Like I said, animals take everything they can until something stops them. Even in your wolves example, they take all the deer they can until a lack of deer stops them, or until a bigger wolf stops them. You can call that balance if you want, but let's not pretend that the wolves are just eating what they need to survive. No, they're eating everything they can get their jaws around. If they could, they'd eat until they puke, and then they'd eat the puke (source: I have a dog).
The most blood thirsty wolf pack doesn't have shit on the most greedy human billionaire. Sorry they are apples V. oranges. I am talking in deep philosophical means not super simple Wikipedia articles my friend.
The universe itself exists in a state of equilibrium, all basic physics. You are thinking to simplistically about everything and trying to find one or two examples in the micro when you need to take in the whole macro. For example the Earth is indeed a self contained system end of story, just a fact. This system contains a lot of living organisms, much like your own body filled with bacteria and special cells. Call it Gaia, call it bread pudding, call it a petri dish in space, I don't care it is a fact that this is closed system.
Life on Earth existed for billions of years constantly seeking balance in the ever changing environment. The environment changed when human civilization was born. Before civilization proto-humans roamed the Earth for millions of years in this state of equilibrium. Believe it or not the Earth will depopulate itself when humans take to space. People will spread out to the stars and the population here on Earth combined with technology will reach a state of homeostasis where the Earth can sustain them indefinably, well till the sun explodes. All systems seek equilibrium. The universe will one day stop expanding and seek equilibrium. Even your food addicted dog seeks equilibrium. The dog eats too much and vomits, then maybe eats half the vomited up food, doesn't vomit again. This is equilibrium.
No. If a wolf had the means, it wouldn't hesitate for a minute to claim limitless territory. The only difference between the wolf and the greedy human billionaire is the means. There is no virtue or balance inherent to individual animal species in nature. Truth be told, the only species that demonstrates self induced altruistic restraint WRT expansion is mankind.
TL;DR-If you don't know the difference between a wolf and a human you need to read more books.
I am not calling any animal altruistic by any means. Wolves are a part of nature, nature has honor in balance. Nature lives by a code, talking macro here people!!
So humans try to divorce themselves from nature and thus you have the issues we face now. We collect in mega cities and invite nature to strike us at the weak points, like virus outbreaks. We tempt nature with air travel and the smallest natural things use it to attack us with great effectiveness. Humans have gone against the balance and balance will come back no matter what we do. That is all. I speak of, balance and animals nature to respect the balance. They respect it because they have no choice.
Wolves are even a bad example as they are more like humans than most animals. But even wolves are brought into balance by nature. In that balance there is honor. Animals just seek to live life and don't spend their lives scheming how they can defy nature and horde resources equal to 20 or 200 lifetimes. When has a wolf pack ever horded meat or resources beyond their capacity to eat it? Never. They may kill for sport but that is a different issue. Predators respect the resource and leave animals they don't need alive to reproduce and have future food available. They eat what they need. Wolves don't invent fridges and store 10 years of meat by killing a whole region's population of elk.
I don't know where you're getting this "balance" idea from. Humanity could push a button right now and wipe out all life on Earth. Think humanity is unique in that regard? Nope. There are mass extinction events linked purely with the behavior and growth of life, like for instance the "poisoning" of the atmosphere with oxygen by unchecked growth of sea-based photosynthetic microorganisms several billion years ago. It killed nearly everything. There was no cycle, moderation, regulation, or macro-homeostasis as you're considering it. It was a start-from-scratch life wipe. Stuff like that happens in more localized ecosystems as well. Eliminating all threats in an area and then using up all resources until you either leave or die off isn't something unique to humans.
Look, I just don't agree with you. Thanks for the conversation though. I'll give you the last word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis -- This is the theory that life on Earth exists in an equilibrium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis -- This is the biological mechanism by which a single organism maintains its temperature and chemical balance.
Like I said, animals take everything they can until something stops them. Even in your wolves example, they take all the deer they can until a lack of deer stops them, or until a bigger wolf stops them. You can call that balance if you want, but let's not pretend that the wolves are just eating what they need to survive. No, they're eating everything they can get their jaws around. If they could, they'd eat until they puke, and then they'd eat the puke (source: I have a dog).
The most blood thirsty wolf pack doesn't have shit on the most greedy human billionaire. Sorry they are apples V. oranges. I am talking in deep philosophical means not super simple Wikipedia articles my friend.
The universe itself exists in a state of equilibrium, all basic physics. You are thinking to simplistically about everything and trying to find one or two examples in the micro when you need to take in the whole macro. For example the Earth is indeed a self contained system end of story, just a fact. This system contains a lot of living organisms, much like your own body filled with bacteria and special cells. Call it Gaia, call it bread pudding, call it a petri dish in space, I don't care it is a fact that this is closed system.
Life on Earth existed for billions of years constantly seeking balance in the ever changing environment. The environment changed when human civilization was born. Before civilization proto-humans roamed the Earth for millions of years in this state of equilibrium. Believe it or not the Earth will depopulate itself when humans take to space. People will spread out to the stars and the population here on Earth combined with technology will reach a state of homeostasis where the Earth can sustain them indefinably, well till the sun explodes. All systems seek equilibrium. The universe will one day stop expanding and seek equilibrium. Even your food addicted dog seeks equilibrium. The dog eats too much and vomits, then maybe eats half the vomited up food, doesn't vomit again. This is equilibrium.
No. If a wolf had the means, it wouldn't hesitate for a minute to claim limitless territory. The only difference between the wolf and the greedy human billionaire is the means. There is no virtue or balance inherent to individual animal species in nature. Truth be told, the only species that demonstrates self induced altruistic restraint WRT expansion is mankind.
TL;DR-If you don't know the difference between a wolf and a human you need to read more books.
I am not calling any animal altruistic by any means. Wolves are a part of nature, nature has honor in balance. Nature lives by a code, talking macro here people!!
So humans try to divorce themselves from nature and thus you have the issues we face now. We collect in mega cities and invite nature to strike us at the weak points, like virus outbreaks. We tempt nature with air travel and the smallest natural things use it to attack us with great effectiveness. Humans have gone against the balance and balance will come back no matter what we do. That is all. I speak of, balance and animals nature to respect the balance. They respect it because they have no choice.
Wolves are even a bad example as they are more like humans than most animals. But even wolves are brought into balance by nature. In that balance there is honor. Animals just seek to live life and don't spend their lives scheming how they can defy nature and horde resources equal to 20 or 200 lifetimes. When has a wolf pack ever horded meat or resources beyond their capacity to eat it? Never. They may kill for sport but that is a different issue. Predators respect the resource and leave animals they don't need alive to reproduce and have future food available. They eat what they need. Wolves don't invent fridges and store 10 years of meat by killing a whole region's population of elk.
I don't know where you're getting this "balance" idea from. Humanity could push a button right now and wipe out all life on Earth. Think humanity is unique in that regard? Nope. There are mass extinction events linked purely with the behavior and growth of life, like for instance the "poisoning" of the atmosphere with oxygen by unchecked growth of sea-based photosynthetic microorganisms several billion years ago. It killed nearly everything. There was no cycle, moderation, regulation, or macro-homeostasis as you're considering it. It was a start-from-scratch life wipe. Stuff like that happens in more localized ecosystems as well. Eliminating all threats in an area and then using up all resources until you either leave or die off isn't something unique to humans.
Look, I just don't agree with you. Thanks for the conversation though. I'll give you the last word.