Fun facts: the UK has crazy laws protecting trees and hedgerows. There’s a national tree registry for old boys.
and everyone just went with it.
Technically, how all law really works at its core.
Technically, how all law really works at its core.
Well, that and the threat of overwhelming unilateral violence
Which usually does cause one to just go with it
People could fight back if they cared enough.
The trees owned the lands until the humans took it from them.
Humans:
The ownership of land is an odd thing when you come to think of it. How deep, after all, can it go? If a person owns a piece of land, does he own it all the way down, in ever narrowing dimensions, till it meets all other pieces at the center of the earth? Or does ownership consist only of a thin crust under which the friendly worms have never heard of trespassing?
-Tuck Everlasting
Nah, more like rented their place until they could give back to the earth with the ultimate sacrifice.
Isn’t that what we all do though?
when the people who make the rules say “Sorry, the rules are the rules, there’s nothing we can do” remember that they literally gave a tree human rights just because they felt like it.
wait so, can i just deed the title of my land to my land upon my death? Is that something i can just fucking do?
As long as enough of town decides to go along with it. If the town decides you were a coot and would rather have a gas station, the tree is fucked.
i see. So basically i just gotta convince the local government that my land is now community land dedicated to third space activities, and owned by itself. I can troll generations for generations to come. Wonderful.
Okay curious question. There’s a legal movement arguing that nature should be protected by law/be considered when undertaking things that might affect it (esp. resource development).
Does anybody with any legal knowledge know if this would create some kind of legal precedent? Obviously it’s not enshrined in written law, but a tree that owns itself (even by mutual agreement) seems to suggest it’s somewhat plausible, and it’s not like laws always make sense lol. Or am I just reading too much into this?
Obviously, it would vary from country to country. But some countries do give legal status either to nature as a whole, or to rivers, mountains, etc. In practice, this means that the state / a citizen can sue anyone who pollutes or otherwise harms the river / mountain / nature, without needing to prove that the pollution is bad for other people.
I don’t think it’s crazy at all to protect trees. We need them. What baffles me is how much we rely on them and still cut whole swaths of them down anyway without a thought.
It boggles my mind we feel the need to box ecology and not consider agency for any of the other parts that make life itself possible.
I get a lot of flack for my belief in other animals deserving agency. You’re the first person that’s ever agreed with me on that. Usually people get aggressive and call me names, and tell me I’m crazy, or a wack job, or any other number of names.
People like that fundamentally do not understand nature. It’s like an engine, a procees, not a thing.
Trees now have more rights than women in the State of Texas
Actually this tree is in Georgia, so it can’t get abortions after 6 weeks either.
Emotionally sensitive people make life worth living
Is this outrage bait from other outrage bait forming an outrageception or ragechain or am I too long online today?
Besides where are the scientists
We all need grass time, sometimes. :)
Based Georgia!
You love to see it.
Land shouldn’t be owned by humans. Period.
I’m pretty sure there’s a quirk in marriage and inheritance law that leads to a concept called a pregnant fetus
Imagine denying other living and breathing lifeforms agency to thrive and change lol lol lol
Like abortion? Thank goodness we repealed Roe Vs Wade
Please learn empathy.
Fetuses aren’t living and don’t breathe. They can’t live on their own and all their chemicals come from another human being (via the umbilical cord). This is opposed to the tree, which isn’t reliant on a certain being and instead gets its nutrients by itself through its roots and get oxygen for respiration & carbon dioxide for photosynthesis by itself, not an umbilical cord.
Trees are undeniably far more independent and living than a fetus. You’re kind of a weirdo for thinking some random small clump of cells is actually equivalent to a human child. I bet I could find basically the same thing in my back yard if I looked hard enough.
Trees are undeniably far more independent and living than a human.
I mean I can cut down all the trees I want so I’m not sure that’s true
You could also cut down ppl, if they weren’t interdependent and interacting with each other enough to realise fast enough and start retaliating.
One of the big factors making humans (and animals in general) have power over the trees is, that we are faster, both at action and adaptation, thanks to our superior mechanisms of Central Nervous System and Muscular systems.But at the same time, any single human would be much more dependent upon trees in general, as compared to how much a single tree would be, upon us, or other animals. Since the seed stage of the plant is sturdy enough to let it choose its starting point, all it really needs is for the place it chose to remain within a reasonable range of the germination conditions (soil, water, air, insolation quality etc.) and it will be just fine.
Go back to Reddit
