If you sit back and take a good look at all the life forms that has been found to have been on earth throughout its history, humans are the only thing that I can see that don’t contribute back to the earth at all. All other life forms take so little and yet give back so much, whereas humans take so, so , so much and yet give back so little. It’s almost as if the only thing that humans have to offer is their trash, pollution, war and hell. It’s as if humans were an after thought.
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Well it depends on the human. Plenty of humans give back tremendously and care a lot about being good stewards. Also invasive species become very problematic and take. Though I guess that could also be classified under humans as well.
Your viewpoint demands a very narrow assessment of what “give” and “take” mean. What does a woodpecker give? It drills holes in trees, eats, makes more of its kind, then it dies. Most of life follows the same kind of pattern. Humans do the exact same thing. We live our life and die.
But, we also have a mind that goes beyond the norm. We can build to our own destruction or we can build to benefit the world around us. Currently humanity is on the edge of the fence and recognizing that we could really mess up the planet.
None of that makes us an afterthought, or a virus, or monsters. It shows that we are finally growing up as a species. Humanity has the potential to offer a great deal as more and more people take responsibility for their actions. We are but children that need to learn.
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THis sound a bit like agent smith from the matrix.
Its very dependent on what you mean by give and take. Every animal is involved in the environment at moving ressources in the environment in a greedy way. This is why their are what we call invasive species that a better equiped for collecting ressources in an area and thus collect ressources without competition or limites sometimes destroying an environment and them selves in the process. In most cases though the greed of individual species balances out to have a maintainable environment.
This is also mostly true for humans, the main difference that humans rather than let cruel mother nature run the environment tries to run it them selves. This makes humans a massive contributor in those environments as we try to control nature to make that environment more abundant and maintain that abundance, that is what farms are after all. of course we make mistakes but we are getting better at it.
So in my opinion, we should look at more like this. most life forms take little and give back little. humans take a lot and give a lot but that also mean that when we get the balance wrong we have a much bigger impact. So humans are definitely part of the circle of life, in fact in some area we largely run it.
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Absolutely ridiculous! No other species cares in the slightest whether they contribute anything back to the earth at all. What is it you are possibly imagining that other species contribute that humans do not? Do we not breathe converting oxygen to carbon dioxide (you know that gas which plants require in order to live) just like any other animal? Please tell what are all these wonderful things that every other species is contributing but we are not – PLEASE!
Only one species concerns itself with all other species seeking to discover them and understand them and protect them if endangered – only ONE! Only one species studies the air, water, and soil watching for changes which might be harmful. Why? Because we are the only one doing any harm? WRONG. There are species becoming extinct all the time from causes other than human beings: insects, fungi, and microorganisms wipe out other species all the time. Perhaps you can say that we do more harm, and there is truth to that. But why? Because we can. And this is also why we are the only one species studying the air, water and soil to look for harm done to them. Because we are the only ones who can. AND we are the only ones who care anyway.
Pathogens? Parasites? Predators? What’s to give? Plastic saved the whale (and the turtle). If we want to save rainforests we have to buy them. Our shared intentionality has unforeseen consequences as it improves our quality of life and as the result of our increased qualitative perspective we address those consequences. We are driving the outward spiral of life with all its retrograde epicycles. All perfectly natural give and take forever chasing the tail of equilibrium.
True. Parasites take take take. They sap our life away.
These are all good and valid points, I guess it just all depends on your own personal view of life on earth. For me, I think parasite comes close to what I feel at times.
OH! SOME PEOPLE. Yeah! I totally agree. There are indeed some people who take far more than they give, people who destroy far more than they create. So many people throughout history, in fact. While others grew plants, raised animals and in many other ways creating things, art as well as food, others just come in and killed those people in order to take what they made. Parasites indeed! Unlike some people around here, I think being human means a great deal more than the biological species and a genetic code.
If you feel like a parasite, stop being a parasite. Do something that helps, other humans, animals, plants. Be useful to feel useful.
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I couldn’t agree more with your reply. Instead of being a part of the solution all too often we sit back and do nothing which makes us nothing more than part of the problem. What we think of the world does nothing at all for the world, it’s all about what we do for the world and all that call it home. Thanx for the reply.
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