h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

okay, ... if you were going to try and help us evolve though would it be better to do it now?
Though I don't support improving the human race biologically, not nearly as much as jsut make life in general nicer and a better... thing...

But...

Perhaps instead of improving evolution, as it doesn't exist, you could call it giving natural processes a push in the right direction...

Who are we to judge what is right? We are like an ant conquering the universe, and dictating. Do we judge by what is good for us as a species? What if we became too powerful? What about the other species? Do we judge by the consequences of our actions or by the intent of them or the hope in them or what? You may be sure that the only evolution that will be agreed upon will be evolution of the world towards a more equal situation, and even that agreement will not be acted upon.
Well, , got to sleep now - damned GMT - but it's a comforting thought before I go to bed that in just a few posts I seem to have convinced you that many of my points are right and good. Or is it?

um... ok...

I lost track of some of your points when you changed your name from Fnord...

We already are too powerful but tahts not about to change, thats why we are wiping out other species...

Its a question of exponential population growth as much as anything. We're flooding the world with human beings, which means that either vast amounts of natural resources are consumed, or we let millions of people die. The sickening thing is that countries like the USA and Britain use up so much more than their fair share, while countries with the highest populations use up less fuel and less food.

It's nothing to do with the available resources, to me. I think rather that third world countries are poor because the Wicked Wild Westerners /keep/ them that way, as much as anything. After all, there seems to be a nearly infinite amount of energy in the universe. However, I think you have a point in that over half the population of humanity that has ever been alive is alive now. But we could help them, I feel, if we so wished and carefully planned. There is roughly 150,000,000 square kilometres of land above the sea: I hope you too would feel that any person who could not live comfortably in regards to food, space, materials etc on 30 square kilometres of land is a wastrel.
Mal (trying unsuccessfully to write his posts in the E-Prime semantic)

Someone! Post something! I'm dying of intellectual starvation!

I can't think of anythng /good/

You're goign to come here and be really pissed that I didn't actually post anything...

Where does greed come from? Is it part of evolution?
Possibly greed is part of humans because it makes those who are more capable get what they want. But in modern life it makes millions of peopel live in poverty because the rich and or famous peopel can't possibly live with less for some reason. They give monney to charity, sure, but I'm pretty sure thats just to improve their image. I can't imagine them actually doing it out of their hearts...

You are SO lucky you added that post
Yup, my view has always been that greed is an integral part of evolution - it is just another name for ambition and that is another name for survival. In a fictional world, if we didn't have greed/ambition, most of us would just die as no-name serfs with little money and - oh.
I posed that problem a few pages a go. Anna gives 1/10th of her weekly income to Boxfam, the charity, each week. Does she do it because she knows that she's helping Chris and Diana, the starving Ethiopians, to live? Yes. But does she do it out of the kindness of her heart, or just to make herself feel better? The physical effects are immaterial (whoops, no pun intended), but if she was doing it for self-satisfaction, would it change anything?

Not really. Besides, if she felt bad about giving money to charity but did it anyway wouldn't that be odd?

It's just kinda hard to really empathise with the suffering of an anonymous individual five thousand miles away. The fact that (some) people still try to do something about it is actually quite remarkable.

Greed, I suppose, is partly a product of relative scarcity over evolutionary timescales, and the fact that control over resources gives greater access to reproductive opportunities (statistically).

And then it gets enculturated (I've a feeling that's not a real word, but you probably know what I mean.)

Noggin

If it ain't real, (it seems to me that) it deserves to be. (I think) Any natural impulse gets enculturated, no? Repulsion of homosexuality, because homosexuality is bad for the survival of the gene pool. And I can't complete the post, because I have to go, but you can think of more examples.

what about psycotic maniacs? thats not very helpful to evolution either...

Only because they tend not to pick their victims on any sort of survivability basis; otherwise they would be tolerated.
I'm not liking the whole BBCi thing. It took me two hours to log in and update my details, and the only difference I can see is a moved sign out button. Then again, it tells me how many new posts there've been.

I son't like it. But things seem to be faster however. its ugly too.

I son't like it. But things seem to be faster however. its ugly too.
it keeps screwing up too.

So we can see...
My main beef is that nothing's changed because of it. The only ugly thing I can see is the miscoloured, out-of-place turquoise stick at the top that could quite easily fit all its information into the orange bar above it.

Yeah... anyway... it getting better now though...

Not for me! Each time I post something or change pages, it signs me out!

its awful... you can usually refresh I've found to fix it though... and its working fine today...

Yeah, it's good now. But is it just me, or are the *two* thingies telling me how many new posts there are now? No matter.
Any poli-theo-philo-psycho-sociological questions you have to ask? Any flaw in my theories? Any problem you have with society? Wondering what a Neurological-Model Agnostic is? Anything you want, I'm raring to go after a particularly stupid day at college.