• ratel@mander.xyz
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      6 days ago

      Something similar is suggested to a lesser extent about psychedelic mushrooms by Melvin Sheldrake in Entangled Life. No where near the same scale as wheat, of course.

  • Dogsoftulkas@lemm.ee
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    5 days ago

    This is my tune, not only biocentric, but also a very healthy dose of anti-anthropocentric. A species traitor, if you allow me to be as bold.

    I really don’t think that talk about humans being the god on earth, center of the universe, with a metaphysical excuse to exploit everything around us is doing wonders to our health nor long term survival… And obviously the “sapiens” of our epithet is only there because we gave it ourselves chef’s kiss

    • jdf038@mander.xyz
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      5 days ago

      It’s also a very Buddhist outlook. Not because of anything specifically antihuman or pro ecology but simply because we as humans are part of a cycle that lives and dies. We don’t have a say.

      You could say our karma is that we will be too proud and be too exceptionalist and end it all earlier than expected because we couldn’t come together and take care of the earth.

      It sucks but the earth will go on for a few more billion years without us.

      • Dogsoftulkas@lemm.ee
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        5 days ago

        Oh yeah, I believe nature, the planet, will carry on, we’re just shooting ourselves in the foot. I just feel for the part of it that won’t survive our stay.

        Sometimes I make this joke about all currently living higher primates, including us, sitting at a table, and we are yeeting our way around the room, and the other primates look at eachother and go "wait, that’s the sapient one?? :D

        I think we as a species took a very nasty turn in our evolution, either biological or social, that allowed us to “break away” from nature, so to speak, and create that duality Man/ Nature that in my opinion really didn’t work that well. I’m pretty sure other animals have a consciousness too, so probably being conscious and self aware is by itself not the culprit. But something makes us feel so far removed from the rest of life that I find really unsetling, and it also only makes dealing with being that much more complicated, for example, not being able to accept death like you said. In that aspect, some religions are definitely better than others to mitigate that damage. Either way, I’m just here doing my best and hoping for the best!

        • jdf038@mander.xyz
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          5 days ago

          Lol the sapient one is hilarious. Especially when our ancestors probably murdered and bred out of existence other sapient species.

          Part of me wonders if that turn you mentioned is our industrial revolution, invention of agriculture, or whatever set us apart from other sapient species.

          Some cultures and Indigenous belief systems accept death and the process of not being an immortal to be expected while ironically the Abhramic faiths that have a huge aversion to idolatry tend to want to follow in the steps of their God by living forever and exerting control over all things.

          It’s fascinating to me to explore this but while I’d love for us to explore the cosmos like Carl Sagan implored us to do, it’s also so frustrating we can’t get past our initial hangups.

          • Dogsoftulkas@lemm.ee
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            5 days ago

            Yeah, I feel that. It’s like part of me thinks there could’ve been another way to get to where we are, and go beyond. Sometimes I feel literal awe about our species ingenuity, hell, cerebral organoids??, but other part kind of yearns for a simpler, more natural, somehow healthier, more respectful and fulfilling, way of living and interacting with our surroundings (and ourselves!). But yeah, those moments in our history you mention certainly didn’t work in favour of a greater togetherness with nature. Maybe it was something deeper. Maybe not, dunno, but either way, sometimes I feel “intelligence” as we describe it especially in relation to our species is a kind of an evolutionary dead end that was useful but eventually exhausts it’s usefulness and starts working to our detriment. Having in mind the cost each leap or advancement has in the environment, in the ecosystems, sometimes I feel tempted to think it was nothing but a mistake, taking in consideration the planet and all it’s life including us as a whole deeply connected system.

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    Another Sapiens reader. Look, I don’t care how uppity those maize are – there’s no way they trained us into cultivating them, we slaughtered their brothers and sisters and kept only the tamer, weaker, fatter renditions that we could use for our own means. If that benefits them, then they’re psychopaths.

    Corn is not sentient, and I will die on this hill!

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      I feel like I heard this perspective elsewhere…it may have been The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. Which I really enjoyed, myself.

      But everyone knows that the kingdom that’s really in charge is the fungi.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        so one of those Wheat Council creeps go to you to too, huh?
        YOU BETTER RUN, WHEAT!

    • notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      that was an edgy idea in the book, but stuff like that happens in ecological systems all the time. I read the book around the time of the election, and it read like a manifesto to justify oligarchic takeover as the next phase of human development (see the part how societal rules where assigned to the government and how the internet will take it back)

  • FundMECFS
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    6 days ago

    The common, did we domesticate XYZ, or did XYZ domesticate us? Conundrum.

      • FundMECFS
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        6 days ago

        Yep. We feed cats, they kill pests which would otherwise give us disease and spoil our foods.

        Makes you think that domestication is maybe the wrong paradigm, neither or us domesticated each other (or we both did) but truly it’s a mutually beneficial partnership, something that is actually common in nature.

    • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2b3rb0

      This is part one of “the botany of desire”, exploring how four plants, apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes have adapted to human desires, which in turn has made them some of the most successful plant species around the world. The rest of the parts are on Dailymotion too for those interested.

  • Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk
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    6 days ago

    Yup, bury me in a burlap sack in a deciduous forest.

    Why deciduous? Because fuck pine trees, that’s why. I don’t want to feed those assholes.

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    Jokes on them, we’re going to put carbon into the atmosphere faster than they can process it raising the global temperature to the point of extinction

  • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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    5 days ago

    The primordial soup developed animal life to reproduce itself. We are all basically the reproductive stage for crap.

  • General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Eukaryotes likely evolved during The Great Oxidation Event which saw oxygen levels rise to levels that were toxic to the Cyanobacteria (which use photosynthesis). We evolved to save them!