OMG, a lifeless planet is a "functioning organism"!

[Odin2005]

In GD I was responding to a luddite misanthropist who was bashing terraforming, and I responded by saying that colonization was the biosphere/Gaia reproducing and he/she responded with THAT doozy!

:wow:

[trotsky]

1. I dunno. After hearing that we were going to rape the moon...

nothing shocks me anymore. :crazy:

[Odin2005]

2. UGH, now the "Strict Reductionist" epithet comes out.

Mixed in with more complete ignorance of what the Gaia Hypothesis actually entails. :banghead:

[TZ]

3. Lol

I know that some people think that asteroids might have a bunch of oil and other resources we could possibly mine... Who is going to speak for these poor helpless lifeless hunks of rock!

[Codeine]

4. That's ok; I just learned vegetables must have Life Force

or eating them deadens your soul.

Fuck me. :eyes:

[realisticphish]

5. so

how does one eat ANYTHING without deadening the soul?

[EvolveOrConvolve]

9. Fully enlightened humans can live on oxygen alone

Geez, you must have heard of the Breatharianites (or whatever the hell they're called).

[realisticphish]

10. what about

the bacteria that die when your immune system slaughters them?

edit: just to be clear, yes, i know you're kidding :)

[EvolveOrConvolve]

11. Oh stop it with all the sciencey facts and stuff

My personal shaman told me that bacteria was an invention of the corporate-science complex. Really, bacteria are just microscopic crystals and are an important part of our Qi.

Um, or something.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

12. Nah, it's cool to kill animals and trees if you kneel next to them afterwards, furrow your brow and

thank them for their sacrifice.

[realisticphish]

13. see, it's PURE that way

I really hate the portrayal of native cultures in film, tv, etc.

One of things to add to my list of "shit I would do if I had a TARDIS" is going back to NA cultures before whites, and seeing what their real religions and spiritual interactions/relationships with nature were really about. New Age wooists pervert NA religion for their own purposes, and I fear that current tribal leaders would be biased towards counteracting the "white" way of thinking. I want to see it pure, when there's no frame of reference for the people themselves. Humans are humans, and I find it hard to believe that NA culture was a great deal different from any other hunter-gatherer/early agrarian society. Sure, there would be differences, but I don't think it would be much different from, say, ancient celts. Of course, there I'm assuming a monolithic NA culture, which of course is not at all the case. I'm in Ohio, so I always picture Eastern woodland tribes, but even then, there are many languages and traditions within that group.

I'm sleepy, hopefully that was fairly coherent :)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

14. If I were an animal and some guy shot me and as I lay dying said some mumbo jumbo to make it all

better, I'd like to think my last thought would be deer for "fuuuuuck youuuuuuu"


My great grandma was a native American (Mexicans are American too!). I think the most she ever thanked an animal she butchered was by slipping a chicken under a bucket after she broke its neck so it wouldn't flop around too much.

[realisticphish]

19. i wonder

if the mountain lion that took out that hunter a few seconds later muttered a prayer asking for his forgiveness?

[Odin2005]

26. Well, given that they hunted the American megafauna to extinction...

Their reputation for being "one with nature" is more than a little undeserved.

[charlie]

16. I can confirm that Golden Corral will deaden your soul

There's nothing that comes out of their kitchen that isn't inimical to earthbound life.

[Odin2005]

17. HEY, I like Golden Corral!

:yoiks:

[realisticphish]

6. as already said, just like "bombing the moon"

ROCK DOES NOT POSESS LIFE.

[meeshrox]

20. Hey now, I've heard different!

Does that make me a biologist, then? Although the definition of a rock includes "is not alive"...as a geologist, I must say someone at DU is utterly confused!

[onager]

7. What a letdown. I read that as "functioning orgasm."

Though that claim wouldn't surprise me much, either. Maybe if somebody...inserted Wilhelm Reich into the living-rock theory.

[Odin2005]

8. Oh FSM, that would be hysterical!!!

[Dr. Strange]

27. I felt the Earth move!

Well, it was some planet, anyway. :o

[charlie]

15. "It's not toxic, it's natural"

Just saw that in GD. Talking about throwing oil eating bacteria into the Gulf.

Which would be unremarkable, except I've heard that same notion again and again all my life. I think more people believe it than not. Here, have some poison ivy.

[Codeine]

18. That's what they told Socrates.

"All-natural organic hemlock grown in biodynamic gardens."

[meeshrox]

21. Sure, and so is realgar and cinnabar!

arsenic and mercury minerals!

[TransitJohn]

22. Sometimes I wonder why you guys try so hard.

It's just DU afterall. :hi:

[Codeine]

23. . . .

[TZ]

24. I love that one!

:)

[Odin2005]

25. LOL, I used to be that little boy with Asperger's that always corrected the grown-ups.

:)