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Naturalism vs Post-naturalism
Topic Started: Apr 11 2016, 11:13 AM (4,220 Views)
flashman63
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The Herr From Terre
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HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 05:32 PM
I suggest reading Guns, Germs and Steel if you haven't. (Before saying anything about modern medicine, the book explains why the farmer's lifestyle is the main reason we even need modern medicine.)
HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 05:32 PM
I suggest reading Guns, Germs and Steel if you haven't. (Before saying anything about modern medicine, the book explains why the farmer's lifestyle is the main reason we even need modern medicine.)
>2016
>Recommending Jared Diamond
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

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Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

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Scrublord
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HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 05:32 PM
lamna
Apr 14 2016, 04:33 PM
If you're shopping around for reasons for the natural world, obviously we need a lot of it so we don't, you know, die.

But the unimportant stuff, like tigers and great Plains white fringed orchids. Because people enjoy them. Why do we have art? Why don't we just wear all the same utilitarian clothes? Why do people go to the cinema? Because it's pleasant.

I want my big water feature to have orca in it, and I want my rockery to have snow leopards.

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I dunno, human living standards will never be the same as they were for the original hunter gatherers. Farmers may have taken over because we can breed faster, but compared to even the modern city dwelling 'farmer' hunter- gatherers lived a life of health and ease. You won't see a stressed, diabetic hunter- gatherer who works ten hours a day, nor one who's starving to death among thousands of others in a desolate, ruined landscape.


Noble savage nonsense. Hunter gathers get stressed, they have to work hard, and sometimes they die of starvation. Some of them even have diabetes.

Many of them have access to nice stuff now, but that's only because they have contact with us fallen, downtrodden, ungodly farmers who have time to make condoms and smart phones and oil lamps.
I was talking about ancient/prehistoric hunter gatherer civilizations. Y'know, before the farmers showed up.
You're confusing 'noble savage' with the original affluent society theory. Despite common belief, life for early hunter gatherers wasn't a constant life or death struggle. They rarely starved, had access to a rich and varied diet, were physically fit and probably spent around fifteen hours a week at 'work'. Look at the artifacts they left behind, these people had time on their hands. They may not have been as "safe" as we are today, but at least their fight or flight response actually served its purpose rather than being bottled up and transformed into the poisonous substance we now know as stress.
Farmers may have overpowered hunter gatherers by sheer numbers, but farmers as a rule sacrifice quality for quantity. Compared to a hunter gatherer, a farmer was overworked, unhappy and unhealthy. And even today, most of humanitie's major problems can be traced back to too many people trying to milk everything they have for all it's worth. All wars are fought over shortages, amiright?

I suggest reading Guns, Germs and Steel if you haven't. (Before saying anything about modern medicine, the book explains why the farmer's lifestyle is the main reason we even need modern medicine.)
So are you saying the best thing to do is to get rid of everything meaningful accomplished over the past 10,000 years and go back to the caves?
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Flisch
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Scrublord
Apr 14 2016, 03:40 PM
Flisch
Apr 14 2016, 02:03 PM
The ecologies of Eurasia and North America are doing fine with all the mega fauna extinct.
I would beg to differ on that statement.
The ecosystems of North America and Eurasia in the pleistocene were not the same as those we would recognize today, in part because the megafauna are extinct.

I said they're doing fine, not that they're the same.

You seem to imply that change is inherently negative. The ecologies in Europe and North America have changed. Does this mean they have less validity than pre-human ecologies?



HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 03:55 PM
Farmers may have taken over because we can breed faster

I don't think the gestation period in humans differs based on lifestyle.

Hunter-gatherers also don't have less sex, it's just that the infant mortality rate is a lot higher.

HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 03:55 PM
You won't see a stressed, diabetic hunter- gatherer

There actually is a form of diabeetus that's inherited, so yeah, that's very well possible.

HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 03:55 PM
who works ten hours a day

True, they usually work at least 18 hours a day.

HangingThief
Apr 14 2016, 03:55 PM
nor one who's starving to death among thousands of others in a desolate, ruined landscape.

Also true, they usually starve to death somewhere in the wilderness. (Also, did I miss something? "Desolate, ruined landscape?" What dystopian future are we talking about?)
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Mr Mysterio
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Jurassic Zebra
Apr 14 2016, 05:05 PM
Kamineigh
Apr 14 2016, 04:41 PM
Question, is there a way to block/ignore topics, so that this one isn't hovering at the top of my feed in the portal?
People actually use the portal?
I have the portal bookmarked, and it's the main way I access the forum. It's how I keep up with what's going on around here.

And I agree with Kamineigh. This topic doesn't really feel like one that'll really actually go anywhere (like most internet debates, really), and it'd be cool to just. Not see it.
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flashman63
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"Life, uh, finds a way"

For all our hubris, "Man- Mighty Hunter" isn't going to be wiping the natural word clean any time soon.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

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Scrublord
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I'm struggling to understand your "thesis", as it were. You seem to be implying that we just plain shouldn't care about the environment, because there have been mass extinctions before, the Earth has recovered from them, and this one won't be any different.
Reading everything you said, I'm reminded of Michael Crichton's multi-page rant in the original Jurassic Park novel, where he more or less calls environmentalists fools who don't see the bigger picture. Is that really what you believe?

Edit: damn. Ninja'd.
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 14 2016, 05:51 PM.
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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
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Paleo_Specs
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Jurassic Zebra
Apr 14 2016, 05:05 PM
Kamineigh
Apr 14 2016, 04:41 PM
Question, is there a way to block/ignore topics, so that this one isn't hovering at the top of my feed in the portal?
People actually use the portal?
I use the portal.
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a species of canid that's always male because the females are in Hell, that commits blood rituals on unborn souls, and assimilates others into its flesh belongs in a competition meant to foster a sensible and mature discussion of evolution.
Nanotyrannus, COM 2016
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Scrublord
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Can I put up a poll on this topic, so I can get a better sense of what people actually believe?
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 14 2016, 05:56 PM.
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flashman63
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Scrublord
Apr 14 2016, 05:51 PM
I'm struggling to understand your "thesis", as it were. You seem to be implying that we just plain shouldn't care about the environment, because there have been mass extinctions before, the Earth has recovered from them, and this one won't be any different.
Reading everything you said, I'm reminded of Michael Crichton's multi-page rant in the original Jurassic Park novel, where he more or less calls environmentalists fools who don't see the bigger picture. Is that really what you believe?

Edit: damn. Ninja'd.
I definitely do believe this to an extent. We're just another example of the unique speciation and adaptation on earth. Ultimately, preserving species isn't a moral good- it's an aesthetic pleasure.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
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Scrublord
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But here's the thing--so many of the things humanity has created over its history were ultimately made for no purpose other than aesthetic pleasure. We're a creative species, that's our signifying trait. So when we make something like that's beautiful but doesn't serve a practical function,-- something like the Mona Lisa, or the Statue of Liberty, we exercise that creativity in a way no other animal does. If it weren't for our need for aesthetic pleasure, the world would be much duller.
Nature does not have any inherent value, because value is, once again, a uniquely human concept. Nature only has as much value as humans are willing to place on it. And if that value is for providing aesthetic pleasure, then so be it. We want there to be whales and big cats and elephants and rainforests and coral reefs and whatever-have-you, not because it's the morally "right" thing, but because from our perspective they make the world a more interesting place.
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 14 2016, 06:35 PM.
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Kamidio
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Objectively speaking, the Mona Lisa is hideous and the only reason it's held in such high regard is because it was made by Leonardo da Vinci. You chose a bad example for your argument.
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flashman63
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I agree. I enjoy the preservation of nature, favor re-wilding projects- but at the same time, just restoring the world to its pre-Anthropocene state is not interesting either. Now, Monkeys in Florida, Komodo Dragons in Australia- THAT'S interesting. I really like seeing mankind just fucking around with nature, and serving as the single most expansive and efficient method of long distance biogeographical dispersion the world has ever seen. I'm just as interested in seeing us making a mark on the world's ecology as I am in seeing species preservation.
Travel back through time and space, to the edge of man's beggining... discover a time when man, woman and lizard roamed free, and untamed!

It is an epoch of mammoths, a time of raptors!

A tale of love in the age of tyrannosaurs!

An epic from the silver screen, brought right to your door!

Travel back to
A Million Years BC

-----------------------------------------------------

Proceedings of the Miskatonic University Department of Zoology

Cosmic Horror is but a dissertation away

-----------------------------------------------------

Some dickhead's deviantART
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Kamidio
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Wait wait wait. There are Komodo dragons in Oz? I knew about the Floridian monkeys, but Aussie death lizards? Tell me more.
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Scrublord
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So you think we shouldn't bother trying to wipe out invasive species, even when it's obvious that they're a problem?
And Kamineigh, the only reason I brought up the Mona Lisa is because I needed something instantly recognizable.
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 14 2016, 06:47 PM.
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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
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Scrublord
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Kamineigh
Apr 14 2016, 06:41 PM
Wait wait wait. There are Komodo dragons in Oz? I knew about the Floridian monkeys, but Aussie death lizards? Tell me more.
That would certainly explain the so-called "Megalania sightings".
Edited by Scrublord, Apr 14 2016, 06:46 PM.
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