Disease is Nature's Way of Control
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So I just had a random thought after seeing a some commercials about cancer and the like, and I thought that maybe disease is nature's way of controlling the balance of life. This is of course philosophically speaking but it's an idea that never occurred to me until now. When people think of diseases in general, they think of illnesses that kill mankind and need to be treated and cured. But what if diseases are just nature's crowd control for the world? Making sure that one species doesn't overrun the world and destroy it. Basically, nature is killing us for our own good. One example, that might or might not be a good one, is the Black Death. The Black Death killed more than half of the European population, if I remember correctly, in the late Middle Ages. Yet after all those deaths, the Europeans prospered. With a demand for labor, guilds offered more jobs. People also received more wages making them enjoy a higher standard of living. Of course these are just a few outcomes of the Black Death, and I'm pretty sure not all of it was good. Either way, people's financial lives got better.
So to my question. Do you think disease and possibly other natural disasters are nature's way of controlling the balance of life and order in the world? Or do you just think shit happens? If you do think so, then is it a good thing for society or not? Please discuss to your content.
So to my question. Do you think disease and possibly other natural disasters are nature's way of controlling the balance of life and order in the world? Or do you just think shit happens? If you do think so, then is it a good thing for society or not? Please discuss to your content.
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Natural selection is mainly based on traits though. Disease is pretty indiscriminate on who gets sick or not. It all depends on a person's immunity I guess. Though I do see your point on how it's loosely the same thing.
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animefreak_usa
Child of Samael
akihiro209 wrote...
Natural selection is mainly based on traits though. Disease is pretty indiscriminate on who gets sick or not. It all depends on a person's immunity I guess. Though I do see your point on how it's loosely the same thing.But some disease are pass by genes and are more common in racial and genetics causes... like sickle cell in blacks.
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Takerial
Lovable Teddy Bear
Diseases ARE one of the way population is controlled.
But most of those cures are found from crap in nature anyways. So who's to say that curing things isn't nature's what either as it shows intelligence.
But most of those cures are found from crap in nature anyways. So who's to say that curing things isn't nature's what either as it shows intelligence.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
If I recall correctly, the Black Death was responsible for the Dark Ages?
By the way, this may not sound pretty, but here's the reality: We need people to die.
If I recall correctly, the Black Death was responsible for the Dark Ages?
By the way, this may not sound pretty, but here's the reality: We need people to die.
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Technically, it's Death that is nature's way of controlling balance. True, "saving" lives only leads to more people jobless, demands unmet by supplies, and generally more fat, less intelligent and unattractive evolution of humans.
I could still remember when a human's problems were shelter, food, and women/men to mate with. Now its flooded with tax, education, stocks, and more with crap that are totally unrelated to a person like a dying child somewhere in Africa. Yeah, I know its sad, and I know people will hate me for this, but that child's actual value is 0. Even if you save that kid, its uncertain if that will save him/her from the cruel world we live in. You got your own mouth to feed, plus its pointless to save a person if you get in trouble in the process.
As somebody already said, people need to DIE.
I could still remember when a human's problems were shelter, food, and women/men to mate with. Now its flooded with tax, education, stocks, and more with crap that are totally unrelated to a person like a dying child somewhere in Africa. Yeah, I know its sad, and I know people will hate me for this, but that child's actual value is 0. Even if you save that kid, its uncertain if that will save him/her from the cruel world we live in. You got your own mouth to feed, plus its pointless to save a person if you get in trouble in the process.
As somebody already said, people need to DIE.
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That's the common misconception, that there exist a "nature" that corrects things. Technically, if you study a bit of ecology, you'll see real quick that there's really no set rule that all life abides to. It all depends on the conditions that surround any given individual that determines it's survival.
Population-wise, you can't use "nature" as a sentient force that will act to extert pressure at something it disapproves of. It all depends on the situation. The Black Death, or Bubonic Plague, is really just a simple disease that prospered to due to the conditions of the land. One, you have a massive amount of people gathered at city and town centres, two, poor hygenie and healthcare, and three, basically zero knowledge of why it's even there. So you give it the condition that encourages rapid growth and spread, without knowledge of how to reverse it. It's basically Murphy's Law shitting people in the face. Once they cleaned up after themselves and stop throwing shit and garbage over their balconies, the deaths stopped pretty quickly.
Cancer is just cells malfunctioning. You're applying eukaryotic genetics to all life. Germs have no problem with ionizing radition. Cancer is the overcomplexity of our cells coming back to bite us in the ass through epic glitches that makes the cell lose reproductive control and stops listening to other healthy cells. It's basically the unwanted regression back to non-specialized cells from a more complex, specialized form.
Technically, "nature" can't and doesn't give two shit about how we as society functions. It's there because there is life. What controls humans is humans themselves. There will always be something new that kills us, and we will overcome it again and again.
Population-wise, you can't use "nature" as a sentient force that will act to extert pressure at something it disapproves of. It all depends on the situation. The Black Death, or Bubonic Plague, is really just a simple disease that prospered to due to the conditions of the land. One, you have a massive amount of people gathered at city and town centres, two, poor hygenie and healthcare, and three, basically zero knowledge of why it's even there. So you give it the condition that encourages rapid growth and spread, without knowledge of how to reverse it. It's basically Murphy's Law shitting people in the face. Once they cleaned up after themselves and stop throwing shit and garbage over their balconies, the deaths stopped pretty quickly.
Cancer is just cells malfunctioning. You're applying eukaryotic genetics to all life. Germs have no problem with ionizing radition. Cancer is the overcomplexity of our cells coming back to bite us in the ass through epic glitches that makes the cell lose reproductive control and stops listening to other healthy cells. It's basically the unwanted regression back to non-specialized cells from a more complex, specialized form.
Technically, "nature" can't and doesn't give two shit about how we as society functions. It's there because there is life. What controls humans is humans themselves. There will always be something new that kills us, and we will overcome it again and again.
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@x-gen - That's why I said philosophically speaking. Of course, I know there's no such thing as "the will of nature" and that crap just happens. What I mean is if there were a force that controlled life, like nature, does it use disasters and disease as crowd control to keep things in check? It's a mere philosophical question that doesn't have much depth to it. I just want to know what people think of it.
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akihiro209 wrote...
@x-gen - That's why I said philosophically speaking. Of course, I know there's no such thing as "the will of nature" and that crap just happens. What I mean is if there were a force that controlled life, like nature, does it use disasters and disease as crowd control to keep things in check? It's a mere philosophical question that doesn't have much depth to it. I just want to know what people think of it.Tbh this borders on if there is an invisible man in the sky that controls life.
But if there was a 'will of nature' then I would say, yes it would be a way to control life on earth.
But then again that's what predatory animals were invented for, if we weren't able to make spears and guns the human race would be lunch meat for lions.
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NeoStriker wrote...
We need people to die.Why? The planet could easily support 10bn+ people. We just can't seem to get the hang of being in the driver's seat. If we could manage our resources better, we'd be able to expand our limits beyond our planet, too. As is, we're too greedy and self-destructive. We don't need to die, but it's the easiest and most likely outcome thus far.
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Is there a force called 'nature' that decides when to kill off a mass number of people by using a disease? Hardly.
Is disease a form of population control? Most definitely.
As the population in a certain area hits a critical density, or a certain percentage of that population lives in the slums, one person is going to catch something. Living in close proximity with other people will spread the disease. The disease will spread faster the more people are in the vicinity (more people will die the more crowded it is, vice versa, so there might be some 'ideal' population number.)
Summarizing, if the population gets too large, disease kills us off. In nature, the supply of food maintains population. Humans always have food, so we need other methods of population control. Pandemics and war are sadly the most effective forms.
On a side note...I understand that the black death was the most famous pandemic. But man, in terms of damage to Europe, the Spanish Flu outbreak during WWI was so much worse. A generation of young men in Europe were already killing each other, then the flu kills an additional 50 million people. 50 MILLION. And even after that, Europe recovered enough to go to war again in thirty years. Think we don't need population control?
Is disease a form of population control? Most definitely.
As the population in a certain area hits a critical density, or a certain percentage of that population lives in the slums, one person is going to catch something. Living in close proximity with other people will spread the disease. The disease will spread faster the more people are in the vicinity (more people will die the more crowded it is, vice versa, so there might be some 'ideal' population number.)
Summarizing, if the population gets too large, disease kills us off. In nature, the supply of food maintains population. Humans always have food, so we need other methods of population control. Pandemics and war are sadly the most effective forms.
On a side note...I understand that the black death was the most famous pandemic. But man, in terms of damage to Europe, the Spanish Flu outbreak during WWI was so much worse. A generation of young men in Europe were already killing each other, then the flu kills an additional 50 million people. 50 MILLION. And even after that, Europe recovered enough to go to war again in thirty years. Think we don't need population control?
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The logic is that the stronger the predator, the less their number should be compared to their prey. As far as I can see, the problem is that we are in higher, if not highest, point of the food pyramid, yet we seem to easily outnumber the predators in our level. Its not that we are too greedy or too destructive, its just that there are no other known organism that can keep us in place.
Supply can't meet the demands, allocating resources to every human becomes difficult, malnutrition leads to weakening of the poor and weak, making them prone to disease, then death. Its not really nature, its just how things go: in order to meet demands, more people will die.
Supply can't meet the demands, allocating resources to every human becomes difficult, malnutrition leads to weakening of the poor and weak, making them prone to disease, then death. Its not really nature, its just how things go: in order to meet demands, more people will die.
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thegreatnobody wrote...
The logic is that the stronger the predator, the less their number should be compared to their prey. As far as I can see, the problem is that we are in higher, if not highest, point of the food pyramid, yet we seem to easily outnumber the predators in our level. Its not that we are too greedy or too destructive, its just that there are no other known organism that can keep us in place.We're only artificially on top of the food chain imo.
In reality we're a frail species if it wasn't for our ability to make tools we wouldn't be the dominant species today.
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thegreatnobody wrote...
The logic is that the stronger the predator, the less their number should be compared to their prey. As far as I can see, the problem is that we are in higher, if not highest, point of the food pyramid, yet we seem to easily outnumber the predators in our level. Its not that we are too greedy or too destructive, its just that there are no other known organism that can keep us in place.Supply can't meet the demands, allocating resources to every human becomes difficult, malnutrition leads to weakening of the poor and weak, making them prone to disease, then death. Its not really nature, its just how things go: in order to meet demands, more people will die.
populations of effective predators that aren't limited by any other factor then food like humans always goes in cycles. Where they keep increasing their numbers until food runs out and they die. Assuming that they actually didn't eat all of their prey, the preys will grow in numbers now that the predator pressure is lowered and the predators will repeat their cycle.
I don't believe I've seen any reason apart from "happy thinking" that humans should be spared from this pattern
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you are very correct Disease's are natures greatest tool of population control. (we need another plague soon) Though the scale you look at it is relitively small you are certainly going in the right direction. Aids cancer are other good examples up until less than 100 years ago both were almost non-existant, and as soon cures are found something even worse will be show itself. its the cycle of life and its in human nature to contradict this cycle. Even our Society itself conflicts with us on a instinctual/primal level
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Well, I'm a medical student so I'll try to answer this from the perspective of medicine.
Not only disease, but also natural disasters are nature's way to control population...And in my opinion, the disasters are far more greater population controller than disease. The Black Death caused by Yersinia pestis took about half of the European population because there was no medicine back then. In short, as long as the world of medicine evolves, disease is not a real way of nature to control the population.
Not only disease, but also natural disasters are nature's way to control population...And in my opinion, the disasters are far more greater population controller than disease. The Black Death caused by Yersinia pestis took about half of the European population because there was no medicine back then. In short, as long as the world of medicine evolves, disease is not a real way of nature to control the population.
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Fenex wrote...
you are very correct Disease's are natures greatest tool of population control. (we need another plague soon) Though the scale you look at it is relitively small you are certainly going in the right direction. Aids cancer are other good examples up until less than 100 years ago both were almost non-existant, and as soon cures are found something even worse will be show itself. its the cycle of life and its in human nature to contradict this cycle. Even our Society itself conflicts with us on a instinctual/primal levelWell cancer is becoming a problem now because we are living longer ^^" and because we did not always understand or were able to diagnose it. It is only natural that a person would eventually develop some kind of lethal cancer. Disease isn't really a way of control, but a form of selection. It only becomes a problem when population density becomes too great, and it besides that it limited in its position a population limiter. Its true goal is to eliminate the genetically unfit, who cannot evolve to survive an infectious disease. That way it is a form of either natural selection or symbiotic evolution depending on if your species survives.
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MrLeopoldBloom wrote...
Thank you, Thomas Malthus....If I did not remember wrongly, Thomas Malthus came up with a theory that the world population will grow at a rate faster than which resources can be produced. Although the theory was heavily criticized, it doesn't mean that it isn't true or perhaps become a reality in future.
Apart from diseases, other natural disasters play a part in bringing down the population. However, I have also read that people in developing countries will reproduce just as quickly.