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Jul. 27th, 2022 06:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrottieThis is a huge can of worms I've been putting off dealing with for a long time because it's hard to deal with so many apologies there. First, it's a study of humanity. When I see something horrible, my first thought is, I'm human too, I'm capable of that. It's also not a direct commentary on anything else except a choice counterexample because it wasn't a personal romantic relationship. ""A" is a bad person" is an easy out but taking this out is where we go wrong... few people I've known have been willing to cut ties with anyone over anything. The difference is that their station in life means they don't have to. All of these terrible things I described were things anyone would do. Being nagged about plant care you didn't want to do but your SO roped you in to because of reasons incomprehensible to you? Just say that it's fine... and if you come from the kind of money that can pay for a four year degree at prestigious school, it *is* fine. Those ugly little twigs with a few leafs on them don't matter at all compared to your greatness and the greatness you're destined for. The nagging and the chore dumped on you are a distraction from that. I've been in remotely comparable situations and reacted basically the same way. I'm protective of my leisure time and this isn't a stretch because we all basically work too much. If you can bend one little rule a bit now and then and no one knows, how much does it matter? But while the effects are natural, I don't really want to defend them either. It is in fact repulsive to me as utterly human as it is which I guess is a lot of the problem.
When I was working on BoatyBoat in the terrifying DIY boat yard, one of the run down properties along the canal (I've been calling these land masses islands and love to think of them that way, but the other obvious option would be to think of the man-made waterways creating them as mere canals) had chickens, and the biting and buzzing flies were overwhelming. I put out these Rescue! fly traps. I'd probably used them before but I don't remember right now when or why. They stink like nuts in this perfectly incredibly kind of rot smell and flies go crazy for them. A mass of flies builds up on top of the water that rehydrates the stink packet, then it keeps building, and building, and in a day or a few, the whole bag is a solid mass of flies, mostly but not all dead. Working on the camper, I put one out again, and the same thing happened. I thought I was experiencing dozens of flies, but either through misestimation or through sheer range of the stink, there are thousands of dead flies building up strata pushing a dozen layers of dead flies deep in to the stink water. Mostly, right or wrong, I've felt less under the gun than while working on BoatyBoat in the terror yard, so I've sat and watched this, and been amazed that flies haven't evolved a distress signal that at least warns other flies away. They keep happily piling, dozen by dozen. Then they climb all over each other until exhausted and pushed down in to the water and drown if not already dead. Am I creating an ecological catastrophe deploying these things and starving frogs and other fly eating creatures for miles of meals? Is it only a dent? Am I making the local fly situation worse by attracting them even though I'm killing thousands? I don't know this and don't get to decide it by myself and I'm not actually listening to the voices with that much perspective.
When I was working on BoatyBoat in the terrifying DIY boat yard, one of the run down properties along the canal (I've been calling these land masses islands and love to think of them that way, but the other obvious option would be to think of the man-made waterways creating them as mere canals) had chickens, and the biting and buzzing flies were overwhelming. I put out these Rescue! fly traps. I'd probably used them before but I don't remember right now when or why. They stink like nuts in this perfectly incredibly kind of rot smell and flies go crazy for them. A mass of flies builds up on top of the water that rehydrates the stink packet, then it keeps building, and building, and in a day or a few, the whole bag is a solid mass of flies, mostly but not all dead. Working on the camper, I put one out again, and the same thing happened. I thought I was experiencing dozens of flies, but either through misestimation or through sheer range of the stink, there are thousands of dead flies building up strata pushing a dozen layers of dead flies deep in to the stink water. Mostly, right or wrong, I've felt less under the gun than while working on BoatyBoat in the terror yard, so I've sat and watched this, and been amazed that flies haven't evolved a distress signal that at least warns other flies away. They keep happily piling, dozen by dozen. Then they climb all over each other until exhausted and pushed down in to the water and drown if not already dead. Am I creating an ecological catastrophe deploying these things and starving frogs and other fly eating creatures for miles of meals? Is it only a dent? Am I making the local fly situation worse by attracting them even though I'm killing thousands? I don't know this and don't get to decide it by myself and I'm not actually listening to the voices with that much perspective.
