6 ms·

You could easily argue that everything that ever was or will be is natural, not really sure why the word is still used to describe products.

sp332 12y ago
Hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are natural. But this arrangement of the atoms does not occur unless humans want it to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol
- spacehome 12y ago
  Eh. If you leave hydrogen alone for long enough, it will turn into tramadol.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Yes, but you'll need a lot of it. Even a full universe sample takes almost 20 billion years to synthesize a relatively small amount.
    - dalke 12y ago
      And that was with a helium booster, along with a smidge of lithium. My guess is that with only hydrogen it would have taken even longer.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Yes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Sure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to have. That in turn, of course, does not mean it's correct to care about it everywhere we seem to.
    - teddyh 12y ago
      Zhuangzi had something to say about this: “'What do you mean,' pursued the earl, 'by the Heavenly, and by the Human?' Ruo replied, 'Oxen and horses have four feet - that is what I call their Heavenly (constitution). When horses' heads are haltered, and the noses of oxen are pierced, that is what I call (the doing of) Man. Hence it is said, "Do not by the Human (doing) extinguish the Heavenly (constitution); do not for your (Human) purpose extinguish the appointment (of Heaven); do not bury your (proper) fame in (such) a pursuit of it; carefully guard (the Way) and do not lose it: this is what I call reverting to your True (Nature)."'” — Zhuangzi, chapter 17 (“The Floods of Autumn”) http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn#n42150 http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn#n42150
    - mason240 12y ago
      That's the point, it is a meaningless term.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        No. The way most people use the term it has a meaning. It's the redefinition that is meaningless, and should thus be rejected as useless. That doesn't mean that people always reason correctly about it, but that should be confronted directly not by playing semantic games.
  - pyre 12y ago
    Doesn't that devalue the term if everything ever is 'natural' making it impossible for anything to be unnatural?
alexjeffrey 12y ago
more importantly, the use of "natural" to describe a product with the implication that it being synthetic would be a bad thing is a fallacy.
- 80ProofPudding 12y ago
  Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicides, hormones and pesticides or that the farmers you buy from use so much Tramadol that the environment tests positively for it [as in the current case], fine, but why does it matter so much if other people want to know the conditions their food has been grown in? Say, by looking for organic food certifications. [There see I included "food" in case it confused you, words can be so hard, huh.] There's no great logic to the insistence that words can't be used for multiple well defined meanings - yes even in associated fields like chemistry and food science/agriculture - and AFAICT there's no detriment to you in others choosing to care more about the rearing or growing conditions of their food (which you don't have to eat). So what is your problem?
    - 80ProofPudding 12y ago
      I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument. You're also being pretty insulting about it. Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.
    - alexjeffrey 12y ago
      I'm not the parent (I'm GP), but my position is that organic certification is good, but the universal association of "natural = good, synthetic = bad" is only harmful. Yes, farmers pump animals full of chemicals and this should be documented and, if you are concerned about this, it's a good thing that there are organic food certs out there. However, whole industries fuelled by bullshit have sprung up off the back of this very common fallacy. There are people out there who don't take scientifically-proven medicine because it's "not natural" and lean towards quackery like homeopathy, and this is what I'm opposed to. To reiterate, IMO organic or free-range farm produce is a good thing and I'm sure most people would agree with that. That's not what I was talking about so don't get rude with people based on a misinterpretation of the subject, it's unnecessarily disruptive.
qnaal 12y ago
The idea, I think, is that humans have been sharing the planet with everything else for so long that anything especially dangerous that occurs "naturally" is likely to have been already tested- ie "artificial" drugs should be more unpredictable, and therefore potentially more dangerous, than whatever stuff some exotic culture has been fucking with for hundreds of generations (which is pretty much any interesting compound you can find "naturally"). Of course, unscrupulous-types will lean on whatever marketing stunt they feel will sell some short-term product, with little respect for the long-term dangers/benefits, so naturally words like "natural" and "organic" get abused.
- eru 12y ago
  Alcohol is natural, and dangerous. But at least we know the long term effects.

sp332 12y ago

Hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are natural. But this arrangement of the atoms does not occur unless humans want it to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramadol

spacehome 12y ago
Eh. If you leave hydrogen alone for long enough, it will turn into tramadol.
- rbanffy 12y ago
  Yes, but you'll need a lot of it. Even a full universe sample takes almost 20 billion years to synthesize a relatively small amount.
  - dalke 12y ago
    And that was with a helium booster, along with a smidge of lithium. My guess is that with only hydrogen it would have taken even longer.
Igglyboo 12y ago
Yes that's what I'm saying, "unless humans want it to" still qualifies as natural. Humans are natural and a part of nature and so anything they create is as well. If a beehive or beaver dam is considered natural then so is the empire state building, all three were created by animals native to this planet.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Sure, you can redefine the word in a way that makes it meaningless. Or you can use it the way the rest of the world does - where "natural" means "not the result of human intervention". By that definition, it's obvious why a beehive and beaver dam are "natural" and the Empire State Building is not. There is a degree to which this focus is arbitrary, but given that we are humans, it's sometimes a worthwhile focus to have. That in turn, of course, does not mean it's correct to care about it everywhere we seem to.
  - teddyh 12y ago
    Zhuangzi had something to say about this: “'What do you mean,' pursued the earl, 'by the Heavenly, and by the Human?' Ruo replied, 'Oxen and horses have four feet - that is what I call their Heavenly (constitution). When horses' heads are haltered, and the noses of oxen are pierced, that is what I call (the doing of) Man. Hence it is said, "Do not by the Human (doing) extinguish the Heavenly (constitution); do not for your (Human) purpose extinguish the appointment (of Heaven); do not bury your (proper) fame in (such) a pursuit of it; carefully guard (the Way) and do not lose it: this is what I call reverting to your True (Nature)."'” — Zhuangzi, chapter 17 (“The Floods of Autumn”) http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn#n42150 http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/floods-of-autumn#n42150
  - mason240 12y ago
    That's the point, it is a meaningless term.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      No. The way most people use the term it has a meaning. It's the redefinition that is meaningless, and should thus be rejected as useless. That doesn't mean that people always reason correctly about it, but that should be confronted directly not by playing semantic games.
- pyre 12y ago
  Doesn't that devalue the term if everything ever is 'natural' making it impossible for anything to be unnatural?

alexjeffrey 12y ago

more importantly, the use of "natural" to describe a product with the implication that it being synthetic would be a bad thing is a fallacy.

80ProofPudding 12y ago
Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicides, hormones and pesticides or that the farmers you buy from use so much Tramadol that the environment tests positively for it [as in the current case], fine, but why does it matter so much if other people want to know the conditions their food has been grown in? Say, by looking for organic food certifications. [There see I included "food" in case it confused you, words can be so hard, huh.] There's no great logic to the insistence that words can't be used for multiple well defined meanings - yes even in associated fields like chemistry and food science/agriculture - and AFAICT there's no detriment to you in others choosing to care more about the rearing or growing conditions of their food (which you don't have to eat). So what is your problem?
  - 80ProofPudding 12y ago
    I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument. You're also being pretty insulting about it. Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.
  - alexjeffrey 12y ago
    I'm not the parent (I'm GP), but my position is that organic certification is good, but the universal association of "natural = good, synthetic = bad" is only harmful. Yes, farmers pump animals full of chemicals and this should be documented and, if you are concerned about this, it's a good thing that there are organic food certs out there. However, whole industries fuelled by bullshit have sprung up off the back of this very common fallacy. There are people out there who don't take scientifically-proven medicine because it's "not natural" and lean towards quackery like homeopathy, and this is what I'm opposed to. To reiterate, IMO organic or free-range farm produce is a good thing and I'm sure most people would agree with that. That's not what I was talking about so don't get rude with people based on a misinterpretation of the subject, it's unnecessarily disruptive.

qnaal 12y ago

The idea, I think, is that humans have been sharing the planet with everything else for so long that anything especially dangerous that occurs "naturally" is likely to have been already tested- ie "artificial" drugs should be more unpredictable, and therefore potentially more dangerous, than whatever stuff some exotic culture has been fucking with for hundreds of generations (which is pretty much any interesting compound you can find "naturally"). Of course, unscrupulous-types will lean on whatever marketing stunt they feel will sell some short-term product, with little respect for the long-term dangers/benefits, so naturally words like "natural" and "organic" get abused.

eru 12y ago
Alcohol is natural, and dangerous. But at least we know the long term effects.