UFOs,Aliens, And Racism By: Posey Gilbert

[Randall]

No other species has ever single-handedly wiped out another -- we've been doing it since the onset of our species.

Hmm ...

"Species invasions have contributed to the extinction of many species world-wide, particularly on islands. These extinctions have occurred disproportionately among taxonomic groups. For example, birds have lost many species, both in absolute terms and relative to their total number of species, whereas plants have lost few species. The lack of recorded extinctions in plants does not appear to be due to a lack of knowledge, particularly on well studied islands like New Zealand, where both historic and fossil records suggest that few native plant species have been lost."

The rest of the article: Species invasions and extinction: The future of native biodiversity on islands

Apart from the above, it doesn't seem possible that any species "single-handedly" wipes out another. There are always deaths by age, disease, predation, accident and so on that contribute to population decline. The only way to "single-handedly" wipe out an entire species would be to have some magical power that would allow us to instantly kill all of a particular species in one fell swoop in an instant. Perhaps we might have done that with some nuclear tests, but that would be stretching just to make the point ( it's still possible though ).

 

[ProphetofOccam]

Okay.

 

[Burnt State]

We also invented cows. We made them out of aurochs. They don't exist in the wild.

The types of extremes we introduce into the system are historically, archeologically and paleontologically unique. No other species has ever single-handedly wiped out another -- we've been doing it since the onset of our species. No other single species has ever reached our numbers in the modern world. No other species has ever produced so much waste or destruction, without our species putting factors into play making it possible. We exist in the extremes of nature -- extremes impossible before we existed. Being aware of that is necessary if you're going to try to also be responsible for it.

If our species didn't make an attempt to be responsible for our extremes, we wouldn't survive. That is against our nature.

I just finished watching an excellent movie that speaks metaphorically to this entire thread, The Beasts of The Southern Wild. In it the aurochs come back, almost like a ghost from our natural past as a result of the excessive pollution of the modern dystopic era. There's a great moment where this gigantic auroch confronts our child protagonist and she says clearly, "I can not take care of you. I can only take care of my own." My son wanted to know why the auroch didn't eat her. As we talked about the movie as a modern parable, it was clear - humans can't take care of nature.

I would agree that population is the problem. People are made of food.

I also found it entertaining that an adult in the movie educates the post-apocalyptic youth by explaining to the children, "Everything is made of meat; we are all meat. You are all food."