[Asurai]

Tstone, I don't recall saying that Western civilization was better than the alternative because they had the better use of the wheel. And yes, the snow-shoe is a very creative, useful invention. Given time, the American Indians would have developed their own science, technology, and industry.

But, since we're debating pre-Columbian American Indian culture and contemporary European civilization, allow me to make a simple comparison: the sum total of all American Indian achievements of science in the year 1491 is VASTLY inferior to the sum total of all Western achievements of science. As we go farther on in the centuries -- skip ahead to, say, 1800 ;-- the gap only increases.

Originally Posted by Drgnlvr

The earth -does- feed us. And before humans learned how to cultivate plants for food, it essentially -did- automatically rise from the ground.

Yes, alot of people starved to death before they figured out how to cultivate, but the environment supported what it could support.

Of course resources are important and essential. Even I'm not so ignorant to assert otherwise, but of the two -- human genius and natural, undeveloped resources -- the first is infinitely more important.

A pristine, undeveloped, natural enviornment, no matter how lush, cannot possibly feed enough people to allow them any division of labor, which is the basis of all civilization and human achievement.

An utterly barren waste, devoid of resources, can nonetheless, with the proper application of human ingenuity, feed a large nation. Case-in-point, Israel. Israel has turned deserts into farmland by using modern agricultural science. Consequently, it has a division of labor in that all of its population isn't engaged in looking for food sixteen hours per day, and Israel is therefore one of the most advanced countries in the world.

Human genius in a place devoid of natural resources, can provide for many more people than hunting-and-gathering in a lush enviornment. Both are important, but the one is more important than the other.

all the fibers we wear started on, or in the earth. Cotton from plants, the chemicals for synthetics even started from an earth-based source.

And without the intervention of the human mind, they would still be useless plants and chemicals. The improvement of human ingenuity provides by far the larger part of its value than the natural component.

Again, black and white. Those ants would not be able to burrow, if there was nothing to burrow in.

Black-and-white is good. Nobody has ever discovered a shred of truth by viewing things as shades of grey.

And again: even in the most resource-rich enviornment, nature provides only raw materials. It cannot provide shelter for ants unless the ants force it to.

So, I clarify my position: insofar as nature provides raw materials, I respect it, but nature has never done anything good for humans without human intervention forcing it to do so. I think that you and I can be in agreement on that point.

Yes, that makes you more -fortunate-. It does not make you "better".

I did not say that I myself am better because I live in a technological society rather than a savage one. I said that a technological society is better than a savage one. I'm fortunate that I live in the better society, not "better" because I had the good fortune to be born here.

But nature -did- enable us to develope consciousness, reasoning, and opposable digits. Without any of those things, we would not exist as we do today.

Now we're starting to get into the main problem that I have with Nature-followers: how do you define "nature"? As resources, as the physical laws, as some abstract entity, as the enviornment, or as the sum total of everything? (Which is just saying that everything is due to everything, which really isn't a position at all.) I've met people who hold each different positions, and each definition leads to a completely different concept. "Nature" as a concept is nearly impossible to properly define.

So, depending on your definition, no, nature did not enable us to develop consciousness and reasoning. If you subscribe to the atheist position, then life is simply a chance phenomenon -- and to define chance and probability as nature, I think, is a far too wide definition of the word "nature." If you subscribe to the deist position, then life is designed, which is a concept entirely outside pure "nature" (by some definitions).

And even if you're completely right (not likely, since I, arrogant as I am, don't even consider myself completely right), we can owe no debt of gratitude or respect to random chance.

We have succeeded in prolonging life, but not in slowing down reproduction to compensate. We've succeeded in forcing the earth to produce more "efficiently", to the point we are begining to reach a negative return.

Meaning, how dare we evil humans not die when we're supposed to? How dare we contribute to creating more life?

You're right, though: we've forced the earth to produce more efficiently. We're nowhere near a negative return, though; the majority of habitable land is still uninhabited, and a very great deal (I don't know exactly what percentage, but it's probably about 50%) of farmable land is still unfarmed. And even in China, agricultural science is still advancing so that we're getting larger returns of food for less and less effort, space, and resources.

As long as we don't nuke everything, we and the earth will be fine.

With people not dying from disease, they're living longer, but they are still reproducing at the same rate. This puts a stress of the ecosystem. And when any ecosystem is stressed, and can no longer support the life in it, several things begin to happen. Violence, disease, famine, and death...it's the natural prograssion to keep the balance.

I don't consider keeping people alive a double-edged sword.

Our ecosystems are not stressed. None of those things that you've mentioned are happening in any severe quantity.

Judging by the price of wheat and beef (really damn low), I would say that the supply is up, which means that our ecosystem remains quite capable of supporting us all. The only places where this is not the case are the less advanced, inaccessible places (which are, correspondingly, still very underpopulated, which in turn means, again, that the ecosystem there is not stretches thin).

Hell, there's a reason that hunting is necessary, now. We killed off most of the natural predators 200 years ago, and there aren't enough wolves to keep the deer population under control. It has become our responsibility to thin the herd.

More food for humans, then. Venison makes several good meals for an entire family. So, this imbalance doesn't risk destroying us, particuarly since deer are nearly unheard of near the farms that produce food for us. Let them eat grass in the woods, and let us eat them.

When you fuck with nature, she fucks back. Humans are just too damn arrogant to see that.

We're still here, and all of those disasters have yet to make a dent in our numbers.

Killer bees have no natural enemies in this state, and they're all over. We're not starving to death from enviornmental collapse because of it, though. A general rule of thumb is that it's a lot harder to fuck with nature in any real degree than most of us think.

And the White colonists were practically immune to smallpox when we came over here. It damn near wiped out the natives, though.

*blinks* This is true, irrelevant though it is to our current discussion.

We will not be immune to new virii. It's a living organism, and evolves, and mutates. The virii become immune to -us-. And as we systematically destroy our environment, the natural protections we enjoyed from certain virii will also be destroyed.

Simple hygiene prevents the contraction of most virii, regardless of whether it's a mutant strain. Good nutrition builds a healthy immune system, which is highly useful against even a mutant virus. So, yes, I'm appealing to a natural, innate defense against mutant virii.

But at the same time, bacteria are tiny, fragile little things. They're easy to kill, no matter how new or unknown, once we find a way to do it. Simply heat -- taking a very hot bath, for instance -- kills great numbers of microorganisms. And eventually, we'll find a scientific cure against mutant virii. The little bastards don't have god-mode.

I agree with you there. But at the same time, I think we need to take better care of the environment in which we live in now, so that we won't be foreced to live that way, when it does happen.

I agree with you here. Slash-and-burn operations, I'm sure that we agree, are a waste of natural resources. There are more responsible and, in the end, cost-efficient ways to take what we need.

You're right.

And it is undeserved.

There is no living creature yet discovered that is capable of doing anything better than humans, once we set our mind and resolve to the problem. If you can find an example which I cannot refute, then I will admit that human pride is undeserved.

Think about it. It already has.

That's a beautiful sentiment, but, in my cold and black-and-white way, I demand proof and examples.

No matter how beautiful, a cave does not equal or even approach a Victorian mansion complete comfortable furniture, plumbing, and electricity. Not to mention running water for reasons of hygiene.