4 ms·

I really like this comment & it has a lot going for it. At the same time I think it's also worth pointing out that earth has likely never had as diverse an eco

I really like this comment & it has a lot going for it. At the same time I think it's also worth pointing out that earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. The tree of life has become incredibly wide & complex. The naturalist tendency doesn't have to be as static as portrayed here. Nature itself is such a dynamic & changing system death & population booms chasing each other around wildly. What, I think, is so scary about right now is how in jeapordy so much life seems. Insects & birds are disappearing at mass scale. Large life is hunted to breaking points. Many animals lack for habitat and access to essential food & water. We see strictly worse coming & that has built a fervor for the worlds we are actively losing/destroying.

C-x_C-f 4y ago
> earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium Don't worry, we can fix that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- tsunamifury 4y ago
  I think your flippant response here robs us of a conversation as to why we do this — what larger purpose does it serve in the macro scale mentioned earlier. Is earth a set of short term optimized life leading to different eras or are humans the first sentient life that must take responsibility for it. If so how and with what goals. For our own preservation? To freeze all life as it is today?
  - inpdx 4y ago
    No other species has had this great of an impact on that many species. If we were wise and thoughtful, collectively we could both advance ourselves and allow the diversity to continue. So it's a shame we aren't.
    - kevviiinn 4y ago
      Humans are notoriously short sighted
    - larkost 4y ago
      Arguably cyanobacteria beat us to the punch a bit less than 2.5 billion years ago in the Great Oxidation Event, when they killed off much/most of the other life by producing a lot of oxygen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        The lifeforms they killed off were not very diverse, and not very interesting - mostly bacteria.
  - boringg 4y ago
    To learn and try to understand that is the goal of human life. How can we possible understand our planet if we destroy all of its resources, kill off its diversity of life before we have an inkling of the complexity of how it works? We can continue to exist and learn without killing off the planet.
zokier 4y ago
To me it would be really suprising if previous millennium would not would not have been more diverse. Of course we have only seen <5% of this millenium so maybe its early to say? But the trend is not looking great.
tsunamifury 4y ago
Adam Curtis’ “All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace” theorized that that emerging chaotic state mixed with our recent technological emergence has lead us to believe we can “contain the chaos” of this highly sophisticated system. He quite amazingly illustrates over 3 hours that we falsely believe that earth is an unchanging systematic snow globe rather than a chaotic system. And the more we try to control it, the more we sort of build up larger and more chaotic outcomes. There is no natural state as defined by hyper static equilibrium. Only brief moments where we purport to control it — building up a chaotic momentum beneath it.
- mrbungie 4y ago
  Hah, that sounds like typical human hubris. To think that we as humans can control the complexity of Earth when we barely control ourselves. PS: Not suggesting anything about climate change, I'm just amused the comment parent makes.
- achr2 4y ago
  Maybe I am misinterpreting the tone, but this is an incongruous belief. Nothing about a chaotic system precludes a *trend* in that system. I think it is quite objectively clear that while extremely chaotic, the trend of recent human impact on the earth is an equally extreme destruction of natural habitats.
  - throwaway173738 4y ago
    Yeah chaotic systems are merely characterized by their extreme sensitivity to initial conditions for a particular long term outcome. All systems trend when modeled mathematically. It’s just difficult to know where a chaotic system will be at any point in time because of how hard it is to establish initial conditions. One way you can play with a real chaotic system is to build one of the circuits in jc sprott’s papers and vary the control variable. You’ll see at some values of your control an “orderly” progression of the response variables, and at others a difficult to predict progression. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=ErwaemIAAAAJ&citation_for_view=ErwaemIAAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...
pohl 4y ago
earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. What about the millennium or two prior to that, though? Hundreds of species have gone extinct since around 1900.
- medstrom 4y ago
  Heh, hundreds? On a low estimate, we lose 200 to 2,000 species every year now. Source https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiversity/ https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiv...
meindnoch 4y ago
>At the same time I think it's also worth pointing out that earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. Lol, no. Today is not in any way more/less special than any of the preceding 350million years. We obviously know more, because today's animals don't need to be dug out from the ground as fossils.
lproven 4y ago
> earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. [citation needed] I suspect it was considerably more diverse pre-humans. This millennium (i.e. 1KY), no. 1000 millennia ago, 1MY ago, yes.

C-x_C-f 4y ago

> earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium Don't worry, we can fix that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

tsunamifury 4y ago
I think your flippant response here robs us of a conversation as to why we do this — what larger purpose does it serve in the macro scale mentioned earlier. Is earth a set of short term optimized life leading to different eras or are humans the first sentient life that must take responsibility for it. If so how and with what goals. For our own preservation? To freeze all life as it is today?
- inpdx 4y ago
  No other species has had this great of an impact on that many species. If we were wise and thoughtful, collectively we could both advance ourselves and allow the diversity to continue. So it's a shame we aren't.
  - kevviiinn 4y ago
    Humans are notoriously short sighted
  - larkost 4y ago
    Arguably cyanobacteria beat us to the punch a bit less than 2.5 billion years ago in the Great Oxidation Event, when they killed off much/most of the other life by producing a lot of oxygen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      The lifeforms they killed off were not very diverse, and not very interesting - mostly bacteria.
- boringg 4y ago
  To learn and try to understand that is the goal of human life. How can we possible understand our planet if we destroy all of its resources, kill off its diversity of life before we have an inkling of the complexity of how it works? We can continue to exist and learn without killing off the planet.

zokier 4y ago

To me it would be really suprising if previous millennium would not would not have been more diverse. Of course we have only seen <5% of this millenium so maybe its early to say? But the trend is not looking great.

tsunamifury 4y ago

Adam Curtis’ “All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace” theorized that that emerging chaotic state mixed with our recent technological emergence has lead us to believe we can “contain the chaos” of this highly sophisticated system. He quite amazingly illustrates over 3 hours that we falsely believe that earth is an unchanging systematic snow globe rather than a chaotic system. And the more we try to control it, the more we sort of build up larger and more chaotic outcomes. There is no natural state as defined by hyper static equilibrium. Only brief moments where we purport to control it — building up a chaotic momentum beneath it.

mrbungie 4y ago
Hah, that sounds like typical human hubris. To think that we as humans can control the complexity of Earth when we barely control ourselves. PS: Not suggesting anything about climate change, I'm just amused the comment parent makes.
achr2 4y ago
Maybe I am misinterpreting the tone, but this is an incongruous belief. Nothing about a chaotic system precludes a *trend* in that system. I think it is quite objectively clear that while extremely chaotic, the trend of recent human impact on the earth is an equally extreme destruction of natural habitats.
- throwaway173738 4y ago
  Yeah chaotic systems are merely characterized by their extreme sensitivity to initial conditions for a particular long term outcome. All systems trend when modeled mathematically. It’s just difficult to know where a chaotic system will be at any point in time because of how hard it is to establish initial conditions. One way you can play with a real chaotic system is to build one of the circuits in jc sprott’s papers and vary the control variable. You’ll see at some values of your control an “orderly” progression of the response variables, and at others a difficult to predict progression. https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=ErwaemIAAAAJ&citation_for_view=ErwaemIAAAAJ:2osOgNQ5qMEC https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...

pohl 4y ago

earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. What about the millennium or two prior to that, though? Hundreds of species have gone extinct since around 1900.

medstrom 4y ago
Heh, hundreds? On a low estimate, we lose 200 to 2,000 species every year now. Source https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiversity/ https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/biodiversity/biodiv...

meindnoch 4y ago

>At the same time I think it's also worth pointing out that earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. Lol, no. Today is not in any way more/less special than any of the preceding 350million years. We obviously know more, because today's animals don't need to be dug out from the ground as fossils.

lproven 4y ago

> earth has likely never had as diverse an ecosystem as it has this millennium. [citation needed] I suspect it was considerably more diverse pre-humans. This millennium (i.e. 1KY), no. 1000 millennia ago, 1MY ago, yes.