Why are humans so self-destructive?

[MrFun]

Re: Re: Re: Why are humans so self-destructive?

Originally posted by Lorizael


Nah, humans just **** a lot. We're still quite self-destructive. Most animals have very little intra-species conflict. If it does exist then it's non-lethal dominance competitions or killing offspring of other males. Only in mammals that approach our intelligence (primates and such) do you see anything approaching the wars that we have.

Very young hyenas have been known to try to kill each other within the same litter.

There's a species of water bird in which an available female will kill a nest of hatchlings and eggs to get the male to breed with her.

Some species of rodents (squirrels, mice, rats) have been observed to get some kind of craving for more protein, so they kill and eat the young of other squirrels, mice, or rats -- but doesn't happen very often, I don't think.

Sometimes, male zebras will kill a foal that does not belong to it, even if its within the same herd -- saw this happen only once though, in a documentary, so I guess that is rare, but that has happened.

I can't think of other examples right now.

[Lancer]

Boredom breeds enthusiasm...death and destruction soon follow.

[Lord Merciless]

All carnivores and omnivores will cannibalize each other if resource gets tight.

The more intelligent a specie is, the more likely this specie is going to commit murders. Murders are defined as killing not out of necessity.

Male lions usually kill off any offsprings from the previous male, after winning a mating competition. In human world, it's equivalent of killing off all your stepchildren.

As for fighting wars, observe ants and bees for a prolonged period and then draw your conclusions.

Humans are just more resourceful at killing each other, to the point where we become the first specie that can wipe themselves out.

Nature is pretty good at population controls.

[General Ludd]

What's all this about war? War isn't self destructive, it's enemy destructive... well, alright, it's a bit of both really. Especially in modern times, or with the advent of nation states and armies willing to kill on the whim of a handful of politicians, instead of protecting their family or tribe.

But if you want real self-destructive behaviour, you have to look at the environmental damage we do. We treat the air, soil, and water - all the things essential to our life - as toxic wastes dumps... hell, you could even argue we treat our own bodies that way, too. The only time animals crap in their den like that is when they've gone mad from confinment or some sort of obsessive behaviour - like we have with profit and capitalism. We're so obsessed with creating a 'profit' that we strive to create an endless, exponential, growth in an enviornment of limited resources. That's about as self-destructive as you can get. We're constantly increasing the needs we have from our environment while at the same time destroying it at an ever increasing rate.

[Xeones]

the evolutionary drive of *ideas* exceeds that of humans. ideas use humans as so much meat in the grinder in order to spread themselves.

[Lancer]

"the evolutionary drive of *ideas* exceeds that of humans. ideas use humans as so much meat in the grinder in order to spread themselves."

Hell of an idea.

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Osweld
But if you want real self-destructive behaviour, you have to look at the environmental damage we do. We treat the air, soil, and water - all the things essential to our life - as toxic wastes dumps... hell, you could even argue we treat our own bodies that way, too. The only time animals crap in their den like that is when they've gone mad from confinment or some sort of obsessive behaviour - like we have with profit and capitalism. We're so obsessed with creating a 'profit' that we strive to create an endless, exponential, growth in an enviornment of limited resources. That's about as self-destructive as you can get. We're constantly increasing the needs we have from our environment while at the same time destroying it at an ever increasing rate.

If you think communism is good for the environment then you are hopelessly wrong.

If you think feudal despotism is good for the environment then you are just another Taliban.

If you think stone age tribalism is good for the environment then you might as well starve yourself to death.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Lord Merciless


If you think communism is good for the environment then you are hopelessly wrong.

If you think feudal despotism is good for the environment then you are just another Taliban.

If you think stone age tribalism is good for the environment then you might as well starve yourself to death.

And if you think Captialism is good, you might aswell kill yourself now and get it over with.

I didn't mention communism, despotism, or tribalism. Go troll somewhere else

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Osweld


And if you think Captialism is good, you might aswell kill yourself now and get it over with.

I didn't mention communism, despotism, or tribalism. Go troll somewhere else

Just to be serious, what a system better than capitalism do you have in mind?

[General Ludd]

I used the term 'captialism' because it embodies the ideals I'm talming about, not because I'm some wanna-be stalin or hitler (or taliban ).

I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about environmentalism, and the goals we have had for the past few thousand of years. An 'environmentally friendly' society could happen under most kinds of political governemnts, it is just our priorities that need to be adjusted. We need to focus less on endless progress and profits, and more living. Soviet style communism obviously wasn't 'environmentally friendly' because it had an obsession over industry and progress rivaling that of it's capitalist conterparts.

[Az]

that's not destructive to the enviroment. It's changing it. That impact is present in the appearance of all new species. Of course, we're probably the most strong, cunning and shrewd lump of matter to walk this part of the galaxy, so it's kinda hard on the primitive animals, but we'll soon learn to live in equilibrium in certain places, and modify the equilibrium to our needs. Just as we've always been doing.

[st_swithin]

Tyranny.

I think it would be a good thing to start a lemming run as an effort towards population control. Tell people that they're too fat, and that they should go on a special diet, and then they'll be too busy starving themselves to be happy and then they'll die early of lost hope and chronic insecurity!

To reinforce these negative thoughts, show only tv shows and movies starring 'perfect' people - ridiculously thin blonde women and men with capped smiles and 0% body fat - and publish glossy magazines with airbrushed and Photoshopped photos of those same 'perfect' people wearing clothes you'll never be able to afford, living in houses that exist in neighborhoods you'll never see, living lives so perfectly unattainable that you might was well die now because you will NEVER have any of these things. AND you paid for that TV service and you paid $6 for that issue of Cosmo. YEAH! GO LOGIC!!

[Sandman]

Well, our existance is an uneasy marriage of mammalian pack animal instincts and social insect-style hives.
Luckily we are smart enough to be able to sustain this marriage with an unbelievable array of inventions; both material and social.

[Az]

We need to focus less on endless progress

Yeah, .

You're forgetting that without progress, we wouldn't be able to sit and discuss enviromentalism.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Azazel
that's not destructive to the enviroment. It's changing it.

Yeah, changing is right. Like how the water has been changed to require extensive destirilization to be able to drink it without the threat of dying or your children having mutations. Or how the air has been changed to be barely breathable at times, with smog so thick that people can die by the thousands on a bad day. Or how lush forests and soil have been changed to desserts which aren't able to sustatin a fraction of life it used to.

It's going to take alot of ingenuity to figure out a way to live in a world where everything is toxic, or dead.