I also find that to be a weird question to consider, as though something must have a purpose to be worthy of existence
In that vein, what is the point of humans? To bring on the 6th mass extinction?
Comment on omg hes just like me
TurboQueer@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
It’s disturbing to me that so many people search for what something is used for or what’s the value or right to life a creature has. The point of life is to live. If you are successful you maybe make a child or split into a copy of yourself when you get enough food.
Purpose is something you accept for yourself. Imposing it on others is diabolically evil when they don’t have a thing to do with your clade. And still, it would be the case that a person would look at an animal and say “what’s the point of you?”
NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
gizmonicus@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
We’re really trying, aren’t we?
SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I think try is the wrong world, pretty sure we’ve succeeded, the question now is “Does anything survive?”
Bibip@programming.dev 5 hours ago
a fanciful answer i heard was that “humans are how the universe perceives itself,” and a person could be forgiven for thinking that the point of humans is to do science. closer to the ground, the point of humans seems to be to alter our surroundings to suit our society: kind of like ants. we build, we live, we reproduce, we spread. it’s not a good thing or a bad thing, it just is what it is.
Bibip@programming.dev 5 hours ago
utility has several virtues, but i agree that it’s not the end-all/be-all. strictly speaking the “point” of any living thing is to pass it’s genes by reproduction, but in a complex and evolving world there are lots of animals that have a “point” in existing. oysters filter water, worms enrich soil, birds spread seeds, bees pollinate flowers, there are primary decomposers and secondary decomposers and tertiary decomposers and some birds build nests in trees and squirrels hide nuts and, you get the picture?
then there are other animals that we have changed for their utility. cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep are delicious and they would not make up such a share of modern biomass if we didn’t industrialize their slaughter. in some cases the point of an animal is that we’re gonna eat it.
if you’re an emotion-forward person you might think “oh, no, that’s terrible!” and you’re allowed to feel that way but usually things are the way they are for a bunch of reasons. feelings are great but food security is better. utility also has a role to play in conservation: we’re having a great time with industry but if the earth suffers catastrophic ecological collapse, the whole party stops.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
<3