The world has changed--NOT!
 

Just watching the history channel. More on German monstrosity during WW2. The dead slaves, the concentration camps. What has changed between then and now? NOTHING! The world and the people in it are the same kind of people that committed these crimes. Pol Pot is more recent proof. Current proof is to be seen almost anywhere in Africa.

Given this FACT, exactly how do we intend to survive?

If we do not act, someone, somewhere will inflict this upon us, if we do not do it to ourselves.

These are the FACTS of life. What is the left to do? What is their answer to world peace?

The only thing certain, it that this will be repeated on a larger scale, somewhere, someday. Cheers SmileWavy

Hmmm...I won't say you're incorrect. The one thing that's changed since the historical times you've mentioned is that there are now nuclear weapons and a world economy. When I was an undergrad taking IR classes, it was determined with some validity that nukes were actually peacemakers. Go figure. The world economy - possibly that's another peacemaker.

So maybe it's through nuclear weapons and a vibrant world economy that we survive. But that's survival out of fear (nukes) and fear of loss (economy).

More so than a nuclear attack or a country like China taking over as a world economic leader, in the U.S. I think the loss of the middle class will eventually spell our demise/inability to survive.

There is no such thing as "world peace" never has been never will be.
Atrocities will be occuring forever, on the major scale such as the holocaust
and on a smaller scale such as the insane murders that our society commits upon each other. We live in a fked up world, and many of the people are becoming increasingly sociopathic and psycopathic. Our generation will be the last one that has any recognization for traditional decency. Our best bet is to carve out our own piece of 'security' by surrounding ourselves with trusted loved ones and earn a decent and honest living. Anything that we can give back to others in the form of charity of time and money is always a great thing...but lets not kid ourselves into thinking that the world is going to change into a beautiful place, cause its not. It is all downhill from here.

We are not very evolved creatures.

Perhaps you could put them all in Guantanamo Bay or the other facilites in Eastern Europe?

We are not club wielding troglodytes.
We have evolved.
We are now nuke wielding troglodytes sans caves.

I agree about the World Economy being a platform for stability. I don't agree that it is due to a fear of loss though.

Nukes, IMO, have undoubtedly prevented major loss of life. So far. Without the fear of ultimate nuclear destruction, I am pretty sure there would have been an atrocious war between Soviets and the United States. Even with them, we came up with creative ways to have skirmishes through other nations. But it never came to all out war. The trouble with the nukes is, you only have to have one major incident to undo all of the good they have brought. So until infinity, we won't know if they truly were the savior of mankind, or the undoing of mankind.

Yes, our tools have evolved - our brains - not so much

Human nature. Yin-Yang. There will always be evil people, not much we can do about it.

No reason to believe our species is any different than all the other organisms on this planet. When push comes to shove it is every individual for himself, resulting in cruelty, war and a complete lack of care for the next man. Sad but true.

watch 300. If that is any indication of what we were like I would say we have been pretty good considering all the fantastic ways we could kill each other if we wanted to.

At least we are not dragging the enemy through the streets. What ever did happen to the neutron bomb concept anyway?

Have to agree; we're big brained mammals w/alpha males leading their packs in perpetual territorial disputes. By that definition, pushing and shoving will never abate and resultant warfare at one level or another will inevitably remain a constant in the human condition.

I believe our only hope lies in our abilities, unique in the animal world, to use language and to reason at a high level of abstraction. Wars of words/ideas are not lethal. Lethality results when words fail, opposing ideas are held to be immutable and primitive physical agression is employed to dominate.

Unfortunately, to dominate is not to "win". True victory is only achievable when differences are resolved to the reasoned and humane satisfaction of all parties involved.

More unfortunate still, it's not the nature of fanatics to communicate with the goal of peacefully resolving differences, but only to communicate that they shall "win" at all costs. The world had Atilla, Hitler and numerous others and now has suicidal true believers who must be murdered before they murder us.

Soooo...lets all have a pleasant evening :).

Wow! I thought I was being a bit to negative, but now I am REALLY depressed. I expected at least, some vain attempt to show how the world will somehow survive the people on it.

Maybe homo sapience needs a new common enemy that we need to fight together to survive.

Or maybe we just need something new that everyone can agree to believe in.

In summary: We may need either a new God or a new Enemy.

The earth would probably be better of without homo sapiens. Or at least with far fewer.

Too many people, too little in renewable resources.

"Make Room! Make Room!"

I blame anti-septics and modern medicine.

Where is Darwin when you need him.

Without homo sapiens, earth is worthless. There are ample resources for many more people, all that needs changing is politicians. What you are saying is that earth would be better off with more homos,-- curious.

One of the most stunning and remarkable characteristics of homo sapiens is the unbelievable range of behavior. They can commit the cruelest and most horrifying and obscene acts of violence and torture and pure hatred upon each other. And they can also commit the most sublime, beautiful, charitable and self-sacrificing acts. The range is incomprehensible.

But yeah, we know humans cannot be relied upon to act responsibly. If I thought they could, I would be 150% against gubmit regulation.

The real problem is the thought patterns of people like snowman. constantly negative and close-minded.

Seems like a 60/40 split these days, going in favor of gruesome behavior.

Anyway, I always thought the most interesting characteristic of humans is their ability to adapt to non-favorable conditions and environments.

Stunning response, snow........absolutely stunning.

And just WHO can say the world would be useless without people? It did fine without us for over four billion years.

sure we are, hunter-gatherers, perfectly evolved for that.

There will be war as long as there are more than one group of people on the planet.
what was that book, "Population Bomb", perhaps by Hardin.

We have too many and are breeding fast, I could make a list of those we should kick off, but the ones who should stay would be a shorter list.

and he is not even that liberal

We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the Cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff.- Carl Sagan

Emphasis added is mine.

Best,

Kurt

That was 2,000,000 years ago for gods sake.
What have you done for us lately !

This is an amazing quote to read, because it shows that we agree on one thing, but not on how to address it. Really sums up our differences in viewing things.

I agree that humans cannot be relied upon to act responsibly. But... this is exactly my justification for being against government regulation- the government is run by Humans, and therefore cannot be relied upon to act responsibly. If the government could be run by robots or vulcans, then perhaps I'd be for it running us.

Emphasis added by me.

That's am almost subtle but extremely powerful "touché"! I agree 100%.

FWIW, I'd go with the Vulcans.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1195145590.jpg

Best,

Kurt

There is even more we can agree on. You'll get no quarrell from me when you assert that humans are not sufficiently mature to self-govern. I watched "I Robot" last night, or parts of it. Read the book decades ago. I digress.....

So we can agree that humans are poor governors. A few are decent, but most succumb to greed and other base instincts.

Where we disagree, perhaps, likely, though it is hard for me to understand the opposing conclusion, is which is the lesser of those two evils. Sadly, I would not expect increased peace and security in a society with no government. No police. No military. You guys seem to understand very clearly the implications of failing to keep an effective military for national defense reasons. I think it odd that you expect aggressive and greedy behavior on the part of other nations, and good-citizen behavior from fellow Americans. That's fairy tale stuff. Especially when you consider that America is renowned for its take-what-you-can-get economic and social systems.

Superman,

You are clearly a socialist or even communist. Please take offense as it was intended. You are what you say you are and you cannot avoid any label that fits your position.

The world doesn't mean sht without humans. The world, without humans, is a meaningless hunk of rock, nothing more, without any value whatsoever. We will make this world better by killing off the less fit, whoever they are. Thats exactly what evolution is about, survival of the fittest. Or are you a fundamentalist of some kind that doesn't buy evolution? If so you are still out of luck. The devil has a mission to accomplish the same thing as Darwin.

PS In case you like being a socialist or communist, both have been proven to be the ultimate evil so far. Those are the FACTS.

At this point, I can see that only the capitalist system, or some form of it, has any chance of saving humanity from itself.

I think most of us tend to give our species too much credit. Between the lines I read a subconscious desperate hope for humanity. We believe in different social and economical structures. Short term (relatively speaking) one strategy may work, in other circumstances the opposite may work.

In the long run however, I suspect we are doomed. Perhaps we will be saved by Evolution, making future generations less primitive, but I doubt it.

I did not do it, God did.

hunter-gatherers 2 million years ago? Nope.

We have not found ANY evidence that man Man was around until around 5000 to 7000 years ago. Pyramids, working with metal, languages, it all happened very, very quickly.
Man started building incredible structures all around the world and started writing things down and figured out a great deal about the heavens including very accurate calendars and maps of stars.
Coincidence? No.
There is an incredible amount of evidence that man existed then and ever since then, but there is no evidence of man's existance prior to that time except for some ape-like skeletons they found.

Mankind as we know it has only been around for a short time. There may have been some man-like creatures before, but they were not man as we know today.

Ah, the cave of Lascaux.
They really do not not know how old those drawings are, they think they MIGHT be as old as 30,000 but they can't prove it and they admit it. They are GUESSING. I suggest these paintings are only about 6000 years old.
This is taken from their official website:

The range of methods and tools used to date the cave art is somewhat limited, partly because the figures are not in a position favourable to stratigraphic dating most of the time and also because of the nature of the materials used. In the eventuality of a single period of Palaeolithic occupation of the site as at Fontanet (Ariège), Combarelles or Rouffingnac (Dordogne), and to some extent, at Lascaux, it is reasonable to note the contemporaneousness of the wall paintings and the material found on the floor of the cave. Whether lithic or bone, or in the form of products of combustion, these elements are more easily dated.

An identical approach applies to the pigment which had fallen to the ground during the painting or drawing. They have been sealed in the archaeological levels, at the foot of the decorated walls and are therefore contemporary with the datable archaeological artefacts, and can be dated using radiometry (bone, carbon) or possibly typology (lithic or bone industry). During the past few decades several attempts have been made at direct dating of the paintings using the radiocarbon method (J. Clottes and M. Lorblanchet). The ever-improving performance of radioactive measuring instruments today allows analyses to be made of matter weighing only a few milligrams. Nevertheless, only the paintings and drawings which incorporate charcoal can be studied in this way; in most of the Perigord caves, as at Lascaux, typing of the pigment shows that the basis of the material used on all the figures is metal oxides, iron or manganese, materials that are impossible to date using the suggested methods.

Absolutely.

I don't understand how people separate humans from the "natural" earth. We are of this earth, and so is everything we create. Sulfur-spewing factories and nuclear waste are as natural as a bird's nest or a fire pit.

Sammy:

Do you believe in the efficacy of any of the numerous scientific dating methods?

If so, which ones?

Just curious.

Best,

Kurt

Hmmm.....could this thread be veering off into a scintillating discussion of Intelligent Design?

I saw that coming at Sammy's post. :)

I won't take this thread that way anymore . . .

The "God" thread already has ID going as a sub-thread.

Best,

Kurt

You forgot the :D

I am very fond of the evolutionary life of OT threads. Members of this board have such high class, flexible minds that it is almost impossible preventing an interesting topic from evolving into the next. Almost by it´s own.

Friggin beautiful and very entertaining. Being an optimist I would say that count for something good about humanity. At least in this group.

I´ll drink to that! After all it is Friday night. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...s/beerchug.gif

It is frightening to notice there are people who think like Snowman.

But it would soften the blow a bit if we could hear his description of how the world would be structured under his reign. Give us that, Snowman. Outline for us your vision for a social and economic system that you would consider ideal. What, if any, government would exist? What controls would there be on humans' behavior, if any? The amusement value of reading your description would, I think, help take the sting out of hearing your disdain for humans.