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> Are we talking about rats or humans now? We are not restricted to confined spaces with other people. Even the most destitute could walk down the street and l

by zanny 10y ago

> Are we talking about rats or humans now? We are not restricted to confined spaces with other people. Even the most destitute could walk down the street and leave. And we see in people that are so restricted the same kind of psychological problems you find in the rats, such as in prisons. Population growth is not uncontrolled. Educated populations are equalizing and declining in growth. Once women are educated and empowered in society and people have a standard of living where their own survival isn't dependent on many children taking care of them in old age, you see birthrates decline dramatically. The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might be able to surpass one day. > would prefer against that. Which isn't something reflected in rats, at all. The population decline was due to a breakdown of society. We are not having that at all, yet our replacement rate declines dramatically once you no longer need the kids to survive in your later years and you are educated on how to avoid getting pregnant. The only reason rats reproduce like... rats is because they don't have the rational mind to understand what contraception is, how to use it, and how it can avoid them the unhappiness later of having kids. > Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion? Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes, scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might be able to surpass one day. What gives you that assertion? We've been trying to surpass it for literally thousands of years. > Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes, scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles. But yet we still have these arguments, even though they're not rational. Primarily, I don't think we've evolved much in the past couple thousand years. We are not much smarter than our ancestors. We might have improved nutrition, but fundamentally we're just cave dwellers that think scary things lurk in the dark, and make up excuses to justify our actions that are primarily instinctive. For instance, a couple of extreme examples. Most people and all scientific evidence points to the fact that if you eat less and work out more, your life becomes exponentially better, and you tend to lose weight. There's a fringe movement that comes in with the idea that you can be healthy at every size (HAES) which goes against all science, just so you can feel good about being fat and unhealthy. Also, WRT to your comments about population declining naturally, the Catholic Church is a huge bulwark against that. They're even against pulling out. Every time I see a commercial about how somebody had four children starve to death, I think to myself not "What an unfortunate person", but "Just stop having kids and slowly torturing them to death by hunger." My main point is that we already have conclusions we want to reach, mostly caused by biological instincts, and we use our logical brains to justify the decisions to ourselves, so we can get to sleep at night. We're not really that much more elevated than animals, if elevated at all.

by zanny 10y ago

jimmywanger 10y ago

> The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might be able to surpass one day. What gives you that assertion? We've been trying to surpass it for literally thousands of years. > Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes, scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles. But yet we still have these arguments, even though they're not rational. Primarily, I don't think we've evolved much in the past couple thousand years. We are not much smarter than our ancestors. We might have improved nutrition, but fundamentally we're just cave dwellers that think scary things lurk in the dark, and make up excuses to justify our actions that are primarily instinctive. For instance, a couple of extreme examples. Most people and all scientific evidence points to the fact that if you eat less and work out more, your life becomes exponentially better, and you tend to lose weight. There's a fringe movement that comes in with the idea that you can be healthy at every size (HAES) which goes against all science, just so you can feel good about being fat and unhealthy. Also, WRT to your comments about population declining naturally, the Catholic Church is a huge bulwark against that. They're even against pulling out. Every time I see a commercial about how somebody had four children starve to death, I think to myself not "What an unfortunate person", but "Just stop having kids and slowly torturing them to death by hunger." My main point is that we already have conclusions we want to reach, mostly caused by biological instincts, and we use our logical brains to justify the decisions to ourselves, so we can get to sleep at night. We're not really that much more elevated than animals, if elevated at all.