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Nevertheless, the ecology you describe has sense of harmony in the way it is self balancing; humans are quite anomalous in that respect. In nature a species po

by tomxor 8y ago

Nevertheless, the ecology you describe has sense of harmony in the way it is self balancing; humans are quite anomalous in that respect. In nature a species population usually self correct and balance through either becoming prey or resource depletion (their prey). We can too easily protect ourselves from any potential natural predators (technology) and have found more and more ways to exploit the earth to allow unsustainable growth (technology). Modern humans are quite unbalanced and inharmonious... This point of view is also interesting when considering our predecessors, tribes who lived in the forests, not Mayan civilisation or whatever, but tribes, they leave no trace because everything they take or make is of the forest and goes back into the ground just like every other part of the ecosystem - they were the only harmonious humans and there still are small numbers of tribes who live like this.

taneq 8y ago
> Nevertheless, the ecology you describe has sense of harmony in the way it is self balancing; humans are quite anomalous in that respect. I don't think so, on any long time scale. We just think it's in perfect harmonious balance because we've only been observing it for a the blink of a gnat's eye. Longer time scales are an endless succession boom and bust as some creatures fail and dying, others succeed and breed out of control until they wipe others out (and eventually themselves). The view that nature is somehow wise and benevolent is only possible for us at all because we've won the game so thoroughly that nature, almost never happens /to/ us.
- tomxor 8y ago
  > I don't think so, on any long time scale. We just think it's in perfect harmonious balance because we've only been observing it for a the blink of a gnat's eye I didn't say it was perfect, on the contrary all of the models used to describe ecological systems exhibit some degree of chaos, but the important part is they are periodic, they all oscillate in some way and eventually recover one way or another - I suppose you could argue humans just haven't reached some tipping point yet, we haven't completed "one period", but unlike other species we keep inventing ways to escape that. This is the difference I'm pointing out, I thought it was pretty obvious. > The view that nature is somehow wise and benevolent is only possible for us at all because we've won the game so thoroughly that nature, almost never happens /to/ us. I realise that by mentioning tribes and forests I seem to have tripped some "save the world" alarms, to clarify that is what I intended to imply - i'm not an environmentalist. Your statement is not my view, I don't think nature is benevolent, nature is nature its neutral and of course we are part of it, but it's not exactly hard to argue that humans stick out like a sore thumb from the rest, we are in the position of resource depletion in classic models but we really take it up a few orders of magnitude in severity because we have so many tricks to exploit the system.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
Around 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria caused the Oxygen Catastrophe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event) and is generally regarded to have killed off nearly all life, as well as triggering the Huronian glaciation lasting some 300 million years. We are not unique in our ability to overwhelm ecosystems. It's true that as intelligent life we should be far, far more aware of our actions.
- tomxor 8y ago
  > We are not unique in our ability to overwhelm ecosystems. We are not unique in that respect, but we are unique magnitude and consistency, we aren't an "event" like others, we are an adaptive species.
  - fiter 8y ago
    The cyanobacteria literally terraformed thr planet so that it's habitable animal life. If only we could do the same!
JackFr 8y ago
Thank you for reinventing the notion of original sin. If you're going to promote religious beliefs, at least couch them in religious terms.
- tomxor 8y ago
  Sorry it's not to your taste, but i don't see how pointing out a couple of facts about how humans substantially differ to other species from an ecological perspective is religious.
  - JackFr 8y ago
    I read 'inharmonious' to be a value judgement -- I suppose it can have an objective meaning. I apologize if I misunderstood you. And yet I can't help reading your comment as if you are proscribing how things should be, rather than simply describing how they are. But again, I may be misreading you, so apologies.
    - tomxor 8y ago
      No worries, the internet makes it so easy to read things into other peoples words, i'm no exception.
Turing_Machine 8y ago
> his point of view is also interesting when considering our predecessors, tribes who lived in the forests, not Mayan civilisation or whatever, but tribes, they leave no trace because everything they take or make is of the forest and goes back into the ground just like every other part of the ecosystem - they were the only harmonious humans and there still are small numbers of tribes who live like this. No. It doesn't require civilization to do this. Virtually all of the North American megafauna were wiped out within a very short time after the first paleo-Indians arrived.

by tomxor 8y ago

taneq 8y ago

> Nevertheless, the ecology you describe has sense of harmony in the way it is self balancing; humans are quite anomalous in that respect. I don't think so, on any long time scale. We just think it's in perfect harmonious balance because we've only been observing it for a the blink of a gnat's eye. Longer time scales are an endless succession boom and bust as some creatures fail and dying, others succeed and breed out of control until they wipe others out (and eventually themselves). The view that nature is somehow wise and benevolent is only possible for us at all because we've won the game so thoroughly that nature, almost never happens /to/ us.

tomxor 8y ago
> I don't think so, on any long time scale. We just think it's in perfect harmonious balance because we've only been observing it for a the blink of a gnat's eye I didn't say it was perfect, on the contrary all of the models used to describe ecological systems exhibit some degree of chaos, but the important part is they are periodic, they all oscillate in some way and eventually recover one way or another - I suppose you could argue humans just haven't reached some tipping point yet, we haven't completed "one period", but unlike other species we keep inventing ways to escape that. This is the difference I'm pointing out, I thought it was pretty obvious. > The view that nature is somehow wise and benevolent is only possible for us at all because we've won the game so thoroughly that nature, almost never happens /to/ us. I realise that by mentioning tribes and forests I seem to have tripped some "save the world" alarms, to clarify that is what I intended to imply - i'm not an environmentalist. Your statement is not my view, I don't think nature is benevolent, nature is nature its neutral and of course we are part of it, but it's not exactly hard to argue that humans stick out like a sore thumb from the rest, we are in the position of resource depletion in classic models but we really take it up a few orders of magnitude in severity because we have so many tricks to exploit the system.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

Around 2.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria caused the Oxygen Catastrophe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event) and is generally regarded to have killed off nearly all life, as well as triggering the Huronian glaciation lasting some 300 million years. We are not unique in our ability to overwhelm ecosystems. It's true that as intelligent life we should be far, far more aware of our actions.

tomxor 8y ago
> We are not unique in our ability to overwhelm ecosystems. We are not unique in that respect, but we are unique magnitude and consistency, we aren't an "event" like others, we are an adaptive species.
- fiter 8y ago
  The cyanobacteria literally terraformed thr planet so that it's habitable animal life. If only we could do the same!

JackFr 8y ago

Thank you for reinventing the notion of original sin. If you're going to promote religious beliefs, at least couch them in religious terms.

tomxor 8y ago
Sorry it's not to your taste, but i don't see how pointing out a couple of facts about how humans substantially differ to other species from an ecological perspective is religious.
- JackFr 8y ago
  I read 'inharmonious' to be a value judgement -- I suppose it can have an objective meaning. I apologize if I misunderstood you. And yet I can't help reading your comment as if you are proscribing how things should be, rather than simply describing how they are. But again, I may be misreading you, so apologies.
  - tomxor 8y ago
    No worries, the internet makes it so easy to read things into other peoples words, i'm no exception.

Turing_Machine 8y ago

> his point of view is also interesting when considering our predecessors, tribes who lived in the forests, not Mayan civilisation or whatever, but tribes, they leave no trace because everything they take or make is of the forest and goes back into the ground just like every other part of the ecosystem - they were the only harmonious humans and there still are small numbers of tribes who live like this. No. It doesn't require civilization to do this. Virtually all of the North American megafauna were wiped out within a very short time after the first paleo-Indians arrived.