Humans close to wiping out another species
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Pickle Juice
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To claim life has a goal makes no sense. It is simply my subjective opinion that earth without humans on it was in better shape in the same way that people without guinea worms are in better shape.
Rather than just *liking* Pickle Juice's comments because I agree with them, I guess I should post my own.
Viewed dispassionately, I can't come up with anything that we as a species have done that has had a net positive benefit on the planet or to any species 0ther than our own. In fact, we have had a tremendous net detrimental effect on other species and the planet as a whole.
If anyone can give an example that refutes the preceding paragraph, I'd be interested to hear it.
Based on that, we are indeed like the Guinea worm.
As individuals, we are indeed capable of remarkable acts of altruism*, creativity, etc., just as we are capable of what I would term unimagineable evil but for the fact that some of us apparently can not only imagine it but carry out the acts. For the most part, though, we conveniently turn a blind eye to the effects and consequences of our actions as individuals and as a species.
*Although most of those consist of either helping our own species or trying to counteract the negative effects caused by our own kind.
We could have been like the other large predators at the top of the food chain, killing those of other species who are old, sick, weak, and therby playing a role in keeping other species healthy. But our intelligence and our adaptability and our immense ego resulted in an explosion of our population and a disregard for consequences that has had and continues to have a devastating effect on other species and the planet as a whole.
So, yes, while I like and respect and admire individualmembers of our species, our species as a whole....
Viewed dispassionately, I can't come up with anything that we as a species have done that has had a net positive benefit on the planet or to any species 0ther than our own. In fact, we have had a tremendous net detrimental effect on other species and the planet as a whole.
If anyone can give an example that refutes the preceding paragraph, I'd be interested to hear it.
Based on that, we are indeed like the Guinea worm.
As individuals, we are indeed capable of remarkable acts of altruism*, creativity, etc., just as we are capable of what I would term unimagineable evil but for the fact that some of us apparently can not only imagine it but carry out the acts. For the most part, though, we conveniently turn a blind eye to the effects and consequences of our actions as individuals and as a species.
*Although most of those consist of either helping our own species or trying to counteract the negative effects caused by our own kind.
We could have been like the other large predators at the top of the food chain, killing those of other species who are old, sick, weak, and therby playing a role in keeping other species healthy. But our intelligence and our adaptability and our immense ego resulted in an explosion of our population and a disregard for consequences that has had and continues to have a devastating effect on other species and the planet as a whole.
So, yes, while I like and respect and admire individualmembers of our species, our species as a whole....
FortyTwo
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And I tend to like buses more than land vehicles. Oreos more than cookies.
I'd have to agree with what you're getting at here. The same logic that is being used in the whole "did better before we came along" argument is the kind of thinking that leads to people believing that evolution has a "goal" rather than simply being a moderately randomized process, which leads to the assumption that humans are superior to other animals.
I agree with most of what mlp and Pickle Juice are saying - humans do quite a bit of damage to surrounding species, and we need to get our act together if we want to keep living on Earth and keep sharing it with the multitude of organisms that currently inhabit it with us. I just disagree with the logic behind it, because it leads to self-loathing and pessimism, something I'd rather avoid.
"Dispassionately" doesn't carry with it any implication of not being able to judge whether an effect is negative or positive, unless you're working with a definition of the word with which I'm unfamiliar.
Pickle Juice
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As a former palaeontologist I am quite well aware that evolution is a random process, a process which, however, does involve success and failure. Any biologist worth his salt who thinks parasites who destroy their hosts are an evolutionary success needs to go back to school.
No, the logic isn't so black and white that either you adore humans no matter what they do because there is always hope for the future, or you get filled with self-loathing and pessimism. I think it is simply a matter of taking your head out of the sands of blind faith in humanity and asking yourself what humans have done with the earth so far to merit this faith that one day before it is too late we will turn things around. It is already too late for all the species we've driven to extinction over the course of the last ten thousand years.
FortyTwo
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Believe me, there's no blind faith here. That doesn't mean I don't think we can turn things around.
K-II
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I was under the impression it implied a viewpoint lacking in emotion (my dictionary says 'passion, emotion, or bias' - but it's rather old). It seems to me that such a viewpoint, not feeling one way or another, wouldn't have any concept of positive or negative unless it was given criteria to judge by (f.ex. 'the goal is n, which of these events is most conductive to attaining it?').
Pickle Juice
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I'm not interested in trying to take away people's hope. I just took exception to the idea that it is irrational to see humans in the abstract as a force of destruction. Our history shows otherwise. That doesn't mean change is impossible. I just think it's too little too late.
I don't think you have to have passion or bias to judge something as positive or negative.
cornsail
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I agree humans are detrimental to many other species and ecosystems. I don't agree with holding every individual humans responsible for the net effects of humanity as a whole, though. I like some humans, I like some dogs, I like some cats, I don't like some humans, I don't like some dogs, I don't like some cats...
Also, personally I think all needless killing of animals is sad and wrong, but I don't see killings that lead to extinctions as necessarily more tragic than killings that don't lead to extinctions. If people stopped breeding cows and chickens and they went extinct as a result I would be a happy puppy. Then at least billions of them wouldn't have to suffer every year. I understand certain extinctions can be detrimental to certain ecosystems though.
There are a few exceptions. I think raccoons, mice, rats, foxes and certain types of insects thrive off of human civilization.
Also, personally I think all needless killing of animals is sad and wrong, but I don't see killings that lead to extinctions as necessarily more tragic than killings that don't lead to extinctions. If people stopped breeding cows and chickens and they went extinct as a result I would be a happy puppy. Then at least billions of them wouldn't have to suffer every year. I understand certain extinctions can be detrimental to certain ecosystems though.
mlp said:
There are a few exceptions. I think raccoons, mice, rats, foxes and certain types of insects thrive off of human civilization.
I think you're probably mistaking an ability to adapt to living near human habitation with thriving. Foxes and raccoons are routinely shot and poisoned in this area. I haven't seen either around here for years, and this is a rural (but almost completely cultivated) area. And of course, with the predators gone, poison is heavily used against rodents.
Well, I would think that most disinterested observers (let's say from another galaxy) would probably say that a planet which is capable of and does sustain a wide variety of life is *better* or preferable to one on which reources have been largely used up by one species which has eradicated many tens of thousands of other species and which is approaching a point where it will no longer be able to sustain even that one species comfortably. Unless of course, those observers like the taste of human flesh, which would make them rather less than disinterested.
K-II
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I'd be surprised if anything capable of observing it from another galaxy thought of us and our impact in such a long-term way. The variety of life we as a species 'grew up' with had come about after some extinctions a lot more severe than what we cause, and our resources probably don't amount to much once you can reach other celestial objects conveniently. Unless they like oil I guess. That would be somewhat amusing.
