8 ms·
One of the things that keeps me going is a connection to nature & outdoors. When it gets severed or disrupted, perhaps by a move to a crowded area without acces
by clumsysmurf 11y ago
One of the things that keeps me going is a connection to nature & outdoors. When it gets severed or disrupted, perhaps by a move to a crowded area without access to trails and open spaces, I get very depressed.
Looking at footage from the video, I would be very depressed living in such crowded conditions. Maybe even suicidal.
I wonder if part of our ecological crisis is that people are so disconnected from nature, they forget or never understood how much they depend on it - not just from nutrition & ecological services standpoint, but psychologically and spiritually as well.
- ak39 11y agoThe world is too much with us indeed. Have you heard of Calhoun's mouse experiments? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experime... Maybe we are exhibiting the attitudes Calhoun observed in the "beautiful ones". Scary.
- deelowe 11y agoFascinating read. Thanks.
- tgflynn 11y agoI think I agree with you. The world seems overcrowded to me. I've never been much of an out of doors person but sometimes I'd just like to get away from it all. That seems difficult these days. Anywhere you go in the US it seems like the land is either privately owned or government owned with tons of regulations that nobody really wants to deal with. Those regulations are probably at least somewhat needed because without them the sheer number of people visiting government lands would probably do great damage. Anything above about 1 billion people on this planet seems probably suboptimal to me.
- bcg1 11y agoSome people think it should be 500 million: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones#Inscriptio...
- dagw 11y agoNot overcrowded, just spread out too thin. The reason the US looks like it looks is that everybody wants an acre of land around their house, so they chop down forests and build suburbs instead. If people gave up on that notion and where willing to live in cities then there would be an abundance of unspoiled nature.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoEvery place is pretty much owned in America. Land is valuable. And there is admittedly little or no unspoiled land left. But don't blame houses. People in America still live on a tiny fraction of the land. Its all about farming and grazing and mining.
- mplscoder 11y agoThe Feds own most of the land. See chart "Federal Land as a Percentage of Total State Land Area" http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/04/the-ugly-facts-of-federal-government.html http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/04/the-ugly-facts-...
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoSure, and they rent it out for grazing, mining. Still nothing like 'unspoiled'.
- tgflynn 11y agoPersonally I don't necessarily care much about "unspoiled". I just wish there was a place I could legally go without paying tribute to the world machine and be free from outside interference with my mere existence. EDIT: In fact living in a world where such a simple act is not possible isn't a bad definition of hell in my opinion.
- 3pt14159 11y agoIn Canada you can just camp out on crown land. We have so much extra space its mind boggling.
- dagw 11y agoOne thing to do to cure yourself of the whole the world is too crowded feeling is to take a flight from Europe to Either Vancouver or Japan and just marvel at how many hours you'll spend flying over Russia or Canada and not seeing any signs of civilization.