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A lot of interesting food for thought in this article, but I find the focus on parasites as particularly fucked up or evil puzzling. It seems like an aesthetic

A lot of interesting food for thought in this article, but I find the focus on parasites as particularly fucked up or evil puzzling. It seems like an aesthetic distinction, not a categorical one. There are plenty of vertebrate predators that will bring their young still-living prey to "play with" and devour. This seems hardly better, especially since the prey in this case is often much more capable of experiencing fear and suffering than a caterpillar or a snail. It's also interesting to consider that fear itself is probably an adaptation that helps the propagation of DNA. The fact that animals and humans can experience fear at all tells us that we're not in a kind universe.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
A large portion of the issue Mark Twain and others quoted in the article took with parasites was that the prevailing religious explanation of life was that God created it in its current form on purpose and it was good. Therefore something as body horror centric as 75k species of parasitic "caterpillar hawk" wasps is easily rejected as it is clearly not good according to our sensibilities.
- aliasxneo 3y ago
  Source? Not very familiar with Twain, but fallen creation has been in the Judeo-Christian sphere for a long time. I assumed that's what he would have been influenced by.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    Twain was mentioned in the article a couple of times with various works more or less stating "God apparently made everything like this on purpose: >In Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth (published posthumously in 1939), Satan sends a series of reports from Earth to the archangels Michael and Gabriel. In Letter VI, Satan marshals the evidence to call God a “malevolent lunatic”: ... >The Christian begins with this straight proposition, this definite proposition, this inflexible and uncompromising proposition: God is all-knowing, and all-powerful. >This being the case, nothing can happen without his knowing beforehand that it is going to happen; nothing happens without his permission; nothing can happen that he chooses to prevent. >That is definite enough, isn’t it? It makes the Creator distinctly responsible for everything that happens, doesn’t it? . . . . >Then, having thus made the Creator responsible for all those pains and diseases and miseries above enumerated, and which he could have prevented, the gifted Christian blandly calls him Our Father!
    - aliasxneo 3y ago
      My fault for not reading the article fully. For the curious reader, C. S. Lewis wrote a great piece on this called, "The Problem of Pain." "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Of course, there's hundreds of more writings on this, but Lewis is always an easy place to start.
      - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
        No worries, the article is huge. I also agree with Lewis, in that this world is incomplete as we are not fully one with God as we were created to be. So we recognize that lack as pain, and things we do to cope can lead us into further pain. In a world where we must eat every day to be healthy, the pain of hunger drives us to food. One could argue spiritual pain is intended to drive us to God in a similar way.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  But the caterpillars are hardly benign entities. They can decimate crops and cause famine, or even destroy entire forests if left unchecked. I'm in total agreement that nature a fucked up system - not pretty in its many machinations. But I struggle to see how parasitism is all that different than other types of predation in this regard.
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    I don't disagree with you, ecosystems are both delicate and robust in cycles. The focus on parasitism is also because it is believed that there is more parasite life than non-parasite life. From the article: >Or, as Kevin Lafferty, a marine ecologist for the US Geological Survey puts it, “Parasitism is the most popular lifestyle on Earth.” >So popular, in fact, that many parasites are themselves prey to their own parasites. In a phenomenon called “hyperparasitism,” parasites are invaded by parasites that are invaded by still more parasites. These Russian dolls of internal flesh-eating have been observed to five levels down, which one article describes as “an endless progression of interspecies abuse”:
  - figassis 3y ago
    What they're trying to say is nature is a fractal of evil. The Wasps are just one very clear example.
ycdxvjp 3y ago
Hmm...can/does an ecosystem exist without parasites? Parasite meaning something taking more out of a system than giving back to it. Fear might not even be experienced or required or involved as with our gut parasites.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  I imagine such an ecosystem could exist for a short time, but the prevalence of parasitism also points out how viable it is as a kind of shortcut for life. Perhaps the more terrifying thing to consider is how many species were driven to extinction by parasites that were just a bit too aggressive in how they affected their host, which also would likely result in the parasite's extinction as well. Life isn't a happy numbers game by any means.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago

A large portion of the issue Mark Twain and others quoted in the article took with parasites was that the prevailing religious explanation of life was that God created it in its current form on purpose and it was good. Therefore something as body horror centric as 75k species of parasitic "caterpillar hawk" wasps is easily rejected as it is clearly not good according to our sensibilities.

aliasxneo 3y ago
Source? Not very familiar with Twain, but fallen creation has been in the Judeo-Christian sphere for a long time. I assumed that's what he would have been influenced by.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  Twain was mentioned in the article a couple of times with various works more or less stating "God apparently made everything like this on purpose: >In Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth (published posthumously in 1939), Satan sends a series of reports from Earth to the archangels Michael and Gabriel. In Letter VI, Satan marshals the evidence to call God a “malevolent lunatic”: ... >The Christian begins with this straight proposition, this definite proposition, this inflexible and uncompromising proposition: God is all-knowing, and all-powerful. >This being the case, nothing can happen without his knowing beforehand that it is going to happen; nothing happens without his permission; nothing can happen that he chooses to prevent. >That is definite enough, isn’t it? It makes the Creator distinctly responsible for everything that happens, doesn’t it? . . . . >Then, having thus made the Creator responsible for all those pains and diseases and miseries above enumerated, and which he could have prevented, the gifted Christian blandly calls him Our Father!
  - aliasxneo 3y ago
    My fault for not reading the article fully. For the curious reader, C. S. Lewis wrote a great piece on this called, "The Problem of Pain." "We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." Of course, there's hundreds of more writings on this, but Lewis is always an easy place to start.
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      No worries, the article is huge. I also agree with Lewis, in that this world is incomplete as we are not fully one with God as we were created to be. So we recognize that lack as pain, and things we do to cope can lead us into further pain. In a world where we must eat every day to be healthy, the pain of hunger drives us to food. One could argue spiritual pain is intended to drive us to God in a similar way.
AlexandrB 3y ago
But the caterpillars are hardly benign entities. They can decimate crops and cause famine, or even destroy entire forests if left unchecked. I'm in total agreement that nature a fucked up system - not pretty in its many machinations. But I struggle to see how parasitism is all that different than other types of predation in this regard.
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  I don't disagree with you, ecosystems are both delicate and robust in cycles. The focus on parasitism is also because it is believed that there is more parasite life than non-parasite life. From the article: >Or, as Kevin Lafferty, a marine ecologist for the US Geological Survey puts it, “Parasitism is the most popular lifestyle on Earth.” >So popular, in fact, that many parasites are themselves prey to their own parasites. In a phenomenon called “hyperparasitism,” parasites are invaded by parasites that are invaded by still more parasites. These Russian dolls of internal flesh-eating have been observed to five levels down, which one article describes as “an endless progression of interspecies abuse”:
- figassis 3y ago
  What they're trying to say is nature is a fractal of evil. The Wasps are just one very clear example.

ycdxvjp 3y ago

Hmm...can/does an ecosystem exist without parasites? Parasite meaning something taking more out of a system than giving back to it. Fear might not even be experienced or required or involved as with our gut parasites.

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
I imagine such an ecosystem could exist for a short time, but the prevalence of parasitism also points out how viable it is as a kind of shortcut for life. Perhaps the more terrifying thing to consider is how many species were driven to extinction by parasites that were just a bit too aggressive in how they affected their host, which also would likely result in the parasite's extinction as well. Life isn't a happy numbers game by any means.