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Question about mankind.
- Thread starter Metalbasspro
- Start date
But are dams really all that damaging? For some organisms a dam might be a pretty good thing.
+1
man is earth's parasite, IMO. without single-celled organisms all life on earth will perish. without man,... life goes on!
All the raw materials we use to make things are obviously found in nature, but what we turn them into is not.
Natural - beaver makes damn by stacking logs. Damn serves it's purpose, and goes back to nature in some managable amount of time.
Man-made - Man makes concrete and big machines, makes damn that floods entire valley for a thousand years after the men who made it are dead and gone.
Natural - oil in the ground.
Man-made - taking the oil and making it into gasoline powered machines. Also making it into plastic, which trashes up the place for a thousand years after the men who made it are dead and gone.
That's my take on it.
Animals, etc. manipulate nature and their immediate surrounding environment in the interest of their survival, but it's done on a smaller scale that nature can "recover" from. The animals are doing it as a part of nature.
Man makes stuff that goes way beyond the basics needed for our survival, and stays around altering the environment for centuries after we've used it for whatever percieved use we had for it.
The American Indians of the past are an example of man living with nature. They took only what they needed and use every bit of it. Almost nothing went to waste, and it all decayed and went back nature in some managable amount of time.
Huge concrete jungles called cities with people surrounded by plastic everywhere I'd consider to be living against nature. Taking raw materials, but making things out of them and altering the environment to the degree that it is an entirely "artificial", man-made construct..
Natural - beaver makes damn by stacking logs. Damn serves it's purpose, and goes back to nature in some managable amount of time.
Man-made - Man makes concrete and big machines, makes damn that floods entire valley for a thousand years after the men who made it are dead and gone.
Natural - oil in the ground.
Man-made - taking the oil and making it into gasoline powered machines. Also making it into plastic, which trashes up the place for a thousand years after the men who made it are dead and gone.
That's my take on it.
Animals, etc. manipulate nature and their immediate surrounding environment in the interest of their survival, but it's done on a smaller scale that nature can "recover" from. The animals are doing it as a part of nature.
Man makes stuff that goes way beyond the basics needed for our survival, and stays around altering the environment for centuries after we've used it for whatever percieved use we had for it.
The American Indians of the past are an example of man living with nature. They took only what they needed and use every bit of it. Almost nothing went to waste, and it all decayed and went back nature in some managable amount of time.
Huge concrete jungles called cities with people surrounded by plastic everywhere I'd consider to be living against nature. Taking raw materials, but making things out of them and altering the environment to the degree that it is an entirely "artificial", man-made construct..
While I agree about the forebrain, I tend to believe as long as mankind has been at making and using hand tools, they would exist even if our hands were 3 fingered claws. As long as we've spent refining hand tools I think it is our tools that were developed to work with our hands because of that active forebrain you mentioned.
I think there is 3 things we did in our evolution that that led to what we are now :
1)the moment our species have found a way to make weapons because we lack other natural weapon or strengh like many animals do.
2) the moment we started living in a big group of people which led to making cities.
3) the moment we became concious of our actions.
In that regard I really like the movies 10 000 and Year One. I think both movies depict ( well one not being very serious ) the life of our ancestor.
1)the moment our species have found a way to make weapons because we lack other natural weapon or strengh like many animals do.
2) the moment we started living in a big group of people which led to making cities.
3) the moment we became concious of our actions.
In that regard I really like the movies 10 000 and Year One. I think both movies depict ( well one not being very serious ) the life of our ancestor.
now because I don't think consumption, wasting things, traveling fast was always around us. I mean I'm sure that for centuries humain had a hard time just find enough to eat or when they finally killed something none of it was gone to waste.
it seems that after WWII we really became focus on buying more than we could for the first time in our history
Hands are as important as brains.
Monkeys have hands, but their brains are not evolved enough to develop anything beyond the most rudimentary weapons and tools.
Dolphins and whales have big brains and no hands. No hands means no tools or weapons at all.
We are the Holy Goof- hands and brains.
Monkeys have hands, but their brains are not evolved enough to develop anything beyond the most rudimentary weapons and tools.
Dolphins and whales have big brains and no hands. No hands means no tools or weapons at all.
We are the Holy Goof- hands and brains.
Don't forget the most revolutionary thing we ever created - agriculture.
As for why we're destructive; all things are "destructive", even to themselves.
Money is an abstract concept. You'll have to go much deeper than that to understand human nature. Profit is just on the surface of what really drives us. We wouldn't have the concept of profit and/or wealth to begin with if there wasn't a need to create these concepts.
Of course "money is the root of all evil" is a simple (and cynical) quick catchphrase to neatly package a complex problem into. Think about it. If not being concerned with money is the solution, why be concerned with your employment stability if it comes into question? Wouldn't an enlightened, concerned person eschew the idea of assigning monetary value to things? Would bartering be any different in principle? Everything can't just be free. Society wouldn't work that way. Why is that? Is it caused by greed or something that requires us to measure things?
Of course "money is the root of all evil" is a simple (and cynical) quick catchphrase to neatly package a complex problem into. Think about it. If not being concerned with money is the solution, why be concerned with your employment stability if it comes into question? Wouldn't an enlightened, concerned person eschew the idea of assigning monetary value to things? Would bartering be any different in principle? Everything can't just be free. Society wouldn't work that way. Why is that? Is it caused by greed or something that requires us to measure things?
Humans aren't the only animals that have the concept of possession. So are we a special case, or would intelligent squid in a million years develop the concepts of value and then greed? I don't expect an answer to that. It's just something to think about.
