The difference between raw materials and natural resources is that resources can be combined with human ingenuity. Most of what is today considered natural resources was not considered so for most of human history because we did not yet have the ingenuity to utilize it. We can never run out of raw material. We cannot even destroy material; all we can do is change its form. But, we can stifle ingenuity.
When has private military forces not what? You know there’s a long history of mercenary use in warfare right?
No. We don't destroy matter; we can only change its form. For decades, gasoline was considered a waste by-product from kerosene production. We can never run out of matter, but we can stifle ingenuity.
What is it, that you see, that I don't see, about being a government employee that exempts human beings from the worst parts of human nature ? I'm not claiming that private armies are any better or worse than public armies. I'm saying that, because they are both humans, we should not vest in them the legal use of force reserved to government. That is what government is after all, the legal use of force between equals. In any of its forms: tribal, familial, metropolitan, monarchy, republic, etc., government is the legal use of force between equals.
Do you understand the distinction between matter and species? Even the matter that once composed now extinct species still exists. Some of it now composes you, but don't worry. In seven years, you won't have any of the organic matter you have now.
Which is pointless sophistry. From a practical standpoint, every day species that could be useful in the future are being wiped out by humans now.
That's all quite natural. Species have been wiping out species long before the human species entered the fray. Humanity has a long way to go if we're ever going to rival the microbes when it comes to extinctions.
Wiping out a species to build a factory or make room for a rich person's mansion is in now way natural.
It is either natural or supernatural or a complex of both. It can also be good or evil, beneficial or harmful, but it is not "unnatural". Factories are no more, or less, natural then bird's nests. They are more complex. They have far greater impacts upon the environment, but they are built by natural beings with materials found in nature. "Unnatural" implies that human beings are apart from nature. "Unnatural" implies that human beings are an invasive species or a cancer. We are not. We are as natural as any other animal on this planet, and everything we make is as natural as anything else any other animal on this planet makes. "Unnatural" is an almost exclusively misanthropic term. "Unnatural" is a contrivance that implies an entire suite of ideas with which I vehemently disagree.
No, you forget the option of artificial. Humans are an invasive species. No other species on this planet destroys nature like we do.
Well, there you go. That's where we part ways. I do not believe that human beings are an invasive species. I do not consider misanthropy to be a virtue. My environmental goal is not to minimize human impact. My environmental goal is to maximize human well being. I am as far from being a misanthrope as one can be; I am a humanist. I love human beings more than all other forms of life on this Earth combined. I want to do what is best for human beings. I want humanity to multiply, fill the Earth and subdue it. I would have all of the Earth be a garden. I would have all of the other species cared for and tended to in such a way as to maximize their benefit to humanity.
Species don’t have to directly benefit humanity to be part of maintaining the life cycle of the planet.
That's a good point, and it should be factored into our discussions about how to best manage our environment, including the flora and fauna, to maximize human well being.
