destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
- 28,799
- 359
- 126
that's the nature of mankind. Our progress is explosive, as we are simply creatures that are able to use tools to tackle problems. That's humanity in a nutshell. Except, our tools are now rather fancy and the problems quite complex. Cancer and space travel is quite a bit more involved than learning how to kill with a bone, but I think that first use of a tool for any means is what started this whole process. We're an amazing creature if you think of it like that. We've just grown to be a 'smart' creature, when in reality we've merely grown to be only how smart we need to be to tackle a problem at any given time. That's why we're infinitely smarter than humans 1000 years ago, and humans 100 years from now are going to completely overshadow our intellect. Primates were destined to become humans eventually, as they can use their limbs in a lot of ways and began the track of problem-solving.
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If we're still alive- humanity has a great tendency to want to destroy itself... ever more and creative ways to die!
destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
- 28,799
- 359
- 126
Originally posted by: MrToilet
If we're still alive- humanity has a great tendency to want to destroy itself... ever more and creative ways to die!
I don't think we have an innate desire to want to destroy ourselves, but we are very far away from having a world-civilization view where every life matters. Right now, we are still very much a tribal/societal creature, where our goal is to better and defend the lives within, and completely lose focus on any consequences to those outside the group. This is the history of man right up to the primate ancestry, and is very much what drives technical evolution, and eventually, conflict.
Humans want to naturally solve problems, it's how we progress. The biggest step, and is what will eventually decide if mankind succeeds or falls face first in failure, is if we can strive to combat the biggest 'problem' in our lives - unite mankind into the one race we truly are. But we cling to the tribal tendencies and stick to regions, and cultures are vastly different across the regions. If we can ever unite, then we can combine the intellects of the best minds across the world to solve other problems.
This is why the US is so looked up to, because we are the best hope of that: we are that melting pot, where some of the brightest minds come for safety and shelter and help find some of the best ways to solve certain problems, but once again, they are sometimes forced into the typical tribal battle. It's kind of a never ending cycle, but as a race, we need to look past that part.
Religion is damning mankind though, and needs to be ditched, or, the best step forward is to create a universal one. What's funny is how Battlestar Gallactica, and other sci-fi works, really nails that point: they all believe in the same damn religion, or at least the same 'gods'. It's the only way to unite everyone, and will be the ultimate test of our species.
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not to side track the topic, but if you think of it in those terms, i still find it hard to believe that people think that we have an influence over the climate. In 'one minute' (relative), humans think that they have the history of the rest of the 'year' figured out. Personally, I think that's incredibly egotistical. We as a species are not that significant to the world.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
Well sure, there's no "innate desire" to destroy ourselves, at least as a species. But we do frequently have idiotic rivalries. In the past, you'd have the power available to kill just those who opposed you directly. Now we have the power to kill a few million people who happen to be in some way associated with those who oppose you directly. It's like giving a loaded machine gun to an antisocial chimp, and asking him to use it responsibly. You'd better believe that everything around is going to have a bullethole in it, not just the other chimps he hates.Originally posted by: destrekor
I don't think we have an innate desire to want to destroy ourselves, but we are very far away from having a world-civilization view where every life matters. Right now, we are still very much a tribal/societal creature, where our goal is to better and defend the lives within, and completely lose focus on any consequences to those outside the group. This is the history of man right up to the primate ancestry, and is very much what drives technical evolution, and eventually, conflict.
Humans want to naturally solve problems, it's how we progress. The biggest step, and is what will eventually decide if mankind succeeds or falls face first in failure, is if we can strive to combat the biggest 'problem' in our lives - unite mankind into the one race we truly are. But we cling to the tribal tendencies and stick to regions, and cultures are vastly different across the regions. If we can ever unite, then we can combine the intellects of the best minds across the world to solve other problems.
This is why the US is so looked up to, because we are the best hope of that: we are that melting pot, where some of the brightest minds come for safety and shelter and help find some of the best ways to solve certain problems, but once again, they are sometimes forced into the typical tribal battle. It's kind of a never ending cycle, but as a race, we need to look past that part.
Religion is damning mankind though, and needs to be ditched, or, the best step forward is to create a universal one. What's funny is how Battlestar Gallactica, and other sci-fi works, really nails that point: they all believe in the same damn religion, or at least the same 'gods'. It's the only way to unite everyone, and will be the ultimate test of our species.
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Carl Sagan mentioned the rest of what you're talking about, in the last episode of Cosmos, "Who Speaks for Earth," which is on Youtube, when he was talking about how humanity spends over $1 trillion a year on military expenses - that's the cost of defending us against ourselves. That was in 1980.
After eons, we free ourselves from the constant threat of death by predators, or early death by simple diseases, and what do we do with what would be a utopia for most animals? We choose to turn on each other, to become our own predator and disease.
"Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled impractical or contrary to human nature: as if nuclear war were practical or as if there were only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made. We are surrounded by them. In the last two centuries, abject slavery, which was with us for thousands of years, has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring world wide revolution. Women, systematically mistreated for millennia, are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied to them. And some wars of aggression have recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion felt by the people in the aggressor nations. The old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalism are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet."
Link
Since space is curved and the stack of turtles is infinite, it is a turtle donut.
This is one of the basic belief tenets and isn't meant to questioned.
Praise the turtle donut.
StinkyPinky
Diamond Member
- Jul 6, 2002
- 6,983
- 1,281
- 126
This thread is a year old. Shit, people back then were savages. Wtf? They didn't even have Windows 7 and Bush was pres.
Savages.
Savages.
GodlessAstronomer
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2007
- 17,009
- 5
- 0
Interestingly no one has pointed out that the textbook in the OP has apparently ripped off Carl Sagan nearly word for word. In fact, I have Sagan's book (Cosmo) right next to me, I'll see if I can find the passage.
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