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Would it be so bad if humans went extinct? Humans are just psychotic violent apes.
Does any other animal take orders from invisible sky monsters (what humans call “gods”)? Does any other animal systematically slaughter each other (war)?
Perhaps our kind of intelligence and anatomical design isn’t designed to last very long.
War fosters technological advancement. All part of our evolution in existence. Life in general competes, we do it in our own illogical way.
One things for sure it all falls on competition for resources, hence survival. We’re just able to elaborate and extrapolate ourselves into ready built misery.
Would it be so bad if humans went extinct? Humans are just psychotic violent apes.
Does any other animal take orders from invisible sky monsters (what humans call “gods”)? Does any other animal systematically slaughter each other (war)?
Bad for who? If not for me and my children, who really cares what happens to the earth? You think animals care if their species becomes extinct? What matters is very personal and very limited.
Would it be so bad if humans went extinct? Humans are just psychotic violent apes.
Does any other animal take orders from invisible sky monsters (what humans call “gods”)? Does any other animal systematically slaughter each other (war)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by UrbanQuest
Perhaps our kind of intelligence and anatomical design isn’t designed to last very long.
War fosters technological advancement. All part of our evolution in existence. Life in general competes, we do it in our own illogical way.
One things for sure it all falls on competition for resources, hence survival. We’re just able to elaborate and extrapolate ourselves into ready built misery.
I am waiting for the DNA researchers to figure out what gene or genes cause some humans to so easily kill other humans. I do remember reading something about a "warrior gene" but that is not the whole picture.
We have some people eager to start wars, some who are actually ok with killing other humans, and a whole other set of people who are appalled by that behavior. How do we breed out that willingness to kill?
Would it be so bad if humans went extinct? Humans are just psychotic violent apes.
Does any other animal take orders from invisible sky monsters (what humans call “gods”)? Does any other animal systematically slaughter each other (war)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ansible90
I am waiting for the DNA researchers to figure out what gene or genes cause some humans to so easily kill other humans. I do remember reading something about a "warrior gene" but that is not the whole picture.
We have some people eager to start wars, some who are actually ok with killing other humans, and a whole other set of people who are appalled by that behavior. How do we breed out that willingness to kill?
The natural realm itself is based on violence, savagery, and predation. War and killing is simply an expression of this. Do you think violence and killing is unique to man? If hamadryas baboons had nuclear weapons, they'd destroy the world within a week.
The natural realm itself is based on violence, savagery, and predation. War and killing is simply an expression of this. Do you think violence and killing is unique to man? If hamadryas baboons had nuclear weapons, they'd destroy the world within a week.
Those animals don't think. They don't have the ability to build the nukes in the first place. They can't empathize with others. They operate solely on instinct.
Those of us humans who are appalled by humans killing humans can generally empathize with others. That I believe is the difference. It is the humans who cannot empathize who are the problem. It is not all humans.
The natural realm itself is based on violence, savagery, and predation. War and killing is simply an expression of this. Do you think violence and killing is unique to man? If hamadryas baboons had nuclear weapons, they'd destroy the world within a week.
HILARIOUS -- because so true! Yeah, never was a big fan of apes and monkeys.
It's too bad about that asteroid. The raptors might have been a better prospect. Yes, they were violent predators, too, but as cousins to the birds, perhaps they would have stuck strictly to the nuclear family: two parents, and babies. Forget hierarchical troops. Even when they live in flocks, they're just not ugly about it the way we are in our mass encampments.
Those animals don't think. They don't have the ability to build the nukes in the first place. They can't empathize with others. They operate solely on instinct.
Those of us humans who are appalled by humans killing humans can generally empathize with others. That I believe is the difference. It is the humans who cannot empathize who are the problem. It is not all humans.
Animals can think, and they are certainly demonstrably empathic. And empathy is not the quality which allowed us to come up with nukes as a weapon. We are a very advanced tool-making ape -- that's what gave us that edge.
Human beings are being savagely murdered by the hundred thousand, by other human beings, every single day, 365 days a year, all around the world, now, and in all past eras. That's a lot of human beings murdered, and a lot of human beings lacking basic empathy who are doing the murdering. A lot. So many you can't say it's some anomalous fluke, or an aberration, or the 'problem.' The problem is that you can only feel empathy for someone you know, or someone you know about, and someone you deem deserving in your empathy calculus. Everyone else is just an annoying or menacing mass of competitors standing in your way, depending on the circumstance. Even now, as you read my words, written by a living, breathing human being whose life encompassed much joy as well as profound sorrow, you have exactly zero empathy for me. I am no one in the register of your emotional life. If I dropped dead in the next second, you wouldn't lose one second of sleep over it.
Animals can think, and they are certainly demonstrably empathic. And empathy is not the quality which allowed us to come up with nukes as a weapon. We are a very advanced tool-making ape -- that's what gave us that edge.
Human beings are being savagely murdered by the hundred thousand, by other human beings, every single day, 365 days a year, all around the world, now, and in all past eras. That's a lot of human beings murdered, and a lot of human beings lacking basic empathy who are doing the murdering. A lot. So many you can't say it's some anomalous fluke, or an aberration, or the 'problem.' The problem is that you can only feel empathy for someone you know, or someone you know about, and someone you deem deserving in your empathy calculus. Everyone else is just an annoying or menacing mass of competitors standing in your way, depending on the circumstance. Even now, as you read my words, written by a living, breathing human being whose life encompassed much joy as well as profound sorrow, you have exactly zero empathy for me. I am no one in the register of your emotional life. If I dropped dead in the next second, you wouldn't lose one second of sleep over it.
Then what is your answer as to why some people can kill others and not care, yet others are appalled by such behavior? What makes those two kinds of people different?
BTW, I and many others do have empathy for people we do not personally know. Maybe you don't cringe when you see a video of a bomb dropping on an apartment building or hospital in Ukraine. I do. I care about those people who die there.
Then what is your answer as to why some people can kill others and not care, yet others are appalled by such behavior? What makes those two kinds of people different?
BTW, I and many others do have empathy for people we do not personally know. Maybe you don't cringe when you see a video of a bomb dropping on an apartment building or hospital in Ukraine. I do. I care about those people who die there.
I don't have the answer; my point is that the line is thinner than you assume. I mean, human beings are dropping bombs on those Ukrainian apartment buildings. A lot of human beings, not just a sociopath or two. There's a whole army doing it.
Watch Shoah sometime.
Read some history.
It's quite a bloodbath. Again, I have no easy answers; but I do have enough humility not to declare myself an empathy saint who cares about everyone. I don't care about everyone, and I don't trust anyone who claims they do. I don't want to hug Putin and forgive his crimes. I wouldn't care at all if a bomb dropped straight on his head right now.
It is disengenuous to claim empathy for all. If you really felt true empathy for every victim of injustice in the world, you'd have a nervous breakdown within a day flat. And I'm being very serious about that.
The biggest issue with heading towards a big population decline is the decline throes. No one will want to live through the big decline throes. It will be bleak, to say the least. World governments are providing incentives for people to continue to have babies in order to avert the bleak scenario. Probably why our leadership is allowing an unprecedented flood of migrants across the border.
As an aside, it's been asked in this thread whether there was ever a catastrophic decline/depopulation/extinction of a society historically, and the answer is yes, of course there has. One of the mysteries of the decline and fall of Ancient Rome was a massive depopulation. Rome ceased to exist as a political or cultural entity right around that time. Not that it caused a human extinction, but the depopulation was massive and plunged the West into a thousand years of miserable and marginal existence. Right around the crash, the Roman elites did what we see our elites doing now, namely, consolidated their wealth and moved away from the riots, chaos, plunder, and lawlessness of the streets. I beleive low fertility among Roman women was a huge problem and contributing factor.
Another society that comes to mind is Easter Island. They used up their natural resources, depopulated, and ended up eating each other.
most civilizations rise and fall within 200 years. None have been shown to do so due to natural population decrease. The depopulation of Rome had to do with plague, war and natural disasters. There is no record or evidence of low fertility among Roman women.
As far a Easter Island, arrival of Europeans and small pox and slave trade finished them off.
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