A daunting realization
from lena@gregtech.eu to science_memes@mander.xyz on 15 Feb 13:08
https://gregtech.eu/post/7551752

#science_memes

threaded - newest

introvertcatto@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 Feb 13:12 next collapse

Symbiosis

CaptObvious@literature.cafe on 15 Feb 13:38 next collapse

Oof! Cool perspective

OpenStars@piefed.social on 15 Feb 13:46 next collapse

And yet we're here for it:-)

RustyNova@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 13:48 next collapse

Oh really?

Then let’s accelerate climate change. I won’t let those green fuckers win

medicsofanarchy@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 14:05 next collapse

That’s right! Besides food, clothing, housing, tools, weapons, erosion control, and beauty, what have the plants ever done for us?

thenextguy@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 15:18 next collapse

Brought peas?

SeekPie@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 00:43 collapse

I love peas

idunnololz@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 20:55 next collapse

Yeah but they do them for the wrong reasons. If you were a slave and your master gave u food, clothe and housing would you think “wow what a wonderful master, I’m gonna work extra hard for them”? Well its like that but with the plants. They are enslaving us and we can’t just let them get away with it. /s

GBU_28@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 00:48 next collapse

They literally just fucking sit there, I’ve seen Jumanji I know what they could do, they just choose not to

Ledericas@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 02:28 collapse

have you seen them in cemeteries, thier roots easily penetrates a casket and suck the corpse dry. also works on asphalt and pipes.

[deleted] on 16 Feb 02:32 collapse

.

Notyou@sopuli.xyz on 16 Feb 11:23 next collapse

Medicine. A lot of plants are used in medicine as well. Asprin came from tree bark.

medicsofanarchy@lemmy.world on 16 Feb 11:38 collapse

Okay. Food, clothing, housing, tools, weapons, erosion control, beauty, oxygen, and medicine. But other than that, what have the plants ever done for us?

higgsboson@dubvee.org on 16 Feb 13:54 collapse

Also oxygen…

Sergio@slrpnk.net on 15 Feb 14:15 next collapse

That’s too slow. Take us to defcon one.

Please_Do_Not@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 16:31 collapse

I’m Jewish, so unfortunately, Kanye has already taken me to death con 5. But I’m not sure if those are related.

yeather@lemmy.ca on 15 Feb 18:56 collapse

Actually Kanye took you to Death con 3, then admitted he chose the because he couldn’t remember if 5 or 1 was the worst one.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works on 16 Feb 12:21 collapse

Won’t the extra CO2 just help the heartier plants (weeds) take over?

esc27@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 13:58 next collapse

Cue music: “It’s the circle of life”

Spacehooks@reddthat.com on 15 Feb 13:58 next collapse

We all give back in the end one way or another.

fossilesque@mander.xyz on 15 Feb 14:05 next collapse

This is why I don’t eat edibles lol.

zante@slrpnk.net on 15 Feb 14:16 next collapse

Yuval Noah Harari light heartedly raises the question in his book Sapiens, of whether men domesticated wheat or wheat domesticated humans.

Humans went from wandering through the world exploring and foraging, to doing the back breaking work to grow and farm wheat.

Wheat went from being fairly unsuccessful in evolutionary terms, to covering something like 20% of the earths surface !

ratel@mander.xyz on 15 Feb 14:55 collapse

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.

zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev on 15 Feb 14:24 next collapse

Best overlords ever.

MeatPilot@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 14:34 next collapse

Oh yeah plants? Eat my ass!
Wipes ass with toilet paper

Ioughttamow@fedia.io on 15 Feb 14:46 next collapse

<img alt="it’s happening" src="https://images.app.goo.gl/bXC4nBqCwaHtWNaj6">

lena@gregtech.eu on 15 Feb 15:04 next collapse

The image won’t render :(

Ioughttamow@fedia.io on 15 Feb 16:00 collapse

Just the confused mark wahlberg gif from the happening

OpenStars@piefed.social on 16 Feb 01:38 collapse

This link will work:

<img alt="img" src="https://i.giphy.com/3oz8xZvvOZRmKay4xy.webp">

RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com on 15 Feb 15:27 next collapse

This is some Trump level zero sum understanding of mutual benefit.

OP is probably going to be appointed Secretary of the Interior to shoot all the DEI trees and end woke oxygen.

lena@gregtech.eu on 15 Feb 15:33 collapse

Lmao perhaps, make breathing great again (note: I do not support trump, this is just a joke)

OpenStars@piefed.social on 15 Feb 16:59 collapse

Fwiw, you are on Lemmy now: (virtually) nobody thinks that you support Trump:-D

lena@gregtech.eu on 15 Feb 17:21 next collapse

Awesome, thanks for the heads up.

I just didnt want to have people think I am a trump supporter tho.

lena@gregtech.eu on 15 Feb 17:35 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://gregtech.eu/pictrs/image/29b02b0e-d8ad-4880-b54b-29f8248f0d81.jpeg">

I looked up what “fwiw” means, was not disappointed

OpenStars@piefed.social on 16 Feb 01:33 collapse

Today I learned that some people think that's what it means. And here I meant it as in "Fuzzy Wuzzy Imma Wiggly", but to each their own I suppose!?:-P

FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 Feb 15:51 next collapse

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

Chakravanti@monero.town on 15 Feb 16:12 next collapse

Myc is the real death dinner monster. When everything dies, it’ll be them that don’t and then eat everyone else’s of whatever’s left.

Today@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 17:08 next collapse

Cats

FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 Feb 17:10 next collapse

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.

fartknocker@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 17:35 collapse

I love cats. They choose every day to continue being our friends. They didn’t need to be genetically mutilated to love us unconditionally like dogs. Cats are free creatures.

Today@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 18:55 collapse

And we feed then every day so they don’t kill and eat us.

JasonDJ@lemmy.zip on 15 Feb 19:16 collapse

Old Deuteronomy.

AreaSIX@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 11:09 collapse

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.

Empricorn@feddit.nl on 15 Feb 15:58 next collapse

Because it’s (eventual) cannibalism, or because they made you ponder these things?

Winterfrost@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 16:16 next collapse

So deep!!

General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 17:03 next collapse

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!

Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk on 15 Feb 17:39 next collapse

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.

stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 15 Feb 18:03 next collapse

Or - get this - it is all a cycle.

We could call it the carbon cycle!

spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works on 15 Feb 20:48 collapse

Pfft, next you’re going to be selling me on the idea that we’re all made of carbon

tetris11@lemmy.ml on 15 Feb 18:05 next collapse

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!

notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 18:29 next collapse

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)

lena@gregtech.eu on 15 Feb 18:30 next collapse

Giving in to the wheat propaganda, I see

tetris11@lemmy.ml on 15 Feb 19:16 collapse

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

JasonDJ@lemmy.zip on 15 Feb 19:10 next collapse

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.

rowanthorpe@lemmy.ml on 16 Feb 02:40 collapse

Well, you must be a real fungi at parties.

milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 21:12 next collapse

Ah, but you forget, Maizen have a collective identity, so stalks think nothing of sacrificing their individual lives for the good of the whole.

tetris11@lemmy.ml on 15 Feb 21:21 collapse

if they compete for sunlight and happily smother their brethren in this fruitful pursuit, then they’re no better than us at chucking each other under the bus in the name of this so called collective ‘progress’

milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 22:46 collapse

So what you’re saying is, maize domesticated us, but it’s also sociopathic and generally evil, and probably believes in eugenics with a side of racism.

GBU_28@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 00:45 next collapse
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today on 16 Feb 01:45 collapse

Corn is the vegetation equivalent of a cubicle dweller.

kn0wmad1c@programming.dev on 15 Feb 18:12 next collapse

It’s like a circle

DimlyLitFlutteringMoth@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 15 Feb 18:16 next collapse

Ahhh, Semiosis had it right all along!

TangoNoir@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 18:17 next collapse

It’s mutually beneficial gardening.

Sam_Bass@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 18:38 next collapse

The circle of life

gofsckyourself@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 21:47 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/da012180-db41-43a0-9e25-46df19b640e3.png">

Psythik@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 21:57 next collapse

Why?

gofsckyourself@lemmy.world on 15 Feb 23:12 collapse

Because it amuses me. Next time I’ll make sure you are okay with me having fun before posting anything.

OpenStars@piefed.social on 16 Feb 01:34 collapse

No way - this needs way more pixels...

...

to be removed. Like, I can still read the letters here and everything!?:-P

rowanthorpe@lemmy.ml on 16 Feb 02:39 collapse

In reality, we are actually farming jpegs, by posting reencoded versions of them daily, until they all eventually decompose so we can merge with them.

ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca on 15 Feb 22:59 next collapse

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

HawlSera@lemm.ee on 15 Feb 23:28 next collapse

I wanna fukken die, free my soul, the plants can have my body

GBU_28@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 00:39 next collapse

Wouldn’t fungus be more immediately interested in being among us?

lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de on 16 Feb 10:15 collapse

More like fungsus

jdf038@mander.xyz on 16 Feb 11:44 collapse

There isn’t mushroom amongus for the fungus to rule. They won’t be able to be a funguy and party.

zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 16 Feb 00:54 next collapse

I was going to sleep you know…

Dogsoftulkas@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 11:38 next collapse

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 on 16 Feb 11:43 next collapse

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 on 16 Feb 12:40 collapse

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 on 16 Feb 16:08 collapse

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 on 16 Feb 17:16 collapse

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.

beejboytyson@lemmy.world on 16 Feb 12:47 collapse

Anthropism

Dogsoftulkas@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 12:52 collapse

yuck

flora_explora@beehaw.org on 16 Feb 12:13 next collapse

What? Why does no one in the comments mention that plants don’t decompose dead bodies? This statement is just utterly wrong.

howrar@lemmy.ca on 16 Feb 12:29 collapse

Nowhere does it say that plants decompose bodies. It says they consume us after we’ve been decomposed.

flora_explora@beehaw.org on 16 Feb 13:17 collapse

I misread, thanks for clarifying :)

Zerush@lemmy.ml on 16 Feb 12:24 next collapse

Fungus rules them all

Vespair@lemm.ee on 16 Feb 12:47 next collapse

Reminds me of this modern classic: youtu.be/Cf2Q-McO_Fw

jdf038@mander.xyz on 16 Feb 21:28 collapse

Thanks so much for posting that. I hadn’t heard it before and loved it

Simulation6@sopuli.xyz on 16 Feb 16:18 collapse

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