Is human technology and industry really "unnatural"?
10 replies, posted
It's often said that our impact upon the Earth, especially our buildings and industries, is "unnatural". But consider this. Mankind is an animal species. More intelligent than other animals, but still animals. Anything we do and create is a direct consequence of human nature, the way our species works, essentially an extreme example of the ability to make and use tools - which is done by several species, not just humans.
Whether or not our constructions will do the Earth's ecosystems much good is a separate point entirely. But the only way anything we do could ever be considered "unnatural" would be if it directly defied the universal laws of physics, I believe.
Keeping this in mind, why would a city or a factory of concrete and steel be "unnatural"? How is it any different from a beehive, aside from the scale and materials used?
Our buildings and concrete is about as natural as a bee hive or ant colony imo. So I believe our technology is very natural, unless secretly all out technology is derived from some ancient alien race :tinfoil:
I'd say it's not natural.
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we humans combine stuff found in the wild to create new stuff, which goes against the definition of the word. we don't find plastic in the wild, it's something we made using natures resources, which makes it unnatural as we can't find it anywhere but where we make them.
in a way, that also makes a beehive unnatural since I'm sure you don't find that stuff naturally without the help of a bee making it. most people think of beehives as natural, but is it really natural? when thinking of the words definition, it really isn't
Ants and bees don't impact the global ecosystem nearly as much as we do. All the waste they make biodegrade and they can sustainably live for millions of years (if it weren't for other natural factors like ice ages/evolution). Humans displace resources on a much larger scale - they mine fossil fuels that have become alien in the modern ecosystem. Then they burn these fuels to release energy that was not meant to be released at that point in time at that place. They even build nuclear power plants that generate energy out of nothing from the ecosystem's standpoint (which primarily receives energy from the sun).
Basically factory is not an anthill because an anthill doesn't create artificial toxic pollution that doesn't biodegrade.
I think in that context most people's definition of natural is probably how things would be in the absence of humans.
"Natural" doesn't exist. There is no such thing as "natural". Life doesn't have a "natural" path.
Because of this, what we do is definitely "natural" because there's no real definition of it.
even if it isn't natural there would be nothing wrong with it if we cleaned up after ourselves.
natural =/= better
Natural basically just means "something that doesn't occur normally in nature without the help of humans". I suppose we created this term when we realized that things we create unlike most other animals tend to have larger impact on the environment in terms of pollution and the ecosystem. Everything animals create usually deteriorate easily and doesn't usually effect the environment a lot. A lot of the things we create does not deteriorate easily and can have lasting effects on the environment.
Technically, the idea that the things we create is unnatural is just our opinion. It's just as much part of our nature to do things that effect the environment as building damns is to beavers. We just don't like when the things we do might in the future make the world a worse place for ourselves to live in. Like George Carlin once said about saving the planet "The planet isn't going anywhere, WE'RE the ones who are fucked".
There are multiple definitions of the word natural. Depending on which one you're using the answer can be either yes, or no.
Id say no, its just human progression.
Only the materials are used for reconstruction, other than that, all the stuff is still from our earth.
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