4 ms·

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." -Edward Abbey

by jdkee 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
tabtab 7y ago
"Humans are a cancer." -Earth
- surfmike 7y ago
  “Life is a cancer”
leetcrew 7y ago
this has always seemed to be kind of a silly quote to me. it's not untrue but it seems to imply that this is something unusual about a cancer cell. growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of life itself. I don't know of any organisms that are capable of regulating their own species's growth/consumption for long term survival (although now that I've said this, I'm sure someone will respond with the odd exception).
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  What scale do you mean? As individuals, most plants and animals will grow to a certain size, presumably an evolved optimum for their ecosystem. cf. Foster's Rule, insular dwarfism, island gigantism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule. Indeterminate growers are the exception. At the ecosystem level, some species can kind of self-regulate: eating babies or siblings, lack of food driving irregular fertility cycles, etc. And two or more species interacting, like the classic predator-prey dynamic, are usually how they regulate. Now are they consciously doing it? No, but it's arguable how consciously humans are doing The Great Contraction or our various environmental regulatory frameworks. Presumably hunter-gatherers spread when their bands would grow large enough to split, taking more resources from their range than it could support.
all_blue_chucks 7y ago
Economic growth is not "for the sake of growth;" it's for the sake of wealth.
- darkerside 7y ago
  What do you think wealth means
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    Quality of life and human agency.
    - ggm 7y ago
      Current economic wealth is implicitly dependent on asymmetric relationships! It's not win win by design. Without the assymetrical relationship wealth doesn't exist. The other one is predicated in equity but if we talk about it a bunch of suck holes go full Ayn Rand on things.
dumbfoundded 7y ago
For all we know, we're the brightest light of consciousness in the universe. (Hopefully not, feel free to prove me wrong). Expanding this consciousness seems a worthy goal. In terms of "killing" the Earth. It's not really possible for us to do (yet). We could surely kill humanity but we cannot possibly eliminate complex life from Earth. More interestingly, I think we have a burden placed upon us by our own development. It's quite likely that any complex society of our state required easily exploitable energy in the form of gas and coal. Now the reserves accessible by primitive technology are all but gone. These reserves take tens if not hundreds of millions of years to form. If humanity dies out, another intelligent species may not even have the potential to rise for a long time if ever again.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  > We could surely kill humanity but we cannot possibly eliminate complex life from Earth. Why do you think nuclear war can't do that?
  - dumbfoundded 7y ago
    The Chicxulub impactor (an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), had impact energy roughly equivalent to 100 million TSAR Bombas (50MT nuke) and the largest nuclear weapon ever denotated. The currently nuclear stockpile is about 1000x short, with some very friendly assumptions about our capabilities. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
    - guerrilla 7y ago
      Nuclear bombs aren't simply bombs releasing their energy, they would also fill the atmosphere with radioactive material. It would contaminate the entire planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout
      - dumbfoundded 7y ago
        The radioactivity still wouldn't kill all multicellular life (or even complex life). Some predict that an all-out nuclear war wouldn't even make humans go extinct. A few sources: - https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/medical/20-life-forms-that-would-survive-a-nuclear-war/ss-AAlrclJ https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/medical/20-life-forms-that-... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust - https://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm https://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." -Edward Abbey

by jdkee 7y ago

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." -Edward Abbey

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tabtab 7y ago

"Humans are a cancer." -Earth

surfmike 7y ago
“Life is a cancer”

leetcrew 7y ago

this has always seemed to be kind of a silly quote to me. it's not untrue but it seems to imply that this is something unusual about a cancer cell. growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of life itself. I don't know of any organisms that are capable of regulating their own species's growth/consumption for long term survival (although now that I've said this, I'm sure someone will respond with the odd exception).

objectivetruth 7y ago
What scale do you mean? As individuals, most plants and animals will grow to a certain size, presumably an evolved optimum for their ecosystem. cf. Foster's Rule, insular dwarfism, island gigantism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster%27s_rule. Indeterminate growers are the exception. At the ecosystem level, some species can kind of self-regulate: eating babies or siblings, lack of food driving irregular fertility cycles, etc. And two or more species interacting, like the classic predator-prey dynamic, are usually how they regulate. Now are they consciously doing it? No, but it's arguable how consciously humans are doing The Great Contraction or our various environmental regulatory frameworks. Presumably hunter-gatherers spread when their bands would grow large enough to split, taking more resources from their range than it could support.

all_blue_chucks 7y ago

Economic growth is not "for the sake of growth;" it's for the sake of wealth.

darkerside 7y ago
What do you think wealth means
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Quality of life and human agency.
  - ggm 7y ago
    Current economic wealth is implicitly dependent on asymmetric relationships! It's not win win by design. Without the assymetrical relationship wealth doesn't exist. The other one is predicated in equity but if we talk about it a bunch of suck holes go full Ayn Rand on things.

dumbfoundded 7y ago

For all we know, we're the brightest light of consciousness in the universe. (Hopefully not, feel free to prove me wrong). Expanding this consciousness seems a worthy goal. In terms of "killing" the Earth. It's not really possible for us to do (yet). We could surely kill humanity but we cannot possibly eliminate complex life from Earth. More interestingly, I think we have a burden placed upon us by our own development. It's quite likely that any complex society of our state required easily exploitable energy in the form of gas and coal. Now the reserves accessible by primitive technology are all but gone. These reserves take tens if not hundreds of millions of years to form. If humanity dies out, another intelligent species may not even have the potential to rise for a long time if ever again.

guerrilla 7y ago
> We could surely kill humanity but we cannot possibly eliminate complex life from Earth. Why do you think nuclear war can't do that?
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  The Chicxulub impactor (an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), had impact energy roughly equivalent to 100 million TSAR Bombas (50MT nuke) and the largest nuclear weapon ever denotated. The currently nuclear stockpile is about 1000x short, with some very friendly assumptions about our capabilities. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    Nuclear bombs aren't simply bombs releasing their energy, they would also fill the atmosphere with radioactive material. It would contaminate the entire planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout
    - dumbfoundded 7y ago
      The radioactivity still wouldn't kill all multicellular life (or even complex life). Some predict that an all-out nuclear war wouldn't even make humans go extinct. A few sources: - https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/medical/20-life-forms-that-would-survive-a-nuclear-war/ss-AAlrclJ https://www.msn.com/en-in/health/medical/20-life-forms-that-... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust - https://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm https://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]