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Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

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Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#61

Post by aeturnum »

philwelch wrote: post #29
aeturnum wrote: post #27

The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life forms out of our spaces, but many of those life forms continue a marginal existence. The end of humanity would not be the end of life and being reminded of that is a useful check on our tendency to put ourselves at the center of "the" world (instead of just the…

Taking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?

I don't take comfort in the potential extinction of humanity!

Surely we recognize that living things exist independent and outside of us without needing to lessen our own existence.

>Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?

I suppose you could but that's not what I said.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#63

Post by yters »

resu_nimda wrote: post #51
philwelch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?

Major extinction events have historically paved the way for new and interesting forms of life, including humans.

What if humans are a unique higher lifeform that will never be matched in the history of the universe?

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#64

Post by macintux »

resu_nimda wrote: post #51
philwelch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking comfort in the potential extinction of humanity because at least there would be some non-sapient critters still around strikes me as an odd value system. Couldn't you make the analogous argument that the extinction of all life on Earth would be fine since it would have absolutely no effect on the vast majority of the universe?

Major extinction events have historically paved the way for new and interesting forms of life, including humans.

But easy access to energy is gone. This is Earth’s last chance to bootstrap to the stars.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#65

Post by mistrial9 »

aeturnum wrote: post #27

The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life forms out of our spaces, but many of those life forms continue a marginal existence. The end of humanity would not be the end of life and being reminded of that is a useful check on our tendency to put ourselves at the center of "the" world (instead of just the…

this is a guaranteed-fail way of introducing this topic IMHO, at a critical point in history.. please avoid "landmine" or "hot button" phrases discussing massive topics !

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#67

Post by filoleg »

macintux wrote: post #64
resu_nimda wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Major extinction events have historically paved the way for new and interesting forms of life, including humans.

But easy access to energy is gone. This is Earth’s last chance to bootstrap to the stars.

I never thought of it this way, but after reading your comment, this realization definitely hit me pretty hard.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#68

Post by froindt »

bdamm wrote: post #58
jedberg wrote: post #38

I grew up in LA and while I don't live there anymore I've seen pictures from the last few days. Never in my life have I seen such blue skies over LA. And my parents don't ever remember it being clearer either. At least this shows what some stricter climate controls can do to both the climate and the economy and the tradeoffs involved.

Walking around my neighborhood and the silence is absolutely sublime. Airplanes, cars, highway noise, all diminished. The birds and chirps and friendly "Hellos" are amplified. It's bee n marvelous.

That reminds me about stories of people trying to record nature untouched by man-made sounds.

It has become increasingly difficult to find locations which are purely nature. I wonder how much easier it has become since the number of people generating "work noise" has fallen so much?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/24/machine-...

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#69

Post by joshuamorton »

diggan wrote: post #19

The same thing is happening in Barcelona but with boars coming from the forests outside the city, seems to have no correlation with the lock-down/quarantine that is happening (streets of Barcelona are basically empty right now, except for ambulances, police and delivery services) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/04/wild-boar-sigh...

Fun story about this.

I once did a night "hike" up to Tibidabo. This wasn't organized or anything, just a few friends and I took a commuter train out of the city to the base of the mountain, semi-stranding ourselves. Then we walked up to the top, slept outside on the hilltop and enjoyed the sunrise the next morning.

Tibidabo has an amusement park and a cathedral, so there was a night security guard who was very confused by the 4-5 tourists hanging out outside his gate at night, although he didn't complain much.

The relevant bit here though is that on the walk up the mountain, we saw more than one wild boar out on the roadside, including a whole family. It was unexpected and frightening.

Re: Coyotes are being seen on the empty streets of San Francisco

#70

Post by aeturnum »

robobro wrote: post #34
aeturnum wrote: post #27

The "earth is healing, we are the virus" narrative is overblown (and ecofascistic), but it's good to remember that humans are not special. We push other life forms out of our spaces, but many of those life forms continue a marginal existence. The end of humanity would not be the end of life and being reminded of that is a useful check on our tendency to put ourselves at the center of "the" world (instead of just the…

> ecofascism Oh, you're a "social ecologist" aren't you? There is nothing fascist or right-leaning in the notion that human activity largely has a negative impact on the natural world.

I'm not really any kind of ecologist?

Humanity has an outsized impact on the world (natural and artificial). Our influence has impacted nearly all the ecological niches on earth. That said, assigning moral agency to me (or you) for that depends on a series of logical connections between ways of being and the human impact on the world.

We each choose (somewhat - hard to choose to be born in the first world) how we live, but individuals have limited agency for what "humanity" does as a whole. It's all well and good to say "humans bad" (and I don't totally disagree?), but that perspective has been out there for a while and humans are still doing the bad things. Seems like we should search for different approaches.

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