Being the world what it is, I wonder if man has been successful on living in this planet together.
Approximately 8 out 10 human beings live in sub-human conditions. Isn’t it paradoxical? Only 6% of all humans owns almost 60% of all the wealth produced. More than 50% is hunger. And yet, we still fight with each other for territory, for religious belief, for anything. Did man failure to live in one planet together?
I must have missed the AP report that mankind was over.
Man is a violent/warlike species as a whole. Always has been. And, although, I do not have any cites or statistics, I would assume that the quality of life has gotten better. “Sub-human conditions” are relative interms that what the undeveloped world lives in today was the norm not too long ago.
Will man fail to live together because of “nukular” holocaust or some such remains to be seen. And is still very possible.
I wouldn’t say we failed just yet. Perhaps we just arn’t doing a great job of it. And considering we made it through the last half of the “bloodiest century” without much in the way of major destruction says alot in the way man is tending to strive.
I do not see any possible means to end world poverty and hunger overnight. Or even within our lifetime. The fact that they are world issues that people fight for the world over is a plus. All we can do is keep our finger crossed and do what we can to change things for the better. And support those with the same interests.
:eek:
Alright, first, if I may, welcome to the boards.
Second, if you are going to argue in the Great Debates, I suggest you dig up some cites for your assertions.
Third, Man did not fail, that is a misconception. He recieved a D+ which, albeit, is a little low, is still passing. For my source I cite the idiot in the cubical across from me, who if left to his own devices would have died from his own feces in an ignorant slump decades ago. Seeing as he is still I alive, I can gather that, while mankind has not outright failed to live on this planet together, mankind certainly hasn’t recieved outstanding marks.
Hmm, curious, if that high a ratio is the case, wouldn’t that make it the average, so it would be just human conditions? (Or am I just being nitpicky).
Taken as a biological species, homo sapiens is a tremendous success. All competing predator species have been ruthlessly eliminated, like wolves, tigers, etc. and we have the planet’s meat supply entirely to ourselves. We live wherever we want, building our homes in the most unlikely spots, many of which were once claimed by other species, like bison and elephants.
Biologists consider that a species is a success when it establishes breeding populations in all available ecological niches, and since not only does homo sapiens live and breed everywhere on the planet, but also there has been at least one baby born in Antarctica, I think we may consider that homo sapiens is an unqualified worldwide success.
I wondered the same thing. It makes more sense to me that 5 out of 10 is the correct ratio.
It seems that the blame is being put on the ones that have more and none on those with less. I know that there is greed in the world, but there are other causes that aren’t the fault of the haves.
Well, if we had failed, then we wouldn’t still be around.
In a humanitarian concept we’re really suffering, but from a purely technological advancement standpoint, we’re doing rather well, considering we haven’t really been around for that long.
Except for the rude one I read, I agree with all answers given. They all make sense, specially Duck Duck Goose’s, which brought an interesting biological insight. Mankind compared to other species on this planet is indeed very successful. I base that only on the exceptional capacity of breeding and surviving on this planet. I don’t think that our material wealth is something we can be proud of, or at least proof of our success (believe it or not a like having my computer or my car).
The problem is, on my opinion, that Man can never be compared to other species on this planet, because we have hearts and now I’m not being biological here. We feel. I don’t think zebras suffer by knowing that other zebras are dying of hunger. I don’t think cats are worried if hundreds of other felines are dying because they’re in the middle of a war for territory. Man like no other being have problems with lack of self-esteem, with lack of opportunities. Man suffers when seeing children involved in drugs, in sexual harassment. We have emotions (and some are very painful) that makes us different from anything on Earth. So do you still think we are doing well?
I see these things as a sign of our advancement - we have transgressed simple survuival and have started to be concerned about “higher” things. This is not to imply that we haven’t got a long way to go still or that (as a species) we don’t get things spectacularly wrong from time to time, but the general trend is still upwards.
At least I think so…
Grim
The fact that we have the shear luxury to make our opinions known on such a site, which is great, don’t get me wrong, is probably an indication of our underlying assumptions about the world. In general, on an emotional level, we think things are pretty jake if we can pay our phone bills, and in our culture that’s kind of accurate, but many many more people live in violent dangerous environments on this wonderful blue ball, with a whole lot less resources and freedom than Western culture takes for granted.
Western culture is currently involved, altogether, not just America, though there is some bickering among allies, in maintaining priviledged access to all known oil reserves. It’s the thread of continuity behind all the major conflicts on the planet today - religion is only fuel to keep the masses engaged, not the decision making bodies of government.
A bit ludicrous on a vast scale when one considers that, according to Shell Oil, all known oil reserves will be depleted in the next 50 years at current levels of growth. One can, with conservation, stretch those numbers, but the oil drought is coming soon, within the lifetime of most people reading, and the politicians know it, hence the growing aggression.
If Western culture were to decide today to do the responsible thing, to switch over to some other non-depletable (miracle) energy source, there would still not be enough time to convert without general cultural disaster. That’s certainly true for the megacities that are rapidly developing all over the globe, completely dependent on oil for practically all its activities, as well as the life support systems themselves.
The sane thing would be to slow down and change directions, maybe start tapping the brakes, but the powers that be are looking for new and interesting ways to get just a tweak more speed out of the same motor. Understandable considering political inertia, but frighteneningly shortsighted.
Noam Chomsky in an interview once with some exasperation said, that maybe we are on the verge of proving that higher intelligence is a failed evolutionary experiment, and I consider him optimistic (he did say only maybe). But as many have already pointed out, life probably won’t be extinguished, but the quality just can’t be maintained at the current levels to which we have become quite accustomed to.
However you define failure though, as long as we’re breathing, eating, sleeping, reproducing, experiencing and existing, it is still a work in progress.
Maybe I’ll get flack for this, but as an animal man has been a raging success. Evolutionary success doesn’t include a variable for quality of life, religious tolerance, or equitable distribution of wealth.
Ah, wait, I see DDG has said something similar, so I’ll stop here.
Perhaps the question you are asking is has man lived up to his own standards of humanity? Well, of course not… and there aren’t even uniform standards to begin with.
I believe that the question was more about succeeding in living without major conflicts. Of course that conflicts arise from different or maybe equal but opposing interests. And there are two kinds of solution: I can get rid of the opposing party and take it all to myself or I can divide it equaly. The easy and more profitable way is to get rid of the bastard, right? That makes all the economic sense. But then, some wise men created something called rules, being them principles, commandments, beliefs or laws. Except for laws, all other types of explicit or implicit rules are very distorted by those who believe the use of power to become wealthier are acceptable.
The point is: as in power, a nation would definitely fight to maintain that position, since it knows what a nation are capable of doing once in power (as the nation knows itself).
It all makes economic sense. But then, human-being have other senses, other feelings…
Those who define success as being capable of surviving are very short-sighted, in my humble opinion. Or they just believe that our brains and other feelings animals don’t have are just there for no reason? The goal is to develop and enhance virtues that make us capable of understand the others. Once that is completely understood by all mankind, than Palestinian will forgive the Israel people who will forgive Germans, who will forgive British, who will forgive the French, who will forgive. Chinese will forgive Japanese who will forgive US, who will forgive Iraq and so on…
“You may say I’m a dreamer” said John Lennon once talking about what we are talking about here. And he got shot by a maniac, the kind of person that are still going to be around. But I don’ t see any difference from a diseased and psychopath person that for no reason shoot someone in the chest from a president who decide to drop two atomic bombs (the only two ever dropped in history!), or from the ones who planned the WTC attack, or from the ones who fire missiles on people with rocks in hands. They all have a reason, that same reason that will justify a strike back and so on. Do the math. It never stops, since it follows a rationale pattern. Just a more powerful sense is going to break this.
Well, sorry for the long opinion, but I may end saying that looking back, we evolved a lot, since killing came from being a fast solution to something completely horrifying. Now, the next step is to erase the ‘special cases legitimity’ of murdering.
Cheers!
IMF
I live in superhuman conditions. It all balances out.
Just watch out for Kryptonite!
Don’t leave us hanging, which one was the rude one? And, while we’re at it, why do you disagree with the rude one? Is it that you think that the rude one presented an incorrect analysis?
Sua
With all due respect I put it to you that Noam Chomsky’s intelligence is a failed experiment.
Sua, one can present a correct analysis about something and still be rude when presenting it. But I’m not really worried about that. As a matter of fact, I’m pleased to have you all discussing this polemic question.
Why do you think that, BMalion? He´s got an interesting point, since dogs as a specie have being much more succesfull than we have.
Really? Dogs are entirely depenant on human behavior. They exist as a marginal species. They essentially live and die only because they are useful to us. Wild dogs revert to a twisted form of lupine behavior.
This is not a good ecological niche. Its not a horrendus one. In fact, dogs are likely to survive as long as man does. But its not perfect. Dogs are not “more successfull” than we are precisely because they cannot exist without us!
In any event, even if every nuclear device were to be unleashed, the earth would survive. Humans are likely to survive as well, though. It won’t be easy, there won’t be many of us left, and technolgy will gone until geological processes bring new iron deposits to the surface.
If I do say so, I notice some of you are using some very different standards than I would use to “prove” mankind has failed.
More people live in security and luxury than ever before. Even the poorest are almost always better off. Usually, in fact, it takes corrupt and evil leadership (Hussein and Kim Jong Il) to cause things like mass starvation, which was once simply a hazard of life. Diseases are being slowly beaten back with a stick, even in the third world.
Cite? What a strange statement, more sucessful by what standard?