Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?

Discussion in 'New Roundtable' started by bayareatiger, Apr 15, 2007.

  1. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    that is because most people are unwilling to accept the reality of the concept of death. when you are dead, it doesnt matter if the species continues. nothing matters. after cparso dies, it wont matter to him if humans go extinct one second later. it is nice to pretend it matters what happens after you die, but it doesnt. maybe this wil change when can download our brains into computers and our consciousness goes on forever.

    why, what about the species that wants to use its habitat after it leaves, and is better adapted to the modern world? why screw over the better species that wants to replace it, to live where it lives and eat what it eats? the whole basis of complex life is that weak genetic material isnt passed down. it may be a worthy goal to save a species that benefits us, but it might not benefit us. if t-rex were still around and i was afraid to go outside, i would say kill em all. many scientists advocate the extinction of some varieties of mosquito because they are so good at carrying malaria.


    no, curing humans directly is different, (although for practical purposes i think curing aids is a waste of time, we should cure diseases that are not preventable first. for the most part, aids kills idiots and helps darwin advance the species. personally, i am more scared of cancer or MS. but i do not say that out loud.)

    which is why we should allow the weak virus-ridden bees to die off and naturally be replaced by bee populations that are not weak. some bee populations were not affected by the virus. if we let nature take its course, these will reproduce more and all bees will be better for it. if we try and kill off the virus we are left with an inferior bee population more prone to problems. i am not saying let the bees all die. i am saying it is ok if large populations of bees die. in the long run the bee genes are better off for it. we do not need to save bees.

    again, "positive impact" doesnt mean anything. it isnt necessarly positive to save a doomed species. that is the whole point of what darwin taught us. given a world of limited resources, the most well adapted will coninually replace the inferior. if they didnt, there would be no progress towards more complexity. the earth would still be covered with creatures as advanced as horseshoe crabs and mollusks.
     
  2. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    I realize that you are arguing for the sake of argument, but try to understand . . . This isn't an evolution issue, it's a mass extinction issue. Nature is not perfect. Every few million years a mass extinction happens due to some natural phenomenon such as a meteor, a supervolcano, or a pandemic. Loss of the bees means the loss of all flowering plants on the planet, leading to mass extinction of the higher forms that depend on them, including humans. We are not going to sit idly and let this happen if we can avoid it.

    I challenge you to document this. You are making assumpions not in evidence.

    You speak of evolution, the survival of the fittest. Well, humans are the fittest and it is entirely evolutional for us to survive by addressing this bee extinction issue.
     
  3. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    honestly i didnt make that up, i read about bee populations that were unfazed by the virus. i will look it up later.

    of course if this were a true bee extinction it would be far more worrisome, althou i still would suspect that some other bug would be more than hapy to step in and do some pollinating.

    i might agree with that if we had any sort of competence at all at understanding and manipulating complex situations like this. any sort of solution would likely result in negative side effects, just like always.

    if we spread some bee cure or whatever, i am sure it would bee a horrible poison to some other thing, or someow be even more terrible than the bee problem.

    ultimately, my only point is this: we are too quick to believe there are problems that need action on our part to solve. we should trust things to self correct before we inject our clumsy solutions into nature.
     
  4. CParso

    CParso Founding Member

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    It does matter. What if you had children? You are dead, but before you died, you would certainly hope that they got to live a full life. Just because we can't know about it doesn't make it irrelevant.

    I wouldn't mind the mass extinction of mosquitoes.

    Why? What is different about it?

    But aren't these diseases just natures way of lowering our population? Shouldn't we just let nature take its course and replace us with some higher life form?
     
  5. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    of course it does. before i die i hope they live a full life. then i instantly do not care when i die. i dont think we are really considering exactly what death is. i am not sad if everyone i ever know dies at the same moment i do. i cant be sad. i am dead. it is irrational for me to concern myself about it. i am not some sort of crazy egyptian king that needs a tomb filled with gold for me to enjoy in the afterlife. when i am dead, i am dirt, i do not care, kill everyone if you want.

    things that happen after i am dead concern me in the same sense that things concerned me before i was born. not bothered.


    same reason mosquitos do not concern you but humans do. i do not just go around caring about species william-nilly.

    i value human life, not random animal life. i value animals only inasmuch as they serve humans. if a dodo or a eagle goes extinct, i am not concerned. again, most every creature that ever existed is extinct. i am not trying to take a snapshot of what exists now and keep a static set of animals. progress, advancing complexity and adaptation, these things are fine by me.

    sure, it doesnt bother me, unless the dying person entertains me a bit. i am not concerned about aids, and do not care who it kills. my friends are educated and know how to prevent it. we win.

    i am pretty confident we will not be the most intelligent life form on earth in about 100 years or so, maybe less.

    irrelevant side note of the day: i own the domain name "piggyfront.com" it is the opposite of piggyback.
     
  6. CParso

    CParso Founding Member

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    That is an opinion. I happen to share it, but many people do not. Regardless, we are not dead right now & thus can at this point care about what happens after we are dead.

    Cancer? Do you care who it kills?

    Evolution is a long process. I wouldn't count on it.
     
  7. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    yes, i think we should cure cancer, my example there was a digression about aids.

    evolution is a long progress, when you are talking about biogical evolution. but in the future we will evolve into robots.
     
  8. CParso

    CParso Founding Member

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    Been watching the Matrix?
     
  9. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    one day i wil start a wonderful thread about our evolution into robots, and how soon it will happen. it will be incredible.

    humans wil not be the most advanced creatures around for much longer. i wouldnt be suprised if a robot superior to humans evolves in our lifetime.
     
  10. martin

    martin Banned Forever

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    i am not part of this human obsession to dishonestly portray a high level of piety and empathy in order to reassure myself and others that i am a good person. i do not need to convince myself that i am better than i am.
     

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