7 ms·

We have been in competition with the animals on this planet since we arrived. Commercialization has certainly caused some avoidable consequences to animal popul

We have been in competition with the animals on this planet since we arrived. Commercialization has certainly caused some avoidable consequences to animal populations, and I agree we ought to take care of the earth as well as we can, but I just can’t get worked up on the animals’ behalf over our ancient ancestors killing them and using basically every part of the carcass in an effort to survive.

titzer 9y ago
Oh don't worry, no one is expecting you to get worked up about it. It's just that we all tend to have this attitude that we are the pinnacle of nature's great evolutionary process, when pretty much all evidence suggests we're a bunch of bastards to most life on Earth--and each other, incidentally. Go humans?
- komaromy 9y ago
  > pinnacle of nature's great evolutionary process > bunch of bastards to most life on Earth seem almost synonymous, unfortunately.
  - titzer 9y ago
    > seem almost synonymous, unfortunately. This is what I disagree with. Evolution is not a process that is maximizing anything. What survives just survives. We got stuck in a feedback loop that optimized brain size for evolutionary fitness, but we're stuck in a tiny fractal corner of a corner of a corner of the entire space of biological life. E.g. Tardigrades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade) are extremely successful at survival in a huge variety of conditions, and very stable over millions of years without a lot of genetic drift. Similar for cockroaches. We don't consider these "pinnacles" of evolution just because of our arbitrary value system. Yet cockroaches (and all insects, really) serve extremely important jobs in ecosystems which would collapse without them. Humanism is blind and immoral, IMO.
    - tome 9y ago
      > Humanism is blind and immoral That's a judgement that a human can make only because our species reached the pinnacle of evolution.
      - nkrisc 9y ago
        I assume by "pinnacle of evulution" you mean the currently most successful species in terrestrial ecosystem on the planet Earth. Surely there is no "pinnacle" to all of evolution, whatever that would even mean. You seem to be implying that evolution is a process with some ideal, perfect outcome that can be achieved, or you're just being sarcastic. I can't tell but both are silly.
        tome 9y ago
        I didn't introduce the word "pinnacle" to this debate, titzer did. I just thought it was ironic that he/she was using his/her moral judgement to criticize the human species in such a way.
        titzer 9y ago
        I introduced it as a strawman, just trying to be terse. You embraced it to say that we must be at some kind of pinnacle to be able to make moral judgments. I started by pointing out facts; despite the perjorative term "bastards", it's pretty undeniable that humans have pretty much decimated every other form of life that is either a competitor or not a domesticated food source. As for "blind", that's not a moral judgment, whereas "immoral" clearly is. I admitted that both are my opinion, not fact.
        airstrike 9y ago
        Of all the species mentioned in this thread, only one can sit in front of a computer and type out their opinions about evolution. So, yeah, we're the pinnacle of evolution at least as far as Earth is concerned.
- adrianN 9y ago
  All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else. It's just that we're very good at it. On the other hand, we're also pretty much the only chance for terrestic life to survive the end of our solar system.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    There is a lot of time for better chances to come along. Depending on the estimate, we're not yet halfway through the lifetime of the sun, that's plenty of time for a more successful successor to humans. And the Earth didn't even exist for much of the first half of the sun's lifetime.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      The lack of alien contact suggests to me that technological civilizations don't appear very frequently. So I'm afraid that we're somewhat of an evolutionary aberration and if we'd go extinct a replacement wouldn't arise.
  - titzer 9y ago
    > All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else. When we take a wider look at life, this just isn't universal. If you look at ecosystems in very stable environments (e.g. caves), the ecosystem as a whole tends to come into balance over time, where species are not aggressively try to outcompete their competitors, but instead fit into comfortable little niches so that the system as a whole keeps functioning well. In fact, evolution works on the ecosystem scale as well, and systems with aggressive species tend to be very unstable and prone to crashes. In environments with constant change, then ecosystems are constantly changing and competition becomes more fierce, benefiting aggressive species. This is not always the case, so I don't think it's useful to assume that everything is trying to move as aggressively as possible; otherwise evolution would select against species with long gestation periods and tend towards shorter generations and faster growth.
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      There isn't any particular reason to privilege caves or other "stable" habitats. This is an incomplete understanding of them, anyway. Because caves are nutrient-poor, it is common that all animals there are extremely lethargic. That is not the same as lacking aggression or competition. Cave animals strive to survive as fiercely as anything in the jungle, just at a much slower pace. If a more active predator were to be stranded in a cave, it might eat everything it can find in a week, and then starve. Within months, other animals from more remote corners of the cave would scavenge its carcass and repopulate. To visualize this, watch one of those speeded-up videos of starfish and sea urchins. At our pace, they are sedentary. At their pace, it's Thunderdome all day every day.
- twodave 9y ago
  As a human, I want humans to have great lives. Part of that means taking care of your things. People like to say, "The Earth doesn't belong to us, we belong to the Earth," but I would contend we are best equipped to take care of it, and it's for our own benefit. Taking ownership of the little piece of it we interact with on the daily isn't all that daunting of a task.

titzer 9y ago

Oh don't worry, no one is expecting you to get worked up about it. It's just that we all tend to have this attitude that we are the pinnacle of nature's great evolutionary process, when pretty much all evidence suggests we're a bunch of bastards to most life on Earth--and each other, incidentally. Go humans?

komaromy 9y ago
> pinnacle of nature's great evolutionary process > bunch of bastards to most life on Earth seem almost synonymous, unfortunately.
- titzer 9y ago
  > seem almost synonymous, unfortunately. This is what I disagree with. Evolution is not a process that is maximizing anything. What survives just survives. We got stuck in a feedback loop that optimized brain size for evolutionary fitness, but we're stuck in a tiny fractal corner of a corner of a corner of the entire space of biological life. E.g. Tardigrades (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade) are extremely successful at survival in a huge variety of conditions, and very stable over millions of years without a lot of genetic drift. Similar for cockroaches. We don't consider these "pinnacles" of evolution just because of our arbitrary value system. Yet cockroaches (and all insects, really) serve extremely important jobs in ecosystems which would collapse without them. Humanism is blind and immoral, IMO.
  - tome 9y ago
    > Humanism is blind and immoral That's a judgement that a human can make only because our species reached the pinnacle of evolution.
    - nkrisc 9y ago
      I assume by "pinnacle of evulution" you mean the currently most successful species in terrestrial ecosystem on the planet Earth. Surely there is no "pinnacle" to all of evolution, whatever that would even mean. You seem to be implying that evolution is a process with some ideal, perfect outcome that can be achieved, or you're just being sarcastic. I can't tell but both are silly.
      - tome 9y ago
        I didn't introduce the word "pinnacle" to this debate, titzer did. I just thought it was ironic that he/she was using his/her moral judgement to criticize the human species in such a way.
        titzer 9y ago
        I introduced it as a strawman, just trying to be terse. You embraced it to say that we must be at some kind of pinnacle to be able to make moral judgments. I started by pointing out facts; despite the perjorative term "bastards", it's pretty undeniable that humans have pretty much decimated every other form of life that is either a competitor or not a domesticated food source. As for "blind", that's not a moral judgment, whereas "immoral" clearly is. I admitted that both are my opinion, not fact.
        airstrike 9y ago
        Of all the species mentioned in this thread, only one can sit in front of a computer and type out their opinions about evolution. So, yeah, we're the pinnacle of evolution at least as far as Earth is concerned.
adrianN 9y ago
All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else. It's just that we're very good at it. On the other hand, we're also pretty much the only chance for terrestic life to survive the end of our solar system.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  There is a lot of time for better chances to come along. Depending on the estimate, we're not yet halfway through the lifetime of the sun, that's plenty of time for a more successful successor to humans. And the Earth didn't even exist for much of the first half of the sun's lifetime.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    The lack of alien contact suggests to me that technological civilizations don't appear very frequently. So I'm afraid that we're somewhat of an evolutionary aberration and if we'd go extinct a replacement wouldn't arise.
- titzer 9y ago
  > All creatures try their hardest to out-compete everything else. When we take a wider look at life, this just isn't universal. If you look at ecosystems in very stable environments (e.g. caves), the ecosystem as a whole tends to come into balance over time, where species are not aggressively try to outcompete their competitors, but instead fit into comfortable little niches so that the system as a whole keeps functioning well. In fact, evolution works on the ecosystem scale as well, and systems with aggressive species tend to be very unstable and prone to crashes. In environments with constant change, then ecosystems are constantly changing and competition becomes more fierce, benefiting aggressive species. This is not always the case, so I don't think it's useful to assume that everything is trying to move as aggressively as possible; otherwise evolution would select against species with long gestation periods and tend towards shorter generations and faster growth.
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    There isn't any particular reason to privilege caves or other "stable" habitats. This is an incomplete understanding of them, anyway. Because caves are nutrient-poor, it is common that all animals there are extremely lethargic. That is not the same as lacking aggression or competition. Cave animals strive to survive as fiercely as anything in the jungle, just at a much slower pace. If a more active predator were to be stranded in a cave, it might eat everything it can find in a week, and then starve. Within months, other animals from more remote corners of the cave would scavenge its carcass and repopulate. To visualize this, watch one of those speeded-up videos of starfish and sea urchins. At our pace, they are sedentary. At their pace, it's Thunderdome all day every day.
twodave 9y ago
As a human, I want humans to have great lives. Part of that means taking care of your things. People like to say, "The Earth doesn't belong to us, we belong to the Earth," but I would contend we are best equipped to take care of it, and it's for our own benefit. Taking ownership of the little piece of it we interact with on the daily isn't all that daunting of a task.