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Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

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Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#251

Post by coldtea »

PerfectElement wrote: post #240
coldtea wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it much stranger that violence towards farm animals is ok but not pets. Pets are a recent phenomenon (last 100 or so years, and urban). [edit: recent, not common phenomenon] In rural places animals like cats and dogs where actually useful: guarding, helping with the sheep, killing mice and snakes, and such. The bonding came from having them around (and having them be useful), not because there was some bizar…

This doesn't address the fact that pigs are no less capable of experiencing pain and distress than dogs and cats. And most people in western cultures would not be okay with killing dogs and cats that are not being useful to them. So even though the cognitive dissonance and the framework that sustains it is well understood (look up carnism), it's still pretty strange when you stop to think about it.

>This doesn't address the fact that pigs are no less capable of experiencing pain and distress than dogs and cats.

No but it addresses the fact that there's no underlying grand principle beyond it all.

Some animals we grew to like more, because they were useful, and we kept them around. That's all.

It's no more strange than caring for some people because they are relatives, and not caring as much (or at all) for other people.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#252

Post by mkehrt »

baq wrote: post #140
neikos wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the carboniferous period! [1] And it went on for about 60 Million years which seems an unfathomable timespan. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous

yeah, imagine all the dead trees that basically don't decompose because nothing can eat them. that'd be a sight to behold.

The atmospheric oxygen was 35%. Everything was on fire!

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#253

Post by labdsf »

PerfectElement wrote: post #229
matz1 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I draw the line at Human and Not Human.

Any objective justification for that or just your own bias?

Just as mirimir said, it is biological norm to draw line between your own kind and everyone else. For example, both dogs and cats don't kill each other, but dog can easily kill a cat.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#255

Post by mirimir »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #227
freeflight wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah, I just have to worry about higher beings justifying the termination of my primitive nervous system "for science". They might as well just terminate your primitive nervous system for their own nutritional needs or out of mere hunting instinct. Plenty of animals do this all the time, nature isn't romantic idealistic, it's ruthless and unforgiving.

Or alternatively, beautifully efficient.

Eating other species does have selective advantages.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#256

Post by henrikschroder »

greenshackle2 wrote: post #236
orthecreedence wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the logic behind that distinction? If a child stumbles into a pond and drown, or is mauled by a wild coyote, will you let them die on the basis of non-interference? Great point, you got me there. All life forms being equal, then yes if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote. Obviously, I wouldn't take it that far, so perhaps there's more criteria to…

> So if you care about starving children, and apply the same rules you apply to children to insects, you'd be donating a lot to charity, basically. To insect charity yeah. Or spending a lot of time doing insect advocacy or something. Instead I donate for anti-malaria bed nets for kids and argue about animal ethics on the internet. > if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get ma…

I enjoyed this conversation chain a lot!

> I think it's interesting to take propositions to their logical extremes

What I find most annoying about animal rights activists is that they mean well, but most of them haven't really thought through their position, and pushing their positions to logical extremes is a great way of exposing it. People actually value human life above other life, and those that claim otherwise are either liars, psychopaths, or they just haven't thought it through.

I mean, if you make a classical trolley problem where you have to choose between saving 1 human baby or N puppies, is there a number, N, such that you would save the puppies instead of the baby? The logical consequence of "all life is equal" is that N=2. That's clearly murderous. If you were to make lifespan a factor, and dogs live 1/7th of a human, then N=8. That's still highly objectionable.

I honestly don't know if there's a number where I would start choosing the puppies.. 1 million? Puppycide or one human? Or is that example too extreme? I don't know, but it's interesting to think about.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#257

Post by b6 »

labdsf wrote: post #253
PerfectElement wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any objective justification for that or just your own bias?

Just as mirimir said, it is biological norm to draw line between your own kind and everyone else. For example, both dogs and cats don't kill each other, but dog can easily kill a cat.

Both dogs and cats do kill each other. It is not uncommon at all.

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#258

Post by smithkl42 »

If there's so much plastic in the ocean, and if it's (obviously) possible for something to evolve in such a way that it can use plastic for nutrition - it seems like we just need to wait a bit, and we'll get some bacteria or weird fish or something like that to solve our floating garbage problem for us. No?

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#259

Post by virmundi »

smithkl42 wrote: post #258

If there's so much plastic in the ocean, and if it's (obviously) possible for something to evolve in such a way that it can use plastic for nutrition - it seems like we just need to wait a bit, and we'll get some bacteria or weird fish or something like that to solve our floating garbage problem for us. No?

You're right. Unfortunately this also means our non garbage plastics are at risk. For example there is a fungus that converts cloth and similar trash to fuel. It also was a major problem in WWII.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/C8ED057F-...

Re: Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting solution to plastic pollution

#260

Post by neuronexmachina »

Houshalter wrote: post #230
ars wrote: post #42

It makes sense that eventually things would eat plastic. Lignin (wood) and cellulose are pretty tough to break down, but there are things that eat them. Plastic fundamentally (chemically) is made of the same stuff as wood, just in a different arrangement of atoms, and releases energy when decomposed. So it seems quite reasonable that there would be things that can eat it. I think the plastic pollution we are seeing r…

These caterpillars didn't evolve to eat plastic as far as we know. Evolution takes place on unimaginably slow timescales. It took tens of millions of years for things to evolve to eat wood. Probably these caterpillars already happened to produce a chemical that reacts with plastic. I wonder if they even get any nutritional value from it. That said, bacteria can evolve pretty fast because of high population sizes and…

There was actually a bacteria isolated last year which digests PET plastic: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6278/1196
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