Have humans destroyed completely destroyed earth??
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[QUOTE="xionvalkyrie"]
[QUOTE="clubsammich91"]The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, it has endured super volcanoes and huge ass meteor strikes. Us little humans haven't done anything to the planet that's worth worrying over. I recommend watching the show Life After People, it pretty much shows how the Earth could get rid of all evidence of humanity within a few hundred years.theone86
Pretty much this. We're incredibly insignificant in the grand scale of things. New lifeforms will arise that will adapt to whatever changes we leave behind on the Earth.
Insignificant is not the right word, we've destroyed 98% of the world's rainforests, ecosystems that won't recover for hundreds of thousands of years; we've destroyed 99% of naturally occuring praries, ecosystems that will never be exactly the same; we've begun to destroy coral reefs, some of the oldest ecosysetms on the planet, because of how we treat the environment leading to coral bleaching; human expansion has pushed certain species such as the panda and some whale species close to extinction, and some of these species may be too fargone to ever make a full recovery.
Ecosystems are a delicate balance, even the slightest actions can have far-reaching effects, and what we have done through expansion, pollution, and other actions is far from slight. Maybe in the long run we won't be around as long as wildlife will be, but that doesn't mean we don't affect wildlife. New forms of life will grow after we are gone, but that doesn't mean we don't affect species that exist now that might not be around as long as they could be because of our actions. Our species will die the metaphorical death it deserves, in other words we'll rest in the grave we dug for ourselves, unfortunately we won't be the only species there, there will be plenty that we have recklessly dragged with us. I think that was part of the point that the series was trying to make in the first place, we destroy and destroy and for what? If that's the mentality we have, the only monument to ourselves we'll leave behind is destruction.
Yes, the entire species deserves death because of the actions of some within it. :roll:
Okay, so they can render large portions of the earth veritable wastelands, unable to sustain life for an indefinite period of time, possibly forever depending on just how much life we're able to destroy, and that doesn't fit your definition of destroyed?
theone86
Nope. That's "changed" not "destroyed." Human life does not equal the Earth. "Indefinite" would require that you damage the planet to the point that life could never again evolve, which if I'm not mistaken would involve eliminating most the Earth's water. Like I said, our technology is insufficient to affect that much mass.
Destruction of the planet would imply that the damage caused was irreversible. Japan got hit with two nukes and is still kicking. So no, humans have certainly not destroyed the planet.
not only humans but cows. yes cows. when cows fart it adds to global warming. true fact
hiphopballer
not only humans but fat people. yes fat people. when fat people fart it adds to global warming. true fact
We're working on it. I have got bored of the endangered animals. They are useless and didn't adapt fast enough, no room for them anymore, sorry, hope reincarnation works out because heaven sounds kinda dull. Global Warming from a UK point of view has been pretty good so far, we get more extreme wether so actually tell the difference between seasons now instead of rainy day to rainy day.
It is virutally impossible for humans to 'destroy' the Earth. However that does not mean we can not destroy ecosystems via emitting chemicals into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses and their effects were discovered in the late 1800s and it was hypothesized that the Earth would gradually warm as the concentration of greenhouse gasses grew. The temperature in the last century has grown 0.7C. That may not sound like much but it is substantial considering during the Eocene-Paleocene Thermal Maximum the temps rose 6 degrees over the course of 20,000 years and a mass extinction took place because of it.
Of course there are other things that can effect climate as well such as surface albedo, lapse rate, changes in air pressure and ocean currents, changes in solar irradiance, global dimming and global brightening and so on. Actually a perfect example of mans effect on climate occurred durign the 1950s to 1970s. During this time the planet actually became colder because of the pollution, mainly sulfates and aerosols, that blocked the Suns ultraviolet radiation from striking the Earth. That radiation did not hit the surface of the Earth and was not re-emitted as infrared radiation in the form of heat. This could not be absorbed by greenhouse gasses such as CO2, N2O, O3, CFCs to name a few and no heating occurred. This is known as global dimming and is the same effecvt felt when a massive natural volcanic eruption occurs. Luckily the clean air act of 1978 included many types of aerosols and sulfates and the air is cleaner because of it. However this also increased the amount of radiation striking the surface of the Earth by decreasing the reflectivity of the atmosphere, a process known as global brightening.
When methane(CH4), a colourless odorless gas formed by the decomposition of plant and animal matter, is burned in an engine combustion, or rapid oxidization, occurs forming carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (2H2O). Other fossil fuels, which are hydrocarbon based, have similar makeups and chemistry. The greenhouse effect occurs because some of the gases in the atmosphere, including both CO2 and water vapour, are able to absorb infrared radiation. While the energy the Earth receives from the Sun is mostly in the short (Ultraviolet) wavelength the energy that is re-emitted by the Earth's surface back out into space is in the long (Infrared) wavelength due to the temperature of the Earth's surface. Oxygen and nitrogen, the major gases in the atmosphere, do not have the ability to absorb IR radiation. However when infrared radiation strikes a molecule such as carbon dioxide it causes the bonds to bend and vibrate, known as the absorption of IR energy, and gain kinetic energy which it transfers to other molecules. The greater the concentration of these greenhouse gases that are in the atmosphere the greater this effect will be and the warmer the planet will become.
It is well known that water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The level of water vapour in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. This means that the more you increase the temperature of a given area the more evaporation will take place in that area and the greater amount of water vapour that area will be able to hold. This would result in rising temperatures which would increase commulatively until some other external force acts upon it. When other greenhouse gasses are added to the equation it amplifies this effect by increasing the transfer of heat.
Greenhouse gas absorption occurs in multiple levels of the atmosphere. It is not only limited to one layer. As the radiation re-emitted by the Earth's surface moves up layer by layer through the atmosphere some is stopped in each layer until eventually the energy reaches a layer so thin the radiation can escape into space unimpeded. When stopped, the molecule may radiate the energy back out into a random direction or it may transfer this energy into velocity in collisions with other air molecules, as explained above. As you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and saturate the lower levels with greenhouse gases the mean radiating level of the planet will be set to higher altitudes. Approximately 99.13% of water vapour exists in the troposphere while CO2 can exist throughout the atmosphere.
Where are there two verbs in your title?
I'm more worried about human destroying grammar.
Once WWIII finally happens, then we will have destroyed the Earth (or at least wiped ourselves and most life off of the planet). Fortunately, we can't actually DESTROY the planet, so once we've destroyed ourselves and 95% of the life on this planet, everything can reset and in another few thousand years life can re-emerge. I feel very thankful knowing that no matter how stupid we as a species are, we can't really cause any PERMANENT damage to the planet, and life will carry on once we've inevitably destroyed ourselves.
Shouldn't fit anyone's definition of "destroyed", because the Earth is still there.
If you take a needle, dip it in alcohol and then heat it up red hot, have you destroyed that needle? Or have you simply removed all life from that needle?
If you take a metal pot full of crabs and shrimp, and then heat it to the point that everything in that pot is dead, have you destroyed the pot?
If you go to the zoo and kill every single animal on exhibit, have you destroyed the zoo?
This is the ONLY instance in which Y lives on X, and people somehow think that destroying Y is synonymous witrh destroying X. If you killed off the athlete's foot fungus living on your feet, is that the same as saying that you have destroyed your feet? No, because the fungus and the foot aren't the same thing. The "organisms which live on Earth" are NOT the same thing as "Earth". They are not the same thing. Destroying one does not require the destruction of the other. Earth could be a barren wasteland completely devoid of all life, and Earth would still be doing just fine.
MrGeezer
That's a pretty strange definition of just fine you have there. If you heat up a needle then cool it, what will ahppen to it? It will be deformed, it will not be the same needle it was before. If you kill every animal in a zoo is it a zoo any longer? You haven't destroyed teh structure itself, but you have destroyed everything that makes it a zoo, the presence of animals within its structure. Sure, we could render earth inhospitable and it would still be there, but we will have destroyed everything unique about it, I have no problem cla$$ifying that as destroyed.
Nope. That's "changed" not "destroyed." Human life does not equal the Earth. "Indefinite" would require that you damage the planet to the point that life could never again evolve, which if I'm not mistaken would involve eliminating most the Earth's water. Like I said, our technology is insufficient to affect that much mass.
Palantas
Human life does not equal earth, but plant and animal life do. Changed, laughable, what we've done so far goes beyond simply changing, if we completely wiped out large portions of life and multiple ecosystems it would be destroyed. For one, some of those ecosystems took billions of years to evolve, the coral reefs for example. They are home to the most diverse selection of aquatic wildlife on the planet and our actions are destroying them. The trees in the rainforests took thousands of year to grow and the rainforests are home to the most diverse selection of terrestrial wildlife and we are destroying them. Life does not just pop up overnight, these species took billions of years to evolve and form a delicate balance with their surrounding ecosystems. They are extremely unique as well, think of how far into space our probes have been and we haven't seen a single planet that supports life, and yet here we have a planet brimming with bio-diversity and you think it's okay that we just waste that and kill off species indiscriminately.
And no, new species will not just evolve. If we destroy all plant and animal life then when a new species did evolve, which isn't garunteed anyways as the original course of evolution required very specific circumstances which may not be able to be replicated, and because earth doesn't have the billions of year required for the process of evolution left in its lifetime, but if by freak accident some new species did evolve there would be no food to sustain it. Earth does have limited resources, it is not an infinite wealth of whatever we want, and we can and are affecting earth and its other inhabitants.
Human life does not equal earth, but plant and animal life do.
theone86
No, they don't. They make up part of the Earth's biosphere. The Earth is a celestial body with a mass of approximately 6E24 kilograms, most of which is not plants or animals. Now, you can argue symantics or the thread creator's intention with that one, but in these next two statements you're just dead wrong:
...and because earth doesn't have the billions of year required for the process of evolution left in its lifetime...
theone86
The solar system formed less than five billion years ago. Intelligent life took a fraction of that time to develop. The sun will enter its red giant phase in five billion years or so. Obviously, there is plenty of time for intelligent life to re-evolve, even if the planet is sterilized tomorrow.
...but if by freak accident some new species did evolve there would be no food to sustain it.
theone86
Okay, maybe with the last one you just didn't know your facts, but this next statement is a clear indication you're not thinking about what you're writing. How would life evolve in an environment that does allow it to survive? That's impossible. Your statment is like saying, "If life evolved on Mercury, it would burn up." Well gee, obviously it would never develop in the first place.
earth did fine without humans. the dinosaurs and various other animals lived a happy existence
then a meteor hit.
Just because it's still here, doesn't mean it's not completely ruined. Look at people with terminal cancer, just because it's "still there", doesn't mean it's not bad. Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent. Human are like bacteria, causing cancerous legions throughout the Earth. I hope we never make it to Mars, otherwise it would be violated aswell.Well, it's still here, so...no.
Elephant_Couple
Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent.
mike_me
In that case, no reason to change or anything or try to protect the atmosophere. Just, eat, drink, and be merry, 'cause the planet's ****ed.
Human are like bacteria, causing cancerous legions throughout the Earth. I hope we never make it to Mars, otherwise it would be violated aswell.
mike_me
You're aware Mars is almost certainly lifeless, right? I suppose you think the Apollo astronauts caused "cancerous legions" on the Moon.
[QUOTE="Elephant_Couple"]Just because it's still here, doesn't mean it's not completely ruined. Look at people with terminal cancer, just because it's "still there", doesn't mean it's not bad. Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent. Human are like bacteria, causing cancerous legions throughout the Earth. I hope we never make it to Mars, otherwise it would be violated aswell.Well, it's still here, so...no.
mike_me
My friend, as much as I agree that we've caused and are causing heavy damage to the planet and it's natural ecosystems, to say we've "ruined" the planet is a bit of an overstatement. Regardless of what we do in our stupidity, the planet will correct itself eventually and continue on. It's done fine for 4 billion years before our emergence and once we've wiped ourselves out the planet can continue without us infecting it constantly. But no, we can't ruin the Earth, only our chances of living and existing on it.
[QUOTE="mike_me"]
Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent.
Palantas
In that case, no reason to change or anything or try to protect the atmosophere. Just, eat, drink, and be merry, 'cause the planet's ****ed.
Human are like bacteria, causing cancerous legions throughout the Earth. I hope we never make it to Mars, otherwise it would be violated aswell.
mike_me
You're aware Mars is almost certainly lifeless, right? I suppose you think the Apollo astronauts caused "cancerous legions" on the Moon.
What? We didn't do much to the moon, other than leave a playboy on it, etc. (true, look it up) Just look at L.A., or NYC, from up in the air... what do you see? A bunch of ugly tall grey buildings with smoke coming out of the city... that's disgusting, that's cancer to the Earth. If aliens looked at the Earth from afar, they'd say they saw a bunch of mold on a planet. Just the same as if you look at a moldy peach.
We're aware of what we're doing to the planet and we'll adapt (we already are) and probably adapt more strongly as the years go by.
My friend, as much as I agree that we've caused and are causing heavy damage to the planet and it's natural ecosystems, to say we've "ruined" the planet is a bit of an overstatement. Regardless of what we do in our stupidity, the planet will correct itself eventually and continue on. It's done fine for 4 billion years before our emergence and once we've wiped ourselves out the planet can continue without us infecting it constantly. But no, we can't ruin the Earth, only our chances of living and existing on it.MystikFollowerTrue. We've done plenty damage and that's sad. Maybe I shouldn't have said "irreversible".
[QUOTE="hiphopballer"]
not only humans but cows. yes cows. when cows fart it adds to global warming. true fact
Rckstrchik
not only humans but fat people. yes fat people. when fat people fart it adds to global warming. true fact
And fat people aren't humans ? :P:P
What? We didn't do much to the moon, other than leave a playboy on it, etc. (true, look it up) Just look at L.A., or NYC, from up in the air... what do you see? A bunch of ugly tall grey buildings with smoke coming out of the city... that's disgusting, that's cancer to the Earth. If aliens looked at the Earth from afar, they'd say they saw a bunch of mold on a planet. Just the same as if you look at a moldy peach.mike_me
My comment on the moon was only based on your Mars comment, and you failed to answer my question.
The rest of your post is mostly fact-free. That tall, grey buildings are ugly is your opinion. Skyscrapers are the way they are because they are efficient. That aliens would behave any particular way is your opinion. It's kind of an odd opinion too.A civilization does not reach the degree of industrial and technological sophistication necessary to transport members of their species to other planets without a massive infrastructure (you know: ugly, grey buildings). If an advanced alien race did stop by our planet, I'd imagine they would think that we were much like them, at least at some point in their development. Of course, that's just my opinion.
Also, you didn't answer the first part of my last post, so I'll post it again:
[QUOTE="mike_me"]
Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent.
I
In that case, no reason to change or anything or try to protect the atmosophere. Just, eat, drink, and be merry, 'cause the planet's ****ed.
Humans have transformed the earth not destroyed it. I love how people go on about how ugly skyscrapers are yet what a brown thing with some green leaves is beautiful to you?. People like that who take the extreme view of us destroying the planet and we are vile beings should GTFO of our country and we should dump then on an island that hasnt been touched or we vow never to touch it but to instead give the idiots more idiots to play with. Seriously if you think we have destroyed you just wait a few billion years for the sun to grow to a size in which is burns off our atmosphere and cooks everything on earth. Yeah humans are ****ing terrible. Go an play with sticks..
Humans have transformed the earth not destroyed it. I love how people go on about how ugly skyscrapers are yet what a brown thing with some green leaves is beautiful to you?. People like that who take the extreme view of us destroying the planet and we are vile beings should GTFO of our country and we should dump then on an island that hasnt been touched or we vow never to touch it but to instead give the idiots more idiots to play with. Seriously if you think we have destroyed you just wait a few billion years for the sun to grow to a size in which is burns off our atmosphere and cooks everything on earth. Yeah humans are ****ing terrible. Go an play with sticks..
o0squishy0o
you claim to hate the extremists and yet you sound like one yourself, talking crap about something as pretty as a tree.
I agree, however, thatwhat we humans have created rivals nature both in beauty and practicality. The problem, however, is that what we have created has begun to overrun nature.
I dont think it as disasterous as people make it out to be, but people also fail to look ahead...like 1000 years ahead. That really is not that far away in the small scheme of things. If we keep going the way we are, it will not end well. Natural disaster (an asteroid, a worldwide earthquake, whatever) is one thing, but global suicide via pollution, war, etc is just pathetic.
We need to start making small, tiny, near-insignificant changes to our current ways of making progress so we dont wreck the earth
Just because it's still here, doesn't mean it's not completely ruined. Look at people with terminal cancer, just because it's "still there", doesn't mean it's not bad. Yes, we have completely ruined the Earth, to an unrepairable extent. Human are like bacteria, causing cancerous legions throughout the Earth. I hope we never make it to Mars, otherwise it would be violated aswell.mike_me
Which is all nothing more than a matter of perspective. One species' tragedy is another species triumph. For every panda bear that's weeping because of what we've done to them, there is a rat who thanks God that we came along.
The rats adapted to benefit from us, the pandas didn't.
Species WILL benefit from all of the "destruction" that we're causing, there very well may come a time in which such species would never have even come into existence if not for us. Because "destruction" and "creation" are very often the exact same thing.
So no. Unless we somehow manage to wipe out every single living thing on the planet (which I don't think it's even POSSIBLE for us to do), then all that that "destruction" did was wipe parts of the canvas clean in order that they can be filled in by something else.
What? We didn't do much to the moon, other than leave a playboy on it, etc. (true, look it up) Just look at L.A., or NYC, from up in the air... what do you see? A bunch of ugly tall grey buildings with smoke coming out of the city... that's disgusting, that's cancer to the Earth. If aliens looked at the Earth from afar, they'd say they saw a bunch of mold on a planet. Just the same as if you look at a moldy peach.mike_me
And there's your problem. You're thinking of a moldy peach as being "ruined" or "detroyed", but failing to recognize that the mold is LIFE. You compare humanity to a runaway bacterial infection, as if that's a bad thing. But the bacteria is LIFE.
When you talk about preserving life, are you REALLY talking about life? Or are you simply talking about the kinds of cute and fuzzy life that kids like to watch when they go to the zoo? Hypothetically speaking, suppose that all VERTEBRATE life disappeared in a massive extinction event, and the world was then left populated by mold, bugs, and bacteria. How would that be inherently any better or worse than the world in which we live today?
What people refer to as "destruction" is really NOTHING more than "change". That has been going on for as long as life has existed. And the world we cherish so much would not freaking exist if the canvas of life hadn't previously had huge patches erased. We can kill a LOT of animals, but we can't kill ALL of them. Life WILL bounce back after we're gone, and the new inhabitants of this world will be damn glad that we were here to help carve out a niche for them.
I guess it's just hard for people to realize that nature doesn't care about our sensibilities or what we deem to be good and beautiful. If life is truly precious and if the survival of a species is not subject to any kind of notion of goodness or beauty, then there is beauty in death. The dead sustain the living, and the living cannot survive without a lot of things dying. This has not changed, EVER, and this will continue to be the case long after we're gone. The cosmos doesn't care about you, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad if humanity were to be extinguished. But the same also applies to the whales, the panda bears, and the cute little puppies. Nature doesn't give a **** about them either. And if our species is better off dead, then why wouldn't the same apply to any other species?
That's life, man. I'm pretty sure the world has been destroyed in the past. Just look at all the technology that they had in the past.
The sky is still blue. The grass is still green. There are still forests. The extinction of animals is normal and has happened long before we showed up. Earth is fine. KHAndAnimeEarth may be fine, but it was feeling a lot better before we came along.
you claim to hate the extremists and yet you sound like one yourself, talking crap about something as pretty as a tree.
I agree, however, thatwhat we humans have created rivals nature both in beauty and practicality. The problem, however, is that what we have created has begun to overrun nature.
I dont think it as disasterous as people make it out to be, but people also fail to look ahead...like 1000 years ahead. That really is not that far away in the small scheme of things. If we keep going the way we are, it will not end well. Natural disaster (an asteroid, a worldwide earthquake, whatever) is one thing, but global suicide via pollution, war, etc is just pathetic.
We need to start making small, tiny, near-insignificant changes to our current ways of making progress so we dont wreck the earth
mrbojangles25
I don't think he was "talking crap" about "the beauty of nature" at all.
Rather, it looked to me like he was more making a comment that people make decisions on the basis of things like "beauty". Beauty is a thing which does not actually exist. What we deem to be beautiful suddenly becomes completely neautral the second that we stop existing.
Just like the mold on a peach. Just like a growing cyst in the brain filled with parasitic worms. It's just a weird little thing about environmentalism. People don't talk about how we're destroying OURSELVES, they talk about how we're "destroying the Earth". People talk about we're killing off all life, yet they then put roach traps in their apartment while never realizing that the roach is LIFE and that its success as a species is tied to the emergence of humans.
Rats ABSOLUTELY benefit from us. So do the cockroaches. If we ever take to the stars, there's a pretty decent chance that we're taking the cockroaches and houseflies along with us.
But I sort of digreesed there a little bit. My point is...there is no inherent beauty in ANYTHING. The beauty of a tree, the beauty of a casino or a skyscraper? That doesn't even really MEAN anything, at least not as far as nature is concerned. It only means something to US, to a particular species with a specific concept of beauty and goodness.
Now...considering that this species is also the species supposedly "destroying" all that is good and beatiful, think about that for a minute. There's a sort of irony here, in the sense that people argue for saving certain kinds of life out of a sense of justness/goodness/beauty. Those same concepts of justness/beauty/etc are EXACTLY the same subjective ideals that lead to the "destruction" of environments and wetlands being paved over by concrete in order to make a classy strip mall. The people arguing that we are "destroying the world" are very often operating under EXACTLY the same subjective and irrelevant human ideals which led to the "problem" in the first place.
All I'm saying is...let's be honest here. We can't sit here arguing that we should "save the Earth" under shaky and irrelevant notions of what is "good/beutiful/etc". THAT is in itself still imposing humanistic values on other life. And that's sort of hypocritical. Why is a moldy peach UGLY or BAD? That mold is devouring that peach, EXACTLY as we would have done if we had gotten to the peach before the mold did. The very idea that a "moldy peach" or an "uncontrollable bacterial infection" is even "bad" AT ALL is still doing the exact same thing: imposing our subjective concepts of beuaty and goodness onto the rest of nature.
And that's the EXACT same attitude that results in strip-mining valuable habitats and pumping poisons into the air. Let's at least be honest here to admit that the benefit of environmentalism is NOT in saving life. Because realistically, death BENEFITS life, and it is in no way valid to say that a live and healthy puppy is somehow BETTER than a dead puppy sustaining the lives of 50,000 maggots.
We at least need to be honest about environmentalism and admit that it isn't about saving the earth AT ALL. Because Earth did fine after being hit with stuff far worse than anything we can throw at it. As far as we know, once life started, it has NEVER been rendered completely barren of all life. And once we're gone, life will fill in any gaps, EXACTLY the same as in every other mass extinction ever known to have occured. "Saving the Earth" is simply a load of horse****, and lets at least be honest about that. Let's be honest to appeal to pure unadulterates selfishness and admit that this is really ONLY about preserving the kind of world which is beneficial to our species. That's it. "Preserving the environment" is JUST as narrow and short-sighted as saving the whales or eradicating malaria or dumping oil onto beaches. It's not for the benefit of "Earth" or for the benefit of "Life". It's for the benefit of us as a species.
[QUOTE="KHAndAnime"]The sky is still blue. The grass is still green. There are still forests. The extinction of animals is normal and has happened long before we showed up. Earth is fine. JustPlainLucasEarth may be fine, but it was feeling a lot better before we came along.
Earth has never FELT a goddamn thing.
Earth is not alive. Earth did not always contain life. Nature does not CARE about life, and our sun will eventually destroy all life on Earth. That's nature. All indications are that all life in the UNIVERSE will eventually cease to exist, and that the universe will exist FOREVER while simultaneously being COMPLETELY cold and dead.
Nature does not care about humans, and nature does not care about LIFE. Sure, life is POSSIBLE within the bounds of the physical laws of the universe. And the history of such life has ALWAYS been filled with rampant pain, death, suffering, and extinction. If I may digress into a more philosophical opinion, I'd say that LIFE is not special. The universe does not exist for the benefit of LIFE, in exactly the same way that the universe does not exist for the benefit of humanity. Nature does not revolve around us, and it doesn't revolve around LIFE either. A cold dead and scorched world completely devoid of life is just as good/bad as a tropical paradise planet full of martinis and hot naked chicks.
The universe does not care about life. Nature has absolutely zero problem with allowing ALL LIFE TO BE EXTINGUISHED through means which cannot be avoided by ANY kind of life. The death of all life on Earth, be it by humanity's actions or by the sun going red giant, means absolutely ****-all to nature. Just as you and I must die, LIFE must eventually die and become impossible to exist. Things end. And if there's ANY beauty to be found here, it's the bveauty that life is able to do so well in spite of a cosmos which is absolutely indifferent to that life's suffering. The beauty is that ALL life must come to and end, but life struggles and persists while it can, and carves out its own place in the sun for the short time that it has. It's like a glimmer in the evening sea, a shooting star in the night sky. It's here for only a short time. It will soon be gone, and will never return. Blink and you'll miss it. But we damn sure try to hold onto that moment, to make the most of it, and to not let it pass us by even though we know that it must eventually die.
The beauty of life is that life itself was ALWAYS doomed to end, right from the start. But for a damn short time, the struggle and the pain and the death felt really good.
Earth may be fine, but it was feeling a lot better before we came along.[QUOTE="JustPlainLucas"][QUOTE="KHAndAnime"]The sky is still blue. The grass is still green. There are still forests. The extinction of animals is normal and has happened long before we showed up. Earth is fine. MrGeezer
Earth has never FELT a goddamn thing.
Earth is not alive. Earth did not always contain life. Nature does not CARE about life, and our sun will eventually destroy all life on Earth. That's nature. All indications are that all life in the UNIVERSE will eventually cease to exist, and that the universe will exist FOREVER while simultaneously being COMPLETELY cold and dead.
Nature does not care about humans, and nature does not care about LIFE. Sure, life is POSSIBLE within the bounds of the physical laws of the universe. And the history of such life has ALWAYS been filled with rampant pain, death, suffering, and extinction. If I may digress into a more philosophical opinion, I'd say that LIFE is not special. The universe does not exist for the benefit of LIFE, in exactly the same way that the universe does not exist for the benefit of humanity. Nature does not revolve around us, and it doesn't revolve around LIFE either. A cold dead and scorched world completely devoid of life is just as good/bad as a tropical paradise planet full of martinis and hot naked chicks.
The universe does not care about life. Nature has absolutely zero problem with allowing ALL LIFE TO BE EXTINGUISHED through means which cannot be avoided by ANY kind of life. The death of all life on Earth, be it by humanity's actions or by the sun going red giant, means absolutely ****-all to nature. Just as you and I must die, LIFE must eventually die and become impossible to exist. Things end. And if there's ANY beauty to be found here, it's the bveauty that life is able to do so well in spite of a cosmos which is absolutely indifferent to that life's suffering. The beauty is that ALL life must come to and end, but life struggles and persists while it can, and carves out its own place in the sun for the short time that it has. It's like a glimmer in the evening sea, a shooting star in the night sky. It's here for only a short time. It will soon be gone, and will never return. Blink and you'll miss it. But we damn sure try to hold onto that moment, to make the most of it, and to not let it pass us by even though we know that it must eventually die.
The beauty of life is that life itself was ALWAYS doomed to end, right from the start. But for a damn short time, the struggle and the pain and the death felt really good.
So we should not only be complacent in the destruction of naturally occuring lifeforms, we should actively encourage their speedy destruction? I agree that the beuaty of life is that it is finite, but to me that is not a reasont to destroy it faster, that is a reason to preserve it for as long as possible.
So we should not only be complacent in the destruction of naturally occuring lifeforms, we should actively encourage their speedy destruction? I agree that the beuaty of life is that it is finite, but to me that is not a reasont to destroy it faster, that is a reason to preserve it for as long as possible.
theone86
A statement regarding "is" does not imply anything about "ought".
Its in our nature.
One thing that kinda bothers me with this whole endangered species thing is that what if that particular species was suppose to go extinct. Most would say that they were not suppose to go extinct becuase we were the cause of it. Why is that not a natural cause when we naturally destroy things?
The dinosaurs went extinct from an asteroid. Nothing extactly natural about that. And look at what came after the dinosaurs. Perhaps we are stagnating the planets evoluion by trying to save the trees and animals. Something will always come after. And something will come after all humanity is gone.
Humans have transformed the earth not destroyed it. I love how people go on about how ugly skyscrapers are yet what a brown thing with some green leaves is beautiful to you?. People like that who take the extreme view of us destroying the planet and we are vile beings should GTFO of our country and we should dump then on an island that hasnt been touched or we vow never to touch it but to instead give the idiots more idiots to play with. Seriously if you think we have destroyed you just wait a few billion years for the sun to grow to a size in which is burns off our atmosphere and cooks everything on earth. Yeah humans are ****ing terrible. Go an play with sticks..
o0squishy0o
Good, I wish the sun would burn us all like the miserable pieces of **** we are. If there is any proof of the lack of a god in the universe it's that we are allowed to continue destroy all that is beautiful, and not only to do that but to prosper while we do it and bask in our self-created glory for doing so. No benevolent being would allow a species such as ours to be the dominant form of life on a planet as unique as ours, much less allow us to do as much harm as we have. But if I believe in anything I believe in karma, a balancing force to the universe. In the end, what do we value most as beings? A legacy, to be remembered. We have destroyed that which is unique in this world, which is extremely rare in this universe, and for what? Our own self-satisfaction? We have destroyed that which is sacred in the eyes of the universe, and in turn the universe will destroy that which is sacred in our eyes. We will eventually burn, and we will be forgotten. That which we value most will be dead to the universe, and balance will be restored. People act like karma always works in the best interest of those who do good, but I think what they fail to consider is that even the best that we have to offer doesn't measure up to good, that we ourselves might be inherently bad. We're so self-righteous as a species, we think we have the Midas' touch. Personally I can't think of any better example of karma in action than for everything we touch to turn to **** instead of gold like it invariably will.
So we should not only be complacent in the destruction of naturally occuring lifeforms, we should actively encourage their speedy destruction? I agree that the beuaty of life is that it is finite, but to me that is not a reasont to destroy it faster, that is a reason to preserve it for as long as possible.
theone86
Again, destruction IS creation and vice versa.
To state that one thing OUGHT to not be destroyed is to state that another thing ought NOT to be created.
And what business do we have judging those things, when our notions of "ought" are ONLY limited to a specific human morality (the same kind of morality that resulted in the "destruction" in the frst place).
THAT'S what I'm saying. That by "saving" X, that we are "destroying" a potential Y. Y very well might be "better" than X, but that's irrelevant since we rely on X in order to sustain US.
Anything we do to save something results in the destruction of something, and anything we do to destroy something results in the creation of something. Creation and destruction should be total non-issues if we are to survive as a species. The ONLY thing here is the preservation of a world which is beneficial to US in terms of LONG TERM survival.
Thst's all that ANY species is concerned about. Survival. We're one of the few species with the ABILITY to think in the long term (though humans are characteristically not very good at that), and the ability to view conservation of OTHER species as part of our species PLAN for survival.
But let's make no mistake that morality and goodness don't mean a flying **** to anyone other than US (since our concepts of morality and goodness only apoply to US). No...we should remove all pretense that our actions are what is best foir "the Earth" or "the Environment". We should realize that "environmentalism" is theoretically NO different than scorching the Earth and dumping oil on beaches, since we're still talking about OUR continuation as a species. The only difference is that capitalist actions often seem to be more short-term-oriwnted, while environmentalist actions often seem to be more long-term-oriented. But let's make no mistake that BOTH these kinds of ideologies are done solely for the benefit of US. Not the pandas, NOT the whales, NOT for life in general.
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