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Post by RickW on Oct 19, 2023 8:41:34 GMT -5
I’d never head that thought before. It’s interesting — I have read the belief that mammoths were hunted to extinction by humans.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Oct 19, 2023 14:28:02 GMT -5
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
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Post by Dub on Oct 19, 2023 15:34:39 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Oct 19, 2023 18:42:07 GMT -5
It says volumes that something so idiotic can be taken as profound.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
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Post by Dub on Oct 19, 2023 18:50:24 GMT -5
It says volumes that something so idiotic can be taken as profound. Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten how important human beings are.
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Post by Village Idiot on Oct 19, 2023 18:58:55 GMT -5
What do you mean by that, John? I'm curious.
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Post by epaul on Oct 19, 2023 19:19:09 GMT -5
We are one species. Start there.
Take away one species of plant, say, a mulberry, the earth will get along just fine. Take away one species of bird, well, we've already done that, and planet has gotten along just fine. The planet will get along fine if a species goes missing, any species, it has proven this a hundred thousand times over as hundreds of thousands of species have disappeared and the planet is still getting along and hosting all kinds of life.
All individual species, of and by themselves, are insignificant if the continuance of life is the metric.
But if you take away all green plants, over 2016 million different species of greenery, there would be no oxygen. What the hell kind of comparison is that to taking away one species of mammal (us)? Of course it would get along just fine. How about if you took away the Howler Monkey? Same thing, Earth would be fine. The earth would get along without the presence of any mammals. Take away all of them. None are necessary. It got along fine before they showed up. It will get along fine without them.
But, if as grandma suggested, if you take away all life, there will be no life... Well, yes.
... hell, it is just too dumb to continue with.
John is right. It is just a bit of silly nonsense passed off as something profound.
I can do that.
When I was young, my grandmother said all tractors have wheels. Unless they don't. And sometimes birds fly backwards. Clouds are funny. As are bears. Yellow is a nice color. And Humans are awful things.
Put it on a poster with some mountains and daisies.
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Post by billhammond on Oct 19, 2023 20:14:41 GMT -5
A species we could certainly lose would be lima beans.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Oct 19, 2023 20:19:59 GMT -5
It says volumes that something so idiotic can be taken as profound. I think the point is supposed to be that only humans engage in so many activities harmful to our planet. But, you are no doubt right. I am an idiot for seeing any value in the statements. After all, I am not millring.
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Post by epaul on Oct 19, 2023 20:47:31 GMT -5
The point was humans are insignificant. There was nothing said about harmful activities. Only significance and insignificance.
Millring's point was that anything will be held to be profound as long as it concludes with a nature is good and humans are bad, especially if it is an Indian speaking to an eager to accept white audience. Ok.
(don't hold Millring responsible for my guess at his point, the point made is mine. Noble Savage redux.
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Post by millring on Oct 19, 2023 21:04:04 GMT -5
The point was humans are insignificant. There was nothing said about harmful activities. Only significance and insignificance. Millring's point was that anything will be held to be profound as long as it concludes with a nature is good and humans are bad, especially if it is an Indian speaking to an eager to accept white audience. Ok. (don't hold Millring responsible for my guess at his point, the point made is mine. Noble Savage redux. Couldn't be more right (both posts) if I'd said it myself.
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Post by RickW on Oct 20, 2023 10:58:33 GMT -5
Now, if he'd say that most everything else living would be a lot better off, I could buy that.
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Post by millring on Oct 20, 2023 11:26:33 GMT -5
Now, if he'd say that most everything else living would be a lot better off, I could buy that. It's the neo-pagan version of Calvinism. The total depravity of man. We hated and rejected Calvin for observing it. Now we widely accept it.
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Post by RickW on Oct 20, 2023 11:48:01 GMT -5
Now, if he'd say that most everything else living would be a lot better off, I could buy that. It's the neo-pagan version of Calvinism. The total depravity of man. We hated and rejected Calvin for observing it. Now we widely accept it. I wouldn't go that far. Is it depraved? We have been quite willing to wipe out entire populations for our own use/good. Whether you want to tar it or not, we have, and continue to do just that. Sometimes for the good of our own species, sometimes to just feed our families. The mammoth hunters no doubt had a pretty good lifestyle with all that fresh meat available. The local natives on the west coast managed to not screw up the salmon runs they survived on, that provided them with one of the easiest lifestyles of any hunter/gatherer society in the world, at least at the time of contact. They did then proceed to hunt sea otters to near extinction in order to get the goodies we brought to them. We consume, like any other creature. We will consume too much. We'll wreck an ecosystem. Other creatures do as well; it's just that we're blessed with the intelligence to understand when we do that.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,853
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Post by Dub on Oct 20, 2023 12:47:46 GMT -5
I think that picking apart the thoughts expressed by a woman whose outlook was formed in the nineteenth century and based on inherited tribal wisdom and experience is both a waste of time and a purposeful, intentional misunderstanding of the ideas she was trying to express.
Imagine that you spent a great deal of time composing an expression of your insights, working hard to ensure that your words would inspire thought for the reader and allow him to consider, in some depth, ideas that he may not have properly considered prior to reading your expressed thoughts. Let’s further imagine that you expressed yourself in a way that you felt could not be misunderstood by anyone with any desire to understand.
Then imagine that a reader, who fully understood your salient points, decided to pick apart your work based on some unimportant aspect of your composition and suggest that your thoughts were misguided based on what seemed to be a purposeful misunderstanding of what you had written.
If that ever happened to you, how would you feel.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 20, 2023 13:30:02 GMT -5
Now, if he'd say that most everything else living would be a lot better off, I could buy that. It's the neo-pagan version of Calvinism. The total depravity of man. We hated and rejected Calvin for observing it. Now we widely accept it.
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Post by Cornflake on Oct 20, 2023 13:41:49 GMT -5
"It's the neo-pagan version of Calvinism. The total depravity of man. We hated and rejected Calvin for observing it. Now we widely accept it."
John, I don't know why you think that. I don't think most people know much about Calvin or have strong views about him one way or the other.
I also don't think most people view our species as totally depraved. I agree with Rick: "We consume, like any other creature. We will consume too much. We'll wreck an ecosystem." I'd say we've exceeded the earth's carrying capacity for our species and that's causing a lot of harm. But that's not due to depravity.
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Post by drlj on Oct 20, 2023 13:54:35 GMT -5
Wow! I lost another bet. I was sure it would take another page before Calvin reared his head.
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Post by epaul on Oct 20, 2023 16:01:55 GMT -5
I think that picking apart the thoughts expressed by a woman whose outlook was formed in the nineteenth century and based on inherited tribal wisdom and experience is both a waste of time and a purposeful, intentional misunderstanding of the ideas she was trying to express. Imagine that you spent a great deal of time composing an expression of your insights, working hard to ensure that your words would inspire thought for the reader and allow him to consider, in some depth, ideas that he may not have properly considered prior to reading your expressed thoughts. Let’s further imagine that you expressed yourself in a way that you felt could not be misunderstood by anyone with any desire to understand. Then imagine that a reader, who fully understood your salient points, decided to pick apart your work based on some unimportant aspect of your composition and suggest that your thoughts were misguided based on what seemed to be a purposeful misunderstanding of what you had written. If that ever happened to you, how would you feel. Whether this women ever said this or whether she was just a useful device for Means to employ in one of his many speeches and essays, she has probably been dead for close to a hundred years and has no idea or care as to how people react to the use of her supposed words today. No one is reacting negatively to her or her supposed thoughts at the time, they are reacting to what in the now is an internet meme and reads to some of us like a bad Rod McKuen poster plastered on a freshman dorm wall. It is now an internet pass around that is quite independent from dear old supposed granny of a hundred years ago. If someone thinks there is profundity there, fine. Hang it on the wall. But, if it is a public wall, it may elicit comment. And to me it is just a trite trope perpetuating nonsense at best, societal, and even self, loathing at worst. Todd tricked me into expressing my thoughts, and it wasn't even me he was asking. He is that good.
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Post by RickW on Oct 20, 2023 16:10:57 GMT -5
I mean, hell, Bruce misunderstands me all the time, and has occasionally said bad things. I say them back, and we move on. And, if there is a single writer in this world who has not had their words twisted away from what they originally thought they were saying, I'd love to meet them. Humans are almost as good at that as they are at destroying ecosystems.
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