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  1.     
    #21
    Junior Member

    We're bacteria

    we become bacteria when we die? right...?
    but even then we still serve a purpose. unless you get burnt. even then your purpose is served by providing people who have life to continue life.

  2.     
    #22
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by TurnyBright
    i have to agree with Jouryokujin, we are not "hurting" the environment because an environment is not an entity to be hurt

    an environment is simply a state of being, and our actions change the current state of being on earth.

    is the environment on venus (totally hostile to earth-life) "hurt"? is it "dead"? No, of course not, it's just an environment and thats the way it is.

    Whether we like it or not, someday the human race will be extinct along with all other species on earth and there will be new environments, maybe new life-forms, maybe not. Maybe new intelligences (as we know them), maybe not. Whatever happens, it will be no more or less valuable and beautiful than the current situation.

    "Actually we are destroying our environment, and quite quickly I might add. Most people don't realize just how delicate the ecosystems of the world really are. For example, you take the Wolves out of their ecosystem, its prey, Caribou and Elk's population skyrocket without a predator to keep it in check. As time goes by, without the Wolve to purge the Elk population of the weak and old, these less than perfect genes spread its way through the population and weaken."

    Au contraire, Genghis Chron. You fail to realize just how durable, indeed, indestructible the ecosystem is. The ecosystem as a whole, I mean. The ecosystem of ecosystems. For every depleted ecosystem there will be one to replace it.
    You know what we mean when we say we're "hurting" our environment. Why would you feel the need to correct someone on that? The fact is, we as a species, are detrimental to the varius environments throughout the world. That's the fact. It can't be denied.

    Indestructible ecosystem? I really don't think you know what your talking about. It has taken thousands, billions, of years for these ecosystems to develop, and in a blink of the eye, are being destroyed. Do you have any evidence to back up this "ecosystems are indestructible" claim?

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  4.     
    #23
    Junior Member

    We're bacteria

    I've been thinking about this idea for a while now and am happy others are contemplating . I like to think about it in terms of evolution, specifically through the theory of natural selection. I agree with the fact that one primary difference between humanity and the rest of life is our ability to recognize and possibly ammend the situation. The entire problem is that it's not happening. Almost every other living organism reachs some sort of equilibrium in its evolutionary path. There is a pattern of offspring and death that evens out a population and keeps the species in line with its environment.

    ...Now i know this is going to be a big downer, but think about cancer. A free radical, small cell acutally part of the victims system, pops out disformed, exhibits abnormal behavior. It reproduces voraciously, also bypassing key cell control checkpoints like "if the cell doesn't have proper food supply, it dies". Cancer doesn't do that, it spreads, fucks up the environment, without a second thought. So do we. I think humanity AS A WHOLE is a free radical. If it was mandatory for people to take philosophy, maybe that wouldn't be the case. I emphasize "as a whole" because obviously not everyone is part of the problem, some are trying to fucking hard to make it right, to convince others of making it right. Too few, too late.

    EDIT- btw, Bill Hicks is one of the most insightful, truth spitting men of this age.

  5.     
    #24
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by Ghengis Chron
    You know what we mean when we say we're "hurting" our environment. Why would you feel the need to correct someone on that? The fact is, we as a species, are detrimental to the varius environments throughout the world. That's the fact. It can't be denied.

    Indestructible ecosystem? I really don't think you know what your talking about. It has taken thousands, billions, of years for these ecosystems to develop, and in a blink of the eye, are being destroyed. Do you have any evidence to back up this "ecosystems are indestructible" claim?


    There is incontrovertible evidence as to the indestructibility of the "ecosystem."

    An ecosystem is nothing more than a stage upon which biotic factors interact with abiotic factors. "Ecosystem" is a word with no direct physical meaning, it is simply a label for a very general sort of natural earthly phenomenon.

    The word seems to have come to mean "place where plants and animals can live without being killed by human garbage or human interference," and this is simply not accurate, as the human race is OBVIOUSLY part of the earth's ecosystem just as much as the rocks or the grass or the tapeworms are. This leads me to believe that there is no validity to the claim that human conceptions of "right" or "wrong" or "nice" or "weak" or "strong" or "detrimental." There is only what survives and what does not, and that is an inarguable rule of the natural world.

    Human beings, as surviving members of earth's ecosystem, have naturally struggled to our current status as reigning large animal on the planet (in our eyes) through the seemingly impenetrable forces of nature that exist solely to our "detriment." We got here by destroying (replacing) that which could not be adapted into our lifestyle. We have made our ecosystem at the expense of every ecosystem on earth which does (or did) not include us.


    It is true that current actions by the human race to increase comfort and allow for population and modern living are irreversibly and drastically altering the ecosystem of which we find ourselves living, and it is this ongoing alteration that you label the "hurt" we're putting on "our" environment.

    It is not OUR environment. It is THE environment, and it will stay that way whether human beings are around to grok it or not. As the character Ian Malcolm put it, life will find a way. Whatever a closed-minded scientist will tell you, there are no defining characteristics an environment MUST possess to sustain life. Oxygen, which is indispensable to human life, will stifle and kill obligate anaerobic organisms.

    When we've altered the environment so drastically that our species and possibly many others fall into extinction, life will either persevere or die out and redevelop by whatever process it arose in the first place. You can count on that.

  6.     
    #25
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by TurnyBright
    There is incontrovertible evidence as to the indestructibility of the "ecosystem."

    An ecosystem is nothing more than a stage upon which biotic factors interact with abiotic factors. "Ecosystem" is a word with no direct physical meaning, it is simply a label for a very general sort of natural earthly phenomenon.

    The word seems to have come to mean "place where plants and animals can live without being killed by human garbage or human interference," and this is simply not accurate, as the human race is OBVIOUSLY part of the earth's ecosystem just as much as the rocks or the grass or the tapeworms are. This leads me to believe that there is no validity to the claim that human conceptions of "right" or "wrong" or "nice" or "weak" or "strong" or "detrimental." There is only what survives and what does not, and that is an inarguable rule of the natural world.

    Human beings, as surviving members of earth's ecosystem, have naturally struggled to our current status as reigning large animal on the planet (in our eyes) through the seemingly impenetrable forces of nature that exist solely to our "detriment." We got here by destroying (replacing) that which could not be adapted into our lifestyle. We have made our ecosystem at the expense of every ecosystem on earth which does (or did) not include us.


    It is true that current actions by the human race to increase comfort and allow for population and modern living are irreversibly and drastically altering the ecosystem of which we find ourselves living, and it is this ongoing alteration that you label the "hurt" we're putting on "our" environment.

    It is not OUR environment. It is THE environment, and it will stay that way whether human beings are around to grok it or not. As the character Ian Malcolm put it, life will find a way. Whatever a closed-minded scientist will tell you, there are no defining characteristics an environment MUST possess to sustain life. Oxygen, which is indispensable to human life, will stifle and kill obligate anaerobic organisms.

    When we've altered the environment so drastically that our species and possibly many others fall into extinction, life will either persevere or die out and redevelop by whatever process it arose in the first place. You can count on that.
    What you basically explained is whatever is contained in a defined area is an ecosystem. In the sense of technicality you are correct. Of course you should assume when people refer to ecosystems being destroyed, they refer to the contents and quality of an ecosystem.

    In order to have an ecosystem, it must be inhabited by some form of life. To say there is no defining characteristics an environment must possess in order to sustain life. Um dude, outerspace. Have you seen plants growing amongst the matter? Perhaps they're boogey man flying around the milky way. Of course there needs to be an environment that fosters chemical reactions in order for an ecosystem to exist.

    As long as that it contains living organisms, an ecosystem will exist. If there is no life, there is no ecosystem. Perhaps you are refering to the flexibility of how an ecosystem adapts to changes in the environment, I very much agree with you with case example Mt. St Helen when various ecosystems were altered by contents within being destroyed. Thanks to the general atmosphere where wind can bring seeds to foster new life, if you take away the atmosphere, there is no life. That's proven dude.

  7.     
    #26
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by thcbongman
    Thanks to the general atmosphere where wind can bring seeds to foster new life, if you take away the atmosphere, there is no life. That's proven dude.
    What is the atmosphere? The basic necessity of life, or simply a conglomeration of random gaseous chemicals that all are mixed up on the surface of this planet by coincidence and a complicated series of chain reactions?

    You seem to be reasserting the fallacy that oxygen (or any particular element or molecule or chemical reaction) is vital for the development of life. Without a clear sense of the nature of "life" itself, how can we distinguish the requisites for it's development? There is no satisfying definitive explanation for what life is, beyond no-meaning dictionary phrases such as "the principle or force considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings."

    So yes, for any area to be considered an ecosystem, there must be life interacting with non-life, but since we have no way of knowing what matter is in fact "alive" and what is not (except for how it aesthetically appeals to us), not only is every existing ecosystem fully replaceable, but areas that are obviously not ecosystems must always be considered potential ecosystems. After all, life developed from non-life at some point, another thing we don't understand that could easily be happening constantly across the universe in a multitude of different (and mostly unrecognizable to us) ways.

  8.     
    #27
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    I think that when people talk about "the environment" or "hurting the environment" they are talking about the rich, diverse, balanced natural environments that we have known in the past. We are talking about the environments that we value, not some kind of accademic definition of what the word "environment" means.

    It's true that any given place in the universe at any givien time represents some kind of "environment," regardless of whether it is conducive to life or not. The surface of the moon, the center of the sun, a meadow, a city, a diverse forest full of life, a productive farmland that was once a diverse forest full of life, a poisoned wasteland that was once a productive farmland --- these are all "environments." But there are some that we human beings value more than others.

    So it is true that human beings are part of the environments that humans inhabit. And it is humans, not nature, that place value on one environment over another.

    When we talk about hurting an environment, we are talking about degrading an environment that we value into one that we don't value. In the end we are talking about hurting ourselves by losing something we like or need. Most people can easily recognize an enviornment that has been "hurt" and have no need of an academic definition that quibbles over whether or not an environment that we subjectively feel is degraded is still technically an "environment" or not. I mean, come on!

    I have no fear that human beings will completely wipe ourselves out --- we are too resourceful for that. But I do fear that we could degrade our environment to the point were a lot of us do die, and the survivors have to live in a world that is a LOT less appealing than the one we live in now.

    Even if we do wipe ourselves out, I don't fear that we will wipe out ALL life --- the life phenomenon is too resilient for that. But the rich diversity of life could be lost --- it is already being hugely diminished.

    And even if we did manage to wipe out all life on our planet, it is technically true that we would not completely destroy "the environment."

    But I think almost anyone can easily see the differences between living in the rich and diverse environment that we live in today, versus a diminished environment in which most of us are dead and the survivors have to struggle, versus an environment in which we are all dead and only bacteria fungus and insects remain, versus a sterile radioactive wasteland environment.

  9.     
    #28
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by TurnyBright
    What is the atmosphere? The basic necessity of life, or simply a conglomeration of random gaseous chemicals that all are mixed up on the surface of this planet by coincidence and a complicated series of chain reactions?

    You seem to be reasserting the fallacy that oxygen (or any particular element or molecule or chemical reaction) is vital for the development of life. Without a clear sense of the nature of "life" itself, how can we distinguish the requisites for it's development? There is no satisfying definitive explanation for what life is, beyond no-meaning dictionary phrases such as "the principle or force considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings."

    So yes, for any area to be considered an ecosystem, there must be life interacting with non-life, but since we have no way of knowing what matter is in fact "alive" and what is not (except for how it aesthetically appeals to us), not only is every existing ecosystem fully replaceable, but areas that are obviously not ecosystems must always be considered potential ecosystems. After all, life developed from non-life at some point, another thing we don't understand that could easily be happening constantly across the universe in a multitude of different (and mostly unrecognizable to us) ways.
    Fallacy? For someone did not offer any cognitive proof that life can exist without factors facilitating the bonding of elements, you sure got a lot of reassurance from abstract concepts that have no scientific foundation. You reject centuries of studies for an idea that based on the rejection of all science since they have not yet offer proof beyond a doubt explaining every single concept of life.

    The nature of life fully can't be explained fully yet. However, there is enough information that can be determined that all living things on the planet earth from simple prokayotes, to plants, to complex creatures such as human all produce DNA. In order for DNA to be replicated, all living creatures must acquire the necessary minerals in order to replicate. What is requires varies and years of evidence has shown that could change. What do you think the concept of evolution is all about? Genetic mutation? For all creatures on earth, they is plenty of evidence that organic elements, notably carbon and hydrogen are necessary to reproduce life. There is an entire field based on the study of these reactions, called organic chemistry.

    On your point that any potential areas could become ecosystem, yes there is a possibility. Like there's a possibility God exists. It's very abstract and vague. Have we found anything different at this point?

    We might never know the answer of how life was created from non-life, or even other possibilities. To suggest that organic elements are not necessary for life is simply wrong. There is plenty of proof available that was carried over eras.

  10.     
    #29
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Most people can easily recognize an enviornment that has been "hurt" and have no need of an academic definition that quibbles over whether or not an environment that we subjectively feel is degraded is still technically an "environment" or not. I mean, come on!
    In my opinion, you're using adjectives that carry a negative connotation for a phenomenon that is a neutral occurrence. How can something that is an "environment," with all the multitude of different meanings that word has, ever be "hurt?" It can only be changed. It could be changed to consist of less living things (usually by other living things), it could be changed in color or atmospheric composition, or it could be changed in such a way that life (as we know it, obviously) is extinguished, and thus it would cease to be an ecosystem.

    This is a thoroughly natural process that has always gone on. Dinosaurs may have been killed by a vast geological event, or a particular bacterium, or maybe they all tripped and hit their head. Whatever happened, they're all dead and no one wastes tears over them. All things are transitory, and I firmly believe that the human race will eventually (or momentarily) cause our environment to be so altered that the physical bodies of humans and other life-forms on earth can no longer live. I don't view this as the "destruction" of the environment, merely as our species naturally running it's course. Our planet running it's natural course.

    Even if the earth became a burned-out shell where no earthly life could live for 100 trillion years, that would be no better or worse than the way it is now. Thinking of it, I can't think of anything that carries connotation of "good" or "bad" that actually persists through time but the concept of "beauty." I believe that beauty can be found in anything, and so as long as know that beauty will persist SOMEWHERE even if I'm not around to gawk at it, that's good enough for me.

    An also, the "possibility" of life arising from non-life is more of a "certainty." God is something that has never been empirically observed or proven. The VERY observable presence of life ALL around us and the logical assumption that it developed from non-life (since both are composed of the same thing) pretty much proves that not only has life spawned from non-life, but that there's no reason it couldn't happen again, maybe in a way that is utterly unrecognizable to our eyes as life.

  11.     
    #30
    Senior Member

    We're bacteria

    Quote Originally Posted by TurnyBright
    In my opinion, you're using adjectives that carry a negative connotation for a phenomenon that is a neutral occurrence. How can something that is an "environment," with all the multitude of different meanings that word has, ever be "hurt?" It can only be changed. It could be changed to consist of less living things (usually by other living things), it could be changed in color or atmospheric composition, or it could be changed in such a way that life (as we know it, obviously) is extinguished, and thus it would cease to be an ecosystem.

    This is a thoroughly natural process that has always gone on. Dinosaurs may have been killed by a vast geological event, or a particular bacterium, or maybe they all tripped and hit their head. Whatever happened, they're all dead and no one wastes tears over them. All things are transitory, and I firmly believe that the human race will eventually (or momentarily) cause our environment to be so altered that the physical bodies of humans and other life-forms on earth can no longer live. I don't view this as the "destruction" of the environment, merely as our species naturally running it's course. Our planet running it's natural course.

    Even if the earth became a burned-out shell where no earthly life could live for 100 trillion years, that would be no better or worse than the way it is now. Thinking of it, I can't think of anything that carries connotation of "good" or "bad" that actually persists through time but the concept of "beauty." I believe that beauty can be found in anything, and so as long as know that beauty will persist SOMEWHERE even if I'm not around to gawk at it, that's good enough for me.
    I know what you are saying, but I think you are being a bit philosophical about something that is also a very practical matter, and taking an objective point of view about something that also has a subjective point of view.

    On a geologic scale, it may not matter whether overpopulation and pollution make a world in which we all die or wish we were dead. But since most of us are neither rocks nor glaciers, we don't take that perspective. For most of us, if the ecosystem that supports us collapsed and we started to die of starvation or disease, and everything we knew and loved in life started to collapse, we would say that is "bad." It's great for you that you can step outside of that and say, "all things are transitory," but for most people, if they had to go through that, they would think it was "bad."

    For me, the question is whether we are making a world we want to have or not. When I worry about overpopulation and pollution, I don't think so much about whether our existence really matters in the long run. I think more about whether I'll be able to enjoy good food for the rest of my life and whether future generations will be able to do the same. It might not matter to the universe as a whole, or to you, but it does matter to most people.

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