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Is it possible of an intelligent race to inhabit a planet without destroying it?

doodo!doodo!
edited November 2009 in General Chat
Well, intelligent: I'm referring to something like us that has thoughts and a conscious of some sort, or a species that is lead by highly advanced and complicated instinctive behaviors and can create some sort of civilization or orderly society or perhaps not even that.

Destroying, I guess I mean being a jerk and ruining the O Zone layer and polluting our Oceans and just in general messing up the planet.

Does intelligent life have certain needs, or must it act in a certain way where it takes way from the planet it inhabits selfishly, is that human nature? Is the way we live vital to our survival? I don't know what sort of questions to ask here but maybe something is being triggered, some sort of answer you can give to my incomplete line of questioning.

Does intelligent life naturally seek out more destruction than creativity, because of imperfection must we always destroy to create? Does intelligent life really need to create or could it live off of the planet/ Earth?

We basically rule this planet, or do we? The point is if a "master species" can rule a planet without messing it up ?


To narrow the scope, let's say that we're considering a Earth like planet.

Comments

  • JedExodusJedExodus
    edited November 2009
    The more technologically advanced a civilisation becomes the more they use there resources up. If they become aware in good time and focus on renewable resources and the like then they've a good chance
  • doodo!doodo!
    edited November 2009
    JedExodus wrote: »
    The more technologically advanced a civilisation becomes the more they use there resources up. If they become aware in good time and focus on renewable resources and the like then they've a good chance

    :) Well, I can't argue with that.

    Do you think it is inevitable that we progressed as quickly as we have though? Could we not have stayed primitive for longer? I guess it's been entirely natural? A 100 years here and there, we've never been too good to the planet though, I wonder when we got the worst for it, or if you can even spot that point in time. There's obvious good merit to every decade and century but...

    It's not impossible to stay minimalistic, I wonder if any race is capable of it. Why did we want to be so great and complicate things at the price of our planet? Did we not have the fore sight?

    Regardless if we had a superior intellect we could have prioritized our technology and chosen the safest economic route and laid away from the hazards that damaged the planet and minimized it. We just don't cooperate as a race though. I wonder if any intelligent species could do better and be more of a unity of an intellectual conscious, mind that rules a planet.

    Conscious evolves for the individual every thought in your head is linked not just to nature but also deeply to all of your race, our conscious is webbed together.

    And look how we fight with one another, and murder and try to give birth to other nation's children, control people, manipulate them without ever having the most functional concerns for all of humanity.
  • FalancaFalanca
    edited November 2009
    No.

    If not intelligent, then yes. Unintelligent races that are part of the nature, (animals, plants, smaller creatures) changes their way of living relatively to the changes of nature itself. Adaptation, makes things run in a cycle. Intelligent creatures, such as humans, on the other hand, are able to choose their actions. Intelligent creatures can never be satisfied with what nature serves to them, so they try to improve it by their own ways. By doing so, they boost the usage of some materials on the planet, ruining the cycle in the process. If the nature actually evolves in itself to find a new cycle which includes this intelligent race and their doings, the race evolves either, so they break the cycle again. If they're intelligent enough to actually try NOT to ruin the cycle, it simply won't work. Practically, we can see some examples. Nearly all tries of protecting the environment results in an extraordinary usage of another element and/or material.

    In order not to ruin the cycles, you have to be static, not be able to change your way of living. And it's impossible for an intelligent creature.
  • SpadgeSpadge
    edited November 2009
    It is possible. What is the biggest problem on our planet? It's not technology or intelligence. In fact one could say it's the lack of intelligence that is killing the planet. The biggest problem on Earth is overpopulation. People reproduse and reproduce and technology is only serving the evergrowing need for food, water, fuel, housing and everything in between. And the sad thing is the need to reproduse is an instinct. It comes from our animalistic nature, from our need ro exist and to survive. So somewhere in the past we found an edge, something to make us more powerfull as a species. Since then humans do what living creatures do from the beginning of time in order to survive - reproduce. There's nothing wrong in that. But if humans were intelligent, they'd stop reproducing the moment they realised they are just too many. If people would sustain a reasonable population Earth would be more than fine, it would be in pretty perfect condition. Blaming technology for the condition of Earth is like 5 people riding on an old horse at the same time and blaming the saddle for the horse's fatigue.
    So yeah, an intelligent race can inhabit a planet without destroying it. Sadly, we are not intelligent enough to overcome our animal nature and do it.
  • SHODANFreemanSHODANFreeman
    edited November 2009
    I'll just leave this here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI
  • ScrawfflerScrawffler
    edited November 2009
    Spadge wrote: »
    The biggest problem on Earth is overpopulation. People reproduse and reproduce and technology is only serving the evergrowing need for food, water, fuel, housing and everything in between. And the sad thing is the need to reproduse is an instinct. It comes from our animalistic nature, from our need ro exist and to survive.
    That's true. And it's strange how nature seems to contradict itself like that.

    There are also lots of things that can kill animals though, such as natural weather disasters, terminal diseases, or even just being part of a food chain. But due to our intelligence, we've discovered ways to protect ourselves. We've found ways to create shelter (saving us from weather disasters AND predators) and medical science is advancing every day.

    So even though reproducing is an animal instinct, perhaps another reason overpopulation is becoming an issue is because our life spans are increasing and more and more humans are surviving. The irony continues; are the things that are saving our lives actually destroying us?

    As for technology, well if a race were intelligent enough to understand the dangers of using up resources as soon as they first discovered them, and work out some alternatives, they could avoid putting their planet in danger.

    I suppose it depends on how their intelligence evolves over the centuries. It's mind-boggling really, to think about how, if there's life on other planets out there, the inhabitants could have started out similar to Earth creatures but evolved in a completely different way!
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