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Your comment bothers me because it is based on very shaky premises. Nature doesn’t work in the most optimal way, so it’s not always best to replicate it. Tons
by dagmx 3y ago
Your comment bothers me because it is based on very shaky premises.
Nature doesn’t work in the most optimal way, so it’s not always best to replicate it. Tons of things happen in nature that may wipe out important ecosystems. I suppose one could argue that at a long enough time scale it will even out but that time scale can be millennia. In the meantime, nature can wreak tons of havoc.
Nature (and by that I mean ecosystems because nature is a vague) also doesn’t behave in necessarily intuitive or easily observable ways either. What might seem “obvious” at first can be very wrong.
Nature (and again I mean ecosystems) also doesn’t exist in vacuums. What may have worked for centuries can be upset by even the most subtle of temperature shifts, and those might be caused by effects hundreds of miles away.
Unchecked nature is also not always going to be conducive to human needs either.
The entire field requires constant observation and inference. Even the ways of indigenous people that are fetishized as natures way by many, are scientific in nature. They’re the result of many years of observation, experimentation, learning and modifying how nature works to fit our needs.
- flakeoil 3y ago> "the most optimal way" Optimum in what sense? Make as much cash as quickly as possible or have a forrest and a working eco system (or even any trees at all) also in 100+ years from now.
- dagmx 3y agoOptimal as in preserving life if we’re going based off of the person I was replying to, but in general that is hard to define which is part of my point . Nature can just as quickly extinguish entire ecosystems, just as much as it can make them thrive. Just trusting nature to do the optimal thing and trust that it’ll turn out okay isn’t sensible unless you also don’t care about the constituent parts of that ecosystem. Insects can ravage entire populations of trees, rendering them dead and inhospitable to wildlife. Blight can do the same. Those are just as much nature at work as happy trees in a forest.
- vintermann 3y agoNothing is "optimal", it's only ever "optimal for". So asking if nature is optimal is nonsense unless we have a firm agreement on what nature is for (which we certainly don't). But the linked article doesn't have this problem. The "for" there is quite clearly the recovery of forests after logging, so they can be used again for whatever you may be expected to use a forest for (including more logging)
- dagmx 3y agoI think you’re arguing against a point that I am not making. In fact I think you’re making the same argument that I am, which is “nature isn’t seeking an optimal outcome because that is too abstract”. The person I was replying to was saying “just do what nature does”. But that doesn’t mean much. My point was you can’t just blindly follow “nature” without observation and study because it can just as easily go and do something catastrophic as it can do something good.
- taylorius 3y agoYes, I suppose optimal isn't really the right word - I suppose I mean relatively stable and long lasting.
- taylorius 3y ago"but that time scale can be millennia. In the meantime, nature can wreak tons of havoc." For sure - I suppose I'm questioning humans' ability to mitigate such havoc without causing a load of unintended consequences. "Nature (and by that I mean ecosystems because nature is a vague) also doesn’t behave in necessarily intuitive or easily observable ways either. What might seem “obvious” at first can be very wrong." I think I was saying a very similar thing, actually. I certainly agree with you on that.