4 ms·

The very act of living is a war against entropy. It wants our motion to cease. All the other animals want our food. Many of them want our flesh. Plant viruses

The very act of living is a war against entropy. It wants our motion to cease. All the other animals want our food. Many of them want our flesh. Plant viruses destroy our crops. Locusts will starve human children to death. We are absolutely at war. A trillion parasites want our blood: hookworms, ticks, mosquitoes, you name it. We destroyed smallpox for ourselves, but we also eradicated rinderpest to the benefit of a great many large animals (deer, giraffes, goats, cows, etc). We never started a Save the Hookworm campaign for good reason. We will wipe those fuckers out eventually. We don't even have to worry about our children being eaten by wolves in most forests now... because we killed most of the wolves. A fairy tale ending. So yeah, we're at war and always will be. Let's kill HIV next.

liveoneggs 4y ago
when we kill all of the external threats we can turn on each other and meat will be plentiful, if not familiar
mrpopo 4y ago
Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone because elk populations grew so large that they unbalanced the local ecosystem (overgrazing). Ecosystems are not "at war" with us. Parts of it are beneficial to us, parts of it are not. We cannot simply exterminate the parts we don't like because they are all intertwined. Of course, it doesn't mean that we should breed hookworms within us and spread HIV for the sake of it, but treating it as a war is a bit ignorant of how ecosystems work.
- PostOnce 4y ago
  We were naked, starving hunter-gatherers once. Hyenas preyed on us. We struggled to find wild plants and animals to eat to survive. The ecosystem could support only a few of us, only so many food-plants could grow in such and such an area. Then, we learned to grow crops. Then, we learned to control and even eradicate pests to our crops. We bred the plants and animals to suit our needs and wants, to make not just more food but tastier food. We can, we have, and we will continue to transcend "the ecosystem" when it suits us. We will bend it not just to our needs, but to our desires. We will have dominion over it, and we will have delicious sweet corn on the cob instead of bitter grass seed, and we won't share it with the locusts and crop viruses.
  - mrpopo 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - myshpa 4y ago
    Can we transcend the ecosystem ad infinitum? > We were naked, starving hunter-gatherers once. Hyenas preyed on us. We struggled to find wild plants and animals to eat to survive. Until we killed all mammoths and almost all of megafauna. > The ecosystem could support only a few of us, only so many food-plants could grow in such and such an area. > Then, we learned to grow crops. And burned out large swaths of land for grazing land, maybe created the deserts of today with fire, deforestation & overgrazing. What happens when we cut down the last tree standing and plant the last piece of land with corn? We already have more land for meat/dairy production, than we have forests? [0] > Then, we learned to control and even eradicate pests to our crops. What happens when we kill the last 20% remaining bugs remaining in the world? How many more percent can we exterminate with our "control" of its population before some critical processes start failing? [1] > we will continue to transcend "the ecosystem" when it suits us. We will bend it not just to our needs, but to our desires. We will have dominion over it, and we will have delicious sweet corn on the cob instead of bitter grass seed, and we won't share it with the locusts and crop viruses What happens when we fish out beyond the critical mass of fish out of oceans, that only thing living there will be jellyfish (90% of sharks already gone because of by-kill and overfishing) [2] How many wild animals can we replace with farm animals until we throw the nature out of balance too much (98% of biomass to 4% in biomass in last 100 years)? [3] How many forests can we cut down until it rains only in coastal areas, thus turning the continents into deserts? [4] Welcome to the anthropocene [5], current geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. We already have our dominion over nature. But we don't handle that responsibility well. And as you're the one talking about dominion, I have to point you to the [6]. Enjoy (engorge of) our superiority. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x971.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy [3] https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene [6] https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch
- zamalek 4y ago
  > Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Some definitely are, they are also an important source of biomass for extreme northern latitudes. Anopheles is fucking useless.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> All the other animals want our food. So do all the other people. It is a very dangerous ideology that is willing to justify any action on the notion of increased survival.
imtringued 4y ago
What? Life exists because it is the fastest way of raising entropy. Self replicating biological machines process matter much faster than geological processes. The Haber Bosch process is just a faster way of raising entropy. What we should be worried about is reaching the end too soon.
- wutbrodo 4y ago
  You're misunderstanding either the parent comment or how entropy works. An organism is not a closed system, and thus isn't bound by any law of increasing entropy. In fact, life is practically _defined_ by maintaining local entropy (at the cost of the entropy of the systems it interacts with), as in Schrodinger's seminal work, "What is Life". The parent comment's claim that "life is a war against entropy" is completely in line with this model.

liveoneggs 4y ago

when we kill all of the external threats we can turn on each other and meat will be plentiful, if not familiar

mrpopo 4y ago

Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone because elk populations grew so large that they unbalanced the local ecosystem (overgrazing). Ecosystems are not "at war" with us. Parts of it are beneficial to us, parts of it are not. We cannot simply exterminate the parts we don't like because they are all intertwined. Of course, it doesn't mean that we should breed hookworms within us and spread HIV for the sake of it, but treating it as a war is a bit ignorant of how ecosystems work.

PostOnce 4y ago
We were naked, starving hunter-gatherers once. Hyenas preyed on us. We struggled to find wild plants and animals to eat to survive. The ecosystem could support only a few of us, only so many food-plants could grow in such and such an area. Then, we learned to grow crops. Then, we learned to control and even eradicate pests to our crops. We bred the plants and animals to suit our needs and wants, to make not just more food but tastier food. We can, we have, and we will continue to transcend "the ecosystem" when it suits us. We will bend it not just to our needs, but to our desires. We will have dominion over it, and we will have delicious sweet corn on the cob instead of bitter grass seed, and we won't share it with the locusts and crop viruses.
- mrpopo 4y ago
  [flagged]
- myshpa 4y ago
  Can we transcend the ecosystem ad infinitum? > We were naked, starving hunter-gatherers once. Hyenas preyed on us. We struggled to find wild plants and animals to eat to survive. Until we killed all mammoths and almost all of megafauna. > The ecosystem could support only a few of us, only so many food-plants could grow in such and such an area. > Then, we learned to grow crops. And burned out large swaths of land for grazing land, maybe created the deserts of today with fire, deforestation & overgrazing. What happens when we cut down the last tree standing and plant the last piece of land with corn? We already have more land for meat/dairy production, than we have forests? [0] > Then, we learned to control and even eradicate pests to our crops. What happens when we kill the last 20% remaining bugs remaining in the world? How many more percent can we exterminate with our "control" of its population before some critical processes start failing? [1] > we will continue to transcend "the ecosystem" when it suits us. We will bend it not just to our needs, but to our desires. We will have dominion over it, and we will have delicious sweet corn on the cob instead of bitter grass seed, and we won't share it with the locusts and crop viruses What happens when we fish out beyond the critical mass of fish out of oceans, that only thing living there will be jellyfish (90% of sharks already gone because of by-kill and overfishing) [2] How many wild animals can we replace with farm animals until we throw the nature out of balance too much (98% of biomass to 4% in biomass in last 100 years)? [3] How many forests can we cut down until it rains only in coastal areas, thus turning the continents into deserts? [4] Welcome to the anthropocene [5], current geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. We already have our dominion over nature. But we don't handle that responsibility well. And as you're the one talking about dominion, I have to point you to the [6]. Enjoy (engorge of) our superiority. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x971.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_in_insect_populations [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaspiracy [3] https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene [6] https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch https://www.dominionmovement.com/watch
zamalek 4y ago
> Mosquitoes are among the most prolific pollinators and many ecosystems depend on them. Some definitely are, they are also an important source of biomass for extreme northern latitudes. Anopheles is fucking useless.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

> All the other animals want our food. So do all the other people. It is a very dangerous ideology that is willing to justify any action on the notion of increased survival.

imtringued 4y ago

What? Life exists because it is the fastest way of raising entropy. Self replicating biological machines process matter much faster than geological processes. The Haber Bosch process is just a faster way of raising entropy. What we should be worried about is reaching the end too soon.

wutbrodo 4y ago
You're misunderstanding either the parent comment or how entropy works. An organism is not a closed system, and thus isn't bound by any law of increasing entropy. In fact, life is practically _defined_ by maintaining local entropy (at the cost of the entropy of the systems it interacts with), as in Schrodinger's seminal work, "What is Life". The parent comment's claim that "life is a war against entropy" is completely in line with this model.