Barley

There are sure to be tradeoffs which would explain why not every animal have evolved similar stomachs. It's probably expensive energy wise to maintain that acidity. It probably also makes it hard to maintain a healthy gut flora. Also imagine the burn if you vomit up stomach acid with pH 1.0

Do things really need a justification to exist?

I currently have a tiny ant hill outside my house. They are thankfully of the kind that don't attack the house or cause any kind of damage. They are chill and I don't mind them. Maybe they do some small good to the ecosystem but if that specific anthill disappeared no one would really notice. It wasn't there last year and everything in my life was the same. Does that ant hill need a justification to exist? No. And I mean that no matter if it was a good ant or a bad ant. Those ants are just there. Let's say they were the kind of ant that does eat up the house. Then I would want to exterminate them. But that has nothing to do with their justification for existing. I would then remove them because they destroy my house, not because they haven't earned the right to exist.

I don't believe we have to earn a right to exist. We just exist. Existence is very neutral. A rock on Mars also exists and that's nothing extraordinary. If that rock suddenly breaks no one is gonna care. However some things have value because of other traits than simply existing. If we suddenly learned that there was a human on Mars that no one knows or previously cared about, but we now know about him and he is in danger. Then he would be very valuable and I would even say invaluable and we should try to save him! It's the human part that adds value.

So first off no one has to earn the right to exist. People just happen to exist and that's a neutral thing. But I also happen to believe human life is invaluable. I think that's even in the UN declaration of human rights somewhere. Now how useful you are does not mean you are more valuable. Human life is already invaluably high. Same with if you are a detriment to others. I don't believe in the death penalty. If your value was how useful you were then we would kill everyone who was a net drag on society but I think very few people believe that. Even a serial killer I wouldn't kill. However I would lock him up for the sake of others.

So you don't have to show that you are worthy of existing. I don't believe in that. I also don't believe you have to prove that you are valuable. As I believe all human life is invaluable. You could however have to show that you are a net benefit to society. But that's a whole other point and I really don't believe everyone has to have a net benefit. Some can contribute a lot, some can't contribute at all. And that's ok. Contributing a lot to society is admirable and should be heavily encouraged. But it shouldn't be necessary to be valued as a human being. The Nazis used to think that your value was tied strongly to your societal contribution and exterminated disabled people. I think that's an unfathomable crime no matter how much of a drag those people were on society. If you exist AND you are a homo sapiens. You are invaluable no matter what.

Sorry for rambling. I'll get to bed now.

Introduced from where? That's my whole question. Apparently you don't know but phosphorus is a finite resource which will run out in the next 100-300 years. It's just as fossil as fossil fuel. Any solution that uses mined phosphorus is not sustainable.

I missed that azolla could fix nitrogen, knew that about duckweed but azolla is not my strength to be honest. However the question still remains, where would you get the potassium and phosphorus required to grow the azolla? All 3 of your examples involve continually harvesting azolla and not getting the nutrients back in. You could add chemical fertilizer to grow azolla into organic fertilizer but that would be kinda dumb wouldn't it? Not to say that hasn't been done multiple times before, looking at you alfalfa fertilizer pellets.

In a way wood is a great way to produce biochar because nearly all the nutrients in the tree are in the leaves and the branches. When harvesting wood we only take the trunk. This means we can grow wood generation after generation and we don't have to use fertilizer. The same is not true for something like azolla. A good setup to make it cyclical would be to put the azolla right next to the animal farm whose animals are fed the azolla. And use the manure to grow azolla. However then I wonder if the hygienic quality is acceptable.

You can feed the azolla waste water from a fish farm for sure. But then what do you feed the fish? The nutrients always have to come from somewhere and they have to end up somewhere. If you're simply dumping azolla in a mine somewhere as carbon storage that then turns into a huge waste of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. It's a very nutrient dense plant.

What would you use the azolla for? Animal feed? Which source of nutrients would you feed it with? Intensive harvesting of azolla would quickly deplete the nutrients in the water.

When the water wars start are you planning on ending your own life?

Me saying I'd rather live through them is not me saying I would enjoy them. Of course my life quality would go down. But I would rather live a shitty life than no life at all. We only get one chance at life and I would rather not give it up.

I personally would rather live during the water wars than not live at all.

How big of a disruption a kid is in your life really depends on what you were doing before having a kid. If pre kid you loved going to concerts, partying, travelling internationally, or other activities where having a kid makes it difficult to do the things you enjoy, then the kid might feel absolutely life changing.

However me and my wife are true home bodies whose hobbies pre kid were all either in the home or outside in nature or our garden. Having a kid made absolutely nothing we did before impossible, it merely made us have less time to do those things. The fact that my wife didn't work even before the kid also helped as I can imagine going from work to a 1,5 year parental leave as being a huge life disruption.

Having the kid absolutely changed our life in a major way. But probably far less so than it does to other people. And I would absolutely not say it was life ruining.

Honestly a lot of that comparison from my wife's brother would be okay. But once he claimed we had an easier time then him, I actually got a bit offended and this statement from him has since infested my mind for months. But as others have already said this is probably not the right place to post this drama and I guess they're right. Thanks for your message.

I would define being a parent as either having adopted a human being or having conceived a human being. Why do I care? I think words should have a useful meaning. If we broaden it to anyone who has a pet then we would require a new word for those that have a human child because in some cases that distinction is important because it is truly fundamentally different in several ways. If someone organized a local meetup group for new parents it should be understood that people who have recently adopted a cat would not be welcome. If the word parent is broadened in this way what would we then have to call that group, a "new human parent group"?

I can ask you: what are you missing in the term "cat owner" that you feel you need to use "cat parent" instead?

I'm totally okay with counting them as part of the family as stated in my first comment. I had cats myself from 9 to 23. Thinking of getting cats again in the future. It's strictly the parent label that irks me the wrong way.

I'm guessing your parents didn't adopt you as an adult. Nevertheless I'm sick of this pet parent thing .I have a human child and when we were recently visiting my wife's brother, who has 2 lovely cats, he couldn't stop comparing his cats with our kid. Like when we were talking about how our kid is like this or like that, he would always reply "yes I totally understand, my cat is the same way!". It's so obnoxious. Like I'm super happy you love your cat but it's really not the same! He even dared to say we had it easy because he and his girlfriend were both working full time while my wife currently does not work, so we must have an easier time caring for our newborn baby than they have caring for their two adult ass cats who sleep 16 hours a day! It's insane. I'm going insane! It's not the same!

Cat parents

Your cat is a grown ass adult. You're a grown ass adult. You're not the parent of your cat. It's your pet, your friend, or your family member. But it's not your kid.

And what will the chickens eat? You still have to grow their feed. Buying feed from the feed store is not self-sufficiency

It doesn't take much land to be self sufficient in vegetables if you are willing to limit your vegetable choices to your climate and to preserve them. However vegetables are the by far easiest part of being self sufficient. Getting your carbs and your proteins is far harder. Say you eat around 300g of grain per day. Then you would need about 219 square meters of grain if you have a typical organic yield. Replace your carbs with potato and maybe you can reduce that by 50%, but then you run into the risk of potato harvest failing, which they often do in organic systems. For proteins you would either have to have animals plus area to grow their feed, or grow a huge area on par with the grains to get enough shelling beans to meet your protein needs. But vegetables? Just a dozen or two square meters should be enough.

What on earth? Works on my machine

Edit: oh I actually read the code and now I get that you are not replying back a error you got from my message...

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

00000000000000000000000000000000

88888888888888888888888888888888

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

You are right about the risk of heavy metal contamination so wont comment on that. But if we are speaking about an animal that crapped on top of the clay pile then that should not be an issue. Soil in general but especially clay has an absolutely enormous surface area that adsorbs both bacteria and viruses. That's why ground water is usually safe to drink but surface water is not. A large amount of faeces leaking into the soil water from above would potentially contaminate the water with nitrate which could be a slight cancer risk if consumed in large quantities but there should be no risk of getting infected if you are digging deep unexposed clay, even if an animal crapped on top of the pile. As long as there is no heavy metal contamination eating deep clay is probably safer than eating a wild picked berry.

Barley_Man

@ Barley_Man @sopuli.xyz

Posts

1
Comments

50
Joined

3 yr. ago

Barley_Man

Ecosystem services

What is your justification for your own existence?

TIL about bifacial solar cells which produce electrical energy when light hits either side

TIL about bifacial solar cells which produce electrical energy when light hits either side

TIL about bifacial solar cells which produce electrical energy when light hits either side

TIL about bifacial solar cells which produce electrical energy when light hits either side

I doubt this will ever change

I doubt this will ever change

I doubt this will ever change

Mrrrp

Mrrrp

Mrrrp

Mrrrp

Mrrrp

Set for life

Set for life

quick explanation

quick explanation

quick explanation

TIL that eating dirt was common in the U.S. South until the 80s. People ate a handful a day, often seasoned with vinegar and salt.

Was your own birth a good thing for you and would you have chosen to be born today?