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"The very thing that has diseased man from the time he walked upright is the thing that will kill man. Greed. "
Greed is not a disease. It is a variation of survival of the fittest. The people who were not greedy gave their portions of the community kill to others and died. The people who were not greedy did not hoard grains for the winter and died.
I agree. Greed as well as a variety of other motives, emotions, etc... are a product of our evolutionary beginnings. But, evolution being the way it is, it doesn't always give us the best, just what is most suitable for a given environment.
However much necessary greed was in our evolutionary beginnings, it is still wired into us and just like anything else can be used for good or bad; it can very often be the motivator for a number of bad things.
Merely being a product of evolution does not make something necessarily 'good' in the intrinsic sense and very often the initial purpose or evolutionary "reasoning", if you will, can often remain with us long after the necessity for it has passed by - like the appendix.
Of course, simply saying that greed is a solitary element of the human psyche is even hard to put into context as there are many multi-faceted elements in which greed may or may not be conceived.
What I initially wanted to get at with greed being our downfall unfortunately failed to capture the wide range of hindering emotions and motivations of a rather eclectic human dynamic that can lead to a variety of good things as well as bad things. Perhaps it would have been better if I said something along the lines of our minds as being our downfall more than anything. By that, I mean the wide and vast range of variations we use our greed, ignorance, benevolence, philanthropy, neutrality, etc... with one another. While we as a species would have never survived (probably) without these things, they can also be the 'appendix' of our society.
Nevertheless, for better or worse, it's what makes us human and I suppose we should also cherish our vast range of emotions, ideas and capabilities in being just that.
As far as technology goes, I really think people are blowing the idea of increased technological advances out of control and that's what I really wanted to focus on in my initial response. The very fact that people are scared of technology also seems to be ingrained in our evolutionary ability to be fearful of that which we can't explain - which may very well have helped us in our early stages of human development.
The problem I have with the article is that its a futurist proposing his view of the future while also saying that the future is unpredictable because technology is growing at an exponential pace. You can't have it both ways.
The other problem I have is that we inherently think of progress as a linear extension of what we have right now. Very few of us can extrapolate the unknown. Pre-9/11, no one would have predicted that we in America would be bleeding billions of dollars each day and be in an economic crisis. Similarly, even those who worked on the first vacuum tube computers could not have forseen the awesome change that the silicon chip would bring. We can only predict linear extensions of what we have right now, not what a sudden leap in technology can bring.
What is constant is us. Throughout the centuries of human existence, we have hardly evolved at all - yes, we've created better governement and economic structures (if we agree that the industrial revolution was a leap forward from feudalism, if we agree that democracy is better than a monarchy) - but our core is the same. We still, as people have suggested here, feel greed, get lazy. We also tend to abdicate responsibility to some authority and responsibility, be it to the teacher who is now responsible for our children's education, the political leader who controls our large social structures, the computer chip that does our taxes and insurance calculations. We've allowed law to replace ethics, because a discussion on ethics takes too much of our time.
So, yeah, our doom will come . . . but not because of technology, but because we inherently prefer leisure to work and are willing to give up our freedoms so that we would have less responsibilities.
I agree. Greed as well as a variety of other motives, emotions, etc... are a product of our evolutionary beginnings. But, evolution being the way it is, it doesn't always give us the best, just what is most suitable for a given environment.
However much necessary greed was in our evolutionary beginnings, it is still wired into us and just like anything else can be used for good or bad; it can very often be the motivator for a number of bad things.
Merely being a product of evolution does not make something necessarily 'good' in the intrinsic sense and very often the initial purpose or evolutionary "reasoning", if you will, can often remain with us long after the necessity for it has passed by - like the appendix.
Of course, simply saying that greed is a solitary element of the human psyche is even hard to put into context as there are many multi-faceted elements in which greed may or may not be conceived.
What I initially wanted to get at with greed being our downfall unfortunately failed to capture the wide range of hindering emotions and motivations of a rather eclectic human dynamic that can lead to a variety of good things as well as bad things. Perhaps it would have been better if I said something along the lines of our minds as being our downfall more than anything. By that, I mean the wide and vast range of variations we use our greed, ignorance, benevolence, philanthropy, neutrality, etc... with one another. While we as a species would have never survived (probably) without these things, they can also be the 'appendix' of our society.
Nevertheless, for better or worse, it's what makes us human and I suppose we should also cherish our vast range of emotions, ideas and capabilities in being just that.
As far as technology goes, I really think people are blowing the idea of increased technological advances out of control and that's what I really wanted to focus on in my initial response. The very fact that people are scared of technology also seems to be ingrained in our evolutionary ability to be fearful of that which we can't explain - which may very well have helped us in our early stages of human development.
Continuing the friendly debate, the appendix is actually still useful, especially in many undeveloped areas of the world. The gut is populated by a wide variety of friendly bacteria and microorganisms. When the gut needs to purge, due to food poisoning or other causes, the appendix acts as a repository of "safe" bacteria that can then re-populate the gut. It is only recently that the importance of the symbiosis of gut bacteria and the body is beginning to be understood by western medicine. Without that good bacteria, we cannot digest and absorb food properly, or fend off other opportunistic bacteria that are not healthy for us. Example - the common instruction to never feed babies honey. Their digestive system isn't developed enough and they haven't eaten enough dirt to combat botulism. The appendix keeps the gut "adult" through trials and tribulations.
Fear of technology is well-founded. Unfettered use of it can be psychotic. Regulated use of it can be equally crazy, especially if enforced by laws. The love/hate relationship we have with technology is a matter of us intentionally developing an appendage that we may not need and could harm us. To take the view of an attorney in seek of damages, our development and use of asbestos should have been illegal, due to known downsides, never mind that it allowed the steam revolution and our ascent out of the middle ages. The development of other technical tools can throw other aspects of life out-of-balance. When we use intensive agricultural methods and freely supply medicines to save starving and sick children in countries that already can't support their populations, our unbalanced use of technology ultimately creates strife, war, and even greater pestilence.
The phrase "no good deed goes unpunished" has more than a nugget of truth in it. There are positive and negative aspects to every action. How you perceive any action or technological advance depends more on your own point of view than any objective reality.
There is an ancient world wisdom story that has been used as a teaching tool for centuries in other cultures, to get people really thinking about the effects of change (and a bunch of other stuff too complicated to go into here). Briefly, and slightly modified, it goes:
There once was an all-seeing wandering mystic, charged with developing the spirituality of the people in his lands, so that they might better appreciate each other and their relationship to the world and the divine. One day, he heard word of a wonderous child in an isolated village. Reports were that child was brilliant and seemed to have a natural grasp of hidden secrets. All of the villagers had taken to treating this child as special, and regarding him with great deference. There was great happiness in the village that it had been blessed with this possibly divine presence.
The mystic hurried to the village and by means hidden to others, but obvious to him, discerned the overall effect of this child. That night, under the cover of darkness, he took the child away and drowned him.
A rather startling story and ending, but the sense of it is only revealed when the teacher later provides the rest of this "shaggy dog" story.
The mystic had realized that the adulation of the villagers had not only turned them away from their own spiritual development, but irrevocably corrupted the psyche of the child. The mystic understood that if allowed to live, the child would continue to have an unwavering following, and within a few years become a despot that would wreak death and destruction throughout the entire land for generations to come. By destroying the source of misguided attention, the villagers were set back on a more spiritual path. The loss of a single child was, in the greater balance of life, a small sacrifice.
When reading or hearing such metaphorical stories, it is important to understand that the characters do not represent actual people as much as concepts. Couching them in the terms of interactions between individuals, the story becomes easier to integrate and is better remembered. Had I said the story in a similar way, but replaced the child with the discovery of some technology that could provide limitless power and food, with just the loss of a portion of the soul as the cost, the story would be read and forgotten. The idea of harming a child intentionally is so taboo in almost all societies, that the recoil in horror becomes part of the teaching tool.
Sometimes the revelation of shock, pain, and distress can be a potent method of averting shock, pain, and distress. When the child is a particular technology, we all have to be the mystics that can discern the long-term effects of allowing it into our existence.
The Amish and Mennonites understand this and act accordingly, in concert with a belief system that they hold as a higher purpose. Many older folks, wise to the ways of the world, also act with distrust. The average young adult, as captivated as a magpie by bright shining objects, does not.
But we cannot truly or accurately determine the 'long term effects' of introducing either the child nor the technology into our society, because we only have our own flawed frame of reference. For example, the mystic who drowned the child - his frame of reference was history and the human tendency to idolize as well as the human tendency to take advantage of that idolization, turn it into despotism or JimJones pathology. BUT what if the child was truly a gift, and did NOT take advantage of the idolization, did NOT become a despot, did NOT become a terror - but recognized not only his own failures but that of others? We can only decide on 'new things' based on preconcieved concepts or learned responses. They could turn out to be more beneficial than ever imagined - or more terrible than ever conceived. Like all of the stories of aliens - we could have either the magnanimous forgiveness of Gort (which is also debatable) or "It's a COOKbook!"
But we cannot truly or accurately determine the 'long term effects' of introducing either the child nor the technology into our society, because we only have our own flawed frame of reference. For example, the mystic who drowned the child - his frame of reference was history and the human tendency to idolize as well as the human tendency to take advantage of that idolization, turn it into despotism or JimJones pathology. BUT what if the child was truly a gift, and did NOT take advantage of the idolization, did NOT become a despot, did NOT become a terror - but recognized not only his own failures but that of others? We can only decide on 'new things' based on preconcieved concepts or learned responses. They could turn out to be more beneficial than ever imagined - or more terrible than ever conceived. Like all of the stories of aliens - we could have either the magnanimous forgiveness of Gort (which is also debatable) or "It's a COOKbook!"
I find it fascinating that this standard response cropped up so quickly. I mentioned that I had modified the story slightly. The original would have incensed the sensibilities of many. The mystic wasn't operating from a historical perspective. He was a MYSTIC, with powers of understanding and observation beyond that of all of the other people in the land. If I had said that God smote the child with a lightning bolt, instead of saying that the mystic drowned him, would your response be the same?
I said that the story had a lot of other teaching aspects that were too complex to discuss here. That is just one. Our own egos drive many of us to examine the actions of others and make quick judgments or counter-proposals based on our own (usually flawed) knowledge.
Try this:
Say that I had the ability to levitate large stones without any advanced technology. Would it be prudent to share that knowledge with others? Why or why not? I could present a whole host of reasons why it might be a very bad idea.
"
What makes Ed’s work remarkable is the fact that he was just over 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds....
In 1940, after the carvings were in place, Ed finished erecting the walls(ALONE). The coral Walls approximately weigh 125 pounds per cubic foot. Each section of wall is 8 feet tall, 4 feet wide, 3 foot thick, and weighs more than 58 tons!
If anyone ever questioned Ed about how he moved the blocks of coral, Ed would only reply that he understood the laws of weight and leverage well."
If I had said that God smote the child with a lightning bolt, instead of saying that the mystic drowned him, would your response be the same?
I said that the story had a lot of other teaching aspects that were too complex to discuss here. That is just one. Our own egos drive many of us to examine the actions of others and make quick judgments or counter-proposals based on our own (usually flawed) knowledge.
Try this:
Say that I had the ability to levitate large stones without any advanced technology. Would it be prudent to share that knowledge with others? Why or why not? I could present a whole host of reasons why it might be a very bad idea.
"
What makes Ed’s work remarkable is the fact that he was just over 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds....
In 1940, after the carvings were in place, Ed finished erecting the walls(ALONE). The coral Walls approximately weigh 125 pounds per cubic foot. Each section of wall is 8 feet tall, 4 feet wide, 3 foot thick, and weighs more than 58 tons!
If anyone ever questioned Ed about how he moved the blocks of coral, Ed would only reply that he understood the laws of weight and leverage well."
Why yes, my response WOULD be the same. Because if someone truly believes in the Bible, they know all about Noah and the Ark - remember when God said that the rainbow was His promise to never destroy the earth by water again? Or the story of Lot? Why doesn't God, say, destroy Vegas, Baghdad, or Washington, DC with a rain of fire? Because He's LEARNED, expanded His horizons, permitted others to make choices - even wrong ones - and to learn from them as well. Even a Mystic, with vast powers of perception and vision into the future, can still ONLY base what he sees and learns on his past experiences and perceptions. He could have forseen the future - but that would indicate a belief in predestination, not freedom of choice and free will, and the endless possibilities of the flicker of a butterfly's wing changing a hurricane path. What people, either as a group or individuals, normally choose to do is not what they will always choose to do. As for the 'child' evoking emotional responses, that may be true with some, even most - but again, not all people, every time.
As for someone doing "the impossible", that is like presenting a Bic Lighter to 17th century aborigines - the impossible is only what one's current perceptions, beliefs, and experiences are. Do I believe that you could lift 85 ton coral walls? Not unless I've seen it, maybe watched you do it - but I would never discount the possibility. I believe that everythng is in 'the realm of the possible' - and that means that while people may follow their own emotions, beliefs, knowledge, or instincts as a norm, there are exceptions to the rule - exceptions that, with more understanding, could become the rule. So I can't answer the question at the start of this thread - because I believe in the potential of anything to become either the salvation or the destruction of Man, dependent on how he faces it and deals with it.
My thoughts are a machinists view of god, provide the best conditions for life and let it go, struggle, and succeed. Anything that is against god is not possible, anything that is not against god is possible. This has nothing to do with morality, however I think god guides and puts a seed to send humans in the correct way. Humans can be blinded to it though, which is where terrible tragedy takes hold.
Futurama, Cosmic Entity - "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
Let the technology flourish, it can have great boons...but be careful with it as it has terrible consequences. Many technologies do, and if we don't we might not reap rewards that push us to areas never thought possible. "Morals" of those in power pushed humanity into a dark age before, when sciences and learning were heresy...we are using technology now that in 500 A.D. would have had everyone burned at the stake if we were seen.
The problem I have with the article is that its a futurist proposing his view of the future while also saying that the future is unpredictable because technology is growing at an exponential pace. You can't have it both ways.
what he meant was, predictions can be made, up until a smarter-than-humans AI is developed. Since it will be so much smarter than us, we cant predict what it might invent/create...
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