Humanity, the world's virus?

[Phantom]

How can u right sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much?

[Son of Sephiroth]

Humans are not a world's virus. we are simply growing too numerous for our planet. you could say the same thing for say a field. If there's too much grass in it, is the grass a virus on the field? of course not. the earth's purpose is to give life to grass and all other living things, including humans. It is just a little bit too good at it's job and us humans in all our knowledge, have forgotten how to live in harmony. but we're working on that.

[DragoonKain]

Originally Posted by Son of Sephiroth

Humans are not a world's virus. we are simply growing too numerous for our planet. you could say the same thing for say a field. If there's too much grass in it, is the grass a virus on the field? of course not. the earth's purpose is to give life to grass and all other living things, including humans. It is just a little bit too good at it's job and us humans in all our knowledge, have forgotten how to live in harmony. but we're working on that.

The difference between your grass in the field analogy is that the grass doesn't actually harm the field. Typically, "too much grass" would be a human perception. The field itself doesn't care. Besides, there's almost always some animal that could come along and *munch munch*. The field will continue to support the grass as long as there are nutrients, and when there aren't, bye-bye grass. A year down the road, nutrients replaced, grass grows back. Unfortunately our planet doesn't get a year off (or in its case, probably a couple millennium off) to regenerate. We just constantly sap and sap and sap. We're like grass that doesn't go away.

Does that constitute a virus? A denoted virus, obviously not. But the connoted version of a virus: A destructive, self-replicating form, sure. I'd say we fit the bill.

[Son of Sephiroth]

all animal sap the world of nutrients and all are given back. in fact the only thing that we're doing wrong is giving too much back at once. The carbon that was locked up as coal, oil and gas was completely removed from the carbon cycle. The system has slowly adpated to having less and less carbon in it, so we're putting in loads at once which is screwing it up.

[DragoonKain]

That's NOT the only thing we're doing. Deforestation, overhunting, overfishing, destroying habitats. Depleting OZone isn't our only problem.

[Son of Sephiroth]

I cannot say this isn't true. But we are taking steps to get back to our balance with nature. We are making cars that use hydrogen and produce water as a result. we are growing specific areas of forest to be cut down, and trying to live in harmony with nature. Can you think of any viruses that do that?

[DragoonKain]

Originally Posted by Son of Sephiroth

I cannot say this isn't true. But we are taking steps to get back to our balance with nature. We are making cars that use hydrogen and produce water as a result. we are growing specific areas of forest to be cut down, and trying to live in harmony with nature. Can you think of any viruses that do that?

There are viruses that don't do any harm at all. There are also man-made viruses that perform support or helpful functions within the body. These don't fit within the bounds of the connoted virus though.

The fact is, even though some humans are making piddly attempts at appeasing nature, a majority are not. As a whole we are still a harmful species, and nothing short of cutting our existence back by 60-70% or so will change that.

(By the way, most of the rain forest deforestation is NOT planted back. Most people do NOT drive hybrid cars, and note that the reason we're all going for the 'friendly' cars is for the possibility of economic benefits.)

Perhaps you could take it this way: Some versions of the flu are worse than others.

[JET73L]

Originally Posted by Son of Sephiroth

I cannot say this isn't true. But we are taking steps to get back to our balance with nature. We are making cars that use hydrogen and produce water as a result. we are growing specific areas of forest to be cut down, and trying to live in harmony with nature. Can you think of any viruses that do that?

Yes. Some viruses allow cells to continue replicating after they are infected, but only so the virus doesn't have to work as hard or take as long to reproduce.
Humans roughly equal virus when looking at one , or even a few, sides, but a planet is not a living organism, and humans don't need to destroy the host to ensure survival like viruses do. They just destroy it as a side effect of doing what they want, and setting up a system where it would be nearly impossible to change it for a purely beneficial purpose.

Humans are no better nor worse than viruses, only different. The same is to be said for most living things, and some non-living things.

[Terminal Est]

Lest we forget, viruses and bacteria are a part of life, therefore must play a part in the planet's ecologies.
So even if, technically, we do not share the same biological characteristics as bacteria or viruses, it is not hard to imagine that we share our lives with them.

[RAGNAROCK]

i dont doubt that we have an effect similar to viruses on the planet and that we are only hastening ours and its end however we have the capacity to find ways to fix the planet and ourselves so just as viruses may be harmful they can also be benificial as well