I'm fully aware that other species also alter their habitat to suit their needs.
Burrowing, hollowing out trees, etc. The difference is that their impact on the planet is completely sustainable. To put it another way (and as much as I HATE the term), every other species on this planet is completely carbon neutral. They consume what they need and no more, and their local surroundings adapt to sustain them. They have practically zero negative impact on the ecosystem because they are a natural part of it. When things do get a bit out of hand, nature restores the balance using disease or a dynamic increase in parasite/predator population.
Humans on the other hand, fight against the natural order all the bloody time. Almost all of us eat more than we need to eat, take up more space than we require, then exploit the oceans and land beyond breaking point in order to sustain our greed and create unfathomable amounts of pollution in the process.
On top of that, when nature steps in to do a bit of population control by introducing disease, we go out of our way to develop a bloody cure.
We are the only species that fights against nature on a mass scale.
I'm well aware that I'm typing this at the moment on a plastic keyboard connected to a mass produced piece of electronic gubbery, sitting at a desk made of MDF while wearing clothes that contain man-made fibres. And I'm not prepared to jump off a bridge in order to remove my particular carbon footprint from the planet. That's just silly! Comfort and convenience are lovely and I wouldn't deny either to anybody currently residing on this planet.
But there's absolutely no logical reason to make more people. Most of us with any sense are well aware of the negative impact we're having on the planet. It's completely unsustainable and although I don't think it's right to deny anybody the choice to live how they want while they're here, I think it's a bit shitty that they still feel the need to reproduce in the knowledge of how much harm we do. Like MadCatMan said earlier. If you want to take care of something, take care of something that's already here.
(, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 9:06, Share, Reply)
People usually don't care enough for strangers so they are not suitable vehicles for denying mortality :)
Speaking of reason, people reason after deed is done (it's called rationalisation), if at all.
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omnitruncatedkraken from Empire Algol, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 9:31,
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Humans are not above nature. We are not 'special'
You talk about humans from the inside looking out. If you take one further step back, you'll see that we are doing the same as every other species - we're just way better at it.
The clever thing about humans is that we can also fix the problems that we create. You picked carbon footprints as the measure of damage, but a billion or so years ago, it was plants that oxygenated the atmosphere - presumably killing off a huge number of species in the process, but that gave rise to animals and myriad other species.
We might be fucking the place up a bit right now, but give it a hundred years or so, and we will have solved that problem.
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HoratioFellatio Taking the the out of psychotherapist, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 10:12,
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Despite my personal feelings on the matter at hand...
I love how B3ta is still capable of calm, reasoned debate occasionally :)
(, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 10:22, Share, Reply)
Well your feelings are WRONG, even if the conclusion happens to be right ;)
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omnitruncatedkraken from Empire Algol, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 11:11,
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Preach on, Brother Penis...
I agree with all your points - a friend of mine can not seem to grasp that the most environmentally unfriendly thing you can do is have children (he has two and is a complete recycling nazi).
He's basically extended his carbon footprint potentially another 35 years minimum assuming his kids don't have kids as well.
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scoshi pretending to diet since, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 11:16,
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....by finding a way to stop the current global human population explosion, I'd wager.
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Tab Hunter Make this useless process end and so, begin again, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 11:05,
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What "current global human population explosion" exactly?
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HoratioFellatio Taking the the out of psychotherapist, Thu 16 Mar 2017, 20:55,
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