Poll: Should our species be exempt from culling?
- Thread starter Murray Whitwell
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Is there even the precedent of any other species in the natural world that culls itself for the planet's 'betterment'? I doubt it.
And when would it stop? At what point would we say "that's enough culling for now"? I imagine it would be just at the point before your number is up. Trying to overcome the self-preservation streak of an entire species in order that it may cull itself is far-fetched.
And when would it stop? At what point would we say "that's enough culling for now"? I imagine it would be just at the point before your number is up. Trying to overcome the self-preservation streak of an entire species in order that it may cull itself is far-fetched.
this annoys me. no animals should not be held to the same level as humans, so an argument that we are so disastrous and its unfair that we only cull animals is just wrong.
animals are not some superspecial things that live in harmony with nature, left to there own devises they breed just as much if not more then humans, they kill just as much. they do not have the intelligence to release the ramifications of their actions, we do, and we attempt to fix it.
however if you want to put us at the same level as animals, then they would still be no different, we have merely reached the top and we are capable of controlling them, we are still within nature, as humans also seek what other animals do, and that is survival. so we do what we must, if there was a being on a higher plane to us then im sure they would attempt to cull us. as we would be a threat to them, but as it stands there is not. so to cull our selfs would be compleatly counter productive to everything humans have done to this point
animals are not some superspecial things that live in harmony with nature, left to there own devises they breed just as much if not more then humans, they kill just as much. they do not have the intelligence to release the ramifications of their actions, we do, and we attempt to fix it.
however if you want to put us at the same level as animals, then they would still be no different, we have merely reached the top and we are capable of controlling them, we are still within nature, as humans also seek what other animals do, and that is survival. so we do what we must, if there was a being on a higher plane to us then im sure they would attempt to cull us. as we would be a threat to them, but as it stands there is not. so to cull our selfs would be compleatly counter productive to everything humans have done to this point
That would be irrelevant.Valkyrie101 said:
Totally off topic, but somewhat relevant as an example. If say.. you leave a [person] something in a will, what they then do with it is therefore irrelevant, as it is no longer within the power of the original owner, nor would they care as they are no longer around to witness the outcome. (Not that we actually own the planet, we just happen to have sprung up here.)
Besides, at the rate humanity is going, the death of this planet is going to be us, taking (most of) us along with it, far before any fluke comet/exploding sun/whatever your doomsday fancy is gets its change to have a shot.
The problem is just that our recent wars have little collateral damage. Think back to WWII, there were a lot of casualties from armed combatants of course. However, there were also thousands of casualties on the civilian side of things. I'm not saying thats good but it did manage to keep our population within acceptable levels.
I think we should be taking drastic measures to reduce the population, but killing people off isn't the way to do that.
- Anti-children propaganda could work surprisingly well in the long term, across generations it'd slowly make children a less desirable outcome in relationships.
- More contraceptives in combination with the above factor.
- Pro abortion propaganda, improving attitudes towards it could make it more commonplace.
- More gay people! Somehow :3
- Worst case scenario, limited how many children someone can have.
- Even worser case scenario, reintroducing the death penalty for the really really bad criminals.
- Anti-children propaganda could work surprisingly well in the long term, across generations it'd slowly make children a less desirable outcome in relationships.
- More contraceptives in combination with the above factor.
- Pro abortion propaganda, improving attitudes towards it could make it more commonplace.
- More gay people! Somehow :3
- Worst case scenario, limited how many children someone can have.
- Even worser case scenario, reintroducing the death penalty for the really really bad criminals.
Yes that fact that I dont want to die truly shows how disgusiing and arogant I amMurray Whitwell said:
anyway sugesting that ALL people deserve to die...(except you for you of coarse) well thats rahter disgusting and arrogant wouldnt you say?
anyway in case you dont actually know, I shall point out to you that prettymuch ALOT of the human race are good people going about their lives, its not like we pollute on purpose
anyway you want to die? by all means go off yourself now if you feel that way
What he said.SonofaJohannes said:
I know we are a very dangerous species. But I'm not the kind of person who'll be considered a hippie or tree hugger...since I don't want Cartman to pepper spary me and lock me in his basement. XD
What we need is to have a large war that will drop the population significantly with the remaining humans splitting off into factions. Then we need someone, lets call him Zefram Cochrane for now, to create some manner of travelling faster than the speed of light, lets call it a warp drive. We then need to make first contact with an alien species, lets call them Vulcans, and create an alliance with them and many other races, lets call it the United Federation of Planets.
In about a billion years, long after human life has gone extinct from war, famine, plague, aggressive culling, etc; when nature has reclaimed our cities and everything is leaving in perfect harmonious double rainbow utopia.
Our sun with expand into a red giant, engulfing it and burning our whole planet into nothing.
Our sun with expand into a red giant, engulfing it and burning our whole planet into nothing.
I'll try to be as, er, sensible as I can be in regards to this topic. In the grand scheme of things, Humanity is about as meaningful as an Amoeba... which is to say utterly meaningless and, at the same time, of the utmost importance. If a single Amoeba or the entire Human Race were wiped out, life would go on and there would be no one or nothing that would give a crap.
Yet, at the same time, both the Amoeba and the entire Human Race are absolute trimphs of physics and chemistry. Any life, all life, is such a rare and beautiful thing because most of the shit out there is just dead rock and empty space. And Hydrogen. Lots o' that shit too.
People who say humanity is the "monster" are wrong simply because we're no different than any other living species with power. We fight, fuck, and eat way too much and will, eventually, eat and fuck our way into our own natural culling as starvation and disease ravage Humanity and bring our population levels back down into a sensible level. We might be able to prolong the agony with science, but the existence of superbacteria like MRSA and whatnot say to me that it won't work for too long.
No matter how much a single Ameoba or the Human Race tries, all things eventually flow back into equilibrium. Also, in the end, it doesn't matter how much damage we do to this planet, 'cause once were gone (either into space or six feet deep) it'll repair itself and start the whole crazy process over again.
So, you ask if we should be exempt from culling? No, because culling Humanity is meaningful only to Humanity, just as culling Deer is only really meaningful to Deer. But a line should be drawn between culling and extinction. I think the Human Race could use a decent predator... it'd certainly make our continued evolution interesting. There is absolutely nothing about humanity that is no better or no worse than any other living creature on the planet. We all do the exact same things, commit the same sins: we all murder, rape, commit incest, go to war, and live life like our species is the only species worth a damn. More hippy types seem to think Humanity is alone in the world regarding this... and to this I say they need to pay more attention to how nature actually works.
All life is special, all life is sacred, and sometimes living means other things need to die. That is nature. We're not apart from that (yet) in any way, shape, or form. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I say.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Or just crazy.
Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease,
T-Bag
Yet, at the same time, both the Amoeba and the entire Human Race are absolute trimphs of physics and chemistry. Any life, all life, is such a rare and beautiful thing because most of the shit out there is just dead rock and empty space. And Hydrogen. Lots o' that shit too.
People who say humanity is the "monster" are wrong simply because we're no different than any other living species with power. We fight, fuck, and eat way too much and will, eventually, eat and fuck our way into our own natural culling as starvation and disease ravage Humanity and bring our population levels back down into a sensible level. We might be able to prolong the agony with science, but the existence of superbacteria like MRSA and whatnot say to me that it won't work for too long.
No matter how much a single Ameoba or the Human Race tries, all things eventually flow back into equilibrium. Also, in the end, it doesn't matter how much damage we do to this planet, 'cause once were gone (either into space or six feet deep) it'll repair itself and start the whole crazy process over again.
So, you ask if we should be exempt from culling? No, because culling Humanity is meaningful only to Humanity, just as culling Deer is only really meaningful to Deer. But a line should be drawn between culling and extinction. I think the Human Race could use a decent predator... it'd certainly make our continued evolution interesting. There is absolutely nothing about humanity that is no better or no worse than any other living creature on the planet. We all do the exact same things, commit the same sins: we all murder, rape, commit incest, go to war, and live life like our species is the only species worth a damn. More hippy types seem to think Humanity is alone in the world regarding this... and to this I say they need to pay more attention to how nature actually works.
All life is special, all life is sacred, and sometimes living means other things need to die. That is nature. We're not apart from that (yet) in any way, shape, or form. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I say.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Or just crazy.
Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease,
T-Bag
Too true.Slycne said:
Although, I guess it is a bit of a dream to hope that humanity can pull its shite together, become non-destructive, self sufficient and get off this rock before good ol' Sol decides to have a planetary snack. =3
Buuut that assumes we don't blow each other up like morons first.
Derp.. =(
unfortunetly you can't really do that... people *****...
basically what should be implemented is birth control...
like China's one child per family policy.
alternativeness, we could just take the safety labels off of everything and let natural selection solve the problem. I am genuinely for this solution...
of course, generally allowing families to have 2 to 3 kids should be sustainable, as you have those who choose to have less or none, or those who can't / die before they can have kids...
unfortunetly the planet is already way too overpopulated... this is the real concerning issue...
at this stage its not population growth you have to fear... its economic growth...
I saw this talk on TED and it basically said the richest 10% of the population use most of the power and resources...
so even if population growth stops, we are going to have a MASSIVE explosion in power and resource usage as the massive developing economies (China, India, Brazil ect) all... well... develop.
and as far as I'm concerned, anyone who says "well, maybe they just shouldn't develop" is a BIGGER dick than someone who would suggest human culling to solve the problem...
in short, I fear, even with the instant creation of a world wide one child per family policy, we still wouldn't cut the population fast enough to cancel out the increase in consumption from the vast majority of poorer people, becoming richer and consuming like the rich.
I'm afraid without big developments in green and sustainable technology, we are ALL going to be squished REAL HARD before the problem subsides... fortunetly - unlike the lazy, stupid, complacent first world... many of these developing economies SEE this problem comming, as always, the ever forward thinking Chinese are investing heavily in Green tech... again though... it still doesn't look like its gonna be enough to cancel out their growth in overall consumption (by which I mean, their consumption of fossil fuels ect, will still radically increase)
oh, but for some good news atleast... as these masses of poor become richer, it is expected that they will have far less kids (this is how it is now, the rich have far less kids than the poor)
...
but this natural reduction in population growth will STILL not be enough to solve our comming pain... our only hope is science.
basically what should be implemented is birth control...
like China's one child per family policy.
alternativeness, we could just take the safety labels off of everything and let natural selection solve the problem. I am genuinely for this solution...
of course, generally allowing families to have 2 to 3 kids should be sustainable, as you have those who choose to have less or none, or those who can't / die before they can have kids...
unfortunetly the planet is already way too overpopulated... this is the real concerning issue...
at this stage its not population growth you have to fear... its economic growth...
I saw this talk on TED and it basically said the richest 10% of the population use most of the power and resources...
so even if population growth stops, we are going to have a MASSIVE explosion in power and resource usage as the massive developing economies (China, India, Brazil ect) all... well... develop.
and as far as I'm concerned, anyone who says "well, maybe they just shouldn't develop" is a BIGGER dick than someone who would suggest human culling to solve the problem...
in short, I fear, even with the instant creation of a world wide one child per family policy, we still wouldn't cut the population fast enough to cancel out the increase in consumption from the vast majority of poorer people, becoming richer and consuming like the rich.
I'm afraid without big developments in green and sustainable technology, we are ALL going to be squished REAL HARD before the problem subsides... fortunetly - unlike the lazy, stupid, complacent first world... many of these developing economies SEE this problem comming, as always, the ever forward thinking Chinese are investing heavily in Green tech... again though... it still doesn't look like its gonna be enough to cancel out their growth in overall consumption (by which I mean, their consumption of fossil fuels ect, will still radically increase)
oh, but for some good news atleast... as these masses of poor become richer, it is expected that they will have far less kids (this is how it is now, the rich have far less kids than the poor)
...
but this natural reduction in population growth will STILL not be enough to solve our comming pain... our only hope is science.
Humanity as a species is the most destructive force on this planet we are the only species that knowlingly destroys our environment, our atmosphere, and the extinction of other species. We have the gift of knowledge and we choose to burn the world to a cinder instead of using it to make a better place. With this view I do beleive the population does need to be monitered and controled but by civilized means like birth control.
The point I'm making is that we humans have unimaginable potential: just look at how far we've come in the last five thousand years. Trees and flowers have zero potential, and literally do not have minds, so should be disregarded.Azure Sky said: