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[ToonyMan]

We are constant shit fixers.

[Jackrabbit]

We are constant shit fixers.

In the beginning there was the shit, and the shit was humanity, and humanity was the shit.

[Realmfighter]

Aww yeah, thats some the shit.

Edited.

[Jackrabbit]

The shit.

[AtomicPaperclip]

That's assuming there's some hidden balance here which must never be disturbed.

We change things. Shit happens when things change and shit can be bad. That's why we continue to change things, to fix the shit.

Are we really changing things for the better?

[Realmfighter]

Every change somethings get worse and some things get better.

Its up to you which is which.

[Jackrabbit]

That's assuming there's some hidden balance here which must never be disturbed.

We change things. Shit happens when things change and shit can be bad. That's why we continue to change things, to fix the shit.

Are we really changing things for the better?

That depends on your own, personal opinion. Do you think we are? Why/why not?

[Duuvian]

A fly on a desk in a school classroom is of zero value. It will provide no food for any other creature, it will not survive, it will not eat, it will not reproduce.

A human in a city is of negative value. It consumes large amounts of limited resources and creates large amounts of waste and harmful toxins.

Negative value to who, and why should we care? Or more importantly, why should we waste time caring or complaining instead of fixing the problem? I mean, it's concerning but if that person is working to better the world or their situation, how can they be of negative value?

I would take one step farther and say unless they are actively, intentionally harming someone in some way all human life is equally valuable since there is always someone who would be considered more valuable than yourself. I don't think that bedridden cripples eating food while hungry able bodied people starve counts as the crippled person being of negative value either. While they may not be able to provide as much physical work as the able bodied person, I don't think that means their personality, ideas and thoughts should be sacrificed for another. Also, if that's the way we're going, the opposite logic is equally valid, since the able bodied person should be able to provide for himself much more capably than a crippled person.

Also, Jackrabbit has a valid point when he asks why it would matter to establish the value of an individual's human life, especially when at least one person will always consider it to be priceless. The obvious answer is hinted at by the disturbingly low hitman prices posted above. When someone really, really has to die due to the serious physical danger they threaten on a person or people around them, I'd agree it's necessary as a last resort. If you act too soon with violence though you become the serious danger while distracting from the original dangerous person who started the problem in the first place. A good example is the hitman posts above. The probably live in fear of police because they are a dangerous person.

Jackrabbit, I think AtomicPaperclip is only suggesting that people are always competing with one another for limited resources. This can be true, but those resources can be expanded by production, which generally happens naturally in a free market when there is a demand, IE a shortage due to consumer competition to consume what resources they have available. The problem is when the free markets best friend and strongest enemy, greed, comes into play in force, and powerful production entities limit supply to raise prices. Futures speculators and supply organizations such as OPEC would be a pretty good example.

[Jackrabbit]

I thought he was just doing the whole, standard "humans are all bastards and will ruin the world" thing.

[Duuvian]

I guess he could be, I haven't read the rest of the thread after those two posts I quoted though, I'll edit this message after I go through

That's assuming there's some hidden balance here which must never be disturbed.

We change things. Shit happens when things change and shit can be bad. That's why we continue to change things, to fix the shit.

Are we really changing things for the better?

Actually, I would say that the social development has been mostly an upward trend throughout recorded history. It took us a while to get out of Feudalism, but it was totally worth it in my opinion. There have been backward slides into dark ages every now and then, but having advanced from scattered hunter-gatherers to an internet building, space faring race is pretty impressive.

The things that we are having a negative overall effect in that I can quickly think of from the top of my head are environmental quality, the massive civilian toll of modern total warfare, and the number of ways the earth/humans could be destroyed. Anyone think of anything else?

[Jackrabbit]

Not saying I'm right, just that's what I can see. Feel free to correct me, AP.

[Karnewarrior]

If you want to know the value of a person, Take another random person off the street and ask him how much money it should cost to kill this person. His answer is his value.

[Duuvian]

If you want to know the value of a person, Take another random person off the street and ask him how much money it should cost to kill this person. His answer is his value.

Hehe, I like this one. If they really deserve it in the second person's eyes, they'll do it for free! Your statement is brilliant yet simple truth, Karne. Being serious, not sarcastic, I know it's hard to tell with text.

The problem with that is what if you tell person B that person A is a drug dealer when B hates drug dealers, when you really know A is your wife's secret lover.

[AtomicPaperclip]

I thought he was just doing the whole, standard "humans are all bastards and will ruin the world" thing.

Yeah kind of. I really don't think moving away from the natural world makes humans any happier, so if "ruining the world" doesn't make man-kind happier then it's just a waste.

[Jackrabbit]

I thought he was just doing the whole, standard "humans are all bastards and will ruin the world" thing.

Yeah kind of. I really don't think moving away from the natural world makes humans any happier, so if "ruining the world" doesn't make man-kind happier then it's just a waste.

Like I said, I don't think there's some standard for what the world's supposed to be like. We change the world because happiness isn't all there is. Progress is the goal of a lot of people and progress is unstoppable. Moreover, I don't think we're ruining the world. Things are improving everywhere, progress marches ever onwards and the world changes, occasionally for the worse, mostly for the better, in all fields, be it the standard of living or just how we go about protecting the environment. Have a little faith that we're not going to kill ourselves and everyone and everything around us, because we don't need to do that. And the majority will always outnumber the minority that want to.

Also, if you're talking about what makes humanity as whole happy and that anything that doesn't make us happy should be discarded, then it sounds like you've got a pretty Utilitarian view, which probably isn't the best way of looking at things. What makes a person happy will differ from person to person, so you can't really say "only things that make humanity as a whole happy are not a waste" because then so much more will be... wasted.

Anyway. Progress and invention make people's lives easier, more comfortable, more productive and, for the vast majority of people in 1st world countries, happier. I don't really see how you can say that moving away from the natural world doesn't make people happy, when all around us are people enjoying themselves because of the things scientific progress has provided. I mean, hell, in third world countries, some people are just as happy as us, sure, but many, many more have trouble surviving, have to work hard every day just to eat, aren't afforded medical attention that we can provide because they don't have what we have and suffer atrocities caused by neglect, other people or just a lack of protection from disease, storms, natural disasters and so on. So yeah, we're happier than people who aren't ruining the world as much as we are, because of what we've achieved. Part of what we've achieved is finding ways of fixing our mistakes. That's how progress works. The BP oil spill, for example, is a total disaster, never should have happened, the people involve should be arrested, and so on and so forth, but I can say with absolute certainty that ten years from now we'll know how to cap a spill like that quicker and safer than we can today. And I can also tell you that, and I can't make any real time estimates here, some day the mess that the spill has created will have been cleaned up, leaving us with an idea of how to do it faster and more efficiently than we can now (although hopefully it won't have to happen again).

The world isn't being run into the ground. Something happens, something bad is one of the results and a ways and means to fix the problem results from the bad things.