this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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On that note, humans are nature. When other animals build things like beavers building dams, or bees building hives, ants building hills, termites building thermodynamically efficient concrete (sort of) structures etc., we still call those things “natural.”
Point is: all our modern infrastructure is natural because building shit is just what our species does and we are just as much nature as any other species is.
We aren’t special; we’re just another weird species in a long history. We aren’t the only species to build stuff, aren’t the only species reshape the environment around us, aren’t the only species to literally poison the area around ourselves (and hey we mostly do it on accident whereas pine trees kinda do it on purpose). Hell, the Great Oxidation Event literally filled the whole atmosphere with what was—at the time—basically poison. That event not only caused mass extinction on a global scale, but it also changed geology and mineral formation worldwide.
We aren’t special just because our machines are often made of metal instead of proteins. We’re just another species on this rock, and everything we’ve built is just another mark on that rock made by life.
Other animals that build stuff use natural materials. Humans are the only ones that process raw materials into different materials and build with those.
A linen shirt is a natural fiber. Polyester isn't.
You could argue that a wooden hut with a thatched roof is a natural structure, but not much else in human architecture
Other guy did a good job on the main points, but I'll add something I saw in a study on a kind of bird in the US:
The birds realised cigarette butts had an antibacterial effect, and made efforts to collect and use cigarette butts in their nest building for eggs and chicks.
Learning and making use of novel materials.