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Naturalism vs Post-naturalism
Topic Started: Apr 11 2016, 11:13 AM (4,222 Views)
Mr Mysterio
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Petition to rename Earth to Trash World.
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Flisch
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Niedfaru
Apr 12 2016, 02:41 PM
That's a different question entirely. I was merely responding to the question of whether the ability to stop matters.
I know it's a different question, but I was trying to get to the root of the discussion.
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LittleLazyLass
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Apr 12 2016, 04:28 PM
So you're saying we shouldn't care about the environment? We should just let the Earth get trashed, because it's gotten trashed before?
Don't put words in my mouth. I said there's not a difference (if it's on the same scale, which in the elephant case, it isn't; in the case of the Azolla event, it's much more proportional*), I never said that says anything on whether we should stop it. What I did imply was that our self-created and self-indulgent morals aren't on the same level as their effect.

*Although that's assuming we continue on our trends. As of now, we're not even close to the level of climate change that caused. Our domination of the planet isn't unique either; Lystosaurus beats out there.

I also find a bit of irony in this:
Me last time this came up
 
Are you seriously suggesting dropping all conservation? That's stupid.
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So you're saying we shouldn't care about the environment? We should just let the Earth get trashed, because it's gotten trashed before?
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I'm surprised at the amount of feedback this thread's gotten. Let's hope it stays civil--this could be a dangerous subject.
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Holben
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I think this forum is sensible enough to manage one topic about naive conservation ideologies. There's no point making comments about whether a thread will go bad; the staff will intervene if necessary.

Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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Scrublord
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Which is it that you're calling naive? Naturalism, or post-naturalism? BTW, I've also been having a conversation with a family friend about this. It's been interesting, and I can reproduce our conversation if he lets me.

I also have a new question, dealing with the whole idea that it's impossible to revert an ecosystem back to its prehuman state. And that question is: is it really. More specifically, what is the largest terrestrial landmass that has ever had all invasive species completely exterminated?
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 12 2016, 07:36 PM.
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LittleLazyLass
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Which is it that you're calling naive?
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I think the first obvious conclusion is that neither extreme is a good thing.
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Scrublord
Apr 12 2016, 04:28 PM
So you're saying we shouldn't care about the environment? We should just let the Earth get trashed, because it's gotten trashed before?

To flip your question around, considering we do not stop with what we're doing, how would it be any different from past extinction / climate change events in terms of outcome?


Scrublord
Apr 12 2016, 07:23 PM
I also have a new question, dealing with the whole idea that it's impossible to revert an ecosystem back to its prehuman state. And that question is: is it really.

It is insofar as we can only revert it to a state we assume to be the prehuman state.

Plus, you can't ask "how" before you got past the "why".
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Velociraptor
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Well, why should we not try to reduce our negative impact on the global environment? You keep asking why we should, but you haven't provided any reason as to why we shouldn't.
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LittleLazyLass
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Apr 13 2016, 01:56 PM
Well, why should we not try to reduce our negative impact on the global environment? You keep asking why we should, but you haven't provided any reason as to why we shouldn't.
But he has. Because it's not different from any other extinction in earth's history.

Now don't reply to this and say "So you think that means it's fine to watch it burn" or something, since I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it, I'm just saying he's explained himself (he went more in-depth in the "Thoughts on Cloning" thread from way back, although it's to old to use to judge current opinions).
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lamna
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Quote:
 
I also have a new question, dealing with the whole idea that it's impossible to revert an ecosystem back to its prehuman state. And that question is: is it really. More specifically, what is the largest terrestrial landmass that has ever had all invasive species completely exterminated?


Yes it is. Extinct species are gone. We may be able to bring back animals that went extinct in the very recent past within the decade, but for animals that have been gone longer, it's going to be a lot harder.

Impossible in some ways. Can you clone the non-instinctual behaviour of extinct animals?

As for the largest terrestrial landmass with all invasive species removed, I don't think there are any. Even Antarctica is home to alien plants, including the humble annual bluegrass.

How would you go about removing all the non-native flora and fauna? The uncountable microbes we've spread around the world? It's just not plausible using anything like modern technology.
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Flisch
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Apr 13 2016, 01:56 PM
Well, why should we not try to reduce our negative impact on the global environment? You keep asking why we should, but you haven't provided any reason as to why we shouldn't.
Compare

A: "We should save endangered species."
B: "Why?"
A: "Why not?"

to:

A: "You should give me all your money."
B: "Why?"
A: "Why not?"

You cannot demand action from someone without providing a reason.

So, let me ask again, why might we want to? (Note how I didn't say "should".)

It's kind of funny, because there actually is an answer to this question but everyone prefers to play the moral card.
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Niedfaru
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Let's reverse the question then: Why is is helpful to argue about whether an anthropogenic mass extinction is any different than the rest?

The most salient point for me is that if humans keep destroying all the ecosystems they rely on, they're going to have to adapt to new ones until the point when they can't any more, and then they too go extinct. Therefore, if makes sense for humans to stop destroying ecosystems. And as long as our understanding of them is incomplete, we can't attempt to completely manage them either.
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Monster
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Quote:
 
The most salient point for me is that if humans keep destroying all the ecosystems they rely on, they're going to have to adapt to new ones until the point when they can't any more, and then they too go extinct.


Yes, this exactly. To continue as we are may be 'natural' but that doesn't mean desirable, from a purely selfish point of view. The reason it is different for us to destroy it, rather than Azolla or a plague of elephants or whatever, is that we have a huge capacity to reason and plan what we are doing and why. We do not need to burn and eat ourselves into oblivion. We are fully capable of taking numerous alternative courses of action. We can consciously opt to allow land to recover after a hunting/foraging season, we can make a reasoned decision not to cut all the trees down at once or kill every animal of a given species. Does it even matter whether the aftermath of an anthropogenic extinction would be different to a non-anthropogenic one? We're dead either way, but we have a choice not to cause our own demise.

As for reverting to the pre-human state, no, it is impossible. As lamna said, we're gardening now. Conservation is landscape-level gardening. What kind of garden do we want? That is what we need to decide now, not do we want to make a garden. Furthermore; all conservation activity is ultimately a humanitarian effort, regardless of how much intrinsic value you personally place on other species. To pretend otherwise is to invite failure. And not get any funding.
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Flisch
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Niedfaru
Apr 13 2016, 02:50 PM
The most salient point for me is that if humans keep destroying all the ecosystems they rely on, they're going to have to adapt to new ones until the point when they can't any more, and then they too go extinct. Therefore, if makes sense for humans to stop destroying ecosystems. And as long as our understanding of them is incomplete, we can't attempt to completely manage them either.
That's quite the hyperbole though. The main reason behind loss of biodiversity is transforming land into farmland and what does farmland do? Feed people. If anything, destroying the environment seems to help humanity survive.

Of course, it's all shades of gray (as always). Excessive and careless agriculture wastes freshwater resources, but a shortage of such could possibly be solved with technologies such as filtration systems. Then there's the problem of overfishing, but we are already making progress with aquacultures. Big problems arise when pollution, erosion and other things turn arable areas into wasteland, but saying that humanity is going extinct from that is, well, a hyperbole.

You do have somewhat of a point though. We can't just go and bulldoze everything over, but we also don't need to save every species in order to survive (or to keep our current levels of living standards). Europe has one of the most damaged ecosystems worldwide and had so for quite a while. You don't see us starving. To be fair, we are right now importing the bulk of our foodstuff from developing nations, but we didn't do so until very recently, history-wise. (Okay, the romans dabbled with outsourcing food production, but you get my point.)

So yeah, we can't just go and lay waste to everything that moves and grows, but you know what? We don't. Humanity isn't some sort of mustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. We're not claiming land because we want to destroy the environment. We claim land in order to provide food, living space, or other things for the exponentially growing population. Sure, we could go extinct if we just mindlessly killed everything on the planet, but we would also go extinct if we all just decided to randomly jump off a cliff. The latter is only marginally less realistic than the former. There is a wide gap between trying to save the argentinian blue-cheeked moss-wattler of which there were only about a hundred individuals when humans arrived and not going out of our way to kill off all useful species.
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