EPTHumans are plague on Earth - Page 5
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Vaporeon
Canada68 Posts
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czylu
477 Posts
this is what i think about this. | ||
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Hryul
Austria2609 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:11 DarkLordOlli wrote: That's not comparable whatsoever. The human species requires the existence of other species or we wouldn't survive. Well since he suggested something that Recognizable didn't mean, I thought I'll return the favor. But tbh: It always bothers me that we as humans shouldn't foremost care about humans but treat all lifeforms as equal. I doubt many people would take this stance if they had to fight "nature" (in the broadest sense) and even a broken bone could be deadly. Also: some desease also count as "animals". | ||
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S:klogW
Austria657 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:12 Cheerio wrote: I think humankind is still an insect on the planet's surface. I mean the Earth has got a history of huge extinction events. The most recent one, K-Pg extinction, led to all (nearly) species lager than a small dog to become extinct. The real world is a dangerous place. Even the most brutal things humanity can do to the Earth is nothing compared to what the Earth can do to itself or the space can do (asteroids, Sun activity). P.S. Marine extinction intensity during phanerozoic eon ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Extinction_intensity.svg/320px-Extinction_intensity.svg.png) ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere. | ||
Olli
Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:13 TricksAre4Figs wrote: I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague". Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
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WoodenSpider
United States85 Posts
On January 25 2013 00:31 Aphasie wrote: To be honest I dont think the world has any meaning outside of human existence. The "pretty" and "beautiful" moments/parts are just constructs of the human mind and in my opinion hold little value outside the realm of consciousness. For instance the vast mountains and chasms the mountain goats traverse on a daily basis are mind boggling to us, but the goats simply act on instinct. Some things like fear, anxiety, curiosity and perhaps even love might exist outside the human realm, but the powers of abstraction and logic trumps any comparison. We probably should work for a sustainable earth, but simply because its in our self interest. We dont owe "mother earth" jack shit. However saving species, landscapes, etc is like saving something pretty and unique. Its basically saving our own history. Sustainability, yes. Plague of the earth, i can see your argument. Should human kill themselves to "save the planet"? No, stop being retarded. We are the planet - now piss off! my 2 cents About -10 btw. If this was reddit I would upvote | ||
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Recognizable
Netherlands1552 Posts
On January 25 2013 00:55 NightOfTheDead wrote: You mean you only care about humans, and none other lifeforms on earth? Fucking natural languages, it's incredible how ambiguous they are. It's as if the only way they function is by everyone inferring meaning based on their assumptions. Body language solves a lot of this problem. Anyway. No. That's not what I meant. | ||
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Olli
Austria24417 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:19 coverpunch wrote: IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him. That's a straw man argument though. | ||
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S:klogW
Austria657 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:13 TricksAre4Figs wrote: I don't even understand this retard logic. I never said otherwise. I'm saying stop hating on humanity as a collective whole simply because oil companies ferociously destroy the ecosystem to maintain their massive profits. Use your brain and think the issue through instead of throwing out stupid fucking platitudes about "humanity is a plague". We are all collectively responsible, greedy oil companies who suck oil from Earth like there is no tomorrow, YOU and me for buying stuff, which at one point or another is manufactured or delivered with the use of petroleum, etc etc. The silver lining here is, we can collectively correct this. IF ONLY WE REALIZE AND ADMIT THAT WE ARE THE PROBLEM! | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14079 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:15 S:klogW wrote: Funny that we are all Germans here (including Hryul) debating this thing. I will focus on your reply. You underestimate the "scale" that you are talking about. We are manipulating and changing the balance of the food chain in irreversible ways. Agricultural, oil mining, mineral mining, fishing, etc. practices today are not designed to leave something for the generation of the future, maybe as soon as the next 20 years. Debating? So far I don't see much more than petty insults and fancy sounding words from your side. It is completely normal and okay to make irreversible changes to a system from the overall perspective. That's... well... natural, part of how evolution works. You can literally feel free to pick the worst case for any of the above scenarios and it almost always will end with "humans will most likely change their behaviour to adapt to the new situation". Obviously the period from now till then will include individual suffer for us and other species but for the overall picture it's irrelevant. That however, as much as we hate to admit it, is the perspective that matters when we throw around sentences like "freaks of evolution being a plague to nature". | ||
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Aphasie
Norway474 Posts
On January 25 2013 00:41 DarkLordOlli wrote: So your 2 cents are a) we don't owe this world jack shit and b) we are the world. => we don't owe ourselves jack shit? Why don't we start jumping out of windows then? I'm pretty sure you got something wrong there. We wouldn't exist without this planet. You make it sound like it wouldn't exist without us. I gave up arguing with people on TL, so Ill keep this short n sweet. We need to work towards sustainability purely to pass on to next generation(s) something good to work with (i.e. not leave them with our mess). I do make the argument that earth holds no meaningful existence outside the human realm. Dont get me wrong, the mass will still be there. If there is still ducks they will go quack quack and the pigs go oink oink. However it holds no meaningful value in and of it self. Humans create purpose and appreciation. Everything else is merely passings, chaos, absurdities or randomness - without anyone to attribute any meaning to them. To make it perfectly clear "mother earth", "nature", etc are concepts that doesnt exists outside human existence. Its being or not being, and I think theyre actually quite close to each other for animals. If people are gonna talk about intrinsic value of soil, rocks and so forth, please put the shotgun barrel in your mouth right now and help "solve the problem"... Edit: Thanks, Woodenspider. | ||
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AnomalySC2
United States2073 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:23 S:klogW wrote: We are all collectively responsible, greedy oil companies who suck oil from Earth like there is no tomorrow, YOU and me for buying stuff, which at one point or another is manufactured or delivered with the use of petroleum, etc etc. The silver lining here is, we can collectively correct this. IF ONLY WE REALIZE AND ADMIT THAT WE ARE THE PROBLEM! Well why don't you pitch some ideas on how to fix the problem, I'm sure the government and the rest of the world would be happy to hear the solution. I don't think people are denying we're sucking up resources too fast, but the resources are necessary to our way of life. | ||
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Neeh
Norway458 Posts
In the long run, something has to change. Previous predictions were flawed mostly due to how the industrial revolution changed the way of food production and other needs, but you can only go so far. | ||
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Shival
Netherlands643 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:18 S:klogW wrote: ALL those extinction events are not related to food-chain ecosystem. They are either climactic, astronomic, tectonic, tidal, etc. Nothing to do with how animals and plants interact against each other. Humans on the other hand have single handedly altered everything, even the atmosphere. It's got everything to do with food-chain ecosystem. It's not the climactic events that directly caused the extinction events, it's the eventual collapse of the ecosystem itself because of scarcity of food. You can substitute humans with asteroid as climactic event. However, we're not even close to overpopulating. We're however causing irreparable damage to certain species, but then again, our current diversity of species is at an all time high. | ||
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Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:19 coverpunch wrote: IMO this is just the ranting of a crazy old man who got really excited in the 70s that he was probably going to see the end of the world but now every day is just a reminder that he's going to die and the world will just go on without him. Of all the things you could possibly say about the wonderful Sir David Attenborough, calling him a crazy old man is a very, very disrespectful thing to say. Maybe as an American you didn't grow up watching his documentaries or programmes about our beautiful planet, but he's a pretty big deal and in terms of nature, one of the smartest men alive. He, alone has gotten countless amounts of people to enjoy and want to look after the world around us. Nearly everything I ever learnt about biology outside of human biology came from his documentaries. The man is a national trasure. | ||
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
On January 24 2013 23:42 ghost_403 wrote: The entire point of technology is doing stuff that nature won't. Even now, we're developing higher yield crops, and utilizing urban planning to smash even more people into smaller spaces. Having less people is certainly an easier way to deal with the issue, but saying that this is an insurmountable obstacle in the course of human history is shortsighted. A sci-fi novel comes to mind; I wish I could remember what it was called. The whole planet and its oceans given over to crops, with a trillion human grubs packed into underground hives, working for calories. We need to do some serious thinking about global population vs sustainable quality of life. It's not a simple inverse relationship. Too few people and they'll need to spend all their time behind horses, tilling fields, because there'll be nobody to build and service tractors. Too many people and quality of life starts to suffer again. A curve that's bad at both extremes suggests the existence of a sweet-spot somewhere in between: enough people to do all the things that need doing for us to have a good quality of life, but not so many that that quality is diluted. Nature is not going to help us achieve that balance, because it is not an evolutionarily stable strategy. We are going to have to consciously impose and regulate it. | ||
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KNICK
Germany248 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:08 r.Evo wrote: Animals don't know that they're alive? Animals don't know that they will die? Animals aren't afraid of death? That's some thin ice you're on. There is no "freak of evolution", just like cancer or AIDS aren't unnatural. The biological goal of a human is precisely the same as that of an animal, again the only difference is scale. Animals seek pleasure and try to avoid pain, just like humans. Fun sidenote: The plain fact that you're trying to tell me how horrible "humans in general" are is just proving my point. 100 years ago no one would have given a damn - not sure how you're unable to understand that precisely this is part of humans adopting to their surrounding for the "better" of other species involved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate Animals don't know that they're alive? No, not in the way we do. They are not consciously aware of their place in the world, or that they're in their youth/old age or what the limitations of their lifespan are. Animals don't know that they will die? Certainly not. Animals do not understand the concept of death. Hell, humans barely understand the concept of death, and we're supposed to be oh so superior in almost every way. I admit though, some animals have been observed to split from their herd or group when they feel the end coming. What I meant by they don't know that they will die is answered in the paragraph below. Animals aren't afraid of death? Yes, they are. Which is why I never wrote that they are not. They possess instinctual reactions which will help them keep out of harm's way. The emphasis being on instinctual. They are not known to sit around somewhere, with no imminent danger and undisturbed and think about death and how scary it all is. Humans are. I also agree with your assertion that the biological goals of humans and other animals are generally the same. They have to be, because they are inherent to all animals. The difference is, again, consciousness. It deforms and mutilates these goals to the point of them not being recognizable as such. Debating? So far I don't see much more than petty insults and fancy sounding words from your side. Well then, I'm sorry for being insulting (I'm just assuming you included me in that statement), I certainly didn't mean to be. I actually thought this was quite an interesting exchange. | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14079 Posts
On January 25 2013 01:18 DarkLordOlli wrote: Calm down kiddo. If you actually used your brain like you said you'd realize that not doing anything is doing something as well. So by not doing anything against those evil corporate bastards and their mission to completely destroy the world, you're actually passively doing damage yourself. If we're being completely fucking honest here, the only way to come close to "not doing damage" is being a fucking hermit. Are you a hermit? No? Then you're to blame as well, at least partly. Nobody said everybody is equally to blame for it. Calling someone a kiddo after being called out on a illogic statement doesn't make your point look any better. "Even if you're just 1% of the problem, you're still 100% responsible." - It conveys an attitude of "no matter what you do you are part of the evil system, you're damaging the world!!!1". You might as well say "A single drop of rain makes your clothes wet!", which, while entirely correct, is also utterly irrelevant when someone asks you whether it's raining or not. The only two things that matter is making people aware of consequences of their actions and then letting them themselves decide as for how much they want to contribute to make the negative impact they - inevitably - have as small as possible. Obviously using your bike to get to work is "better" than using the bus which is "better" than using a car. Telling the guy who uses the bus that what he does is irrelevant because it's not 100% optimal is utterly counterproductive to the actual concept of trying to get people to use a "better" option. | ||
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