[Paratech]

In a couple of discussions, people have talked about nature and how good it is to be natural, but have they thought it through?

In some species, the dominant males hump as many females as possible, and go through "heat" and cannot control themselves. They do not care about mating with animals in their own group/family, age of the females, and certainly not consent. So would we want a society where the strongest men were able to force women to have sex with them whenever they wanted?

Some animals kill their young, particularly if they are weak, would we want to kill our disabled people? or our old and weak?

The males of some species will often kill each other to determine the dominant male who will lead the group of animals, shall we do away with voting and just leave elections to a public bloodbath? That would make for interesting congressional / presidentual debates.

Some animals kill for sport, they'll torture other animals, eat other animals while they are alive, but is that a good idea for humans?

Seriously, just because nature allows animals to do whatever they want, is that a reason for humans to engage in any behavior they want? Is "animals do it" a reason to support these behaviors and others?

 

[Kaizen]

Is this just a masturbatory self indulgent thread?

You did answer all your own questions, posed no real areas for discussion whilst assuming you are empirically right.

Wow, seriously. Ignore list is a blessing but I wish threads were included

 

[Proto]

Yeah, as a suggestion for future discussion threads try to keep the first post as neutral as possible, just posing the most relevant debate topics you'd wish to see discussed, and maybe some though food to keep the discussion rolling. You can later include your opinion.

Well, I'll play the devil advocate here just so we don't have a bunch of I agree's. There do are many points were emulating nature is actually one of the only possible ways of progressing other than social behavior, specially in areas like engineering and sciences. Nature by itself represents a system that has continuously created increasingly complex mechanisms that solve many of the challenges that our world presents: foraging, flying, climbing trees, swimming. Science often uses nature as its ultimate inspiration to draw any initial design, and it is the primary knowledge source for this kind of up-bottom way of thinking.

Now, when applied to social behavior, sometimes it may be wise to ask ourselves whether our status of intelligent species actually puts us "above nature", in the sense that we dismiss natural ways as savage and ultimately "inhumane". Can we actually be completely sure that we are above of a system that has had much more million of years than us when trying to solve the very same problem we are ultimately trying to attack (survival)?

 

[Paratech]

Well there are certainly areas where nature provides a good platform for our society to work, I was not suggesting humanity should deny nature, but that it shouldn't consider nature any more perfect than our social structures that we have created.

As far as self masterbatory threads, people are free to interject what they feel would be an idealistic social system cherrypicking from the various social groups of past and present. Simply because I was rallying against an all natural based sociology did NOT mean I was against alternatives that included parts of nature and other sociological groups.

Use your imagination, discuss...

 

[Nevermore]

I hope netplay is available.

 

[Dennemark]

I hope netplay is available.

Man, netplay should always be available. Its like the cherry on the pie called 'life'

 

[-StrikE-]

What filters will it use ? HQ4X ? hmm... i hope it will not kill my cpu with that, AA would be nice but that will heavily load my gpu, will Pete work on the Sound plugin for this emulator ?

 

[Proto]

People, I've lost count of how many times I've repeated myself, but keep the spam in the bin. Yes, going OT for no apparent reason is spam in and of itself. No, don't try to use the "but it's in the title, we are just taking it literally" card.

but that it shouldn't consider nature any more perfect than our social structures that we have created.

In the same way we should not consier the social structures we've created any more perfect than nature. While I completely agree with you that peple advocating for the "natural way of doing things" when denying topics like homosexuality, incest, bestiality and other victimless crimes, sometimes its useful to stop and ask ourselves why it is not the natural way of doing things after all.

 

[Cheesus]

In a couple of discussions, people have talked about nature and how good it is to be natural, but have they thought it through?

In some species, the dominant males hump as many females as possible, and go through "heat" and cannot control themselves. They do not care about mating with animals in their own group/family, age of the females, and certainly not consent. So would we want a society where the strongest men were able to force women to have sex with them whenever they wanted?

Some animals kill their young, particularly if they are weak, would we want to kill our disabled people? or our old and weak?

The males of some species will often kill each other to determine the dominant male who will lead the group of animals, shall we do away with voting and just leave elections to a public bloodbath? That would make for interesting congressional / presidentual debates.

Some animals kill for sport, they'll torture other animals, eat other animals while they are alive, but is that a good idea for humans?

Seriously, just because nature allows animals to do whatever they want, is that a reason for humans to engage in any behavior they want? Is "animals do it" a reason to support these behaviors and others?

We're at the top of the evolutionary chain. Clearly, whatever we're doing, we're doing it better then everything else.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

Thats debatable.

whos to say that current day chimps haven't already done everything we're doing now, but realised simplicity was the real answer to life......

 

[ElijahTW]

We're the only species that's on track to consciously kill off it's own species in the entirety.

 

[Proto]

We're at the top of the evolutionary chain. Clearly, whatever we're doing, we're doing it better then everything else.

We may be at the top of hte current evolutionary chain, and we are not even good at it given that we are breaking down the system that feed us. Obviously we are still an alpha version intelligent species, so thinking all we do is good than everything and everyone else is not constructive given that you are closing your eyes from millions of years of self corrected survival wisdom..

 

[Matis]

We're the only species that's on track to consciously kill off it's own species in the entirety.

I vote for this as quote of the year(though I guess, with the amount of topics I read a day, there must be some worthy competitors out there).

Now, let me do a double-quote:

We're at the top of the evolutionary chain. Clearly, whatever we're doing, we're doing it better then everything else.

We are indeed killing ourselves off far better than anything else, yes.


Now, to really add to the topic at hand, the reason we sometimes try to emulate nature is because of what Proto said. Nature has had millions of years of evolution more than us, thus we can assume that a good chunk of what it does it does better than we do. The problem is discerning which parts those are(just as Paratech's opening post shows).

 

[Exodus]

We're the only species that's on track to consciously kill off it's own species in the entirety.

Population control.

 

[Squall-Leonhart]

i thought that was sars and swine flu?

 

[Proto]

I vote for this as quote of the year(though I guess, with the amount of topics I read a day, there must be some worthy competitors out there).

Now, let me do a double-quote:



We are indeed killing ourselves off far better than anything else, yes.


Now, to really add to the topic at hand, the reason we sometimes try to emulate nature is because of what Proto said. Nature has had millions of years of evolution more than us, thus we can assume that a good chunk of what it does it does better than we do. The problem is discerning which parts those are(just as Paratech's opening post shows).

http://forums.ngemu.com/website-related-feedback/126206-ngemu-awards-2009-midterm-thread.html

Post it in there so we remember to include your nomination by the end of the year

 

[Exodus]

i thought that was sars and swine flu?

Eh. No need to be narrow-minded. Diversity is key.

 

[Xblade]

The fact is that humans are one of the worst species existing on the planet.

 

[zidine00]

The fact is that humans are one of the worst species existing on the planet.

deppends on your deffinition,

in a different view i would class the human race as the most successfull and best species on this planet,

we are the most effective hunters... no need for explenation, we are the most capable with tools giving us a never ending overwhelming advantage over all other speices to date, we show mercy at times.... we are able to communicate efficently over extremly long distances, there is a hell of alot more reasons why we could be classed as the best species, but hell im not that bored to say them right now.

and gah dang it i just relised im going oftopic, sorry about that.

 

[Xblade]

we are the most effective hunters... no need for explenation, we are the most capable with tools giving us a never ending overwhelming advantage over all other speices to date, we show mercy at times.... we are able to communicate efficently over extremly long distances, there is a hell of alot more reasons why we could be classed as the best species, but hell im not that bored to say them right now.

and gah dang it i just relised im going oftopic, sorry about that.

Than why is it humans destroy themselves trying to overcome inefficiencies.


More complicated doesn't necessarily mean better. Most of our problems stem from our intelligence.