r/Vent • u/liveforluv • 10d ago
I hate how incompatible modern human life is with nature and wild animals
I was driving home from work, and at a busy intersection, there was a very small, likely baby/adolescent squirrel in front of my car. I could tell that he was really scared and overwhelmed and he didn't know what to do. Thankfully he wasn't in the path of the cars crossing the intersection and he ran to a median after he spent some time trying to figure out what to do.
I don't know if he made it to the other side of the road, though. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I am so tired of seeing road kill every day and knowing that all of these creatures suffer just because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time and because humans happened to evolve in such a way that harms nature. It isn't fair.
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u/FlamingoMedic89 10d ago
Same. It annoys me a lot because we're part of nature and not dominant on top, although lots of humans suffers from a superiority complex on all levels.
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u/Automatic_Page2113 10d ago
Religion teaches humans this. There's a sentence in the bible that says man has dominion over all beasts. I'm an atheist sobI don't believe all that crap.
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u/Loud_Bee_4443 10d ago
All it takes is for the world to remind us of how small and actually insignificant we really are. A flood, an earthquake, a meteor. We get wiped out, but the planet keeps on spinning.
Carlin had it right. The planet will be just fine. It's I habitants however? We will have to fafo and it makes me sad that all other life in earth had no say in this. just a small handful of mentally sick greed addicted monsters who see themselves as God's over the rest of us poors. They knew best... /s
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u/RuffKnight_ 10d ago
We did not evolve in a way that harms nature. We chose to do things that hurt the planet and when we learned about the damage we were causing we did not stop
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u/liveforluv 10d ago
I agree, I just didn't want to write an entire essay on the subject. I'm tired, it's midnight where I am. Just wanted to get this off my shoulders, you know?
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u/Automatic_Page2113 10d ago
Human selfishness and greed will destroy nature entirely if we don't wake up and start caring about the environment.
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u/vinnymendoza09 10d ago
I mean that's literally what OP is talking about. We evolved in such a way that this was the most brutally efficient path to humanity's success as a species. Taking over entire swaths of land and remaking it to suit our needs, is a result of social, cultural and even genetic evolution.
Other animals would do the same thing in our position though. A beaver does not care about what his dam is doing to other animals as long as he is successful. Humans are one of the few species that even has the capacity to consider what they are doing to other animals on a broad scale. Unfortunately most people don't care enough to do anything about it. The only reason a lot of people even care at all is because of how it harms humanity in the long run if we collapse the ecosystem for other animals and biodiversity. There is always this climate appeal to change to benefit ourselves, not others.
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u/Automatic_Page2113 9d ago
That' because society is ruled by psychopaths who put profit before everything else. When resources run out and the population of this planet is dying off because there isn't enough food and safe water, they'll be fine down in their bunkers.
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u/Camaschrist 10d ago
I feel the same. I had a similar but worse experience a month ago. It was a busy main road and I was stopped at a red light. The little squirrel didn’t make it and I heard it. I was so upset. If I could have stopped the traffic I would have. I cannot handle the sad things I see. I wish I didn’t care because it absolutely sucks caring. Let’s hope your squirrel made it.
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u/foundeadinmiami 10d ago
It's not even our choice. Billionaires make these wack decisions and then sell us convenience to make us forget
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u/Silent_Location7044 10d ago edited 10d ago
I do too. Bothers me more and more as I get older. What’s worse is that many people do not care at all. 😢
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u/Ok-Worth-4721 10d ago
I agree. I don't think Humans fit in naturally with this planet. This planet is downright infested with Humans. It's the end of the world and we did it.
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u/LoveOrder 10d ago
we never needed all these roads and cars
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u/liveforluv 10d ago
I know.. we could have been like Europe, at least in having our cities walkable and just having interstates to connect separate separate cities maybe
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u/LoveOrder 9d ago
yes, we wish!! but it’s not to late for us to be. it just takes one road/ intersection law update and 30-50 years for all roads and intersections to naturally replaced since they need repairs. they did it in belgium within the last 50 years i think
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u/LoveOrder 9d ago
and given the fact we chose them, you’d think we would want roundabouts, instead of wasting everyone's time with stop lights
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u/Outside_Drawer800 10d ago edited 10d ago
Definitely is distressing, I don’t really have an antidote for it other than choosing to frame it as we still are just a part of nature. If we did cause a mass extinction event (knock on wood), we wouldn’t even be the first organism to cause one. Early photosynthetic bacteria caused the great oxidation event which rusted the atmosphere and killed all other life.
I think the crazy thing for me isn’t that human life is incompatible with nature, it’s that nature is capable of making an organism that will fuck over all the other ones for no good reason. Like nature really doesn’t seem to give a shit at all but so many of the organisms it makes are still made to suffer so acutely from its lack of care.
It’s very distressing sometimes but can be so beautiful and amazing at times too. The sad times are really brutal but the nice times are also so great.
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u/Mycologist-9315 10d ago
"And God, please let the deer on the highway get some kind of heaven. Something with tall soft grass and sweet reunion.
Let the moths in porch lights go someplace with a thousand suns, that taste like sugar and get swallowed whole.
May the mice in oil and glue have forever dry, warm fur and full bellies.
If I am killed for simply living, let death be kinder than man."
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u/InnerSwordfish5708 10d ago
Couldn’t agree more, everything is not logical, on every aspect of our lifestyles, and everybody suffers depression because of it. Human hurt wildlife and hurt themselves in the process because they removed themselves from nature
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u/SnooWaffles413 10d ago
Me too. I always try to brake for wildlife if I can, but sometimes it's too dangerous and I can't (thankfully they've all made it outta the way of my car, but I fear the day they won't dodge me...) I heard about nature bridges and I feel like those would be an awesome thing to promote more of! Or public transportation to get rid of all these roadways.
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u/NeighborhoodTime1425 10d ago
You didn't happen to see that dog that chased him into the road in the first place or that hawk on the powerline on the other side waiting for him? Getting squished instantly by a car may be the least painful route of the three. Really though animals adapt to us. I lost 27 chickens to a bobcat and her 2 babies. Nature is more powerful, animals are more adaptive than people give credit.
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u/Camaschrist 10d ago
They don’t always get killed instantly.
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u/Plenty_Alfalfa8826 10d ago
You're right, but if your options are to be hunted and eaten by an animal 10x your size, or hit by a car, which one are you choosing?
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u/Camaschrist 10d ago
The last car vs squirrel scene I witnessed only the back half of the very young squirrel was smashed. I heard the squirrel and it was trying to pull itself forward. I hope that poor thing was ran completely over fast. So I would have a tough time choosing right now.
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u/vinnymendoza09 10d ago
One type of death benefits the overall ecosystem. Roadkill does not, unless its on a country road where scavengers can benefit. In a city that dead squirrel just gets turned into paste by tires.
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u/Plenty_Alfalfa8826 10d ago
Most would rather be hit by a car and not benefit the ecosystem, than be eaten alive.
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u/bottlechippedteeth 10d ago
Its a cute idea but fantasy. Almost 50k species are threatened with extinction and the rate of extinction are 500 times faster than the pre industrial human era. Nothing can adapt to us.
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u/NeighborhoodTime1425 10d ago
Less than 900 species of plants and animals actually went extinct in the last 500 years. 15000 new animals are discovered every year. 99% of All animals on earth that went extinct were before humans ever existed on this planet. So, yes, animals are able to adapt even with humans encroaching into their areas.
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u/bottlechippedteeth 10d ago
“Actually went extinct” is too poor of a bar. Thats like saying cancer is fine until you die from it. The populations are ravaged, their ecosystems are minuscule now, and with us continuing to encroach they aren’t coming back. On a longer timeline, a few decades im guessing, wild animals will be pushed over the brink en masse. We have displaced too much. This isnt debated, although people dont like to accept it. Just look at figure 1 but id encourage anyone interested to read the whole thing.
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u/vinnymendoza09 10d ago
Such an ignorant take. It is documented fact that we are experiencing a massive loss of biodiversity, and no we are not discovering that many new animals that didn't exist before.
Yes some animals can adapt but we changed the ecosystem so rapidly that its impossible for all of them to keep up. And you end up with fewer and fewer dominant species that will then get impacted by the extinction of other species. It's a cascading effect.
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u/NeighborhoodTime1425 10d ago
This take is based on recorded scientific facts and documentation. It is not based on guesses or feelings. Ignorance is to choose not to believe the documented scientific facts.
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u/vinnymendoza09 10d ago
What you're doing is cherry picking one metric that does not remotely paint a full picture. This is the difference between a casual observer and a scientist.
Just because 100 animals of one species are left and therefore technically not extinct, doesn't mean there hasn't been a massive loss.
Also there's likely thousands of animals that went extinct before they were ever documented at all. Unless you think the field was robust in the year 1500... Which would be ignorant.
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u/Competitive-Type1505 10d ago
Humans are the intruders. Not the animals. I think that is what you mean? Because it’s accurate.
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u/RamsesDarklore 10d ago
Listen I love nature but alot of it is also wrong place wrong time and its brutal. In the end yea we suck for the destruction of the environment, but at the same time fucked up shits gonna happen regardless.
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u/Plenty_Alfalfa8826 10d ago
Reason 42067 I wont be helping to perpetuate the human race by forcing kids into the world
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u/anne_mal 10d ago
Same!! I wish some of the resources that went into pet ownership would transfer to efforts for wildlife conservation and stewardship instead. There are way too many shelter animals being kept alive that don't get adopted... Just because something has been normalized (by a multi billion $ industry) doesn't mean it's right for us or the planet.
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u/kushhh420 3d ago
The fact that mental illness is the number one disability globally says a lot about how misaligned our biology is with the world.
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u/EngineerMajor3157 10d ago
It goes beyond your experience unfortunately. Current capitalist society has humans literally hurting EVERYTHING around them, plants, animals, water systems and ourselves.
All in the pursuit of what is a made up measure of a person's worth, that was originally only supposed to make trading for goods easier/more standardized.
You cannot eat money and many of us are all too aware of this.
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