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I find it sad that the only two perspective seem to be the extreme ones: humans are either destroyers or saviors. How about the middle ground? We are part of n

I find it sad that the only two perspective seem to be the extreme ones: humans are either destroyers or saviors. How about the middle ground? We are part of nature and like any other animal we are trying to survive and make our life better. And it's not that other animals are perfectly respectful of nature either. Remove predators and herbivores will graze everything to the point of creating a wasteland and dying of starvation. Nature, as a whole, is full of equilibrium, but single species try to maximize their survival in any way possible. We are not that different. We are only conscious of what we are doing. It's not that nature is not tough on us. Everything out there is trying to kill us. Nature provides our sustaining, but it's also harsh, something we don't seem to appreciate from our lives in safer-than-normal cities, with always available food, heating, transportation, medicine. I think the best perspective is aknowledging that we can have an adverse impact on the environment, and try to address it, istead of hating our own species as if it was a disease.

nikofeyn 7y ago
> Nature, as a whole, is full of equilibrium, but single species try to maximize their survival in any way possible. We are not that different. except we don’t really just maximize our survival. if we did or had the capacity to, we would do things much differently. instead we go well beyond just simply trying to survive. and yes, other ecosystems’ balance can be upset but that is usually due to human influence in the first place. we are different in our behavior.
- jonfw 7y ago
  Maximizing survival goes beyond "simply just trying to survive" What we are trying to do is accomplish our goals we have for our short lifetime. We are certainly not the only species in the world who does things for pleasure that aren't neccessary for our survival. > but that is usually due to human influence in the first place That all depends on perspective. If you look at a big enough time frame- humans can be considered almost irrelevant.
  - nikofeyn 7y ago
    > We are certainly not the only species in the world who does things for pleasure that aren't neccessary for our survival. no, we’re not, but we are the only ones who so to the detriment of entire (and numerous) species and ecosystems. for example, we are starving and poisoning after we decimated and traumatized the population decades ago of southern resident orcas. however, we have abstracted our survival and pleasure mechanisms so much that we see this and other such scenarios as an inevitable or unavoidable byproducts. > That all depends on perspective. If you look at a big enough time frame- humans can be considered almost irrelevant. that’s a rather silly statement. what is your point? of course if you “zoom” out far enough, nearly everything becomes irrelevant. but with any timescale important to species and ecosystems, humans are certainly relevant and completely detrimental.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      > no, we’re not, but we are the only ones who so to the detriment of entire (and numerous) species and ecosystems That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. Have you considered that every time this happens (e.g. a new predator crossing a new land bridge) it completely wipes out entire species?
      - nikofeyn 7y ago
        if it's extraordinary, can you provide evidence otherwise? can you provide examples of any other species that has wiped out entire species, multitudes of species, and at increasing rates? i didn't list any because i don't know of any.
        CDSlice 7y ago
        Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis[1] has. It has wiped out dozens of species of frogs and affects about 30% of amphibians world wide. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis
        7y ago
mikestew 7y ago
Nature, as a whole, is full of equilibrium, but single species try to maximize their survival in any way possible. We are not that different. We are only conscious of what we are doing. Someone fucking up the environment to garner an extra $100K or two on that annual bonus isn't doing it for survival. Wolves aren't taking down entire herds of deer they'll never eat so that they can say they have more rotting deer meat than the other wolf packs. Domestic house cats are the only animals that I can think of that demonstrate such behavior, with the modifier "domestic" being emphasised; i. e., we made them like us. (Yeah, that last bit is a stretch.) I'm sure there exist other species that hoard, just because...well, we can't be the only ones. But we're the ones with the mechanized means to do at destructive scale.
- c048 7y ago
  You are wrong, there have been plenty observation of pointless killing across multiple other species. Look up surplus killing. We only differ in that we are far more effective compared to other animals. In addition, we've also shown to be capable of far more empathy towards others of our own race and others, compared to any other species out there. The simple truth is that if any other species had the destructive potential that we have, they would simply exterminate themselves without ever questioning their actions. So don't be so damn vindictive of humans when comparing us to animals.
- kortilla 7y ago
  > Someone fucking up the environment to garner an extra $100K or two on that annual bonus Nobody gets paid just to fuck up the environment. They get paid to increase sales or whatever and the consumers are buying their shit to help them survive in one form or another.
- kipchak 7y ago
  Squirrels and birds seem to have a selected desire to horde nuts in a similar way to people hoarding extra resources for lean times. Cache Spacing or having various hordes of food spaced around in hidden locations seems like a rough analogy for having various Swiss bank accounts and the like. Ravens in particular are clever and will deceive potential raiders by moving caches, and raiders will try and appear disinterested. As an aside cats are slightly odd for domestic animals as they're arguably semi-domesticated versus dogs or farm animals. African Wildcats look and act a lot like house cats in videos and are genetically similar, which I think is part of what makes them fun as pets. https://www.livescience.com/53571-suspicious-ravens-detect-thieves.html https://www.livescience.com/53571-suspicious-ravens-detect-t... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4260561/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4260561/
throwaway5752 7y ago
You're trying to rationalize it (understandably). There is a word for what we've done, and it's the Holocene mass extinction. Locust are part of nature, as are elephants. Locusts eat everything and then all die. Elephants slowly reach the carrying capacity of their environment. There is also a word for that each type of reproduction strategy: locusts with exponential growth are r-strategists, elephants with logistic curve growth are K-strategists. r/K is slightly dated and it's not completely binary, but there is truth to it. And humans, because of technology, have all the population dynamics of a r-strategist. We have the collective intelligence to observe this, but not to act on it. Even though they are part of nature, the life of r-strategists individuals is brutal and short. And a locust swarm can be highly detrimental to life in their area. Since we are ubiquitous and the world dominant species by far, we are very, very badly harming biodiversity and it only has the chance to get worse. I'm glad you are finding peace, but you definitely have the possibility of dying from global warming direct (famine) or secondary effects (war) in what would otherwise be your lifetime, as does everyone under the age of 50. That is perfectly natural and in tune with nature. Nature is brutal and amoral.
- lazyjones 7y ago
  I don't understand how you can begin with a somewhat rational argument about overpopulation and then jump to the completely irrational conclusion that for some reason global warming (as a root cause) will kill us, rather than overpopulation. Do you really think like that, or are you just trolling?
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    I'm not trolling, it's not like overpopulation directly will kill us. Overpopulation is relative to the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. Global warming will reduce the carrying capacity of the world vis a vis human population faster than we can adapt to it (migration, crop changes, etc). The end result is jump discontinuities in populations, which is really just a polite/scientific way of talking of really significant numbers of people starving to death or killing each other over limited food and water resources. edit: and to be clear, I view this as a problem for us, the current generation, not a future problem. I am personally taking small but real steps to prepare for this, right now.
moultano 7y ago
We're gardeners, and the whole earth is our garden. We aren't separate from the environment, it is our garden to manage, and to decide how beautiful or barren we want it to be. Every landscape on earth has been indelibly shaped by human beings, often before we were even aware of "humanity" or "the earth" as a concept in total. Some think even the amazon may have been in large part planted by us. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untouched-amazonian-rainforest-was-actually-shaped-humans-180962378/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untou... There is no pristine ideal of the environment to return to, or to preserve. But our impact is so large now that we can no longer afford to have it all be accidental. We have to be very deliberate now about how we want the earth to be.
chapium 7y ago
Humans have unsafe defaults.

nikofeyn 7y ago

> Nature, as a whole, is full of equilibrium, but single species try to maximize their survival in any way possible. We are not that different. except we don’t really just maximize our survival. if we did or had the capacity to, we would do things much differently. instead we go well beyond just simply trying to survive. and yes, other ecosystems’ balance can be upset but that is usually due to human influence in the first place. we are different in our behavior.

jonfw 7y ago
Maximizing survival goes beyond "simply just trying to survive" What we are trying to do is accomplish our goals we have for our short lifetime. We are certainly not the only species in the world who does things for pleasure that aren't neccessary for our survival. > but that is usually due to human influence in the first place That all depends on perspective. If you look at a big enough time frame- humans can be considered almost irrelevant.
- nikofeyn 7y ago
  > We are certainly not the only species in the world who does things for pleasure that aren't neccessary for our survival. no, we’re not, but we are the only ones who so to the detriment of entire (and numerous) species and ecosystems. for example, we are starving and poisoning after we decimated and traumatized the population decades ago of southern resident orcas. however, we have abstracted our survival and pleasure mechanisms so much that we see this and other such scenarios as an inevitable or unavoidable byproducts. > That all depends on perspective. If you look at a big enough time frame- humans can be considered almost irrelevant. that’s a rather silly statement. what is your point? of course if you “zoom” out far enough, nearly everything becomes irrelevant. but with any timescale important to species and ecosystems, humans are certainly relevant and completely detrimental.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    > no, we’re not, but we are the only ones who so to the detriment of entire (and numerous) species and ecosystems That’s a pretty extraordinary claim. Have you considered that every time this happens (e.g. a new predator crossing a new land bridge) it completely wipes out entire species?
    - nikofeyn 7y ago
      if it's extraordinary, can you provide evidence otherwise? can you provide examples of any other species that has wiped out entire species, multitudes of species, and at increasing rates? i didn't list any because i don't know of any.
      - CDSlice 7y ago
        Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis[1] has. It has wiped out dozens of species of frogs and affects about 30% of amphibians world wide. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis
        7y ago

mikestew 7y ago

Nature, as a whole, is full of equilibrium, but single species try to maximize their survival in any way possible. We are not that different. We are only conscious of what we are doing. Someone fucking up the environment to garner an extra $100K or two on that annual bonus isn't doing it for survival. Wolves aren't taking down entire herds of deer they'll never eat so that they can say they have more rotting deer meat than the other wolf packs. Domestic house cats are the only animals that I can think of that demonstrate such behavior, with the modifier "domestic" being emphasised; i. e., we made them like us. (Yeah, that last bit is a stretch.) I'm sure there exist other species that hoard, just because...well, we can't be the only ones. But we're the ones with the mechanized means to do at destructive scale.

c048 7y ago
You are wrong, there have been plenty observation of pointless killing across multiple other species. Look up surplus killing. We only differ in that we are far more effective compared to other animals. In addition, we've also shown to be capable of far more empathy towards others of our own race and others, compared to any other species out there. The simple truth is that if any other species had the destructive potential that we have, they would simply exterminate themselves without ever questioning their actions. So don't be so damn vindictive of humans when comparing us to animals.
kortilla 7y ago
> Someone fucking up the environment to garner an extra $100K or two on that annual bonus Nobody gets paid just to fuck up the environment. They get paid to increase sales or whatever and the consumers are buying their shit to help them survive in one form or another.
kipchak 7y ago
Squirrels and birds seem to have a selected desire to horde nuts in a similar way to people hoarding extra resources for lean times. Cache Spacing or having various hordes of food spaced around in hidden locations seems like a rough analogy for having various Swiss bank accounts and the like. Ravens in particular are clever and will deceive potential raiders by moving caches, and raiders will try and appear disinterested. As an aside cats are slightly odd for domestic animals as they're arguably semi-domesticated versus dogs or farm animals. African Wildcats look and act a lot like house cats in videos and are genetically similar, which I think is part of what makes them fun as pets. https://www.livescience.com/53571-suspicious-ravens-detect-thieves.html https://www.livescience.com/53571-suspicious-ravens-detect-t... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4260561/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4260561/

throwaway5752 7y ago

You're trying to rationalize it (understandably). There is a word for what we've done, and it's the Holocene mass extinction. Locust are part of nature, as are elephants. Locusts eat everything and then all die. Elephants slowly reach the carrying capacity of their environment. There is also a word for that each type of reproduction strategy: locusts with exponential growth are r-strategists, elephants with logistic curve growth are K-strategists. r/K is slightly dated and it's not completely binary, but there is truth to it. And humans, because of technology, have all the population dynamics of a r-strategist. We have the collective intelligence to observe this, but not to act on it. Even though they are part of nature, the life of r-strategists individuals is brutal and short. And a locust swarm can be highly detrimental to life in their area. Since we are ubiquitous and the world dominant species by far, we are very, very badly harming biodiversity and it only has the chance to get worse. I'm glad you are finding peace, but you definitely have the possibility of dying from global warming direct (famine) or secondary effects (war) in what would otherwise be your lifetime, as does everyone under the age of 50. That is perfectly natural and in tune with nature. Nature is brutal and amoral.

lazyjones 7y ago
I don't understand how you can begin with a somewhat rational argument about overpopulation and then jump to the completely irrational conclusion that for some reason global warming (as a root cause) will kill us, rather than overpopulation. Do you really think like that, or are you just trolling?
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  I'm not trolling, it's not like overpopulation directly will kill us. Overpopulation is relative to the carrying capacity of an ecosystem. Global warming will reduce the carrying capacity of the world vis a vis human population faster than we can adapt to it (migration, crop changes, etc). The end result is jump discontinuities in populations, which is really just a polite/scientific way of talking of really significant numbers of people starving to death or killing each other over limited food and water resources. edit: and to be clear, I view this as a problem for us, the current generation, not a future problem. I am personally taking small but real steps to prepare for this, right now.

moultano 7y ago

We're gardeners, and the whole earth is our garden. We aren't separate from the environment, it is our garden to manage, and to decide how beautiful or barren we want it to be. Every landscape on earth has been indelibly shaped by human beings, often before we were even aware of "humanity" or "the earth" as a concept in total. Some think even the amazon may have been in large part planted by us. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untouched-amazonian-rainforest-was-actually-shaped-humans-180962378/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/pristine-untou... There is no pristine ideal of the environment to return to, or to preserve. But our impact is so large now that we can no longer afford to have it all be accidental. We have to be very deliberate now about how we want the earth to be.

chapium 7y ago

Humans have unsafe defaults.