this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025
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Without capitalism, would we still be an infection?
Yes, we consume & change the environment for millennia on a scale and rate (especially rate!) that could be considered an infection as it is absolutely unsustainable, and it permanently changes environments.
We've ended great forests, drained entire bogs, even species millennia ago, under all systems so far.
We never had the mentality of 'don't leave a mark' and and always had the concept of 'trash'.
We've also never had a predator to keep us in check, in fact it is only other humans that keep our numbers in check.
The quantity of humans alone is bound to require so much natural resources that we have a global impact regardless of how we use the current tech we would use (this means enormous areas and natural species subjugated to sustain our needs).
And the same argument about quantity also marks the unmistakable sign of an (unsustainable) infestation - that usually leads to the death of the host.
We needed some 4 million years to get to a billion, and only two centuries to get from a billon to 9 billion.
I find it difficult to disagree with your points for the most part, although I feel many are not entirely accurate, but your main point remains. So my next question is, isn't what we're doing as a species more or less natural? That's not an excuse for what we're doing, but calling humanity an infection has too many negative connotations that are unfair. All animals behave this way, boom and bust cycles occur everywhere without human intervention. We're just the first to know what's happening.
Anyway, what's the solution if there is simply an infestation? I think that meme was made for you.
It is, imho, and "infestations" are indeed a normal part of ecosystems.
Only few species had global impact tho (and none in the timeframe of a geological second), we arent the first.
I would say that we embody (literally) all of those negative connotations actually, ofc with some weirdness, like how many billions of chickens now live bcs of us.
I do struggle to find positives in our interaction an consequences to the planets ecosystems.
What gives us the audacity to justify the loss is biodiversity on such a grand scale?
Infections do not have have the ability to choose to not damage their host. People do have that choice, and many make it.
You are, I think, making a mistake that many people do, in thinking humans should have zero impact on the environment. This is nonsense. Does any other animal have zero impact on the environment? Beavers and wild boars can change entire watersheds! An ecologically aware future is not one where humanity has disappeared, merely one where we have consciously limited our effects on it. Ask a virus to do that.
People have the ability to choose to not damage "the host"?
So we do it willingly?
"Many" when talking for a species is meaningless.
Some brain cancers might heighten some of the brains abilities ... yet I don't think that matters.
Also which humans don't negatively affect kilometres of Earth's surfaces and species for 100s of thousands of years?
Beavers, or any species really, can and do affect experientially all they can. They do that until they are in equilibrium with the ecosystem. Invasive species are perhaps a more clear example of this process.
The relative speed of the process and how fast the environment responds is crucial in the infestation definition.
In any population the initial growth is basically limited only by the resource availability. So any species at some point, especially at the beginning, behaves (and it's evolutionary beneficial to do so) like an infestation, the limits come from the environment, and in complex environment that means other species. That's how ecosystem grow from single species to complex interaction between 1000s of species in more or less stable equilibrium.
While i agree with you overall, i'd like to point out a few things.
First of all, "growth" is not a purely human concept. If you believe in the theory of evolution (which I advise you to do), all life strives for (evolutionary) growth sooner or later. That is why saying "humans are exceptionally bad because they spread like crazy" is in itself a false thought - all life does that.
The question is: Is humanity's rule over the planet justified? In other words, do we have a large enough advantage to all life on Earth that we can reasonably occupy almost all inhabitable land area? What is the advantage that we bring to life?
As i said earlier, all lives ultimately strives towards evolutionary growth. Humans can aid that cause by making life multiplanetary. Don't get me wrong, i'm not at all a Musk fanboy. But i believe in this single point: Similar to how birds can carry plants seeds to far-away islands, humans can carry all life to other planets and provide it with an essential opportunity for growth. That is why i see it as "humanity has also some very big advantages to life on Earth in general" besides "humanity causes the largest mass-extinction in a long time". Both are true.
Lol, never said anything to the contrary, my dear friend!
Everything what I compared humans to has a precedence in the wild (we arent that unique), which ended in a catastrophe of sorts (and a rebound an eon later).
Are you suggesting infestation can be a non-life phenomenon? I am def intrigued! (Even in sci-fo terms!)
Ofc it's part of the natural selection!
As said, an infestation, I never argued if justified or not (whatever even means to be "justified" to lower biodiversity like humans do).
However we are in the midst of a mass eviction event.
Yes, exactly, and this can also be an infestation when the "invasive species" (human term) spreads and kills the existing local species bcs the ecosystem isn't balanced. This usually negatively effects biodiversity.
Like rats killed entire species when were introduced to New Zealand and similar secluded islands.
Yeah probably if we took the immediate means of production and just tried to socialise them. Idk if doing what Lenin did back in the day would work now (just copying capitalist production and socialising it.)