I am nature... ?

Excellent comments so far. Good thread!:jointsmile: I understand exactly what you are saying and it does make sense. Even in the bible it says the earth is ours to do what we will with it. Man has dominion over the animals the fish the birds and so on. As far as the question of dams goes i would say the difference is only the size which in turn effects a lot more things. A beaver dame does change the flow of a stream. There are almost no negative effects to this that i know of. When humans build large dams like the hoover dam we are permanently altering the course of massive rivers for our benefit. This is not necessarily a bad thing but then we end up destroying ecosystems and food chains. Ultimately this could bite us in the butt. For example lets say that a certain animal or plant becomes extinct. Because of this whatever animals eat this animal or plant are affected. And if it is the only food they eat then they become extinct and so on. I know that sounded confusing and i apologize.

Anyways lets say we continue polluting our world and making it worse. In 100 years or so what if we have made extinct many living organisms? What if we damage the earth so much that we can no longer live here? And if we don't have interplanetary travel or other space stations or whatever for people to go to then many of us will die. Although of course thats a hypothetical and probably wouldn't happen anyway.

The point is that by harming our enviroment we could ultimately destroying ourselves and that is not good.


p.s. this is one of the better threads in the lounge in a long time.

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Originally Posted by halo

....The point is that by harming our enviroment we could ultimately destroying ourselves and that is not good.....

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quite possibly our self-extinction is just another twist on the inevitable demise of all evolutionary dead-ends. the species has proven itself incapable of peacefully coexisting with other creatures, even with itself. our great intellects have given us the capacity to destroy ourselves (along with a significant portion of the rest of the world) in numerous ways and yet we are incapable of finding solutions for our most basic problems. famine and disease run rampant all over the world and yet we expend more energy to make sure grandpa can get it up than we do eradicating the poverty we are surrounded by every day.

our fatal flaw is our tendency toward cruelty and there may be no fix for it.

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Originally Posted by CityBoyGoneCountry

Lightning starts a forest fire. Thousands of acres are burned to the ground. Many animals are killed or displaced. In the short term this seems like a bad thing. But in the long term we see the good it actually accomplished. The ground is now replenished and the forest regrows healthier for it.

Maybe human beings are a natural disaster that looks bad at first, but later on we will see the good they have done, whether they meant it to turn out that way or not.

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You've been away from the country for too long...


Lightning bolts don't cause fires every day, but every day more deforestation occurs. Yes, similar destruction is evident in nature, but we use resources at a much faster rate. This isn't philosophical "the world we be alright in the end so I don't have to deal with it" situation, the fact is that we use more resources than the earth can replenish, and that's something we need to focus on changing.

Actually, less acres are burned now than ever.
Yes, wildfires can be caused by lightning. We actually put out the 'wildfires'. Back in the day when there was noone to put the fires out, they burned massive areas compared to now. Lots of people didn't know that I bet.

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Originally Posted by delusionsofNORMALity

quite possibly our self-extinction is just another twist on the inevitable demise of all evolutionary dead-ends. the species has proven itself incapable of peacefully coexisting with other creatures, even with itself. our great intellects have given us the capacity to destroy ourselves (along with a significant portion of the rest of the world) in numerous ways and yet we are incapable of finding solutions for our most basic problems. famine and disease run rampant all over the world and yet we expend more energy to make sure grandpa can get it up than we do eradicating the poverty we are surrounded by every day.

our fatal flaw is our tendency toward cruelty and there may be no fix for it.

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Nicely put! You might be right, but I hope not:) What you say is true, but there is another side (there always is) - we also have great intellects who actually are working to find those solutions, they just don't happen to be in the White House! I believe there are still visionaries out there. From history we see that there will always be people who won't give up, and many others who will wake up when it gets bad enough. And some who don't.
We aren't necessarily evolutionary dead-ends. We may be able to make a quantum leap in consciousness so that we are able to survive, albeit in reduced numbers.
We have the capacity now to communicate with more people than ever before- we just need pioneers of this new frontier to gather together the brightest minds and deepest spirits to create a global mindset that has more power than any of its parts. I truly believe that with this method of communication, we can either save or doom ourselves. I vote for save-

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Originally Posted by ValkyrieAg

Actually, less acres are burned now than ever.
Yes, wildfires can be caused by lightning. We actually put out the 'wildfires'. Back in the day when there was noone to put the fires out, they burned massive areas compared to now. Lots of people didn't know that I bet.

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Less acres are burned now than ever? What about, you know, deforestation? Did you know that we remove much more trees than are burned every year as a cause of lightning? Remember, if someone throws a lit cigarette out their window and end up burning a forest, that was still a human's fault.

This thread blew my mind man... now i feel like a real hippie... flower power... and you know what flower im on about ;)

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Originally Posted by halo

Anyways lets say we continue polluting our world and making it worse. In 100 years or so what if we have made extinct many living organisms? What if we damage the earth so much that we can no longer live here? And if we don't have interplanetary travel or other space stations or whatever for people to go to then many of us will die. Although of course thats a hypothetical and probably wouldn't happen anyway.

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Neither you, or I, or anyone else knows what the next evolutionary phase is supposed to be. For all we know the next Age may be unlike anything we are currently familiar with. It may not even include us. Maybe it just needs us to set the stage and fade away.

Or maybe it does include us, that is, it may include what we become.

Evolution is change. You can't expect the world to always remain the way it is now. When you see your world changing it may seem like a bad thing to you only because you do not know what it is changing into. What we see is just a stroke of the brush, not the finished painting.

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Originally Posted by liberiamom

.... we also have great intellects who actually are working to find those solutions....

....We aren't necessarily evolutionary dead-ends. We may be able to make a quantum leap in consciousness....

....We have the capacity now to communicate with more people than ever before....

....I vote for save-

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well Lmom, at least humanity has your vote. however, your optimism is, i fear, sorely misplaced.

those great intellects you put such faith in are more concerned with control than solutions. billions are spent to support those efforts and those billions are coming from the very people who profit most from the suffering. any answers they may find only serve to strengthen the few. each new discovery is patented, cataloged and passed on to the masses for a price.

yes, a quantum leap. that's what it would take, but where have civilization's leaps and bounds taken us to date? rome, with its violent conquest of the known world and its eventual spiral into oblivion? jerusalem, supposed birthplace of the religion of peace and its eventual degradation into just another means to control the masses? perhaps we should look to los alamos, home to one of the greatest "leaps" of the modern age and we all know what was born there. our leaps all seem to be in the same direction, straight toward the edge of the cliff.

ah, communication. the free exchange of ideas should allow us to solve a few of our many problems, but have you noticed what kind of information we are spreading. everything is for sale, hatred is rampant, misinformation passes for truth, and behind it all we are watched. the cutting edge of society is more concerned with porn than any ivory tower ideals, predator and prey play merrily in an electronic landscape filled with mankind's petty conceits.

i know, i know, i'm just a cynical little man hiding under the ice, but i am also a realist. i opted out decades ago and i've been watching too, studying the players as well as the game. when a true visionary pops up he is quickly crushed, nothing upsets the status quo. power is accrued by the powerful and then used to destroy those too weak or slow to get out of the way. violence and cruelty are our past, present and future.

wow, i'm really depressed now. time to fire up another one.