I am a beast.

[max_]

Bullshit, what if we stick you out on the african savanna or in the australian top end rainforests or on the frozen ice fields for a couple weeks and see who's top of the food chain, I think the lions crocodiles snakes polar bears etc would all have a piece of your ass real quick.

Of course I would die in the wild. We're not talking about myself alone anymore, we're talking about human beings as a specie. There are humans living in the rain forest and guess what? they are at the top of the food chain there. Whatever environment we humans (ie Homo sapiens) live in, we become the top animal. We eat anything, we hunt anything. There is people living in the rain forest, there are Homo sapiens living on top of trees in Australia, there are human beings living in the desert of Sahara, there are human beings living in the Tibet mountains.
I don't know how to live in the jungle, but I could learn, that's how great I (we) are, if I was put into an african tribe I would probably havem the runts and dehydrate and don't want to taste the food. But given that I make it through the first few months, I would adapt, I would learn their ways, I would learn how to hunt an animal and eat it raw.
If you send a fat pet cat to live in the streets it will probably end up very low on the food chain (other wild cats would defeat him and take his food from him). The cat might even die because it never learned how to handle himself without its owner feeding him every day. But cats (Felis catus) are able to live in the wild and they are great at it. We, fat Homo sapiens, would end up very low on the food chain if we end up in the wild. But Humans (Homo sapiens) are very able to live in the wild and they exceed all expectations when they're at it.

 

[psychomimetic]

What do you mean? Me alone living in the woods being cold and hungry when everybody else eats mcdonalds? No way!
But when water runs out we'll all wish we didn't turn the AC so high last summer.




Irak, Israel, half the countries in Africa.. I'm so glad that both of us live in the few places of the world where other tribes (countries if you will) do not pose a threat to people. But do not fool yourself into thinking that nowadays society could exist without those threats being very real and very strong. There is war in the world, humans are killing each other in ways never thought possible. There have been atomic bombs, genocides, gas chambers.
And that is regarding whole civilizations, because I live in a so-called sterile city but just the other day I got a gun pointed at my face and trust me, it did feel like other humans were a threat to me.

I did include that in my point- people do pose threats to each other, but never in history has that been less true. Even the most violent regions in the world are much, much safer than ancient human societies were.

China, Cuba, the whole mid-east, Africa again.. I am also glad that we live in the western civilization and not in places where religion, governments, or other regimes are imposed to people. 1/5 of the world population lives in China, a communist country (I don't know what the Chinese have to say about that, but for what I've heard they are not exactly happy with their government).

All of those regions are safer than living in the wild, without a doubt.

China is not a communist country. Have you ever been to China? I don't think most people there would agree with you viewing their society as primitive or violent. Harsh rule is imposed on people in China, but it is not the same as ancient tribal societies which wage war on each other (and every other being) constantly, which is the nature that humans come from. We are more civilized and safer than our ancestors (10-20 thousand years ago) in every part of the world.

I will give you that some regions in Africa have a similar tribal warfare system in place, and I would blame that directly on modern western governments, but most of the world's population (being in China and India) lives in relatively safe conditions. Raiding parties from random tribes don't ride through, killing the men, raping the women, burning towns and taking people into slavery. Sure that still happens, but it is not the norm for modern human societies.

Hyper oppressive governments and religions still exist, but any understanding of history shows that they are constantly becoming fewer and fewer as humans develop our societies to be less like beasts.

I know we wont, my best guess is we'll end up extinct when the stuff we've been doing comes back to kick our butts.

Why? Extinction requires severe conditions, and I don't see any future in which humans will die out completely. Our population may drop due to mass death, but extinction? I don't see how any world event short of nuclear holocaust would lead to extinction, and even with large scale nuclear war I think that some humans would live and would undoubtedly do all in their power to continue the species.

I can learn, fast and good. That's what hands are for. And when I say are for I mean "that's what made the hands evolve into what they are now" (ie we have hands that can type on a keyboard because our ancestors with the best hands for tying knots and carving weapons out of stone were the ones who survived)

Lol sure dude, but the fact is you wouldn't last in the wild and you couldn't properly function as a beast. You are not a beast, you are a Western human. Humans are animals, but you are not a wild beast any more than any other man. Your feelings are because of the natural sex drive of a young man and arrogance, not any legitimate philosophical argument as to the primal nature of mankind.

And besides that, why would one want to be a beast? Where is the benefit?

And beyond that, the intellectual abilities you bragged about are not generally things one would describe as primal, animalistic or beast like.

I am (as all humans) at the top of the food chain because I am smarter than any other animal and I can plan my winters, build shelters, build bear traps. And also because I can outrun almost any animal, I can use technology such as carved stones or bows and arrows to kill any animal that may come my way.

I doubt you could outrun most relevant predators of humans.

Have you ever actually done any of the things you mentioned? Ever try to go off the grid and produce all your own food? I can tell you that it is damn near impossible and you will find yourself constantly struggling to survive, and that is assuming you have basic supplies ready for you before you start.

I've made stone weaponry for fun before, and making functional stone weapons is a skill that takes a very long time to learn. Do you know how to make arrows fly straight? Aiming a home made bow is hard, and hitting targets when every arrow has a different weight and balance is also very hard.

You sound very confident to the degree that I have to assume you've never tried doing what you're saying you can do. It's not fun man, and I think anyone who has tried it for more then a short period will tell you that it is much harder than you think. Do you really believe that you would remain the top of the food chain if you were dropped in the wild with no supplies? Hint- If the answer is yes, you are giving the wrong answer.

BTW, I'm a vegetarian and as such I am only top of the food chain in the sense that nothing else is going to eat me in the foreseeable future. I don't want to get into an argument about meat eating, but I feel that compassion is as valuable as brute strength, and being able to exist without needing to feel like you're dominating others is perhaps more valuable than the abilities you brag about.

I will (as all humans) become extinct because I can't go back to that ancient way of life, and with my modern technologies I pollute the environment with car exhaust, and I send heavy metals to the atmosphere, and I cut down the forests.

Living in space may or may not be doable, but if that's what we're relying on,, I mean what the hell? So then we are like those aliens in movies that conquer other planets because they are so malign to other living beings that they destroyed their planet. We are then a parasite, an infection. But the thing with parasites and infections is that they do have other hosts to which they can go once they've emptied theirs of its resources. We don't have other planet. You can theorize all you want about terraforming Mars, but please be real, we are the most evolved being on this planet, we rule it as we please and we are heading for extinction.

Living in space will be doable, don't doubt it. And it's not so much what we're relying on, more of a likely fall back I can guess at. I work constantly trying to make this planet a better place and move towards more sustainable ways of living that will preserve our ability to survive.

Are you doing anything to prevent what you view as the oncoming extinction event? Or do you just talk about how humans will be extinct online? If you think it's wrong of you to support deforestation and to pollute with your car etc, why not do something about it? Evolve perhaps, even if we're unlikely to solve the problems by trying, it is absolutely worth trying to solve them and dedicating your life to it if you feel like these are real problems. I think working to improve the world is much more valuable than simply looking in a mirror and thinking about what a strong man-beast you are.


What do you mean we are the most evolved? You mean our brains are the most evolved from our own perspective currently. The phrase "most evolved" means pretty much nothing as far as evolutionary biology goes. We are evolved, and so is every other creature. You simply have decided that we are superior to all other forms of life, which is a sentiment I disagree with.


"Parasite" is a matter of perspective. We use most of the resources on this planet currently, does that make us parasites? Why is using the resources of other planets (which I am assuming would have no life on them) more parasitic than using the resources of earth?

And what makes you think humans will become extinct? I know we're destroying this planet, but how do you propose the extinction event will occur? Depletion of resources will certainly not kill every human on the planet. You keep asserting we're heading towards extinction yet I see no support for that hypothesis. People have always felt like the end is near, but it doesn't mean it is.

Look man, you feel good about yourself and that's cool, good for you. You don't need us to validate you, you can create your own meaning to life. If being strong and whatnot makes you happy, cool, but I fail to see the use. Why does being a beast matter?

 

[psychomimetic]

Bullshit, what if we stick you out on the african savanna or in the australian top end rainforests or on the frozen ice fields for a couple weeks and see who's top of the food chain, I think the lions crocodiles snakes polar bears etc would all have a piece of your ass real quick.

Also, we are the only animal that wage war against each other for no other reason than an intellectual difference of opinions, don't see the animals doing that, we have raped the earth and destroyed our environment, very smart, I would say that humans for all their technology and science have done nothing but get sadder, lonelier and more alienated and miserable over history, we are arrogant, ignorant and self obsessed loners who have turned their back on nature, The natural symbiosis between all living things we just don't even see or feel anymore.

I agree with your first paragraph and everything after "we are arrogant", but the rest I'm not so sure. I don't think wars are waged simply because of differences in opinion, I think you'd be hard pressed to find many major wars that didn't have a basis in increasing one side's money and/or power. Most major wars are and always have been fought over land, money, people, and other physical assets.

I don't see how you can possibly know that humans are more sad, lonely and miserable now than before modern society began to develop.

Our technology is harming the world while simultaneously making it a better place. Human interaction is more civil and advanced than ever before. We are making progress, even if it doesn't feel like it.

 

[webbykevin]

I agree I was making a few sweeping assumptions there with no data or explanation, sorry i was pushed for time.

I am basing my theory that people are more isolated in modern social environments than in a more primative small community based system because of my own experiences living both in the worlds largest modern cities and living in remote locations ranging from small outback towns to hippy and co operative farming communes and also spending some time interacting with native aboriginal cultures and peoples in a few different continents.

It seemed to me that loneliness was a rare thing in small co-dependent communities but very prevalent in the western psych and there was a lot more spontaneous unforced laughing and general good humor in the smaller places too.

Before there was modern machinery, bulldozers, chainsaws, cranes, truck, engineering steel etc, people had to work together and interact together on a much closer and personal level, it required a constant amount of teamwork, mutual shared labour and friendship for these communities to survive.

So loneliness I feel was a much rarer thing in pre history, isolation of the tribe sometimes maybe, the odd banishing, some hermits, a few wandering sheperds, but on the whole people thought much more in terms of "our" instead of "my" stuff, children, responsibilities and possessions and so on.

 

[psychomimetic]

I agree I was making a few sweeping assumptions there with no data or explanation, sorry i was pushed for time.

I am basing my theory that people are more isolated in modern social environments than in a more primative small community based system because of my own experiences living both in the worlds largest modern cities and living in remote locations ranging from small outback towns to hippy and co operative farming communes and also spending some time interacting with native aboriginal cultures and peoples in a few different continents.

It seemed to me that loneliness was a rare thing in small co-dependent communities but very prevalent in the western psych and there was a lot more spontaneous unforced laughing and general good humor in the smaller places too.

Before there was modern machinery, bulldozers, chainsaws, cranes, truck, engineering steel etc, people had to work together and interact together on a much closer and personal level, it required a constant amount of teamwork, mutual shared labour and friendship for these communities to survive.

So loneliness I feel was a much rarer thing in pre history, isolation of the tribe sometimes maybe, the odd banishing, some hermits, a few wandering sheperds, but on the whole people thought much more in terms of "our" instead of "my" stuff, children, responsibilities and possessions and so on.

Those are interesting points, I definitely agree with you on a certain level, I've always felt much less lonely and isolated when I lived in small towns than when I lived in cities. But I was still dependent on technology in the small towns, and so were all the other people. I suppose technology is the reason big cities exist as they do, and I agree that (at least for me) living in smaller, interdependent communities is more mentally healthy than living in big cities. Some cities do have very tight nit communities though which I think can provide the same kind of situation.

Something I think is interesting is that in current times we have more superficial contact than ever before. Here we are, communicating instantly across nations and continents, and yet many of us probably feel more isolated and lonely than we would have in the past. Perhaps our brains crave direct human contact and communicating via technology doesn't cut it.

I think that one thing it's easy to forget about technology is that it has elevated our standards of living beyond what the average person of thousands of years ago would have thought possible. We might be more lonely in general but I think that we are happier. At least in the western world, starvation and slavery are not common, military drafts (or otherwise forced conscription) are not common, dying in war is less likely than ever before...

The lower classes aren't generally in nearly as bad a position as in the past (although things are still not good), and I think modern technology is one of the big reasons. I still believe that technology is the way to a better future for mankind.

 

[webbykevin]

I think it was Macluhan that said "There are no political solutions only technological ones".

 

[P A]

What do you think of this?