Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Do we own the land or does the land own us?

Bigthink — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:40:59 +0100

we don,t really own the land and house that most of us live in like we think we do. it is only ours because no one is forcifully taking it away from us. our land titles are just paper, and we are lucky (or i am lucky) that my government protects it.

Comment on: Do we own the land or does the land own us?

Bigthink — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:20:41 +0100

i don't think you are over-thinking things. i think you are on the right track.

if you look at many of the conflicts that have been waged in history, they have primarily been over some piece of land. whether that land is physical in the case of territorial and border conflicts, social in the form of battles over the OWNERSHIP of human property (slaves, colonial subjects, First World Nations virtually "owning" the destinies and labor of Third World Nations who are in debt to them), or abstract in the form of ownership over intellectual property etc. Our beliefs that we could own physical plots of land extended to more and more abstract beliefs that we could own intangible things as well. so i think that this question is very important in our world today.

the way we abuse the environment speaks volumes about our attitude towards the poorest people in society, and the way we treat a prime piece of manhattan or beach-front property can perhaps explain our attitudes to ownership over different abstract ideas/art/philosophies etc.

I haven't done enough research about this subject, but i feel that if we can begin to understand why and how human beings came to believe they were entitled to owning land, we can begin to understand and hopefully correct some of the major problems (that don't seem to be related to property ownership at all) in society.

Comment on: Do we own the land or does the land own us?

Bigthink — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:26:04 +0100

nobody owns anyone. God made land. God made us. I think you're just overthinking things and making them harder than they have to be.

Comment on: Do we own the land or does the land own us?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:39:17 +0100

I agree with cassiegirl. We don't own the planet, we ARE the planet. Isn't that obvious? As far as environmental damage, that is a short-term effect of about a century of nascent technology, but we are fixing it.

What's most troubling about the environmental movement, as reflected in Global's comments, is the notion that we don't deserve to be here. There seem to be factions of people who essentially hate life, and it takes many different forms, from evangelicals ranting about judgement day to environmentals talking about global warming, they seem to feel compelled to denounce life.

And that crap about indiginous peoples not polluting is romantic nonsense. They weren't any different than we are, they just didn't have the kind of technology we have that produces pollution on the scale we have. I think it was probably fairly common for such peoples to exhaust the resources in a given area and move on. It reminds me of the romanticization of animals and the notion that they live in harmony. Jane Goodall learned differently when she saw her precious apes eating the brains of their rival's infants.

It's extremely unfortunate the the claptrap delivered by Globalone is considered expert.

Comment on: Do we own the land or does the land own us?

Bigthink — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 04:36:51 +0100

I think the land and us are one. We are in a universe, a UNI-verse. We are united. I just don't understand how we CAN'T understand that, and we continue to destroy the earth, therefore destroying ourselves. But to answer directly, I don't think any of us, or the Earth, belongs to anyone.