Humans are a plague: David Attenborough

[Murphlord]

One of our biggest priorities should be developing an efficient renewable resource that doesn't harm the environment. But of course greedy oil kings get in the way of that.

[Stir]

Recycling is mostly a crock of shit, just another money-making scheme. The energy expenditure needed to reconstitute materials from one shape to another isn't worth it.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle... which one of those is the big money maker? Who historically runs waste management in North America? Hmm...

Whether you expend energy to reconstitute materials from rough ore or waste tins makes very little difference.
However, digging up new ore is itself a much more wasteful process than collecting old tins.

They're leaving out a really big chunk of what makes recycling the more viable option. And that big chunk is: Mining.

[artemishunter1]

who uses more resource? The developed world or the poor developing world? Since, we are having resource problem, we should wipe out the most resource consuming world.

[darenyon]

Ebola is a bad example however, it kills too fast so wouldnt spread it self contains very well, one of the reasons that while it is one of the diseases with highest mortality (and most gruesome) it is not considered that much of a threat.
And even then we would adapt ourselves, its an endless arms race that i do believe humans will win in the end due to technological advances...

We already starting using all or nothing technics for example to cure aids, such as simply destroying the whole immune system, wait a couple of days inside a bobble and let the virus die off, then transplant bone marrow.

As tech progresses we might even see technics that simply make diseases useless, one of the ways would be to remove the hayflick limit (one of the reasons im studying in genetics, can say my life's objective, albeit is going slowly sadly) and simply pump someone with multiplication hormones, first off your cells will replenish faster than the disease can damage you, not to mention the closest thing we would have to "eternal youth", then treat it.

Not to mention about genetically programmed viruses to target disease, infect a person with it and the virus will rip a new one on whatever is infecting you.
Or nano technology to which viruses and bacteria cant do crap about.

We still dont have that tech so we are vulnerable for a few more decades, but disease will lose this battle tbh, unless for some reason we all die off first ofc.

Anyway ranted offtopic :P
But yes, nature will adapt a lot, even to our polution, polution is not the best to many current life forms, but it makes others thrive, in fact many jellyfish LOVE our polution, i doubt we will ever see a true mass extinction, but more of a replacement of existing species for species adapted to a human controlled world.

the only reason its not much of a threat is because it occurs in non globalized areas, where people dont have much contact with others. when it only takes 13 hrs to cross half the globe any disease would have plenty of time to spread.

[Dezerte]

I specifically addressed those sorts of people in my initial post responding to Spectral's post.

I must have missed that.

[Frozenbeef]

therefore, the excesses and greed of "my" culture is both the lion's share of the problem as well as the lion's share of the solution.

Damn sporelings...need to stop bloody planting mushrooms that only they can eat and need to think about the other races -.-

[Stede]

who uses more resource? The developed world or the poor developing world? Since, we are having resource problem, we should wipe out the most resource consuming world.

Once you can demonstrate that we've a catastrophic resource problem, we'll give that a go.

[Hexa]

Why contribute to it though? If someone really believes that, why would they have two kids?

Because it's another case of "do as I say, not as I do" ?

I'm glad to see, read, and hear more and more of these people openly brag about the needs to kill all the people they think useless. Because it's what they have in mind.

Seriously people. Georgia guidestones anyone?

Overpopulation is not a problem. The lack of ressources is. And is only a problem IF you consider you need all the modern technological refinements to have a good life nowadays. Car, modern house, electricity, internet, gaz, etc.

In some regions of the world, people go naked and eat whatever they find. They live with seasons (just like our ancestors not so long ago) and have to go through natural disasters without being able to protect themselves.

Are these people who do have minimal impact on their ecosystem a plague? Even if they are numerous?

Were the native americans a plague?

Were the Mayans a Plague?

Are the Saamii people a plague?

Are the pygmies a plague?

NO.

And I'm pretty sure our current modern society can get out of over-consumption wich is the real threat and cease to be "a plague".

But you have to understand those who tell you "you are a plague" were, are, and will be the craftsmen of such a situation.

They were eager to devellop all the most polluting industries. And when they did so, they needed consumers, they needed YOU to constantly buy shit to allow them a good rent, wich allowed them to slowly build a world where they are able to proceed to a massive genocide.

Remember how the wall of China was build: the foundations of the wall are made of the bones of slaves who died day after day in the accomplishment of the task.

Is it the way you want to live and die?

If so, then let these kind of people spread their bullshit away.

If not, then fight them with everything.

If this guy is concerned about the future of earth and mankind, maybe there are better options than state that everyone (except him and his fellow I'm-worth-living-you're-not club members of course) are a plague. Just sayin'.



Just making statements don't make you a sage.

[Dawnrage]

Honestly, the guys who come in here and say "But I'm human, I'm important!" just make me face-palm really hard.

How can you not don't understand that human "contributions" amount to nothing essentially in terms of what we do for the Earth, and think we are important because humans are all-encompassing and can develop constant iterations of the iPhone. Seriously, what are you guys even doing in this thread? I don't think any of you can see past how important you are and understand that you being do math at a college level or putting together a PC has no barring at all on our actual contributions to what we bring to Earth itself. Yes, it is a very debilitating way to think about things in terms of how significant our lives are in human-terms, but put aside your ego and realize that it has nothing to do with that and we are talking about humanity's effect on the world itself. As several people have mentioned, if humanity ceased to exist one day, life on earth would go on, and the ecosystem would probably actually thrive and do better.

A life without humans isn't important? Well no shit, considering you would not exist anymore and thus have no barring on anything to do with the word "importance," whether in the scope of things or just in terms of you.

Then again, those who are saying we are a plague and such offer nothing either. Are we going to mass genocide our species to stop the problem? I highly doubt it. This is one of those problems where it will fix itself eventually, whatever the means. There's nothing anyone can do. Really, why even worry about such a thing? As selfish as it is, just enjoy the life you were given. That's all we as humans can do. We didn't choose to be given life or choose where we were born into. Ultimately, we don't have a lot of control over our fates, only the direction it can take. Even then, all we can do is throw a marble into a river and see where it lands. Any illusion of us having control is just that - an illusion. The only things we have control over are man-made like our upbringing, educations, and jobs, but all those are affected by fate as well since you would not be in the situation you are in if you were born in say - Africa.

Ultimately, we are born this way, and we die this way, it's only conclusive to realize that's the only way we can live as well.

Yeah, future generations are going to have to suffer for this, but no one right now has the power to fix any of this. Unless you can conjure up World War 3 or something.

[superstarz]

there are 2.3billion people in china
and about 2billion people in india.

did you guys know that those two countries combined are a total of 2/3 of the world population??
so 2 countries has 2/3 of the world population while the rest of the countries account for 1/3.
weird i know. but they just keep breeding and sending their people overseas to take all your jobs

[Kurioxan]

the only reason its not much of a threat is because it occurs in non globalized areas, where people dont have much contact with others. when it only takes 13 hrs to cross half the globe any disease would have plenty of time to spread.

Problem with ebola is that it has a short incubation time, its fairly easy to contain, real problems come in diseases with long incubation periods, yes it would spread i dont deny that but is far easier to contain than say influenza

---------- Post added 2013-01-22 at 11:08 PM ----------

there are 2.3billion people in china
and about 2billion people in india.

did you guys know that those two countries combined are a total of 2/3 of the world population??
so 2 countries has 2/3 of the world population while the rest of the countries account for 1/3.
weird i know. but they just keep breeding and sending their people overseas to take all your jobs

They take jobs no one else wants to do, they arent taking jobs to start with, but it is easier to blame the foreigner than to realize your own population is lazy and doesnt want to work in anything "menial", that is why so many immigrants get those jobs, because they actually want them and apply for them

[darenyon]

humans are a plague. we are like rats gnawing on the last palm tree seed on a desert island.

we could change that, but we won't because theres profit to be made on our own destruction.

[Unionoob]

there are 2.3billion people in china
and about 2billion people in india.

did you guys know that those two countries combined are a total of 2/3 of the world population??
so 2 countries has 2/3 of the world population while the rest of the countries account for 1/3.
weird i know. but they just keep breeding and sending their people overseas to take all your jobs

Actually china is loosing that position, because of that 1 kid law. and I got feeling, even if they change law it won't change much and China will age and will drop in population. Now India is diferent story, but that can fixed with improving lower class people life standards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg shows how over time people population actually have changed and in places where people start to live better they tend to produce less kids which result in population decline, what we can see in Europe, Japan, Russia and so on.

-Sorry about my english.

[Methanar]

It comes down to a macro or micro thing. As far as we know, no other species cares about mathematics or sciences (although technology is present in some species) therefore in the absence of humans the world would have maintained environmental equilibrium. In our eyes our advances far outweigh the damage we have done. However our advances largely only benefit us by comparison, thus why Earth may view us as a cancer.

The earth is not fucking sentient.

"It" does not think anything.

The first 3 pages of the thread that I bothered to read had about 40 references to this and now its bothering me. Nature is not a being and neither is the earth. They do not and cannot think.

[Mall Security]

David is ok, I like when he narrates nature films, but outside of that he really doesn't know anymore of what the hell he is talking about any more than Paris Hilton, so i take his position with a grain of salt, as for those going YEAH YEAH, like those that agree with Agent Smith in the Matrix, imo most of them are useally people of average or below average intelligence, who might have made one or two better choices in the moment than someone else, some how feel superior enough to makes these kinds of statements.


The truth is if you believe this, you are as much a part of the problem as anybody, todays trend of the devaluing HUMAN life is not going to end well.

[Wikiy]

Well, I don't like the idea of sitting back and letting it "solve itself". That's a lot of human suffering.

I prefer the idea of helping those countries get developed (which will automatically solve the overpopulation problem) rather than trying to specifically solve overpopulation issues.

[Stir]

Were the native americans a plague?

Why yes, they were. All those rolling plains in the US? That is the doing of native Americans who used to burn everything down.

Were the Mayans a Plague?

More rainforest in the area was destroyed by the Mayans than is chopped down today. Again by fire. They did it to whitewash their buildings.

Are the Saamii people a plague?

Okay; they weren't. Congratulations on getting one right.

Are the pygmies a plague?

Fire, again. Burning down large chunks of land for farming purposes, or driving out wildlife for easy hunting. Or subduing bees to get the honey out. So... Yups; plague.

NO.

Yes. Most of them were. Do you know why the Sahara is a desert? Fire. Humans burnt everything down. Do you know why Australia is a desert? Humans. The Aboriginals burnt everything down. I can go on and on, but your image of the noble savage is sadly misplaced. And the worst thing was: They knéw that what they were doing was ecologically disastrous. Hell; that's how Animism started! But on the whole, they simply didn't care enough.

And I'm pretty sure our current modern society can get out of over-consumption wich is the real threat and cease to be "a plague".

Again: It's not our consumption that's the problem. It's waste. For instance, in poorer areas across the world, people cannot store food properly. That means that what they sell on the market is only a very small part of what they've produced... Because most of it is rotten before it even gets to the market, and then thrown away. But the production of that stuff is intensive none-the-less, so everything that's wasted takes a heavy toll on our environment. And that's just one example of how we waste so much. We've got the technology to prevent this waste... But we don't do it because it's simply cheaper in monetary terms to keep on wasting. Or rather: Even though the consumers may want to do it, the consumers do not have the means to stop it.
Our mentality needs to change.

[Methanar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
Food for thought. If I gave you real food for thought, I might end up in prison.


I'd merely like to point out the conundrum of suggesting that the very thing which you have come out of - nature, the Earth - which has granted you the capability to think has now created within you the thought that the thing which allowed you to think is not capable of thinking itself.

Are you not an expression of the Earth?

If you're going to get all bullshit philosophical like that then at least do it right.


Both me, you, and the earth were the results of a star that went super nova and created pretty much every element heavier than helium.

We came all of stars that fused hydrogen into carbon and oxygen etc. That does not suddenly make a massive fusion reactor in space that can be lightyears across in diameter sentient.

[darenyon]

The earth is not fucking sentient.

"It" does not think anything.

The first 3 pages of the thread that I bothered to read had about 40 references to this and now its bothering me. Nature is not a being and neither is the earth. They do not and cannot think.

it doesn't think, but it has natural processes in place to maintain equilibrium (or homeostasis).
we disrupt those, much like a disease disrupts the homeostasis of the body.

[Tzalix]

Earth without humans would be pointless. No other species has made a contribution to science or technology since we wiped out the neanderthals. Granted, I may have just hurt my own argument there...

Earth with humans is also pointless. How exactly does our contributions to science or technology "matter"? At one point or another the human race will be gone, and the universe will be no different for it. We are but a fart in space, nothing more.