I read the previous post but didn't comment, not having the time to write what would have been a long enough reply to speak clearly. I was surprised, not by your assumptions, but by those of others that I'd not considered. Don't know why I would be surprised, part of my belief system is that people are not all the same. But I do get surprised by those who *don't* believe that, thereby putting me and my beliefs/choices into the category of freak.
There is an obvious difference in my mind, between self-chosen restrictions, other-human-imposed restrictions, and natural laws (such as gravity, magnetism, etc). Semantics is an art form that each of us practices differently.
Humans are part of the natural world, and as a species, are subject to the same natural laws. Populations peak and fall, as determined by the pressures and resources available in the environment. Any species that overgrows it's available space will have consequences, that is a natural law. How that will be expressed is what i see as the question being discussed here.
We, as individuals in that species, have the inherent drives of nature (seek pleasure, avoid pain) as modified by both our culture, subculture, and context, and by individual variation. How we express those drives has multitudinous variation, even within a small sample, much less expressed over billions of individuals. As far as we know we are the only species here on Earth that has the blessing/curse of self awareness, that thinks about what we do before/while doing it, and that has the possibility to create catastrophically large changes in the biosphere of the planet we live on, with results affecting not only the human species but the entire balance of life on Earth.
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Date: 2010-09-25 03:26 pm (UTC)There is an obvious difference in my mind, between self-chosen restrictions, other-human-imposed restrictions, and natural laws (such as gravity, magnetism, etc). Semantics is an art form that each of us practices differently.
Humans are part of the natural world, and as a species, are subject to the same natural laws. Populations peak and fall, as determined by the pressures and resources available in the environment. Any species that overgrows it's available space will have consequences, that is a natural law. How that will be expressed is what i see as the question being discussed here.
We, as individuals in that species, have the inherent drives of nature (seek pleasure, avoid pain) as modified by both our culture, subculture, and context, and by individual variation. How we express those drives has multitudinous variation, even within a small sample, much less expressed over billions of individuals. As far as we know we are the only species here on Earth that has the blessing/curse of self awareness, that thinks about what we do before/while doing it, and that has the possibility to create catastrophically large changes in the biosphere of the planet we live on, with results affecting not only the human species but the entire balance of life on Earth.