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Current time: March 28, 2024, 5:35 am

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Have we failed as a species?
#31
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 6:55 pm)abaris Wrote:
(February 17, 2017 at 10:00 am)Aoi Magi Wrote: We actually haven't failed as a species, because under the laws of nature and natural selection, failure would be extinction. As long as we survive, we have succeeded.

And not even a million years being homo sapiens sapiens is sufficient to come to that judgment? We have clocked off about 0.75 percent of the time dinosaurs roamed the land. I wouldn't call that a success yet looking at the big picture.

Dinosaurs died out in a mass extinction. We are causing a mass extinction. We may not be more successful than the dinosaurs, but we are certainly more nihilistic. That's got to count for something.
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#32
RE: Have we failed as a species?
Really, the way I see it, I live in a society where the distinction between fact and fiction does not really matter, normative behaviors seem to exist only so we can ostracise people who break them, the human population grows by one billion every twelve years, and we have a knack of always finding a way to fuck up any way we create to make our lives better. The world is being dominated by two forces who have no problem whatsoever with destroying the world, themselves included, and lots of people are worrying that Beyonce's being snubbed at the Grammys even though she's currently the most awarded female solo artist in history.

I understand that people have a way of trying to rise above the big problems, but I also can't help but notice they'll always find some way to make matters worse. Norman Borlaug saves over a billion (with a B) lives with new, genetically modified, crops, and the organic movement crops up as a sizable backlash to it. The Internet gave us ways for millions of people to talk with each other from different continents, but it's played a crucial role in the revival of mainstream racism, as fringe elements fester and give birth to a new monstrosity with orange hair and made it the most powerful person in the world. And I can guaran-goddam-tee that, somewhere along the line, the technology that allows Tesla to power our cars with pure electricity will somehow turn out to have been hurting us all along.

Really, at this point, there can be no question that we've failed as a species, and I'd be legitimately surprised if anything short of a population bottleneck, even something like that literal-killer app in Kingsman, can give us anything more than a temporary reprieve.






We're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.

[Image: harmlesskitchen.png]

I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
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#33
RE: Have we failed as a species?
Re OP: Absolutely.

Exhibit one: Trump's election. Perhaps Americans are an exceptionally bad sample but I think it says volumes about our fallings as a species
.
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#34
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 11:54 am)vorlon13 Wrote:
(February 17, 2017 at 5:41 pm)Jehanne Wrote: You're probably right, although, some animals (some reptiles, I think), have largely maintained their form over a 100 million years or more.  I have read that the sperm count among men is falling, and so, we may be forced to resort to cloning someday, or, have a human race that is perhaps all women if the Y chromosome should disappear???


Panic Panic Panic

More here:

https://phys.org/news/2014-11-sex-genes-...e-men.html
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#35
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 6:45 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:
(March 6, 2017 at 2:06 pm)Aristocatt Wrote: Bold mine
There is a Schrodinger's cat meets dyson shpere joke to be made here, I just don't have the energy to refine it well enough for a good punchline.

A specie of primates, a flask of Christianity, and a evangelist preacher are sealed in a dyson sphere.   If an internal monitor detects the preacher preaching, the flask is shattered, killing the primates....

Sorry, that joke only works for spherical primates in a vacuum.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#36
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 8:32 pm)Jehanne Wrote:
(March 6, 2017 at 11:54 am)vorlon13 Wrote: Panic Panic Panic

More here:

https://phys.org/news/2014-11-sex-genes-...e-men.html

Do you really want to rub my nose in that?
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#37
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 8:43 pm)vorlon13 Wrote:
(March 6, 2017 at 8:32 pm)Jehanne Wrote: More here:

https://phys.org/news/2014-11-sex-genes-...e-men.html

Do you really want to rub my nose in that?

There's nothing to rub; the evidences in the article come from the peer-reviewed scientific literature.  My post was meant to be completely serious.
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#38
RE: Have we failed as a species?
I have a phobia about low quality sperm
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#39
RE: Have we failed as a species?
(March 6, 2017 at 8:40 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:
(March 6, 2017 at 6:45 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: A specie of primates, a flask of Christianity, and a evangelist preacher are sealed in a dyson sphere.   If an internal monitor detects the preacher preaching, the flask is shattered, killing the primates....

Sorry, that joke only works for spherical primates in a vacuum.

Boru

It also works for primates in a spherical vacuum.
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#40
RE: Have we failed as a species?
Nope. We're still every bit as cooperatively vicious as nature has formed us. If we only end up living on the poles of the planet (assuming that we don't get out before the relative intelligence of our peers gets so low that we can't even figure out how to get away), we'll still survive for many millenia. I'm not giving up on Homo Sap. We're too vicious to go away anytime soon. Also, we are way more adaptable than dinosaurs. You ever see one wearing a mink coat? Nope, thought not. Big Grin
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
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