So, I side with the Hamidon.
By
2short2care,
Posted on: 2010-10-04 14:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Biological mass extinctions are nothing new: billions of years ago, microscopic organisms developed a deadly trait: they began to spew a toxic gas into the atmosphere. It bonded with other elements in the ocean for a while, but soon these new life-forms became too numerous, and the absorbing elements too saturated. This gas caused the single larges extinction event the world has seen, and caused the longest and most severe ice age.|
Originally Posted by Gulanzon
We're also the first creatures to have the organisational capacity and intellect to go about destroying what we're sitting on.
Let's see a chimpanzee invent a steamship. |
The gas was oxygen. Oxygen is toxic to anaerobic life, which compromised the vast majority of the Earth's species at the time.
Of course, the large amount of oxygen in the atmosphere allowed aerobic organisms to evolve and thrive, giving rise, eventually, to us.
Humankind's technological ability is revolutionary, in terms of how our species is capable of changing the world, but then evolution revolutions happen all the time. The world will adapt, as it has always done.
Quote:
Yes, but that toxic byproduct has useful chemical properties that means a new form of life could flourish to exploit it.|
Originally Posted by Dementor_NA
Biological mass extinctions are nothing new: billions of years ago, microscopic organisms developed a deadly trait: they began to spew a toxic gas into the atmosphere. It bonded with other elements in the ocean for a while, but soon these new life-forms became too numerous, and the absorbing elements too saturated. This gas caused the single larges extinction event the world has seen, and caused the longest and most severe ice age.
The gas was oxygen. Oxygen is toxic to anaerobic life, which compromised the vast majority of the Earth's species at the time. Of course, the large amount of oxygen in the atmosphere allowed aerobic organisms to evolve and thrive, giving rise, eventually, to us. Humankind's technological ability is revolutionary, in terms of how our species is capable of changing the world, but then evolution revolutions happen all the time. The world will adapt, as it has always done. |
Though I am willing to hear if any of the waste we produce is actually in any way useful to life since only things that are outright harmful or a serious hamper spring to mind.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Vel_Overload
You can argue Villain side: I hate people and love nature. Thus, Hamidon is good and people are bad. I must stop people from progressing etc.
You can also argue a Vigilante side: People are stupid and nature is good. I must protect people as a whole from their stupidity all the while forwarding the notion that nature is king/queen and should always be in charge, not people. So, I shall do whatever it takes to eradicate human error and give nature an advantage where I can. |
I like playing with alignments.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Gulanzon
Yes, but that toxic byproduct has useful chemical properties that means a new form of life could flourish to exploit it.
Though I am willing to hear if any of the waste we produce is actually in any way useful to life since only things that are outright harmful or a serious hamper spring to mind. While I am also loving the "off-topic" posts, this was an excellent post to read, and an apt response to the thread's original intentions I like playing with alignments. |
On the point of our waste becoming useful, give it time. We've only been here for a second or so, relatively speaking. That whole oxygenating the planet thing was a *long* time a go.
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Hmm.
First off, you're grossly mistaken in one assumption: human behavior is unnatural
The human animal is, first, foremost, and always, an animal. Like any animal, we carry certain instinctive behaviors that are impossible to ignore. If there is any single difference between the human and other animals it would be the ability to recognize an instinctive behavior for what it is and then consciously modify that behavior. For example, procreation is an instinctive animal behavior. To a great extent even homosexuality is nothing more than a variation on the basic instinct. True, it subjects that instinct to a pleasure focus rather than a reproductive focus, but the instinct is still the same.
Humans, however, can go a step further and transform that basic instinct into a diverse set of conscious behaviors. The individual can then choose between those behaviors, thus consciously modifying the basic instinct into a different behavior entirely. A prime example of this would be sex in advertising. Consider the two poster children for Going Rogue: one of them is a scantily clad female who is always portrayed in a sexually enticing manner while the other is a faceless man in a bulky uniform who is most often portrayed pointing a gun at the viewer. Both of these represent variations on the reproductive scheme that are instantly recognizable independent of human culture and will produce an intense, visceral reaction in any viewer. Even if that viewer hates the images, their reaction is instinctive and is directly related to their own individual relationship to the image in terms of threat or suitability. We remain, first and foremost, natural animals with a whole host of natural behaviors.
The second mistaken assumption, and by far the most dangerous, is the assumption that somehow humanity is independent of the natural world. We are not. We are completely and intimately bound up in our environment. True, much damage has been done, but the result of that damage is a generation of humans (especially in the most heavily industrialized nations) that enjoys longer, more comfortable, healthier lives than any generation that has come before. If the sales of pornography and Viagra are any indication, then reproductive behavior is also at an all-time high despite the declining birth ratios in those same nations. Human animals are still exercising their instinct, and are still modifying it in ways they deem individually beneficial.
So you might side with Hamidon, but of the two, humanity is far and away the more natural, so the core foundation of your argument is, unfortunately, quite false. By siding with Hamidon you are in fact siding against nature and the natural world.
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Quote:
Some of the most damaging environmental effects humans create are the result of intentionally or unintentionally giving an unfair advantage to one species over another.|
Originally Posted by Gulanzon
Yes, but that toxic byproduct has useful chemical properties that means a new form of life could flourish to exploit it.
Though I am willing to hear if any of the waste we produce is actually in any way useful to life since only things that are outright harmful or a serious hamper spring to mind. |
When runoff from agricultural areas saturate a part of the ocean with phosphorus, it causes the algae in the area to reproduce very rapidly, choking the area of other life.
Humans routinely introduce alien lifeforms to ecosystems where they have no natural enemies, with disasterous results. Cane toads, Melaluca, Rats, Goats... all introduced to alien environments by humans... they all benefited from our activities, at the expense of native organisms.
Carbon Dioxide is needed for photosynthesis, of course, and a warmer planet would support both greater biomass and biodiversity... it would just be bad for US.
Chemical waste and radioactive waste are perhaps the only items of questionable value to other organisms, but there are organisms that thrive on such environments. No matter how alkaline, acidic, or radioactive we manage to make our world, there will be an extremeophile ready to exploit the niche we've created, just like extremophiles able to process oxygen were ready to step up to the plate billions of years ago.
Of course, that leads to some questions.... Assuming Hamidon turned into Hamidon at the same time in our Universe and Preatorian universe, how old was he AND Tanya at the time? Because she was described as a "young woman," so let's assuming 35 at the oldest. So there's a possibility if this WAS written years in the past, Dr. Hamidon may be a pedophile.
Or he could have dictated it. I don't think it'd be too much of a speculative leap to assume that there are some DE capable of the task. You see the minion and lieutenant mobs planting and tending small trees and plants in-game, even, so it's not like they don't have the manual dexterity.
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