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A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

bbc.com

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Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#61

Post by trelane »

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…

> But surely you’d agree that “vat of chemicals” is not the only metric by which to evaluate a substance

So you're positing a spiritual or etherial nature for strawberries? Such that pure materialism is inadequate to address?

> , and that not all vats of chemicals are strawberries.

Yeah, this is elementary logic really. All A are B does not imply that all B are A.

> Everything is just a concoction of atoms.

yes, exactly. So what is the difference between an artificial and a natural arrangement of the atoms, if they are otherwise the same?

> The fact that they’re all just atoms doesn’t mean they share other properties like: safe to eat, tastes good to humans, etc.

Yes, which is why this wasn't my point.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#62

Post by lproven »

PeterStuer wrote: post #15

Over here forests were planted to drain the swamps and provide hunting grounds 300 years ago. Today, self accredited "eco-experts" double and triple dipping in EU "green" subsidies want to cut down all the forests and burn them off in pellet form in Dutch incinerators to selectively and arbitrarily restore the "original" ecosystem.

> Over here

Where is that? You don't say.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#63

Post by lproven »

undebuggable wrote: post #6

An example specie over here would be Canadian goldenrod. It completely dominates other plants and creates monoculture.

> An example specie over here

"Specie" means "of the same kind" and generally specifically coins, especially gold coins. It is not the singular of "species". Species is both singular and plural, like "sheep" or "deer" or "salmon".

Where is "over here"?

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#64

Post by lproven »

trelane wrote: post #38

Kind of weird that they only seem to acknowledge changes by humans in the last few centuries. This despite the fact that the Hawaiian islands have been deliberately shaped by people for well over a millennium prior to Europeans ever setting for there.

Not really, no.

The point of this article is not the human-caused (and ongoing) extinction event of unique island species.

The point here is that a new, healthy, diverse ecosystem has formed in the niche left by the human-induced extermination of a native one, and that this new ecosystem is healthy and diverse and interesting, even thought it is "unnatural" in the sense that it's composed of animals and plants from all over the world which do not normally occur together.

The extinction even goes back a millennium or so.

The new introductions do not.

They follow on motor-powered boat and air travel and the arrival of non-islander humans from all around the world, with pets, garden plants, and accidental introductions.

So this is not about what the original Hawai'ian islanders did: it's about what's happened since that event.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#65

Post by jcranmer »

haswell wrote: post #25
gman83 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of people who won't eat certain foods because it contains "too many chemicals".

Except we know certain chemicals are harmful, and we have no idea about the long term effects of many others. We also have a history of using materials we don’t understand and only stopping after it kills or harms enough people.

The problem with this worldview is that it dramatically underestimates the harm of "natural" products compared to "artificial" products.

You see, if it's fermented grape juice, it's "natural", and so it's a complex flavor profile. But if you actually list out what's in it, it's a lot of toxic chemicals banned as food additives, and synthetic wine is illegal as a result. And you can't omit the egregiously toxic stuff because it makes the test came out wrong.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#66

Post by haswell »

trelane wrote: post #61
haswell wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But surely you’d agree that “vat of chemicals” is not the only metric by which to evaluate a substance So you're positing a spiritual or etherial nature for strawberries? Such that pure materialism is inadequate to address? > , and that not all vats of chemicals are strawberries. Yeah, this is elementary logic really. All A are B does not imply that all B are A. > Everything is just a concoction of atoms. yes, exac…

> So you're positing a spiritual or etherial nature for strawberries? Such that pure materialism is inadequate to address?

Not in the slightest. You seemed to be placing a high degree of weight on the shared property “vat of chemicals”, and I’m trying to understand why or in what way this informs us.

> Yes, which is why this wasn't my point.

I’m trying to understand what someone is supposed to take from the point you say you are making.

My goal is to have a conversation so I can better understand your point, not to exchange a series of textual jousts.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#67

Post by IAmBroom »

haswell wrote: post #25
gman83 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of people who won't eat certain foods because it contains "too many chemicals".

Except we know certain chemicals are harmful, and we have no idea about the long term effects of many others. We also have a history of using materials we don’t understand and only stopping after it kills or harms enough people.

You mean like caffeine and fried animal fat? :D

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#68

Post by IAmBroom »

jcranmer wrote: post #65
haswell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we know certain chemicals are harmful, and we have no idea about the long term effects of many others. We also have a history of using materials we don’t understand and only stopping after it kills or harms enough people.

The problem with this worldview is that it dramatically underestimates the harm of "natural" products compared to "artificial" products. You see, if it's fermented grape juice, it's "natural", and so it's a complex flavor profile. But if you actually list out what's in it, it's a lot of toxic chemicals banned as food additives, and synthetic wine is illegal as a result. And you can't omit the egregiously toxic stuff…

Your assumptions about beverage law are dead wrong. "Synthetic wine", whatever you mean by that, is not "illegal". And beverage makers actually have much more freedom than ordinary food makers in their choices of ingredients.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#69

Post by TeMPOraL »

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 agree strongly (except with the religion part - I suspect that being guilty for existing is a perspective that was thought of / rediscovered many times over the generations, regardless of religious tradition).

My takeaway from the article is: yes, we can adjust ecosystems, and no, they don't immediately wither and die, nor do they become boring monocultures. Despite popularly repeated memes, we aren't destroying everything we're touching or otherwise "playing god". If anything, this tells me we should study those ecosystems and learn from them, to become gradually more intentional about the changes we introduce.

Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii

#70

Post by trelane »

bix6 wrote: post #56
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?

Strawberry flavored sour candy is not the ship of strawberries you seek.

Strawberry flavored candy is easily distinguishable from a real strawberry.
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