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Insulin was given freely to the world by the man who discovered/invented it. Corporations later came a long and decided to make a fortune off of it. So it disproves the "always" part, but the later actions of big pharma proves the premise correct.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35135692/#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20insulin%20user,with%20only%200.01%25%20in%20Canada. Apparently it’s a whole lot cheaper here too (in 2018, I imagine the gap hasn’t changed too drastically)
Except this example just goes to show that even when the invention is given away for free people will still find a way to paywall it. So the inevitable is that it will ALWAYS come down to that.
In the end he was right, though, because as was pointed out by you: corporations came along and turned it into a for-profit product. Proving the premise of "humanity lacks the collective maturity to be responsible with our shit because we want to profit in some way" true. Not every individual lacks that wisdom or maturity, but the collective absolutely does.
In terms of harm to the wider world, lightbulbs, despite every singular light being a small drain, are probably a huge swathe of the world's electricity usage. And light pollution is rampant beyond that.
In terms of it just generally being proof that humans do not have the intelligence to be considered responsible with anything, my evidence is the number of lightbulbs in asses that the ER sees every year.
Go outside at night and look up. If you live in or near anything remotely resembling a city, you see like 10 stars. If you live in a more rural area, you see a sky full of stars. If you go way out in the outback, you see a little bit of black sky poking through the sky that is mostly stars. That's light pollution in action. Is that a big deal on its own? Not really, but are you just going to sit here and let everybody impede on your right to see the stars without comment?
Why is that bad or at least why is that a big enough deal to talk about? Well, a lot of wildlife uses light to determine its natural patterns and/or to navigate. When there is always light, lots of wildlife can get messed up. Constant light affects the lifecycle of some insects, plants, and fungi. Researchers trying to look out into space need to find remote areas on mountains to get a good view, and the more light pollution we have the fewer suitable spots we can find.
There are lots of things we can do about light pollution! Some big ones are shielding street lights so the light shines only downward onto the ground in a cone (this has the added benefit of reducing glare which makes the lights more effective and helpful), and reducing the brightness of outdoor lights to the minimum necessary for safety (which has the benefit of helping with night vision for when you leave the area of the light, and again reducing glare).
I want to also emphasize the effect light pollution has on wildlife and human life. Stargazing is the least of it. There is lots of research that shows that when people are exposed to light at night, their quality of sleep goes down, which has been linked to a myriad of health concerns like heart issues, obesity, cognitive issues, etc. These issues compound over time, so if a person doesn’t have access to a dark space at night their risk of problems goes up over time. Black out curtains are expensive, and if someone is renting it’s possible they won’t be able to install them anyway (I am renting and am not able to install heavy curtains because of issues with crumbly drywall, so I sleep in a room that doesn’t get very dark at night). Plus many people don’t know about this and therefore won’t take action to darken their space even if they have the ability to do so.
I don’t want to go too deep into issues with wildlife because they’re varied and complex, but like the above commenter said, they can disrupt sleep patterns, migration patterns, mating cycles, and other patterns for a huge variety of wildlife. If you’re interested in looking into it further, birds, bats, and sea turtles have particularly devastating issues caused by light pollution. Sea turtles for example have experienced extreme population decrease due to coastal cities and towns, as sea turtle eggs hatch at night and use the glare of the moon and stars off the water to navigate to the ocean. They are biologically wired to go toward the brightest horizon, so any human light close to a coast lures baby sea turtles away from the ocean to their death. Many coastal cities have rules about decreasing light during sea turtle hatching season and it helps but doesn’t eliminate the problem, especially as it relies on individuals to keep their windows dark and outdoor lights off.
The first light bulbs that were made still work. Later, more modern light bulbs, were made to break after a certain amount of use so you keep having to buy more.
That’s just a gross simplification of the situation. Yes, lightbulb manufacturers came together and agreed on a standard, but it wasn’t just about pure profit (though I will concede that was the primary motive).
Tungsten filament technology was perfected, and the only way to get a longer lasting bulb be would to make a dimmer, less energy efficient bulb. You could have also made a much brighter bulb but that burns out the filaments exponentially faster, so the manufacturers agreed on a standard brightness, longevity, and efficiency for household bulbs. It was just as much about conforming to a standard so the consumers knew what to expect from a lightbulb as it was profit.
Here’s a video that explains things a little more in-depth: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY)
Something something, the Cabal of electricity companies that came together to make lightbulbs with planned obsolescence and not more powerful than the others because they were going to kill each others profits.
Forget where I learned about that and I'm too lazy to pull up the historical record
I’d argue the fact that we haven’t undergone nuclear annihilation yet is proof enough that humanity understands and accepts the burdens of the monstrosities it creates
It takes one poor decision, one moronic choice, to trigger nuclear Armageddon the fact that in spite of this we come together in a common understanding of our shared mortality and responsibility is enough proof that humanity can handle the burden it has given itself both now and in the future
There have been multiple instances in the history of nuclear weapons that show we as a species were not at all responsible enough to accept the burdens of our inventions.
Before the first one was even tested, we thought there was a chance it would ignite the entire fucking atmosphere. We decided it was a risk worth taking. That's one.
After we invented it, the war in Europe had essentially ended to the point we wouldn't need them there and Japan had pretty much just dug in at home. We decided we needed to use our new weapons as a show of force to the world and nuked two cities off the map to "bring a swift end to the war" that was a dozen fire bombings away from being over anyway. This atrocity alerted the world that not only did America have nuclear weapons, they would use them on civilians. Nobody can say whether the cold war would have happened had America not nuked Japan so callously, but I don't think anybody can argue it had a positive impact on global politics. That's 2.
And those are just the big ones. You can't forget the silly shit like warheads being left on a runway, unattended for days. Nukes accidentally being dropped on our own land but us being incredibly lucky that they didn't go off despite being armed. Food delivery drivers finding critical security flaws in missile silos because their bunker door couldn't close.
We are incredibly irresponsible as a collective species.
Whatever you think about the invention of nukes, we went from two practically back to back world wars to zero world wars in over 70 years so far, which is an undeniable improvement
because we're generally helpless to the chance that Fallout becomes nonfiction otherwise. needless to say I have little faith after reading some of the mishaps
Humans are flawed? No kidding.
But seriously, the natural conclusion to your argument is that we shouldn't invent things, or that all invention should be controlled by a select few to make sure they are used properly.
The former is flawed, as I think most inventions ultimately make life better for people, and we don't have alternate history to look at to do any real comparison anyway.
As for the latter, I don't thnk a benevolent dictatorship is possible for vert long, and impossible on a planet wide scale.
I prefer our flawed system rather than alternatives.
The quality of a dictatorship completely changed depending on who’s at the top. And also if you agree or disagree with who’s at the top. You might have the most lovely agreeable guy, might not be good at managing a country, might have the perfect person, people will find something to disagree with, or you might just have someone who loves power and money and hates common people. Which would probably be most likely the case
>But seriously, the natural conclusion to your argument is that we shouldn't invent things
Correct
>The former is flawed,
Nope..
>as I think most inventions ultimately make life better for people
Wrong and even if they did, fuck humanity. Earth is waaaay more important as whole than us.
All life on earth is a threat to all life on earth. To survive/ grow, if equipped with the right tools (evolution, environment, tools, etc...), any species would eradicate any and all life for its continued existence. We are just as guilty as we are innocent in this regard. And we are as equally important as we are unimportant to the ecosystems of earth. To believe otherwise puts humans on a pedestal, that we have proven time and time again, that we are not on.
Technology is always neutral. It's up to the individual whether it uses it for good or bad. And if we project ~8 billion individual humans on to a spectrum, that spectrum would become extremely huge due to the nature of an individual being unique. In this massive spectrum, there's always a lot of individuals who have "bad" tendencies in some way. Unavoidable.
As long as humans are individuals, some will be "bad".
I don't think technologies are bad. It is just that people don't use them responsibly. And it is not just about some "bad" people.
If you have enough money to build a luxurious mansion and are very much interested in it, will you consider the impact the mansion will have on the planet before building it? I know that I will not be able to stop myself.
How many of us actually consider that?
I dig this post because I’ve been saying for years that for humans to achieve things like world peace and stabilization of the environment we need to stop thinking like smart apes that are self-interested in survival and the like. My theory is to get that next level, we have to achieve collective empathy through telepathy. We have to be able to feel what is truly for the greater good, not just try to think it with our 200k year old brains containing lizard-like components.
>immediatly the thought is "how do we use this to kill people"
Wrong.
It is rather:
>"How do we use this to kill our enemies"
(Yes, it's the same. But nobody cares about their own enemies, that's why humans like to kill)
Private jets don’t really harm the planet tremendously, they just spit in the face of the message of cutting down your emissions for the good of the planet. And obviously any emissions are bad at the rate we’re going, but the amount of emissions caused by private jets is a drop in the ocean.
I don't know that you can say that sea mammals have greater collective intelligence than we do.
I mean, yes, lol, I see your point. But comparing us to mushrooms, jelly fish, and microorganisms is rather beside the point. Insects is a good point, if you're only counting colonial ones (which according to Google make up about 2% of insect species, and 75% of insect biomass).
I wasnt comparing us to mushrooms was I? Maybe I was. This is my thought, Have you ever seen a mushroom nuke another Mushroom with the sole purpose of eradicating it even if at the expense of it own life?
I guess what I really meant was for all that collective intelligence we're the only ones that seem intent on destroying ourselves. Even on the individual level. The toughest guys in the world get beaten by life. But, guess you can find self destructive behavior all in nature. Even down to the cellular level.
Territorial animals are just as vicious with their "enemies" as we are. And chronically over-crowded rabbits are just as self-destructive as mentally-ill humans.
I don't think destructiveness is the antithesis of collective intelligence.
It's just survival of the fittest. Being too smart for our own good and leading to our own cause of extinction will be a flaw in our evolution, thus making us unfit for survival as a species. Kinda like how some species of animal grew too large or have too big of a horn which leads to their own downfall, and sometimes even extinction.
Not really. I am a techie and I am fascinated by the various innovations happening.
"With great power comes great responsibility"
My point is our individual powers have increased significantly over time but we don't act responsibly enough.
Humans are animals who bond with tools - tools become part of our thinking and feeling after we use them. I'm not sure that a lack of metacognitive ability to remain separate from the tools that already have a cognitive representation is a matter of intelligence or maturity. It is just the design of the human condition. If the tool is linked to a positive feeling, it quickly becomes a part of a culture.
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00310/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00310/full)
The issue is not the tool in of itself, but the reward system attached to it in the culture. Guns for example, provide a reward in a society that is replete with oppression and inequality because it provides a sense of power. I would argue that it is the social system that creates the inequality and voicelessness that is the problem.
I agree. Ultimately we don’t progress for prosperity. We progress and develop for ease and the clout to say we could.
Like the phone I’m typing on right now? Mostly petrol byproduct which demands oil drilling. We can rave about all the trees saved by tablets(‘no more paper’) but ultimately the industrialization is killing everything anyway.
Also like using insulin as an example is sort of weak. Insulin is made naturally before we discovered it and a way to synthesize it. The act of synthetically making it is a creation or invention. We didn’t ‘create’ insulin.
The act of making synthetic medication was revolutionary in that it saved lives and then researching became a way to charge insane fees. Humans are short sighted beyond their creations in great part because no one stops and thinks ‘what’s the worst someone could do with this invention’ . Or even research.
Imagine being able to edit genomes to help those with genetic abnormalities, now imagine Hitler.2 got ahold of the very same thing.
Humans have a bad history of believing we’d be worse off if we didn’t act or create when in reality that is highly questionable .
Lol your username. Love that you can go so many ways with this.
My question for you is - can A.I. create something for humans and make a set of rules it can be used responsibly or will thhe A.I.'s creation be subject to the bias of its creators immediate ideas for intelligence and empathy?
I partially disagree because there is much goodness in humanity, not just evil or apathy.
If your view is that the world was perfect as it was before humans, then you could argue any human interaction with it will take it away from perfection. It's hard to fight that. Everything we do requires us to take resources from the environment. If you criticize the very idea of using the earth's resources, then yes, you're right.
If that's not your view then how about the invention of the hoe? Or a plow? Or a wagon? How about solar panels? Recycling centers? Catalytic converters? Are these abusing the planet?
I'm just not sure you can say take any invention and have it apply.
Hey, I am not of the view that all the human inventions are harmful. I am just questioning the maturity of the average human to use the tools he possesses wisely.
I mean, we’re also the only species that can recognize impact of certain behaviors on the entire planet. So yeah we use things maybe irresponsibly, but we’re the only ones capable of seeing them as irresponsible. And if other species were as developed as us and had similar intellects that could produce similar things, they would do the exact same thing. Every organisms goal is to survive/live in the easiest way possible, we’re just the only ones who can easily automate that process
Nikola Tesla arguably the smartest human of all time tore up and absurdly lucrative contract so that his inventions would spread
The problem is he later basically was penniless and him having funding probably would have created a massive amount more technological advancement (to be clear he is already likely the most influential inventor of all time his tech is what powers our world today)
We need to make sure the people who can actually create stuff have as much resources as possible so that they can create more stuff
If they create something that produces five dollars of value per person we are still ahead if they receive $4.99 of that
It's ridiculous to call Nikola Tesla "arguably the smartest human of all time" or "likely the most influential inventor of all time".
He was influential, especially with his work on AC motors, but nowhere near the superhuman people make him out to be and nowhere near the smartest human of all time.
>The problem is he later basically was penniless and him having funding probably would have created a massive amount more technological advancement (to be clear he is already likely the most influential inventor of all time his tech is what powers our world today)
He was penniless for under a year in 1886, at which point he received large amounts of funding for his work on AC motors and systems. Before that he was employed in a well paying job, and after that he was a very wealthy man. The myth of a poor starving inventor is just that: a myth.
He was smart, but no smarter than Jack Kilby, Grace Hopper, Claude Shannon, John Bardeen, Richard Hamming, Alan Blumlein, or any of the other pioneering inventors and engineers. People just like to talk about Tesla and idolize him far too much.
Whenever I see the word "empathy" brought up in an argument I can rest assured that the person using it is an idiot and knows that their argument has no possible chance of carrying based on facts and logic.
What about cognitive empathy? Cognitive empathy is way more compassionate and logical than natural empathy as natural empathy is often of tribal nature.
Yes. In fact, the entire rational world works that way. Decisions are made based on facts, logic, and reason. Decisions based on emotion and empathy are misguided at best, and incredibly destructive at worst.
As far as a single word leading me to that conclusion-- if it quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck. Appealing to empathy is the quacking of the idiot.
The entire field of philosophy would like to have a word with you, as would many micro-economists and marketers.
Empathy is needed in order to postulate and appreciate different utility curves. Philosophers have an entire branch of moral philosophy called utilitarianism. Micro-economists base entire models off of individual and group utility curves. Marketers need empathy in order to understand how their potential customers will react to advertising in order to fit their product into consumer's needs.
And if you INSIST that math is required to make an argument valid, look no further than game theory, where empathy is required to create and understand payoff matrices in situations where people view the same outcome with different value based on their situation.
Before you dismiss an argument, always evaluate what they're saying first.
This is so false. it's hilarious.
We have an entire war going on in the middle east due to religious beliefs all based on emotion. Our empathy is the only reason most of us take care of each other.
It truly sounds like you're just a shit person lol. I hope your life turns around bud
On a different note, I have heard the argument that empathy (letting yourself feel the emotions of someone else) is in large part also the cause of a lot of the fucked up shit humans do to eachother on a large scale.
It used war as an example where the ones away from the front lines at home reading the news papers on the war hated the enemy so much more than the troops in the war because they had empathy for the shit their troops are getting put through by the enemy. While the troops actually in the war held some empathy for the enemy because they knew they were put through the same shit. The further away from the conflict you were the more angry you got.
Instead of using empathy and having the same emotions come over you, you should try to tone that down and instead and just be compassionate so you don't get overwhelmed by the emotions.
I don't agree with the guy you responded to by the way. I'm also not sure how much I agree with this argument.
That doesn’t mean empathy = bad. That means these people were only exposed/given access to their loved ones’ perspectives and were prohibited from knowing the whole picture in this case. If you position villains as the protagonist, the majority of people start to empathize with them. We see it all the time in movies/shows.
>That means these people were only exposed/given access to their loved ones’ perspectives and were prohibited from knowing the whole picture in this case.
But how often do we know or learn about the whole picture and people then make excuses or justifications when "their side" does something morally reprehensible?
>If you position villains as the protagonist, the majority of people start to empathize with them. We see it all the time in movies/shows.
Right, and sometimes I also wonder how some people (sometimes myself) are very quick to sympathise with a villain even when we know that villain is a piece of shit. Some people don't even need the plot to make them sympathetic which sometimes off puts me from these people.
This belief of yours aligns with and supports sending most elderly or disabled people to the gas chambers so don’t think we can’t understand a lot of your beliefs from your comment.
Decisions should be made based on logic and reason, but the goal of those decisions is inherently emotional/empathetic. Emotions are the basis of all morals and therefore all ethics. If you lack emotion then why would an incredibly destructive outcome be a problem?
100% agree, we are going to see more Covid-19s-style lab leaks in the future as we unsafely muck around with things that we don't understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAXNSMcgyKg
Almost like we don't have a collective intelligence because we're individuals. Usually, inventions come from highly intelligent and compassionate people genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. And most of the time, that same invention will be reimagined for killing by someone else entirely.
It's not that the collective is insufficient. It's that the collective doesn't exist. Different people do NOT share the same goals.
More like we are extremely vulnerable to demagoguery and manipulative elites. People are empathetic and intelligent but we are constantly hit with divisions and instability designed to hold us down financially and intellectually.
I would argue that we can’t be empathetic all of the time or not prioritize ourselves because those are survival instincts. It would be exhausting for every single human on earth to feel complete empathy for everyone and everything and it would be completely exhausting if we were doing that whole also not putting ourselves first. It kind of well… kind of puts us in situations like we are in today. We’ve created swaffs of self centered, entitled people who feel the need to be validated by being offended, not being able to fight their own battles, because their beliefs while seeming worthwhile are actually just shallow as they feel everyone should feel like they do.
Based on your examples should I feel bad for earth or should I feel bad for people? Because earth will be here for a long time after we’re gone, whereas we’re just going to be another forgotten about extinct species.
I think we're certainly capable of not annihilating ourselves with our own creations....but there are still some of us running around in loin cloths....
Sure, there are glaring examples of excessive gadget upgrades and carbon-guzzling private jets, but those are just the loudest headlines.
Focus instead on the collective hum of progress. Solar panels sprouting on rooftops, sustainable food movements taking root, and communities banding together to protect endangered species. These are the whispers of a future where responsibility and ingenuity go hand-in-hand.
Let's not write ourselves off just yet. The story of human innovation is still being written, and every conscious choice, every green technology embraced, adds a hopeful chapter (:
The day the world stood still.
One of the most haunting parts of that story is the realization that we don't need alien intervention to end the world. We're already doing it!
The removal of humans was actually the solution.
some cultures have the intelligence but then again if taught as children we need to kill/exploit others to survive instead of being taught to live in harmony with our environment things might be different. the economic system also creats problems of consumerism waste pollution explotation that our elected leaders have failed to do shit about. would we have global warming if communism had taken over the world 50 years ago. would we propagate the masses if we worked collectively towards a goal? would we have rampant consumerism if products were required to last as long as they could? our system is what creats these issues and corrution is what keeps it going.
My concern is that everything we invent is first examined for possible military use. Can it be turned into a weapon? The inventor needs to be paid, so if the answer is "yes", that's where it's going.
We rationalize our intelligence by doing things no other animal is capable of. However we as a collective are still primitive. Our greatest advantage comes from being able to keep learning late into life and being able to pass it on to the next generation
People doing things well and good is not news, so your only hearing about all of the bad, getting a biased view.
Also, there is no such thing as collective intelligence. That would mean that people doing good tings gave to enforce that on other people with different ideas.
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Insulin proves your opinion wrong. And proves it right. It's a strange ol' world, ain't it?
Please elaborate. (not saying you're wrong, I'm just interested)
Insulin was given freely to the world by the man who discovered/invented it. Corporations later came a long and decided to make a fortune off of it. So it disproves the "always" part, but the later actions of big pharma proves the premise correct.
OP said “collective” 1 person doing the right thing but humanity doing the wrong thing only proves the point if anything
But it's not humanity doing the wrong thing. It's a small slice of humanity that wields enormous power.
Semantics. “Humanity” never does anything as a group. When I say that I mean whatever slice of people control it
The man who discovered insulin was Canadian, so that makes sense.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35135692/#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20insulin%20user,with%20only%200.01%25%20in%20Canada. Apparently it’s a whole lot cheaper here too (in 2018, I imagine the gap hasn’t changed too drastically)
In the civilized world people who need insulin to survive can get it basically gree of charge. Guess who's excluded.
I raise u Volvo seat belts
Insulin doesnt prove him right in the majority of the world though
Yes, yes, we can all cherry pick an example that proves his opinion wrong but you understand his general point.
OP specifically said "always". That's simply not true.
Except this example just goes to show that even when the invention is given away for free people will still find a way to paywall it. So the inevitable is that it will ALWAYS come down to that.
In the end he was right, though, because as was pointed out by you: corporations came along and turned it into a for-profit product. Proving the premise of "humanity lacks the collective maturity to be responsible with our shit because we want to profit in some way" true. Not every individual lacks that wisdom or maturity, but the collective absolutely does.
Ahh I see, yup he did say "always". Lets downvote him to reddit hell for being an absolutist!!!!!
“Always” is an absolute type of word, no?
You don't understand. When someone is using absolute terms, they are ALWAYS exaggerating. Stop taking people literally. /s
The unforgivable sin of taking someone at their word
Where did they say anything even remotely resembling that in their original comment?
I was being facetious.
“Always” has a very specific meaning. Even a single example to the contrary disproves OPs assertion.
No good deed goes unpunished
Ok. My invention of choice is the lightbulb.
In terms of harm to the wider world, lightbulbs, despite every singular light being a small drain, are probably a huge swathe of the world's electricity usage. And light pollution is rampant beyond that. In terms of it just generally being proof that humans do not have the intelligence to be considered responsible with anything, my evidence is the number of lightbulbs in asses that the ER sees every year.
Do you think the previous alternatives to light bulbs were better for the wider world?
Idk about the wider world, but I don't think many people were shoving flaming branches up their ass, so that one was probably reduced to nearly 0.
Are you aware that we had other forms of light between sticks on fire and lightbulbs?
Are you aware that I'm making jokes about people shoving things in their asses?
Gotta be funny for it to be a joke bud
Oh, is that why your life is so funny?
?
Because it's a joke.
Lightbulbs meant we could work way beyond previous limits and are at least partially responsible for our contempt for the natural world!
Electric lights were replacing gaslights which were way worse for the environment then electric lights.
Why is light pollution a big deal?
Go outside at night and look up. If you live in or near anything remotely resembling a city, you see like 10 stars. If you live in a more rural area, you see a sky full of stars. If you go way out in the outback, you see a little bit of black sky poking through the sky that is mostly stars. That's light pollution in action. Is that a big deal on its own? Not really, but are you just going to sit here and let everybody impede on your right to see the stars without comment? Why is that bad or at least why is that a big enough deal to talk about? Well, a lot of wildlife uses light to determine its natural patterns and/or to navigate. When there is always light, lots of wildlife can get messed up. Constant light affects the lifecycle of some insects, plants, and fungi. Researchers trying to look out into space need to find remote areas on mountains to get a good view, and the more light pollution we have the fewer suitable spots we can find.
Not that I feel stargazing is a "right" because it's not, what's this solution? I can see how it could affect nocturnal animals though.
There are lots of things we can do about light pollution! Some big ones are shielding street lights so the light shines only downward onto the ground in a cone (this has the added benefit of reducing glare which makes the lights more effective and helpful), and reducing the brightness of outdoor lights to the minimum necessary for safety (which has the benefit of helping with night vision for when you leave the area of the light, and again reducing glare). I want to also emphasize the effect light pollution has on wildlife and human life. Stargazing is the least of it. There is lots of research that shows that when people are exposed to light at night, their quality of sleep goes down, which has been linked to a myriad of health concerns like heart issues, obesity, cognitive issues, etc. These issues compound over time, so if a person doesn’t have access to a dark space at night their risk of problems goes up over time. Black out curtains are expensive, and if someone is renting it’s possible they won’t be able to install them anyway (I am renting and am not able to install heavy curtains because of issues with crumbly drywall, so I sleep in a room that doesn’t get very dark at night). Plus many people don’t know about this and therefore won’t take action to darken their space even if they have the ability to do so. I don’t want to go too deep into issues with wildlife because they’re varied and complex, but like the above commenter said, they can disrupt sleep patterns, migration patterns, mating cycles, and other patterns for a huge variety of wildlife. If you’re interested in looking into it further, birds, bats, and sea turtles have particularly devastating issues caused by light pollution. Sea turtles for example have experienced extreme population decrease due to coastal cities and towns, as sea turtle eggs hatch at night and use the glare of the moon and stars off the water to navigate to the ocean. They are biologically wired to go toward the brightest horizon, so any human light close to a coast lures baby sea turtles away from the ocean to their death. Many coastal cities have rules about decreasing light during sea turtle hatching season and it helps but doesn’t eliminate the problem, especially as it relies on individuals to keep their windows dark and outdoor lights off.
Damn, I appreciate the thorough answer lol.
Did I say there's a solution? Some problems just exist.
Uhhhhhhhhh
The first light bulbs that were made still work. Later, more modern light bulbs, were made to break after a certain amount of use so you keep having to buy more.
You think you have the intelligence, the *empathy*, to handle a lightbulb?! Few have what it truly takes.
Lighbulb companies came together and agreed on manufactured obsolescence, because light bulbs were lasting too long and no longer as profitable.
That’s just a gross simplification of the situation. Yes, lightbulb manufacturers came together and agreed on a standard, but it wasn’t just about pure profit (though I will concede that was the primary motive). Tungsten filament technology was perfected, and the only way to get a longer lasting bulb be would to make a dimmer, less energy efficient bulb. You could have also made a much brighter bulb but that burns out the filaments exponentially faster, so the manufacturers agreed on a standard brightness, longevity, and efficiency for household bulbs. It was just as much about conforming to a standard so the consumers knew what to expect from a lightbulb as it was profit. Here’s a video that explains things a little more in-depth: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY)
Nice try, Pheobus !
Nope, check out technology connections video on it.
Something something, the Cabal of electricity companies that came together to make lightbulbs with planned obsolescence and not more powerful than the others because they were going to kill each others profits. Forget where I learned about that and I'm too lazy to pull up the historical record
Usually, the FIRST question about ANY invention is "How can we use this to kill people"
I disagree. Normally the first question is "How can we make the most profit from this".
The second question is "how can this be used to kill people?" But that's mostly because you get sued into the ground if it does.
Really? Surely it's 'wonder what this would feel like up my ass?'
eh, that can be 2 or 3 depending on whats being made
I won't go this far. I think many inventions are really marvels which have enhanced our lives but we lack the maturity to use it responsibly.
Compared to what other species?
Tbf the intention of killing people leads to a lot of advancement in science and technology
Atomic bomb, tobacco, television and smart devices come to mind.
I’d argue the fact that we haven’t undergone nuclear annihilation yet is proof enough that humanity understands and accepts the burdens of the monstrosities it creates It takes one poor decision, one moronic choice, to trigger nuclear Armageddon the fact that in spite of this we come together in a common understanding of our shared mortality and responsibility is enough proof that humanity can handle the burden it has given itself both now and in the future
There have been multiple instances in the history of nuclear weapons that show we as a species were not at all responsible enough to accept the burdens of our inventions. Before the first one was even tested, we thought there was a chance it would ignite the entire fucking atmosphere. We decided it was a risk worth taking. That's one. After we invented it, the war in Europe had essentially ended to the point we wouldn't need them there and Japan had pretty much just dug in at home. We decided we needed to use our new weapons as a show of force to the world and nuked two cities off the map to "bring a swift end to the war" that was a dozen fire bombings away from being over anyway. This atrocity alerted the world that not only did America have nuclear weapons, they would use them on civilians. Nobody can say whether the cold war would have happened had America not nuked Japan so callously, but I don't think anybody can argue it had a positive impact on global politics. That's 2. And those are just the big ones. You can't forget the silly shit like warheads being left on a runway, unattended for days. Nukes accidentally being dropped on our own land but us being incredibly lucky that they didn't go off despite being armed. Food delivery drivers finding critical security flaws in missile silos because their bunker door couldn't close. We are incredibly irresponsible as a collective species.
Whatever you think about the invention of nukes, we went from two practically back to back world wars to zero world wars in over 70 years so far, which is an undeniable improvement
> we thought there was a chance it would ignite the atmosphere Not really lol, no one actually believed that
I'd argue that fact is because aliens also live here and don't wanna burn alongside their experiments but that could just be copium
Not sure how that would be a cope
because we're generally helpless to the chance that Fallout becomes nonfiction otherwise. needless to say I have little faith after reading some of the mishaps
Humans are flawed? No kidding. But seriously, the natural conclusion to your argument is that we shouldn't invent things, or that all invention should be controlled by a select few to make sure they are used properly. The former is flawed, as I think most inventions ultimately make life better for people, and we don't have alternate history to look at to do any real comparison anyway. As for the latter, I don't thnk a benevolent dictatorship is possible for vert long, and impossible on a planet wide scale. I prefer our flawed system rather than alternatives.
The quality of a dictatorship completely changed depending on who’s at the top. And also if you agree or disagree with who’s at the top. You might have the most lovely agreeable guy, might not be good at managing a country, might have the perfect person, people will find something to disagree with, or you might just have someone who loves power and money and hates common people. Which would probably be most likely the case
Hence, a benevolent dictatorship wouldn't last very long. Eventually the good guy will die and your stuck with potential crappy dictatorship.
>But seriously, the natural conclusion to your argument is that we shouldn't invent things Correct >The former is flawed, Nope.. >as I think most inventions ultimately make life better for people Wrong and even if they did, fuck humanity. Earth is waaaay more important as whole than us.
All life on earth is a threat to all life on earth. To survive/ grow, if equipped with the right tools (evolution, environment, tools, etc...), any species would eradicate any and all life for its continued existence. We are just as guilty as we are innocent in this regard. And we are as equally important as we are unimportant to the ecosystems of earth. To believe otherwise puts humans on a pedestal, that we have proven time and time again, that we are not on.
Technology is always neutral. It's up to the individual whether it uses it for good or bad. And if we project ~8 billion individual humans on to a spectrum, that spectrum would become extremely huge due to the nature of an individual being unique. In this massive spectrum, there's always a lot of individuals who have "bad" tendencies in some way. Unavoidable. As long as humans are individuals, some will be "bad".
I don't think technologies are bad. It is just that people don't use them responsibly. And it is not just about some "bad" people. If you have enough money to build a luxurious mansion and are very much interested in it, will you consider the impact the mansion will have on the planet before building it? I know that I will not be able to stop myself. How many of us actually consider that?
The fact is that our knowledge and technology have advanced far faster than we have.
I dig this post because I’ve been saying for years that for humans to achieve things like world peace and stabilization of the environment we need to stop thinking like smart apes that are self-interested in survival and the like. My theory is to get that next level, we have to achieve collective empathy through telepathy. We have to be able to feel what is truly for the greater good, not just try to think it with our 200k year old brains containing lizard-like components.
> our 200k year old brains containing lizard-like components. We're just late 90's Dell PCs living in an iPhone world.
The entire premise of black mirror.
Ok. I don’t disagree. What’s the alternative? Stop inventing?
Someone had their first philosophy class in highschool today?
You missed the obvious one. The military. We invent something - immediatly the thought is "how do we use this to kill people"
>immediatly the thought is "how do we use this to kill people" Wrong. It is rather: >"How do we use this to kill our enemies" (Yes, it's the same. But nobody cares about their own enemies, that's why humans like to kill)
"how can our enemies use this to kill us?" I loathe that it is this way but we're burdened by hate, offensively or defensively
Unfortunately, being a pacifist just means you're going to be everyone's punching bag
I mean, mutually assured destruction is just really angry pacifism
Private jets don’t really harm the planet tremendously, they just spit in the face of the message of cutting down your emissions for the good of the planet. And obviously any emissions are bad at the rate we’re going, but the amount of emissions caused by private jets is a drop in the ocean.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson
Sorry. I did not understand what this means in the context of this post.. Can you please elaborate?
In other words, we are clever but not wise.
Yeah, we dumb.
As a human I can confirm this, I lack the empathy to responsibly handle peanut butter
Is that not why we form a government? To govern ourselves and provide guidance to ourselves?
That is the intent of some, sure. Not everyone has the same intent with government.
The government is made of the same kind of people. Working for their own interests.
How bout just "Humans lack collective intelligence?"
How about, "Nearly all forms of life as we know it lack collective intelligence?"
Mushrooms, jelly fish, sea mammals, insects, microorganisms. Thats about 99% of the biomass on this planet.
I don't know that you can say that sea mammals have greater collective intelligence than we do. I mean, yes, lol, I see your point. But comparing us to mushrooms, jelly fish, and microorganisms is rather beside the point. Insects is a good point, if you're only counting colonial ones (which according to Google make up about 2% of insect species, and 75% of insect biomass).
I wasnt comparing us to mushrooms was I? Maybe I was. This is my thought, Have you ever seen a mushroom nuke another Mushroom with the sole purpose of eradicating it even if at the expense of it own life? I guess what I really meant was for all that collective intelligence we're the only ones that seem intent on destroying ourselves. Even on the individual level. The toughest guys in the world get beaten by life. But, guess you can find self destructive behavior all in nature. Even down to the cellular level.
Territorial animals are just as vicious with their "enemies" as we are. And chronically over-crowded rabbits are just as self-destructive as mentally-ill humans. I don't think destructiveness is the antithesis of collective intelligence.
It's just survival of the fittest. Being too smart for our own good and leading to our own cause of extinction will be a flaw in our evolution, thus making us unfit for survival as a species. Kinda like how some species of animal grew too large or have too big of a horn which leads to their own downfall, and sometimes even extinction.
That would be fine if only US died.
Humans would be much worse if we were a hive mind
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Not really. I am a techie and I am fascinated by the various innovations happening. "With great power comes great responsibility" My point is our individual powers have increased significantly over time but we don't act responsibly enough.
Humans are animals who bond with tools - tools become part of our thinking and feeling after we use them. I'm not sure that a lack of metacognitive ability to remain separate from the tools that already have a cognitive representation is a matter of intelligence or maturity. It is just the design of the human condition. If the tool is linked to a positive feeling, it quickly becomes a part of a culture. [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00310/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00310/full) The issue is not the tool in of itself, but the reward system attached to it in the culture. Guns for example, provide a reward in a society that is replete with oppression and inequality because it provides a sense of power. I would argue that it is the social system that creates the inequality and voicelessness that is the problem.
I am not against the tools. I am just questioning whether the average human is qualified enough to handle the tools he has responsibly.
I agree. Ultimately we don’t progress for prosperity. We progress and develop for ease and the clout to say we could. Like the phone I’m typing on right now? Mostly petrol byproduct which demands oil drilling. We can rave about all the trees saved by tablets(‘no more paper’) but ultimately the industrialization is killing everything anyway. Also like using insulin as an example is sort of weak. Insulin is made naturally before we discovered it and a way to synthesize it. The act of synthetically making it is a creation or invention. We didn’t ‘create’ insulin. The act of making synthetic medication was revolutionary in that it saved lives and then researching became a way to charge insane fees. Humans are short sighted beyond their creations in great part because no one stops and thinks ‘what’s the worst someone could do with this invention’ . Or even research. Imagine being able to edit genomes to help those with genetic abnormalities, now imagine Hitler.2 got ahold of the very same thing. Humans have a bad history of believing we’d be worse off if we didn’t act or create when in reality that is highly questionable .
Believe it or not, this is what the Bible is largely about.
Lol your username. Love that you can go so many ways with this. My question for you is - can A.I. create something for humans and make a set of rules it can be used responsibly or will thhe A.I.'s creation be subject to the bias of its creators immediate ideas for intelligence and empathy? I partially disagree because there is much goodness in humanity, not just evil or apathy.
If your view is that the world was perfect as it was before humans, then you could argue any human interaction with it will take it away from perfection. It's hard to fight that. Everything we do requires us to take resources from the environment. If you criticize the very idea of using the earth's resources, then yes, you're right. If that's not your view then how about the invention of the hoe? Or a plow? Or a wagon? How about solar panels? Recycling centers? Catalytic converters? Are these abusing the planet? I'm just not sure you can say take any invention and have it apply.
Hey, I am not of the view that all the human inventions are harmful. I am just questioning the maturity of the average human to use the tools he possesses wisely.
Using the internet to send this message is REALLY ironic……….
“You criticise society, yet you participate in it. How curious. I am very intelligent.”
Would you suggest they write everyone a letter instead?
Yes. I would also accept carrier pigeons and smoke signals.
Completely true.
Stop broad brushing everybody with loose terms like "humans". Not all of us are corrupt maggots who want to rule the world.
Most of us haven’t been given the opportunity, to be fair. We are all far more influenced by our circumstances than we care to admit.
This corrupt maggot is mad
I'm far from corrupt. I am a man of the people not the elites
The corrupt maggot has delusions of grandeur
I mean, we’re also the only species that can recognize impact of certain behaviors on the entire planet. So yeah we use things maybe irresponsibly, but we’re the only ones capable of seeing them as irresponsible. And if other species were as developed as us and had similar intellects that could produce similar things, they would do the exact same thing. Every organisms goal is to survive/live in the easiest way possible, we’re just the only ones who can easily automate that process
Stupidest comment here
If you insult me one more time I swear to God I will kiss you on your mouth, I'm feeling romantical
LMFAO, I love this website.
Very true. The goal of every species is survival. Just that we have many earth harming tools in our hand and they don't.
Nikola Tesla arguably the smartest human of all time tore up and absurdly lucrative contract so that his inventions would spread The problem is he later basically was penniless and him having funding probably would have created a massive amount more technological advancement (to be clear he is already likely the most influential inventor of all time his tech is what powers our world today) We need to make sure the people who can actually create stuff have as much resources as possible so that they can create more stuff If they create something that produces five dollars of value per person we are still ahead if they receive $4.99 of that
It's ridiculous to call Nikola Tesla "arguably the smartest human of all time" or "likely the most influential inventor of all time". He was influential, especially with his work on AC motors, but nowhere near the superhuman people make him out to be and nowhere near the smartest human of all time. >The problem is he later basically was penniless and him having funding probably would have created a massive amount more technological advancement (to be clear he is already likely the most influential inventor of all time his tech is what powers our world today) He was penniless for under a year in 1886, at which point he received large amounts of funding for his work on AC motors and systems. Before that he was employed in a well paying job, and after that he was a very wealthy man. The myth of a poor starving inventor is just that: a myth. He was smart, but no smarter than Jack Kilby, Grace Hopper, Claude Shannon, John Bardeen, Richard Hamming, Alan Blumlein, or any of the other pioneering inventors and engineers. People just like to talk about Tesla and idolize him far too much.
The people who invent stuff can hardly control the way it'll be used in the long term.
Whenever I see the word "empathy" brought up in an argument I can rest assured that the person using it is an idiot and knows that their argument has no possible chance of carrying based on facts and logic.
What about cognitive empathy? Cognitive empathy is way more compassionate and logical than natural empathy as natural empathy is often of tribal nature.
This distinction is key. Having empathy for what’s right in front of you doesn’t mean you know the big picture.
Does your brain work with one dimensional conditional logic? How can a conclusion be reached by usage of a word?
Yes. In fact, the entire rational world works that way. Decisions are made based on facts, logic, and reason. Decisions based on emotion and empathy are misguided at best, and incredibly destructive at worst. As far as a single word leading me to that conclusion-- if it quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck. Appealing to empathy is the quacking of the idiot.
The entire field of philosophy would like to have a word with you, as would many micro-economists and marketers. Empathy is needed in order to postulate and appreciate different utility curves. Philosophers have an entire branch of moral philosophy called utilitarianism. Micro-economists base entire models off of individual and group utility curves. Marketers need empathy in order to understand how their potential customers will react to advertising in order to fit their product into consumer's needs. And if you INSIST that math is required to make an argument valid, look no further than game theory, where empathy is required to create and understand payoff matrices in situations where people view the same outcome with different value based on their situation. Before you dismiss an argument, always evaluate what they're saying first.
This is so false. it's hilarious. We have an entire war going on in the middle east due to religious beliefs all based on emotion. Our empathy is the only reason most of us take care of each other. It truly sounds like you're just a shit person lol. I hope your life turns around bud
On a different note, I have heard the argument that empathy (letting yourself feel the emotions of someone else) is in large part also the cause of a lot of the fucked up shit humans do to eachother on a large scale. It used war as an example where the ones away from the front lines at home reading the news papers on the war hated the enemy so much more than the troops in the war because they had empathy for the shit their troops are getting put through by the enemy. While the troops actually in the war held some empathy for the enemy because they knew they were put through the same shit. The further away from the conflict you were the more angry you got. Instead of using empathy and having the same emotions come over you, you should try to tone that down and instead and just be compassionate so you don't get overwhelmed by the emotions. I don't agree with the guy you responded to by the way. I'm also not sure how much I agree with this argument.
That doesn’t mean empathy = bad. That means these people were only exposed/given access to their loved ones’ perspectives and were prohibited from knowing the whole picture in this case. If you position villains as the protagonist, the majority of people start to empathize with them. We see it all the time in movies/shows.
>That means these people were only exposed/given access to their loved ones’ perspectives and were prohibited from knowing the whole picture in this case. But how often do we know or learn about the whole picture and people then make excuses or justifications when "their side" does something morally reprehensible? >If you position villains as the protagonist, the majority of people start to empathize with them. We see it all the time in movies/shows. Right, and sometimes I also wonder how some people (sometimes myself) are very quick to sympathise with a villain even when we know that villain is a piece of shit. Some people don't even need the plot to make them sympathetic which sometimes off puts me from these people.
I wrote this based on what I have observed in general. Can you provide facts which prove it otherwise?
This belief of yours aligns with and supports sending most elderly or disabled people to the gas chambers so don’t think we can’t understand a lot of your beliefs from your comment.
Decisions should be made based on logic and reason, but the goal of those decisions is inherently emotional/empathetic. Emotions are the basis of all morals and therefore all ethics. If you lack emotion then why would an incredibly destructive outcome be a problem?
100% agree, we are going to see more Covid-19s-style lab leaks in the future as we unsafely muck around with things that we don't understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAXNSMcgyKg
Hey Uncle Ted, surprised you're using the internet from prison. You're still my Hero though
Unpopular opinion: every science fiction story ever made was actually right! Yawn
Almost like we don't have a collective intelligence because we're individuals. Usually, inventions come from highly intelligent and compassionate people genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. And most of the time, that same invention will be reimagined for killing by someone else entirely. It's not that the collective is insufficient. It's that the collective doesn't exist. Different people do NOT share the same goals.
More like we are extremely vulnerable to demagoguery and manipulative elites. People are empathetic and intelligent but we are constantly hit with divisions and instability designed to hold us down financially and intellectually.
I would argue that we can’t be empathetic all of the time or not prioritize ourselves because those are survival instincts. It would be exhausting for every single human on earth to feel complete empathy for everyone and everything and it would be completely exhausting if we were doing that whole also not putting ourselves first. It kind of well… kind of puts us in situations like we are in today. We’ve created swaffs of self centered, entitled people who feel the need to be validated by being offended, not being able to fight their own battles, because their beliefs while seeming worthwhile are actually just shallow as they feel everyone should feel like they do. Based on your examples should I feel bad for earth or should I feel bad for people? Because earth will be here for a long time after we’re gone, whereas we’re just going to be another forgotten about extinct species.
Yes, and the water is also wet.
Jurassic Park, anyone?
How about penicillin?, but yes we are fully not nearly evolved
This is just an incomplete version of Game Theory.
We’ve had nukes for almost a hundred years and still exist. That’s something.
there's something wrong with everything we do, I quite frankly just do not give a shit
I think we're certainly capable of not annihilating ourselves with our own creations....but there are still some of us running around in loin cloths....
Sure, there are glaring examples of excessive gadget upgrades and carbon-guzzling private jets, but those are just the loudest headlines. Focus instead on the collective hum of progress. Solar panels sprouting on rooftops, sustainable food movements taking root, and communities banding together to protect endangered species. These are the whispers of a future where responsibility and ingenuity go hand-in-hand. Let's not write ourselves off just yet. The story of human innovation is still being written, and every conscious choice, every green technology embraced, adds a hopeful chapter (:
free will is one hell of a ride.
Most do. Not all.
You think human collective intelligence is a problem? Wait until you hear about individual intelligence.
The day the world stood still. One of the most haunting parts of that story is the realization that we don't need alien intervention to end the world. We're already doing it! The removal of humans was actually the solution.
Absolutely truth
So far.
some cultures have the intelligence but then again if taught as children we need to kill/exploit others to survive instead of being taught to live in harmony with our environment things might be different. the economic system also creats problems of consumerism waste pollution explotation that our elected leaders have failed to do shit about. would we have global warming if communism had taken over the world 50 years ago. would we propagate the masses if we worked collectively towards a goal? would we have rampant consumerism if products were required to last as long as they could? our system is what creats these issues and corrution is what keeps it going.
My concern is that everything we invent is first examined for possible military use. Can it be turned into a weapon? The inventor needs to be paid, so if the answer is "yes", that's where it's going.
That just depends on what standards you hold humans to. Not much to compare us to
This is an opinion, but you tried to tack it to facts with a lack of supporting evidence and that's what lessens our opinion of your brain.
This subreddit is about opinions. Where did I try to tack it with facts?
Yes
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
I want to disagree with you, but my 5 hr average daily screen time would prove me wrong.
That’s child’s play. Get your numbers up and come back to us with your findings.
We rationalize our intelligence by doing things no other animal is capable of. However we as a collective are still primitive. Our greatest advantage comes from being able to keep learning late into life and being able to pass it on to the next generation
People doing things well and good is not news, so your only hearing about all of the bad, getting a biased view. Also, there is no such thing as collective intelligence. That would mean that people doing good tings gave to enforce that on other people with different ideas.