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Question about mankind.

#363
Metalbasspro said:
Why can't mankind live within nature. Why does he harm the environment unlike any other creature on the planet? I know some will correctly say it's our intelligence but then why has nature spawned a being that can do what we do in the first place?

Was this an accident of nature? Is it just un natural? Is there a larger plan by mother nature? What are your feelings and insights into this topic?
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One. Mankind does live within nature. He cannot do otherwise.

Two. Mankind is not harming the environment. He might very well be changing the environment to levels outside of his comfort zone. But the environment is not bothered by this. It has existed quite a long time before it decided to rest a while at levels conducive to spawning mankind.

Im not sure all of mankinds accomplishments (war, money, politics, television, porn, nuclear weapons/energy) are indicative of any so called intelligence. However we do seem quite creative. I would speculate that all other animals are more intelligent than humans for the fact that they can get along and live happily without such artificial distractions from life.

I think because man is creative by nature he tends to assume that he himself must have been created. Of course, thats a silly unintelligent assumption. However, I choose to believe along those creationist lines because I cant think of any good reason not to. After all, our so called intelligence has done little to improve our lives. And a bit of silliness will at least make our time here a bit more bearable.
 
#364
nukes_da_bass said:
Douglas Adams was a humorist. Saying he was truly "on to something" would be the same as saying "monty pythons flying circus" was the key to the universe, which of course it is! (No it isnt! Yes it is! :)

Albatross!
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What if humor is what life and the universe are all about?

Have you ever witnessed something so ironically tragic (in real life, not in books or television) that you couldn't help laughing about it because it seemed that the universe came full circle and in doing so, made the basic mechanisms of how nature works obvious?
 
#365
Nev375 said:
Im not sure all of mankinds accomplishments (war, money, politics, television, porn, nuclear weapons/energy) are indicative of any so called intelligence. However we do seem quite creative. I would speculate that all other animals are more intelligent than humans for the fact that they can get along and live happily without such artificial distractions from life.

I think because man is creative by nature he tends to assume that he himself must have been created. [sentence removed]. However, I choose to believe along those creationist lines because I cant think of any good reason not to. After all, our so called intelligence has done little to improve our lives. And a bit of silliness will at least make our time here a bit more bearable.
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Sometimes I think people say stuff like this because it's en vogue amongst pseudo-intellectual crowds (read: hippies) to have opinions like this.

I for one don't want to live in the wilderness and die young due to gruesome injuries or diseases because "I'm living with nature". Technology isn't all internet porn and war. A very great deal of it is simply taken for granted. And as is usual, the good gets ignored while the bad makes the front page.

Also, bombing people with nukes may not seem so intelligent, but any understanding of nuclear physics is pretty damn clever if you ask me.
 
#366
Bloodhammer said:
Sometimes I think people say stuff like this because it's en vogue amongst pseudo-intellectual crowds (read: hippies) to have opinions like this.

I for one don't want to live in the wilderness and die young due to gruesome injuries or diseases because "I'm living with nature". Technology isn't all internet porn and war. A very great deal of it is simply taken for granted. And as is usual, the good gets ignored while the bad makes the front page.
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I think my point just missed you slightly. I don't want to live like a caveman any more than you do. I was born into our world of modern conveniences, robotics, segways, antibiotics and frankly I doubt i'd last 20 minutes without it all.

And you are right. Theres been good invented with the bad. But is the good really good when it has made us dependant on it? We are evolving as a species, no doubt. But our society protects regressive genes that do us no good. In fact it exalts them so that in many cases we elect stupid people to lead us.

But our ancestors for the most part never knew they were living in hard times. To them, technology was always state-of-the art.

The meaning of life is not a competition to be the first on mars, or develop clean energy or solve world peace. Those are just things we impose upon ourselves. Life is not a goal.

Life is simply existing, reproducing, surviving and if we are truly smart enjoying the ups and downs of the ride while we live it.

Of course, thats just my opinion, man.
 
#372
Nev375 said:
I think my point just missed you slightly. I don't want to live like a caveman any more than you do. I was born into our world of modern conveniences, robotics, segways, antibiotics and frankly I doubt i'd last 20 minutes without it all.

And you are right. Theres been good invented with the bad. But is the good really good when it has made us dependant on it? We are evolving as a species, no doubt. But our society protects regressive genes that do us no good. In fact it exalts them so that in many cases we elect stupid people to lead us.

But our ancestors for the most part never knew they were living in hard times. To them, technology was always state-of-the art.

The meaning of life is not a competition to be the first on mars, or develop clean energy or solve world peace. Those are just things we impose upon ourselves. Life is not a goal.

Life is simply existing, reproducing, surviving and if we are truly smart enjoying the ups and downs of the ride while we live it.

Of course, thats just my opinion, man.
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Well, current technology is state-of-the-art to us, as well. If we knew what we won't yet have for decades, we'd probably feel about what we have today the way we feel about what our recent ancestors had. We'd be truly "toughing it out in hard times" like our ancestors since we'd be without [insert something future generations will take for granted]. ;)

Anyway, I think technology will eventually make evolution obsolete for humans (or pretty much replace it), so the whole "medical science allowing bad genes to escape elimination" scenario won't really matter in a posthuman world where we become digital information rather than genetic information. I think that will be the next big step in our evolution. Just imagine a world in which we actually live long enough (presumably indefinitely) to have memories that go back far enough into history to not repeat it's mistakes.

Just speculation. I don't know for sure that that posthumanity will come to happen. I'm sure there will be a violent resistance movement that will want us all to stay flesh and short-lived out of fear and tradition. Who knows? One thing I bet I do know, though. Humans that no longer require food won't be able to profit from over-fishing the oceans.

EDIT: Also, even if we don't become digital, our understanding of the human genome will very soon be at a point where we will be able to manually correct "bad" genes rather than having to spend generations breeding them out the old fashioned way.
 
#379
ChrisB2 said:
Yeah, well, I'm not interested in reading a book to try to decipher your posts and it strikes me as quite arrogant to reply to mine with dribs and drabs from some author, and then refer to someone who is ignorant of the work as needing "slack."

Listen, either you all have the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and EVERYTHING, or you DON'T, and if you don't just let the guy who claims to answer me.

And I accused no person of lacking intelligence, I questioned the intelligence only of this elusive "answer" and of the non-responsive "responses" to my request for clarification of this "answer," which so far have no support and cannot be viewed as intelligent or meaningful without some explanation.
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You're absolutely right to expect an honest answer but I want to make this clear that while I believe that Douglas Adams is right (and so am I) about "the answer to the ultimate question" that this is nothing more or less than my raw opinion and I can't possibly back it up with any kind of solid evidence. It's just what I believe.

Here's what I said:
I often explain to others that the HHGTTG series of books (and the BBC adaptations) are so much more than the zany humor they appear to be at first. They truly contain some very profound insight into, not just human nature, but also into the nature of the universe itself. I believe that he was one of the rare individuals who "gets" what it all really means. He understood the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. -- hbarcat
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I could go into the long answer and explain the reasoning found in Adams' work but I think that the scientist Richard Feynman summarized it best.


“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world." -- Feynman
 
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#380
i_got_a_mohawk said:
Even if someone has never had a problem questioning authority, I'd still suggest they read Orwell.

HHGTTG is a fun read either way and I couldn't recommend it enough.
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Read Orwell at a young age that may also explain some things. From there it was on to Steinbeck, Huxley, Kerouac, Brautigan. At that time I thought Kilgore Trout was the best Sci-Fi author. ;)
 

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