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ZIFA
Joined: 23 Feb 2011
Location: Dici che il fiume..Trova la via al mare
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 Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
3 of humanity's defining characteristics: we make tools, we kill off the males of rival tribes to secure our genetic advantage (i.e. we make war), and we make fire. Given that we keep making better and better tools for the purpose of making war and burning things, it's almost inevitable that we will keep killing and burning until we are totally screwed. The traits that have made us evolutionarily successful are the very same ones that will drive us extinct.  |
Yep. And our passing would be no tragedy.
Humans really are quite selfish, greedy, and destructive creatures.
The planet needs a breathing space to recover from our depredations. If we finally deal ourselves a knockout blow lets hope it is not nuclear. That way other species will get a chance to live at least. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Fri Aug 26, 2011 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Serg would get a job with them (for alien space-bucks) pointing out all the good hiding places. Then after they were satisfied he had done his job they'd vaporize him on payday. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| ZIFA wrote: |
Yep. And our passing would be no tragedy.
Humans really are quite selfish, greedy, and destructive creatures.
The planet needs a breathing space to recover from our depredations. If we finally deal ourselves a knockout blow lets hope it is not nuclear. That way other species will get a chance to live at least. |
Yet another hater of humanity who is too hypocritical to lead by example (if humans are so bad, why haven't you jumped off a bridge already)? |
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HijackedTw1light
Joined: 24 May 2010
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:51 am Post subject: |
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| Wait, wasn't this the plot of that Keanu Reeves movie? |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 5:46 am Post subject: |
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| If aliens did find us and study us and our behavior than I suppose killing us all might be pretty rational. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| ZIFA wrote: |
Yep. And our passing would be no tragedy.
Humans really are quite selfish, greedy, and destructive creatures.
The planet needs a breathing space to recover from our depredations. If we finally deal ourselves a knockout blow lets hope it is not nuclear. That way other species will get a chance to live at least. |
Yet another hater of humanity who is too hypocritical to lead by example (if humans are so bad, why haven't you jumped off a bridge already)? |
I don't really think that's hateful so much as harshly realistic. Can you really argue that humans aren't selfish, greedy, and destructive, at least when viewed in the context of the entire species? Moreover, considering that our eventual demise is a certainty, will it really be a tragedy? |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:01 am Post subject: |
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I would guess one thing about all the people on here apologizing for the race that will commit genocide on humanity in the future:
They don't have children. |
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ZIFA
Joined: 23 Feb 2011
Location: Dici che il fiume..Trova la via al mare
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:34 am Post subject: |
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| visitorq wrote: |
| ZIFA wrote: |
Yep. And our passing would be no tragedy.
Humans really are quite selfish, greedy, and destructive creatures.
The planet needs a breathing space to recover from our depredations. If we finally deal ourselves a knockout blow lets hope it is not nuclear. That way other species will get a chance to live at least. |
Yet another hater of humanity who is too hypocritical to lead by example (if humans are so bad, why haven't you jumped off a bridge already)? |
The only hateful person I see here is you.
Please do not converse with me again on any account. Thanks in advance. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:54 am Post subject: |
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I am hardly a fan of all of Spengler's writings, but this is one of his best IMHO:
It's not the end of the world - it's the end of you
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The Greens hector us about the impending end of the world. I put it to them: perhaps it is not the end of the world, but just the end of you. Analysis of global temperature is a subtle issue about which reasonable men might in good faith reach different conclusions. The evangelical zealotry that motivates the global-warmers has a different source than the facts.
. . .
Human beings cannot bear their own transient existence without some hope of immortality. Except for the Americans, whom Europeans dismiss as bovine about such things, the children of the West long ago abandoned the promises of religion.
. . .
Anxiety about the irreversible disappearance of some feature of the natural world substitutes for the death-anxiety of the individual. In the extreme case, the Green becomes the enemy of industrial civilization in general. Of course I do not oppose sensible measures to protect rain forests, prevent over-fishing, and so forth, but I am weary of the fanaticism that distinguishes the conservationist from the environmental fanatic who has turned against civilization. It is worth observing that the US returns farmland to the wilderness every year, because rising agricultural productivity concentrates more output on a smaller number of square kilometers. Wandering the forests of New Hampshire one continuously stumbles on stone fences that long ago enclosed small farms. |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:16 am Post subject: |
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| ZIFA wrote: |
| visitorq wrote: |
| ZIFA wrote: |
Yep. And our passing would be no tragedy.
Humans really are quite selfish, greedy, and destructive creatures.
The planet needs a breathing space to recover from our depredations. If we finally deal ourselves a knockout blow lets hope it is not nuclear. That way other species will get a chance to live at least. |
Yet another hater of humanity who is too hypocritical to lead by example (if humans are so bad, why haven't you jumped off a bridge already)? |
The only hateful person I see here is you.
Please do not converse with me again on any account. Thanks in advance. |
Aw, did I hate the human-hater's feelings?  |
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visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:24 am Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| I don't really think that's hateful so much as harshly realistic. Can you really argue that humans aren't selfish, greedy, and destructive, at least when viewed in the context of the entire species? Moreover, considering that our eventual demise is a certainty, will it really be a tragedy? |
I don't buy into the anti-human ideology. Sure, we're capable of some remarkable inhumanity towards our fellow humans, but there's also a lot of beauty and good. I find humanity at its best a whole lot more beautiful than anything else in nature.
Yet there are plenty of people (mostly Gaia worshiper types) who view humanity on the level of a bacteria or cancer and would literally like for us to be wiped out to save the whales or rainforest or whatever... I do not sympathize with such views. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
I don't really think that's hateful so much as harshly realistic. Can you really argue that humans aren't selfish, greedy, and destructive, at least when viewed in the context of the entire species? |
Yes. Humans, as a species still struggling to come to bear with their intellectual capabilities do still make mistakes with reasonable frequency, but the positive aspects of humanity still strongly outweigh the negative ones. Although still in the cradle from a geological point of view, modern man is all ready striving to reduce the harm it does to the world as it goes about its business. Collectively, we try to do what's best; the fact that we haven't yet perfected the art -- or, for that matter, the tools required by the art -- is hardly sufficient to depict us as you have here.
| northway wrote: |
| Moreover, considering that our eventual demise is a certainty, will it really be a tragedy? |
Considering a child's eventually demise is a certainty -- and on a much shorter and more predictable time-scale than humanity -- is that child being murdered really a tragedy? The answer is yes, of course. No matter how many dragonfly wings and ant legs that child might pull off while learning about the world and its place in it, it's pointless execution would be tragic. The same is true of humanity as a whole.
Space is almost unfathomably gigantic. No species needs to go around committing genocide against other sentients, and the loss of any of the universe's sentient treasures would be fairly called a tragedy. I strongly suspect any advanced alien race would feel the same way; any race so prone to fanatical environmentalism that they're willing to commit genocide over it is quite unlikely to ever make it off their own planet in the first place, and even less likely to survive the regular wars they would start with the more moderate species they come across.
Fanatical alien environmentalists descending from the skies and committing genocide makes for fine science fiction, but it's almost ridiculously silly when considered as a reality. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| northway wrote: |
I don't really think that's hateful so much as harshly realistic. Can you really argue that humans aren't selfish, greedy, and destructive, at least when viewed in the context of the entire species? |
Yes. Humans, as a species still struggling to come to bear with their intellectual capabilities do still make mistakes with reasonable frequency, but the positive aspects of humanity still strongly outweigh the negative ones. Although still in the cradle from a geological point of view, modern man is all ready striving to reduce the harm it does to the world as it goes about its business. Collectively, we try to do what's best; the fact that we haven't yet perfected the art -- or, for that matter, the tools required by the art -- is hardly sufficient to depict us as you have here.
| northway wrote: |
| Moreover, considering that our eventual demise is a certainty, will it really be a tragedy? |
Considering a child's eventually demise is a certainty -- and on a much shorter and more predictable time-scale than humanity -- is that child being murdered really a tragedy? The answer is yes, of course. No matter how many dragonfly wings and ant legs that child might pull off while learning about the world and its place in it, it's pointless execution would be tragic. The same is true of humanity as a whole.
Space is almost unfathomably gigantic. No species needs to go around committing genocide against other sentients, and the loss of any of the universe's sentient treasures would be fairly called a tragedy. I strongly suspect any advanced alien race would feel the same way; any race so prone to fanatical environmentalism that they're willing to commit genocide over it is quite unlikely to ever make it off their own planet in the first place, and even less likely to survive the regular wars they would start with the more moderate species they come across.
Fanatical alien environmentalists descending from the skies and committing genocide makes for fine science fiction, but it's almost ridiculously silly when considered as a reality. |
1) I strongly believe that the Malthusian trap will eventually catch up with us. The number of humans currently attempting to do their best via the world they live in is extremely small compared to the number of people doing whatever they can to get by. This isn't to say that people are bad, but given that our ultimate biological goal is reproduction, we will annihilate the world in order to allow ourselves to survive and reproduce.
2) I was speaking more generally. I tend to buy into the argument that it's something of an impossibility that two sentient species could coexist within a time and place that allowed them to make contact with one another. I was speaking to humanity's eventual demise at its own hands rather than a violent demise at the hands of ELF's alien division. I don't really see the tragedy if we destroy ourselves via Malthusian population pressures. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| northway wrote: |
| This isn't to say that people are bad, but given that our ultimate biological goal is reproduction, we will annihilate the world in order to allow ourselves to survive and reproduce. |
This is where I think you go off tracks. It's precisely our intelligence that allows us to temper biological goals like reproduction with the kind of wisdom required to make them sustainable. Other species require complex interactions with the ecosystem to keep them in check. Only a sapient species like humanity has a chance to avoid it through wise application of more universal principles, and even then only once it's knowledge and technology come sufficiently to bear. Condemning as greedy, selfish, and destructive the only species that both can do that and to a very real degree wants to seems completely wrong to me, especially since as societies have developed in the modern era, they have shown a trend towards responsibility rather than away from it. Past societies have co-existed with the natural world out of impotence. Modern humanity is moving towards co-existence out of active choice, and that's a far more wonderful and laudable thing.
We can avoid a Malthusian world, because we can envision tomorrow with a sufficiently crisp clarity. As a species we simply need more experience before that foresight can be used to its fullest extent, and more technical capability so that we can act on that foresight without condemning our fellow man to suffering.
| northway wrote: |
| I don't really see the tragedy if we destroy ourselves via Malthusian population pressures. |
In that case, change my analogy to that of a child committing suicide due to the frustrations of childhood. My answer remains the same: it's a tragedy (perhaps even more of one). I don't see how a species so laden with potential as humanity squandering that potential on self-destruction could be considered anything less than tragic, and I'll never understand people with an overall negative impression of humanity; almost every trait those who condemn mankind implicitly praise as virtuous are traits found almost exclusively in mankind. |
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northway
Joined: 05 Jul 2010
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| Posted: Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't think humanity is capable of the kind of collective action that will be required to save it from itself. |
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