the way.
The same CAN be done with the Climate Changes, etc, etc, as we face today, tomorrow, next month, next year and so on and so forth.
" Be NOT daunted in the face of Adversity, etc, instead stand firm ,face it head on, show NO fear nor dread and fight to WIN." William Anthony, 2000.