The point of Avatar, why empathy is important and why humans are like cancer

[Internet Kraken]

The amount if ignorance and stupidity displayed by the humans in that movie is unrealistic. I can't honestly believe that the Government is going to let this corporation destroy an incredibly scientific discovery that could potentially improve the human race.

We could never do what they do, however we have the avatar programme which is essentially the same thing.

How do you know? You don't know jack about something until you study it.

 

[Lyri]

How do you know? You don't know jack about something until you study it.

I don't know for certain but this is theory work at best, both sides of the arguement. We don't even know what unobtainium was for.

Those guys weren't there for science or trees, they where there for unobtainium. There was also no mention of any government in the film.
So that doesn't factor into anything.

 

[Hypocratic Oath]

Aw damn, the escapist misanthropy squad beat me by a mile, but there's hope because like a good lot of others have said avatar's characters are BADLY WRITTEN, and why it seems to be ripped from a captain planet episode.

One: it's a whole ton of white guilt, the mean imperialistic humans(read: European explorers) stomp on the native nature lovers (I.E. Indians)yes we get it, that's bad, but this is how much longer after that? i think humanity has grown a bit, at least district nine tried to hide it a bit by making both sides just as jackass-ish.

and to further tack onto the point, the human army seems to break god knows how many protocals with this.

*pentagon office, 9am*
"sir! we've found a sentient alien race! this is the biggest discovery of the century! we could set alliances! trade cultures! cure diseases and so much more! shall i send ambassadors!?"

"FNAR HAR HAR! NO! SEND THE MECHS AND SOLDERS! AND BRING ME ANOTHER CLUBBED SEAL SOUL TO DEVOUR!"

Two: the aliens, the fuck is this? we're sold on the CGI idea we can make entire creative alien worlds and we get...sexually attractive cat people? where did we get inspiration for this? furaffinity? make them something so...outlandish and unidentifiable to humans that we can't find any kind of care for them, that way you can partially justify how humans have gone from your average 9-5 office drones to fucking fantasy orcs

 

[TheGreatCoolEnergy]

Humans sort of are like cancer - described as such by a certain Agent.........

No

That is the worst way to describe the human race. It's completely inaccurate, and I can't believe that some people here that speech and actually agree with it.

Humans are not like a disease. We're far more complex than that.

Well, humans move into an area, transform it for their purposes, and then use the reasources till there is nothing left. Then we move on. Only in the past 5 decades has conservative measures been put into place. So essentialy, we are just like a virus. A very large, multi-celled, sentient virus.

If you're going to argue that humans are like viruses just because we consume resources, then every other animal is also a virus. The deer population in some areas has risen so high that the deer are starving themselves, in addition to other organisms in the area. Are they a virus as well?

Secondly, you can not call us a "large, multi-celled, sentient virus" because a virus can not be those things. Because we are sentient means that, by definition, we are not a virus.

Third, a virus invades a host cell and then corrupts it so that it produces more viruses rather than carrying out it's normal functions. I suppose when you compare humans to a virus that you are suggesting that Earth is the host cell. Well this doesn't make a lick of sense because the way a virus takes over a cell and the way we consume resources are completley different. A virus doesn't even attempt to keep it's host cell alive. Humans are aware of our actions and try to rectify them. We attempt to renew some resources. We attempt to sustain the environment. And while these attempts are not always successful, we are still at least trying. That's a massive difference between us and a virus.


Fourth, we don't just "move on". The place you are living in right now was once the home of generations of people before you. In addition to building homes in new areas, humans are constantly rebuilding in old areas. Viruses don't do this, so that's another reason why we are not like a virus.

In short, it's not an accurate comparison, especially not when are talking about modern human society. So stop quoting the hypocritical computer program.

1. Yes I am aware of the whole deer situation. Not going to touch on it however.

2. Yes I am aware of the biological deffinition of a 'virus'. I was using as a sort of comparrison.

3. Yes, I am aware of how a virus works. I am also aware of the concept of conservation. However, in the past, human nature has been similar to a virus. We move into an area, use it for all it is worth(mine it, farm it, deforrest it) until it is completely spent, and then move on. Just recently has the idea of conservation been introduced.

4. You defined a virus as something that hijacks a cell for it's own use. Look at New York city. At one point, it was a nice forrest. Now, it has been completely converted into a city, with the inner city(the parts first settled) slowly degrading into slums. We do have many simularities with the virus.

5. Modern human society still carries alot of these trends: look at China, India, Africa, and the Middle East. As for agent Smith, yes he is very hypocritical. But that quote made alot of sense.

 

[Cypher10110]

The human race is really the way it is because of the way it has been; we used to hunt for food, we then realised we could control nature by farming. Saying farming causes our "disregard for nature" is blowing it all out of proportion really, we're doing what we always have, with new technology and on a larger scale thanks to our population growing and reaching out across the globe.

You can draw the line wherever you want were interacting with the world becomes "despoiling nature". But if you see it for what it is then you would see that there is no line, everything you do affects nature. What right do you have to say what effects are good or bad? good and bad are human inventions, and naming a human creation on human terms seems circular and arbitrary.

Our society over time gradually makes things easier, more convenient, more efficient, which all saves us time that we are then free waste our free time *living* instead of *surviving*.

Granted that "living" is a huge topic for debate as the only reason for our existence is defined within our existence. So really do we have any right to live at all? As we should not really be the ones to decide (As we're clearly biased).

Unfortunately our "living" disrupts the environment we live in, as we cannot exist as ethereal immortal observers, that's never going to change.

If you really think about it, if we were living in harmony with nature from the get-go there would be no internet to have this pointless discussion on. And we would all be ignorant of anything good or bad that was outside of our tribe or village or whatever. We would also be ignorant of other tribe's opinions on good or bad, so really it's the same situation as now. Just replace villages or tribes with internet websites or "cliques".

There is not a "OK GUYS LETS CHANGE THE WORLD" utopian idea that will ever change the human race, I really fail to see the point in conversations like this, as it inevitably leads to justification of existence.

Maybe we should work on justifying our existence as a species, unite the human race with some semblance of cohesion before we try and "fix the world".

TLDR; Animals have as much right to anything as us - and as a result we treat them the same as any other mutated, mentally-retarded, tasty human. That is to say, we treat them however the law allows. In this case we can breed them, eat them, and destroy their homes in wars for resources and/or personal profit.

 

[Internet Kraken]

1. Yes I am aware of the whole deer situation. Not going to touch on it however.

2. Yes I am aware of the biological deffinition of a 'virus'. I was using as a sort of comparrison.

3. Yes, I am aware of how a virus works. I am also aware of the concept of conservation. However, in the past, human nature has been similar to a virus. We move into an area, use it for all it is worth(mine it, farm it, deforrest it) until it is completely spent, and then move on. Just recently has the idea of conservation been introduced.

4. You defined a virus as something that hijacks a cell for it's own use. Look at New York city. At one point, it was a nice forrest. Now, it has been completely converted into a city, with the inner city(the parts first settled) slowly degrading into slums. We do have many simularities with the virus.

5. Modern human society still carries alot of these trends: look at China, India, Africa, and the Middle East. As for agent Smith, yes he is very hypocritical. But that quote made alot of sense.

1.) So you are just going to conveniently ignore it? That's cool, I guess.

2.) Well it doesn't work as a comparison, for reasons already explained.

3.) A farmer does not get up and abandon his field after one growing season. It has never been like this. A virus only destroys and never seeks to preserve. Throughout history humans have reused and preserved many things. It's just that now we are attempting to do this on a much larger scale.

4.) If we were like a virus, we would have cut down all the trees and then left the area as a barren wasteland. Instead, we built a city on it that has continued to thrive for many of years. A virus does not remain in one place. It consumes all possible resources and then leaves. Humans on the other hand can remain in the same area for lengthy periods of time.

And saying that we are a virus simply because we consumed the resources in the forest makes no sense. Any other animal would do that given the opportunity. Again, going back to my deer example. The deer population has risen so high in some areas that they have consumed far to much of the local fauna to sustain themselves and the other organisms. So by your logic, every animal is a virus.

5.) You can't expect every nation to treat the environment perfectly, especially ones that are still developing. Hell even developed nations still have not found a way to preserve the environment. It's not an easy thing to do, but at least we are working on it. Every society at one point carelessly consumed resources without even considering about the consequences of doing so. But now we are aware of the consequences, and are trying to rectify our mistakes.

Gee, being aware of the consequences of our actions. That alone is enough to prove that humans are not like viruses. That quote has never made sense, and it makes even less sense when you attempt to apply it to modern society.

 

[Danpascooch]

Avatar has been getting a lot of hate here at the escapist for one big reason- the unoriginal plot.

Sorry dude, but no. Avatar gets a lot of hate around here because Escapists like to act like they're better than other people, even if they're fourteen and pubeless.

Though that pretty much covers why anything gets a lot of hate around here. Half the jackholes who mock and talk shit about movies games and shows on the Escapist's forums haven't even watched or played them. Call me old fashioned, but I like to form an honest fucking opinion before I start shoveling shit down other people's throats.

Guess I'm the minority.

rock on, minority guy with pubes

I am so sick of asshole people like this generalizing an entire user base based on age or sexual orientation that they know nothing about.

I hope you're the minority, because I hope there isn't a majority of generalizing physically speculating narcissistic assholes on this website.

You say that "the escapist users" like to think they are better than others, then say that you are the "better minority" do you even realize how stupidly hippocritical that sounds?

Honest opinion my ass, unless you have asked enough people and got enough answers about peoples pubic hairs and age to conclusively state that the majority are 14, you are an idiot and an arrogant ass (also, random out of nowhere talk about pubic hairs suggests that you are quite unstable)

Seems I've struck a nerve with this one...

Why is it that pubes is what made you so upset? Could it be that I'm right on the money?

Hell yes you have struck a nerve. This is the exact kind of answer I would expect from an arrogant jackass such as yourself. Not that it matters, but you are not even close to the mark.

And yes, I locked onto "pubes" because it is disgusting, personal, irrelevant to posting habits and something you have ABSOLUTELY no knowledge of from the internet.

So not only did you choose to accuse our user base of something stupid that in know way detracts from our opinions, but you have no evidence to back up the irrelevant claim, and yet use this groundless mentally deprived (and disgustingly physically personal) argument as a base to proclaim yourself better than everyone else.

So yeah, seeing this kind of arrogant stupidity in not only the same gene pool, but internet forum as myself strikes not just one nerve, but many many nerves.

Grow up, and for reference, I am not talking about sexual development you stupid sick son of a *****, I mean your emotional and rational maturity.

If it suits you, feel free to make another post speculating on the lack of sexual development of me, a person you don't know from fucking Elvis Presly, I would love to see the entire forum witness your stupidity in ANOTHER reply in which you levy a disgusting irrelevant and evidence less accusation, which serves only to prove my point that you are a detraction from this forum, and should be removed immediately.

 

[Veldrenor]

I started writing up my opinions (as little value as they have, given that I'm a new user and opinions are relatively worthless because of how subjective they are) on the environmentalist and anti-environmentalist arguments that have been spawned here over a piece of pretty fiction, but realized that while they might be intelligent and eloquent (or might not) George Carlin pretty much covers all of them and is a lot funnier about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4

 

[hypothetical fact]

What did I post five minutes ago? Oh yeah. ALL CREATURES CONSUME ALL RESOURCES AND OVERWHELM ECOSYSTEMS WHEN THEY CROSS NATURAL BORDERS. Cane toads, fire ants, locusts, possoms etc all fall into this category. Humans do not get a bonus virus card just because you want to feel special.

 

[MrDarkling]

Also are you a genius and giving us well designed troll bait?

No troll is a genius, just a simple minded lonely human that can be smart on rare occasions.

 

[Veldrenor]

The guy is pretty funny. Not ROFL-funny, but he made me smile and chuckle. Still though, I don't get it. The earth can't deal with plastic, shouldn't we try to not throw it around everywhere then? I mean, why not? Throwing plastic on the street VS throwing in garbage can. Not much effort required really.

He wasn't so much saying that the planet can't deal with plastic, just that it'll deal with it by incorporating it into itself. That's what it did with then-deadly oxygen when the first plant life evolved, after all.

And it's like he said. I mean, the earth is just essentially a celestial body orbiting the sun, it doesn't give a shit, it just is. But does that mean we shouldn't give a shit? We are the ones living here. I personally like the "leave things the way you found them when you are done using them"-philosophy in my everyday life, so why not employ a bit of that idea in everything we do? It's like he said, WE are going somewhere, and at the rate we are depleting our natural resources and the polar caps and whatnot, other shit going to hell, that's exactly where we are going; HELL.

Oh, absolutely. I'm all for attempting to keep the planet in a state that is ideal for my continued existence, I just have no illusions that it's anything other than self-interest. That, and I like turtles. And global warming could force all the turtles to migrate to Holland.

Also are you a genius and giving us well designed troll bait?

No troll is a genius, just a simple minded lonely human that can be smart on rare occasions.

I'm beginning to wonder if the original post was a parody of extreme environmentalism and we're all just victims of a Poe's Law-esque situation.

 

[Cody211282]

We are like a cancer, a natural part of the system that has grown out of control and is beginning to kill the system that gave birth to it.

Humans sort of are like cancer - described as such by a certain Agent.........

I really hope that your being sarcastic, but if your not please start helping by removing yourselves first, i heard headshots are quick

 

[Veldrenor]

I get your point, but you do realize that it's an entirely different thing right? One is a natural process, one is something artificial. Completely different chemistry behind it. Unless some kind of weird plant or whatever which feeds on plastic evolves in a couple of hundred or thousand years, it's really not the same.

That's pretty much what I was saying. Life didn't start out requiring oxygen, it evolved to incorporate what could have been considered an unnatural compound at the time into the natural order. Maybe plants or animals will evolve that can consume plastic, or can fashion plastic into a protective covering sort of like a hermit crab, or maybe before we go extinct we'll make a life form that can harness plastic. We've bio-engineered bacteria that eat oil spills, I'm sure someone will eventually make something to deal with plastic, especially with how eco-friendly society is trying to become.

 

[House_Vet]

1. Yes I am aware of the whole deer situation. Not going to touch on it however.

2. Yes I am aware of the biological deffinition of a 'virus'. I was using as a sort of comparrison.

3. Yes, I am aware of how a virus works. I am also aware of the concept of conservation. However, in the past, human nature has been similar to a virus. We move into an area, use it for all it is worth(mine it, farm it, deforrest it) until it is completely spent, and then move on. Just recently has the idea of conservation been introduced.

4. You defined a virus as something that hijacks a cell for it's own use. Look at New York city. At one point, it was a nice forrest. Now, it has been completely converted into a city, with the inner city(the parts first settled) slowly degrading into slums. We do have many simularities with the virus.

5. Modern human society still carries alot of these trends: look at China, India, Africa, and the Middle East. As for agent Smith, yes he is very hypocritical. But that quote made alot of sense.

1.) So you are just going to conveniently ignore it? That's cool, I guess.

2.) Well it doesn't work as a comparison, for reasons already explained.

3.) A farmer does not get up and abandon his field after one growing season. It has never been like this. A virus only destroys and never seeks to preserve. Throughout history humans have reused and preserved many things. It's just that now we are attempting to do this on a much larger scale.

4.) If we were like a virus, we would have cut down all the trees and then left the area as a barren wasteland. Instead, we built a city on it that has continued to thrive for many of years. A virus does not remain in one place. It consumes all possible resources and then leaves. Humans on the other hand can remain in the same area for lengthy periods of time.

And saying that we are a virus simply because we consumed the resources in the forest makes no sense. Any other animal would do that given the opportunity. Again, going back to my deer example. The deer population has risen so high in some areas that they have consumed far to much of the local fauna to sustain themselves and the other organisms. So by your logic, every animal is a virus.

5.) You can't expect every nation to treat the environment perfectly, especially ones that are still developing. Hell even developed nations still have not found a way to preserve the environment. It's not an easy thing to do, but at least we are working on it. Every society at one point carelessly consumed resources without even considering about the consequences of doing so. But now we are aware of the consequences, and are trying to rectify our mistakes.

Gee, being aware of the consequences of our actions. That alone is enough to prove that humans are not like viruses. That quote has never made sense, and it makes even less sense when you attempt to apply it to modern society.

Sorry, I realize the human race doesn't act entirely like a protein-coated segment of genetic material, but to prevent misinformation:

Viruses do NOT intentionally destroy their hosts: As parasites, the ideal for them is to be tolerated by the host immune system. Many types of viruses function in very different ways on a cellular level, but those which cause severe or fatal damage either have a prodigious mutation rate or an animal reservoir to retreat to when it burns itself out in humans (look up ebola). The deer problem is rather like lemmings: the population peaks, reserves run out, loads die >> fast forward and you get a population trough followed by a peak, rinse and repeat. That's how nature works. We broke the cycle by just going up. And up. Thus, we are essentially unregulated by the normal rules of the evolutionary game.

So we have parallels with parasites, but we aren't the same. However, the truth about viruses is that they make up a massive quantity of the DNA of all living species, as retroviruses insert their DNA into host genome and if the other viral machinery fails... poof - new DNA segment. Pretty cool, but it means that we're largely made up of viral DNA, and the majority of cells in our body, (80%) are bacterial. Makes you think, don't it?

 

[House_Vet]

What did I post five minutes ago? Oh yeah. ALL CREATURES CONSUME ALL RESOURCES AND OVERWHELM ECOSYSTEMS WHEN THEY CROSS NATURAL BORDERS. Cane toads, fire ants, locusts, possoms etc all fall into this category. Humans do not get a bonus virus card just because you want to feel special.

And who helps them cross those natural borders? Ding! Humanity
Cane toads -> used as biological control for roaches in Oz
possums -> source of food (according to wiki)
fire ants -> accidental moving in plants
locusts -> touche(accent) but die out of their own accord - they just peak and trough like the rest of nature, just, really extremely.

 

[Spitfire175]

Quite few species plant new trees by eatting there seeds and excreating them.

Right you are, but they are not aware of it. My point was, that humans don't always just "destroy and drain resources" as OP states.