A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

Post by hiccuphippo » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #43

trelane wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems akin to the Ship of Theseus. Is an entirely artificial--but indistinguishable down to the atomic level--strawberry not a strawberry?

When we have the ability to replicate strawberries at the atomic level, then I’d grant you this point. We presently do not, and the market is filled with products calling themselves one thing while in reality being in essence a vat full of chemicals.

Post by aesch » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

jemmyw wrote: post #39

eloisius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it George Carlin that joked something like “maybe the earth conjured up humans in order to put all this plastic in its crust for some purpose we don’t understand”?

Or to release the energy in oil and coal. When you get a build up of stored energy something evolves to use it up. I'm not being serious, but it's an interesting thought.

Post by bix6 » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:42 PM UTC

declan_roberts wrote: post #52

bix6 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think there is a difference when you can cause rapid global change. And most animals are benefitting their ecosystem in some way whereas we’re just extracting resources for the highest bidder 3000 miles away. Our ecosystems are struggling to replenish themselves because we lack harmony with nature. We live in an unnatural society that clearly cannot sustain our changes.

This is what the headlines say but it's not true. For example look into regenerative agriculture. All of the small scale farms around me are moving to rotational grazing systems because they improve the pastures and fertility of the land over time.

Post by randomcarbloke » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

haswell wrote: post #48

trelane wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that strawberries are a vat of chemicals.

But surely you’d agree that “vat of chemicals” is not the only metric by which to evaluate a substance, and that not all vats of chemicals are strawberries. You can play this game with everything that exists. Everything is just a concoction of atoms. But some arrangements of atoms result in nuclear weapons. Others make up the breakfast I ate this morning. The fact that they’re all just atoms doesn’t mean they share o…

Post by fallous » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 2:03 PM UTC

542354234235 wrote: post #21

mactavish88 wrote: post #5

It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…

I think it is a useful distinction for non-religious reasons. First is that humans change the environment more than anything else, by a large margin. As they say, “the dose makes the poison”. All species modify the environment they live in, but none are reshaping the oceans, every landmass, the air, the climate etc. like humans. Humans created multiple elements that never existed on earth. Second, humans are consciou…