So I heard my friend call an invasive plant a displaced relative and when pressed on it they basically said that the plants didn’t choose to come here and they are victims of colonialism. Invasive implies they aren’t welcome, you wouldn’t say that the enslaved people brought over to the new world are invasive so why would you a plant? Then they said human agriculture was invasive because it’s monoculture and doesn’t allow other plants to grow, which you know fair point. So what’s the consensus is my friend an idiot or am I an idiot?
Edit: I just texted my friend, they said they got the concept from this book. Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science
it's a philosophical question, so you won't get a definitive answer. humans don't eat humans, normally. but some of us eat animals, and all of us eat plants. where does one draw a line between what's more deserving to live and what's less? should there be a line? on what basis? we can't not eat. although there are groups advocating human extinction based on the reasoning that that'd be best for the planet.
but "plants are victims of colonialism" is a beautiful take. i feel like if it appeared on twitter ppl there would lose their minds for a couple of days.
also: mowing your lawn is not bourgeois, actually. au contraire, my friends, it's pure communism because individual grass leaves wanna grow as high as they can, some are just better at it, and then comes you, a filthy Marxist, and violently makes them equal.
I’m looking for a non-philosophical answer to this question. Either our concept of invasive species is right or it is wrong. If a species can survive without human intervention does it deserved to be removed?
It's a philosophical question. By definition you're not going to get a concrete answer. Worrying over the term "invasive" is just aesthetics fetishism, and "right" and "wrong" are abstractions. The real question is whose interests you favor: the people and ecosystems that can be harmed by a new species for which no natural check exists, or the new species itself.
But another point, this is all kind of academic. No state program of any worth exists for dealing with invasive species in the US, and none are planned, so this is just an intellectual excercise.
Now i'm thinking of the trolley problem :) If one species survives by harming several others, should we let it do so, or remove it to save others? And, moreover, there already has been human intervention--the introduction of the said species into an environment that's normally foreign to them.
I think our concept is fine, because it just describes a process---animals or plants from another region of the world are artificially introduced into a new environment and begin modifying it to the detriment of its native species. It seems to me your problem is with the word we use for this concept because it is moralizing this process, saying it's a "bad" thing for a species to survive any way it can. Nietzsche would be on your side.
Look this whole thread was inspired by a single book and I just want everyone to at least read a summary of it. Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science
The parts about fights against eco terrorism in Latin America seem interesting
So when a category of philosophical questions can be effectively answered using formal methods, it becomes a science. Unfortunately I don't think moral philosophy has gotten to that point.
But this is fundamentally a philosophical question, because it's a question about what we should (and do) value. Answers to questions like that can't be read off of nature in any kind of meaningful way. Once we have a good idea of what kind of world we want, then there might be clear facts of the matter about how best to bring that world about, but there's no experiment you can do that will tell you what you should value. Even experimental design is fundamentally value-laden.