If we could put all of humanity into a box, put everything humans want and need into that box, and this box doesn’t negatively affect the environment in any way, would that not be good for Earth?
It would literally be Earth. We are as much a part of the environment as anything else.
If we can't do it across the existing planet, how the hell do we expect to do it in an artificial subset of the planet?
Humans could live on the land in tune with nature but where would be the advance medical care, where would be the education, where would be the systems in place that stop idiots from starting massive forest fires or flooding valleys by diverting water?
Humans are nature. We are not living sustainably, but nothing ever truly does. The natural balance of a given region is routinely thrown off by environmental, population, and evolutionary changes.
We're not striving for global preservation. Life will still be here when we're gone. We're striving for self preservation. And an arcology doesn't get us there any more than a space ship to Mars.
If we could put all of humanity into a box, put everything humans want and need into that box, and this box doesn’t negatively affect the environment in any way
That's a whole lot of currently implausible "ifs" that in the meantime don't quite seem to justify "what if society, but things in cool compact boxes that aren't viable without speculative tech?"
A group of living things banding together into a mega organism is an evolutionary strategy that usually occurs in response to sustained predation by other species. That’s true all the way up from single-cell lifeforms to human beings. I’m not sure there’s a reason to repeat that pattern at one more level of abstraction. You don’t have to go full anprim to have urban design which is ecologically aware or to avoid chopping down the lungs of our planet for extra space to put caged animals.
I’m confused by your assertion that we would have access to nature, but wouldn’t touch it. What does that mean? We would breathe the air. We would drink the water. It’s all connected.
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It would literally be Earth. We are as much a part of the environment as anything else.
If we can't do it across the existing planet, how the hell do we expect to do it in an artificial subset of the planet?
Humans are nature. We are not living sustainably, but nothing ever truly does. The natural balance of a given region is routinely thrown off by environmental, population, and evolutionary changes.
We're not striving for global preservation. Life will still be here when we're gone. We're striving for self preservation. And an arcology doesn't get us there any more than a space ship to Mars.
That's a whole lot of currently implausible "ifs" that in the meantime don't quite seem to justify "what if society, but things in cool compact boxes that aren't viable without speculative tech?"
A group of living things banding together into a mega organism is an evolutionary strategy that usually occurs in response to sustained predation by other species. That’s true all the way up from single-cell lifeforms to human beings. I’m not sure there’s a reason to repeat that pattern at one more level of abstraction. You don’t have to go full anprim to have urban design which is ecologically aware or to avoid chopping down the lungs of our planet for extra space to put caged animals.
I’m confused by your assertion that we would have access to nature, but wouldn’t touch it. What does that mean? We would breathe the air. We would drink the water. It’s all connected.
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Wouldn't the planet Earth be an arcology?
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