[deadalvs]

Scapegoat? You almost make it sound like intra-country hatred is something unique to America. Believe me, on this account, the USA is very late to the game.

nah, nah. that's clear... this one's not on america... !

this was just one of the colorful pictures i had in mind.

but You're absolutely right.

* * *

will You go to the cinema for the new Rocky movie ? well, the trailer doesn't look too bad...


* * *

deadalvs

[Mihai]

I wouldn't call it a defect Thomas, it's just another scale in evolution. Saying every action we consider "bad" is because of genetic defect would imply that the only thing worth respecting is perfection.

[deadalvs]

... the only thing worth respecting is perfection.

aren't we doing this with maxwell too...

* * *

deadalvs

[mverta]

Compared with the animal kingdom, humans are spectacularly unsuccessful at integrating in any balanced way with any natural system on earth. And as Thomas points out, I recall a sobering discussion led by British astrophysicist Brandon Carter at the Royal Society in London, 1983, which illustrated some very frightening, but simple statistical analysis of human evolution and population explosion; the ultimate conclusion of which is that numbers-wise, either we colonize other planets en masse now, or it's already over. Definitely worth educating yourself about.

As for the animal kingdom, I certainly can't debate with a position which humanizes animals. The majority of animals precisely DON'T have our emotional contextual framework, which is why wildebeast never go back for their injured friends during a lion attack. A lot of things animals do looks an awful lot like human emotion, and surely a pack animal gets "depressed" when separated from its pack, in that it recognizes its survival is in jeopardy. But of course, your resistance to my argument demonstrates the quintessential human bias, which is that humans are the greatest thing in the universe. Animals must therefore demonstrate human emotions, humans must be the center of the universe, and God himself made man in his own image, the unspoken flipside of which is that if you want to see God, look at man. Need any more on that?

No, the truth is, when man isn't proclaiming he's God's Special Creature, or that he's literally the center of the universe, or he's "conquered flight", or he's "conquered space," he fills up history book after history book, weekly journal, daily diary and sticky note with every conceivable atrocity he can think of against himself, his fellow man, animals, plants, and the entire freaking planet, which he could shatter at whim by this point.

The litany of man consists of a billion pages of murderous chest-beating, worthless scumbaggery and iPods peppered by a few nice songs, some poems and some pretty, uh, renders. That's it. The statistically aberrant few of us who would put our lives in jeopardy - act in any way for the benefit of our fellow human beings over our own needs - get a lot of air time on the news; get a lot of press time so the collective pool feels better about themselves, while still representing a laughably pathetic percentage of the population.

If you think animals are even in the same league as mankind, there's no way you know your history. No way. I suggest devoting every future hour you would waste on "news" and dedicating it to a study of what's past - you'll see what we're damned repeating. I remember a quote, "If I saw a hungry human baby and a hungry kitten, I'd feed the kitten first." Damn straight. No cat ever left its baby in a trash can at the Prom because it didn't feel like carrying it around the gymnasium.

_Mike

[Mihai]

Mike, I'm arguing precisely the inverse That man is in fact not in his own special category, that he is the center of the universe, but that he is very much part of nature, not above it (or below it as you seem obsessed with the bad side).

Either special, or a virus.....both arguments IMO are simplistic and get us nowhere. Both are a dead end.

In regards to overpopulation, ofcourse it's a huge problem, but again not a "defect" you can attribute to humans alone. This is why in animal reservations they have to shoot some elephants now and then because if their numbers grow too large they destroy the whole countryside, for all the other animals. When they eat they strip a tree from it's bark, so the tree dies. Not very considerate of them is it?

Now from the point of view of "humans are worse than animals" it would be perfectly alright to do the same with humans. Why not just kill those that are unproductive, show signs of weakness, the handicapped etc...they are just a burden on the rest of us anyway. So this leads us back to the very same thinking you seem to despise.

Humans are not the most amazing creatures in the universe, but you can't argue that on this planet, they aren't. We are the most evolved beings here. Evolved meaning simply we have the most effective brains.

As for the quote, well it's one of the most silly things I have ever read. As if the wrong doings of others would make me despise my fellow man. Kind of like the purpose of a terrorist, if he just makes you afraid he's succeded. If an evil man makes you in turn indifferent or even evil.....

Cats....like many other animals they leave the weaker offspring to die of starvation and it's only the stronger more agressive ones that get to live. Perhaps those weaker cats had their special talents, who knows? There's nothing nobler about it. I haven't either seen a cat write, compose, paint, sculpt, build, dance or sing. So perhaps if that baby dies instead you could have missed much more, than a cat who will abandon you if you don't feed it regularly

[michaelplogue]

This is why in animal reservations they have to shoot some elephants now and then because if their numbers grow too large they destroy the whole countryside, for all the other animals.

Nature - when left to its own devices - generally tends to work itself to maintain a certain balance. That whole fox and rabbit thing.

So who's around to thin the human herd?? Nobody except ourselves - and and of course those natural resources we rely so heavily upon..........

Nature will achieve balance - one way or another.

[JDHill]

...in other words: Que Sera, Sera.

[mverta]

Again, everything you say is human-superiority-centric. You seem to assume that the value of all things human - painting, sculpting- are inherently superior. You cite the "abandoning" of weaker animals as though it were an act of conscious cruelty, which it is not (only a human would do that) nor could you ever be in a position to relate to an animal enough to know what it actually is. But your assumption is to define it in human terms, see it human terms, and then devalue it as compared to humans. You actually said Dolphins "rape" each other! RAPE! You -and the researchers as well, I suppose- actually frame everything a dolphin does in human terms, by human standards, give it human emotions, human consciousness, and then declare it rape. The truth is -the truth that escapes most humans- is that you have no idea whatsoever what's going on with those dolphins. You humanize them, then call it rape. It is this all-pervasive, utterly skewed perspective which is why humans can't begin to achieve balance with nature; they have no actual respect for it. They only respect "human," so they shape nature, animals, and God like it. Talk about ridiculous.

Also, an animal strips bark from a tree, and then its carcass gets eaten by other animals, while the remains nourish the earth. That's balance. Humans use up everything they see, use up more, and then make sure their carcasses are locked in steel boxes so as to guarantee they're not in any way useful to the ecosystem, or part of the cycle of nature whatsoever. And they're not.

We disagree on the central point - I will never believe that humans are superior creatures. That belief is the single greatest, most consistent error laid out in history, and in that regard, we haven't learned one damn thing. So much for "evolution."

_Mike

Cats....like many other animals they leave the weaker offspring to die of starvation and it's only the stronger more agressive ones that get to live. Perhaps those weaker cats had their special talents, who knows? There's nothing nobler about it. I haven't either seen a cat write, compose, paint, sculpt, build, dance or sing. So perhaps if that baby dies instead you could have missed much more, than a cat who will abandon you if you don't feed it regularly

[Thomas An.]

IMHO, Mike maybe using controversial wording with saturated colors, that may even seem appalling, defeatist, and even misanthropic at first glance, but I think at the core of the matter he is getting it right.

It is like we (humanity) are in a trance, and we (figuratively) need a "slap", with words that "jolt", to step out of it ... for our own good.

[Thomas An.]

Mike, I'm arguing precisely the inverse That man is in fact not in his own special category, that he is the center of the universe, but that he is very much part of nature, not above it (or below it as you seem obsessed with the bad side).

.... but at the same time you appear apologetic to human ways... sort of "we are made by nature, therefore all our actions are natural ... therefore ... (say) dioxins being byproducts of human and human being part nature, then so are dioxins and all other carcinogens or byproducts ... no matter how corrosive or detrimental they might seem at first glance"

It is an old argument Mihai ... a skilled debater can wiggle through like this until the end of time. We could be driving down the highway doing 150mph straight to a wall and a skilled debater will be able to convince us that the danger is imaginary, or that the possibilities of a crash are not definitive.

[mverta]

IMHO, Mike maybe using controversial wording with saturated colors, that may even seem appalling, defeatist, and even misanthropic at first glance, but I think at the core of the matter he is getting it right.

Hands-down, uncontestedly the hardest back-handed support I've ever gotten. A misanthrope? Who me? Well, how about iconoclast, I'll take that.

And the truth is, I would need to up the hyperbolic adjective ante exponentially to even begin to show up on the radar of human arrogance. And I'm completely outnumbered in my opinion anyway.

Far from defeatist, my disappointment in my fellow humans is directly proportional to what I feel is our unrealized potential. For all that we can do, we can't handle the most elementary synergy with our environment. Most days, it seems needless and frustrating, or, perhaps it's precisely where we are, globally, socially, as a teenage species - obnoxious and destructive, selfish and we think we'll live forever. Perhaps it's a stage and we'll grow out of it. In any case, as Michaelplogue pointed out, any illusion of control we have is precisely that, and if we tip the scales too far, we'll be out. There's more than a little evidence that this has happened already.

But until humans who are selfless, giving, conscious of their true role in nature, and not paralyzed by all-encompassing fear outnumber what we have currently walking around in majority, I'm going to continue calling it what it is... What it's been since human history began to be written, how it was yesterday, today, and how tomorrow's shaping up to be. And that's a lot of things; God's Special Creature sure as shit isn't one of them, no matter how many iPods we make.

_Mike

[michaelplogue]

In all reality, the human race has bypassed natural selection.

We cure the sick using artifical/exterior means. Folks with (what in the very old days would be considered) a serious genetic defect, can now live full and productful lives - and pass on these defects to future generations.

As an example: I have really horrible vision. My entire family does. Without corrective lenses, none of my family tree would likely have survived stepping out of the cave. We certainly would not have been able to hunt, and would have been totally reliant on others to survide. But with the wonders of science, the Logue family continues on - and we'll continue to pass on the blind-as-a-bat gene to future generations of Logue's.

This is just one small example as to how the human race is physiologically "devolving." With anti-virals, imunizations, and a slew of medicines to cure previously fatal diseases, the need for a 'naturaly' robust imunity system is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. We can replace organs that fail, keep alive premature babies in artificial wombs, and even replace lost or never formed limbs (did you see the story about the woman who had lost both of her hands, and were replaced by ones from a brain-dead doner?).

Because of our technology and knowledge, we are no longer evolving. We are encouraging genetic defects to propogate back into humanity.

Add to this the fact that we are the top of the food chain - not because we are stronger, or faster, or stealthy, but becuase of our technology. So, in a way, we are no longer part of nature (per se). There is really nothing that constrains our population except ourselves - and whats left of the resources we need to maintain our level of artificial superiority.

Unfortunately, most of humanity lives in the 'now' and for the most part, really dosen't care squat about the long-range consequences of our actions. We squander limited materials to make fancy foam packages to put our hamburgers in, or cut down a forest of trees so everyone and their mother can have a copy of the New York Times. We drive five miles to the Quicky-Mart on the other side of town in order buy a six-pack of beer (that could be bought at the shop two blocks from home for fice cents more.

We just don't care, because "I've got mine, and what I don't have (that I don't really need) I want.

To hell with future generations. They can figure it out for themselves!

[mverta]

Regarding eyesight, et al, you remind me of something a physicist once told me: there is only one commandment in the universe: Thou Shalt Not Waste. Everything else, he said, was a variation on that theme. If it isn't absolutely essential, nature evolves it out, and if it is essential, nature evolves it in. As you point out, human beings put this perfectly balanced system into a tailspin a long time ago, and continue to find more ways to thwart the system. And, in an application of Mandlebrot's genius, the short-sightedness about future generations you mention parallels the day-to-day, moment-to-moment lack of concern for others which festers in every form of social contact. It's not just lack of concern for the future, its lack of concern for everything and everyone beyond immediate personal need; needs which are becoming ever-more trivial, even as the gulf between cause and consequences widens.

_Mike

[ivox3]

There's a beauty in the ability to destroy ourselves, ...that beauty is the ability to save ourselves within that same possibility of destruction.

There's no time to cite errors in the ways of man, ...that's clear enough.

Every spare moment should be spent in the action or at the very least a hopeful thought towards a better way, ...a more supreme way.

It's there, ...find it.

If you still don't know which way that is, ...it's the one that benefits all parties unilaterally, ..and yes, ..that includes animals.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZXRPFeP_gk


I'm out.

[Hervé]

.........


I'm out.

I'm in....

.....funny each year magazines tell you what's IN & what's OUT for the coming year.... he he

Hey Chris, how are you...?