If it's not put on sure, and I agree there are a lot of dumb people out in the World. I was not in denial in that that fact. I just was stating that this is for the Jimmy Fallon show, comedy and entertainment based...so they have to make it entertaining. I agree though there are dumb people....met plenty myself. Also I know they're trying to teach a very edited history class these days in most schools but I guess they better look at upping science teaching as well.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Should We Save Homo Sapiens?
- Thread starter Bunk McNulty
- Start date
-
- Tags
- save
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Often, they carefully edit these. I doubt this was the general scope of the replies.
Half the (us) people are of average, or below average, intelligence.
Assuming that the entirety of the human population follows a normal bell curve with equal distribution.
It is just not about intelligence alone, there are some smart people out there who are just under educated.
We're merely a glimpse in the grand scheme of life. 150 000 out of 3 billion years.
There was life long before humans and it will remain long after our specie vanished.
Do you really think the point of life as a whole is to serve us little monkeys?
It is a pretentious and unsubstanciated claim.
i'm with the folks in the OP's video: i don't see the advantages of saving homo sapiens before we save ourselves. also: we should save species in alphabetical order to reduce potential 'infighting'.
Actually, I absolutely do think that we are the reason for all of this "life" stuff. The defining factor? Conciousness.
Dinosaurs didn't know they were dinosaurs. Chickens don't know they're chickens. Cavemen barely knew the difference between themselves and animals.
We, however, are aware. Without conciousness, what, exactly, is the point of any life? It's why we quit selling humans and still sell animals. There is value to human life above all other lives. Most other lives are edible to us. We are the very tip top of the food chain. The only times we are prey are the rare times we put ourselves in that unfortunate position. We are not as strong as many creatures. We are not venomous. We are not as fast as many animals. But our conciousness puts us far and away above the rest.
That's not to say that humans make no mistakes. Far from it.
But that doesn't mean we aren't kind of the whole point of whatever this experiment is.
How would you know that you're not merely a step, a prototype toward a new specie that really is the point?
This is strictly a philosophical question because if we take science seriously, your position doesn't hold a second.
There are at least a dozen other self aware species. The rest of the factors you claim are distinctive of humans but don't put us ahead of anything. Cavemen btw weren't significantly different from you. Even a cousin specie like neanderthal would barely get noticed if you crossed them in the street.
Finally, where do you get the notion that there's a point or a goal to all of this? The only point we know regarding life is its tendency to ever replicate and keep going.
This is strictly a philosophical question because if we take science seriously, your position doesn't hold a second.
There are at least a dozen other self aware species. The rest of the factors you claim are distinctive of humans but don't put us ahead of anything. Cavemen btw weren't significantly different from you. Even a cousin specie like neanderthal would barely get noticed if you crossed them in the street.
Finally, where do you get the notion that there's a point or a goal to all of this? The only point we know regarding life is its tendency to ever replicate and keep going.
I think it's exactly this attitude that has resulted in this planet being in the mess that it's currently in.
There are probably countless examples, but here's just one: palm oil seems to be an ingredient used mostly in junk food. Junk food is exactly that, junk food...little to no actual nutritional value, but a lot of people like it, therefore (between that and the fact that it provides jobs) it has "human value".
Meanwhile, forests that provide palm oil are - like most commercial forest operations all over the world - being razed at an atrocious and unsustainable rate, driving countless species into the endangered zone, if not outright extinction, or at least extirpation ("local" extinction...maybe not extinct altogether, but extinct in that particular region.)
On that latter point, really close to home for me (British Columbia), the provincial government recently released the last six survivors of a caribou herd in the East Kootenay Region, and transplanted them into another caribou herd in another mountain range.
The government knew for years, decades even, that at the rate industry was logging the particular area where this sad group of six remaining caribou were eventually relocated from, would likely result in extirpation of that herd, and yet things continued on as usual, until exactly that scenario played out.
I question, too, the notion that humans are the only creatures on the planet that have "consciousness". I suppose that's somewhat dependent on exactly how one defines that word though.
Anyways - the planet's a mess, humans (including myself...I'm not on a high horse here, I try to do my bit, but I'm not innocent) are the cause of that mess , and frankly, in my opinion, anyone who thinks anything else is bordering on delusional.
Last edited:
I never said we were above reproach.
But, again, unless something is AWARE that there even IS a planet, what's the point? But for humans, the whole thing would just be a huge fish tank.
There are also instances of creatures decimating their own food supplies. So we are not alone in our guilt. In some parts of North America, wild hogs are destroying acre after acre of land. The difference is that they are too dumb to know what they are doing.
I'd suggest knowing you are doing it and still doing it is worse. It seems that some species of animals change predation to allow prey types to recover so animals may not be too dumb to have some conception at some level of this, although it might be instinctive. But my dogs have gone down from three to two meals a day and are pacing themselves such they have food left for lunch, and they are collaborating on this, it seems.
- Oct 22, 2015
- 21,127
- 256,224
- Disclosures
- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
If all the inhabitants of this world - excluding homo sapiens - are asked: humans, stay or go? the answer would be ....
Will need a "carrots" option. And no certainty humans will honor the outcome. Humans being humans and all.
Will need a "carrots" option. And no certainty humans will honor the outcome. Humans being humans and all.
I wouldn't say that necessarily disqualifies two fingers perspective. It may be Anthropocentric, but it bears a consistent internal logic. The statement that our own awareness of our flaws doesn't make us ethically better than animals who are not necessarily aware of much doesn't combat the notion that our awareness of ourselves and the extended universe doesn't at the very least count for something.
