I promise you one of the first things any time traveller from the past would notice, would be how much nicer everything smells. Not that they did not care about smelling nice, or were content being filthy all the time, we simply take for granted how incredibly easy hygiene has become.

I just have to disagree that there IS a dichtomy between what could be defined as natural and unnatural in this case. I just cannot see that it is a particularly meaningful difference between what is being categorized as “natural” and “unnatural”. I fundamentally believe it to be something that’s more emotionally relevant to people than meaningful in a material sense. Also, I particularly loathe when people use emotionally charged language to describe natural processes, nature really does not give a single shit about morality or ethics or the things we value, it’s not a “good” or a “bad” thing outside of the human lens, everything happens for material reasons and nothing more. Quick post-script, if you’re the one downvoting my posts that’s kinda disrespectful, I thought it was an interesting conversation I wasn’t telling you to “shut up and agree with me” or anything. If that wasn’t you then I apologize for suspecting you.

“meant” what do you mean by “meant”? who meant? why did they mean for that? You’re not making sense, you’re ascribing special properties to manmade enviorns and acting like they’re polluted, bad, or different in some essential way. That manmade enviorns are polluted, harmful, or otherwise damaging is just incidental, they don’t HAVE to be that way, you cannot just assume that they’re innately worse than “natural” enviornments, they’re just different. I just want to understand how you think “manmade” is any different from the effort ALL fauna and flora makes to change their enviornment to suit their needs. Is it “natural” the bees build hives? Is it “natural” for beavers to damn creeks? Were trees “meant” to alter the soil chemistry around them to fight off competitors? Did bryophytes defy nature’s will by evolving a waxy cuticle to survive in locations untouched by plants before they evolved? Humans, nor any other animal whatsoever was “intended” to live somewhere or some way. This a fundamental error so many people make when talking about the ecology of our planet, there is psuedo-religious way of looking at things and ascribing of anthropocentric values. None of this has a purpose, none of it has a goal, none of it has an intent, or a desire, or any sort of human-like trait.

No I’m sorrry, “the environment” is just everything around you. Your house is the environment, new york city is nature. These distinctions are made up in our heads but deep down there is no essential difference between your house and a tree, or the city you live in and a forest. We haven’t seperated ourselves from anything, we’ve just changed it. Changing evolutionary pressures doesn’t mean we’ve somehow unmoored ourselves from it, traits are still being selected for and against it really doesn’t matter how anyone, or thing cares about it. It MAY end up getting us all killed, but the process will continue anyways and the “fit” will continue to reproduce more successfully than the “unfit”. It’s not that I don’t agree with you that the things that get selected for aren’t what I’d consider good, or that will make us happiest as a species. It’s merely that natural selection as a process will not “care” about what we care about because it is a process, nothing more.

Survival of the Fittest isn’t failing, it just doesn’t follow what you’d like to be “fittest”. If a person is more reproductively successful because they’re religious, guess what, that makes them “fittest”. It really doesn’t matter if it’s stupid and illogical, just that it succeeds.

I’m skeptical of trying to put myself on too much of a pedestal for what things I choose to consume, but I do feel with some conviction that I am 100% making the correct choice but trying to only minimally connect with social media for any kind of reason. With full awareness of just how snobby I sound saying this, I see the shit my co-workers and friends talk about from TikTok and instagram etc, and I’m just thinking the entire time “this is not that funny, or interesting” It always feel the anthropomorphized equivalent of a dog’s chew toy. " Anyways, enough verbally fellating myself, if avoiding social media is making you feel better and less anxious then stay away from it, but if it’s not really working and it’s just making you feel isolated from your peers then maybe indulge at least a little. Stay conscious of your usage and don’t let it eat into your psyche, but you don’t always have to consume the “Best” media at all times, it’s okay to eat some junk food from time to time.