What aspect of humanity do you think is most kickass?

Humanity is...

  • The most badass thing that nature ever spawned.

  • The biggest mistake nature ever made.

  • Neither more important nor less important than everything else around it.

  • Strong in some aspects, weak in others.

  • Obviously, lemmings in top hats are the master race, sir.


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Brovo

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Let's get back to Humanity being space orcs.
Spawned from another thread since I felt this deserved its entire own thing. What part of humanity (conceptually, physically, sociologically, psychologically--whatever you can think of) do you think is most badass in general? Basically: What do you think sets the human species up far and away as kickass in some way.

You can, of course, also post here to say that humanity is absolutely dreadful. I don't really care so long as y'all keep things civil.
 
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All the reasons mentioned in the other thread are arguments for why Human's are awesome.

But at the same time, we have an organ that serves no real purpose other than to kill us if we don't remove it.
We eat through a tube right next to one we breathe with.
Our Jaws can't properly fit our teeth most of the time.
We are very prone to pride and hatred, shooting our species in the foot big time.

So in the end we're basically a balance of a lot of good and a lot of bad.
 
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We eat through a tube right next to one we breathe with.

>_> You realize this isn't something unique to humans, right? Like it's not even uncommon in the slightest.
 
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>_> You realize this isn't something unique to humans, right? Like it's not even uncommon in the slightest.
Obviously. o.O

It's still a design flaw though.
Just a common one.
 
That we murder and/or destroy everything we don't understand.
 
Obviously. o.O

It's still a design flaw though.
Just a common one.

A design flaw? You think that evolution just makes the most objectively perfect biological system whenever it wants to? The pharyngeal-esophageal system was developed out of the singular tube that merges the mouth with the anus of some of the most basic animals on our planet. If we were to develop two unassociated tubes, we would need multiple entrances- one for each tube. Why would evolution produce an entirely new entryway when it can just diverge one tube into a branch? Evolution works by using what it already has and modifying it slightly, not by spontaneously developing brand new things out of nothing.

I wouldn't call the ingenuity of turning what was normally just a car into a boat as well a design flaw.
 
You know what I love about people?

That people can be wrong on SO many levels that it's hard to see where they are coming from.... but they can still be objectively GREAT people, as long you understand one another :)
 
We are a virus, a plague, a fat kid punching others in the playground.

But we made Netflix, making us numero uno and awesome.
 
I like lemmings in top hats, but I guess I have a bias because I can control every single aspect of their dumb lives and I enjoy seeing them build pixel stairs. I'ma play me some lemmings later.

That we murder and/or destroy everything we don't understand.

I would actually state the opposite as the most kickass aspect of humankind. How through trial and error, our understanding of the universe grows each generation. I'm kind of fucking amazed how much we understand about our universe today, of which most amazing is that this is still just a very tiny fraction.

As for humankind being good or evil; we are intelligent. Most species put their own needs above others, or at the very least the needs of their group. However, the capability to do so is greatly enhanced by our intelligence. You can't say people are awful when it's hardly unlikely, any other species given this level of intelligence, would do the same. Dolphins, killer whales, various species of apes, they kill for pleasure. What they have in common is a higher level of intelligence than most other animals. By comparison, I don't think our nature is worse. I just think that, despite our intelligence, being primarily emotionally driven, we don't take that step back to elevate ourselves above these instincts. Whether that's a responsibility we have because of our intelligence... Well, you guys tell me.
 
A design flaw? You think that evolution just makes the most objectively perfect biological system whenever it wants to?
Of course not, and that's exactly why flaws exist in the first place.
Evolution lacks the foresight to a perfect system.


And I noticed I actually forgot to mention what the flaw was with our feeding and breathing tubes being so close to one another, which might have raised some confusion.
The flaw with it is choking hazards, we get many instances of people swallowing food down the wrong pipe and choking as a result.

Thankfully, majority of the time getting some water fixes the issue.
And if not, we have a ton of people trained in how to dislodge it.

@Others: No, I'm not starting a debate. I'm just clarifying cause I think there was a misunderstanding.
I don't intend on getting into a back and fourth about evolution being perfect... Which would be stupid anyway's since it looks like neither of us think that to start with.
 
I remember this one time in middle school, where they had these new milk cartons that were uneasiaarily difficult to open up. I took my pencil, stabbed the top of the carton, and chugged the milk out of the hole. I then got up and loudly proclaimed; "I am man! I use tools!"
 
People suck a lot and we're a very destructive species.

but.


MUSIC. ART. OMG. If we have done nothing else, out ability to create music and art and use imagination is this most fantastic thing ever. O_O
 
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Like the Lovecraft mythos says, we're so cosmically insignificant that no matter what we do, the universe will continue on like it always has. We might fuck up the Earth something fierce, but what's another mass extinction event? Earth will carry on and heal like it always has. Being intelligent, inventful, and very destructive life is well and good and all, but ultimately whatever we do ultimately is going to be about preserving out species. It's our hubris that makes us think we can kill the Earth. We can't, and even if we're directly responsible for the extinction of almost all life on Earth one day, give it 50,000 years and a new healthy ecosystem emerges.

That said, I totally like living on Earth and rather we smarten up before we murderfuck ourselves and a bunch of other life that I would rather my ancestors can still interact with and see. Just because we're the cosmic equivalent of dust on a windshield doesn't mean we shouldn't try our damnedest to preserve our planet. We've done some pretty awful shit, but that's the cost of being a young species who is so clever and building new tools and progress, we seldom understand the consequences of our inventions until the harm's been done. We aren't evil, and we certainly aren't a disease. We're just a bunch of ignorant bastards who think the ability to send a man into space is more impressive than understanding that our actions have long-term consequences. If we want to succeed and survive and have a legacy that rivals the dinosaurs, we need to start choosing leaders that can think past their terms in office and hold corporations accountable for environmental degradation.

I mean, we haven't even been around a million years. Let's not join the species "forever 27" club and actually fucking live forever. Only way we do that is if we combine our incredible minds with some much needed responsibility and respect for the resources we have - and those we share a planet with.

Will will learn. We will get better. We already come so far from where we started, but the race just started and there's a long way to go. It's up to us to make sure we don't crash and burn because the universe sure doesn't care if we make it or not.

After all, we're gone as soon as the windshield wipers come on.
 
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Having thumbs is pretty great. :thumbsup:

And it's always fun to be browsing the internet and seeing the new styles, and tools, of art people have come up with. o__o It's mind bottling.
 
Or we'll elect Donald Trump.

Making mistakes are a part of learning. Trump is terrifying, yes, but if he's elected it will be the people's choice, and not a forced autocracy like much of human history.

We don't always make good decisions, and sometimes the consequences last decades. But considering we even came up with democracy after centuries of putting up with a small group of people having all the power is a lot more inspiring than looking at a single election and deciding all of humanity is fucked.

We tend to think of our current generation's problems as the worst and the horrible things we do and live through as the most important in history, but last I checked, we don't loose millions to plagues, wars, and famines anymore. Leaders can be removed from power through other means than revolutions. We don't go to wars with countries with our traditional enemies because we have the internet to talk to each other and trade and commerce is better for both countries than war.

So yeah, Trump is a blatant fascist who used to sleep with Hitler's speeches in a shelf by his bed (seriously), and the way he talks about Mexicans is almost a point by point comparison to Hitler and the Jews, but if he's elected, it's a sign of something much deeper and darker in the US than a mere candidate. We've outlasted shitty leaders before and carried on, what matters is we learn from it.

People in the US are desperate for better lives and governance. Problem is, they're such a partisan country that thinks of elections as winning a football game instead of deciding what is best for your country. God forbid a Democrat be allowed to have some Republican stances or vice versa.

So maybe the US will find out they're on the verge of electing a man who represents what their grandfathers fought to stop in the 40s the hard way, maybe they won't. I won't hold the entire species accountable for what one country decides to do.
 
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Seeing as how the discusion in this thread has de-railed way off the original question, vhich was simply "What aspect of humanity do you think is most kickass?" - one, single aspect - I'l give my opinion just on that, and not be involved in a existential debate...

...for me, the most kickass thing about humanity is our totaly and completly contradictory nature; we can be literaly EVERYTHING. From the most noble, sensible, principled, honorable, decent, beutiful individuals imaginable, to the most depraved, sadistic, vicius, savage, horrible beasts imaginable. And evry shade in-betwen in evry concivable combination.

And honestly... I like us that way. Contradiction is never boring! Makes life interesting and un-predictable :jump:
 
The most kickass thing about humanity is actually some nerd shit: our ability to record knowledge and efficiently pass it along from generation to generation. Forget opposable thumbs, throwing skill, tool creation, and other things that people cite to explain why humans are the unquestionably dominant species on this planet, the real source of our badassery is how well we share knowledge. Other animals do it, as can be seen by chimps and gorillas teaching their offspring how to use certain tools, but we're the unrivaled kings of knowledge sharing. The fact that we have brains and a system of communication complex enough to plan ahead and convey abstract concepts is already amazing, but the addition of writing, a way to record knowledge in a semi-permanent state that can outlive the writer and can be read by later generations to learn things without it needing to pass directly through intermediary generations, pushes it over the top and makes us basically the apex predator of the whole world. No other species on Earth can so easily access and benefit from the wisdom gained by past generations, so they're unable to manage that constant growth and improvement we see in humanity. Look at how quickly our computer technology advances in the span of 20 years, compare that to the development of new tools or better usage of existing tools in any applicable animal population, and you'll find it's like comparing the speed of light to the speed of a slug. That capability for constant improvement in that which came before, our technological prowess that far outpaces what could be gained from natural biological evolution, is what makes us kick so much ass.
 
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