Poll: do you think the human race should survive?

[Skin]

The human race won't survive. We will evolve.

I teach you the Overman.

OT: Yes, the human species deserves to eradicated from existence. It's going to happen.

 

[RatRace123]

I'd say yes, if only because I'm sure we have more to offer.

At least we can't die out before we cause the robot revolution.

 

[albinoterrorist]

Think of a world without tax returns, car insurance, nuclear bombs, guns and governments that know everything about everyone. A world where there are still blank spaces on the map waiting to be discovered.
A world where we can all live a sustainable existence, with the environment and its wonderful animals.
Hippy rant aside I think we should continue as a species, but there needs to be less of us and we need to be more environmentally friendly.

Hurr hurr, Government bad, durr.
I'm sorry, but no.

You need tax returns to pay for the State. Government cannot run on goodwill and rainbows.
You need car insurance to better protect you from fate. Chance can be a cruel mistress, if it were not so then there would be no market for insurance.
You need bombs and guns for deterrence (i'd agree we do not need nuclear weaponry, as it's not worth the risk, but it seems irrelevant as we'll likely have something far deadlier within a century or less) to prevent others from harming you. Were it not for weapons, people would just harm you and abuse you with tooth, nail or claw. At least anyone can use a gun. Not everyone can punch out another.
You need governments to provide the services you enjoy, day in, day out. Not just education, not just the legal system, not even just power, but simpler things too, like plumbing, heating, roads and street-lights. Small communities (let alone individuals) could not afford this without assistance. Assistance which can only be provided by the state - which is, of course, why they need your tax returns.
If your problem was merely them knowing everything about you, then that's to ensure they don't continue paying pensions or disability allowances to those who died several years ago.
We need a filled in map so everyone knows what they can and can't claim. Otherwise, conflict breaks out. Hell, even now, it still does. Now imagine if they were in areas which no-one had legitimate claims to? It'd be a hell of a mess.

Point in fact, we had to SURVIVE the environment and its "wonderful animals" to get where we are.

I'm all for humanity surviving beyond planet Earth and, heck, we can even bring the other Earthlings along, but we WILL be keeping all those things you mentioned, and we WILL be keeping our dominance.

Because if it's a choice between spreading human-ruled life, as "imperfect" as that may be, across the cosmos and being stuck in a swamp somewhere on Earth, sitting in a teepee trying to weave my own yoghurt while hoping a bear doesn't waltz in and maul my children for the second time this month, then I know what i'll choose, every single time.

We will solve the problems presented to us through technological superiority - not through culling ourselves and foresaking thousands of years of innovation.

 

[Vault101]

Let's swap 'humanity' for 'Jews'. It's suddenly a lot less palatable, isn't it? But that's what you're advocating, outright genocide of a species just for being born human. Personally, as a human, I'm offended by the assumption that I'm a selfish scumbag who doesn't deserve to live just because of my genes. If I'd been born asari, would that make my existence tolerable all of a sudden?
.

THIS

that is actually a really really REALLY good point (whish I thourght of it) I mean to some its perfectly acceptible to sit there grumbling about thsi faceless mass called "Humanity"

but when you chaneg the worlding around..all of a sudden its not so good..it illustrates exactally what your talking about

fucking genocide of innocent people

 

[dobahci]

As the first known fully sentient, self-aware species, we absolutely should survive! The loss of humanity would be unfortunate. That's not to say we couldn't be replaced. I'm sure another species could evolve the ability to use higher thought. But they'd have to start all over again.

All the technological advances, scientific discoveries we've made would have to be rediscovered. The development of life would be set back by many thousands of years. The compendium of human knowledge and culture would be erased.

Another conscious, intelligent species might be able to reinvent the wheel, the combustion engine, the computing machine, and the internet, but you'll never be able to reinvent Beethoven. Or Tolstoy. Or Michelangelo. Sure, there will be artists. But they will be different artists, and all the old art will be lost forever. All of the existing human languages would never be spoken aloud again. All of the mythology, the culture, the tales handed down from generation to generation in oral traditions would be irrecoverably gone.

This would be an immeasurable loss, and anyone who doesn't think so is gravely mistaken.

 

[Reaper195]

Yes. What we shouldn't do is be so fuckin' petty.

 

[Blind Sight]

"Should" and "deserve" are concepts purely human in origin. I can't see any other species questioning whether its species 'should' or if it 'deserves' to survive by whatever arbitrary morality system they believe in. Morality doesn't even factor into survival; survival is based on pragmatism. It's honestly an uninteresting question based on theory to me; we're here and we're not going anywhere anytime soon. So I guess my answer is that I don't feel like I have the authority or knowledge to judge an entire species' development in an objective way.

 

[Korenith]

So this is basically an emo cry about the world being a better place without us right? Since nobody would be around to appreciate that fact it doesn't matter. Tree falling in the woods etc. And no nature wouldn't give a damn either because no other species is aware enough to appreciate our absence beyond the "oh maybe I can go into this empty city now and see if there's food" level.

BUT WAIT!!

It was said that OP wouldn't like what they saw from an outside perspective so the POV we are taking is an alien being's? In which case my reaction would be "ooooh sentient life. I wonder if I could communicate with it, maybe improve it, got some silly ideas down there but hey who doesn't right? Especially at their primative level. But then what if my intervening makes things worse? Could just watch and see how they turn out since my amazingly advanced technology allows me to survive indefinitely. Could be interesting."

So basically yeah I do think the continuation of the human race is a good thing. Hell, I'm just annoyed that I don't get to see how far we can take things before something does finally wipe us out (unless that happens within my lifetime obviously). So the percentage of people who actually make an improvement to society is relatively tiny. That is precisely the way EVOLUTION the OP is banging on about works. I would happily sift through thousands of idiots to find the handful of people that really do something amazing with their lives.

 

[Korenith]

WAIT. STOP. HOLD IT RIGHT THERE.

Name any other species that has a global network system that can transmit information to the other side of the planet in a split second that stores the entirety of their cultural and technological information on.

The internet alone is one of the most amazing things ever conceived, I think a race capable of that in only around 400 years of electricity being discovered in a usable form is a bit more deserving than some of its members might think. Give us another 100 and space exploration may be the new internet.

Yeah the internet......wow
why does that justify the continuation of our species, so we can look at porn anywhere in the world, and update our pointless twitter accounts with stuff like just saw a film. Or just took a crap. Yeah that's really great isn't it.
Admittedly we can do a lot of good with the internet like amnesty international and other such positive things. But at the end of the day I would rather live in a society which is more environmentally friendly, than have a lot of the annoying bullsh*t.
Think of a world without tax returns, car insurance, nuclear bombs, guns and governments that know everything about everyone. A world where there are still blank spaces on the map waiting to be discovered.
A world where we can all live a sustainable existence, with the environment and its wonderful animals.
Hippy rant aside I think we should continue as a species, but there needs to be less of us and we need to be more environmentally friendly.

Wait a second. Surely as an environmentally conscious person you should be THRILLED about the invention of the internet. Think of all the paper saved by having information online rather than cutting down massive forests for the paper needed for endless reissues of encylopedias as more and more changes are made to life at a faster and faster rate. Just because some people choose to use it for watching cats chase laser pens doesn't mean it isn't an incredibly useful and ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY tool.

 

[sumanoskae]

From an objective standpoint, no, but from an objective standpoint nothing has any value or meaning, the very idea of value is a construct developed by living hings, without them it wouldn't exist.

What you're bringing up is a human moral concern in a world where such things don't exist.

If you asked me "What would be the best way to improve the world for all it's inhabitants?" I would respond with "Engineer a virus that is fatal to humans and nobody else. The planet would be allowed to run it's course, and be freed from the threat of destruction at the hands of a species that has long since overstepped it's limitations. But neither of us are psychopaths, so we're not going to put that plan into action. We'll keep right on doing what we've been doing all this time, because it's in our nature to love life to much to give it up"

In the end, no sane human being runs entirely on ethics and reason, because life itself has no use for, nor is it imbued with, ethics and reason.

Despite our "advancements", we're still ultimately instinctual creatures, and nothing matters more to us then the continued survival and prosperity of ourselves and our ilk.

Contrary to popular belief, I like people, and I don't want them gone from the earth, so I wouldn't be okay with planet wide extinction.

 

[loc978]

Well, I can't really say "yes" or "no" to this one. I don't really feel that invested with the subject matter (I'm not very vehement [http://www.vhemt.org/] about my position... but why did I choose to speak, then? One word: bored).
Still, I wouldn't mind if we voluntarily went extinct in the coming generations. Nothing violent or painful, no disease... just stop having kids. Like pandas (which should have gone extinct by now).
Then again, if people keep having kids, I'm okay with that too. I'm not really invested in what happens here after I die.

 

[plugav]

"Should we survive?" is not really a question I ask myself. If a species survives, it deserves it - that seems to be how nature works.
Will we survive, though? Not indefinitely, I think, but we appear to be adaptable enough to have a long time ahead of us.

 

[Vuljatar]

Wow. 19.6% of people who voted in this thread's poll are idiotic nihilists of the highest order. How can you wallow so deeply in self-loathing that you don't want your own species to continue to exist? The mere act of thinking that way makes you literally the worst possible evolutionary failure.

 

[ScaryAlmond]

At the moment it's iffy there are cultures that are still warlike and probably don't deserve to continue but i am optimistic we can change before we kill ourselves.

 

[kasperbbs]

Once im dead humanity can do whatever the hell it wants, but for now id rather we didnt go extinct.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

But in all likelyhood, we'll probably just die out. Probably not from nuclear war, or from climate change,

So you mean that our ancestors, who had to endure Ice Ages, are simply a fake?

And we have the advantages of knowledge and technology. Refrigerators and ovens didn't just fall from the sky.

I'm not quite sure what your point is bringing up the Ice Age. I said that we'll probably just die from an eventual drain of resources, which has been the case for every extinct species (that's over 99% of all species that have ever existed). We have been a resilient species in the past, but eventually it's probably going to end.

 

[CarlMin]

From an objective, universal perspective, we probably do more damage than good on this planet.
But being a human myself, I'd like to see our civilization survive as long as possible because I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Such as games and cheeseburgers.

 

[ElPatron]

which has been the case for every extinct species (that's over 99% of all species that have ever existed).

So when 85% of the planet's population died from poisonous gas they only made up 1% of the biodiversity this world has seen?

I don't think so, if the biodiversity we see now spawned from those 15%.

Climate change will only drive humans to other places. We have the technology, and we will use it.

 

[lacktheknack]

it seems to me like for every great scientist or teacber tbere's a million living excercises in mouth-breathing dumb-f*ckery and, well if I were to look at humanity as an outside observer, I don't think I'd like what I saw,

Get off the internet and go interact with REAL people. People are smart and intelligent 99.99% of the time, and the instant they screw up, it gets plastered on the internet for drama-queens to circle jerk about how they've lost their "faith in humanity", whatever the hell that means. AGAIN.

In REALITY, life goes on, and the little fails that seem to add up to "Humanity is Retarded" are forgotten nigh-immediately.

 

[RastaBadger]

Sometimes I do sometimes I don't. I think if we keep going towards doing things for monetary/personal gain then probably not and we probably won't. If we finally get around to working for the betterment of humanity and self improvement (and if everyone would just get along for once) then we probably do.
Also it seems the more news etc I watch I feel more no and the more Star Trek and MLP I watch the more I feel yes.