Organic means the same thing in agriculture as it does in chemistry. It only "means" something different in the diluted for the lowest common denominator type advertising.
As with natural vs. unnatural, in the context of ecology and environmental studies, we use their definitions, not the slashbot definition.
It isn't "my" definition. It's the appropriate one. Unnatural refers specifically to things outside of the natural world, i.e. the super natural. Human based influence are not "unnatural" but "manufactured".
Something which is outside of the natural world would involve divine intervention, as The Divine is supernatural, not natural.
By diluting terms like this, you make language less meaningful. It's like the idiots who use the term "organic foods". Almost everything we eat is organic. Organic means "compounds containing hydrogen and carbon". Selling "Organic" salt is absolutely moronic. No salt is organic, as table salt does not contain carbon or hydrogen.
These things have well stated definitions, just because some hippy wants to coopt it on their campaign for hugging the fuzzy animals, doesn't mean we should let them.
Who knows if this is "the way things should be" or not. Preservation of the dolphins would hurt the economic exploitation of the Yangtze, something critical for the people of China. The economic exploitation of the Yangtze is incredibly important to China's poor, and they have more moral value than a dolphin. I'm not saying we *should* have killed off the dolphins, I'm just saying the ethical calculus is a lot more complex (and always is) than you or anyone else typically makes it out to be.
It is a pity they went extinct, and it sure would have been nice if we could have found a suitable place to put them and help them out, but even that might lead to the extinction of another species. A lot of our efforts at preservation turn sour, because we cannot fully predict the outcomes of our own actions. Take Yellowstone. We tried to preserve it by preventing fires. This ended very badly. In some cases we've tried to move endangered species to a new habitat, only to find them having a very bad effect on the locals species.
We don't know what, if anything, we could have done in this case to make the situation we better. Speaking as someone involved in conservation (I work for a state government on conservation projects to help reduce the impact of farms on local river ecosystems), we don't know what we're doing. We should feel sorry this happened, but in the end we are going to loose a lot of species, many big ones, and yes many cute ones (lets face it, people only make a stink about cute animals).
Are there more jokes in the thread than anything else? Sure, of course. This is Slashdot for goodness sake! Slashdot is about as close to a serious forum for intelligent discussion as Wikipedia is to being a real encyclopedia. This is one of the most immature and ridiculous "news" sites out there. People come here for the jokes and random snickers, just like they do for trolls who stir up things by using logical fallacy, and retorts to such trolls. People who actually want to discuss the reality of the situation are a rare thing.
This sort of argument is the typical ignorant false choice proposed by people with a poor understanding of Biology, and Ecology. Kind of like the Time Cube version of environmentalism.
Humans are both natural, meaning everything we do is a natural part of the natural process, and we can hold ourselves accountable for our actions. Our unique ability to judge good and evil, right and wrong, doesn't make us unnatural, it just means we have the ability to view our actions on a moral compass. Our actions are still natural, but we can choose to judge our actions and find ways to both have a low impact on natural diversity, AND still compete successfully. Most animals don't have this choice because they do not have a concept of good and evil.
Humans are absolutely natural, and the extinction of these dolphins was a natural phenomenom. As moral beings we also judge it as an unfortunate occurance, but this does not make it any less natural.
I never said we are justified in making other animals extinct dillweed, I just said it was completely natural. Learn to actually have some critical reading skills.
Just because something is natural doesn't make it good. That is something you moronic hippies with your "organic" food need to learn.
Yes we need to be responsible with how we treat the environment, but our actions are full natural.
Fuck you and everyone else who thinks like you. There is nothing artificial about human action. We are not separate from the ecosystem. Our use of machines, etc, is absolutely natural. We are animals, and like many other animals, we build natural things out of natural components.
Is a gopher burrow unnatural? Is an ant hill unnatural? Is an otter cracking shellfish with a rock unnatural?
No, and neither are human tools. They are fundamentally no different, they are a natural result of a natural organism using natural resources with ingenuity from their natural brain.
We are a part of this ecosystem, and our actions in it as natural as any other part of the ecosystem, we just happen to be smarter and MUCH better at competeing than most other organisms. We follow the same patterns as many other organisms, we have formed symbiotic relationships with many plants, animals, and fungi. Our symbiotic relationship with penicillin has been a HUGE boost to our ability to compete, our symbiosis with dogs, cats, and grass, is probably not terribly useful to us, but helps those species while aiding our mental health.
We are fundamentally natural, and so are all of our byproducts.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I wanted to just say I'm sorry for being such a dick yesterday, I was having a bad day, and you didn't deserve to have it taken out on you.
Hey, I wanted to just say I'm sorry for harshing on you yesterday, I was having a bad day, and you didn't deserve to have it taken out on you.
Hey, I wanted to just say I'm sorry for harshing on you yesterday, I was having a bad day, and you didn't deserve to have it taken out on you.
Organic means the same thing in agriculture as it does in chemistry. It only "means" something different in the diluted for the lowest common denominator type advertising.
As with natural vs. unnatural, in the context of ecology and environmental studies, we use their definitions, not the slashbot definition.
This is slashdot, the first response here is ALWAYS making jokes.
Are you new to this whole internet thing?
It isn't "my" definition. It's the appropriate one. Unnatural refers specifically to things outside of the natural world, i.e. the super natural. Human based influence are not "unnatural" but "manufactured".
Something which is outside of the natural world would involve divine intervention, as The Divine is supernatural, not natural.
By diluting terms like this, you make language less meaningful. It's like the idiots who use the term "organic foods". Almost everything we eat is organic. Organic means "compounds containing hydrogen and carbon". Selling "Organic" salt is absolutely moronic. No salt is organic, as table salt does not contain carbon or hydrogen.
These things have well stated definitions, just because some hippy wants to coopt it on their campaign for hugging the fuzzy animals, doesn't mean we should let them.
Look, if you don't know what you are talking about, please excuse yourself from the conversation.
A virus can be, and often is, a parasite. Most viruses are biotrophic parasites, to be specific
Look, if you don't know what you are talking about, please excuse yourself from the conversation. A virii can be, and often are,
Who knows if this is "the way things should be" or not. Preservation of the dolphins would hurt the economic exploitation of the Yangtze, something critical for the people of China. The economic exploitation of the Yangtze is incredibly important to China's poor, and they have more moral value than a dolphin. I'm not saying we *should* have killed off the dolphins, I'm just saying the ethical calculus is a lot more complex (and always is) than you or anyone else typically makes it out to be.
It is a pity they went extinct, and it sure would have been nice if we could have found a suitable place to put them and help them out, but even that might lead to the extinction of another species. A lot of our efforts at preservation turn sour, because we cannot fully predict the outcomes of our own actions. Take Yellowstone. We tried to preserve it by preventing fires. This ended very badly. In some cases we've tried to move endangered species to a new habitat, only to find them having a very bad effect on the locals species.
We don't know what, if anything, we could have done in this case to make the situation we better. Speaking as someone involved in conservation (I work for a state government on conservation projects to help reduce the impact of farms on local river ecosystems), we don't know what we're doing. We should feel sorry this happened, but in the end we are going to loose a lot of species, many big ones, and yes many cute ones (lets face it, people only make a stink about cute animals).
Are there more jokes in the thread than anything else? Sure, of course. This is Slashdot for goodness sake! Slashdot is about as close to a serious forum for intelligent discussion as Wikipedia is to being a real encyclopedia. This is one of the most immature and ridiculous "news" sites out there. People come here for the jokes and random snickers, just like they do for trolls who stir up things by using logical fallacy, and retorts to such trolls. People who actually want to discuss the reality of the situation are a rare thing.
This sort of argument is the typical ignorant false choice proposed by people with a poor understanding of Biology, and Ecology. Kind of like the Time Cube version of environmentalism.
Humans are both natural, meaning everything we do is a natural part of the natural process, and we can hold ourselves accountable for our actions. Our unique ability to judge good and evil, right and wrong, doesn't make us unnatural, it just means we have the ability to view our actions on a moral compass. Our actions are still natural, but we can choose to judge our actions and find ways to both have a low impact on natural diversity, AND still compete successfully. Most animals don't have this choice because they do not have a concept of good and evil.
Humans are absolutely natural, and the extinction of these dolphins was a natural phenomenom. As moral beings we also judge it as an unfortunate occurance, but this does not make it any less natural.
I never said we are justified in making other animals extinct dillweed, I just said it was completely natural. Learn to actually have some critical reading skills.
Just because something is natural doesn't make it good. That is something you moronic hippies with your "organic" food need to learn.
Yes we need to be responsible with how we treat the environment, but our actions are full natural.
Fuck you and everyone else who thinks like you. There is nothing artificial about human action. We are not separate from the ecosystem. Our use of machines, etc, is absolutely natural. We are animals, and like many other animals, we build natural things out of natural components.
Is a gopher burrow unnatural? Is an ant hill unnatural? Is an otter cracking shellfish with a rock unnatural?
No, and neither are human tools. They are fundamentally no different, they are a natural result of a natural organism using natural resources with ingenuity from their natural brain.
We are a part of this ecosystem, and our actions in it as natural as any other part of the ecosystem, we just happen to be smarter and MUCH better at competeing than most other organisms. We follow the same patterns as many other organisms, we have formed symbiotic relationships with many plants, animals, and fungi. Our symbiotic relationship with penicillin has been a HUGE boost to our ability to compete, our symbiosis with dogs, cats, and grass, is probably not terribly useful to us, but helps those species while aiding our mental health.
We are fundamentally natural, and so are all of our byproducts.