Curiousity like a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses

I agree to some point, but it's a dangerous position to take. Not for smarties like you, me, and junglust, but for the not-so-smarties that seem to populate the world. If you start saying "bah, the earth is stronger than us, she'll just kill us all if we mess with her too much." Then no one cares to do anything. Besides, what if that's not true? I'm not willing to find out...though, for the earth's sake, I hope it is true. So...yeah, some people ARE doing it for the earth. (I have this weird thing with inanimate objects and lately I'm realizing I'm more of a fruit than I thought I was).

I currently don't place humans in the ecological balance because we haven't learned to be a part of it. We're not balanced in any way with our surroundings and resources. Perhaps we used to be, thousands of years ago, but no longer. I can only hope that someday we will be a part of that balance once again.

I hope George Carlin is right. I hope that we won't be able to run her into the ground, so to speak. I'm not willing to chance it though, and I don't think anyone else should be either.

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"I currently don't place humans in the ecological balance because we haven't learned to be a part of it. We're not balanced in any way with our surroundings and resources. Perhaps we used to be, thousands of years ago, but no longer. I can only hope that someday we will be a part of that balance once again."

that's what I don't get...how could we ever LEAVE the balance of things? Why is it that our evolution as a species is seen to have somehow evolved out of the balance it used to be in. We are part of the great grand scheme of things, and as such, no matter what we do, we can't take ourselves out of it. <---that isn't really my opinion though...it's an observation at the contradiction in logic a lot of environmentalists have....we're no better than animals...yet somehow we're capable of fucking up more than they are...

Now, as for my actual personal opinion...not playing devils advocate or nitpicking anything...

I believe in god. I'm arrogant and believe that we're gods most beloved creatures...the rest of the world is here for us. stick with me now...it'll sound better in a second. god created this big huge cycle that works...and we are a part of the balance of things...however, because he set us apart and gave us this amazing world to live in....we're ultimately responsible for it. It's a gift. If you don't take care of a gift, not only is it incredibly disrespectful to the one who gave it to you...it's plain stupid. We're ignorant teenagers whose dad has given us a brand new shiny car...and we went out and wrecked it. It's still salvagable..but we'd better learn to take care of wha

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Well cats, I do agree... Here's why we are out of balance... Over-population... Almost all problems actually stem from this one simple thing... With the advance of medicine, agricultural technology, and being able to take care of ourselves better and extending our lifespan from the average of 40 years (around 2000 years ago) to 78 years (current U.S. rate of living, not world average) we have more people... Go figure... The old tradition of have a large family, half of them die in childhood thing doesn't work anymore... We can treat most childhood illnesses pretty easily... What we didn't teach in the meantime was the need for smaller families until 30 years after it happened... There are two authors I can draw from to handle this problem...

One is Issak Asimov, the most prolific American writer... Most of science fiction writing centered on humans going forth and exploring a mostly empty galaxy because his thoughts were that earth was a "happy mistake" in which we luckily were created and we can seek balance elsewhere in the galaxy... What is so astounding about his work is that humans as a whole forget the origins of humanity and forget about earth... Of course, it took over 10,000 years to do so, but it's still interesting none-the-less...

The second is the pulp writer Tom Clancy to where the world has just witnessed in the U.S. a bio-weapon (Ebola) released on the populace... Well, the world is outraged, and a company will soon release a vaccine to protect against this... However, the company is a front for a militant group of environmentalists (sorry Blu) who actually have live viruses in the vaccine instead of attenuated ones, and are also going to release the viruses in the ventilation system at the Olympics in Sydney (ok, it's 3 years old written in 1999), and plan to wipe out the rest of the population with the vaccines after the release... All the while they are holed up in a camp in Brazil's rainforest... Of course the terrorists get ganked, but it's an interesting plan...

I'll take Asimov's plan any day of the week... I'd leave earth to colonize another planet, anyone wanna come?

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ppffft...you know what a sci fi geek I am...

You can be bones, I get to be kirk. Billy can be spock.

"set phasers to 'heat rocks' mr. spock."

you can have sex with all the aliens, though. :p

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It's a nice idea...but I'm stubborn and I don't give up that easily.

Sure, we trash one planet, let's go trash another! Why not seriously try and fix the problems here rather than running away?
Unless you want to implement some scary elitist selection process where only the best and "brightest" get to go to another planet, and of course, that's just disgusting. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
I'm going to shutup now.

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Only the best go into space right now... Well, and the rich (at least the Russians can be paid off)... Most of his books actually show a sort of balance with nature after the nuclear war on Earth (written in the 50's of course), we clean up the world, decide there are too many people, we send off just a few colonies... The relationship between the few planets and earth is poor, where the "Spacers" think they are the shit because they have all this land look down on earthlings... And then the earthlings decide to bust loose and send thousands of millions out into the stars, not to conquer worlds but to coexist... His theory is we would actually have to terraform planets because they would have no fauna or animals of their own... He was quite a smart man...

So, you think the Tom Clancy way of going out and killing off the rest of the populace except for the elite few good environmentalists would be better?

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I don't think it's all or nothing, either or (although that's a big trend with you, fallacy boy)

either we leave this planet or we start genociding people.

we could...you know...do what blu does and start trying to fix what we've fucked up.

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I do... I try to fix one person at a time...

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HAHA!

you're still the most arrogant son of a bitch I know!

:)

I adore you.

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Yes, and thank you... I guess we need to stop making blu's LJ look like garbage :)

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I don't think I've ever had this many comments. It's nice!

And a good discussion to boot...you two spoil me. ;)

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What?! Where did you get that from?! I can only go off of your descriptions as I've not read either authors, though I will look into Asimov. (I'm getting into a little more sci-fi at the moment) But I'm not for the "Tom Clancy way" either. I don't think it's a matter of either or, ya nut.

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Why not? Either you accept my rule or die by my strong hand :) You know what is really funny, I am a person that says, "It's not black and white, there's a lot of gray" I think that's funny now :)

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I just wanna be kirk. Don't cloud my sci fi fantasies with moral implications!!! ;)

seriously, though...if we ever did have the capability to colonize other planets, I'd be hardnosed against it till we cleaned up our shit here. We'd be a fucking virus if we left now.

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I love you cats. :)

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Awwww, see, you've gone and brought up religion and now I can't discuss it anymore. ;)

Seriously, I think we've all beat this to death and I can't continue down this road if it involved religious views. I believe that's a personal thing and I don't like discussing it with people, because inevitably, someone will get pissed off or really offended.

I don't see the contradiction in "we're no better than animals...yet somehow we're capable of fucking up more than they are..." because we simply ARE capable of fucking up more than they are. We have the whole voice box, two-legged, opposable thumb thing down pat. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

In my opinion, animals-innocent, people-not so innocent. Evolution is letting me down.

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awww..baby...you can't piss me off.

Muh major is religion and such...so I hear shit all the time...from peopel TRYING to piss me off.

tain't gonna happen. not with you. :)

I understand though.

I wasn't using what I said as an argument, or even a defense for my beliefs...just wanting to tell you where I stand. cause you're muh fwiend.

that whole voice box, two legged, opposable thumb thing is part of being better than the animals ;) I don't mean better as in we're more valuable...oh no...simply more...advanced?

I agree with that last bit whole heartedly.

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We're not stupid, we're AdVANCED! ;D

I know. I like it when people have the presence of mind to preface their religious beliefs with, "This is my personal belief system." You're not preachy at all, and I admire that.

I recently saw a car on the road with the bumper sticker "America's last hope are God and the Bible". It made me so pissed off. I literally changed lanes just so I didn't have to stare at it. My roommate has a bumper sticker that says "Witches, Not Just for Burning" on her car. I don't think people should, or should NEED to, advertise their religious beliefs. If someone asks, I'll tell them, or if it's in my journal and I need to write about it, okay. But I don't NEED people to know what I believe in that area. It's personal. If more people felt like this, on all sides, then maybe we wouldn't have some of the problems we have. Just a theory though. None of this applies to you though because your comment was relevant, thoughtful, and honest.

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HA! everytime I hear that quote I think of microsoft.

I'm not preachy, but I don't keep my beliefs to myself. My goal isn't to convert anybody :p but boy howdy do I like talking about this stuff. Generally, that keeps when I talk about it in context...like you said...when it's relevant. No random "blu, do you know jesus christ? do you want him to be his personal lord and savior?"

however, mormons won't come to my house anymore, because I keep them here for HOURS.

That bumper sticker pisses me off as well. I'm of the opinion that you should educate yourself enough to actually READ the bible...and that the most logical conclusion is that it's written by PEOPLE...not by god. I HATE the diefication of the bible...like it's the 4th member of the trinity or something.

my bumper sticker says:
"there is no sin greater than ignorance"
-rudyard kipling

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I LOVE your bumper sticker. :) Mine simply says "Evolve", but I'm getting one that says, "If you can read this, you're not the president."

I need to read more of the Bible as I do find it fascinating, and yeah, it's deification irks me as well. Must be nice to pick out a passage, take it out of context, and twist it to fit your personal philosophy. Much like the anti-gay Phelps crew does back home. Grrrrr.

I don't really have anything else to say other than, you're one cool kat, cats. ;)

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