Re: Arrogance
 

I know really? I'm starting to wonder if it's all a show to give us a prime example of arrogance.:lol:

Atleast then it would all somehow be related to the thread topic.

Re: Arrogance
 

Well I can't say I can say something that faggy. Canada as well has money, just like you have enough money to pretend to support your country, where as we CAN support our country.

You still fail to show me how your country is a god.

And wesker, this thread is on topic, notice the thread title, and than notice how we're talking about Nitestryker?

Re: Arrogance
 

Yes. Thats what I was going for. What, you didnt know?

But seriously, MOAB Africa.

Re: Arrogance
 

I don't see how really.

I've come to notice that the majority of people treat others, and the planet, and the wildlife like shit. This makes me arrogant? How?

Nature may have made us look how we do and act like we do, but nature didn't give us technology. We created that ourselves, over a significant period of time. As said above, we've become more arrogant because of this technology, that has nothing to do with nature.

Yes, people and species do die naturally, but many have become extinct because of us. That has nothing to do with nature. In the unlikely event that an alien space ship comes to earth, and decides to take away our crops, and our farm animals, we'd eventually die off. By your word, this would be a cause of nature. I think not!

It's about superiority and power.

Help preserve our countryside and wildlife perhaps?

Violence is AN answer, but it sure as hell isn't the only answer. There is such a thing known as diplomacy. Sure it may not be as quick, but it is less destructive, and you'd probably get more out of it.

If you nuked a place, you'd have a small victory. You'd contaminate the area (even with a biological weapon, you'd still have tens of thousands (if not more) corpses to clean up), you'd have a price on the weapons and such used, you'd lose culture, and no doubt many other valuable resources.

If you use diplomacy, you needn't worry about cleaning up the mess, and you've still got all the benefits. The only difference, is that is would probably take longer.

What gives anyone the right to decide who should live, and who should die?

You say Nuke Africa (or bomb them with said weapon) but not everyone in Africa is trouble / evil. Do they deserve to die for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

:ditto:

I'll admit, I lol'd.

I'd have to agree with Afterburner's last comment too... We're not suppose to be biting each others heads off here, so how about we all calm down a little (for those getting too personal about it). :)

Re: Arrogance
 

We ARE nature. Is a beaver's damn unnatural? Is a bird's nest unnatural? Is a Primate's use of sticks to hunt for ants unnatural?
Everything is a cause of nature. EVERYTHING is nature.
Same thing that gives anyone the right to do anything, more force.

Re: Arrogance
 

I think I see where you're going, but by your definition, everything from a plant leaf, to a raindrop, to a skyscraper, to a nuclear weapon, to another planet 2,000,000 lightyears away is that of 'nature'.

I suppose in a way, we are what we've become because of nature, but we've advanced so much because of technology too. If we hadn't evolved to this state, we've not have developed technology, thus wouldn't have cured countless illnesses and such.

Not sure if the point I am trying to make is being made well here (I'm thinking not) but there is another point that I'm trying to make. Suffice to say, without technology, we'd generally live in peace (to an extent), and wouldn't contaminate the planet. With technology, we're arrogant, and do fuck things up.

Think back to the conquest of America. The Red Indians used to hunt the Buffalo that they needed. They'd kill what they'd require for food and clothing, then leave the rest be. We took technology over there (guns), and cowboys slaughtered many more simply for 'fun'.

This is no different to various species that either are extinct, or that are becoming such because of our technology. Without bulldozers, we'd have to cut down tree's one at a time. We've since discovered a way of taking out an entire forest within a number of weeks. One tree every now and then isn't going to matter to the wildlife living there, an entire forest will.

Re: Arrogance
 

Yes.
And without technology we'd be... well extinct actually. We're terrible at survival without technology, though I suppose without technology we might simply never have evolved from the chimp's evolutionary line (though even chimps use technology.)

White man mostly hunted Bison for their fur, not for "fun." They are fucking dangerous animals, and very few people would have hunted them for fun. Native Americans put a great deal of pressure on the Buffalo in many areas of the U.S. Also, at least according to Wikipedia (and it has a cite for this) there is evidence to suggest Native Americans essentially created the Buffalo herd themselves by burning down forest areas to make more grassland for them, and then regulating the herds. There is this rather ridiculous notion that the Native Americans had some sort of mystical connection to nature, but there isn't really a great deal of evidence to suggest that. I mean they would stampede the Buffalo off cliffs to kill them, does that sound like a steward of the wilds? Or just a group of people interested in getting lots of food?
Are joking? The use of fire to destroy huge tracks of forest is thousands of years old, and was the predominant way of clearing land. The bulldozer is hardly the reason so many animals go extinct. The largest human pressure on the animal kingdom is in the trash we dump into waterways really. That can poison hundreds of miles of drinking water.

Some animals just need to die out anyways. The Panda is such a worthless animal. It is horribly adapted to survival and is only surviving because of humans.

Re: Arrogance
 

BWAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!!!......*cough*

So, you're saying that Nitestryker only pretends to support the USA, but you actually support Canada? Ok, tell me how you support your country.

Re: Arrogance
 

Yes it would. Everything that happens in the world is nature. With or without human influence is the astrisk.

You will also loose a considerable amount and have a greater chance of failure.

Say you want to go to Africa to educate people on the downsides of having so many kids. You burn the fuel to get there, you walk around attempting to communicate. You need to persuade the natives your idea is worth following, even tho you are a strange white man in a tribal village. And then even if somehow, after the weeks and months you educated them, they have to make a decision to listen. Then, they have to stay consistent.

So say they listen. You are still waning resources as the kids age. So really you only saved maybe 40-50 % of the possible resources.

Not gonna happen.

You drop a fuel air bomb, and no man, no problem. Sure you burn some stuff, but the people are eliminated, thus releasing the burden the people were on the local area, saving 100 % of the resources.

The valuable resources are the ones being consumed daily. Food, water, and air.

Im not saying just target africa, but its a good place to start.

Culture is irrevelent. The universe doesnt care about culture. Eventually the sun will die out and earth will no longer exist.

Take longer, and try to convince people who dont speak anything like english to follow your advice. High possibility of failure.

He who has the gun, makes the rules.

Is it fair? Nope. Is life fair? Nope.

They deserve to die for not keeping pace with the rest of the world. Natural selection. The strong survive.




QFT.

If I have a gun, you will dance if I tell you to. Is it right? Probably not. But at the end of the day, I will still stand, and you will not.

Lifes' a game, but its not fair. You can try and call lack of morals or ethics all you want.

Re: Arrogance
 

It seems unlikely considering there are many unemployed/redundant people already who aren't engaging in that oh-so-lucrative activity.

Re: Arrogance
 

There are some that would argue that diplomacy is merely violence in more polite forms.

And is what we do natural? Yes, fully. We are arrogant, because as humans our impulses drive us to the now. We can plan, but at every option we will try to stuff ourselves as full as possible.
It's a survival instinct on a small scale.
If you ate well in the summer, you are potentionally going to survive the winter. If you spend less energy on summer you have more for harder times etc etc.
The problem is, we have managed to get beyond this. We as a race keep finding ways how to gain energy without spending too much of it. Thinking about the fact that we will use up all the energy and there won't be any way to get it back, or that we will completely destroy our ecosystem and as such kill us, just does not come naturally to us.

In order to get out of the humanity sucks syndrome that seems to perpetrate a lot of threads, we have to turn AWAY from our natural sides. We have to think in ways that are NOT natural for humans.

So I do agree with those saying that humans act naturally. They currently do.

Re: Arrogance
 

Like starting to co-operate? Not just with the neighbour (in those cases when you don't want to get rid of them), but on a much larger scale? To see beyond the so called current gains and profits, and think on a radically longer term? Even if it's still profit orientated (not money, but natural sources), but al least your grandchildren, or the other's grandchilder will benefit of it aswell. Like energy sources, for one example, but it's a nearly enless list, under one title: Earth.

The greatest curse of mankind that while we're fighting with each other, our whole surrounding suffers from it. It's amazing how one race thinks that with sophisticated languages, significant brain capacity, with so called culture, and society, all the 'achievement' of humanity, they're entitled to judge over the rest of the World. I guess arrogance has to do something with this.

Re: Arrogance
 

You are entitled to whatever you can force. Entitlement, rights, responsibility, these are all just notions. It's not as though there is some invisible force that will punish humans for being bad. If humans are destroying the planet (which we aren't.) IT is simply the consequences of our own actions that we will have to deal with, not some vengeful spirit of the Earth manifesting itself to deal out justice.

Nature is nothing but a system. If we are damaging the planet it is like throwing a wrench into a machine, not like spitting int he face of a tiger. The "response" is simple a result of our actions.

Now tell me, can you be arrogant towards a machine?

Re: Arrogance
 

STFU C3P0 you insignificant piece of talking shit.

I can.

Actually, nature will bring equalibrium to our planet one way or another. It always does.

Nitegriffin, just because we are intelligent and everything doesn't mean we won't kill each other. You stick two men on an island with one apple. Whoever gets the apple first dies. Ok horribly bad analogy, but, we're all stuck on earth, only a few nations are going to survive, and they're the ones with a good democracy, and a big army. So the West will prevail while the rest of the world destroys itself. Whoever has the resources to spare will probably last the longest. Canada has a ton of natural resources, and water (yes thats a resource to), and America has the guns for protection/secuity, together we cannot be beaten. Oh, and Britain, but once they run out of tea and biscuits *cough* cookies *cough* they'll all die...

I just said something like that in geography, just thought I'd throw it to you guys :)

Re: Arrogance
 

C3P0 has the capability for thought, the Earth does not. You can be arrogant towards C3P0 because C3P0 is capable of understanding the concept of understanding arrogance.

Hardly. The planet swings wildly between climate extremes, millions of species have come and gone, and the planet is always changing. You do understand what equilibrium means right?

Re: Arrogance
 

If my geography definition is the right one, then yes.

Re: Arrogance
 

People were supporting themselves well enough for tens of thousands of years before the expendable resources we think of as important came along. Empires rise and fall, people starve or eat, but unless we do something incredibly stupid it will be but a change in our social structure. Even the radiation from nuclear weapons wouldn't be as big a threat as people think, (far more serious would be the ash and heat from burning cities and the depletion of the ozone from related effects.)

The world wasn't equal two hundred years ago when oil and advanced mechanised infrastructure wasn't around and it won't be equal in two hundred years time if those things are gone.

Re: Arrogance
 

We will have to learn from the crab people.

Re: Arrogance
 

...

Re: Arrogance
 

Gaia will do it.

During the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum the Arctic Ocean had a temperature of 23 °C and crocodiles in it.
After the climate change there will still be some nice islands left for humans to live and fight with each other.

Re: Arrogance
 

I'd encourage you to look up Burt Rutan's climate change PDF. He is not a climatologist, but he has done data analysis all his life, and that is what he does in the PDF. He takes a look at some of the most graphs used to support global warming and essentially rips them a new one.

Re: Arrogance
 

I gave it a look (I assume you meant this one: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...taanalysis.pdf).
I have read similar things before. Of course Burt Rutan also has an agenda (socialist = bad).

I agree that the existing data can be interpreted differently and that some of the graphs in circulation are simplified (or even wrong). Actually, I cannot say how much humans contribute to the climate change.
But spending more money on alternative energies and conserving existing energy resources before we run out of them makes more sense than wasting important resources by burning them in SUVs or oil power stations.
And I assume Rutan's SpaceShipOne is also not exactly eco-friendly...

Re: Arrogance
 

Yup, he clearly states what his bias is. It's interesting though, that he shows himself to be very environmentally friendly, but is still in opposition to the idea of anthropogenic climate change.
I'm wouldn't suggest we should do nothing(even ignoring climate change being environmentally friendly is a good thing), but I don't think there is nearly as much of danger as many would suggest. I've said before, the poisons we release into the air and water are far more dangerous than the climate change we may or may not be causing (that may or may not exist) depending upon how you read the graphs.

Energy efficiency has always actually played a major role in his aircraft designs. I'm sure SpaceShipOne was as efficient as it could be. He has one of the most energy efficient houses, and a pure electric car as well.

Re: Arrogance
 

What, you too good to learn from crab people?

Re: Arrogance
 

I think there is a fine line between our points of view.

We didn't have technology (as such) back in Medieval times, yet we managed perfectly well back then (at staying alive).

Seems I stand corrected.

To be fair, you could say that about any creature. The Panda is no different from a Wolf, a Shark, an Owl, or a Dodo. These creatures would probably be living just fine if it weren't down to us getting involved, and screwing up their territory. Yes the Panda (as well as a few other species) do have problems now, but that isn't down to them, its probably down to us.

As above, you, Afterburner, and me have a different view. I see where the two of you are coming from though. Allow me to explain.

In my view, something that is of nature, is something that grows, or is born without the help of technology. The rain, tree's, clouds, grass, mountains, volcano's, wildlife etc... All this simply 'exists'. Animals are born, reproduce, and die, tree's grow, reproduce (via non intercourse-methods) and die. Water travels throughout the planet, through streams, rivers, the ocean etc.

Buildings aren't something that just start growing one day, they're man made. I don't consider them (or anything else technological) to be based off nature. I know the materials used to build them are (to a point), but they aren't natural.

That is pretty much the gist of it.

Natural Selection... You'd first need to define that I think. Getting back to the Panda or Dodo. If it wasn't for us, chances are, they'd be doing fine. We weren't really their natural predators, we just hunted them, or colonized around them, complicating their way of life. This lead to their downfall.

Perhalps, but at least nobody needs die because of it.

We act the way we do because of the age that we are in. We'd be completely different if we were still back in the stoneage.

Chances are, by that time, British will have been taken over by Immigrants, and the 'English' will have moved elsewhere. I needn't worry, I'll just be relocated. :rolleyes:

Re: Arrogance
 

A digging stick or stone axe is technology. Medieval Europe was rife with technology, and besides their fields people are was disconnected from nature as they are today. Actually the very act of cultivation shows the tendency towards human "arrogance" that you are suggesting technology shows . We can take plants and decide how we want them to grow and develop, or take animals and breed them to be exactly how we want them. We can override(or take control of, rather) evolution itself, on of the fundamental principles of nature.

Re: Arrogance
 

So...say goodbye to domesticated cereal crops, then.

I don't get this. Why aren't metals natural? They are made of 'natural' stuff like everything else, it's just that they have a few more electrons, protons, and neutrons per atom than other stuff. Water isn't alive, is that not natural?

Quoting Nite, is that fair? Nope. Is life fair? Nope.

And we're still acting 'naturally', regardless of where we are.

But we are creatures as well. So how is this different to a selection pressure exerted by any other species of animal?

Re: Arrogance
 

A digging stick is something that we find lying around. I wouldn't class it as 'technology'. Technology (in my opinion) is something that is built for a specific purpose. I suppose the axe would be technology, but not so much as items we have at our disposal today.

We can do all of that, yes. But that wasn't my point.

If we took a step back, plants and wildlife would continue to live and grow as they see fit, or, they may end up extinct. The point is, we wouldn't be choosing how it would go down. Nature would just get on with it, and those animals that do become extinct would do so via natural selection.

You've highlighted the word perfectly right there. Metal is MADE. It isn't found. Yes the elements that are used to make metal are lying around by the choice of nature, but it is us that puts said elements together, and creates metal, steal, aluminum and what not.

You're missing my point.

Because we have the power to change things and make a difference, be it the correct, or incorrect thing to do.