Humans

[ImprobableJoe]

I know for sure that my world is better with me in it. I'm not sure that any other perspective matters, or can even really exist for most sane people.

 

[Lallapalalable]

I think the question itself is flawed, as it comes from a human perspective. If I were a hardcore liberal environmentalist, I would say that humanity is a plague and we should all just start living in caves, and if I were a hardcore conservative I would say we were the best thing to happen to the planet since gravity.

To answer as seriously as I can, Im probably not going to answer in a satisfactory manner, so :mrgreen: (but it will all by in my opinion, no hard facts or sources)

1. Does the existence of humans have any benefit to the world?

The world will go on with or without humans, or life even. I say there is a benefit, as we are conscious and can observe and conclude (and yet more sagan philosophy)

2. Should humans even be allowed to exist?

Well, yeah. I say any form of sentience deserves a chance at existence, but if they someday cease to exist there is probably a reason (ie that meteor was dead on). Frankly, we are a product of our evolution, not by our own parameters, so what we do is what we are supposed to do and is everything the Earth had coming.

3. Would Earth be better off had we never evolved?

I agree with borrofburi, in that you should define "better" (sorry, I skim replies, so if that was clarified apologies). Would the Earth be in a more acceptable state of existence had another form of inteligence arisen, or none at all? Perhaps, but, again, acceptable circumstances are relative. Some species would fourish if the earth was covered in ice, where others would die. Some would do well in a toxic wasteland caused by humanity, where we would die. It all depends on what organism you are.

 

[Andiferous]

Sometimes I hate humanity too, but honestly, humanity is defined by its' brain and continuously evolving innovation and education. Self-hatred is hardly productive at this point. The reasonable thing is to try to repair damage done in ignorance and continue learning how to exist here with the least damage to everything else...

Practical case in point; humans have domesticated many different species of animals to the point where it's unlikely they could survive by themselves in the wild. Possibly cows; chickens, dogs, cats etc. Now we've just got to take responsibility.

I get a sense of what I think you mean... you are referring to the stability of the biosphere, no? I mean, the rock itself is probably not going to be significantly effected by our presence either way...

I would point out two things:
1) While human being have demonstrated a considerable ability to destabilize the biosphere thus-far, we are also the only species on the planet with the ability to consciously repair said damage; we are also the only species that might be able to mitigate the impact of naturally occurring disasters, which could conceivably have a devastating impact on life on Earth. No other species, for instance, would or could stop a large asteroid from impacting the planet.

2) This may just be my anthropic bias here... but to me it seems meaningful. No other species cares what happens to the biosphere or other species (excepting obviously that predators care if their prey die out, symbiotic relationships, etc.) Without humans extinct animals are forgotten, a dead biosphere ignored by an uncaring universe. Without humans, Earth's history is like a library full of endless volumes never opened. No one will mourn our passing, but we alone can mourn theirs. This, to me justifies our existence.

Yep yep.

 

[theshoe]

Behind the 2nd broadest categorization of things, Good and Bad, is the specification of if the object is existent or not.

Whether or not life existence is good for Earth is beyond me, for the meaning of inanimate objects is much harder to define than the meaning of life.

As for the universe, I'd say that humans shouldn't exist, because, aesthetically speaking, beauty is found better in simplicity. There is a lot of stuff in the universe, so I'd say the heck with all this superfluous crap.

 

[Don-Sama]

Hey guys... This is only the second topic I've brought up, so forgive me if it seems inappropriate... Also, I couldn't find a topic like this but I could be mistaken... So if ever that was the case, then I apologize...

Here are my questions:

1. Does the existence of humans have any benefit to the world?
2. Should humans even be allowed to exist?
3. Would Earth be better off had we never evolved?

If there were no humans there would be no one asking these question neither answering them. So to ask wether humans are good or bad for the world (by which I assume you mean the environment and nature etc) is not really a question.

further what better could the earth have produced except from us? some more species that at some point will evolve further or die out because the environment changed to much. considering the earth is a giant piece of matter molten in the inside while constantly bombarded by other giant masses of matter and assaulted by a constant flow of deathly radiation and light by the sun only to be protected by the atmosphere earth is doing quite well eh?

I like george carlins view on this - it isn't bad for the planet, it's bad for us. the earth will just spin on fine and dandy without us.

 

[Unwardil]

Well, in order to answer the question I think we need to first assume that the earth as a whole is some kind of living thing.

Let me first say, this isn't true, at least not in so far as we understand life but hey, if you were to look at the life of the planet over eons... Sure, living is a good enough metaphor for the way a planet behaves, totally acknowledging that it is nothing more than that. A metaphor.

We are absolutely of benefit to the earth. We represent the very first species able to actually migrate away from the earth, like little earth sperm. If a planet is a living thing, then it must surely die as well and indeed, when the sun goes into it's red giant state, the earth will likely as not get swallowed up and even if it doesn't, when it collapses into a white dwarf, it will be blown apart in the solar expulsion of matter.

But because of humans, or possibly an evolutionary decedent of ours, there is the possibility that earthiness will continue after that time on far away colonies or giant generation space ships, a little bit of the earth will carry on in the genetic and material legacy.

We also have it within our ability to protect the earth from really really massive catastrophes. Let's say at some point, the moon were about to crash into the planet and we calculated that this was absolutely going to happen in 1000 years time. Is there another species on the planet capable of doing a damn thing about that? No, no there isn't. We might. We might screw it up and crash the moon 1000 years earlier, but the point is, we have the ability not only to see the problem but to try and correct it.

Take the whole climate change thing as a fantastic example. You could argue that it was humans who caused it (You'd be wrong though because the climate changes constantly with or without us so in the macroscopic sense, it isn't humans that cause climate change, it's the earth's natural cycles) but we alone have the ability to a) recognize that this is happening and b) try and do something about it. Other animals have the ability to a) Change into a totally new species to try and deal with the changes or b) go extinct.

If you take the stance that stability is, on balance, good for life then humanity and it's tinkering does far more good than harm to the planet which, again, is only metaphorically alive.

All that being said of course, Eff the earth and ditch this stupid death trap of a planet as soon as possible and if we muck the place up badly in our bid for the stars, who cares, we'll have infinite chances to get it right in the future.

 

[Noumenon]

1) While human being have demonstrated a considerable ability to destabilize the biosphere thus-far, we are also the only species on the planet with the ability to consciously repair said damage; we are also the only species that might be able to mitigate the impact of naturally occurring disasters, which could conceivably have a devastating impact on life on Earth. No other species, for instance, would or could stop a large asteroid from impacting the planet.

Sounds good to me. Humans as antibodies of the biosphere.

 

[Exmortis]

Q1. Does the existence of humans have any benefit to the world?

A1. Every living thing is a burden upon our planet in some way, but they always return the resources that they have taken from the world. The exception is humanity; we have a fascinating tendency of finding incredible ways to make these resources useless to our planet and it's natural ecosystems without centuries upon centuries of break down processes.


Q2. Should humans even be allowed to exist?

A2. Being a human myself, I am inclined to say yes, purely as a self preservation reaction.


Q3. Would Earth be better off had we never evolved?

A3. Possibly, but then I wouldn't know.

 

[brewpanda]

We are screwing up the planet, for us. The earth itself will be perfectly happy with increased CO2 and a much warmer climate, humans won't be, and in an effort to survive we'll probably rape the planet anyway.

Why are we personifying the earth? It can't feel joy!

The earth cannot care or not care whether it has more CO2. Fauna and flora on the planet can cease to exist because of CO2 and climate change. But regardless of the role of planetary rapist or not, humans as Rex stated, are also the only known present terrestrial species that can rectify the proverbial rapeage. Gosh, where's your cornucopian spirit?