Discuss us, the human race

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 19:02

That what I made bold, that is exactly what differs us from animals. They don't know emotion, therefore don't know jealousy and greed, etc.

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 19:04

But didn't our hands evolve from a sort of ball with five 'sticks' to the murder weapons they are now?

Written by Bas on 21.06.2006 at 19:08

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 19:02

That what I made bold, that is exactly what differs us from animals. They don't know emotion, therefore don't know jealousy and greed, etc.

i disagree, i think its quite possible or even probable that animals have alot of the emotions that we have aswell, since emotions are basically just instincts (i think we already discussed this once over msn? )

and we all know that animals feel emotions like pain, fear, sympathy, happiness, even anger,
and the reason those make us bad even though they dont make them bad (according to your point of view) is simply because the human is so powerful (or rather is able to create powerful things (weapons tools, etc.))

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Cryptic Myth said:
Anyway, about the discussion of Death. I feel, that there's nothing after death. You just die. Then your body decomposes.

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Bas2 said:
rather the kind of hands and fingers which gorrillas or apes have aswell, and actually there are certain ape species which are also capable of making and using primitive tools....

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Draklar said:
Without us, the Earth wouldn't have any purpose. It would be just another unimportant rock drifting in the universe. The only way for it to evolve any further and gain any purpose is to spawn a race of highly intelligent beings. Once those acquire ability to travel between planets and even colonize them, they become Earth's "DNA" carriers. They can transport Earth's plants, animals and even culture. It's like an intercourse on a global scale!

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Draklar said:
And besides. Looking at human's brain power, using it just to hunt down animals? What a waste...

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Ur-Nammu said:
@Draklar, finally someone who agrees with me amongst all these misanthropes Oh well, misanthropy was always "trendy" (pardon the expression) among the sub-cultures.

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 22:38

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Draklar said:
Without us, the Earth wouldn't have any purpose. It would be just another unimportant rock drifting in the universe. The only way for it to evolve any further and gain any purpose is to spawn a race of highly intelligent beings. Once those acquire ability to travel between planets and even colonize them, they become Earth's "DNA" carriers. They can transport Earth's plants, animals and even culture. It's like an intercourse on a global scale!

What is the actual purpose that we give the Earth then? What do we add to life, except a barrel of toxic waste?

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 22:38

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Draklar said:
And besides. Looking at human's brain power, using it just to hunt down animals? What a waste...

What a waste. Probably. But what did we do with it? Anything usefull?

Written by [user id=1868] on 21.06.2006 at 23:22

Sure, it's not pretty, but there's nothing outrageous about it. Whining about pollution is kind of like yelling at your own DNA, that it decays and eventually causes your death.

Written by [user id=1868] on 21.06.2006 at 23:22

Okay, let me expand the thought then.
Basic history of Earth. It was first formed, after some time appeared basic life forms, those life forms evolved eventually giving birth to homo sapiens. This specie further evolved its mentality. It created science. This science eventually may bring a possibility to colonize other planets, but also causes some pollution (and decay) to Earth itself. To summarise: the Earth was born, it developed, eventualy creating a possibility of sending out its material and may soon face its death. Rings a bell? It should.
Exactly same scheme can be observed in many life forms. They are born, they develop, they send their genetic material and then they die.
Sure, it's not pretty, but there's nothing outrageous about it. Whining about pollution is kind of like yelling at your own DNA, that it decays and eventually causes your death.

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Notably, we created complicated philosophical concepts and art. Asides that, like I already said: We seem to be an important part of Earth's development.

Written by Bas on 21.06.2006 at 23:31

Written by [user id=1868] on 21.06.2006 at 23:22

Sure, it's not pretty, but there's nothing outrageous about it. Whining about pollution is kind of like yelling at your own DNA, that it decays and eventually causes your death.

but here i disagree,
we can try what we want, we wont ever be able to stop the decay of our DNA, no matter what we do, but it is possible to stop the decay of our planet, if we stop polluting it, the earth will live on, however if we make sure our DNA doesnt get polluted we still die anyway

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 23:33

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Notably, we created complicated philosophical concepts and art. Asides that, like I already said: We seem to be an important part of Earth's development.

So? You might think, there you have him whining about his essence and all, as I've said it once and I'll say it again, I believe it is all about the essence. It is our goal to live and reproduce, and it is not our goal produce pretty drawings or to produce lovely music. (Again hypocritical, as I've often said -and still do- music is my life)

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 17:27

Written by Daru Jericho on 21.06.2006 at 04:53

I cannot give an exact year, but I believe that mankind reached its peak many years ago and currently we are declining. Why? I would say that there are too many distractions, such as television, Internet (irony strikes again!) etc. More people watch television than read a book, which is depressing. I remember reading a statistic about America (a country that is often perceived as a great, all mighty nation) that states only 33% of adults read in their spare time. This appaulled me because I consider reading a great thing. Reading expands our knowledge, creativity and possibly most importantly, our imagination.

Where do we need imagination for? I would go back way more than you, back to a life without tools. I think that only the essence is important, and for me the essence is sleep and food.

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This brings me to my second point, nicely. Aesthetics seem to be valued far more than intelligence nowdays. A classic example is the 'nerd' and bully. People being picked on because they are clever? Sounds insane. Indeed, I have come across a lot of people who refrain from telling people their exam marks because they are good and they are worried that they will be labelled as a 'boffin'. Quite unfortunate and a sure regression. There used to be a time when intelligence was regarded much higher. Sadly, these days have clearly dissolved. However, you can be conventionally beautiful and people will love you and feel drawn to you and in a lot of cases it doesn't matter what you do. I think this could have something to do with media input. Whether this is engrained in the human mind or not is something I cannot be certain on.

That what I made bold is what seems to be the problem everywhere. Jealousy.
Again, I agree with you to a certain point, my my view and ideals are much more radical.

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Present society has a great disregard for the world we live in. As already stated, the ecosystem is being trashed, with global warming, war, deforestation and over fishing as clear examples. I really wish preservation for the natural world was in higher regard rather than menial things such as owning the lastest CD or seeing the latest horror flick.

This will most probably never happen. Your own possession is always more important then the possession's of the collective, the 'others can take care of that'.

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My attitude towards humans? Leave them to themselves. They'll wipe each other out. I live in the suburbs of the biggest city here so I'm rather sick and tired of people and their double standards.

That's what I think too.

I feel I can't help this world, by cleaning it. It would probably be more useful if I'd speed up the process of our extinction.

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((PS: I think you should all be grateful when reading this post because I had to type it out twice since Firefox mysteriously closed for no reason while I was very near to the end!))

Thanks for taking the trouble to type it once, and even more for typing it twice!

Written by [user id=1868] on 22.06.2006 at 00:42

Written by Lucas on 21.06.2006 at 23:33

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Notably, we created complicated philosophical concepts and art. Asides that, like I already said: We seem to be an important part of Earth's development.

So? You might think, there you have him whining about his essence and all, as I've said it once and I'll say it again, I believe it is all about the essence. It is our goal to live and reproduce, and it is not our goal produce pretty drawings or to produce lovely music. (Again hypocritical, as I've often said -and still do- music is my life)

Rightfully brought up argument.
My answer would be as such: Art and philosophy is another part of evolution, a mental one. If we state this stage of development to be unneeded, then why not the previous one? And the one before it...
Why should we create art?
Why should we think?
Why should we reproduce?
Why should we live?
It goes on like this without any valid answer. The circle of life doesn't seem to have any greater purpose, at least at first glance. Either way, I don't find any goal in living alone. But then you might give it a second thought: "Hey, but it does go somewhere!" Did the evolution ever stop? No, it goes on. It even took a new course. Human, although not the greatest work of physical evolution on Earth, is surely the most advanced as far as mental evolution goes. Who knows? Maybe at some point evolution will take yet another course? Maybe that's the purpose of life? To keep evolving. Strive to reach something that we still cannot perceive.
If you'll stop the evolution at its physical stage, then there's really no point. Life then exists solely for the sake of existing. No aim, no goal, no purpose.

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Daru Jericho said:
Forgive my retarded way of answering. I'm too lazy to do the whole quote box division thing

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I'm a rather creative and artistic person and I put imagination in high regard. Without it people are plain boring. Imagination is a spice of life. Primative life would not be a comfortable one for me. If humans lived in such conditions we would be killed off by a fiercer species. It is possible to have civilisation without disasters I initially describe but it would require the entire cooperation of everyone, which of course is near to impossible.

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But in someways, the world around us is our own and we should endeavour to at least take care of our surroundings, even if it's just a section of the town we inhabit.

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I agree and disagree with you on speeding up the process. The world needs many milennia to recover and the sooner humanity leaves the more beneficial for the planet. However, I do not think I need to be part of this. Something bigger will deal the right cards, so to speak.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 09:38

And this is probabbly our main difference. I do believe this. Coincidence brought us all here, and left us here. And we don't know why.. but we just got to do it as we should. We wants us to do that, you might say? No God, I don't believe in any supernatural power, but I believe that is our instinct. To live and reproduce. And not to create art.

Written by [user id=1868] on 22.06.2006 at 11:20

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 09:38

And this is probably our main difference. I do believe this. Coincidence brought us all here, and left us here. And we don't know why.. but we just got to do it as we should. We wants us to do that, you might say? No God, I don't believe in any supernatural power, but I believe that is our instinct. To live and reproduce. And not to create art.

But then you have to admit solely living and reproducing isn't our goal. Only logical conclusion if life has no goal at all.

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Suddenly all arguments against pollution, murdering and greed are lost. If life has no meaning then destroying it cannot be negative either. In such light mankind never did anything wrong.
Argument against pollution and greed arises with development of human. It's necessary for us to drop those things in order to evolve our mentality further.
Otherwise what? That we destroy life on our planet due to our selfish deeds? So? Life on our planet has no purpose to exist anyway.

Written by [user id=1868] on 22.06.2006 at 12:27

Goal indicates that something goes towards something. Living and reproducing is just a circle so it cannot have any goal by itself.

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If we would compare it to the game of soccer, it would be just about running after the ball, without goals on the field. Such game would be ceased due to not having any point.

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If we are to look for a purpose of life, we need to find an aspect of it creating a straight line, seemingly going towards something. In fact, there is one. The circle of life expanded over the time, forms a line, which we call the evolution.

Written by [user id=1868] on 22.06.2006 at 12:44

So life came into existence for the purpose of supporting something that didn't exist before life was created?
That doesn't make a chronological sense.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 12:49

And yes, maybe life came here and 'found out' that it could do nothing except keeping the circle rolling. IMO, that could be a possibility too.

Written by [user id=1868] on 22.06.2006 at 13:02

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 12:49

And yes, maybe life came here and 'found out' that it could do nothing except keeping the circle rolling. IMO, that could be a possibility too.

Which brings us back to the point that life is pointless and there's nothing wrong with destroying it.

Observe mankind. Thanks to development of science we created many things that escape the circle of life, things that could never be done by forces which created us.
Not only did we create computers, we start to create artificial intelligence. In future we could make far greater things, which would truly influence the universe.
Goal of life cannot be found within life itself. That would be a paradox. It must be hidden somewhere outside.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 13:07

But is destroying the circle of life better than stay into it, forever?

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 13:07

'which would truly influence the universe. '
Yes. Another area we can destroy completely. Is that a goal of life?

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Nervel said:
But is destroying the circle of life better than stay into it, forever?

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Draklar said:
It makes no difference, so it isn't worse either.

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Nervel said:
'which would truly influence the universe. '
Yes. Another area we can destroy completely. Is that a goal of life?

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Draklar said:
Well, I beg your pardon, but have we ever destroyed anything?

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We only did what we were supposed to do. From the very beginning we were controled by Earth's ecosystem.
For example, let's take a look at pollution.
Long before human came into existence, Earth started creating various sources of energy. Human came across those and started using them. Eventually a reaction, much like a chemical one appeared:

Human + Source of Energy --> Human + Energy + Pollution

Using the otherwise pointless sources of energy, allowed Earth further development, also giving side effect in the form of pollution. Once ammount of pollution increased, it caused rise of ecological awareness within human. Another stage in the development, which allows human to care about his surroundings. Obviously we still have some stages to go through, but without doubt we're better than our previous form of savages that you promote here.

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If anything, human remaining in the savage state, would be destroying the system. Sources of energy would remain unused, evolution of our brain wouldn't make sense, life wouldn't have any point and Earth would face stagnation.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 14:31

We destroyed animals, meaning that we were the reason of their -unnessecary- extinction.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 14:31

Our previous form didn't pollute. It didn't think either.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 14:31

I don't see why we -who think and pollute- are 'without doubt' better than our form who didn't do both.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 14:31

Let me use an example now. Cannibal Corpse got bashed a thousand times for their release of 'Kill'. Journalist and reviewers said it was the same formula that they use over and over again and that they never showed any sign of evolution. CC responded: 'We do show sign of evolution. We will never add new instruments or turn symphonic, but our evolution can clear be seen in the improvement of the formula. We do make the same music over and over again, but it is our purpose to do perfect it more next time.'.

I agree with this, Earth could have better stayed with the Neanderthalers (savages, you call them) as they could develop differently, not in a mental part but in different ways.

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Nervel said:
We destroyed animals, meaning that we were the reason of their -unnessecary- extinction.

Draklar said:
Like I said, that we destroyed anything is just an illusion. The system brought those animals to life and system destroyed them. We were nothing more than a tool.

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Nervel said:
Our previous form didn't pollute. It didn't think either.

Draklar said:
It didn't give a fuck about environment either
We do now. All the negative aspects in human being come from our previous form. As we develop, negative aspects are replaced with possitive ones.

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Nervel said:
I don't see why we -who think and pollute- are 'without doubt' better than our form who didn't do both.

Draklar said:
Because we gained an ecological awareness and understanding of ethics.
If you'd give our previous form all the technology we have today and tought how to use it, mankind would wipe itself and everything around out.

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Nervel said:
Let me use an example now. Cannibal Corpse got bashed a thousand times for their release of 'Kill'. Journalist and reviewers said it was the same formula that they use over and over again and that they never showed any sign of evolution. CC responded: 'We do show sign of evolution. We will never add new instruments or turn symphonic, but our evolution can clear be seen in the improvement of the formula. We do make the same music over and over again, but it is our purpose to do perfect it more next time.'.

I agree with this, Earth could have better stayed with the Neanderthalers (savages, you call them) as they could develop differently, not in a mental part but in different ways.

Draklar said:
Well, this is somewhat dodgy.
They create music for other to enjoy it. It defends existence of their music in whatever form it may be.
Nothing defends existence of life alone though.
If they were making same music that no one listens to, then that would be a better example.

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 15:04

I disagree. How come we didn't extinct animals? You mean it wasn't us who burnt down their forest, who made them pets, who hunted them down for jewelery?

Written by Lucas on 22.06.2006 at 15:04

True. But I feel we are coming close to that point too.