Gone, In Twelve Years

[labelwench]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Steve. I shall contemplate it for a time.

My reference to 'countless millions of which are responsible for maintaining my daily existence' refers to micro-organisms, those in the soil, our bodies etc., not to the human population.

There are many examples in the Yukon where people have existed alongside nature, utilizing her bounty, yet leaving the land capable of supporting future generations. Selective logging, trapping, mixed farming and mineral extraction in such manner as does not deplete these resources. Technology has it's place, as does our advances in many other areas of applied science.

The 'carrying capacity of the land' is a principle that needs greater understanding and observation, IMO, or our species shall suffer for upsetting a delicate balance which we little understand, which is my 'bull in the china shop' metaphor.

[austintorn@aol.com]

There you go. Thank you. — Steve

You asked me as me and I replied as me.

The rest of your reply is a bunch of unintelligible non sequitor nonsense to me.

[SteveA]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Steve. I shall contemplate it for a time.

Thank you for your consideration as well.

It can definitely be a challenge trying to get rather opposing viewpoints in some aspects to see that they might not be as opposed as can initially appear to be the case.

I remember some conversations between economic views on another site where initial assumptions regarding 'how things should be' by many, including myself, were sometimes amazingly different.

Over time and with a lot of hard work by many, largely because there were issues with a lot of emotional pressures behind them, the large majority (probably 90%) of everyone there appeared to come to the agreement that they were simply looking for relative freedom with like minded individuals to live in the manner they desired and not be held captive to the ideals of others.

In some aspects of life it's not easy to do this. In the case of tigers, for example, there could be a conflict between having them live wild versus protecting them from human interaction - by default, humans can exist in the wild as well.

If it's desired that others not live in those circumstances, then this can create costs for others and the question can become one of who desires to see what and who is expecting whom to abide by what desires and what forms of compensation could exist to encourage that. It seems too often that various concepts are accepted as simple truths that others must comply with, but in many cases those truths appear legitimately questionable.

I believe people are driven by their desires and this is natural and not something that should be otherwise. The issue is in having those desires coordinated with enough intelligence and insight with others who can appreciate the value of this, in order to see society as something beneficial for everyone. In that case, there need be no slaves or subordinates specifically as people should be able to see they're better without those conflicts or keeping them minimized, from it appears to me that if any improvements in that direction are desired (and I hope many others can see the value of this) it requires rethinking many assumptions and taking a fresh look at what the reality is of those desires and how people can truly interact better in realizing various ideals to the extent possible.

In this case, for example, just as their is likely not a specific religion that everyone appreciates, there is also not a specific ideal of what the "value of nature" is that everyone could agree upon either and some will weight the value of fresh water high, or some might value the ability to interact with a rather pristine environment highly etc.

I don't accept it as fact that people are only destructive of the value of the environment. In fact I see it as the environment not having a value without some ability to appreciate it and that, similar to physics, the system and the observation of it aren't separable - the value of things remains self determined.

I also see many areas where without human settlement there would be basically empty desert, yet people use dams and irrigation to retain water from otherwise running off to the ocean and grow plants and support levels of life that nature alone would not have done. I can't verify it directly, but I've heard that there are more trees in the U.S. now than when the U.S. was founded, and I have a lot of reasons to believe this is true (fire protection, trees that are planted for scenery in cities that are often located in areas where there were previously few trees as well as trees intentionally grow for purposes of lumber etc.). There are many animals that live under the care of people and though some may have been driven extinct, there are others that thrive under human supervision (not that I think the conditions under which they live might be very desirable, but then again if people want to see their living conditions better, then those who desire to see this need to provide manners or resources in which to see those conditions arise - it can't be solely a matter of trying to force everyone to accomodate ones own specific ideals otherwise where does the problem truly lie? Yes, I recognize I can point a finger at myself in some respects as well ... on the other hand, I believe debate is qualitatively different from laws and police enforcement etc. and that it's better to resolve the problems on the "field" of a discussion table rather than with armaments)

I truly do appreciate your interaction and I'm not actually trying to ruffle feathers much - most of my comments aren't even directed at anyone specifically but instead are just areas in which I've seen what appears to be a large number of socio-political conflicts arise presently and historically and I just feel a need to try to point out to some where the roots of some issues appear to lie and what the manners are by which much appears to be resolvable.

My reference to 'countless millions of which are responsible for maintaining my daily existence' refers to micro-organisms, those in the soil, our bodies etc., not to the human population.

Thank you for clarifying that. I had misinterpreted it.

[SteveA]

There are many examples in the Yukon where people have existed alongside nature, utilizing her bounty, yet leaving the land capable of supporting future generations. Selective logging, trapping, mixed farming and mineral extraction in such manner as does not deplete these resources. Technology has it's place, as does our advances in many other areas of applied science.

I agree very much that these are all areas that are valuable to look at and technology does have a place in it. Though people might prefer to not use highly processed foods, for example, the additional costs and work to have preferred forms of food needs to be considered as well. Similarly, though lean meat might be seen as better for many, if some don't mind getting calories from fat, then it would appear a disservice to deny them utilizing those resources and it would place a greater burden on things to utilize only the highest quality resources. My wife grew up living in a village where there wasn't an option to have clean drinking water and, in itself, 'protecting' clean water from being used is actually detrimental and pushing everyone toward utilizing less desirable resources. In the end, the real issue is over using things in a manner that's as efficient and most matching to the desires of everyone involved. If we expect perfection to be sustained in one aspect, then the costs of achieving that in one area will likely driven things in much less preferential directions elsewhere and sometimes this single mindedness, especially in political areas where alternatives are denied can be an overall detriment and this is something with a lot of historical and current evidence both socially and economically.

I do agee with the idea, similar to your comments regarding activities in the area you live, that things should be left as local as possible in their determination and that in that manner people can best learn from each other by seeing how various solutions have been pursued and what the results where and being able to share information and in that manner being able to make good judgments for oneself.

Fundamentally it all is tied to individual values though and that's actually where the value of all the rest is derived - the value of some global agency to protect tigers in not inherent in its 'globalness' but instead is derived from the value that diverse individuals might find in it and that detachment from individual interests should never be removed. Otherwise it becomes a social/mental concept and is an institution that is detached from any measure of tangible value someone could apply to it.

The 'carrying capacity of the land' is a principle that needs greater understanding and observation, IMO, or our species shall suffer for upsetting a delicate balance which we little understand, which is my 'bull in the china shop' metaphor.

Thank you for your consideration.

Again, thank you for the feedback. Yes, the carrying capacity of the land is definitely a subject of value.

I guess in some ways I'm looking at a related issue and that is of the carrying capacity of a society to place burdens on the individuals that comprise it. Society should be treated in terms of the more face-to-face individual interactions that create it. In some ways, our conversation here is a better example of what society is than what the results of a census might be, or showing state or country boundaries on a map. That's a focus that gets lost in much of the news and history books and democractic votes makes it become battles between numbers. It would be nice to see shifts away from that, especially in terms of enforced institutions.

Along similar lines - what you do if somehow you'd personally came across the responsibility for the well being a few tigers? If you wanted them to live relatively free and wild, would you release into an area where they might survive, even with knowledge that the track record for other tigers living there wasn't great, or would you try to find a more protected area where they could live in relative freedom (I don't breeding pussy cats is ideal either ), but at least isolated from a wild with human predators?

Of course, along the lines of "keeping it real" we couldn't immediately assume that such an opinion should be necessarily considered a truth to be enforced upon everyone else, but if the value of some form of action could be recognized by others, then this could encourage pursuing similar resolutions and maybe out of those diverse pursuits, some people can find a working long term strategy that could keep tigers around (and pursuing more peaceful, diverse, private and voluntary manners of interaction might even keep us from becoming extinct! - more than tigers could be involved)