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Comment by mint2 | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn’t call it a western viewpoint, looking at environmental records around the world it’s clear that both “Eastern” and “Western” cultures are both highly capable of showing wanton disregard to nature. Let’s not go out of our way to find contrived differences.

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You are correct, the nondualism prevalent in Eastern thinking is not mutually exclusive with wanton disregard of nature. I'm just suggesting that this idea of "intrinsically valuing nature means devaluing the human" requires a strong mental separation between the human and nature, and this way of thinking isn't quite the universal truth that the article makes it out to be.

Sure perhaps there’s some difference in prevalence but I’m not even sure of that.

Believing humans transcended nature isn’t universal in western thought either - source: an American of Western European descent of a fairly typical background, I.e. me.

For a larger group, anyone who cares about global warming is clearly showing they do not separate humans from nature.

Sure on the other hand there are people who seem to believe humans are above nature, but it seems to be a fairly worldwide fallacy. Maybe some areas have a higher prevalence of the belief, but it’s nowhere near universal anywhere.

separation between human and nature != humans are above nature

or maybe more accurately:

humans are above nature \subsetof separation between humans and nature

There's a ton of people who care about global warming by thinking of humanity as a destructive plague on the innocent natural world. That's also a philosophy that hinges on separation between humans and nature.

But human nature requires constant surplus bribery to not decay into cyclic warfare. Into which all cultures, living in harmony decayed down into. Japans warlords, chinas warlords and brutal starvations, the islanders ritualistic abortions by tribal warfare.. the harmony there had a horrible price.

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