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>This peaceful scene is an endless orgy of violence, death, and deceit as living things work constantly against one another. That's part of the harmony. Harmon

>This peaceful scene is an endless orgy of violence, death, and deceit as living things work constantly against one another. That's part of the harmony. Harmony ends when one of these organism takes over, it destroys the entire ecology and in the process it ultimately destroys itself.

hannasanarion 8y ago
You mean like the untold number of bacterial and viral infections with the ability to kill their hosts? Plenty of animals and plants alter their environment to the detrinent of others. Trees are tall and shady in order to reduce the sunlight in the environment and starve nearby plants to death at absurd individual expense: it takes a lot of nutrients to make those trunks that serve no purpose other than spite. Beavers construct big dams to turn meadows into swampland, often clearing out the local plant life. I know from personal experience that operating a large farm in a wooded area is a constant battle of construction and destruction against the beavers. Yeah, humans are better at altering the environment than most everything else, but altering the environment at the expense of other life is hardly unnatural.
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  > Plenty of animals and plants alter their environment to the detriment of others. Definite case in point: photosynthesizing organisms (green plants, algae, etc.) We know that the Earth had a large-scale anaerobic ecosystem before the advent of photosynthesis. While anaerobic organisms still exist, they're only found in very narrow niches. >99% of them were wiped out, root and branch, apparently killed off by rising oxygen levels (oxygen is a poison to them).
Lazeb 8y ago
This cycle of "harmony" is futile and not a constant state that would exist without humans, unless any organism within that cycle recognises that it's simply an evolutionary race to the top as we have, with the reward being dominion over their respective territory. Only until some cosmic entity comes and ends it, or an extinction event occurs, putting the slate clean again for any traces of life left to begin the evolutionary race, repeating until that harmonious life as we see it can no longer exist. The answer is obvious conservation until we as a species are immune to single planitary extinctions, but the romanticised view of our worlds ecology as some living entity, rather than a number of organisms interacting independently and adapting doesn't give a clear objective of what we should be doing and more importantly why.
nkrisc 8y ago
Why must anything be harmonious? Why do you think there's any one way "nature" is supposed to be. Natural is as natural does. Everything we do is part of the natural process of the universe. Wiping out all life on Earth or increasing biodiversity and everything in between are all perfectly valid outcomes because there is no intended course or outcome.
- orthecreedence 8y ago
  > Why must [nature] be harmonious? Because if it's not harmonius is collapses. And we all die. But yes, there's no real reason for it to be harmonius, just like there's no real reason humans (or any other life form on Earth) need to exist.

hannasanarion 8y ago

You mean like the untold number of bacterial and viral infections with the ability to kill their hosts? Plenty of animals and plants alter their environment to the detrinent of others. Trees are tall and shady in order to reduce the sunlight in the environment and starve nearby plants to death at absurd individual expense: it takes a lot of nutrients to make those trunks that serve no purpose other than spite. Beavers construct big dams to turn meadows into swampland, often clearing out the local plant life. I know from personal experience that operating a large farm in a wooded area is a constant battle of construction and destruction against the beavers. Yeah, humans are better at altering the environment than most everything else, but altering the environment at the expense of other life is hardly unnatural.

Turing_Machine 8y ago
> Plenty of animals and plants alter their environment to the detriment of others. Definite case in point: photosynthesizing organisms (green plants, algae, etc.) We know that the Earth had a large-scale anaerobic ecosystem before the advent of photosynthesis. While anaerobic organisms still exist, they're only found in very narrow niches. >99% of them were wiped out, root and branch, apparently killed off by rising oxygen levels (oxygen is a poison to them).

Lazeb 8y ago

This cycle of "harmony" is futile and not a constant state that would exist without humans, unless any organism within that cycle recognises that it's simply an evolutionary race to the top as we have, with the reward being dominion over their respective territory. Only until some cosmic entity comes and ends it, or an extinction event occurs, putting the slate clean again for any traces of life left to begin the evolutionary race, repeating until that harmonious life as we see it can no longer exist. The answer is obvious conservation until we as a species are immune to single planitary extinctions, but the romanticised view of our worlds ecology as some living entity, rather than a number of organisms interacting independently and adapting doesn't give a clear objective of what we should be doing and more importantly why.

nkrisc 8y ago

Why must anything be harmonious? Why do you think there's any one way "nature" is supposed to be. Natural is as natural does. Everything we do is part of the natural process of the universe. Wiping out all life on Earth or increasing biodiversity and everything in between are all perfectly valid outcomes because there is no intended course or outcome.

orthecreedence 8y ago
> Why must [nature] be harmonious? Because if it's not harmonius is collapses. And we all die. But yes, there's no real reason for it to be harmonius, just like there's no real reason humans (or any other life form on Earth) need to exist.