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?

Yet.

AI might one day take a look and think

'Yeah, actually what do humans bring to the picnic here on earth ?'

Do you think animals have the capacity to kill with intent? Or to start wars with intent, the way people do?
Or to commit fraud with intent?

Do animals raise money for charity, nurse the sick, perform heart surgery, set up animals sanctuaries?? Of course not. Because they don’t have the power of advanced thought that we do. You are not comparing like with like. There are some truly misanthropic comments on this thread. Disturbing.

Power of advanced thought. Charity lunches. Battersea dog home.

The pinnacles of advanced thought.

Have you asked yourself why do we need charity if are so wonderfully advanced? Why do we need animal sanctuaries?

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat your view is entirely negative. What are you doing that’s so very different?

I am increasingly worried how some people so actively detest their fellow humans.

What am I doing that is different?

Different from what?

Going a bit deeper on this. Isn't money or anything that is exchanged for something else such a weird concept. Do any other animals do this? I guess at an animal/survival level it makes sense but we've turned it into the exchange of paper or even weirder we exchange non-tangible money. It all just feels so weird when you think about it. Humans are just so weird.

Money is really so much more handy than having to barter some apples for some tree bark (as most posters here would be opposed to trading pigs or cows).

Could any of us really live without decent living accommodation, heating, lighting, fresh food and water and….yes….money!?

There are a lot of complaints about (apparently other) people here. We are all the product of many, many generations of civilisation. I’d like to see how people would get on with no mod cons living on the savanna where lions roam free.

In some ways you are saying if we took our modern day 'tools' away would we survive?

Don't over think it. It's just evolution and we have adapted absolutely perfectly to fill our niche. As have every other species. At some point we will become extinct like every other species before us and yet to come. Some species thrive in our wake, some decline. What are you hoping for? Every single species alive today will go extinct and it doesn't matter at all. When there were dinosaurs, mammals were rare. Change happens, such is life. Its crazy to think that things that are alive today are more or less valuable than what will come after. Or that any one species is inherently more valuable or indeed worse. Many other forms of life rely on us absolutely for their survival.

Yes, we have evolved to this stage and it may not be for ever. Let’s try to be kind to each other while we are here instead of this hatred for humanity expressed in this thread.

I like to think that all the information we have gathered about the planet, the universe, nature etc will be useful to some superior sympathetic and nurturing race of creature that evolves after us.

Our purpose is to show how "knowledge is power" can be used in harmful ways, in order that history (our present) is not repeated by the next species.

You do understand the role of bees in pollination?

No bees. No trees. No life.

I find it worrying that people seem to have such a low view of humanity. If humans really have no purpose then what does it matter if hundreds of these human lives are being extinguished right now by wars, famine and earthquake? After all, they were just human beings and as a species we bring nothing to the table.

Thankfully I don't believe many people actually do think this way, as very few actually behave as if they do.

As a species we continue to bring children into this world and our instinct generally is to preserve life, including our own. We still rejoice when lives are saved, we still cry when we hear of people being killed by bombs, terrorism, natural disasters, accidents. If we saw someone on a bridge threatening to jump we would try to talk them out of it. It's as if we have somehow retained some innate knowledge that our lives DO have value and meaning and that a human live is not the same as that of an animal.

Of course there will always be a few misanthropes but I strongly suspect that most people who talk this way don't live from day to day as if they believe it.

I don't know why it's become such a fashionable view to express but I have a feeling that it's another one of those western, "luxury beliefs" which much of the world's population wouldn't have time to indulge in.

Humans offer, literally nothing positive to the planet.

We are the planet and every other living organism's greatest enemy.

I give you:

Global warming
Pollution
Over-fishing
Over-farming
Over population
Destruction of habitat
Disease
War
Politicians
Genetic modification of crops
Money

The flies, rats and mosquito's are the only things balancing our impact.

We are eating ourselves from the inside out.

Humans are a scourge.

Bees don’t pollinate the flowers to help us out. They do it to make honey. They are entirely self-serving. It’s just a convenient byproduct that crops get fertilised.

And we didn’t create global warming on purpose either. It’s an accidental byproduct and an unfortunate one.

@MiniBossFromAus I fear for all of us if someone with your views is inputting key data to AI.

Well, that's a massive exaggeration. Not all plants require pollination and the biggest impact if bees went extinct would be on food production, for humans.
But if it did mean no trees and no life. Why would that matter if humans weren't around to notice it happening and despair about it? You'd have a lot of death of animals who would have eventually died anyway but they wouldn't notice that anything out of the ordinary was happening, they don't note the progress of their own extinction.

Fuck a duck. Some of you really do have strange views.

The evidence is irrefutable.

To say that we can't blame global warming on humans as it was accidental. 🤣🤣🤣

To say that bees are optional 🤯🤯🤯

Ps, no bees, no trees, no life is a popular meme.

Not a scientific statement.

Environmentalism is clearly not on your feed.

Why is it an astonishing coincidence? Lines or characters from a song/book/play probably make up a good percentage of user names on all forums across the internet. Just because you haven't heard of the reference doesn't make it unlikely that there's more than one given that there are literally billions of internet users and billions of Bowie fans out there I don't doubt

OK.

Please find another user of both Pistonheads and Mumsnet with identical usernames.

As I said, an astonishing coincidence.

.

I couldn't of worded it better myself

Religion and politics have been a blight since their inception. I'd like to think there are more good people than arseholes. The first two things still causing mayhem. Fine have a faith but don't inflict your hokum on non believers.

Damn right bees are optional, to the ecosystem. Saving the bees is motivated by saving agriculture. If there were no humans AND bees went extinct, the plants that rely on them would die off and other types of plant would fill the niche.