quote:
Bloodsage had this to say about the Spice Girls:
We all realize, of course, that, "We might need it someday," is not a logical argument to keep something? Doesn't matter whether it's Cousin Ed's fingerpaint drawing or a fluffy white koala-saur.Environmentalists tend to operate on the flawed, semi-religious assumption that everything that exists must have a purpose.
Not me. I just think Pandas are cool. 
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Bloodsage attempted to be funny by writing:
We all realize, of course, that, "We might need it someday," is not a logical argument to keep something? Doesn't matter whether it's Cousin Ed's fingerpaint drawing or a fluffy white koala-saur.Environmentalists tend to operate on the flawed, semi-religious assumption that everything that exists must have a purpose.
Entire species of living things are not little bits of string that old ladies keep in their purse in case they come in handy someday. They all have a function to fulfill in the environment, usually along the lines of eating something else or being eaten by something else. This is not an unfounded assumption, it is arrived at by deduction from basic principles of ecology so easily that it doesn't usually bear mentioning. 
The public-relations endangered species, like pandas and fluffy white koalasaurs are concentrated on so thoroughly because people do like having them. The fluffy white koalasaur is on the coat of arms of the country of it's habitat, Tinpotlittleeasterneuropeancountristan, (check the map, it's there, honest) and they'd like to keep it, despite having chopped down all the fluffy white eucalypts to make woodchips and fluffy coats. That being said, the fluffy white koalataur hasn't much more (or less!) value than the species of insect which is going extinct on the other side of the world. Which is why the problem of lots and lots of species going extinct is such a large one.
When one species is lost forever, even if it's the fluffy white koalasaur, hey, that's life. When seventy odd species are lost forever every day, at a rate many thousands of times too quickly for them to be equitably replaced, then there's an issue, and it's not a case of us possibly needing them one day. It's that we do need them now, and we'll always need them for the biological diversity they provide us.
Attributing purpose to the biosystem is a fallacy, as it implies design. Further, "OMG, we're losing biodiversity!" is meaningless scare tactics. Biodiversity, in and of itself, hasn't been demonstrated to be necessary. It's simply an assumption that, since we're not exactly sure on the minute details of how the ecology works, that more species are better somehow.
Your only potentially relevant argument is your last one, that the environment is being changed more quickly than it can adapt in the long term. Unfortunately, there are many past global catastrophes you must unexplain if you want to make that point.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage had this to say about pies:
Nope.Attributing purpose to the biosystem is a fallacy, as it implies design. Further, "OMG, we're losing biodiversity!" is meaningless scare tactics. Biodiversity, in and of itself, hasn't been demonstrated to be necessary. It's simply an assumption that, since we're not exactly sure on the minute details of how the ecology works, that more species are better somehow.
Your only potentially relevant argument is your last one, that the environment is being changed more quickly than it can adapt in the long term. Unfortunately, there are many past global catastrophes you must unexplain if you want to make that point.
There's a difference between purpose and function; function is that which it does, and purpose is what it's intended to do. There's no purpose, as you said, but there is function. Everything relies on everything else. Keeping us alive both individually and as a species is a fairly important function of the biosphere, from our point of view. How is that fallicious, anyway?
I think the problem is that biodiversity is widely confused with biological resources, and as such something to be consumed. A biological resource is, for example, the properties of an organism such as Amaratino (A mostly unknown, high protein cereal) or Penicillin, from the Penicillium chrysogenum bacteria. Biodiversity is, however, an emergent property of collections of organisms, the differences among biological phenomena. It's much along the lines of other environmental conditions, like the global average temperature as I mentioned before. Change the global average temperature a significant amount, and we're all dead. A similar theme also applies to biodiversity. In a mass extinction event such as the one we're already in, the levels of biodiversity plummet. As species are wiped out, the species that rely on those species are also wiped out, and so on for the species that rely on the second species, etc. Eventually, it will start to apply to the many species that we rely on. Then we get a bit of a Soylent Green type of problem.
It's not that our changes are destroying the environment, because it's still an environment no matter what happens. It's that our changes are attacking our long term survival prospects, while simultaniously attacking the short term survival prospects for many many of the species we share the Earth with, and we're doing it with all the enthusiasm and efficiency of a big rock from space.
On a different note, I think I need to learn rhetoric. I don't think I'm quite making myself clear.
I want to see a picture of maradon punching himself in the nose trying to smell the smell that you smell when you get punched in the nose.
You vastly underestimate the ability of an ecosystem to adapt to even massive changes. It's not some huge clockwork that will cease to function if any piece is tampered with. It's a vast, self-adjusting system with many ways to accomplish the same functions. How many species were obliterated by the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Less extreme, but how many were extinct due to the last ice age, and then again at the end of the ice age? In each case, many more than we're talking about due to technology.
Also, when one removes the hysteria, the evidence points more and more to "global warming" being a completely natural phenomenon.
There's no reason to raze the planet, but there's certainly no reason to cry doom and whine that killing all the cute species will somehow destroy us all. It won't.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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We were all impressed when Bloodsage wrote:
Pved,You vastly underestimate the ability of an ecosystem to adapt to even massive changes. It's not some huge clockwork that will cease to function if any piece is tampered with. It's a vast, self-adjusting system with many ways to accomplish the same functions. How many species were obliterated by the meteor that killed the dinosaurs? Less extreme, but how many were extinct due to the last ice age, and then again at the end of the ice age? In each case, many more than we're talking about due to technology.
Also, when one removes the hysteria, the evidence points more and more to "global warming" being a completely natural phenomenon.
There's no reason to raze the planet, but there's certainly no reason to cry doom and whine that killing all the cute species will somehow destroy us all. It won't.
I'm not actually saying it would cease to function, because it would not. I'm saying it would continue to function quite well, but by way of negative feedback, in the long term, without us.
The current extinction event is either equal to or greater than the one that killed the dinosaurs. It's not so much to do with technology, so much as us generally. It began more or less with the spread of modern humans across the planet, and the general consensus is that at current rates of destruction, one half of all species of life will be extinct within one hundred years. (Edward O. Wilson, 2002) I can't really help but be concerned about that.
As for global climate change, the solar variation theory has a fair bit for it, but the greenhouse gas theory has greater explanatory power, and a bigger body of evidence, but that argument is for another day, with another kettle of fish and chips, or some other mixed metaphor. Pvednes fucked around with this message on 01-01-2005 at 09:10 AM.
And even if the claims of half the species inevitably going extinct are true, there's no link with the extinction of our species.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
Can you check your math for me? Are you really claiming that "half the species extinct in the next 100 years" is equal or greater than 90% of all life extinct in just a few years? That doesn't even make sense.And even if the claims of half the species inevitably going extinct are true, there's no link with the extinction of our species.
I thought the 90% one was the Permian-Triassic one, rather than the Cretaceous-Tertiary one. I (possibly) stand corrected.
As for our extinction, that remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, all our culturally significant animals die out forever, which, whether logical or not, is a damn shame.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage was naked while typing this:
Ah, but there's a huge difference between, "Damn, that would be a shame," and "OMG, you'll all die if you do that!"
Indeed.
Then again, there's a huge difference between tigers dying out and half of everything dying out, too.
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How.... Ruvyen.... uughhhhhh:
Ever wonder what would happen if carnivorous animals and bugs evolved to extraordinary size and began feeding on humans as well as other things?
We're going to need bigger guns.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Nobody really understood why Ruvyen wrote:
Ever wonder what would happen if carnivorous animals and bugs evolved to extraordinary size and began feeding on humans as well as other things?
Bugs, for one, cannot.
Bugs have no lungs, so they have to oxidize their blood transdermally. Since the surface area-to-mass ratio decreases as size increases, a very large bug would not be able to oxidize it's blood sufficiently. It would be like a human growing to huge size, but it's lungs only growing slightly.
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Maradon! had this to say about Knight Rider:
Bugs, for one, cannot.Bugs have no lungs, so they have to oxidize their blood transdermally. Since the surface area-to-mass ratio decreases as size increases, a very large bug would not be able to oxidize it's blood sufficiently. It would be like a human growing to huge size, but it's lungs only growing slightly.
Also the fact that they would collapse under their own weight, too.
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We were all impressed when Maradon! wrote:
Isn't Edward Wilson a well known enviro-alarmist?
Edward Wilson is a well known leading scientist in biology and ecology. He's not some aging hippy who writes to the editor of the newspapers.
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Maradon! enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
Do coroners sterilize their instruments?
Disclaimer: I know nothing about this...
They probably do, to prevent the spread of disease or something.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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The propaganda machine of Maradon!'s junta released this statement:
Do coroners sterilize their instruments?
Yes, and they always wear condoms.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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A sleep deprived Maradon! stammered:
Do coroners sterilize their instruments?
Yes. An autopsy is useless if the instruments used to perform it are contaminated.
If they get flesh eating bacteria or something on a scalpel or bonesaw, then "transmit" it to four other corpses, lots of stuff can get fubared.
Let me ask you this: Is there a reason NOT to sterilize the instruments, besides the fact that they're dead?
So why doesn't getting plastered off your ass drunk cure you of the flu, or meningitis?
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Maradon! stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
Alcohol kills germs, right?So why doesn't getting plastered off your ass drunk cure you of the flu, or meningitis?
That's pretty obvious. Rubbing alcohol is 80%+ alcohol. Your BAC will probably not even approach 0.5%
For topical applications on the inside (like esophagus, stomach, etc), I imagine it doesn't kill germs because there's not enough contact time or because you absorb it before it can do that, but I could be wrong.
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Waisz's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
That's pretty obvious. Rubbing alcohol is 80%+ alcohol. Your BAC will probably not even approach 0.5%For topical applications on the inside (like esophagus, stomach, etc), I imagine it doesn't kill germs because there's not enough contact time or because you absorb it before it can do that, but I could be wrong.
But still, it should at least help
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Maradon! still thinks SARS jokes are topical, as evidenced by:
But still, it should at least help
Next time you get a tickle in your throat, do a shot of vodka. See if you feel better.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Karnaj had this to say about Pirotess:
Next time you get a tickle in your throat, do a shot of vodka. See if you feel better.
You're an evil man.
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Karnaj stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
Next time you get a tickle in your throat, do a shot of vodka. See if you feel better.
Last time I had a head cold I was about half a second away from trying a shot of vodka. Habañero vodka. As in vodka steeped in shredded habañero peppers.
I pussied out because I was afraid it would kill me.
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Maradon! had this to say about Robocop:
Is it possible for white people to live in Africa? If a white person lived in africa all their lives, then moved to America, wouldn't they be an african-american?
I have a white friend who was born and raised in South Africa who marks African-American on anything that asks. And if they complain he proves it.
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Kermitov obviously shouldn't have said:
I have a white friend who was born and raised in South Africa who marks African-American on anything that asks. And if they complain he proves it.
Sweeeeeet
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
(I have tested this extensively and it is true)
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Maradon!'s fortune cookie read:
Why doesn't mold grow on hand lotion?(I have tested this extensively and it is true)
Actually, I've wondered about this one myself. I noticed that hand lotion doens't have an experation date on it, despite the fact that it is made to be used on raw/cracked skin. There must be something in it that keeps it from going bad.
Hummm... This Vaseline Lip Therapy stuff I have also lacks an experation date, and contains only White Petrolatum USP and flavor. As the petrolium jelly is used in most hand lotions, I wonder if that's what does it.
[Edit]Just checked the stuff in a thing of hand lotion, and didn't see that listed anywhere. So that can't be it.[/Edit] Palador ChibiDragon fucked around with this message on 01-16-2005 at 01:33 PM.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
"Extremely Flammable" is a warning - it is not a hypothesis to be tested.
Yup.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
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Maradon! had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
Just a quick life lesson to toss into my random thoughts thread:"Extremely Flammable" is a warning - it is not a hypothesis to be tested.
There's a story here, I'm sure.
Elaborate.
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Pvednes wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
There's a story here, I'm sure.Elaborate.
Oh I was just playing with some canned air duster at work is all.
