Humanity's worst mistake

[JMeganSnow]

So in my anthropology class today, we discussed how this one anthropologist arguest that crop and animal domestication was humanity's worst mistake and we got into a discussion over what we thought was the worst mistake, so I ask you the same question:

What do you think is humanity's worst mistake?

Crop and animal domestication? Seriously? So being able to get healthy and known food easily and conveniently is the *worst thing we ever did*?

Humanity's worst mistake lies in a.) believing ANYTHING without proper evidence, then b.) elevating this procedure to the status of a virtue (faith). Humans survive by thinking. Faith completely short-circuits and invalidates thought. Ergo faith is contra-survival for humans.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

If anyone cares about their faith they won't kill for it as it goes against basically all faiths laws.

Tell that to all the christians in the army. Also tell that to all the muslim jihad-promoters and terrorists.

Also tell that to ALL the religious texts that exist in the world that very much promote killing.

Sorry, your argument has no merits what so ever...

You aren't even giving any examples you are just saying Christians are in the army therefore that counts as religious killings(which it doesn't) or Muslim extremists which the conflict over there is not just to do with Religion as conveniently Saddam was over thrown only after he wanted to try the Oil currency to Euro.

You aren't even giving any examples of whole passages with no conditions that promote pure carnage you are just saying they do. You haven't even backed up your argument with one solid fact you are just spouting random negative opinions about religion at least I actually went and found the amount killed by a dictator which takes what 5 seconds with Google and then used a calculator to find out that he killed roughly 3% of the world population at the time(taking the aggregate of 67.5 mil as his deaths caused).

At least attempt to counter my points or actually come up with something concrete before saying my opinion is shit at least most people have the courtesy to do that.

Did I ever once call your opinion shit? I may have called your argument fairly baseless which is fair enough as you have yet to actually give 1 solid fact or number and I haven't called you an idiot or any names. I'll give you a fair enough I am wrong if you can actually find me something which you have yet to do.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Indeed, but the issue at hand here is that religion is a way to broad answer. Seriously, religion has always been a part of mankind, in one way or another. Now, if you were to say something along the lines with "religious conflict" or "religios oppression" that'd be another thing, that be something that you could discuss. Just saying religion doesn't really work because it is such a fundamental part of our history and our civilization.

So what you're saying is that just because the problem has been a persistant one, it's not a problem at all?

You sure know how to dazzle people with your intelligence...

Um....I'm not sure how to approach this. Let's take a quick look around the thread and..Oh, here it is.

Indeed, but the issue at hand here is that religion is a way to broad answer. Seriously, religion has always been a part of mankind, in one way or another. Now, if you were to say something along the lines with "religious conflict" or "religios oppression" that'd be another thing, that be something that you could discuss. Just saying religion doesn't really work because it is such a fundamental part of our history and our civilization.

See the problem here? (HINT: Look at the usernames. And be more careful when quoting people.)

 

[Grospoliner]

I'm going to be controversial here, but I think one of (not the worst, but in the top ten) the worst things humanity has done, or rather failed to do, is the failure to institute population caps in the last century, with strict regulations and harsh punishments for breaking those rules. I even wouldn't be averse to (as a last resort) adding birth control to the water supply in countries with greater than 3% growth per year. The population is increasing out of control, and we're running out of room and food and resources. Unless we want WW3, over natural resources, within the next century, we need to do something now.

Overpopulation is a myth.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM

Are you serious? You've got to be kidding.

First off, the population density represented in that film disregards the space needed to sufficiently allow services, like power, water, waste, manufacturing, etc to exist; so that pokes a hole in that idea, but none of that is even important because it's a silly idea trying to cram all of humanity into a single location.

Secondly, farming is a little more complex than, plant seeds, add water, grow crop. Crops leech the hell out of the ground, requiring either large amounts of fertilization and nutrient infusion, or a rest period, meaning that the availability of food (irregardless of other problems) can ebb based on planting conditions.

Three, drought. It effects yields and outputs. Each drought varies but all result from significant environmental impact, like the dust bowl, one of the worst in human history that transformed the North American Midwest into a veritable wasteland, or the concurrent desertification of Africa. Incidentally drought and famine has been responsible for the death of over a million people between 1970-1985 in Africa. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0721-07.htm

Four, population peak? Oh really? I'd love to see that. Did they mention that the low variant model is the most optimistic outlook of population growth which includes low birthrates in the developed world? Maybe they should have. Especially considering the birthrate in developed countries is actually up from the earlier 06 projected rates. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6038. We should also mention that the medium growth model is the most likely model of growth which forsees a 10 billion population by the end of the century. http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp (compare all variants)

Maybe we should consider all of that, but you know what the most important thing to consider is? It's not the rates of growth, its not the rates of food production, its not the amount of available clean water, not land, not resources, none of that.

What is important? Well, what is important is the fact that this website is funded by an institute (Population Research Institute) that is backed by pro-life advocates and funded by right-wing conservative political groups such as the Bradly Foundation.

http://www.pop.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Research_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Foundation

Are you going to sit here, with a straight face, telling me that a research group with vested political interests is going to accurately depict a problem when it is not in their interest to do so?

I don't f---ing think so.

Did you even follow the links to find out where they were sourcing their data or who was funding them? I don't know how you couldn't think something was wrong the second they began criticizing the UN for their policy and then immediately begin using the UN's OWN RESEARCH DATA as evidence against the issue.

This whole thing is a big pile of spin that anyone with half a brain can smell from a mile off.

/hammer_1

 

[Jadak]

I'm going to be controversial here, but I think one of (not the worst, but in the top ten) the worst things humanity has done, or rather failed to do, is the failure to institute population caps in the last century, with strict regulations and harsh punishments for breaking those rules. I even wouldn't be averse to (as a last resort) adding birth control to the water supply in countries with greater than 3% growth per year. The population is increasing out of control, and we're running out of room and food and resources. Unless we want WW3, over natural resources, within the next century, we need to do something now.

Why bother? Unless we manage to stave it off until off-world colonies are thriving, might as well get it done and out of the way Longer we wait, even more powerful the weapons in use will be, probably going to pretty bad as it is, last thing we need is more future tech. (unless the future tech consists of targeted bioweapons or something, suppose that could do the trick well enough)

 

[Section Crow]

Human rights... that shit gets in the way of everything in the UK, can't even use a goddamned water cannon on people!

and yeah that's my thought

 

[Esotera]

Technology. With it we find creative ways to cause death and suffering on scales never seen before in the animal kingdom. But it can also be used for great good, so there's two sides to the coin.

 

[AlAaraaf74]

Humanity's Biggest Mistake: The Catholic Church.

I am a Christian, and understand that my church has done more evil than good in the past. Yes, there's a good message in our religion, but our foundation is fucked up...

Captcha: only hatbus

 

[Byere]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't crop and animal domestication the whole reason we're here today? Farming, be it crops or animal raising, is one of the main reasons we're able to survive, no matter what situation (inb4 zompocalypse)... cold winter? Fine, he have harvested food for us and livestock. An offshoot? Domesticating wolves and breeding dogs to aid in hunting.

Seriously... how is that "humanity's worst mistake"? The anthropologist you mentioned is a moron.

Yeah, because everyone in the hunter/fisher/gatherer-society of the early stone age were on the brink of starvation and annihilation pretty much all of the time, right? *facepalm*

Farming isn't the "main reason" we were able to survive. In fact, research of archeological finds and studies of stone age survival techniques have shown that the humans of the hunter/fisher/gatherer- society actually had to work LESS hours each day in order to survive and thrive than your average worker have to today.

Also, consider all those starving people in Africa, who pretty much don't know any survival skills but are dependant on farming for food (which tends to be a pretty bad idea considering all the droughts they go through and the wars that make a lot of the farmable land unsafe places to be in).

If we humans had never gone through with our agri-cultural revolution, then we would've all been taught the necessary survival skills from birth and be able to pretty much live and thrive in any kind of climate and vegetation (like man of the early stone age did quite well).

The introduction of agri-culture and farming however, is the very reason why the concept of war was brought about. There's no evidence at all that people actually went to war before they had land and "property" to protect. They made themselves dependant on farmable land, and thus had to defend it from others that would like to take it.

Also, being able to use farmland you'd have to spend several more hours labouring each day as opposed to the hunter/gatherer/fisher-lifestyle where you could pretty much pluck all the food you needed from any forest or lake.

So no, that anthropologist is NOT a complete moron. It's just you who display a hefty amount of ignorance here.

Those may be good points, but you seem to have forgotten to take into account that humans are a species that thrives by having large groups gathered to help and work towards a common goal. Hunting is great and all, but you can only sustain a certain amount of people in any set area of land. Sure, we're also a nomadic species and if one area dries up or lacks enough food, we could move to another area.
Agriculture allowed us to create a section of land that would allow us to grow and sustain a steady food supply almost year-round as opposed to having a bunch of hunters go kill off 1 big animal to feed the village/settlement for a single night. This, in turn, allows humans to create bigger populations and thus allow greater numbers, which is how our species work best.
I totally agree with the notion that humans are just a parasite, and like a parasite we feed off the land. However, if we just went from place to place, hunting all the animals and eating all the plants without allowing it to grow back OR re-growing what we take, we'd have stripped the land of food much like a plague of locusts would to any farmland.

Also, if you're going to hide behind the fact that early humans didn't have to work as long as more modern incarnations, that's just pure laziness and ignorance in itself. Haven't you ever heard the term "Reap what you harvest"? Basically, the more effort you put into something, the greater the result. If you think that by doing less work it means early humans are better than now, then you're the one full of ignorance.

Also, I apologise about my remark about the anthropologist. It was uncalled for, though my points still stand otherwise.

 

[DJ_DEnM]

After four pages of Ctrl+F'ing I didn;t find what I wanted to post.

So here it is.

Bieber.

'nuff said.

 

[SemiHumanTarget]

Recognizing Israel

 

[Azex]

Massive thread is too long to read. My 2 cents: Worst mistake was Organised Religion. Nothing wrong with religion itslef or spirituality, those things enrich lives and give us something we obviously need or we wouldnt have made it in the first place. Organised religion is just afterlife insurance, and like any company its all about keeping itself safe and screw the customers.

Also....Post maker is dead wrong...hentai and british comedy are awesome.

 

[HT_Black]

Humanity's Biggest Mistake: The Catholic Church.

I am a Christian, and understand that my church has done more evil than good in the past. Yes, there's a good message in our religion, but our foundation is fucked up...

Captcha: only hatbus

Oh, yeah. Those guys. Fuck them too.

 

[Death God]

Money. If people simply shared their acquired wealth of simply just traded goods like older times, we would have less homeless people, less starvation, less.... you see where I am going with this. Sure there are a lot of bigger issues out there that should have been stopped before money but, being below the poverty line myself, money has had no positive effect on humans. I has created greed and jealously and if people were to get rid of it, we might actually accomplish more than fighting over budget cuts and low medical funding and have a lower death rate with people not having to pay for medical treatment.

 

[Negatempest]

Ooooo. I could go on and on! about humanity "mistakes". But I will pick a few of my personal favorite.

Lack of proper parenting techniques. In short, parents are taking "too" many precautions on a mistake a child makes and preventing them from learning some important life lessons. (How to feed/make food for themselves, understand and respecting limitations, etc.) To watch the child make mistakes, but prevent them from causing serious to fatal harm, aka being a "real" parent. Which leads to another favorite....

Learning and understanding responsibility. So many laws that are just stupid and prevent anyone from taking responsibility. "It is the fault of the fast food chains for making me fat." "It is the coffee shops fault for not letting me know that the coffee may be hot." "It is the music/movie/book/video game's fault for influencing my stupid child." I could go and so could any of us here.

The real mistakes, to me, in short are those that are easily set aside for "global" issues compared to the ones we have at home now.

 

[SD-Fiend]

Religion. No doubt.

wow that's one of the most well thought out and compelling arguments about how religion is bad that i've ever read and it's I'm glad that someone finally had the guts to say that since no one has ever said that before.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Money. If people simply shared their acquired wealth of simply just traded goods like older times, we would have less homeless people, less starvation, less.... you see where I am going with this. Sure there are a lot of bigger issues out there that should have been stopped before money but, being below the poverty line myself, money has had no positive effect on humans. I has created greed and jealously and if people were to get rid of it, we might actually accomplish more than fighting over budget cuts and low medical funding and have a lower death rate with people not having to pay for medical treatment.

Not to be rude, but you know why we no longer use barter, correct?

Because without money, in order to trade, you have to find someone who has what you want and wants what you have and is willing to make the exchange. Money is simply something everyone wants from another, so it makes it easier than trading your watch when you want to buy gas for a car.

Money isn't the problem. Human nature is.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

You aren't even giving any examples you are just saying Christians are in the army therefore that counts as religious killings(which it doesn't) or Muslim extremists which the conflict over there is not just to do with Religion as conveniently Saddam was over thrown only after he wanted to try the Oil currency to Euro.

You aren't even giving any examples of whole passages with no conditions that promote pure carnage you are just saying they do. You haven't even backed up your argument with one solid fact you are just spouting random negative opinions about religion at least I actually went and found the amount killed by a dictator which takes what 5 seconds with Google and then used a calculator to find out that he killed roughly 3% of the world population at the time(taking the aggregate of 67.5 mil as his deaths caused).

At least attempt to counter my points or actually come up with something concrete before saying my opinion is shit at least most people have the courtesy to do that.

Did I ever once call your opinion shit? I may have called your argument fairly baseless which is fair enough as you have yet to actually give 1 solid fact or number and I haven't called you an idiot or any names. I'll give you a fair enough I am wrong if you can actually find me something which you have yet to do.

You want to read passages that promote carnage do you?

Fine:

"Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel." (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

"If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

"A priest's daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death." (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

"They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

"If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst." (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

"One day a man who had an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father got into a fight with one of the Israelite men. During the fight, this son of an Israelite woman blasphemed the LORD's name. So the man was brought to Moses for judgment. His mother's name was Shelomith. She was the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. They put the man in custody until the LORD's will in the matter should become clear. Then the LORD said to Moses, "Take the blasphemer outside the camp, and tell all those who heard him to lay their hands on his head. Then let the entire community stone him to death. Say to the people of Israel: Those who blaspheme God will suffer the consequences of their guilt and be punished. Anyone who blasphemes the LORD's name must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel. Any Israelite or foreigner among you who blasphemes the LORD's name will surely die." (Leviticus 24:10-16 NLT)

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment." (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ." (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you." (Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

"If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife." (Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)

"Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women ravished; half of the city shall go into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be removed from the city." (Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB)

You were saying?

Oh and before you ask, the Qur'an is pretty much filled with the same hateful stuff as the bible. Im just quoting the bible because I have spent more years studying it than the Qur'an.

Also, before you go "Well Jesus doesn't support that, that's why most of those quotes are from the OLD testament." Consider these passages from the NEW testament where Jesus himself is clearly saying that everything in the OLD testament is supposed to be respected and adhered to if you're supposed to be able to call yourself a christian:

"For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:18-19 RSV)

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place." (Matthew 5:17 NAB)

(the "law" being refered to here is the scripture from the old testament)

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16 NAB)

"It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB)

Oh, my favourite:

"Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God." (2 Peter 20-21 NAB)

Whaaat!? Nothing in the scripture is a matter of personal interpretation you say? Meaning that you can't blame all the evil stuff being promoted in the name of God in the old testament can be construed as "euphemisms" or other common bullshit cop-outs that christians and jews make use of to justify those very passages? That it's all supposed to be taken literally and at face value AT ALL TIMES? Thank you Mr. Holy man. You make it all to easy for me to win arguments against religious people.

Oh and another thing: would you claim that the christians in the army and the muslim extremists aren't being "real christians" or "real muslims" if they kill people? Somehow I doubt they'd agree with you...

 

[JMeganSnow]

There's no evidence at all that people actually went to war before they had land and "property" to protect. They made themselves dependant on farmable land, and thus had to defend it from others that would like to take it.

Um--nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers war with each other pretty much permanently and constantly. Hence why the leader of the tribe is generally the strongest WARRIOR. Not to mention spending your life learning survival skills leaves no time for you to learn to be an artist, philosopher, poet, composer, writer, programmer, chef, doctor or any of the other fun things about life. The remains of paleolithic humans *very often* show signs of violent death caused by tools like clubs, axes, and arrowheads.

Hunting and gathering *needs* to take less energy than agriculture et al because there's less dietary energy available. If you're going to burn calories, you HAVE to eat them. Or else you starve to death. Not to mention the fact that it leaves you completely exposed to the vagaries of nature. Heck, small-scale agriculture even has this problem. Flood this year? Bad storm? Drought? Instant famine. Most of the world is uninhabitable by hunter-gatherers.

That's not to say agriculture is a universal good in every conceivable way (there's no such thing). Agriculture has turned a lot of unsuitable food into mainstays of the modern diet, causing all kinds of chronic health problems. Concentrated populations are extremely vulnerable to crowd diseases. Fortunately proper sanitation fixes the latter, and the study of nutrition is gradually fixing the former. In the meanwhile, increased availability and consistency of food has enabled global civilization to spring up. I'd take that tradeoff any day.

 

[emptyother]

Humanities biggest mistake was that mistake which reduced the human herd to about 1000 individual humans... Since we survived that we have only grown stronger.

All'n'all i love what humanity have done so far, even though i dislike a lot of individual humans. I just hope we get of this rock before its struck by a random asteroid.