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I get the desire to stay humble. This feels like splitting hairs though. You would say it's not humans, but human culture that is causing global extinction eve

I get the desire to stay humble. This feels like splitting hairs though. You would say it's not humans, but human culture that is causing global extinction event? Well, okay. In any case, you may find the book 'Sapiens' interesting. It argues that the fundamental change that caused sapiens to dominate all other life is our ability to abstract and conceptualize.

wombatmobile 6y ago
> the fundamental change that caused sapiens to dominate all other life Are you sure that has happened? Do humans dominate insects, fungi, and bacteria? Do humans dominate the biomass of Earth? If you limited the scope of your remark to mammals, fish, reptile and birds, I would understand what you are saying. Humans have excelled at habitat destruction. Still, I would point out that the "domination" of which you speak is less than 300 years in duration, with no certainty to last beyond 500 years.
- abandonliberty 6y ago
  >Do humans dominate insects, fungi, and bacteria? Yes, we do. https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-dont-forget-the-microbes/ https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/when-it-comes-to-climat... https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/we-crush-poison-and-destroy-insects-at-our-own-peril https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/we-crush-poison-and-destro... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2021/01/we-havent-seen-quarter-of-known-bee-species-since-1990s/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2021/01/we-havent... >Do humans dominate the biomass of Earth? Yes, we do. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 "the total plant biomass (and, by proxy, the total biomass on Earth) has declined approximately twofold relative to its value before the start of human civilization. " >Still, I would point out that the "domination" of which you speak is less than 300 years in duration, with no certainty to last beyond 500 years. The Cambrian explosion happened 500 million years ago. Photosynthesis is projected to last another 600. We've used all easily available complex elements, and extracted much more. It will all oxidize once were are gone, and it will not regenerate in this time period. Even if we are gone, our impact and legacy will outlive us, likely ensuring we are the last advanced civilization this world will produce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#:~:text=However,%20C4%20carbon%20fixation,will%20make%20the%20biosphere%20unsustainable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#:~:text=Howeve.... We dominate. Arguments to the contrary seem to be an attempt to avoid responsibility.
  - wombatmobile 6y ago
    > Arguments to the contrary seem to be an attempt to avoid responsibility. Avoid responsibility? For what?
patcon 6y ago
> This feels like splitting hairs though. Respectfully, it doesn't feel like splitting hairs to me... but quite a significant frame-shift. (Defensive credentializing: I'm a former biochemist and now technologist and event facilitator, with a fascination for the always-evolving fields of social physics & complexity science.) I'm increasingly a believer in something called the Leiden Theory of Language, or Symbiosism: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316665359_Symbiosism_Symbiomism_and_the_perils_of_memetic_management https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316665359_Symbiosis... This theory proposes that language is a separate strata of organism/information that co-evolved with the host biology of the human mind. i.e. We're unique not because we're simply "the smartest biology", but rather, we're more like a cyborg of two organisms, one biological and one semiotic. As a assemblage, we have vastly overrepresented dominance of the semiotic organism compared to other creatures who host very primitive semiotic organisms. In this frame, humans can be conceptualized as individuals, but alternatively as simply hosts to the mind, which functions as the replication machinery of the larger social organism that takes shape between minds in the strata above (organizations, nations, culture). I'm still chewing on all this stuff, mind you :) And thank you for the recommendation -- I really need to pick up that book!
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  It is debatable whether "the fundamental change that caused sapiens to dominate all other life" i.e. "our ability to abstract and conceptualize" is unique to humans. Cat's and dogs abstract and conceptualise. So do crows and whales. But more than that, before you get too carried away with the importance of this "fundamental change", consider the possibility that the ability to "abstract and conceptualise" doesn't yield a "fundamental change" at all. How can that be? Consider the ends to which all this abstract thought is being applied. Why do humans spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours buying and applying makeup to their faces? Why do humans spend thousands of hours in the studio creating the latest dance music hits? Why do humans buy the biggest, fastest cars? Why do humans spend weeks comparing and assessing home insulation materials from multiple vendors? Why do humans spend thousands of years developing steel making traditions that result in the finest weaponry? Why do humans use google maps navigation? Are humans, with all their advanced skills at abstraction and conceptualisation, and vocabulary and communication sophistication, doing anything that birds and bees and whales and cows aren't already doing? All us animals are just waking up every day, checking on the kids, going to work, getting hungry, fixing lunch, getting horny, feeling frustrated, lashing out, seeking to impress, preening our feathers, and, from time to time, thanking our lucky stars. What else can we do? Technology doesn't change that. It just gives us different ways to do the same things we and other animals have been doing since the dawn of life on earth.

wombatmobile 6y ago

> the fundamental change that caused sapiens to dominate all other life Are you sure that has happened? Do humans dominate insects, fungi, and bacteria? Do humans dominate the biomass of Earth? If you limited the scope of your remark to mammals, fish, reptile and birds, I would understand what you are saying. Humans have excelled at habitat destruction. Still, I would point out that the "domination" of which you speak is less than 300 years in duration, with no certainty to last beyond 500 years.

abandonliberty 6y ago
>Do humans dominate insects, fungi, and bacteria? Yes, we do. https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-dont-forget-the-microbes/ https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/when-it-comes-to-climat... https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/we-crush-poison-and-destroy-insects-at-our-own-peril https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/we-crush-poison-and-destro... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2021/01/we-havent-seen-quarter-of-known-bee-species-since-1990s/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2021/01/we-havent... >Do humans dominate the biomass of Earth? Yes, we do. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 https://www.pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 "the total plant biomass (and, by proxy, the total biomass on Earth) has declined approximately twofold relative to its value before the start of human civilization. " >Still, I would point out that the "domination" of which you speak is less than 300 years in duration, with no certainty to last beyond 500 years. The Cambrian explosion happened 500 million years ago. Photosynthesis is projected to last another 600. We've used all easily available complex elements, and extracted much more. It will all oxidize once were are gone, and it will not regenerate in this time period. Even if we are gone, our impact and legacy will outlive us, likely ensuring we are the last advanced civilization this world will produce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#:~:text=However,%20C4%20carbon%20fixation,will%20make%20the%20biosphere%20unsustainable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth#:~:text=Howeve.... We dominate. Arguments to the contrary seem to be an attempt to avoid responsibility.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  > Arguments to the contrary seem to be an attempt to avoid responsibility. Avoid responsibility? For what?

patcon 6y ago

> This feels like splitting hairs though. Respectfully, it doesn't feel like splitting hairs to me... but quite a significant frame-shift. (Defensive credentializing: I'm a former biochemist and now technologist and event facilitator, with a fascination for the always-evolving fields of social physics & complexity science.) I'm increasingly a believer in something called the Leiden Theory of Language, or Symbiosism: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316665359_Symbiosism_Symbiomism_and_the_perils_of_memetic_management https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316665359_Symbiosis... This theory proposes that language is a separate strata of organism/information that co-evolved with the host biology of the human mind. i.e. We're unique not because we're simply "the smartest biology", but rather, we're more like a cyborg of two organisms, one biological and one semiotic. As a assemblage, we have vastly overrepresented dominance of the semiotic organism compared to other creatures who host very primitive semiotic organisms. In this frame, humans can be conceptualized as individuals, but alternatively as simply hosts to the mind, which functions as the replication machinery of the larger social organism that takes shape between minds in the strata above (organizations, nations, culture). I'm still chewing on all this stuff, mind you :) And thank you for the recommendation -- I really need to pick up that book!

wombatmobile 6y ago
It is debatable whether "the fundamental change that caused sapiens to dominate all other life" i.e. "our ability to abstract and conceptualize" is unique to humans. Cat's and dogs abstract and conceptualise. So do crows and whales. But more than that, before you get too carried away with the importance of this "fundamental change", consider the possibility that the ability to "abstract and conceptualise" doesn't yield a "fundamental change" at all. How can that be? Consider the ends to which all this abstract thought is being applied. Why do humans spend hundreds of dollars and countless hours buying and applying makeup to their faces? Why do humans spend thousands of hours in the studio creating the latest dance music hits? Why do humans buy the biggest, fastest cars? Why do humans spend weeks comparing and assessing home insulation materials from multiple vendors? Why do humans spend thousands of years developing steel making traditions that result in the finest weaponry? Why do humans use google maps navigation? Are humans, with all their advanced skills at abstraction and conceptualisation, and vocabulary and communication sophistication, doing anything that birds and bees and whales and cows aren't already doing? All us animals are just waking up every day, checking on the kids, going to work, getting hungry, fixing lunch, getting horny, feeling frustrated, lashing out, seeking to impress, preening our feathers, and, from time to time, thanking our lucky stars. What else can we do? Technology doesn't change that. It just gives us different ways to do the same things we and other animals have been doing since the dawn of life on earth.