> I don't know about you but I'm quite happy to be alive and reasonably healthy
I think the important thing to contemplate is that this might be at the expense of other people, living or yet to be born. Not that we've done anything wrong – just that the circumstances that make this possible for us might preclude it for others.
> nihilistic platitudes like "how is there still an ecosystem?" are completely baffling to me
For some people, I think, it's jarring to realize that much of the world, including life for other people and creatures, is very different from anything they've experienced, and that the future could look very different from the present – despite it having not changed much so far in their lives. And the feeling of that realization might be the reason for platitudes like that.
> I think the important thing to contemplate is that [being happy to be alive and reasonably healthy] might be at the expense of other people, living or yet to be born. Not that we've done anything wrong – just that the circumstances that make this possible for us might preclude it for others
this is called the natural order of things. nature is competition. this is all self-evident. all of our ancestors innately understood this. what exactly has made us forget it? again, the only thing I can think of is sheer societal decadence, being so far removed from nature that we only have an abstract concept of it.
The natural order of things is only important inasmuch as it is a stable, desirable order. Lots of things we don't like happen in nature: starvation, disease, rape, murder, torture, isolation, immense pain. If these things happen to us we don't blithely say, "Ah, the natural order of things. It's all good!"
People want to preserve the natural order because they like the things they find in it. These things make them happy. Also, they like security. The natural order has persisted, with occasional mass extinctions and other disasters, for quite some time, so splitting off from the natural order into something that holds no promise of stability and security doesn't seem like a good choice.
But to the extent possible people who value nature and stability of existing ecosystems are still picking and choosing for themselves from what nature offers. No disease, please. Delayed senescence, please. No freezing to death or drowning. Less tooth decay.
And I suspect you don't adopt a throw-up-my-hands-and-let-shit-happen philosophy in your own life. You look both ways before you cross the street. You don't eat every mushroom you see. You stop walking when you come to a cliff edge.
So basically "[being happy to be alive and reasonably healthy] might be at the expense of other people, living or yet to be born. Not that we've done anything wrong – just that the circumstances that make this possible for us might preclude it for others" is just applying this same foresight and judgment more broadly. The qualitative difference is that it is not selfish. It is the difference between "I shouldn't step on this landmine" and "I shouldn't place a landmine where someone else will step". Why do this? Again, the same old reason: other people's happiness makes you happy; other people's sadness makes you sad.
When we want the natural order, it's only by accident.
I think the important thing to contemplate is that this might be at the expense of other people, living or yet to be born. Not that we've done anything wrong – just that the circumstances that make this possible for us might preclude it for others.
> nihilistic platitudes like "how is there still an ecosystem?" are completely baffling to me
For some people, I think, it's jarring to realize that much of the world, including life for other people and creatures, is very different from anything they've experienced, and that the future could look very different from the present – despite it having not changed much so far in their lives. And the feeling of that realization might be the reason for platitudes like that.