Humanity's worst mistake

[cthulhumythos]

how about taking so friggin long to get where we are now? i mean c'mon! i was hoping to become immortal in my life time, but due to our ancestors negligence science hasn't come that far.

 

[SD-Fiend]

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.

you sir deserve a reward for not being a cynic/supposed misanthrope. those are a bit hard to find on this site

 

[Jimmy Sylvers]

Humanity's worst mistake was the ability to recognize mistakes because if we couldn't recognize them there wouldn't be any. Alternatively this thread was humanity's worst mistake. . I mean did anyone expect this not to be a fight about whether religion is the worst mistake?

 

[SD-Fiend]

Humanity's worst mistake was the ability to recognize mistakes because if we couldn't recognize them there wouldn't be any. Alternatively this thread was humanity's worst mistake. . I mean did anyone expect this not to be a fight about whether religion is the worst mistake?

no. no we did not

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

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.

You make many erroneous assumptions there.

First of all, what makes you think that hunter/gatherer/fisher-societies WEREN'T based on a group of humans working towards a common goal?

Second, hunter/gatherer/fisher-societies tended to be quite small, just like the populations of large scale predatory species tend to be quite small. I.e the population adapts according to the amount of prey there is to be had.

Also, hunting game was never the hunter/gatherer/fisher-man's primary source of food. In fact it couldn't have been since hunting game of enough quantities to sustain each community required a lot of focused effort and cooperation and sometimes it all ended up in nothing because no game was available at the moment. The primary foodsources were fruit, berries, nuts (which there was a clear abundance of and in no way of meager enough quantities that man would've been able to pick the land clean of it like locusts) along with fish (fish tend to be moer readily available than hunting game).

So no, we wouldn't have been able to "strip the land clean" like you make it out to be. Mainly because if we would ever get close to achieving that through basic hunter/gatherer techniques, then the abundance of humans would die due to starvation and our numbers would've dropped to more reasonable levels.

Another reason why we wouldn't be able to is because the hunter/gatherer society had no need for industrialization. Only during large scale agri-cultural production and farming would industrialization be needed and beneficial, and I think we can both agree on that the industrial revolution has proven to be the main culprit of most of our enviromental problems and annihilation of several species and decreasing the bio-diversity of the ecosphere.

Had we just remained as hunters and gatherer's, then we might not have been as many as we are today (which is hardly a bad thing considering the accumulating problems of over population), but we'd also never had a reason to destroy the enviroment in order to amass financial gain.

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.

Well aren't you pretty much equally ignorant if you basically claim that our quality of life is "superior" to the humans living as hunters/gatherers in the early stone-age?

Also, do consider the fact that back then, they didn't have laws against consuming psychadelic mushrooms or smoking stimulating weeds. So an abundance of lesuire time and an entire forest full of stimulants, along with helpful and cooperative humans (they pretty much have to be because they had no way of surviving completely on their own back then). Not to mention all the time they had to engage in copulation, muse over the mysteries of their world and those twinkly lights in the sky, and all they had to do to keep that up was spend a fraction of the amount of hours that we spend each day working, and their spent hours was mainly in housekeeping and little else since they didn't have stuff like an entire economy and industry to support.

So really, who are you to call me ignorant when you, yourself only have some half-assed addage about "reaping rewards" to support your claims that the man of the stone age was much worse off than we are today?

 

[Therumancer]

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?

I think it's somewhere between music elitists, british comedy and Japanese hentai.

Truthfully? I don't think humanity as a whole has made many mistakes, which is why we not only survive, but are the dominante species on the planet. Most of our "mistakes", things like genocides, wars, and other things are all only viewed that way through the artificial construct of morality that we ourselves created. Even at our worst it can be argued that a lot of good has come of it, wars and genocides result in less people which while not pleasant to think about helps control our overpopulation.

Religion is an easy target for left wingers, but really more good has come of religion than bad. People tend to look at the wars and bloodshed, but at the same time it's formed the backbones of entire societies that progressed us as a species. People like to go on about wars, but tend to forget about the missionaries who brought knowlege and civilization to primitive peoples. People will oftentimes look at the violet aspects of that kind of thing, but not the situations where it helped, or formed the backbone of tons of selfless aid.

To be honest I think your teacher sort of represents the problem with the current educational system, and one of the big reasons why there are so many complaints about educators become FAR too liberal. From the way you make it sounds this guy seems to basically be argueing an anti-civilization, one with nature, hippie-liberal type point of view. After all without farming and herds we would never have settled into solid communities, developed civlization, technology, and other things. He's probably got some warped utopian view of it like many other people that espouse similar ideals, but in the end it's basically him saying we'd be better off dying by the age of 30 in the mud due to a lack of things like antiobiotics. "One with nature" anti-civilization rants sound great, until you consider the actual realities.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I know it's not my conversation but it's not really fair to quote the Old Testament when discussing Christians, especially when most Christians in the UK at least don't have a working knowledge of it. It's basically become non canon to a degree.

Almost all the Christians I know consider the books that make up the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers) to be products of their hateful time and the rest of the books to essentially be a documentary of the hate-train's journey through the Holy Lands. By just searching for bible quotes that promote violence without considering the cultural and historical context of the passage you do sensible Christians (the vast, vast majority) a serious disservice.

No, I don't, because I did include passages from the NEW TESTAMENT, that pretty much sums it all up that no Christian (not even "sensible" ones) are allowed to ignore the law as it is written in the old testament. In fact they aren't even allowed to interpret it in a personal manner, but have to accept and adhere to EVERYTHUNG written in the old testament weether they fucking like it or not.

And if by "disservice" you mean promoting antagonism towards christianity, then im glad I could do just that. The more intolerance of religion I can cause by using religion against itself, the better.

 

[Thomas Hardy]

Compound interest.

The realization that money TECHNICALLY devalues with time leads to investing and to an entire social class that makes money simply by HAVING money and lending it to others.

Karl Marx figured that out but his solution doesn't work. Nowadays we have financial experts able to create complex artificial commodities (stuff with "tranches", etc.) that render trying to outlaw "profit" impossible.

Completely blowing up the ability of anyone to "invest" money rather than "spend" or "save" it would be a step in the right direction IMO.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

how about taking so friggin long to get where we are now? i mean c'mon! i was hoping to become immortal in my life time, but due to our ancestors negligence science hasn't come that far.

Might have something to do with roughly 800 years of what we call "the dark ages", where religious crazies censored and opposed scientific research if it wasn't in accordance with their religious views.

A scientific solution to death would've never been accepted, since you know, we're only supposed to be able to achieve immortality "through Christ" and all that stuff.

So if you wonder why scientific advances hasn't come further than this, you need not look further than your local church, synagouge or mosque to find the culprits...

 

[biggskanz]

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

Wall of text be gone!

I think you're having an emotional reaction to information that does not conform with your preconceived notions. Try actually considering the message and looking into it more. They have a whole series on youtube debunking the overpopulation myth.

Lets look at what you wrote:

First sentence: Appeal to ridicule
First paragraph: Red herring
Second paragraph: Red herring
Third paragraph: Appeal to authority

Next you get into an ad hominem.

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?

Are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me the UN (who all your links get their data from) would not have vested political interests in this subject also?

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

Another ad hominem/appeal to ridicule. Try again.

 

[StarCecil]

The internet. Seriously, if we hadn't invented it, we wouldn't have to hear each other bitching and moaning all the time.

 

[GWarface]

Making the first atom bomb..

No country should have weapons like that (now they are even worse) and if there really is some aliens watching us from above, we showed them how intelligent and fucking stupid we are at the same time.. Which really isnt a good sign to send..

But hey.. No nukes, no Fallout.. Thats not good..

 

[ImperialSunlight]

Religion. Since its very beginning its been used as an excuse for genocide, war, dictatorship, you name it. In every conflict I can think of, religion played a part.

I don't think theorising about the world around us or believing in spirituality is really a mistake. Perhaps organised religion, rather than simply religion as that is what caused wars, genocides, etc, not religion itself.

 

[yman15]

Religion. Since its very beginning its been used as an excuse for genocide, war, dictatorship, you name it. In every conflict I can think of, religion played a part.

What about WWI, WWII, Korea, Cold war and Vietnam weren't those mainly based off politics?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Religion. Since its very beginning its been used as an excuse for genocide, war, dictatorship, you name it. In every conflict I can think of, religion played a part.

What about WWI, WWII, Korea, Cold war and Vietnam weren't those mainly based off politics?

Not to mention the Nepolianic wars, the Civil War, the Revolutionary war, and the War of 1812.

 

[lacktheknack]

Religion. Since its very beginning its been used as an excuse for genocide, war, dictatorship, you name it. In every conflict I can think of, religion played a part.

So did air.

OT: Probably the bit where we extended luxury beyond our means on the planet. I read somewhere that for everyone on Earth to lead a middle-class western lifestyle, we'll need three planet Earths to stay sustainable.

 

[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.

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.

True, trading was a flawed system but I was thinking closer along the lines of nobody owning anything but more like mutually sharing everything with everyone. I meant to use trading to ease into the idea of "what's mine is your and what's yours in mine".

 

[Valknott]

monotheistic religion. Fuck Islam, Christianity, and all the other bastard religions they sprung from and led to. It's government in mystical form, that also makes you more susceptible to blindly following government. Raaaaaaaage.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

No, I don't, because I did include passages from the NEW TESTAMENT, that pretty much sums it all up that no Christian (not even "sensible" ones) are allowed to ignore the law as it is written in the old testament. In fact they aren't even allowed to interpret it in a personal manner, but have to accept and adhere to EVERYTHUNG written in the old testament weether they fucking like it or not.

Christians are allowed to interpret the bible in their own way, that's one of the main ideas behind Protestantism and the resulting rash of different denominations. My point is that by failing to consider the circumstances under which the passage was written you're assuming Christians are stupid enough to act like some Sci-fi religious race and just believe anything they're told. in Europe there's a long tradition of allegorical or subjective interpretations, being able to google-fu a passage or two that glorifies killing proves nothing.

And if by "disservice" you mean promoting antagonism towards christianity, then im glad I could do just that. The more intolerance of religion I can cause by using religion against itself, the better.

but you're not, you're comparing old rules to new rules. Frankly I don't know anyone who worships Jesus and doesn't interpret the Bible. Also, finding a few thousand-year-old passages that contradict each other in an amalgamated book is not fighting Religion; anyone who's read the Bible seriously knows that several of the passages are repeats of earlier ones (Jesus feeds a crowd magically twice) or meaningless without other missing texts. Every sensible Christian uses the Bible as food for thought rather than as a rigid rulebook, managing to outwit idiots isn't anything to cheer about.

You basically ignored all that I said didn't you?

I don't care what protestants are doing, they are IN FACT going against their own religion by ignoring the words of christ. Making them hypocrites (but then again, that's hardly any real news when it comes to religion either so).

The book is pretty clear about the matter of personal and allegorical interpretation. It's not allowed. If some people do just that, then they aren't being very good christians...

 

[lacktheknack]

how about taking so friggin long to get where we are now? i mean c'mon! i was hoping to become immortal in my life time, but due to our ancestors negligence science hasn't come that far.

Might have something to do with roughly 800 years of what we call "the dark ages", where religious crazies censored and opposed scientific research if it wasn't in accordance with their religious views.

A scientific solution to death would've never been accepted, since you know, we're only supposed to be able to achieve immortality "through Christ" and all that stuff.

So if you wonder why scientific advances hasn't come further than this, you need not look further than your local church, synagouge or mosque to find the culprits...

Don't worry, I take personal pride in making you upset about this at this point.