What do humans bring to the table?

[GreyCarpet]

Just a musing. Would be interesred ro hear others thoughts. What am I missing?

I was thinking this morning about a man I met a few years ago who was brought up in a small village near Chernobyl. He had been back to visit with his wife the previous year. The village had obviously been evacuated after the disaster in 1986 and the photos he showed me were really eerie. Abandoned houses with picnic tables set up outside almost untouched by the passing of time without human interference with one exception. Nature had returned and was thriving. The area was filled with lush green plants. Animals had returned.

Anyway, it just got me thinking about what humans actually bring to the table.

We know that every other creature interacts and operates within a delicate ecosystem. They manage and control their own populations when left to their own devices, land is fertile and plants grow etc

What do we bring to the table? As a species, everything we do is for our own benefit. The world would thrive without us here.

Why do we assume such authority when, we deliver so little?

Every species acts for its own benefit.
Almost all species will kill or otherwise obstruct other species, or indeed other members of their own species, if it benefits them, whether for food or territory or self-protection or protection of their offspring.
We are 'successful' because of our skills. Our skills have made us powerful but will also be the cause of our demise.
Unfortunately we will take a lot of other life with us.

We don't bring anything to the "table", if you mean the health and wellbeing of the planet.

If some extra-terrestrial being was observing our planet I suspect they'd see it as infected with a nasty virus.

However, the planet will still be there long after we're gone. We're just a bad cold.

Death and destruction fuelled by greed and arrogance.

Yeah we are pretty poor as a species. Petty, greedy, vengeful. It’s pretty depressing.

We know that every other creature interacts and operates within a delicate ecosystem. They manage and control their own populations when left to their own devices, land is fertile and plants grow etc

Humans are part of the ecosystem otherwise we wouldn’t have evolved to exist.

Well, that's whtly I'm wondering. It would seem to make sense but what do we bring to the table. What is our contribution?

I can't think of anything we contribute that benefits the planet and other species.

Places without/with minimal human presence appear to thrive.

That's how I feel about it tbh.

Every species acts for its own benefit.

Of course, that is true. But they operate ononn instinctive survival level. Humans go far beyond that.

@GreyCarpet

When I was around 10 years old I was stung by a wasp. My uncle immediately killed it and told me what a bloody nuisance they were. I felt awful for the death of the wasp and found it hard to believe they had no purpose. After that I began to read books on nature and wildlife. I realised that humans were in fact the "bloody nuisance" and so began my life long belief that we are nothing more than a blight on the planet.

We do not contribute in any way at all to the ecosystem. All other species including plant life, regulate the environment through pollination, biodegradation, photosynthesis and a myriad of other sophisticated means. Humans do none of these things. So in essence we bring nothing to the table, we only take from it.

We don't bring anything to the table as far as I can see. We pollute, we destroy other species and our sole motivation is greed for money and power.
I think the planet will do very well without us, and with climate change, it appears that the process has already started. I've sometimes thought, irrationally, that nature is fighting back against us.
Other species have died out and I think we might be next on the list. The trouble is that we are so arrogant that generally we think it can't happen to us. But it can.
So depressing.

SPA

I was thinking along the lines of you @ginasevern , we humans are all take

Humans add nothing to the planet, except fighting, destruction of the environment and gathering huge amounts of money to live like kings of old, Bezos, for example. The planet will not miss us when we wipe ourselves out

We don't bring anything at all to the table and your use of Chernobyl is a prime example.

I was there on a visit in 2019 and went inside the exclusion zone as part of a tour we went right up to the reactor which is now encased in a lead sarcophagus.

The wildlife was stunning. Bears, wild horses that haven't been seen in that part of the world for 500 years, everything was thriving, coming back because there were no humans there to hunt them or hurt them.

An interesting thing is that the guards feed and look after the wild dogs. They are monitored and blood samples taken regularly and it looks as though the mammals in Chernobyl don't have increased risks of cancer, although that may because because they have shorter life spans which stops the cancer from developing too much. Nature has a remarkable and miraculous way of repairing itself

A great documentary made here s

@foxlover47

It's good to know there are at least some of us who think alike. We are conditioned to believe in our superiority (most religions don't help) and therefore entitled. Most people cannot think outside of that box.

Nowt. We're a horrible, destructive species. We could live in harmony with other species but instead we put money ahead of compassion and fairness

Humans have great potential but we're basically just dangerous apes.

Pure misery mostly through our own selfish arrogance.
Planet Earth would thrive without humans. Nature knows best.

Humans have brought on the sixth mass extinction.

On the other hand the earth has a way of righting itself. It may take million of years though, which on our time scale sounds like forever. And makes us assume that we have fucked up the world for good. We haven't (probably).

Art, literature, music.

These are all very good but they are for our own benefit, they don't give anything to the planet.

@VeniVidiWeeWee

"Art, literature, music"

We haven't brought that to the world though have we? We've brought it to ourselves. The planet and other species don't benefit from Beethoven or Shakespeare or Rembrandt. The only things the human race contribute are for its own survival, comfort or pleasure. Much (if not most) of which involves defilement, destruction and unspeakable cruelty to everything else on the planet.

So true and so depressing.

I have found my tribe on this thread

Sweet FA.