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I'd go a step further and say that technology is nature. Humans just represent another way for nature to enhance the permutation of new possibilities. For thous

I'd go a step further and say that technology is nature. Humans just represent another way for nature to enhance the permutation of new possibilities. For thousands of years, we acted like the animal analogue to the fungal mattes that had terraformed the continental landmasses to become livable by plants hundreds of millions of years ago. Everywhere we went, we planted intricately organised forests of different plant species that then aided an enhanced biodiversity of the fauna too. It's only recently in our history that humans have turned from a proliferator of biodiversity to a poison for it.

ninkendo 5y ago
Humans have always been a disaster for the environment they move into. We drove mammoths to extinction over 10,000 years ago. Australia used to have large numbers of megafauna species which the aborigines killed off tens of thousands of years ago. Humans would use fire to burn their prey out of hiding (and destroying their habitat in the process), then just move off to the next habitat once everything was burned up. Humans being a destructive force to the ecosystems we depend on is definitely not a new thing.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  That humans had a major role in the extinction of wooly mammoths is likely correct. However this cannot be said for the megafauna in Australia: https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-australians-co-existed-with-the-megafauna-for-at-least-17-000-years-70589 https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-australians-co-existe... Our propensity to blame past extinctions on humans often has more to do with projecting our own civilisation's tendancies at destruction than some immutable fact about human nature. Mammoths also tended to live in areas of relatively low biodiversity such as the artic and tundra anyway so this does not contradict my point that historically humans have caused increases in the biodiversity in their local ecologies. There is substantial evidence that the Amazon rainforest for instance was at least in part cultivated: https://www.voanews.com/a/amazon-rainforest-ancient-people-cultivated-trees/3747940.html https://www.voanews.com/a/amazon-rainforest-ancient-people-c...

ninkendo 5y ago

Humans have always been a disaster for the environment they move into. We drove mammoths to extinction over 10,000 years ago. Australia used to have large numbers of megafauna species which the aborigines killed off tens of thousands of years ago. Humans would use fire to burn their prey out of hiding (and destroying their habitat in the process), then just move off to the next habitat once everything was burned up. Humans being a destructive force to the ecosystems we depend on is definitely not a new thing.

vimacs2 5y ago
That humans had a major role in the extinction of wooly mammoths is likely correct. However this cannot be said for the megafauna in Australia: https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-australians-co-existed-with-the-megafauna-for-at-least-17-000-years-70589 https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-australians-co-existe... Our propensity to blame past extinctions on humans often has more to do with projecting our own civilisation's tendancies at destruction than some immutable fact about human nature. Mammoths also tended to live in areas of relatively low biodiversity such as the artic and tundra anyway so this does not contradict my point that historically humans have caused increases in the biodiversity in their local ecologies. There is substantial evidence that the Amazon rainforest for instance was at least in part cultivated: https://www.voanews.com/a/amazon-rainforest-ancient-people-cultivated-trees/3747940.html https://www.voanews.com/a/amazon-rainforest-ancient-people-c...