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

[Tdc2182]

Trees don't have emotion, henceforth don't have fear. So no, chopping down a tree isn't that bad. Chopping down a tree full of little critters is bad though. Because then the little critters have no home. And plus, trees give us air. So no, chopping down trees is not bad. It just means you are most likely a redneck.

 

[gadafgadaf]

Purely based on our need to consume, multiply and expand we are singularly like large complex virus'. We are of nature and we embody nature's spirit in all aspects, in wrath and glory alike. Religion, art, morality; our so called higher consciousness is quite relative and doesn't stop the evil people inflict on others. Countless times at the pinnacle of historic civilizations, they knew better and still tragedies happen because of humans. I guess considering it all we are worse than a virus in that we are supposed to know better.

 

[Danpascooch]

How is chopping down a tree as bad as letting a person bleed to death?

Are you completely F--ked in the head?

Trees don't feel, they don't experience pain or emotion, its like knocking down a boulder, is that as bad as killing a guy, is breathing as bad as killing a guy? Seriously, trees are not conscious, they consume resources like dirt and water and nutrients and grow green fibers, that's it. You sound like a complete idiot.

"We cut down practically whole forests every day and kill untold amounts of animal species so we can live a life of decadent luxery and excess."

(He says through his internet connection, running off of electric power lines held up with tree corpses (which he believes are as bad as human corpses) probably sitting on a wooden desk (more corpses) Supported by a house frame made of wood (whew, living in a shelter of corpses, what a sick hypocrite) while arguing that we need to reform our ways of dealing with nature based off of a movie made with hundreds of millions of dollars of CG.)

Your argument is so mind numbingly idiotic I don't think it would be inappropriate to label you a troll, and this thread delusional babble. Obviously you let the pretty colors of the movie change your whole world view to a radically stupid degree, you are way too impressional.

There is nothing that should connect us emotionally to a tree more than to a rock or dirt or an SUV. The entire notion of "emotionally connecting to a tree" is ridiculously stupid since it is impossible to EMOTIONALLY connect to something that inherently experiences NO EMOTIONS. Do you know what a tree is?

I will plant TWO TREES (as valuable as two people to you) if you let me chop off your head, two for one, good deal huh?

 

[Pyode]

I believe this youtube video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLs60ZaNW4] sums up the OP's mentality quite well.

Awesome video. Totally sums up how I feel about most "environmentalists" and activists in general. Nine times out of ten its just a bunch if naive kids going along with the latest fad.

-snip-

So you watched a movie that cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars to make, went home to your nice insulated house (probably has a hell of a lot of wood in it), and got onto your computer to tell a bunch of people how evil humans are and that killing trees is as bad as dismembering someone alive.

Do you see the contradiction here?

(He says through his internet connection, running off of electric power lines held up with tree corpses (which he believes are as bad as human corpses) probably sitting on a wooden desk (more corpses) Supported by a house frame made of wood (whew, living in a shelter of corpses, what a sick hypocrite) while arguing that we need to reform our ways of dealing with nature based off of a movie made with hundreds of millions of dollars of CG.)

You sir, are a dirty ninja.

 

[Chamale]

We did however contribute to their establishment and early survival and if you can find ANY non-human introduced vertebrate species which have gone on to take over an ecosystem, I'll take my point back.

The opossum is the classic example, but I can also cite (From the New World alone) the armadillo, porcupine, hummingbird, peccary, deer, wolves, mountain lions, jaguars, and certain bears.

 

[Danpascooch]

Err, chopping down a tree isn't wrong. (With exceptions of course)
The point with avatar is that the trees weren't just trees, they were a network that the natives connected with on a spiritual, and apparently also on a physical level.

They weren't just trees in avatar, unlike the trees we have on earth.

... I'm not sure how to word how stupid that is so this might fail: I'm pretty sure the Indigenous around the world do exactly that with our trees.

EDIT: To the below, everything is better with aliens.

His post wasn't a fail at all, your post was a total fail.

Have you actually seen the movie? These trees had the consciousness of their ancestors embedded in it in an internet like network that the Navi could plug into with an appendage and access the shared memory of their ancestors.

"I'm pretty sure the Indigenous around the world do exactly that with our trees."

Really? WOW! I didn't know I had I snake like natural usb plug that I could tie to trees in order to download ancestral memories! Is this what all that "body changing" during puberty was about? lol.

Now THERE'S the fail, the last guy was right, you are an idiot.

 

[Mordwyl]

I've always lived by the same laws as any other animal does: Hunt for food, use natural resources to shelter and protect, adapt to current environment or if not possible migrate, even eradicate a species to preserve one's own. There are hundreds of thousands of animals which are extinct because of OTHER animals and not humans. While the names keep escaping me there's even species which humans themselves protected so this could be prevented.

Humans are not monsters, we're animals. Consider what the word really means.

 

[moe19911]

I've always lived by the same laws as any other animal does: Hunt for food, use natural resources to shelter and protect, adapt to current environment or if not possible migrate, even eradicate a species to preserve one's own. There are hundreds of thousands of animals which are extinct because of OTHER animals and not humans. While the names keep escaping me there's even species which humans themselves protected so this could be prevented.

Humans are not monsters, we're animals. Consider what the word really means.

that's a stupid notion right there. cutting down a tree is still wrong regardless of whether it's filed with little animals or not. if you cut down a tree you should plant a tree; that should become a law.

 

[gim73]

Uh, you missed the point entirely. It's a movie, not a lesson. It's there to entertain you. You even watch it? Most of the humans knew better than to mess with most of the animals on the planet. It's the same crap that was fed to us back with Ferngully, except for more explosions, cooler visuals and big blue chicks.

Have we killed every dangerous critter out there? Nope. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! They are still out there. Packs of wolves and mountain lions still wander around with venomous snakes and poisonous frogs. Yetis and Loch Ness monsters haunt our history channel. It's a dangerous world out there.

If you think that trees and plants also feel pain, then you should just give up living right now. You are probably already a vegetarian, so what can you eat if you are afraid of hurting a plant?

It's a simple fact. Humans are animals. We eat meat and veggies. It's what allowed us to leave the trees and eventually develop a more advanced brain. There is no monolith, we are just versitile animals.

 

[Danpascooch]

I believe this youtube video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLs60ZaNW4] sums up the OP's mentality quite well.

OMG!!!

I wrote like 2 pages of stuff, and your video sums it up 100 times better than I ever could.

Thank you!

 

[Sewblon]

I can't tell if you are joking or being serious. Of course human beings have empathy, if we didn't how would we know what it is? If we felt empathy for other animals and plants to the extent that we feel it for each other we would be unable to function. Animals eat other animals, animals fight each other for territory, life survives by eating itself. Why do some people have so much trouble accepting that? Also, humans are nothing like cancer. Nature is a self-regulating system more resilient than anything human beings have yet to devise, and everything we do fits into that system.

 

[Danpascooch]

Uh, you missed the point entirely. It's a movie, not a lesson. It's there to entertain you. You even watch it? Most of the humans knew better than to mess with most of the animals on the planet. It's the same crap that was fed to us back with Ferngully, except for more explosions, cooler visuals and big blue chicks.

Have we killed every dangerous critter out there? Nope. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! They are still out there. Packs of wolves and mountain lions still wander around with venomous snakes and poisonous frogs. Yetis and Loch Ness monsters haunt our history channel. It's a dangerous world out there.

If you think that trees and plants also feel pain, then you should just give up living right now. You are probably already a vegetarian, so what can you eat if you are afraid of hurting a plant?

It's a simple fact. Humans are animals. We eat meat and veggies. It's what allowed us to leave the trees and eventually develop a more advanced brain. There is no monolith, we are just versitile animals.

UGH! Do NOT remind me of Fern Gully.

EVERY SINGLE TIME we had a substitute teacher back in high school and they didn't know what to do, they put that shit on.

OH NOES! DON'T DESTROY RAINFORESTS! YOUR KILLING A BUNCH OF FAIRY THINGS WITH YOUR GIANT SLUDGE DEMONS!

 

[THAC0]

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.

quoted for truth. It is really hard to have any appreciation or sympathy for human beings when you consider the role that they have taken on in nature. I hadn't thought of the "cancer" thing, but i can see your point there.

good post.

 

[moe19911]

i don't think it's wrong to cut down trees because they feel pain. it think it's utterly moronic to cut down trees at the rate we do because #1 we need them for oxygen #2 other animals need them for habitat.

the one thing that absolutely disgusts me about humans is the fact that we're so selfish. it doesn't fucking matter until it starts having negative effects to us. why is it so ridiculous to suggest we live our lives without destroying the lives/habitats of other creatures? it's not about being a tree hugger or even being a vegetarian. eating meat is ok; but what we seem to be doing is having complete disregard for anything and everything. and it's finally catching up with us, and only now do we start to care.

 

[Danpascooch]

I've always lived by the same laws as any other animal does: Hunt for food, use natural resources to shelter and protect, adapt to current environment or if not possible migrate, even eradicate a species to preserve one's own. There are hundreds of thousands of animals which are extinct because of OTHER animals and not humans. While the names keep escaping me there's even species which humans themselves protected so this could be prevented.

Humans are not monsters, we're animals. Consider what the word really means.

that's a stupid notion right there. cutting down a tree is still wrong regardless of whether it's filed with little animals or not. if you cut down a tree you should plant a tree; that should become a law.

To an extent it is, major logging companies in the US have to do this.

And as long as we plant as we cut (did you know there are MORE trees in the US today than when Columbus landed?) I think it's fine, trees aren't people, they provide air and shelter (for animals), and are replaceable. The only time cutting one down and planting a new one is wrong is when there are an abundance of animals (not like beetles and shit, animals intelligent enough to actually know when they are alive or dead) in the tree.

So yeah, OP is a freaking idiot.

 

[Danpascooch]

We are like any other animal, we use natural resources in order to survive and if survival is already achieved we use them to better our lives.

We are just better at it then the other species.

The champs always attract haters

 

[Pyode]

UGH! Do NOT remind me of Fern Gully.

EVERY SINGLE TIME we had a substitute teacher back in high school and they didn't know what to do, they put that shit on.

OH NOES! DON'T DESTROY RAINFORESTS! YOUR KILLING A BUNCH OF FAIRY THINGS WITH YOUR GIANT SLUDGE DEMONS!

So true. But you've got to admit that Tim Curry did one of the best evil guy voices of all time as Hexxus. Which is why I loved him in Brutal Legend because he used pretty much the same voice for Doviculus.

 

[Danpascooch]

I smell an extreme tree hugger....

hugger?

More like a tree f---er

 

[Danpascooch]

Yeah I see what you are saying

I think that humans are advanced enough now that, as a whole, can put other life on earth before ours.

But as a plot for Avatar, it really fit. It was simple enough as to not distract you from all the work that was put into its computer-generated animation

wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.

put other life BEFORE ours? as in, sacrifice ourselves to save another single species?

I think we are advanced enough to NOT be that stupid.

I think we should consider life on our planet as precious and put it before our comfort, but their lives before OUR LIVES?

Screw. That.

 

[Lyri]

We have discovered a connection that bonds all of the creatures on Pandora in a literal sense. Something like this is completley unheard of. And we're just going to blow it up.

Yeah that sounds ridiculous to me.

Ignorance has always been ridiculous.
Doesn't make it unrealistic.