Originally posted by Geronimo
I never discussed variation between individuals I was talking about species as a whole.
I never discussed variation between individuals I was talking about species as a whole.
You are trying to twist what I said to apply to individuals. That clearly is not the scope of my statements, and I have specifically stated that, "Not all Humans do so individually, but as a species we definitely do."
If you have a problem with me describing the effects of the species as a whole, fine. Stick to that. It's a valid argument. If you have a problem with me describing individuals... you need to learn to read.
ALL species destroy an environment to get at the resources produced by that environment.
You seem to dance around this by claiming that it's a matter of scale.
parasitism isn't a matter of scale however.
Pretending I am talking about individuals and their value is inane.
Parasitism is a particular ecological niche. Parasites have a host. What is the host for humanity? the earth?
An analogy is not to line up all factors on all sides and say that all are analogous. You seem confused on that point.
All species are parasites of the earth in that sense.
Most species for one reason or another exist in an equilibrium in their ecological system. Doesn't really matter why when we are drawing an analogy between effects... the effects are the effects. Humans often enough live outside the the cycle, and can leech off of it without giving back, which is detrimental to the cycle (the extent can vary wildly).
Why is there this urgent need to compare humans to unpleasant things when the comparisons are so grossly imperfect?
As for whether I compare humans to unpleasant or pleasant things... it will be due to context. If Humans have had a derogatory impact in a specific context, my estimation of that effect is going to be derogatory as well.
Human behaviors can be destructive but it's absurd to compare humans to parasites, diseases or whatever.
And now I will bring up "individual variation".
The problem with the blanket generalizations of humanity as a species are that they are fatalistic and therefore destructive.
If you keep telling people that to be human is a be a disease or a parasite or whatever other adverse imagery is conjured up to make them hate their species eventually the result will be a pendulum shift against environmentalism. Why do we want to integrate environmental destruction as part of the definition of what it means to be human when we already can see that individual humans don't have to be environmentally destructive?
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