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Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

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Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#111

Post by Ma8ee »

derefr wrote: post #82
tsunamifury wrote: post #2

I think it’s wild and deeply inspiring to imagine how the surface of the earth had radically different forms over billions of years. Huge landscapes of unrotted dead plants. Then massive landscapes of fungus and decomposing bacteria breaking that down into dirt. And on and on. I think it is wise to understand that earth has been through many eras and is not as homeostatic as our narrowly imagined “natural” state we s…

Rather than motivating environmental conservation out of some species-level nostalgia for "the biodiversity of our youth", there's another, forward-looking motivation for it: the species that evolved at the same time we did — our "evolutionary cohort" — are the species of our own Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. While they may not share our ecological niche, they all share a dependency on the same air mix we…

The time scale for new species adapted to a completely new climate is many millions of years, not a few thousands. What we destroy today won’t be replaced while humans as a species as we know it today even exists.

It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#112

Post by dbtc »

beginnings wrote: post #95
jacob019 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the Trump era, conspiracy theories became a prominent part of mainstream conversation, while scientific knowledge was often dismissed as just one perspective among many. In my opinion, a societal culture that treats truth as malleable poses a greater threat than individuals on the internet who are hesitant to publicly express anti-scientific beliefs.

[flagged]

Then why?

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#113

Post by Logans_Run »

A fascinating read, including the Nat Geo article OG link; but couldn't help chuckling at one of the quotes in it .... ..Sucking up carbon from microbial crusts would [make large fruiting bodies] possible. fnar, fnar. But seriously though, Mind. Blown.

That is all :)

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#114

Post by ke88y »

Ma8ee wrote: post #111
derefr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than motivating environmental conservation out of some species-level nostalgia for "the biodiversity of our youth", there's another, forward-looking motivation for it: the species that evolved at the same time we did — our "evolutionary cohort" — are the species of our own Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. While they may not share our ecological niche, they all share a dependency on the same air mix we…

The time scale for new species adapted to a completely new climate is many millions of years, not a few thousands. What we destroy today won’t be replaced while humans as a species as we know it today even exists. It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars.

> It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars.

It's many orders of magnitude easier to afford a $100,000,000 home if you make $10,000 per year than if you only make $1 per year.

But you're never going to afford that home either way.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#115

Post by fiftyfifty »

Balgair wrote: post #97
tsunamifury wrote: post #2

I think it’s wild and deeply inspiring to imagine how the surface of the earth had radically different forms over billions of years. Huge landscapes of unrotted dead plants. Then massive landscapes of fungus and decomposing bacteria breaking that down into dirt. And on and on. I think it is wise to understand that earth has been through many eras and is not as homeostatic as our narrowly imagined “natural” state we s…

PBS Eons on YT does a good job of diving into the many and extreme phases that Earth has seen. Check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1LdMWlNYS4&list=PLi6K9w_Ubf... Also, Darwin wrote a lot about the extreme variations that we see in the 'balanced' ecosystem. He tallied up the birds near him and found that ~4/5ths of all the birds would die every winter. He remarked that a 10% death rate illness in humans wou…

I've been a falconer for a couple of decades and in general try to keep up with the research around birds of prey. The general consensus is only about 10% of birds of prey survive the first year. It doesn't surprise me that the survival rate for most other birds is equally as bad. I've been out in the field a number of times in the winter and found wild birds of prey that were so weak they couldn't fly and you could just walk up to them and pick them up. In every one of these cases the birds were skin and bones, starving to death. Nature can be brutal.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#116

Post by bheadmaster »

Loughla wrote: post #94
psychphysic wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real effect of cancel culture is the chilling effect it has even on relatively anonymous conversation. Humans are social beings and the spectre that someone could be outcast for sounding like they are from the wrong clan is an innate phobia.

What I find fascinating about the current debates about cancel culture is that it ignores, on both sides, the fact that it isn't new. The only thing that has changed is the balance of power. From a US perspective - In the past, social shunning and ostracizing was used as a way to norm the culture for the predominately white, christian culture. Cancel culture was literally being run out of your town, and/or excluded f…

> It's not new; the only difference is that the people who used to have to power are pissed that their views aren't the popular views anymore. It's a symptom of a massive societal change that has occurred and the subset of people who refuse to let go of their outdated ways.

I think this is an extremely skewed perspective on the whole issue.

It's not us vs. them - cancel culture was, and still is, driven by ignorance and sensationalism. People like the rush of a good story, regardless of whether it's true or not - that's what makes cancel culture so unjust.

Whether it's a gay person being called a Satan's spawn, or Richard Stallman being called a pedophile, or any other case - all cases have one thing in common: exaggeration for the sake of sensationalism, and punishment being completely out of proportion with the crime (note that by "crime" here I strictly mean "the act that is condemned by the group doing the cancellation", regardless of its actual criminality).

If you're a member of the previously-oppressed-now-powerful group, you may rejoice at the thought of retribution on those that caused you (your group) so much injustice in the past, but I hope you realize how hypocritical that makes the whole "tolerance" story that your group has been pushing for the last few decades. But I guess that power corrupts, no matter who's wielding it.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#117

Post by replygirl »

ke88y wrote: post #114
Ma8ee wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time scale for new species adapted to a completely new climate is many millions of years, not a few thousands. What we destroy today won’t be replaced while humans as a species as we know it today even exists. It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars.

> It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars. It's many orders of magnitude easier to afford a $100,000,000 home if you make $10,000 per year than if you only make $1 per year. But you're never going to afford that home either way.

We reversed the Chicago River 120 years ago, protected the Netherlands from flooding for centuries, blasted out the bed of the East River to make New York one of the most successful ports in history, laid at least one canal through every major ithsmus, and built dozens of reservoirs and irrigation systems into every hydrological ecosystem that touches a major population center. That's just water projects.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#118

Post by yummypaint »

Ma8ee wrote: post #111
derefr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than motivating environmental conservation out of some species-level nostalgia for "the biodiversity of our youth", there's another, forward-looking motivation for it: the species that evolved at the same time we did — our "evolutionary cohort" — are the species of our own Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness. While they may not share our ecological niche, they all share a dependency on the same air mix we…

The time scale for new species adapted to a completely new climate is many millions of years, not a few thousands. What we destroy today won’t be replaced while humans as a species as we know it today even exists. It will always be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Earth, even after we screwed it up, than trying to terraform Mars.

We have been agressively terraforming the earth into a form less accomodating of current complex life for some time now, and we show no signs of slowing. That's the whole problem
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