Human History in 6 words

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ultrachicken

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tkioz said:
ultrachicken said:
I think people measure how great their religion is based on whether or not they think it's actually correct.

It's not only the "nastiest" that survive. Plenty of civilians haven't owned slaves, or committed mass genocide, etc. It's just the ones that do get the most attention.

Please, stop with the "humans are such jerks!" threads.
Imagine you're a farmer in 16th century France, you've got just enough food stored away so that you and your family might eat for the winter; along comes a family of refugees, they beg you for food and shelter, do you a) help them and put your own family at risk of starving during winter or b) turn them away knowing full well they'll likely starve?

Using today's morality turning them away is a wrong act, but the very fact we were born means that our ancestors made these sort of choices and chose themselves.

Humans are jerks, it's hard-wired into us, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and over-come it, but it's not something we should be ignorant about either.
Why is that a jerk act?
It helps no one if both families starve. I see that choice as either: you survive, they die, or: you die, they die.

I'm not denying that bad shit happens, but we've also got goodness hardwired into us. Being ignorant to that can be just as dangerous as being ignorant to the bad stuff in humans.
 

LogicNProportion

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Mar 16, 2009
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standokan said:
LogicNProportion said:
"
Scipio = Farthest ancestor fought beside him as one of his officers at Carthage.
"
Awesome, but how did you find out?
Family has kept so many records to keep track of this stuff. Heritage and bloodlines are very important to us.

Hadrian DiSalvo, may he rest in peace as our forefather.
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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"Wow, what a bunch of assholes."

But then, some of us are Denis Leary assholes and that's alright.
 

tkioz

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May 7, 2009
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ultrachicken said:
tkioz said:
ultrachicken said:
I think people measure how great their religion is based on whether or not they think it's actually correct.

It's not only the "nastiest" that survive. Plenty of civilians haven't owned slaves, or committed mass genocide, etc. It's just the ones that do get the most attention.

Please, stop with the "humans are such jerks!" threads.
Imagine you're a farmer in 16th century France, you've got just enough food stored away so that you and your family might eat for the winter; along comes a family of refugees, they beg you for food and shelter, do you a) help them and put your own family at risk of starving during winter or b) turn them away knowing full well they'll likely starve?

Using today's morality turning them away is a wrong act, but the very fact we were born means that our ancestors made these sort of choices and chose themselves.

Humans are jerks, it's hard-wired into us, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and over-come it, but it's not something we should be ignorant about either.
Why is that a jerk act?
It helps no one if both families starve. I see that choice as either: you survive, they die, or: you die, they die.

I'm not denying that bad shit happens, but we've also got goodness hardwired into us. Being ignorant to that can be just as dangerous as being ignorant to the bad stuff in humans.
Okay since you didn't get it, how about a clearer cut one, two men are taken into a dark room, one is given a choice if he says yes there is a 50% chance he and the other man will be killed, if he says no he will live and the other man will die; our ancestors made choices that boiled down to that all the time, help someone and run the risk of suffering for it, or don't help and stay safe; the people that stayed safe will likely have lived long enough to pass on their genes.

As for good hard-wired into us... err what good? the only thing I can see is the willingness to adopt codes of conduct in order to stay in a group for better protection, the willingness to suffer for our offspring, and that's about all I can see as "good" in human nature, everything else do that could be considered "good" today is against our nature.
 

cynikles

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Jul 10, 2010
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The omniprescense of a lord's disciples.

Religion seems to play a pretty big role in human history...
 

Saulkar

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We are so totally fucking screwed.

There is my six cense,
 

ultrachicken

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tkioz said:
ultrachicken said:
tkioz said:
ultrachicken said:
I think people measure how great their religion is based on whether or not they think it's actually correct.

It's not only the "nastiest" that survive. Plenty of civilians haven't owned slaves, or committed mass genocide, etc. It's just the ones that do get the most attention.

Please, stop with the "humans are such jerks!" threads.
Imagine you're a farmer in 16th century France, you've got just enough food stored away so that you and your family might eat for the winter; along comes a family of refugees, they beg you for food and shelter, do you a) help them and put your own family at risk of starving during winter or b) turn them away knowing full well they'll likely starve?

Using today's morality turning them away is a wrong act, but the very fact we were born means that our ancestors made these sort of choices and chose themselves.

Humans are jerks, it's hard-wired into us, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and over-come it, but it's not something we should be ignorant about either.
Why is that a jerk act?
It helps no one if both families starve. I see that choice as either: you survive, they die, or: you die, they die.

I'm not denying that bad shit happens, but we've also got goodness hardwired into us. Being ignorant to that can be just as dangerous as being ignorant to the bad stuff in humans.
Okay since you didn't get it, how about a clearer cut one, two men are taken into a dark room, one is given a choice if he says yes there is a 50% chance he and the other man will be killed, if he says no he will live and the other man will die; our ancestors made choices that boiled down to that all the time, help someone and run the risk of suffering for it, or don't help and stay safe; the people that stayed safe will likely have lived long enough to pass on their genes.

As for good hard-wired into us... err what good? the only thing I can see is the willingness to adopt codes of conduct in order to stay in a group for better protection, the willingness to suffer for our offspring, and that's about all I can see as "good" in human nature, everything else do that could be considered "good" today is against our nature.
We care about people close to us, just not every single stranger we see on the street. To do so would drive a man insane. We do, in fact, care about ourselves the most, but that's because the one person we know best is ourselves.

Every time you see a homeless man on the street, do you buy him a home, and feed him, and take care of him until you die because if you don't no-one else will? No. There are simply too many people in need for you to take care of.

So, just because humans don't potentially sacrifice their lives for strangers doesn't mean they are total assholes. We all do what we have to, but there are people who do bad things just because they can.