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Cole12 August 9th, 2016 2:16am

Some people view human society as corrupt and rapacious and, at the same time, believe that the rest of nature is beautiful and harmonious. In reality, though, the suffering, dog-eat-dog natural world is no better than human civilization.

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googer11 Minnesota
08/09/16 3:43 pm

Animals are more predictable in their behavior.

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Carcano Luke 10 19
08/09/16 12:58 pm

It can be brutal and beautiful at the same time. That's what nature is. That's what human life is.

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Okie1967 Conformity is not Unity
08/09/16 9:23 am

Totally agree. The animal kingdom is less than the human world.

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DoctorWasdarb Marxist Leninist Maoist
08/09/16 5:58 am

I disagree. Human civilization has more power, so it is more rapacious.

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bman4jets
08/09/16 3:41 am

It's much worse!

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dfish at home
08/08/16 11:45 pm

It's usually the case that those people have never been in nature. A bunch of city slickers who are ignorant of the real world

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SticksandStones Stop fearmongering
08/08/16 10:53 pm

Well seeing as many people think we are superior to other aspects of nature (specifically other creatures), you'd think they would expect more from us as a species.

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SticksandStones Stop fearmongering
08/08/16 10:54 pm

So we're theoretically held to a higher standard of "beauty," I suppose.

Luftwaffe South of Heaven
08/08/16 9:17 pm

Nature encourages the joy in adversary, civilization tries to avoid it.

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Cole12 ...
08/08/16 7:39 pm

I must break with my VHEMT-oriented, anthropocentric antinatalist, misanthropic nature-loving, and primitivist friends for a moment.

All life is suffering. All life - not just human life. Birds, dogs, and bunnies experience pain too, and killing off the human species and/or destroying human civilization is not going to completely fix that problem. The whole "everything would be great if humans stopped fucking up the environment" shtick isn't accurate. Human civilization causes a lot of harm, but an incredible amount of harm is caused by good ol' Mother Nature herself. Those birds, dogs, and bunnies would still have awful lives if humans weren't around - you can bet on that.

If you identify with one of the ideologies/movements at the top of this post, I urge you to watch the following video (yes, watch the whole thing): www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOSXkTy4jUU

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Cole12 ...
08/08/16 7:48 pm

Gary, the guy with the long hair in the video, is on the efilist wing of the antinatalist philosophy. Basically, he believes that all sentient beings are better off if they're not born. This is my stance as well. Les Knight, the other person in the video, is on the VHEMT, environmentalist wing of antinatalism. He too wants to phase out the human race, but he wants to stop there - he thinks every other species on the planet is fine, fine, fine. For 50+ minutes, Gary and Les debate about this...and I think it's pretty obvious that Gary's stance makes more sense.

susanr Colorado
08/08/16 8:07 pm

If life were *all* suffering I could agree with some of this bullshit. But it's not. Not for humans, and not necessarily for animals either. Anyone who has ever seen wild animals *at play* knows this. And no, it's not all play-fighting. Or animals demonstrating affection, or kindness or altruism.

Cole12 ...
08/08/16 8:27 pm

This is mostly targeted at people who identify with those ideologies, so I understand why it appears to be "bullshit" to others.

The "all life is suffering" thing refers to Benatar's asymmetry, which is explained here: francoistremblay.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/benatars-asymmetry/

There's a more comprehensive explanation in David Benatar's book, "Better Never to Have Been."

Carcano Luke 10 19
08/09/16 1:01 pm

"VHEMT-oriented, anthropocentric antinatalist, misanthropic nature-loving, and primitivist"

Holy shit chill with the labels. You don't always need to fit into a group.

susanr Colorado
08/08/16 7:21 pm

I remember when I was taking an ecology class, and learning about not just competition and predator/prey relationships among animals, but about the *chemical* warfare that goes on between *plants* and animals (as well as between animals), I stood looking over a peaceful-appearing meadow thinking, "It's a freaking WAR ZONE out there!"

But there are also many examples of cooperation, kindness, affection and altruism among animals as well (not sure about plants!), just as there are with humans.

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wolfsong Full time animal lover
08/08/16 7:56 pm

There's a lot of co-dependency in plants, actually haha

susanr Colorado
08/08/16 8:05 pm

This is true. Or at least plants & fungi, and plants & bacteria. Probably plants & plants too; I just can't think of examples right now.

Praetorianus Fair enough.
08/08/16 7:20 pm

Agree, and like to add that the notion of the "noble savage" in harmony with nature is a myth.

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