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why are humans not part of "nature"?

B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago
Shh, don't be difficult. Only stone-age humans are natural. You shall not use bronze, and iron is right out. Fossil fuel is Cthulhu.
rdiddly 9y ago
Yeah that part is a shaky construct, I agree. Which is kind of what got me started on this line of thought. The whole idea of 'restoration' that I used to espouse, rests on getting things back to a "natural" state, meaning a state without or before humans. So there's your separation right there. I started thinking like, well too late, humans have been here. But just for fun let's pretend they instantaneously stopped being here; what would the "natural," "human-free" world look like then? It would look like what humans have made it into, plus whatever latent conditions we also caused but might be holding back by e.g. controlling rat populations or whatnot, plus whatever areas/systems/ecologies are and were always outside our influence.
- dwighttk 9y ago
  by all means continue with your thought experiments, they can be fun and enlightening. I just don't agree with this part: 'Because that's what "nature" is, right? That which happens without human intervention?' Only if humans are supernatural is that what "nature" is.
- InitialLastName 9y ago
  You might be interested in this book: http://www.worldwithoutus.com/about_book.html http://www.worldwithoutus.com/about_book.html It uses both pre-human conditions and conditions in places humans have avoided (e.g. Chernobyl) to paint a picture of "What if all the humans disappeared all at once" in both short and long term. One hot nugget: The lower-NYC subways would flood almost immediately, and the streets above them would quickly convert into canals (from saltwater erosion), but the bridges would last longer without maintenance than they would under normal human use (because the biggest damage to the bridges is from road salt).
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Wow, he has really carried the idea through. I'll have to check that out, thanks. Hilariously even the Bill McKibben quote on the cover says "...one of the greatest thought experiments..."

Shh, don't be difficult. Only stone-age humans are natural. You shall not use bronze, and iron is right out. Fossil fuel is Cthulhu.

rdiddly 9y ago

Yeah that part is a shaky construct, I agree. Which is kind of what got me started on this line of thought. The whole idea of 'restoration' that I used to espouse, rests on getting things back to a "natural" state, meaning a state without or before humans. So there's your separation right there. I started thinking like, well too late, humans have been here. But just for fun let's pretend they instantaneously stopped being here; what would the "natural," "human-free" world look like then? It would look like what humans have made it into, plus whatever latent conditions we also caused but might be holding back by e.g. controlling rat populations or whatnot, plus whatever areas/systems/ecologies are and were always outside our influence.

dwighttk 9y ago
by all means continue with your thought experiments, they can be fun and enlightening. I just don't agree with this part: 'Because that's what "nature" is, right? That which happens without human intervention?' Only if humans are supernatural is that what "nature" is.
InitialLastName 9y ago
You might be interested in this book: http://www.worldwithoutus.com/about_book.html http://www.worldwithoutus.com/about_book.html It uses both pre-human conditions and conditions in places humans have avoided (e.g. Chernobyl) to paint a picture of "What if all the humans disappeared all at once" in both short and long term. One hot nugget: The lower-NYC subways would flood almost immediately, and the streets above them would quickly convert into canals (from saltwater erosion), but the bridges would last longer without maintenance than they would under normal human use (because the biggest damage to the bridges is from road salt).
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Wow, he has really carried the idea through. I'll have to check that out, thanks. Hilariously even the Bill McKibben quote on the cover says "...one of the greatest thought experiments..."