Debate thread (revived)

[merthsoft]

...get rid of medical care, democracy, capitalism, and also stop aborting healthy unborn children to make CompWiz happy We need to redevide resources and land on this planet and strengthen our species to survive the evolutionary process, or we will weaken and weaken the human race untill we get ourselves extinct. We cannot live on technology alone, and if we go on like this we'll be goners within the next 20000 years.

Screw that, I'm happy now, why should I care about the people 20000 years from now. I worry about my comfort, and as long as I'm comfortable, and these 20000 years numbers are jsut made up b.s. I'm happy.

[CoBB]

I thought we were over this evolution stuff.

How come? We've never talked about this, not here at least. Just because there was another topic with the keyword 'evolution' in it this aspect is not covered at all.

Maybe we should debate about the favourtism displayed by world cup referee's towards highly rated teams/players.

What's there to debate about that?

[leofox]

thing that killed the gcn was the crappy games on it. It only had two major adult-geared releases (RE4 and Killer7) and most of the games were children's games (I don't think you can argue that any person over 6 will have fun playing hello kitty or frogger adventures) and the wii may be following this trend as red steel will feature no blood...at least as of right now.

Nintendo has always stood for good games, and the good ole cube has a lot of good first party games, like SSBM and Mario Kart. I think the biggest problem of the NGC is the lack of 3rd party developers, Square and Konami went to ps2, Rare was bought out by microsoft, etc.

I think the wii will be a big success, because Sony and Microsoft are mostly competing with eachother, and because it's so cheap (half of the 360, one third of the ps3). So basically, your non gamer aunt will buy the wii, because she wants to have a little fun with it, and your hardcore gamer brother will buy a ps3/360 + wii, because he wants the graphics of sony/ms and the good games of nintendo.

[Timendus]

Too bad, no angry "You f*cking nazi!" comments

@Arcane; I'm not sure what you mean..?
@Merthsoft: Don't you care about the extinction of your own species? You're not one of those nature freaks who believe that the planet would be better off without us?

If eating to fight starvation is natural, taking reliable medicine to fight other diseases why isn't?

Because they rely on external resources that we will probably run out off in the future. As long as we can adapt, it's not a problem, but if we, as a species, become too dependant on our current environment, we will go down.

As for organisation, social animals are all quite successful, regardless of whether we look at a beehive or a pack of wolves.

I'm not saying we should live in anarchy, we need a social structure to control everything from the top, not a weak-minded democracy.

Killing the 'useless' members might be beneficial on the short term, but there are two problems:

1. Deciding who's useless. A retard might be able to do simple yet demanding physical work. A 100-year old scientist might still be actively working. They could be homosexual as well, since a person can be useful to society even if they don't reproduce (e. g. Turing).

Well, too bad for society. We need to exterminate all deficient genes.

2. Catering for the weak is the only way to improve our protection. If we kill everyone with a disease, we'll never find a cure and won't gain insight into our inner workings, which is harmful to the species on the long term.

We could just keep a few as "pets" in laboratories?

[dysfunction]

Too bad, no angry "You f*cking nazi!" comments

@Arcane; I'm not sure what you mean..?
@Merthsoft: Don't you care about the extinction of your own species? You're not one of those nature freaks who believe that the planet would be better off without us?

If eating to fight starvation is natural, taking reliable medicine to fight other diseases why isn't?

Because they rely on external resources that we will probably run out off in the future. As long as we can adapt, it's not a problem, but if we, as a species, become too dependant on our current environment, we will go down.

As for organisation, social animals are all quite successful, regardless of whether we look at a beehive or a pack of wolves.

I'm not saying we should live in anarchy, we need a social structure to control everything from the top, not a weak-minded democracy.

Killing the 'useless' members might be beneficial on the short term, but there are two problems:

1. Deciding who's useless. A retard might be able to do simple yet demanding physical work. A 100-year old scientist might still be actively working. They could be homosexual as well, since a person can be useful to society even if they don't reproduce (e. g. Turing).

Well, too bad for society. We need to exterminate all deficient genes.

2. Catering for the weak is the only way to improve our protection. If we kill everyone with a disease, we'll never find a cure and won't gain insight into our inner workings, which is harmful to the species on the long term.

We could just keep a few as "pets" in laboratories?

A top-down government would be ideal, provided it could be trusted- which it could not. My peference is a true democracy (as opposed to a representative democracy, which is what the US has) with little or no government regulation of individuals but extensive regulation of business (essentially a heavily regulated capitalism), healthcare, education, and other public services.

[CoBB]

Because they rely on external resources that we will probably run out off in the future. As long as we can adapt, it's not a problem, but if we, as a species, become too dependant on our current environment, we will go down.

But it's exactly the opposite trend you can observe. With the help of technology we can populate practically any place on Earth, and we could also stay alive in space. Technology enters the game as an inseparable part of the human species, and it presents us with a means of adaptation superior to biological evolution, because it's much faster. And every species is dependent on its natural environment anyway. Running out of resources doesn't apply to only technology.

I'm not saying we should live in anarchy, we need a social structure to control everything from the top, not a weak-minded democracy.

Those have all failed pretty miserably so far.

Well, too bad for society. We need to exterminate all deficient genes.

What's a deficient gene? Everyone has a bunch of traits which are much better developed in other individuals. Someone is strong, someone is clever, someone is creative, someone is diligent... By specialising on only one metric we actually harm our adaptive skills. Diversity is a good thing, it keeps the gene pool fresh. In the end, if you harm society, you harm the species.

We could just keep a few as "pets" in laboratories?

Maybe so, but that would also mean having much less people with medical training, much less institutions, much less brains working on these problems... with much less results. And you need a lot of samples to determine how a disease develops and what's relevant to it.

[Arcane WIzard]

@Arcane; I'm not sure what you mean..?

More liberalisation less crimalisation.. legalisation of things like drugs (governments know it's 100% impossible to enforce yet choose to try and thus choose to fail at it) and expressing any and all opinions (don't tell me you can).. working away global economical differences.. less silly wars for oil or religious aspects started millenia ago.. more support of human rights around the world.. etc? blablabla ~~~> utopia

Evolution has brought us far enough to be able to technically sort out any of those problems, but we don't..

If eating to fight starvation is natural, taking reliable medicine to fight other diseases why isn't?

Because they rely on external resources that we will probably run out off in the future. As long as we can adapt, it's not a problem, but if we, as a species, become too dependant on our current environment, we will go down.

Not to mention that diseases (viruses and bacteria and such organisms) evolve too.. use a medicine too little too often and they stop working.

As for organisation, social animals are all quite successful, regardless of whether we look at a beehive or a pack of wolves.

I'm not saying we should live in anarchy, we need a social structure to control everything from the top, not a weak-minded democracy.

Well, too bad for society. We need to exterminate all deficient genes.
..
We could just keep a few as "pets" in laboratories?

We could still easily survive in small groups of 10-100 people like a pack of wolves, but today's challenge is surviving with a group of 7+ billion people.

My peference is a true democracy

Any system of governing should work ok as long as those in power don't start seeing nothing but dollar signs everywhere and keep in mind that they have people to take care off instead of just their wallets or their own career/religious/political agenda.

More seperation between church and state and between industries and state, less seperation between knowlegable/criticizing people and state. : )

[tr1p1ea]

No, this topic has been covered before ... in-fact its more like 3 or 4 previous topics all rolled into 1.

All i see are the same 4 or 5 guys arguing (not debating) over anything and everything.

This debate thread is just as stupid as it always was. Dont bother 'quoting and replying' to this reply, as i wont be reading this thread anymore.

[CoBB]

This debate thread is just as stupid as it always was. Dont bother 'quoting and replying' to this reply, as i wont be reading this thread anymore.

I do, sorry, at least for my own sake... A debate/argument is as stupid as its participants. If a topic doesn't interest you, then don't say anything. It's that simple. I for one couldn't be bothered about soccer or cars or computer parts or game consoles, so I steer clear of those discussions and not sprinkle them with derogatory comments.

[Timendus]

I love how everyone is describing their perfect society and governement, but that wasn't really the issue at hand. My original point was that we're getting too soft, at least in our western civilizations. We're protecting everything that's vulnerable in our arrogant view that we are the stable factor, and we're here "for a reason" and can not extinct ourselves. Whether you believe that God has put us here or not has nothing to do with that, it's just that ~99% of all humans think that a) we're somehow better than animals, and b) we need to protect all others.

I mean; why is that? We're not better at all, we just happen to be on top of evolution at the moment, like dinosaurs once were before they got extinct. And they had brains the size of peanuts. And why do we protect people and species that would die without our help? That is not beneficial for anyone. Why do we invest millions to save some random species of ape? Or to develop tools to aid people with genetically transferable deficiencies, so they can live a relatively normal life and reproduce. We're just all missing the point; we're not here to save apes, we're not here to worry about hairproducts and nailpolish, about what celebrity is doing it with what other celebrity, not even to discuss processor speeds, we're here to survive the test of time and evolution, and if we don't start thinking about that we'll lose it.

But it's exactly the opposite trend you can observe. With the help of technology we can populate practically any place on Earth, and we could also stay alive in space. Technology enters the game as an inseparable part of the human species, and it presents us with a means of adaptation superior to biological evolution, because it's much faster. And every species is dependent on its natural environment anyway. Running out of resources doesn't apply to only technology.

You're right, so let's use that technology to decrease our dependancy on natural (Earthly) resources instead of just burning all the fossil resources on the planet. Let's use it to spread to other planets and solar systems to prevent being wiped out when disaster strikes our planet, instead of researching "Light" versions of every consumption known to man (what's the use of that anyway? Less nutritional value for twice the price ).

It's funny... I'm a lot more serious in my opinion now than when I started the topic

[Arcane WIzard]

We're just all missing the point; we're not here to save apes, we're not here to worry about hairproducts and nailpolish, about what celebrity is doing it with what other celebrity, not even to discuss processor speeds, we're here to survive the test of time and evolution, and if we don't start thinking about that we'll lose it.

We can do all that while surviving the test of time.

What is even more degenerative towards survival is removing things people want against their will.

[CompWiz]

Just a quick idea that I have about this

Why not just limit the number of children that people can have if they have undesireable genetic traits. Then people who have desireable traits are allowed to have more children. Do it all with taxes or something. If you want to have more children, then you have to pay for it, increasing for each additional child. If the government wants your traits to be more widespread, then they will give you money for each child you have. There is no killing neccesary, just let old age do it. Also, people with genetically transmittable diseases should not be allowed to have children, or maybe one. That way the diseases would disappear by themselves.

Let's use it to spread to other planets and solar systems to prevent being wiped out when disaster strikes our planet, instead of researching "Light" versions of every consumption known to man (what's the use of that anyway? Less nutritional value for twice the price ).

yeah, I hate it when everything is light. I've never had a weight problem, dispite the huge amount I eat, and I'd rather have fat, high calorie versions of food that taste better.

[Arcane WIzard]

The only way to lose fat is by burning it.

[CoBB]

And why do we protect people and species that would die without our help?

I still don't agree that protecting our 'weak' produces no benefits whatsoever. We can think in longer terms than other species, and I don't think it's the kind of talent we should waste. As for other species, I don't think we should really care about those that are naturally destined to extinction. That's completely normal. However, if it's our activity that caused the problem, protecting many species is suddenly classified as resource management. Again, it's another (hard) question which species are potentially useful to us.

we're not here to save apes, we're not here to worry about hairproducts and nailpolish, about what celebrity is doing it with what other celebrity, not even to discuss processor speeds, we're here to survive the test of time and evolution, and if we don't start thinking about that we'll lose it.

Maybe not. I'm in doubt whether the psychological factor can be really neglected. For instance, do you think art is useless? It might easily be an elementary necessity for a brain beyond a certain degree of complexity. It makes sense, since the more 'food for thought' you consume during your life the healthier you are physically too.

You're right, so let's use that technology to decrease our dependancy on natural (Earthly) resources instead of just burning all the fossil resources on the planet.

The problem is that this goes against the short-term (business) goals of major industrial actors... But that's another topic.

It's funny... I'm a lot more serious in my opinion now than when I started the topic

I'm not sure if I can follow you, sadly.

Why not just limit the number of children that people can have if they have undesireable genetic traits.

Well, yes, that would be basically taking over the selection mechanism of evolution. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, since the best measure of fitness is the actual success of a person in life. Such a forced selection would also decrease the diversity of the gene pool, which would eventually result in weaker specimen; it would be basically some large-scale inbreeding process. Another problem is that evolution is an uncontrollable process, and you can't have it develop towards a given goal.

The only way to lose fat is by burning it.

It can be cut out as well.

[Arcane WIzard]

The only way to lose fat is by burning it.

It can be cut out as well.

I guess.. not very practical though.