Mostly Wood
May 21, 2018 8:18 PM Subscribe
A comprehensive study of biomass on Earth reveals some surprising, and disturbing findings. The new study in PNAS suggests that most biomass is wood, followed by bacteria and fungi. Among mammals, 60% are livestock, 36% are human, and only 4% are wild.
There, we HAVE inherited the earth. We should be given another one.
posted by Laotic at 11:34 PM on May 21, 2018
posted by Laotic at 11:34 PM on May 21, 2018
We should be given another one.
The way we've abused this one, and squandered its majesty? I don't think we remotely deserve another shot at despoiling a planetary ecosystem until we've learned to live in harmony with this one.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:58 PM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
The way we've abused this one, and squandered its majesty? I don't think we remotely deserve another shot at despoiling a planetary ecosystem until we've learned to live in harmony with this one.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:58 PM on May 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
adamgreenfield, I’m sure you know I was being sarcastic. We should rename this planet the Planet of Cows. Mars will be the Planet of Crickets and Mealworms. They will do fine there. Mmm cricket steak...
posted by Laotic at 12:21 AM on May 22, 2018
posted by Laotic at 12:21 AM on May 22, 2018
It has been estimated that a mere 250,000 years ago there may have been no more than 10,000 reproductive age Homo sapiens sapiens on the planet yet now we are a global disruptive infestation. Perhaps we should have been counted amongst the viruses or bacteria...
posted by jim in austin at 12:25 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 12:25 AM on May 22, 2018 [4 favorites]
fingers crossed for an ELE
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
actually no, horizon zero dawn was actually p traumatic
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on May 22, 2018
posted by poffin boffin at 12:42 AM on May 22, 2018
I'm reminded of Mr. Shiny, a patron in some Cthulhu Mythos adventures. His foundation supports research into food production, combating disease and improving the human condition. Secretly, Mr. Shiny is a shoggoth who is "setting the table" for the return of the Great Old Ones by maximizing the quantity and quality of human biomass. WHO WILL BE EATEN FIRST?
posted by SPrintF at 2:00 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 2:00 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
60% livestock vs 4% wild mammals is pretty fucked, but I suppose it's relatively sustainable and well-managed compared to our fisheries.
posted by ryanrs at 3:09 AM on May 22, 2018
posted by ryanrs at 3:09 AM on May 22, 2018
Thanks for the daily reminder that we're living in a dystopia.
Happy 21st century!
posted by Bangaioh at 3:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Happy 21st century!
posted by Bangaioh at 3:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
To put it another way, 96% of mammal biomass is either human or human-created.
posted by Vesihiisi at 3:38 AM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Vesihiisi at 3:38 AM on May 22, 2018 [9 favorites]
Are pets counted as livestock?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:50 AM on May 22, 2018
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:50 AM on May 22, 2018
As surprising as this information is, it's not totally out of left-field; how long have Native people and anthropologists been pointing out the absurdity of the myth of the totally wild frontier? Humans have been dramatically shaping the environment for millennia, even in places where we typically refuse to see human influence.
I'm burned out on despairing at everything, so I'm taking this as a reminder that my actions, as insignificant as they are, contribute to something much larger than myself. Speaking only for myself, despair is a great way to get out of taking any action, because what's the point in trying to make a difference if everything is hopeless? After a lifetime of severe chronic depression, I think I must have finally hit my limit, because I'm starting to take hard news like this as a catalyst for something potentially positive instead of just half-jokingly (or mostly seriously) wishing for a meteor strike. For me it means accepting that the world around me is changing in ways I don't like, and it always will be. Every generation is always going to be inheriting a terrifying and dramatically changing world, and I've spent most of my life wishing I could have lived in the past, because of course from my perspective I already know how everything will turn out (but I'm currently listening to music written by people who probably lived through the Black Death, which, I mean, talk about a lousy time to be alive).
Mass extinction is certainly sobering, and it certainly makes a person feel insignificant. It doesn't mean there aren't things I can't influence, even on a small scale. I'm with Milo on this. I can't stop eating meat because of crazy dietary issues, but I'll cut down and do it more consciously. It's not nothing.
(Sorry for rambling! Blame BC headache powder - I took it before bed and haven't been able to fall asleep all night)
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:03 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
I'm burned out on despairing at everything, so I'm taking this as a reminder that my actions, as insignificant as they are, contribute to something much larger than myself. Speaking only for myself, despair is a great way to get out of taking any action, because what's the point in trying to make a difference if everything is hopeless? After a lifetime of severe chronic depression, I think I must have finally hit my limit, because I'm starting to take hard news like this as a catalyst for something potentially positive instead of just half-jokingly (or mostly seriously) wishing for a meteor strike. For me it means accepting that the world around me is changing in ways I don't like, and it always will be. Every generation is always going to be inheriting a terrifying and dramatically changing world, and I've spent most of my life wishing I could have lived in the past, because of course from my perspective I already know how everything will turn out (but I'm currently listening to music written by people who probably lived through the Black Death, which, I mean, talk about a lousy time to be alive).
Mass extinction is certainly sobering, and it certainly makes a person feel insignificant. It doesn't mean there aren't things I can't influence, even on a small scale. I'm with Milo on this. I can't stop eating meat because of crazy dietary issues, but I'll cut down and do it more consciously. It's not nothing.
(Sorry for rambling! Blame BC headache powder - I took it before bed and haven't been able to fall asleep all night)
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 4:03 AM on May 22, 2018 [11 favorites]
Kirth Gerson: no. From the appendix:
In order to estimate global livestock biomass, we use data on global stocks of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and other livestock species from the FAOStat database (http://faostat3.fao.org/; domain: Production/Live animals).
posted by Vesihiisi at 4:28 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
In order to estimate global livestock biomass, we use data on global stocks of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and other livestock species from the FAOStat database (http://faostat3.fao.org/; domain: Production/Live animals).
posted by Vesihiisi at 4:28 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
It has been estimated that a mere 250,000 years ago there may have been no more than 10,000 reproductive age Homo sapiens sapiens on the planet yet now we are a global disruptive infestation. Perhaps we should have been counted amongst the viruses or bacteria...
There are plenty of human cultures that don't do what we do. Don't blame our species for the insanity of a rogue totalitarian civilizational project run amok.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 5:41 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
There are plenty of human cultures that don't do what we do. Don't blame our species for the insanity of a rogue totalitarian civilizational project run amok.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 5:41 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
60% of mammals are livestock -- but they grow much faster and their lives are much shorter than humans'. I wonder what the turnover rate on that 60% are. What percentage is killed each year and must regrow the next in order to satisfy the 36%'s need for animal products?
If the turnover is like 50%, one could say that we kill about our own weight in livestock every year. I'm not a vegan or liable to be one, but even so it would be a breathtaking amount of death and regrowth. (This doesn't count the fish harvest, either, which would only increase the percentage.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:42 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
If the turnover is like 50%, one could say that we kill about our own weight in livestock every year. I'm not a vegan or liable to be one, but even so it would be a breathtaking amount of death and regrowth. (This doesn't count the fish harvest, either, which would only increase the percentage.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:42 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
We seem to have buried one of the key findings,
By "the world" I mean the world as a whole, though. Industrialized countries are re-foresting as agriculture becomes more efficient and more globalized, but elsewhere the former process isn't keeping up with demand and the latter process is making it worse. Even here, "re-foresting" can just mean that vanished old-growth forests get replaced with monocultures selected for wood harvest productivity.
posted by roystgnr at 6:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
"A worldwide census of the total number of trees (32), as well as a comparison of actual and potential plant biomass (17), has suggested that the total plant biomass (and, by proxy, the total biomass on Earth) has declined approximately twofold relative to its value before the start of human civilization."I'd seen similar estimates w.r.t. mammals before, but the figure for plants and total biomass was startling. The world is currently losing about 0.2% of its forested area each year, and you'd only have to extrapolate that back a few centuries to reach double the current area, but I didn't realize it had been such a long-standing process.
By "the world" I mean the world as a whole, though. Industrialized countries are re-foresting as agriculture becomes more efficient and more globalized, but elsewhere the former process isn't keeping up with demand and the latter process is making it worse. Even here, "re-foresting" can just mean that vanished old-growth forests get replaced with monocultures selected for wood harvest productivity.
posted by roystgnr at 6:39 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
“When I do a puzzle with my daughters, there is usually an elephant next to a giraffe next to a rhino. But if I was trying to give them a more realistic sense of the world, it would be a cow next to a cow next to a cow and then a chicken.”
Realistic is depressing.
Metafilter:an elephant next to a giraffe next to a rhino
posted by otherchaz at 7:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Realistic is depressing.
Metafilter:an elephant next to a giraffe next to a rhino
posted by otherchaz at 7:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Agent Smith was correct.
posted by snwod at 7:38 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by snwod at 7:38 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
We are a highly successful invasive species. Those types of things are almost always "not great" for the natives.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:15 AM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is some definition of "surprising" that I don't understand. All my life, humans have utterly dominated the world and left only their scraps and leavings to nature. What is surprising about this?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:17 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:17 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I am glad this info doesn't surprise many here, that folks have a clear impression of the order of things. But. I should explain where I am coming from.
First let me tell about the first time I flew in a plane. I grew up in the mountains out west. As I grew up we would explore and hike up out of the valley floor, out into the wild. We would travel for hours and find no trace of other humans on the ground. In the sky even the planes were distant and tiny. Hunting was popular and most animals were skittish, and there were many times where it felt like it was just us alone. Perhaps we were the first people who had been to this spot in years. Maybe the first white people, or even the first people ever, we were young, what did we know of the bigger world?
I was excited to fly and even got a window seat. We shot into the air and the small city quickly shrank below us and I could see over the mountain, I could see three valleys, four and the horizon shrank away and the land looked like a map below me.
And over there, that's my valley. I knew that river. For the first time I could take in it's entirety. And like a patchwork quilt the entire valley was a pattern of clear cuts, and over here a selective logged square, thin and sickly, and that square a riot of color that was regrowing. I had stood inside that very square and couldn't see it. An imperfect grid that blanketed the entire valley. And the next. And all of them, in every direction. We were soon at altitude, and individual humans, cars where but bits of sand. The roads cut like ribbons, the powerlines were like rulers across mountains.
In my heart the valley still feels like a place full of wild, and tall trees and a never ending expanse of nature. In my mind I see the trees weren't old but planted for their height, the open glen a square of forest redevelopment, how we had gravitated away from the made world, and choose to be blind to it. I think of my parents, who are still around, and I try to imagine how their mind sees the world, how their heart, how different the suburbs must feel for them, how comforting the bright lights they put up everywhere they go.
I look at my kids, surround by streets and noise, where it's never really dark so even the stars are as faraway as farms and forests, just things in books written for a bygone era, how they will always just be tourists visiting the waterfront, tourists everywhere but the urban expanse.
posted by zenon at 9:27 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
First let me tell about the first time I flew in a plane. I grew up in the mountains out west. As I grew up we would explore and hike up out of the valley floor, out into the wild. We would travel for hours and find no trace of other humans on the ground. In the sky even the planes were distant and tiny. Hunting was popular and most animals were skittish, and there were many times where it felt like it was just us alone. Perhaps we were the first people who had been to this spot in years. Maybe the first white people, or even the first people ever, we were young, what did we know of the bigger world?
I was excited to fly and even got a window seat. We shot into the air and the small city quickly shrank below us and I could see over the mountain, I could see three valleys, four and the horizon shrank away and the land looked like a map below me.
And over there, that's my valley. I knew that river. For the first time I could take in it's entirety. And like a patchwork quilt the entire valley was a pattern of clear cuts, and over here a selective logged square, thin and sickly, and that square a riot of color that was regrowing. I had stood inside that very square and couldn't see it. An imperfect grid that blanketed the entire valley. And the next. And all of them, in every direction. We were soon at altitude, and individual humans, cars where but bits of sand. The roads cut like ribbons, the powerlines were like rulers across mountains.
In my heart the valley still feels like a place full of wild, and tall trees and a never ending expanse of nature. In my mind I see the trees weren't old but planted for their height, the open glen a square of forest redevelopment, how we had gravitated away from the made world, and choose to be blind to it. I think of my parents, who are still around, and I try to imagine how their mind sees the world, how their heart, how different the suburbs must feel for them, how comforting the bright lights they put up everywhere they go.
I look at my kids, surround by streets and noise, where it's never really dark so even the stars are as faraway as farms and forests, just things in books written for a bygone era, how they will always just be tourists visiting the waterfront, tourists everywhere but the urban expanse.
posted by zenon at 9:27 AM on May 22, 2018 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I feel pretty bad for the kids of today. They will inherit a ruined world, and most won't even realize it. It's heartbreaking.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:38 AM on May 22, 2018
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 9:38 AM on May 22, 2018
A major reason for this is that we figured out industrial processes to fix nitrogen. Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber-Bosch process. I suspect that a similar number would apply to our livestock and crops.
posted by clawsoon at 10:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 10:08 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I live in downtown Victoria. From our kitchen table, we can watch Cooper's hawks hunting pigeons. When I was a kid there were no hawks because of DDT.
Bald eagles raid seagull and blue heron nests in the park just one block away. When I was a kid I never saw bald eagles because of DDT. Same as blue herons.
There are fewer seagulls, however, because of climate change (ten species migrate through this area of the PNW, several from the High Arctic) but also because there are more eagles.
When I was a kid, baleen whales were thought to be nearly extinct. Now, my kids have seen Finback and Sei whales off the coast. Humpbacks are a common visitor.
Sea otters are now increasingly showing up on this stretch of the coast. They were almost nonexistent in the wild when I was growing up.
While climate change is rapidly transforming this corner of the world -- there are far fewer salmon now than when I was a kid -- my point is that we, as a society and as a civilization, can change things. Nature is resilient.
We're undergoing some profound changes on the planet, but we should never give up hope. And we should also never, ever call our fellow human beings "viruses" or "bacteria." It's just wrong.
posted by JamesBay at 10:20 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
Bald eagles raid seagull and blue heron nests in the park just one block away. When I was a kid I never saw bald eagles because of DDT. Same as blue herons.
There are fewer seagulls, however, because of climate change (ten species migrate through this area of the PNW, several from the High Arctic) but also because there are more eagles.
When I was a kid, baleen whales were thought to be nearly extinct. Now, my kids have seen Finback and Sei whales off the coast. Humpbacks are a common visitor.
Sea otters are now increasingly showing up on this stretch of the coast. They were almost nonexistent in the wild when I was growing up.
While climate change is rapidly transforming this corner of the world -- there are far fewer salmon now than when I was a kid -- my point is that we, as a society and as a civilization, can change things. Nature is resilient.
We're undergoing some profound changes on the planet, but we should never give up hope. And we should also never, ever call our fellow human beings "viruses" or "bacteria." It's just wrong.
posted by JamesBay at 10:20 AM on May 22, 2018 [13 favorites]
Countpoint, JamesBay. I live in what used to be rural Texas. I have spent my entire adult life moving farther and farther away from cities, only to have the city catch up with me. The town where I am now, used to be the grain and feed crop zone. There was one main road that cut through going east west. You had to drive 30+ minutes in any direction to get to a population over 5,000. We had eagles and hawks and bunnies and coyotes and bobcats galore.
Now...there's 10 fast food restaurants within 5 minutes. There are 55,000! more people here than there were 5 years ago. Entire ranches have been sold and thousands of zero lot houses put on them. The city instituted building codes that said you couldn't build a house smaller than 2600 square feet. Our old house with a small bit of land was incorporated into the city limits, and now we can't have chickens or goats any more. We are overrun by bunnies, because there are no predators left, the coyotes have all been trapped or shot. The county would really like my little neighborhood of 15 houses to sell and get the fuck out, so they can build 5-10 houses per lot where we are. They have doubled my property value from a tax standpoint, and now my biggest expense, as I near retirement, is paying taxes on a house that I could no more sell for it's taxed value than I can fly. Seriously, my kitchen is old enough to vote, but I can't fix it, because I have to pay $1,000 a month in taxes on it.
The Main Street, which has had some of the same family businesses since this was a train town in the 1800s, is slowly being subsumed by wine bars and coffee houses, who quickly go out of business, leaving main street looking empty and disused, while the owners take the tax rebates and run. Walmart has arrived, spelling doom for everything. The shop space I had two years ago has been empty since they tripled the rent, when absent landlords saw the land rush here and bought up a ton of property. They'd rather leave it empty and dusty than have local businesses able to afford it.
Everything I have watched happen to this little tiny town as it becomes a faceless bedroom community in the greater DFW metroplex leads me to observe that humans are very much like vira. Viruses exist to reproduce. Humans seemingly have the same goal. Computer vira, according to dictionary.com is a piece of code that is capable of copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data.
I put it to you that humans have greatly corrupted the balance of nature in my little corner of Walden's Pond, and if I thought hand sanitizer would fix the problem, I would have built a moat of the stuff.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Now...there's 10 fast food restaurants within 5 minutes. There are 55,000! more people here than there were 5 years ago. Entire ranches have been sold and thousands of zero lot houses put on them. The city instituted building codes that said you couldn't build a house smaller than 2600 square feet. Our old house with a small bit of land was incorporated into the city limits, and now we can't have chickens or goats any more. We are overrun by bunnies, because there are no predators left, the coyotes have all been trapped or shot. The county would really like my little neighborhood of 15 houses to sell and get the fuck out, so they can build 5-10 houses per lot where we are. They have doubled my property value from a tax standpoint, and now my biggest expense, as I near retirement, is paying taxes on a house that I could no more sell for it's taxed value than I can fly. Seriously, my kitchen is old enough to vote, but I can't fix it, because I have to pay $1,000 a month in taxes on it.
The Main Street, which has had some of the same family businesses since this was a train town in the 1800s, is slowly being subsumed by wine bars and coffee houses, who quickly go out of business, leaving main street looking empty and disused, while the owners take the tax rebates and run. Walmart has arrived, spelling doom for everything. The shop space I had two years ago has been empty since they tripled the rent, when absent landlords saw the land rush here and bought up a ton of property. They'd rather leave it empty and dusty than have local businesses able to afford it.
Everything I have watched happen to this little tiny town as it becomes a faceless bedroom community in the greater DFW metroplex leads me to observe that humans are very much like vira. Viruses exist to reproduce. Humans seemingly have the same goal. Computer vira, according to dictionary.com is a piece of code that is capable of copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data.
I put it to you that humans have greatly corrupted the balance of nature in my little corner of Walden's Pond, and if I thought hand sanitizer would fix the problem, I would have built a moat of the stuff.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:29 AM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
"Among mammals, 60% are livestock, 36% are human, and only 4% are wild."
Don't you mean "is", not "are"? Biomass is a singular noun and has nothing to do with quantity. This is unnecessarily confusing and has obviously misled at least one responder in this thread to now believe that only 4% of mammals are wild, which is not what the data states at all. Most mammals are pretty small, after all.
posted by serena15221 at 11:43 AM on May 22, 2018
Don't you mean "is", not "are"? Biomass is a singular noun and has nothing to do with quantity. This is unnecessarily confusing and has obviously misled at least one responder in this thread to now believe that only 4% of mammals are wild, which is not what the data states at all. Most mammals are pretty small, after all.
posted by serena15221 at 11:43 AM on May 22, 2018
While climate change is rapidly transforming this corner of the world -- there are far fewer salmon now than when I was a kid -- my point is that we, as a society and as a civilization, can change things. Nature is resilient.
This is a bit like pointing out how it's snowing as evidence that Global Warming is a hoax, though. Local ecosystems may be recovering, but the global Holocene extinction is still in full swing. Even insects are disappearing. And while individual species like eagles and whales may recover if protected, biodiversity loss is harder to come back from.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 1:30 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is a bit like pointing out how it's snowing as evidence that Global Warming is a hoax, though. Local ecosystems may be recovering, but the global Holocene extinction is still in full swing. Even insects are disappearing. And while individual species like eagles and whales may recover if protected, biodiversity loss is harder to come back from.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 1:30 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Most mammals are pretty small, after all
Only because our fairly recent ancestors hunted nearly all the megafauna to extinction.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:33 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
Only because our fairly recent ancestors hunted nearly all the megafauna to extinction.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:33 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
GIANT SLOTHS
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [1 favorite]
*delicious* giant sloths
posted by poffin boffin at 2:07 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:07 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
This is a bit like pointing out how it's snowing as evidence that Global Warming is a hoax, though.
I never said that Global Warming is a hoax, though. I said that we must have hope, because hope is what makes life worth living. And hope is the only way to change things.
As a kid I never thought I would live to see the day that a Blue whale passed close by to Victoria. But they're back, and it's because some human beings did not give up hope.
posted by JamesBay at 2:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
I never said that Global Warming is a hoax, though. I said that we must have hope, because hope is what makes life worth living. And hope is the only way to change things.
As a kid I never thought I would live to see the day that a Blue whale passed close by to Victoria. But they're back, and it's because some human beings did not give up hope.
posted by JamesBay at 2:34 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
A single species is a third of mammalian biomass: an ideal growth opportunity for viruses, bacteria and parasites that can infect that mammal. A mammal that lives in dense yet interconnected hives. If i thought the climate crisis wasn't going to decimate agriculture I'd worry more about pathogens.
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 2:54 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Anchorite_of_Palgrave at 2:54 PM on May 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
Agent Smith was correct.
Heh. I came here to say exactly that.
posted by homunculus at 3:53 PM on May 22, 2018
Heh. I came here to say exactly that.
posted by homunculus at 3:53 PM on May 22, 2018
A worldwide census of the total number of trees (32)
I know things are bad, but that estimate still strikes me as too low.
posted by flabdablet at 4:19 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
I know things are bad, but that estimate still strikes me as too low.
posted by flabdablet at 4:19 PM on May 22, 2018 [3 favorites]
Everything I have watched happen to this little tiny town as it becomes a faceless bedroom community in the greater DFW metroplex leads me to observe that humans are very much like vira. Viruses exist to reproduce. Humans seemingly have the same goal.
By this definition, all known life are viruses. The entire point of life is to maximize entropy, aka bring about the heat death of the universe, and acts toward that end. Only relatively recently have we had the language and conceptual framework to understand and discuss this. Regardless, perpetuating its entropy-creating self is one of the most effective ways to reach that end, so it's no wonder that so much of Earth's biomass is meat. The more complex the organism, the more entropy it produces.
Sadly, without higher thinking skills, higher order organisms will eventually eliminate the lower order life forms on which they (we) depend.
posted by wierdo at 6:54 PM on May 22, 2018
By this definition, all known life are viruses. The entire point of life is to maximize entropy, aka bring about the heat death of the universe, and acts toward that end. Only relatively recently have we had the language and conceptual framework to understand and discuss this. Regardless, perpetuating its entropy-creating self is one of the most effective ways to reach that end, so it's no wonder that so much of Earth's biomass is meat. The more complex the organism, the more entropy it produces.
Sadly, without higher thinking skills, higher order organisms will eventually eliminate the lower order life forms on which they (we) depend.
posted by wierdo at 6:54 PM on May 22, 2018
without higher thinking skills, higher order organisms will eventually eliminate the lower order life forms on which they (we) depend
...which will crash our population and leave behind nothing but bacteria muttering about how they tried to tell those crazy kids their newfangled notions about multicellular marriages would all end in tears but did they listen, oh no, they never listen and gtg, my comet's here.
posted by flabdablet at 3:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
...which will crash our population and leave behind nothing but bacteria muttering about how they tried to tell those crazy kids their newfangled notions about multicellular marriages would all end in tears but did they listen, oh no, they never listen and gtg, my comet's here.
posted by flabdablet at 3:14 AM on May 23, 2018 [1 favorite]
I AM VIRUS.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:37 AM on May 24, 2018
posted by aspersioncast at 7:37 AM on May 24, 2018
"Everything I have watched happen to this little tiny town as it becomes a faceless bedroom community in the greater DFW metroplex leads me to observe that humans are very much like vira."
Do you live in or near Denton, by chance? Sounds kind of like it from your description. I've not lived here nearly as long as you, from your perspective I'm probably part of the problem. I came here maybe 12 years ago for school, left for a little bit, and came back because imo it's where "I grew up" and feels like home. Even so, coming back after only a few years it was crazy how much had changed, on top of the massive changes I experienced when I first came here. My grandpa spent a lot of his youth in and out of here as well and it's interesting to hear or see how much has changed, for better or for worse (segregation and racism in this area was kind of shocking even the way he tells it, a racist himself).
Anyway, your story could be true for many places. Nobody calls the square main street as far as I've ever heard and most of the shops there aren't abandoned, the main ones that are due to a recent fire.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:58 PM on May 24, 2018
Do you live in or near Denton, by chance? Sounds kind of like it from your description. I've not lived here nearly as long as you, from your perspective I'm probably part of the problem. I came here maybe 12 years ago for school, left for a little bit, and came back because imo it's where "I grew up" and feels like home. Even so, coming back after only a few years it was crazy how much had changed, on top of the massive changes I experienced when I first came here. My grandpa spent a lot of his youth in and out of here as well and it's interesting to hear or see how much has changed, for better or for worse (segregation and racism in this area was kind of shocking even the way he tells it, a racist himself).
Anyway, your story could be true for many places. Nobody calls the square main street as far as I've ever heard and most of the shops there aren't abandoned, the main ones that are due to a recent fire.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:58 PM on May 24, 2018
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