kjmitchell715
Sorry, sorry, sorry! Long time, no write. Here are some random thoughts:
I thought about the movie Cabin Fever the other night for some reason. I was about to fall asleep and I thought about that movie…and then couldn’t sleep. Go figure. The virus was in the water, but there was also blood, and disintegrating skin, and other grossness.
I kind of get cabin fever at my new job. So I hope my skin doesn’t fall off.
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Okay on a more serious note:
Disease. All the time. I already talk about that all the time.
Hurricanes: Gustav, Ike, Josephine.
Earthquake in South West China: plenty of dead.
Bacteria linked to a restaurant, 146 sick.
Earlier this summer with the salmonella outbreak because of our tomatoes and peppers.
Do you think nature is trying to OFF humankind?
Do you blame nature? Aren’t WE trying to OFF nature? Or is our destruction of nature just a by-product of our attempts to OFF each other?
It just seems like we have a lot working against us.
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The concept of vaccinations is interesting. We inject ourselves with the disease to protect ourselves from the disease.
If we’re already infected we can’t become…more infected?
I promise to have more legitimate thoughts later. And to not take so long with my next post. Ooops.
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The Contagious Narrative 
I don’t think nature is conscious and can make a decision to destroy man, but I certainly do think that nature is becoming less and less hospitable for our species and most other species of life on this planet. This happens quite often (when speaking of geologic time) in the history of life on this planet, but we think it’s happening much, much quicker now than it ever had before. I read something today that compared the mass extinction we’re currently in to the previous known mass extinctions and compared the devastation of human “progress” to an asteroid strike.
Hmmm…
Really interesting, Reed, thanks.
On a comment to one of the earlier posts I think someone mentioned something to do with our “advancements” and how they are really not advancing us, but destroying us.
We also have to keep in mind out MASSIVE population size, and how the earth simply can’t support us all for much longer.
And while I can’t say nature is “conscious” without sounding really crazy, I do think that disease, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, etc. are somehow nature’s defense mechanisms against humans.
Why not?
Oh, I’ll be crazy and say it: of course ‘nature’ is conscious, and on some level, it’s not surprising at all to me that we’re seeing the rise of disease and other conditions inhospitable for life. This is called homeostasis- the body’s attempts to stay at an even keel, and balance that which is imbalanced. Of course the body we’re talking about here is Gaia, and yeah, it seems odd to think of it as an intentioned being, but it seems doubly odd, even absurd to think of the planet as a lifeless mass filled with humans and inanimate stuff.
Well, ok, I’ll back off a bit, and wonder what ‘conscious’ means in this context? Does the global ecosystem have the same sort of consciousness as us? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not as expansive as ours- heck, maybe it’s more expansive than ours.
Another thing I think about is: infectious disease arises in teh context of mass society. once we start settling down and living amongst hundreds, thousands, millions of other two-leggeds, we become a food source and vector of disease that our forager forbears weren’t. There was no plague nor tuberculous or AIDS killing scores or millions of us before we farmed and built villages and cities. Maybe these were from the beginning, and continue to be, one way nature tells us that we’re out of balance and not doing the right thing.
Also: I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but the planet experiences periodic mass extinction events, about once every 62 million years, give or take 3 million years. Well, it’s been 65m since our last one, and by estimates based on previous geologic patterns, we’re overdue. But wait: what’s this we’re seeing? Humans causing massive extinctions and tearing asunder the world. Well, could it be that we’re just largely unwitting players in a bigger geologic story? Could be- I dunno.
Rob,
I agree that historically disease didn’t affect us until we started developing civilizations…but unfortunately….it’s a little late to become hunter gatherers again.
The only solution I can see is starting with a clean slate…
Apocalypse —-> try again —-> ????
I don’t know. Just a thought.
I’m kind of pessimistic today.
Yeah, I think that’s going around today. I feel browbeaten by Dick at your other blog (maybe he’s right and I’m just impressionable by folks talking my language, however crazy), and though I’m glad it’s kinda rainy today (the garden could use it), the grey has worn me down a little.
To respond- that’s sort of the idea with many who foresee the end of this culture. It’s not apocalypse exactly, but when we no longer have the resource base to live in mass society and necessarily decrease complexity and population, we’ll get ourselves back on track and live in ways that don’t cause the sorts of problems we see inherent in this way of life (disease being but one of them).
Anyway- feel better, Katie.