Yes, we are at the top. Yes, we are the more dangerous creatures on this earth simply because we can think and reason. Can a bear reason? No. can a lion? No. How about a tiger? No,no,no,no,no. We hunt for sport because we can. a bear,lion,ect, hunt because they have too.
what are you without your gun? I agree with this video. we are NOT top of the food chain. Take away our weapons, and we're nothing against a lion, tiger, bear, etc. Human arrogance is what makes people think we're top of the food chain.
You are so correct. I am tired of people thinking we are stronger and faster and better than everything else. We are all part of a big cycle of life and we are all interconnected and interdependent.
our inteligence is what puts on top of the food chain. you put some weak kid against a lion then yah hes gonna die. you give that kid a handgun and train him to shoot critical spot sof a tiger or bear then that completelly flips the tables
You're aware that anytime some one dies of anything infectious, whether from a human, non-human animal, the ground, your toilet, etc.. they are being preyed upon, right?
@akkadianarab no hes wrong. Billions of bacteria that prey on you every day Die... trillions of bacteria die in one lifetime of 1 person... and what kills them? our bodies defenses
@Claybird121 bacterium and viruses die nevertheless, trillions and trillions in your lifetime to you'r one being in lets say 80-90 years?yes... we are top of the food chain. we dominated this world. our brains make us the top of the foodchain. we overcame species faster bigger and stronger than us with just our thoughts
yes, we are at the top of the food chain. Yes, we do get bitten by mosquitoes, so what? We are indeed, the most powerful species on this planet. I think you're confused, "top of the food chain" doesn't mean invincibility. It portrays dominance in a habitat.
@Claybird121 In my opinion, we are at the top of the food chain since we have the capability to attack any other form of life (whether single-celled organism or brain-bearing animal) or defend ourselves against it effectively due to our ability to use tools (including medicines).
@Claybird121 "?" see what I mean. smart guy... lol i appreciate the thought. way to work it all out. i swat mosquitos with impunity, i have eaten shark, bear, and poeple if you count boogers as poeple, i am a consumer, shoot i've even eaten pit bull and cats. i have pooped them out and i loved it. what if you hang the chain from a cieling, no schytzo frenic circle of life stuff over here buddy.
the food chain is about the predator and prey relation. mosquitos and microbes are parasites and decomposers of humans beings, why did u waste my time?
"Predators" and "parasites" are just linguistic categories. A word isn't reality.
Both consume the material of other organisms. Food flows away, thus it hasn't reach a top. Energy or "food" doesn't accumulate anywhere. Humans are fed on, thus they can't be a top to anything.
"top" and "food chain" are just linguistic categories too. The food chains describes predators killing preys and eating them, parasites don't kill to get energy and matter and decomposers eat us when we are already dead, so there's a difference between them, mosquitos and microbes are not predators of human beings so that's why they are not in the food chain.
I'm afraid you're wrong. It's called the "food" chain because it tracks the movement of "food" through an ecosystem/biosphere.
The focus here is "food". Parasites consume "food" and are "food" for countless other species. They are involved in the transmission of energy through this system. It would be foolish and somewhat childish i think to ignore them because of a species-centric judgment call on your part.
fuck the terms man, i know food doesn't accumulate, but the food chain is often represented by a pyramid, which has a top, that we are on cuz nothing kill us.
That's sort of the point of my video. The idea of a "food" chain being a pyramid is sort of an illusion. In fact, i would say the idea of a food "chain' is an illusion it's self.
I think the term "food web" is much more appropriate and realistic considering the cyclical branching nature of energy in ecosystems.
i agree, but no one said that the pyramid representation was perfect, it's good at some aspects, like observing that there's energy loss during the process so that's why the top is thiner than the bottom, but ur right, the term chain is not very appropriate when it comes to the fact that it's a cycle , however it works well when it comes to fact that we depend of other organisms. i think it should be called "food cycle".
Well the thing is there is no energy loss. The energy is just dispersed. When a chimp kills a colobus monkey, the chimp may not consume all the energy that makes up the monkey, but what the chimp doesn't consume is consumed by scavengers like rodents, insects, bacteria, etc. Which are all in turn consumed themselves and so on forever.
Right, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that organic energy is moving in countless different directions through countless organisms and ecological/biological systems that include (in large part actually) things like fleas, ticks, mites, bacteria, viruses, etc. Humans represent no pinnacle of consumption. They are consumed as much as any other organism.
You're caught up on the terms "predator" and "prey", which are vague. To "prey" on something doesn't necessarily mean to kill it. "Predatory behavior" doesn't have to involve killing. Parasites "prey" on their hosts.
But don't you realise what you are saying? That Tarzan is no longer Lord of the Jungle? The lion is no longer King of Beasts? Davey Crockett no longer King of the Wild Frontier? Nature is no longer to be conquered? Life is no longer a battle? No wilderness to tame? And didn't God, in Genesis, grant man domain over all the earth's creatures? Star Trek says ''Space is the Final Frontier". You would destroy the very foundations of civilisation. You don't sound like a Christian Fundamentalist!
The "first" novel, Robinson Crusoe, is based on top down predator food chain theory, with island tamed, and Friday civilised. Swiss Family Robinson (Crusoe) build treehouse--B4 Tarzan did!--and conquer nature too (Gilligan's Island is a comedic variation on theme.) Space Family Robinson (Crusoe) establish hydroponic garden on new planet for earth to colonise, despite hostile aliens. Pioneering, Agriculture, Colonisation and Civilisation. At least Tarzan/Eden myths have fruit 'n nut permaculture.
As I read through My Ishmael and learn about "the locking up of food" by "civilised" peoples, I find myself thinking of Johnny Appleseed growing apple trees for everyone to benefit from. I know my ideas of Johnny Appleseed are probably Disneyfied, and I wouldn't know how he treated the indigenous Americans, but it seems a nice truly civilised idea to have food available freely for all. It doesn't have to be an absolute competition.Symbiosis and mutual aid are alternatives to taking-it-all greed.
That's interesting, coz tomatoes, cucumbers, kiwifruit and passionfruit and things can sprout up from human faeces. Food is, most obviously, meant to spring up in our environment, and free for us all--and not all under lock and key!!!
The control of food is what has given us all the great things we've got though. Huge mono-cultures of cash crops are what make farmers rich. Not diversity. without controlling the food supply how are we supposed to maintain our way of life? We have a population issue as it is, imagine what it would be like if everyone had enough to eat! 1.5 billion extra people breeding?! that would be catastrophic. No, food should not be free, money should be required for life to exist.
note, this is my version of being funny. I agree that food is a natural thing and that it should be free for the taking. My comment on Johnny Appleseed is not a comment on food politics or food security. Just a little thing I heard.
Hmm. I heard on a talk show, some months back, that the equivalent of a jumbo jet load of women die about every six hours from the effects of unwanted pregnancy--whether it be from abortions gone wrong or just from pregnancy or birth complications. Food control aside, it's vital that people are given access to proper sex education and are allowed to control their fertility. People shouldn't be getting pregnant with babies they don't want. Contraception should now be considered a human right.
Tell me what you think about plants such as carob, chestnut and ailanthus, e.g., having semen-scented pollen. Is this merely biological "convergence", like mustard oil in (hot!) nasturtium leaves? And then there are the amazing phallic fungi, such as Phallus impudicus and P. hadriani. (See Google images.) Sexuality seems to pervade the whole of nature. Should humanish sexuality attributes in other distant species mean something special for us?
No, it doesn't mean anything special. You could just as easily see having spines or limbs as an homage to fish who started it all. Life on the planet is all one large family, all with the same common ancestor. Sexuality pervades because it's a good method for reproduction, any sexuality seen as humanish is just humans trying to make things humanly relevant. And this is all pretty off topic from the video. If you have any other questions unrelated to the vid i recommend messaging me.
So, it's a web rather than a chain.But is the community of life really and absolutely a competitive one, based on dog eat dog competition? The "law of the jungle" as it were? Social and economic Darwinism seems to have been embraced by conservative politicians since Reagan and Thatcher, and applied as economic rationalism etc. Ayn Rand made greed virtue. I don't know if Darwin's "survival of the fittest" really meant all organisms have an innate competitive psychology. I'm not convinced they do.
No, competition is not the only mechanism in evolution, there is all mutual aid. I recommend Kropotkin's book "On Mutual Aid" that he wrote to debase social darwinism or Spencerism.
I've said nothing about it being only competitive nor have i given any credibility to social or economic darwinism. Darwin actually never used the term "survival of the fittest".
You mentioned symbiosis, and, no, you did not say anything, at all, about competition; but I often think about selfish people who think a "kill or be killed" attitude is OK. I wasn't really sure if Darwin had used that term, "survival of the fittest". Perhaps he coined the term "natural selection". I get the impression Darwin might have had a more expansive imagination than to have been a Spencerist. Thanks for the book suggestion. I got very angry reading Thomas Malthus. So privileged and smug.
Darwin was not the only one to come up with his evolutionary theory of speciesation, he had just been at it longer and published first. The observation of evolution had been around for a long time with a bunch of different people trying to explain it with a bunch of different theories. Darwin never claimed his theories had any standing on social and economic theory. This claim later when Herbert Spencer perverted the idea for racial and economic reasons. And Malthus has his formula backwards.
Thanks for that information about Darwin. He comes across as a reasonable person. I only read extracts from Malthus, but I got peeved because, self-righteous, he seemed to think poor people should keep their legs crossed, and not breed, while he, educated and privileged and better off, could afford to have kids. He didn't even question his own privileged vantage point, as far as I could see.Thank Heavens for sex education and safe contraception!!!
I know '"pecking order", aka "competition", is a bit like top-down food chain theory. What do you think of the (Marmot's) famous decades-long study whereby British public servants' longevity was measured in relation to their pecking order? Even when negative lifestyle factors, like smoking, were taken into account, the "top dogs" still lived longest. Alas, if it's not a level playing field, a lot of organisms can succumb. Mutual aid sounds far better for our health.
glad i read the full thread before posting... was going to recommend kropotkin as well.
i had wonderings at one time that i wrote to chomsky about,.. i wonder about the discussion comtemporary to darwin.. and the role of cultural 'filtering' with regard to why it might have been that darwin was 'selected' among so many others,.. seemingly to their exclusion,.. esp. the emphasis on competition, where much paper regarding mutual aid was also produced.. even some from darwin,.. and seems to.....
have been occluded by those intellectually 'in charge' of mother culture... over the years. it is important because so often science is presented as though it is somehow immune to filtering and propaganda... clearly not the case at all.
(incidentally,.. chomsky didn't seem to follow the question,.. he answered another question i had not asked. :P )
I cannot disagree with your comments. I've often read the phrase ''nature abhors a vaccuum'', though, and when I look about me, I see all available space, literally, being filled, in one way or another, by living things. Like those crabs that survive in volcanically heated boiling water. I can only look to the Diamond Sutra, and not a science book, for the answer to your Zennish question.
Yes, I think I see that, too--if I think logically! And all space and vaccuum (and time!) as part of nature, too. Still, when you say "there is no vacuum", you remind me of Huang Po saying," the Void is not really void". My (physicist!) friend likes Jakob Lorber books about ethereal spirit beings inhabiting other planets. I actually suspect space will be found to be made up of some sort of particle, one day. It has qualities, yeah, and a nature. You are a very esoteric sorta scientist I think!
Space is already understood to have many qualities. Space is not the lack of stuff, space is a property of this universe that did not exist before the "big bang" or immense and rapid expansion of reality from it's former state of singularity. Space has very observable and testable qualities and nature.
I'm not a scientist, but a layperson, and just have fun learning and imagining about things. Thanks for the physics information. I'll try and digest it. Hey! I'm not a rocket scientist either, now that I come to think of it!
A web of life idea is very nice and sounds rather Hinduistic and Buddhistic. Vertical food chain idea sounds like it's based on competition alone; presumably an idea from someone's ''survival of the fittest'' notions.
And bacteria and coffin worms and fungi will consume us, even after we're dead!!
Please vlog WHY NATURE ABHORS A VACCUUM, and things like legionella evolve to live in new places like air conditioners or HIV in blood products, or aphids frozen dormant high up in sky to travel.
I should, when I get a decent camera and mike organised! But you seemed to speak with so much eloquence and expertise I thought you would have put all the arguments together already. BTW, do you think outer space is a vaccuum that nature can inhabit? I guess if man has been to the moon, it's proof. And what if a group of mice snuck onboard a rocket ship? I think nature/life does seem to want to fill all space. Then there's the panspermia theory of Creation, too. I'M running out of space.Vaccuum!
There is no vaccuum. Your question assumes that nature is only confined to terran biological systems. Did "nature" not exist until life emerged? And humans are part of nature. I don't know what this "nature" thing is our talking about really.
Yes, I was not incorrect to assume that you had all the arguments, logics and philosophy of this subject well thought out already. Thanks for your reply.
"Nature" is a word our society thought up because it foolishly believes it has severed some connection to the rest of the community of life. But humans, no matter where or how they live, will always be part of "nature" just like any other organism. Terran biological systems may one day become "post-terran" but really, mars and other planets are fine the way they are. They may have biospheres and they may not, but that's just one property in many to have. I enjoy your comments.
Well, I shouldn't want to make such a vlog, now, having clarified my ideas (about vaccuums) with you. I should, instead, just wish to celebrate and delight in the miracle of evolution and biodiversity--which was my chief interest, anyway. Miracles like those little arboreal crabs who live very high up in the Amazon tree canopy, and have done for aeons, in tiny pools in tree-forks.
been reading and listening to a good deal of lierre keith lately... in her examination of plant cycles and agriculture the occasion arises to make the point that soil is not vegetarian,.. that soil needs dead animals to remain healthy,.. to remain 'soil', for all that word implies. so i only wanted to make a distinction,.. as you have addressed so many ways humans might be consumed in life,.. i want to point out that consumption in death is no less applicable as a part of the cycle.
so that even assuming that our 'howard hughes' were somehow able to live a life free of pests and parasites, the soil and its millions of inhabitants, plant and animal, would eagerly consume the remains.
this in mind, every example of life is better examined as a form of food storage for every other lifeform. the 'food chain' is too simple a model.
But i should mention that it is literally impossible to be free of bacteria and microbes that literally eat us all day long, even when we are alive. I think i read that about a third of all human deaths are related to infection and sickness caused by microbial lifeforms.
Yes, we are at the top. Yes, we are the more dangerous creatures on this earth simply because we can think and reason. Can a bear reason? No. can a lion? No. How about a tiger? No,no,no,no,no. We hunt for sport because we can. a bear,lion,ect, hunt because they have too.
dcoble1 3 weeks ago
what are you without your gun? I agree with this video. we are NOT top of the food chain. Take away our weapons, and we're nothing against a lion, tiger, bear, etc. Human arrogance is what makes people think we're top of the food chain.
mkirk1987 3 months ago
You are so correct. I am tired of people thinking we are stronger and faster and better than everything else. We are all part of a big cycle of life and we are all interconnected and interdependent.
Carrieberryca 5 months ago
our inteligence is what puts on top of the food chain. you put some weak kid against a lion then yah hes gonna die. you give that kid a handgun and train him to shoot critical spot sof a tiger or bear then that completelly flips the tables
EyedeaXAbilities 6 months ago
the ratio of humans killing animals is FAR greater than the ratio of animals killing humans this applies to every animal top predator as well.
akkadianarab 10 months ago
@akkadianarab
You're aware that anytime some one dies of anything infectious, whether from a human, non-human animal, the ground, your toilet, etc.. they are being preyed upon, right?
Claybird121 9 months ago
@Claybird121 yeah preyed upon by bacteria not a multi-celled carnivore. In that case your right
akkadianarab 9 months ago
@akkadianarab no hes wrong. Billions of bacteria that prey on you every day Die... trillions of bacteria die in one lifetime of 1 person... and what kills them? our bodies defenses
EyedeaXAbilities 6 months ago
Those "bodily defenses" are not eating bacterium or viruses. They are not powered or created by the consumption of bacterium or viruses.
Claybird121 4 months ago
@Claybird121 bacterium and viruses die nevertheless, trillions and trillions in your lifetime to you'r one being in lets say 80-90 years?yes... we are top of the food chain. we dominated this world. our brains make us the top of the foodchain. we overcame species faster bigger and stronger than us with just our thoughts
EyedeaXAbilities 4 months ago
humans arent the most powerful species on this planet, bakteria, viruses, parasites, share our space on the first place
delta3561 1 year ago
@delta3561
Agreed
Claybird121 1 year ago
yes, we are at the top of the food chain. Yes, we do get bitten by mosquitoes, so what? We are indeed, the most powerful species on this planet. I think you're confused, "top of the food chain" doesn't mean invincibility. It portrays dominance in a habitat.
lancevancedance 1 year ago
@lancevancedance
Then various forms of bacteria and fungus are the top of the food chain.
Claybird121 1 year ago
@Claybird121 how so?
lancevancedance 1 year ago
@lancevancedance
Because they dominate us and make up for biomass than we do.
The vast majority of human life is ended by infection. What causes this? Bacteria, virus, protists, zoonoses, etc.
They are eating you, this very moment.
Claybird121 1 year ago
@lancevancedance
To quote one of my professors (an anthropologist, osteologist, and paleo-pathologist) concerning bacteria/viruses/etc:
"We make great prey"
Claybird121 1 year ago
@Claybird121 In my opinion, we are at the top of the food chain since we have the capability to attack any other form of life (whether single-celled organism or brain-bearing animal) or defend ourselves against it effectively due to our ability to use tools (including medicines).
lancevancedance 1 year ago
JerK!
hilizin 1 year ago
@hilizin
?
Claybird121 1 year ago
@Claybird121 "?" see what I mean. smart guy... lol i appreciate the thought. way to work it all out. i swat mosquitos with impunity, i have eaten shark, bear, and poeple if you count boogers as poeple, i am a consumer, shoot i've even eaten pit bull and cats. i have pooped them out and i loved it. what if you hang the chain from a cieling, no schytzo frenic circle of life stuff over here buddy.
hilizin 1 year ago
@hilizin I still stand totally by everything i've said. So far none of your arguments really have any weight as far as i can see.
Claybird121 4 months ago
I see you haven't joined the zapatistas...
NickNorie15 1 year ago
@NickNorie15
Not yet, lol
Claybird121 1 year ago
the food chain is about the predator and prey relation. mosquitos and microbes are parasites and decomposers of humans beings, why did u waste my time?
VidMusFun 2 years ago
"Predators" and "parasites" are just linguistic categories. A word isn't reality.
Both consume the material of other organisms. Food flows away, thus it hasn't reach a top. Energy or "food" doesn't accumulate anywhere. Humans are fed on, thus they can't be a top to anything.
This is pretty simple stuff.
Claybird121 2 years ago
"top" and "food chain" are just linguistic categories too. The food chains describes predators killing preys and eating them, parasites don't kill to get energy and matter and decomposers eat us when we are already dead, so there's a difference between them, mosquitos and microbes are not predators of human beings so that's why they are not in the food chain.
VidMusFun 2 years ago
I'm afraid you're wrong. It's called the "food" chain because it tracks the movement of "food" through an ecosystem/biosphere.
The focus here is "food". Parasites consume "food" and are "food" for countless other species. They are involved in the transmission of energy through this system. It would be foolish and somewhat childish i think to ignore them because of a species-centric judgment call on your part.
Claybird121 2 years ago
fuck the terms man, i know food doesn't accumulate, but the food chain is often represented by a pyramid, which has a top, that we are on cuz nothing kill us.
VidMusFun 2 years ago
That's sort of the point of my video. The idea of a "food" chain being a pyramid is sort of an illusion. In fact, i would say the idea of a food "chain' is an illusion it's self.
I think the term "food web" is much more appropriate and realistic considering the cyclical branching nature of energy in ecosystems.
Claybird121 2 years ago
@Claybird121
i agree, but no one said that the pyramid representation was perfect, it's good at some aspects, like observing that there's energy loss during the process so that's why the top is thiner than the bottom, but ur right, the term chain is not very appropriate when it comes to the fact that it's a cycle , however it works well when it comes to fact that we depend of other organisms. i think it should be called "food cycle".
VidMusFun 2 years ago
Well the thing is there is no energy loss. The energy is just dispersed. When a chimp kills a colobus monkey, the chimp may not consume all the energy that makes up the monkey, but what the chimp doesn't consume is consumed by scavengers like rodents, insects, bacteria, etc. Which are all in turn consumed themselves and so on forever.
Claybird121 2 years ago
@Claybird121
there's no such thing as energy loss, what i meant to say is that a part of the energy becomes heat during the process and is dispersed.
VidMusFun 2 years ago
Right, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that organic energy is moving in countless different directions through countless organisms and ecological/biological systems that include (in large part actually) things like fleas, ticks, mites, bacteria, viruses, etc. Humans represent no pinnacle of consumption. They are consumed as much as any other organism.
Claybird121 2 years ago
You're caught up on the terms "predator" and "prey", which are vague. To "prey" on something doesn't necessarily mean to kill it. "Predatory behavior" doesn't have to involve killing. Parasites "prey" on their hosts.
Claybird121 2 years ago
But don't you realise what you are saying? That Tarzan is no longer Lord of the Jungle? The lion is no longer King of Beasts? Davey Crockett no longer King of the Wild Frontier? Nature is no longer to be conquered? Life is no longer a battle? No wilderness to tame? And didn't God, in Genesis, grant man domain over all the earth's creatures? Star Trek says ''Space is the Final Frontier". You would destroy the very foundations of civilisation. You don't sound like a Christian Fundamentalist!
zuditaka 2 years ago
This is precisely my hope.
Claybird121 2 years ago
The "first" novel, Robinson Crusoe, is based on top down predator food chain theory, with island tamed, and Friday civilised. Swiss Family Robinson (Crusoe) build treehouse--B4 Tarzan did!--and conquer nature too (Gilligan's Island is a comedic variation on theme.) Space Family Robinson (Crusoe) establish hydroponic garden on new planet for earth to colonise, despite hostile aliens. Pioneering, Agriculture, Colonisation and Civilisation. At least Tarzan/Eden myths have fruit 'n nut permaculture.
zuditaka 2 years ago
As I read through My Ishmael and learn about "the locking up of food" by "civilised" peoples, I find myself thinking of Johnny Appleseed growing apple trees for everyone to benefit from. I know my ideas of Johnny Appleseed are probably Disneyfied, and I wouldn't know how he treated the indigenous Americans, but it seems a nice truly civilised idea to have food available freely for all. It doesn't have to be an absolute competition.Symbiosis and mutual aid are alternatives to taking-it-all greed.
zuditaka 2 years ago
I heard that johnny Appleseed just liked apples to the point that he ate the whole thing. Then he pooped and trees grew.
DANE842 2 years ago
That's interesting, coz tomatoes, cucumbers, kiwifruit and passionfruit and things can sprout up from human faeces. Food is, most obviously, meant to spring up in our environment, and free for us all--and not all under lock and key!!!
zuditaka 2 years ago
The control of food is what has given us all the great things we've got though. Huge mono-cultures of cash crops are what make farmers rich. Not diversity. without controlling the food supply how are we supposed to maintain our way of life? We have a population issue as it is, imagine what it would be like if everyone had enough to eat! 1.5 billion extra people breeding?! that would be catastrophic. No, food should not be free, money should be required for life to exist.
DANE842 2 years ago
note, this is my version of being funny. I agree that food is a natural thing and that it should be free for the taking. My comment on Johnny Appleseed is not a comment on food politics or food security. Just a little thing I heard.
DANE842 2 years ago
Tee-hee. I am amused. :)
zuditaka 2 years ago
Hmm. I heard on a talk show, some months back, that the equivalent of a jumbo jet load of women die about every six hours from the effects of unwanted pregnancy--whether it be from abortions gone wrong or just from pregnancy or birth complications. Food control aside, it's vital that people are given access to proper sex education and are allowed to control their fertility. People shouldn't be getting pregnant with babies they don't want. Contraception should now be considered a human right.
zuditaka 2 years ago
Thanks for that reminder. I should be scientific and disciplined and stick to the topic.
zuditaka 2 years ago
Tell me what you think about plants such as carob, chestnut and ailanthus, e.g., having semen-scented pollen. Is this merely biological "convergence", like mustard oil in (hot!) nasturtium leaves? And then there are the amazing phallic fungi, such as Phallus impudicus and P. hadriani. (See Google images.) Sexuality seems to pervade the whole of nature. Should humanish sexuality attributes in other distant species mean something special for us?
zuditaka 2 years ago
No, it doesn't mean anything special. You could just as easily see having spines or limbs as an homage to fish who started it all. Life on the planet is all one large family, all with the same common ancestor. Sexuality pervades because it's a good method for reproduction, any sexuality seen as humanish is just humans trying to make things humanly relevant. And this is all pretty off topic from the video. If you have any other questions unrelated to the vid i recommend messaging me.
Claybird121 2 years ago
So, it's a web rather than a chain.But is the community of life really and absolutely a competitive one, based on dog eat dog competition? The "law of the jungle" as it were? Social and economic Darwinism seems to have been embraced by conservative politicians since Reagan and Thatcher, and applied as economic rationalism etc. Ayn Rand made greed virtue. I don't know if Darwin's "survival of the fittest" really meant all organisms have an innate competitive psychology. I'm not convinced they do.
zuditaka 2 years ago
No, competition is not the only mechanism in evolution, there is all mutual aid. I recommend Kropotkin's book "On Mutual Aid" that he wrote to debase social darwinism or Spencerism.
I've said nothing about it being only competitive nor have i given any credibility to social or economic darwinism. Darwin actually never used the term "survival of the fittest".
Claybird121 2 years ago
You mentioned symbiosis, and, no, you did not say anything, at all, about competition; but I often think about selfish people who think a "kill or be killed" attitude is OK. I wasn't really sure if Darwin had used that term, "survival of the fittest". Perhaps he coined the term "natural selection". I get the impression Darwin might have had a more expansive imagination than to have been a Spencerist. Thanks for the book suggestion. I got very angry reading Thomas Malthus. So privileged and smug.
zuditaka 2 years ago
Darwin was not the only one to come up with his evolutionary theory of speciesation, he had just been at it longer and published first. The observation of evolution had been around for a long time with a bunch of different people trying to explain it with a bunch of different theories. Darwin never claimed his theories had any standing on social and economic theory. This claim later when Herbert Spencer perverted the idea for racial and economic reasons. And Malthus has his formula backwards.
Claybird121 2 years ago
Thanks for that information about Darwin. He comes across as a reasonable person. I only read extracts from Malthus, but I got peeved because, self-righteous, he seemed to think poor people should keep their legs crossed, and not breed, while he, educated and privileged and better off, could afford to have kids. He didn't even question his own privileged vantage point, as far as I could see.Thank Heavens for sex education and safe contraception!!!
zuditaka 2 years ago
I know '"pecking order", aka "competition", is a bit like top-down food chain theory. What do you think of the (Marmot's) famous decades-long study whereby British public servants' longevity was measured in relation to their pecking order? Even when negative lifestyle factors, like smoking, were taken into account, the "top dogs" still lived longest. Alas, if it's not a level playing field, a lot of organisms can succumb. Mutual aid sounds far better for our health.
zuditaka 2 years ago
glad i read the full thread before posting... was going to recommend kropotkin as well.
i had wonderings at one time that i wrote to chomsky about,.. i wonder about the discussion comtemporary to darwin.. and the role of cultural 'filtering' with regard to why it might have been that darwin was 'selected' among so many others,.. seemingly to their exclusion,.. esp. the emphasis on competition, where much paper regarding mutual aid was also produced.. even some from darwin,.. and seems to.....
gleefulsabotage 2 years ago
have been occluded by those intellectually 'in charge' of mother culture... over the years. it is important because so often science is presented as though it is somehow immune to filtering and propaganda... clearly not the case at all.
(incidentally,.. chomsky didn't seem to follow the question,.. he answered another question i had not asked. :P )
gleefulsabotage 2 years ago
I cannot disagree with your comments. I've often read the phrase ''nature abhors a vaccuum'', though, and when I look about me, I see all available space, literally, being filled, in one way or another, by living things. Like those crabs that survive in volcanically heated boiling water. I can only look to the Diamond Sutra, and not a science book, for the answer to your Zennish question.
zuditaka 2 years ago
The "vaccuum" would already be part of nature.
Claybird121 2 years ago
Yes, I think I see that, too--if I think logically! And all space and vaccuum (and time!) as part of nature, too. Still, when you say "there is no vacuum", you remind me of Huang Po saying," the Void is not really void". My (physicist!) friend likes Jakob Lorber books about ethereal spirit beings inhabiting other planets. I actually suspect space will be found to be made up of some sort of particle, one day. It has qualities, yeah, and a nature. You are a very esoteric sorta scientist I think!
zuditaka 2 years ago
Space is already understood to have many qualities. Space is not the lack of stuff, space is a property of this universe that did not exist before the "big bang" or immense and rapid expansion of reality from it's former state of singularity. Space has very observable and testable qualities and nature.
Claybird121 2 years ago
I'm not a scientist, but a layperson, and just have fun learning and imagining about things. Thanks for the physics information. I'll try and digest it. Hey! I'm not a rocket scientist either, now that I come to think of it!
zuditaka 2 years ago
A web of life idea is very nice and sounds rather Hinduistic and Buddhistic. Vertical food chain idea sounds like it's based on competition alone; presumably an idea from someone's ''survival of the fittest'' notions.
And bacteria and coffin worms and fungi will consume us, even after we're dead!!
Please vlog WHY NATURE ABHORS A VACCUUM, and things like legionella evolve to live in new places like air conditioners or HIV in blood products, or aphids frozen dormant high up in sky to travel.
zuditaka 2 years ago
Why don't you make this video you want to see?
Claybird121 2 years ago
I should, when I get a decent camera and mike organised! But you seemed to speak with so much eloquence and expertise I thought you would have put all the arguments together already. BTW, do you think outer space is a vaccuum that nature can inhabit? I guess if man has been to the moon, it's proof. And what if a group of mice snuck onboard a rocket ship? I think nature/life does seem to want to fill all space. Then there's the panspermia theory of Creation, too. I'M running out of space.Vaccuum!
zuditaka 2 years ago
There is no vaccuum. Your question assumes that nature is only confined to terran biological systems. Did "nature" not exist until life emerged? And humans are part of nature. I don't know what this "nature" thing is our talking about really.
Claybird121 2 years ago
Yes, I was not incorrect to assume that you had all the arguments, logics and philosophy of this subject well thought out already. Thanks for your reply.
zuditaka 2 years ago
"Nature" is a word our society thought up because it foolishly believes it has severed some connection to the rest of the community of life. But humans, no matter where or how they live, will always be part of "nature" just like any other organism. Terran biological systems may one day become "post-terran" but really, mars and other planets are fine the way they are. They may have biospheres and they may not, but that's just one property in many to have. I enjoy your comments.
Claybird121 2 years ago
Well, I shouldn't want to make such a vlog, now, having clarified my ideas (about vaccuums) with you. I should, instead, just wish to celebrate and delight in the miracle of evolution and biodiversity--which was my chief interest, anyway. Miracles like those little arboreal crabs who live very high up in the Amazon tree canopy, and have done for aeons, in tiny pools in tree-forks.
zuditaka 2 years ago
Love that look at 0.15. Classic.
rposky 2 years ago
never would have thought of it this way.
the interconnectedness of the chain definitely makes more sense than saying it's a top down affair.
bbbleaver 2 years ago
Hence the term.... Worm dirt! LOL Great Video. People are always trying to trying to rationalize their arrogance, not only about the "Food Chain".
enkelin32 2 years ago
been reading and listening to a good deal of lierre keith lately... in her examination of plant cycles and agriculture the occasion arises to make the point that soil is not vegetarian,.. that soil needs dead animals to remain healthy,.. to remain 'soil', for all that word implies. so i only wanted to make a distinction,.. as you have addressed so many ways humans might be consumed in life,.. i want to point out that consumption in death is no less applicable as a part of the cycle.
gleefulsabotage 2 years ago
so that even assuming that our 'howard hughes' were somehow able to live a life free of pests and parasites, the soil and its millions of inhabitants, plant and animal, would eagerly consume the remains.
this in mind, every example of life is better examined as a form of food storage for every other lifeform. the 'food chain' is too simple a model.
gleefulsabotage 2 years ago
Agreed.
Claybird121 2 years ago
But i should mention that it is literally impossible to be free of bacteria and microbes that literally eat us all day long, even when we are alive. I think i read that about a third of all human deaths are related to infection and sickness caused by microbial lifeforms.
Claybird121 2 years ago
Yeah definitely.
Claybird121 2 years ago
awesome dude
detestt 2 years ago
Hmmm... It has never occurred to me that the statement "top of the food chain" is flawed. Almost an oxymoron.
Very good point, and good video.
ghostwriter511 2 years ago