GameBanshee Forums

So, um... Yeah...

Just for clarification, where do the animals fit into all this?

I think humanity's contribution to the planet is a little less black and white than you paint it to be....

I'm as cynical as they come, and certainly no apologist for mankind's disasters, but I believe our situation to be far more complex than the simple result of thoughtless greed.

Incidentally, since mass collective suicide is unlikely, what would you suggest as a solution?

Well mankind must be doing something right since we have yet to have any mass extinction. While humans are one of the worst naturaly defend creature of our weight but with out intelegence that is far greater than any other animal in this world. And why shouldnt the strongest and best creature do what they please? Meaning breathing, waste making and such. While there are many wars, we are not all as bloodthirsty as people think. Many of the wars had a just backing and I see that dieing for your country would be an honorable action. If you believed in the cause. Sure, it may end up that we really do kill out our own race but considering how long we could have done it long ago I think humans dont get enough credit.

[QUOTE=CopperWater]Well mankind must be doing something right since we have yet to have any mass extinction.[/quote]

It's been repeatedly said in the past that the human race survived not for lack of trying to die--it merely lacked the ingenious means to that end. With the development of biological, chemical and above all, nuclear weapons, it certainly has that capability, and it has not shown any reticence about using these. For thousands of years it lacked 'em for organized, largescale warfare. Now, with those weapons in place, you have to give 'em at least a hundred years or more to succeed.

While humans are one of the worst naturaly defend creature of our weight but with out intelegence that is far greater than any other animal in this world. And why shouldnt the strongest and best creature do what they please?

I'm confused. Are you justifying that any human group which wants to kill others has a right to do so, because it's stronger, and therefore, somehow, "better?"

While there are many wars, we are not all as bloodthirsty as people think.

I find this statement amazing. The history of humankind has been a remarkable and well-documented bloodbath. It has also excelled in finding ingenious ways to spread horror and cruelty on an astonishing scale. Which century didn't show war crimes on a massive scale? How have you researched this?

I agree with the whole first post to this thread, but thats part of my thought on the issue of humanity. My only addition for the time is this, who says humanity is better than other species? Perhaps disease is simply the great predator of our species. We've conquered the other major predators that seem to dominate all over the planet, such as lions and wolves and sharks and such. Have we conquered disease? No. Everytime we think so, either it evolves into a far more deadly version, a new virus or disease comes out that kills many, or a plague stomps out life in huge numbers. Instead of coming down to bigger, smarter, stronger, quicker predators, natures has come down to using tiny, unthinking, rapidly reproducing organims to cull out vast numbers of the human species. Every time science defeats one, a new, more horrible disease pops up in its place to ravage areas of the world. Is this simply coincidence, or perhaps natural selection to get rid of those who are systematically destroying the balance of the planet for other animals and plants to survive?

Humans are only a waste of time (if they are indeed) in the eyes of humans, such as yourself.
The cosmos doesn't care a damn about our sorry state, nor will nature object if we destroy it, and on a universal level, if we did destroy our planet, the chances are not a single sentience would ever know or care.
But you object to humanity on our own terms - we kill each other, and humanity in general manages to make humanity in general unhappy. But the nature of humanity is to have a will to life - this will is much stronger than the will to happiness, or any other desire.
So mass extinction might accord with the fact that humanity violates its own desire to be happy, but violates utterly its most primal instinct, that to survive.

I ask rhetorically why you allow yourself to live in a world full of things you hate, if your desire to live is not stronger than your desire for a good world?

I agree with the premise, but the solution is to make the world decent IMO, not to extinguish mankind therefore eliminating the possibility of any future happiness along with suffering.

I for one am not one who sees humanity as a waste of time. Due to religion but also due to my own moral convictions. Life is about good and bad. It is the basic elements of life. The animal kingdom lives off killing each other and hunting other species down sometimes to extinction. Does that mean every predator is evil, bad and just causing trouble? Life is a symbotic arrangement between different living organisms.

Fable just because there have been bloodbaths does not mean that all of humanity is evil. These wars though fought by a good majority of the population, were caused by less than 1% of the population. They decided everything and fought for petty reasons. Just an example but are you impling that in todays world everybody is as dumb as George W Bush? Or that everyone is like sharon, OBL, saddam etc?

Almost everybody has stated that mankind has done great evil, but why ignore the good we have done? I certainly dont think we should look at human history with rose tinted glasses.

Problem with humans doing good or evil, is that it is often viewed in connection with human race and not the ecosystem we live in.

What good have humans done to the ecosystem we live in? All "good" things we have done as a specices are good towards ourselves, or good in attempting to clean up after ourselves
Many evil things we have done has been taken out on the ecosystem and defencesless beings that live and depend on said ecosystem.
To reuse the "good ole" matrix qutoe: Mankind is a virus.

The human races justification for existing in my view is that we are simply smarter then other races before us - evolution. However, it will also likely be our own undoing I fear, when looking at the progress we make in terms of killing things.

Just to note the massive damage that we have done to the ecosystem and the like started after the industrial revolution. Not before. So its been going on for roughly 400 years.

[QUOTE=Repent]I have contemplated one fact, do we deserve to exist? If I had the ultimate decision of survival, I would choose for us all to die. Just living without activity for us is polluting. Our bodies intake oxyen which all living things breath, and then spew out anything but oxygen. This is all unimportant, we rely on the plants and trees to recycle OUR waste...[/QUOTE]
You seem to be suggesting that all other living things besides us have more right to breathe, etc. than we do. Why would you believe that? What else is air good for if not for someone--like us, or other living things--to breathe?

But to answer your question, I don't think that any living thing "deserves" to exist. It either exists or it doesn't. As moral issues go, that's really quite banal.

But rather than being focused on whether people have a "right to exist" or something like that, your question seems to be more focused on the question of whether we deserve to use the earth's resources. That could raise some interesting issues. For example, hypothetically, if you were to stumble across the world's only remaining supply of oxygen, would you have the right to keep all of it to yourself, or would you be obligated to share it with everyone else? Let's suppose that if you shared it, there wouldn't be enough for everyone, so everyone would die even if you shared all of the oxygen you had with them, and you would die as well. So shouldn't you might as well keep all of it for yourself and save your own life if you couldn't save everyone else's? I think if you considered issues like that, you might be able to shed more light on your own questions.

An issue that's even more interesting to me is whether we have the right to create new lives. For example, if we breed animals or have children, we're creating new lives. If we all became gardeners and brought new plants into existence, could we justify our own existence, since we would be caretakers and givers of life? Or is there something rather presumptuous about bringing living beings such as children into the world without their consent? You ask whether we deserve to exist, but did our parents have the right to create us? If we don't deserve to exist, did our parents commit a crime when they brought us into the world?

No one chooses to exist, so existence itself is not an interesting moral issue. But when we do make choices, they have moral consequences, so questions about the choices we make are lot more interesting to me.

[QUOTE=CM]I for one am not one who sees humanity as a waste of time...[/QUOTE]
What else is time good for if we don't use it?

The problem with people(and this is something I think organized religion and most of the "great" philosophers try to pound into our heads) is that we all believe we are the apex of creation when we are merely a PART, a small piece, of creation...but since we have these nifty opposable thumbs and big yummy brains we think we own the place...we just live here and you'd think we would be just smart enough take better care of the place...not to mention each other...

[QUOTE=VonDondu]What else is time good for if we don't use it? [/QUOTE]

Now use is a much better term

[QUOTE=CM]Just to note the massive damage that we have done to the ecosystem and the like started after the industrial revolution. Not before. So its been going on for roughly 400 years.[/QUOTE]

Masive damage, yes.

But mankind has most always attempted to alter his surrondings for thousands of years. It is just because we became "smarter" and could do it faster over the last periode of time that it is more massive now.

[QUOTE=Xandax]Masive damage, yes.

But mankind has most always attempted to alter his surrondings for thousands of years. It is just because we became "smarter" and could do it faster over the last periode of time that it is more massive now.[/QUOTE]

Personally I dont see anything wrong with that.

[QUOTE=CM]Personally I dont see anything wrong with that.[/QUOTE]

Well - that could very well become one massive factor of our undoing. Changing the climate to a degree that will make a large part of the world either uninhabitable or simply unsuited for production of food.

[QUOTE=CM]Personally I dont see anything wrong with that.[/QUOTE]

Ability without responsibility is a recipe for disaster. While there have been individuals that have shown a strong sense of responsibility to the long view of the world, as a rule that hasn't been the case. Humankind has acquired the tools to wreck havoc on itself and on the earth as never before. I'm not putting any bets on its suddenly developing good sense anytime soon.

[QUOTE=fable] The history of humankind has been a remarkable and well-documented bloodbath.[/QUOTE]

I read somewhere that over the last 5000 years of humankind there has only been 70 years of peace (No war anywhere in the world). So I have to agree, bloodbath.

In my wondering mind though, when a shark attacks another fish for food...is this their war and if so, bloodbath could cover them (and others).


*Note: I don't consider the sharks attack for food, the same as a humans attack for greed. Killing to be just killing seems to be a human trait.

I don't see humanity as an anomaly in nature. We're a product of the mechanisms of this planet like all other lifeforms on earth are, both simple and complex. We're saddled with a unique and rather unappealing condition, however. We're capable of drastically altering the environment which surrounds us in a relatively short amount of time. In my opinion, this ability seems more of an instinctual drive in humans rather than a conscious choice. While change is the rule and the way the planet operates, humans can tinker with this process, accelerating it or taking it in an entirely different direction which can have drastic consequences that go well beyond the local in effect.

While I'm very cynical about humanity at this point in time, I'm retaining the irrational hope that something good will emerge from this mess.