[benchmarkist]

Yet another instance of how people view the biosphere as a resource to be exploited for their own monetary profit and short-term benefit. That type of logic and thinking is a dead end. I've never had a silk robe and I doubt I would be any better off if I did have one. I'd much prefer clean air, water, and unpoisoned land for growing nutritious food.

[MrMcCall]

Well said, friend. That is an important aspect of the Way. We must be gentle with our mother Earth in order to compassionately harmonize with future generations' happiness.

But what I really, really want is hemp clothing. When I was in Atlanta in the 90s, there was a hemp shop, where I bought the best jeans, shorts, and hats I've ever had. They got nothing but more comfortable over time, breathed excellently and never molded (not that I tried). I could imagine that they would've lasted my lifetime, or even more.

Sadly, they shrunk terribly over time, and by that I mean I "grew" out of them :-)

Now, all I've seen on the net are 60%-40% cotton blends, IIRC, not the 100% hemp that was available back then. It doesn't look like the new cannabis acceptance here in America has produced hemp cloth, but I could be wrong. I imagine that growers are more focused on the likely more lucrative drug version of the plant. That said, it's been years since I searched the net for sellers, but my daughter has the skills and the 503a to make me a sweet kilt and jumpsuit and long-sleeve long-hanging shirt, should the funds come through.

"Hemp for victory!" --WWII American poster slogan

[wellix]

Could it be that it is more sustainable to have them as blends?

[MrMcCall]

I doubt it. I'm pretty sure the % cotton would wear out much sooner, but that's just my intuition.

[throw939494]

Silk worm industry is the definition of long-term sustainable exploitation of biosphere. It was done for thousand years, with minimal resources, no polution, it captures CO2... It only takes a few worms and some leafs! Chemical alternatives are poluting and poising, land air and waters!

[aziaziazi]

It takes a few worms and lots of leafs. Got a friend in that industry and the partnership with Brazil is flourishing.

[benchmarkist]

How about we leave the silk worms alone.

[throw939494]

Silk worms would starve to death if left alone.

[aziaziazi]

Did they agree on to be later breed, boil then breed their kids and boils them too? This is crazy. We all know the reason we feed them is for our own interest.

[throw939494]

Of course they agreed. It is like little boys and cutting digs. They just love that shit!

[aziaziazi]

You are so fun man I wonder why you don’t use your real account to gather lol points.

[alphan0n]

Pretty rich coming from someone sending virtue signals from a device I presume isn’t constructed from twigs and berries.

Must be difficult as a person who doesn’t exploit the biosphere.. you’ll have to let us know how you mastered photosynthesis.

[aziaziazi]

Can’t achieve perfection so goodness is out of question?

[benchmarkist]

I don't eat meat and don't drive cars. How about you?

[alphan0n]

As a level 99 druid, I have not moved from this spot in over 300 hundred years. My clothes consist of centuries accumulation of dust. I eat meat, but only beings that choose to end their existence in my perpetually open mouth. I breathe four times a year. I reproduce by sporulation, prodigiously, my offspring is responsible for the ozone layer. I convey this information to you by way of telepathy through an intermediary, Shawn of Ohio, an intern in IT who maintains his WFH infrastructure by peddling a stationary bicycle.

[exe34]

we use people as machines to move stuff around and make new stuff. humans are the only creatures that have to pay to live on this planet, if they don't pay, they can't have food/shelter/etc.

[smt88]

With the context that "payment" is a way to make labor fungible and labor is expenditure of calories, every creature has to pay to live.

Humans probably spend fewer calories on survival (with better results) and more calories on pleasure than any other species. This is partly thanks to society.

So humans probably "pay" the least of any species just to exist.

[aziaziazi]

> more calories on pleasure than any other species

That’s true we aren’t cheap on the pleasure calories, on the other hands most mammals seems to include pleasure in hunting or building their shelter or other activities. Think to dolphins, Wolfe, or rabbits. We humans have created many pleasant activities to forget our workday -which is not a pleasure for most-, while the lion enjoy its nap before an exiting hunt tonight with fellows.

[ponector]

And we use people as sex machines, unfortunately.

[MrMcCall]

"People know the part I'm playing." --"Just a Gigalo" lyrics

And people use most anything in that capacity, Rule #42 is not a theorem, after all.

While the callously selfish oppressive monsters don't care how their victims feel, so long as they get their pleasure. Greed for money and sex are really the same kind of selfish vice. And callousness to the misery of others and heartlessly disrespecting a person's human right to choose what we do with whom they will, are two of the primary drivers of unhappiness upon our Earth today.

Compassion is a balm for all such vices, but we must choose to learn the truth of its importance and then choose to manifest it in our ideals, attitudes, and behaviors. It, like all things human, is within our power, both individually and collectively, but, first, we must give a sh_t.

[0_____0]

If squirrels could figure out how to make money I'm sure someone would be happy to charge them rent

[evoke4908]

Counterpoint: being useful to a more successful species is a staggeringly effective evolutionary strategy. Nature is chock full of symbiotic relationships and it's a perfectly valid ecological niche. Symbionts exist whether or not the host is capable of feeling bad about it.

By becoming attached to such a successful species as humans, any symbiont species has an extremely good chance of surviving for as long as the host species. Including long after they'd have gone extinct naturally.

Most species that humans like or find useful will eventually end up colonizing entire star systems along with us. Those species will continue to live on in their evolutionary descendants long after the sun exapnds and earth becomes inhospitable.

Personally I call that a successful species.

Or we could just leave the worms alone and let them be hunted to extinction by predators or die out in natural climate or ecological shifts over time. I guess that's nicer than species continuity into galactic time scales.

[aziaziazi]

Very interesting take. However there’s some important difference between the species that express this behavior in the wild, free world (think pilot fish) and those that are breed, used, breed again then killed -all while in forced captivity.

I doubt the livestock would define itself as a "successful” if it could use language.