A Message to the Citizens of the United States of America

[Oberyn]

Life itself is a virus. Unchecked, it will spread and spread until it consumes everything around it, and then die. Entropy is a universal law, and nature is subject to it.
Nature doesn't have a point of view, it's a system that balances automatically, and continually. It has never been stable. There is no "good" or "bad" in nature. Even biodiversity is only "good" for us because we historically survived off of it. From nature's "point of view," it doesn't give a flying shit about species going extinct. Obsolete species going extinct and being replaced by others is one of the mechanisms used for balance, and it's always been subject to external pressures, such as climate change for example.
And ideologies don't happen in a vacuum, devoid of context. I guarantee your "organic" ideas were entirely lifted from stuff other people have said before. There are no new ideas, it's all been said before.
And no, we're not evolving pretty fast, at least in the way you mean. Evolution isn't about moving forward all the time. There are species that have found niches and have for all practical purposes ceased to evolve millions of years ago. Or massive saurian beasts who were at the top of the food chain "evolving" into birds. Evolving is a misnomer, it would be much more appropriate to say addapt. And humanity's method of addapting has ceased to be through genetic means ever since we became tool users, and free from the pressures of natural selection. We've been making our own "evolution" for a while now, yet we are genetically identical to homo sapiens a hundred thousand years ago.

[Christo]

Agreed.

Our "evolution" is more technological, than genetic/anatomic.

However, if you ever go to a medieval castle, and check sometimes how small the walkways and staircases are,
(I know in real castles this served a defensive purpose, but this is true for all kinda buildings)
Or see an excavation with skeletons, and armour etc, you'll notice that the human 1000 years or more ago was a lot more smaller, and sturdier. Thanks to our technology, we don't really need to be sturdy at all. However, the increased height is something I can't really explain.

[Oberyn]

Agreed.

Our "evolution" is more technological, than anatomic.

However, if you ever go to a medieval castle, and check sometimes how small the walkways and staircases are,
(I know in real castles this served a defensive purpose, but this is true for all kinda buildings)
Or see an excavation with skeletons, and armour etc, you'll notice that the human 1000 years or more ago was a lot more smaller, and sturdier. Thanks to our technology, we don't really need to be sturdy at all. However, the increased height is something I can't really explain.

Better balanced, diversified food intake. And meat. Meat used to be a meal for elites (except in hunter gatherer societies, but they never had enough food surplus to explode in numbers like animal domestication/farming societies).

[Christo]

Oh, that's it?

I thought it's related to something else.

 

[Oberyn]

It's super important. You are what you eat, type of thing XD. I guarantee you if society broke down and we started feeding like people used to a thousand years ago in certain areas, we'd get the same amount of children dying at super young ages (mostly due to malnutrition). Nutritionism is such an unreguarded science.

[Christo]

Quite overlooked, yeah.

I didn't even think of that being the culprit. 

[Oberyn]

Article on that very subject:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-are-we-getting-taller

[Kafein]

Life itself is a virus. Unchecked, it will spread and spread until it consumes everything around it, and then die. Entropy is a universal law, and nature is subject to it.
Nature doesn't have a point of view, it's a system that balances automatically, and continually. It has never been stable. There is no "good" or "bad" in nature. Even biodiversity is only "good" for us because we historically survived off of it. From nature's "point of view," it doesn't give a flying shit about species going extinct. Obsolete species going extinct and being replaced by others is one of the mechanisms used for balance, and it's always been subject to external pressures, such as climate change for example.
And ideologies don't happen in a vacuum, devoid of context. I guarantee your "organic" ideas were entirely lifted from stuff other people have said before. There are no new ideas, it's all been said before.
And no, we're not evolving pretty fast, at least in the way you mean. Evolution isn't about moving forward all the time. There are species that have found niches and have for all practical purposes ceased to evolve millions of years ago. Or massive saurian beasts who were at the top of the food chain "evolving" into birds. Evolving is a misnomer, it would be much more appropriate to say addapt. And humanity's method of addapting has ceased to be through genetic means ever since we became tool users, and free from the pressures of natural selection. We've been making our own "evolution" for a while now, yet we are genetically identical to homo sapiens a hundred thousand years ago.

I would even go further and say that the word destruction has no objective meaning. Absolutely nothing is destructed. Ever. Things change. Even a nuclear bomb is that. Mass transformed in energy. What we perceive as destruction is usually a change that either kills (from a biological pov) beings that we care about (not flies and the bacteria in your stomach) or when things we use / created / like / know are changed in some way we don't like. It's all subjective.

And that we would consider peaceful (yet more technologically advanced, at least in the military domain) aliens as stupid is beyond my imagination. We (as fat occidentals) could consider stupid aliens that would behave like human meditation masters (you know the shit about finding happiness inside and not caring about the outside), instead of pursuing happiness by more "conventional" means, doing commerce, building things, art etc. We would also be completely lost on understanding a specie that wouldn't be "controlled" by it's anatomy like us, at all. We spend 100% of our time trying to feel happy, by whatever mean. "Happiness" hormone regulation in the body is exactly how we are naturally programmed into certain behavior patterns, that apparently proved to be effective for reproduction and survival (otherwise we probably wouldn't be like that) over the short time we lived. I think the greatest revolution of mankind would be setting us free of this. For the better, and probably for the worst.

War happens because someone thinks it's a smart move. Or is butthurt. Or has no other choice. By the time we meet aliens, we will probably have handed down our international diplomacy to computers, or (which is the same in the end), stopped with the nation concept madness and have a world government. Anyway, I doubt we would go to war with aliens only on a expansionnist/resource hunting base. Maybe ideology/religion, although the opinion of an alien couldn't matter less to me (well it's also the case for humans so meh). It is probable that both of the parties (even for the one that is more advanced) would have much more to win out of trade rather than war. We have no idea how an alien race could have developped in science in the same time as us. Probably in very different directions.

We would be soooo different from each other the only smart move would be sharing and make something out of this difference.

[Xant]

Life itself is a virus. Unchecked, it will spread and spread until it consumes everything around it, and then die. Entropy is a universal law, and nature is subject to it.
Nature doesn't have a point of view, it's a system that balances automatically, and continually. It has never been stable. There is no "good" or "bad" in nature. Even biodiversity is only "good" for us because we historically survived off of it. From nature's "point of view," it doesn't give a flying shit about species going extinct. Obsolete species going extinct and being replaced by others is one of the mechanisms used for balance, and it's always been subject to external pressures, such as climate change for example.
And ideologies don't happen in a vacuum, devoid of context. I guarantee your "organic" ideas were entirely lifted from stuff other people have said before. There are no new ideas, it's all been said before.

Yeah. If, when you say nature, you mean Earth's plants and trees and the animals, then sure humans can be considered destructive. But when you think on a larger scale humans might just be the answer, "nature's" ultimate achievement. Everything up until now was just an experiment to get humans. Finally there's something that's capable of creating something in a day that took hundreds of thousands of years from nature to create. Humans can create life and change it, humans are the only ones capable of doing something to stop the world (Earth, maybe even the whole universe someday, who knows!) from ending. The only ones capable of transporting life to another planet, of solving mysteries of the universe and possibly creating their own universes in the end as well.

[Kafein]

Yeah. If, when you say nature, you mean Earth's plants and trees and the animals, then sure humans can be considered destructive. But when you think on a larger scale humans might just be the answer, "nature's" ultimate achievement. Everything up until now was just an experiment to get humans. Finally there's something that's capable of creating something in a day that took hundreds of thousands of years from nature to create. Humans can create life and change it, humans are the only ones capable of doing something to stop the world (Earth, maybe even the whole universe someday, who knows!) from ending. The only ones capable of transporting life to another planet, of solving mysteries of the universe and possibly creating their own universes in the end as well.

I doubt that. Nature has no goal, no mean and no bias. It is chaotic, but strictly follows the rules (the rules are chaotic themselves). Furthermore, if we consider the universe infinite, then the probability of the existence of other beings we would consider as "alive" and even "intelligent" is 1. They may not exist, just like an object you throw in front of you may end up at exactly (this is the important word) 5.0000000 (and and infinity of 0's) meters of you. I don't think we know for sure whether the universe is infinite or not because our power to see what exists far away, and subsequently far in the past too, is blocked by an "electromagnetic fog" due to the big bang. We can't "see" before that, which means we can't see through it. All the photons we get from that are like a big parasite. An infinite universe may exist out of that "wall" afaik.

So if other intelligent beings exist, I don't see the "point" of humans.

[Nessaj]

Ha ha so now it all turned into a philosophical discussion.

That's quite easy to end though, given that there is no point to life at least not one we will realize in a billion years. So what we should do, what we should be and so on,  it is what we make of it together nothing more nothing less. Do you want Earth and society on it to be hell? Then keep acting like an ignorant moron etc. Deeds are eternal not our lives.

If anything, at least all our warmongering will serve us great purpose in space, when we finally penetrate the final frontier in the far away future, no doubt there have to be some other "guys" out there we can steamroll with our superior history of wars.


VIDEO: Ron Paul Moves To Repeal Indefinite Detention Of American Citizens Without Trial

Now to stay on topic, as far as I could find out online, Ron Paul has been the only politician except for a few Independents (<3 Sanders) that has spoken out against the NDAA - that gives the US military the right to the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial - Not one of the other Republican candidates nor Obama who equally support the NDAA on the same terms as Mitt Romney, even though Obama did say he had reservations when signing, not that his statement means anything at all just more empty words. There's a lot of misinformation about the NDAA though and to learn the absolutely truth you have to read the actual pages yourself (this is a link to the actual bill in PDF form).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

The most controversial provisions to receive wide attention are contained in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled "Counter-Terrorism." In particular, sub-sections 1021 and 1022, which deal with detention of persons the government suspects of involvement in terrorism, have generated controversy as to their legal meaning and their potential implications for abuse of Presidential authority. Although the White House and Senate sponsors maintain that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) already grants presidential authority for indefinite detention, the Act states that Congress "affirms" this authority and makes specific provisions as to the exercise of that authority. The detention provisions of the Act have received critical attention by, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and some media sources which are concerned about the scope of the President's authority, including contentions that those whom they claim may be held indefinitely could include U.S. citizens arrested on American soil, including arrests by members of the Armed Forces.

[Xant]

I doubt that. Nature has no goal, no mean and no bias.

Based on what?

[Angantyr]

(click to show/hide)

VIDEO: Ron Paul Moves To Repeal Indefinite Detention Of American Citizens Without Trial

Now to stay on topic, as far as I could find out online, Ron Paul has been the only politician except for a few Independents (<3 Sanders) that has spoken out against the NDAA - that gives the US military the right to the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial - Not one of the other Republican candidates nor Obama who equally support the NDAA on the same terms as Mitt Romney, even though Obama did say he had reservations when signing, not that his statement means anything at all just more empty words. There's a lot of misinformation about the NDAA though and to learn the absolutely truth you have to read the actual pages yourself (this is a link to the actual bill in PDF form).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

It's interesting how easy such a hard-won freedom is today being taken away from US citizens, many of whom are unaware that it even exists, what it means specifically, how their ancestors fought for it and how fundamental it is to an individual's rights in a modern democracy. The extent to which this has already been abused is mind-boggling.

Of course the fault mainly lies with the Media who continues to shy away from its ideal role in a democracy, that of providing unbiased and adequate reporting as a basis on which voters can make the choices that are best for as many people as possible. Were it not just a big corporate mummer's show journalists would bring to attention the issues that really mattered.

Thank God we yet have a relatively free internet as a source of information.

[Kafein]

Ha ha so now it all turned into a philosophical discussion.

Not really, my last post was 100% science. No philosophy in that. For me, philosophy is quite simple. A very simple biology course about reward hormones can destroy 99% of greek/german philosophers pretending that happiness is only this or only that. So I don't really care about it.

Based on what?

Because we don't need to add any intent, bias, goal or whatever to describe and predict nature. As such, the existence of a goal has no influence on the world as we perceive it, which means it could also not exist. Just like gods or basically any myth, including the invisible pink unicorn behind the moon.

It's interesting how easy such a hard-won freedom is today being taken away from US citizens, many of whom are unaware that it even exists, what it means specifically, how their ancestors fought for it and how fundamental it is to an individual's rights in a modern democracy. The extent to which this has already been abused is mind-boggling.

Of course the fault mainly lies with the Media who continues to shy away from its ideal role in a democracy, that of providing unbiased and adequate reporting as a basis on which voters can make the choices that are best for as many people as possible. Were it not just a big corporate mummer's show journalists would bring to attention the issues that really mattered.

Thank God we yet have a relatively free internet as a source of information.

Humans tend to forget the price of things they have. And they never learn that of what they always had. Including individual rights. That's why a part of the young generation is fighting for internet freedom, but didn't move a single finger about the patriot act. And it also explains why the older generation is generally less outraged by what is happening now about the internet. Many older people don't use it to it's full extent, and as such don't know the true value of the internet.

[Xant]

Because we don't need to add any intent, bias, goal or whatever to describe and predict nature.

We don't need to add any intent, bias or goal to a rat wheel either to describe and predict it. Don't mean it has none or that no one put it there.