SPATA, Greece (AP) — In an olive grove on the outskirts of Athens, grower Konstantinos Markou pushes aside the shoots of new growth to reveal the stump of a tree — a roughly 150-year-old specimen, he said, that was among 15 cut down on his neighbor’s land by thieves eager to turn it into money.
What short sighted idiots. Chopping down a tree to steal the fruit? Our species is its own Great Filter.
To be fair, olive trees only take 2-3 years to mature, so they’re fairly easy to replace.
Just the fact that they’d do that is terrible, though.
Sure. That’s poaching, overfishing, clearcutting, and every other natural resource that is exploited into oblivion or causes environmental destruction for a profit.
The way you phrase this like you found me to be arguing in favor of those things confuses me.
The very last line stuck out to me:
Markou, the grower, said of the tree-cutting. “You kill your own history here.”
Are the thieves to blame or the system in which they live in that’s full of social inequality? 🤔 Maybe it’s not the person with the chainsaw that’s killing their history.
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I really blew it, didn’t I?
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I mean, maybe you could have been a better role model when she was young, but also, she never really had a chance. This is what our celebrity culture does to people.
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So what you’re saying is: Everything is society’s fault, and we as individuals never need to take responsibility for anything?
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Uh, no. Not exactly. I was just saying that.
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Yeah. I like that. I didn’t do anything wrong because I can’t do anything wrong because we’re all just products of our environment, bouncing around like marbles in the game of Hungry Hungry Hippos that is our random and cruel universe.
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Wait, no, that’s not even what I’m saying …
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Yeah. It’s not my fault. It’s society. Everything is because of society. Hooray! Everything is meaningless! Nothing I do has consequence!
I think the people cutting down 150 year old tress are pretty clearly the ones to blame for cutting down 150 year old trees.
People may be driven to steal because of horrible circumstances… But they still choose what to steal.
If these guys were just knocking over a Target, I’d agree with you.