A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Another Sapiens reader. Look, I don't care how uppity those maize are -- there's no way they trained us into cultivating them, we slaughtered their brothers and sisters and kept only the tamer, weaker, fatter renditions that we could use for our own means. If that benefits them, then they're psychopaths.
Corn is not sentient, and I will die on this hill!
I feel like I heard this perspective elsewhere...it may have been The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. Which I really enjoyed, myself.
But everyone knows that the kingdom that's really in charge is the fungi.
Well, you must be a real fungi at parties.
Corn is the vegetation equivalent of a cubicle dweller.
Ah, but you forget, Maizen have a collective identity, so stalks think nothing of sacrificing their individual lives for the good of the whole.
if they compete for sunlight and happily smother their brethren in this fruitful pursuit, then they're no better than us at chucking each other under the bus in the name of this so called collective 'progress'
So what you're saying is, maize domesticated us, but it's also sociopathic and generally evil, and probably believes in eugenics with a side of racism.
This is my tune, not only biocentric, but also a very healthy dose of anti-anthropocentric. A species traitor, if you allow me to be as bold.
I really don't think that talk about humans being the god on earth, center of the universe, with a metaphysical excuse to exploit everything around us is doing wonders to our health nor long term survival... And obviously the "sapiens" of our epithet is only there because we gave it ourselves chef's kiss
Anthropism
yuck
It's also a very Buddhist outlook. Not because of anything specifically antihuman or pro ecology but simply because we as humans are part of a cycle that lives and dies. We don't have a say.
You could say our karma is that we will be too proud and be too exceptionalist and end it all earlier than expected because we couldn't come together and take care of the earth.
It sucks but the earth will go on for a few more billion years without us.
Oh yeah, I believe nature, the planet, will carry on, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot. I just feel for the part of it that won't survive our stay.
Sometimes I make this joke about all currently living higher primates, including us, sitting at a table, and we are yeeting our way around the room, and the other primates look at eachother and go "wait, that's the sapient one?? :D
I think we as a species took a very nasty turn in our evolution, either biological or social, that allowed us to "break away" from nature, so to speak, and create that duality Man/ Nature that in my opinion really didn't work that well. I'm pretty sure other animals have a consciousness too, so probably being conscious and self aware is by itself not the culprit. But something makes us feel so far removed from the rest of life that I find really unsetling, and it also only makes dealing with being that much more complicated, for example, not being able to accept death like you said. In that aspect, some religions are definitely better than others to mitigate that damage. Either way, I'm just here doing my best and hoping for the best!
Lol the sapient one is hilarious. Especially when our ancestors probably murdered and bred out of existence other sapient species.
Part of me wonders if that turn you mentioned is our industrial revolution, invention of agriculture, or whatever set us apart from other sapient species.
Some cultures and Indigenous belief systems accept death and the process of not being an immortal to be expected while ironically the Abhramic faiths that have a huge aversion to idolatry tend to want to follow in the steps of their God by living forever and exerting control over all things.
It's fascinating to me to explore this but while I'd love for us to explore the cosmos like Carl Sagan implored us to do, it's also so frustrating we can't get past our initial hangups.
Yeah, I feel that. It's like part of me thinks there could've been another way to get to where we are, and go beyond. Sometimes I feel literal awe about our species ingenuity, hell, cerebral organoids??, but other part kind of yearns for a simpler, more natural, somehow healthier, more respectful and fulfilling, way of living and interacting with our surroundings (and ourselves!). But yeah, those moments in our history you mention certainly didn't work in favour of a greater togetherness with nature. Maybe it was something deeper. Maybe not, dunno, but either way, sometimes I feel "intelligence" as we describe it especially in relation to our species is a kind of an evolutionary dead end that was useful but eventually exhausts it's usefulness and starts working to our detriment. Having in mind the cost each leap or advancement has in the environment, in the ecosystems, sometimes I feel tempted to think it was nothing but a mistake, taking in consideration the planet and all it's life including us as a whole deeply connected system.
Wouldn't fungus be more immediately interested in being among us?
Yup, bury me in a burlap sack in a deciduous forest.
Why deciduous? Because fuck pine trees, that's why. I don't want to feed those assholes.
Jokes on them, we’re going to put carbon into the atmosphere faster than they can process it raising the global temperature to the point of extinction
The primordial soup developed animal life to reproduce itself. We are all basically the reproductive stage for crap.
Eukaryotes likely evolved during The Great Oxidation Event which saw oxygen levels rise to levels that were toxic to the Cyanobacteria (which use photosynthesis). We evolved to save them!
I wanna fukken die, free my soul, the plants can have my body
It's mutually beneficial gardening.
Reminds me of this modern classic: https://youtu.be/Cf2Q-McO_Fw
Thanks so much for posting that. I hadn't heard it before and loved it
The circle of life
Or - get this - it is all a cycle.
We could call it the carbon cycle!
I was going to sleep you know...
In reality, we are actually farming jpegs, by posting reencoded versions of them daily, until they all eventually decompose so we can merge with them.